Short Fiction Robert Sheckley (best romantic books to read TXT) 📖

a machine enforce our laws. But I ask you to remember, Mr. Gelsen, that there is no other possible way of stopping a murderer before he strikes. It would be unfair to the many innocent people killed every year if we were to restrict watchbird on philosophical grounds. Don’t you agree that I’m right?”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” Gelsen said unhappily. He had told himself all that a thousand times, but something still bothered him. Perhaps he would talk it over with Macintyre.

As the conference broke up, a thought struck him. He grinned.

A lot of policemen were going to be out of work!

“Now what do you think of that?” Officer Celtrics demanded. “Fifteen years in Homicide and a machine is replacing me.” He wiped a large red hand across his forehead and leaned against the captain’s desk. “Ain’t science marvelous?”

Two other policemen, late of Homicide, nodded glumly.

“Don’t worry about it,” the captain said. “We’ll find a home for you in Larceny, Celtrics. You’ll like it here.”

“I just can’t get over it,” Celtrics complained. “A lousy little piece of tin and glass is going to solve all the crimes.”

“Not quite,” the captain said. “The watchbirds are supposed to prevent the crimes before they happen.”

“Then how’ll they be crimes?” one of the policeman asked. “I mean they can’t hang you for murder until you commit one, can they?”

“That’s not the idea,” the captain said. “The watchbirds are supposed to stop a man before he commits a murder.”

“Then no one arrests him?” Celtrics asked.

“I don’t know how they’re going to work that out,” the captain admitted.

The men were silent for a while. The captain yawned and examined his watch.

“The thing I don’t understand,” Celtrics said, still leaning on the captain’s desk, “is just how do they do it? How did it start, Captain?”

The captain studied Celtrics’ face for possible irony; after all, watchbird had been in the papers for months. But then he remembered that Celtrics, like his sidekicks, rarely bothered to turn past the sports pages.

“Well,” the captain said, trying to remember what he had read in the Sunday supplements, “these scientists were working on criminology. They were studying murderers, to find out what made them tick. So they found that murderers throw out a different sort of brain wave from ordinary people. And their glands act funny, too. All this happens when they’re about to commit a murder. So these scientists worked out a special machine to flash red or something when these brain waves turned on.”

“Scientists,” Celtrics said bitterly.

“Well, after the scientists had this machine, they didn’t know what to do with it. It was too big to move around, and murderers didn’t drop in often enough to make it flash. So they built it into a smaller unit and tried it out in a few police stations. I think they tried one upstate. But it didn’t work so good. You couldn’t get to the crime in time. That’s why they built the watchbirds.”

“I don’t think they’ll stop no criminals,” one of the policemen insisted.

“They sure will. I read the test results. They can smell him out before he commits a crime. And when they reach him, they give him a powerful shock or something. It’ll stop him.”

“You closing up Homicide, Captain?” Celtrics asked.

“Nope,” the captain said. “I’m leaving a skeleton crew in until we see how these birds do.”

“Hah,” Celtrics said. “Skeleton crew. That’s funny.”

“Sure,” the captain said. “Anyhow, I’m going to leave some men on. It seems the birds don’t stop all murders.”

“Why not?”

“Some murderers don’t have these brain waves,” the captain answered, trying to remember what the newspaper article had said. “Or their glands don’t work or something.”

“Which ones don’t they stop?” Celtrics asked, with professional curiosity.

“I don’t know. But I hear they got the damned things fixed so they’re going to stop all of them soon.”

“How they working that?”

“They learn. The watchbirds, I mean. Just like people.”

“You kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“Well,” Celtrics said, “I think I’ll just keep old Betsy oiled, just in case. You can’t trust these scientists.”

“Right.”

“Birds!” Celtrics scoffed.

Over the town, the watchbird soared in a long, lazy curve. Its aluminum hide glistened in the morning sun, and dots of light danced on its stiff wings. Silently it flew.

Silently, but with all senses functioning. Built-in kinesthetics told the watchbird where it was, and held it in a long search curve. Its eyes and ears operated as one unit, searching, seeking.

And then something happened! The watchbird’s electronically fast reflexes picked up the edge of a sensation. A correlation center tested it, matching it with electrical and chemical data in its memory files. A relay tripped.

Down the watchbird spiraled, coming in on the increasingly strong sensation. It smelled the outpouring of certain glands, tasted a deviant brain wave.

Fully alerted and armed, it spun and banked in the bright morning sunlight.

Dinelli was so intent he didn’t see the watchbird coming. He had his gun poised, and his eyes pleaded with the big grocer.

“Don’t come no closer.”

“You lousy little punk,” the grocer said, and took another step forward. “Rob me? I’ll break every bone in your puny body.”

The grocer, too stupid or too courageous to understand the threat of the gun, advanced on the little thief.

“All right,” Dinelli said, in a thorough state of panic. “All right, sucker, take⁠—”

A bolt of electricity knocked him on his back. The gun went off, smashing a breakfast food display.

“What in hell?” the grocer asked, staring at the stunned thief. And then he saw a flash of silver wings. “Well, I’m really damned. Those watchbirds work!”

He stared until the wings disappeared in the sky. Then he telephoned the police.

The watchbird returned to his search curve. His thinking center correlated the new facts he had learned about murder. Several of these he hadn’t known before.

This new information was simultaneously flashed to all the other watchbirds and their information was flashed back to him.

New information, methods, definitions were constantly passing between them.

Now that the watchbirds were rolling off the assembly line in a steady stream, Gelsen allowed