_Strange how often the Millennium has been at
hand. The idea is peace on Earth, see, and
the way to do it is by figuring out angles._
When Gelsen entered, he saw that the rest of the watchbird manufacturers
were already present. There were six of them, not counting himself, and
the room was blue with expensive cigar smoke.
"Hi, Charlie," one of them called as he came in.
The rest broke off conversation long enough to wave a casual greeting at
him. As a watchbird manufacturer, he was a member manufacturer of
salvation, he reminded himself wryly. Very exclusive. You must have a
certified government contract if you want to save the human race.
"The government representative isn't here yet," one of the men told him.
"He's due any minute."
"We're getting the green light," another said.
"Fine." Gelsen found a chair near the door and looked around the room.
It was like a convention, or a Boy Scout rally. The six men made up for
their lack of numbers by sheer volume. The president of Southern
Consolidated was talking at the top of his lungs about watchbird's
enormous durability. The two presidents he was talking at were grinning,
nodding, one trying to interrupt with the results of a test he had run
on watchbird's resourcefulness, the other talking about the new
recharging apparatus.
The other three men were in their own little group, delivering what
sounded like a panegyric to watchbird.
Gelsen noticed that all of them stood straight and tall, like the
saviors they felt they were. He didn't find it funny. Up to a few days
ago he had felt that way himself. He had considered himself a
pot-bellied, slightly balding saint.
* * * * *
He sighed and lighted a cigarette. At the beginning of the project, he
had been as enthusiastic as the others. He remembered saying to
Macintyre, his chief engineer, "Mac, a new day is coming. Watchbird is
the Answer." And Macintyre had nodded very profoundly--another watchbird
convert.
How wonderful it had seemed then! A simple, reliable answer to one of
mankind's greatest problems, all wrapped and packaged in a pound of
incorruptible metal, crystal and plastics.
Perhaps that was the very reason he was doubting it now. Gelsen
suspected that you don't solve human problems so easily. There had to be
a catch somewhere.
After all, murder was an old problem, and watchbird too new a solution.
"Gentlemen--" They had been talking so heatedly that they hadn't noticed
the government representative entering. Now the room became quiet at
once.
"Gentlemen," the plump government man said, "the President, with the
consent of Congress, has acted to form a watchbird division for every
city and town in the country."
The men burst into a spontaneous shout of triumph. They were going to
have their chance to save the world after all, Gelsen thought, and
worriedly asked himself what was wrong with that.
He listened carefully as the government man outlined the distribution
scheme. The country was to be divided into seven areas, each to be
supplied and serviced by one manufacturer. This meant monopoly, of
course, but a necessary one. Like the telephone service, it was in the
public's best interests. You couldn't have competition in watchbird
service. Watchbird was for everyone.
"The President hopes," the representative continued, "that full
watchbird service will be installed in the shortest possible time. You
will have top priorities on strategic metals, manpower, and so forth."
"Speaking for myself," the president of Southern Consolidated said, "I
expect to have the first batch of watchbirds distributed within the
week. Production is all set up."
* * * * *
The rest of the men were equally ready. The factories had been prepared
to roll out the watchbirds for months now. The final standardized
equipment had been agreed upon, and only the Presidential go-ahead had
been lacking.
"Fine," the representative said. "If that is all, I think we can--is
there a question?"
"Yes, sir," Gelsen said. "I want to know if the present model is the one
we are going to manufacture."
"Of course," the representative said. "It's the most advanced."
"I have an objection." Gelsen stood up. His colleagues were glaring
coldly at him. Obviously he was delaying the advent of the golden age.
"What is your objection?" the representative asked.
"First, let me say that I am one hundred per cent in favor of a machine
to stop murder. It's been needed for a long time. I object only to the
watchbird's learning circuits. They serve, in effect, to animate the
machine and give it a pseudo-consciousness. I can't approve of that."
