Watchbird Read online

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 policemeninsisted.

  "They sure will. I read the test results. They can smell him out beforehe commits a crime. And when they reach him, they give him a powerfulshock 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 seehow these birds do."

  "Hah," Celtrics said. "Skeleton crew. That's funny."

  "Sure," the captain said. "Anyhow, I'm going to leave some men on. Itseems 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 glandsdon't work or something."

  "Which ones don't they stop?" Celtrics asked, with professionalcuriosity.

  "I don't know. But I hear they got the damned things fixed so they'regoing 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 incase. You can't trust these scientists."

  "Right."

  "Birds!" Celtrics scoffed.

  * * * * *

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

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

  And then something happened! The watchbird's electronically fastreflexes picked up the edge of a sensation. A correlation center testedit, matching it with electrical and chemical data in its memory files. Arelay tripped.

  Down the watchbird spiraled, coming in on the increasingly strongsensation. It _smelled_ the outpouring of certain glands, _tasted_ adeviant brain wave.

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

  Dinelli was so intent he didn't see the watchbird coming. He had his gunpoised, 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 thegun, 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 thenhe saw a flash of silver wings. "Well, I'm really damned. Thosewatchbirds work!"

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

  The watchbird returned to his search curve. His thinking centercorrelated the new facts he had learned about murder. Several of thesehe hadn't known before.

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

  New information, methods, definitions were constantly passing betweenthem.

  * * * * *

  Now that the watchbirds were rolling off the assembly line in a steadystream, Gelsen allowed himself to relax. A loud contented hum filled hisplant. Orders were being filled on time, with top priorities given tothe biggest cities in his area, and working down to the smallest towns.

  "All smooth, Chief," Macintyre said, coming in the door. He had justcompleted 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 hecouldn't think of anything else.

  "We sure have," Macintyre agreed. He leaned back and inhaled deeply. Hehad been one of the consulting engineers on the original watchbird. Thatwas six years back. He had been working for Gelsen ever since, and themen had become good friends.

  "The thing I wanted to ask you was this--" Gelsen paused. He couldn'tthink how to phrase what he wanted. Instead he asked, "What do you thinkof the watchbirds, Mac?"

  "Who, me?" The engineer grinned nervously. He had been eating, drinkingand sleeping watchbird ever since its inception. He had never found itnecessary to have an attitude. "Why, I think it's great."

  "I don't mean that," Gelsen said. He realized that what he wanted was tohave someone understand his point of view. "I mean do you figure theremight 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 andproduction and let you boys worry about how. But as a layman, watchbirdis 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 lotof 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'lladmit, but an M.I.T. calculator is a whole lot more complex. And ithasn't got consciousness."

  "No. But the watchbirds can _learn_."

  "Sure. So can all the new calculators. Do you think they'll team up withthe watchbirds?"

  * * * * *

  Gelsen felt annoyed at Macintyre, and even more annoyed at himself forbeing ridiculous. "It's a fact that the watchbirds can put theirlearning 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 realizedit until that moment.

  "Look, Chief," Macintyre said. "Will you take an engineer's word onthis?"

  "Let's hear it."

  "The watchbirds are no more dangerous than an automobile, an IBMcalculator or a thermometer. They have no more consciousness or volitionthan those things. The watchbirds are built to respond to certainstimuli, and to carry out certain operations when they receive thatstimuli."

  "And the learning circuits?"

  "You have to have those," Macintyre said patiently, as thoughexplaining the whole thing to a ten-year-old. "The purpose of thewatchbird is to frustrate all murder-attempts, right? Well, only certainmurderers give out these stimuli. In order to stop all of them, thewatchbird has to search out new definitions of murder and correlate themwith what it already knows."

  "I think it's inhuman," Gelsen said.

  "That's the best thing about it. The watchbirds are unemotional. Theirreasoning is non-anthropomorphic. You can't bribe them or drug them. Youshouldn'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 theman who invented dynamite. He thought it would only be used for blowingup 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," hissecretary told him.

  "How do they look?"

  "Wonderful, sir."

  "Send them in in fifteen minutes." Gelsen switched the intercom off andturned back to Macintyre, who was cleaning his fingernails with a woodenmatch. "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 moreclosely. Do you know what's built into the circuits?"

  "Only generally."

  "First, there is a purpose. Which is to stop living organisms fromcommitting murder. Two, murder may be defined as an act of violence,consisting of breaking, mangling, maltreating or otherwise stopping thefunctions of a living organism by a