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

himself to relax. A loud contented hum filled his plant. Orders were being filled on time, with top priorities given to the biggest cities in his area, and working down to the smallest towns.

“All smooth, Chief,” Macintyre said, coming in the door. He had just completed a routine inspection.

“Fine. Have a seat.”

The big engineer sat down and lighted a cigarette.

“We’ve been working on this for some time,” Gelsen said, when he couldn’t think of anything else.

“We sure have,” Macintyre agreed. He leaned back and inhaled deeply. He had been one of the consulting engineers on the original watchbird. That was six years back. He had been working for Gelsen ever since, and the men had become good friends.

“The thing I wanted to ask you was this⁠—” Gelsen paused. He couldn’t think how to phrase what he wanted. Instead he asked, “What do you think of the watchbirds, Mac?”

“Who, me?” The engineer grinned nervously. He had been eating, drinking and sleeping watchbird ever since its inception. He had never found it necessary to have an attitude. “Why, I think it’s great.”

“I don’t mean that,” Gelsen said. He realized that what he wanted was to have someone understand his point of view. “I mean do you figure there might be some danger in machine thinking?”

“I don’t think so, Chief. Why do you ask?”

“Look, I’m no scientist or engineer. I’ve just handled cost and production and let you boys worry about how. But as a layman, watchbird is starting to frighten me.”

“No reason for that.”

“I don’t like the idea of the learning circuits.”

“But why not?” Then Macintyre grinned again. “I know. You’re like a lot of people, Chief⁠—afraid your machines are going to wake up and say, ‘What are we doing here? Let’s go out and rule the world.’ Is that it?”

“Maybe something like that,” Gelsen admitted.

“No chance of it,” Macintyre said. “The watchbirds are complex, I’ll admit, but an M.I.T. calculator is a whole lot more complex. And it hasn’t got consciousness.”

“No. But the watchbirds can learn.”

“Sure. So can all the new calculators. Do you think they’ll team up with the watchbirds?”

Gelsen felt annoyed at Macintyre, and even more annoyed at himself for being ridiculous. “It’s a fact that the watchbirds can put their learning into action. No one is monitoring them.”

“So that’s the trouble,” Macintyre said.

“I’ve been thinking of getting out of watchbird.” Gelsen hadn’t realized it until that moment.

“Look, Chief,” Macintyre said. “Will you take an engineer’s word on this?”

“Let’s hear it.”

“The watchbirds are no more dangerous than an automobile, an I.B.M. calculator or a thermometer. They have no more consciousness or volition than those things. The watchbirds are built to respond to certain stimuli, and to carry out certain operations when they receive that stimuli.”

“And the learning circuits?”

“You have to have those,” Macintyre said patiently, as though explaining the whole thing to a ten-year-old. “The purpose of the watchbird is to frustrate all murder-attempts, right? Well, only certain murderers give out these stimuli. In order to stop all of them, the watchbird has to search out new definitions of murder and correlate them with what it already knows.”

“I think it’s inhuman,” Gelsen said.

“That’s the best thing about it. The watchbirds are unemotional. Their reasoning is non-anthropomorphic. You can’t bribe them or drug them. You shouldn’t fear them, either.”

The intercom on Gelsen’s desk buzzed. He ignored it.

“I know all this,” Gelsen said. “But, still, sometimes I feel like the man who invented dynamite. He thought it would only be used for blowing up tree stumps.”

“You didn’t invent watchbird.”

“I still feel morally responsible because I manufacture them.”

The intercom buzzed again, and Gelsen irritably punched a button.

“The reports are in on the first week of watchbird operation,” his secretary told him.

“How do they look?”

“Wonderful, sir.”

“Send them in in fifteen minutes.” Gelsen switched the intercom off and turned back to Macintyre, who was cleaning his fingernails with a wooden match. “Don’t you think that this represents a trend in human thinking? The mechanical god? The electronic father?”

“Chief,” Macintyre said, “I think you should study watchbird more closely. Do you know what’s built into the circuits?”

“Only generally.”

“First, there is a purpose. Which is to stop living organisms from committing murder. Two, murder may be defined as an act of violence, consisting of breaking, mangling, maltreating or otherwise stopping the functions of a living organism by a living organism. Three, most murderers are detectable by certain chemical and electrical changes.”

Macintyre paused to light another cigarette. “Those conditions take care of the routine functions. Then, for the learning circuits, there are two more conditions. Four, there are some living organisms who commit murder without the signs mentioned in three. Five, these can be detected by data applicable to condition two.”

“I see,” Gelsen said.

“You realize how foolproof it is?”

“I suppose so.” Gelsen hesitated a moment. “I guess that’s all.”

“Right,” the engineer said, and left.

Gelsen thought for a few moments. There couldn’t be anything wrong with the watchbirds.

“Send in the reports,” he said into the intercom.

High above the lighted buildings of the city, the watchbird soared. It was dark, but in the distance the watchbird could see another, and another beyond that. For this was a large city.

To prevent murder⁠ ⁠…

There was more to watch for now. New information had crossed the invisible network that connected all watchbirds. New data, new ways of detecting the violence of murder.

There! The edge of a sensation! Two watchbirds dipped simultaneously. One had received the scent a fraction of a second before the other. He continued down while the other resumed monitoring.

Condition four, there are some living organisms who commit murder without the signs mentioned in condition three.

Through his new information, the watchbird knew by extrapolation that this organism was bent on murder, even though the characteristic chemical and electrical smells were absent.

The watchbird, all senses acute, closed in on the organism. He found what he wanted, and dived.

Roger Greco leaned against a building, his hands in his pockets. In his left hand was the cool butt of a .45. Greco