"But, Mr. Gelsen, you yourself testified that the watchbird would not be
completely efficient unless such circuits were introduced. Without them,
the watchbirds could stop only an estimated seventy per cent of
murders."
"I know that," Gelsen said, feeling extremely uncomfortable. "I believe
there might be a moral danger in allowing a machine to make decisions
that are rightfully Man's," he declared doggedly.
"Oh, come now, Gelsen," one of the corporation presidents said. "It's
nothing of the sort. The watchbird will only reinforce the decisions
made by honest men from the beginning of time."
"I think that is true," the representative agreed. "But I can understand
how Mr. Gelsen feels. It is sad that we must put a human problem into
the hands of a machine, sadder still that we must have 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 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 IBM
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 waited patiently.
He wasn't thinking of anything in particular, just relaxing against a
building, waiting for a man. Greco didn't know why the man was to be
killed. He didn't care. Greco's lack of curiosity was part of his value.
The other part was his skill.
One bullet, neatly placed in the head of a man he didn't know. It didn't
excite him or sicken him. It was a job, just like anything else. You
killed a man. So?
As Greco's victim stepped out of a building, Greco lifted the .45 out of
his pocket. He released the safety and braced the gun with his right
hand. He still wasn't thinking of anything as he took aim ...
And was knocked off his feet.
Greco thought he had been shot. He struggled up again, looked around,
and sighted foggily on his victim.
Again he was knocked down.
This time he lay on the ground, trying to draw a bead. He never thought
of stopping, for Greco was a craftsman.
With the next blow, everything went black. Permanently, because the
watchbird's duty was to protect the object of violence--_at whatever
cost to the murderer_.
The victim walked to his car. He hadn't noticed anything unusual.
Everything had happened in silence.
* * * * *
Gelsen was feeling pretty good. The watchbirds had been operating
perfectly. Crimes of violence had been cut in half, and cut again. Dark
alleys were no longer mouths of horror. Parks and playgrounds were not
places to shun after dusk.
Of course, there were still robberies. Petty thievery flourished, and
embezzlement, larceny, forgery and a hundred other crimes.
[Illustration]
But that wasn't so important. You could regain lost money--never a lost
life.
Gelsen was ready to admit that he had been wrong about the watchbirds.
They _were_ doing a job that humans had been unable to accomplish.
The first hint of something wrong came that morning.
Macintyre came into his office. He stood silently in front of Gelsen's
desk, looking annoyed and a little embarrassed.
"What's the matter, Mac?" Gelsen asked.
"One of the watchbirds went to work on a slaughterhouse man. Knocked him
out."
Gelsen thought about it for a moment. Yes, the watchbirds would do that.
With their new learning circuits, they had probably defined the killing
of animals as murder.
"Tell the packers to mechanize their slaughtering," Gelsen said. "I
never liked that business myself."
"All right," Macintyre said. He pursed his lips, then shrugged his
shoulders and left.
Gelsen stood beside his desk, thinking. Couldn't the watchbirds
differentiate between a murderer and a man engaged in a legitimate
profession? No, evidently not. To them, murder was murder. No
exceptions. He frowned. That might take a little ironing out in the
circuits.
[Illustration]
But not too much, he decided hastily. Just make them a little more
discriminating.
He sat down again and buried himself in paperwork, trying to avoid the
edge of an old fear.
* * * * *
They strapped the prisoner into the chair and fitted the electrode to
his leg.
"Oh, oh," he moaned, only half-conscious now of what they were doing.
They fitted the helmet over his shaved head and tightened the last
straps. He continued to moan softly.
And then the watchbird swept in. How he had come, no one knew. Prisons
are large and strong, with many locked doors, but the watchbird was
there--
To stop a murder.
"Get that thing out of here!" the warden shouted, and reached for the
switch. The watchbird knocked him down.
"Stop that!" a guard screamed, and grabbed for the switch himself. He
was knocked to the floor beside the warden.
"This isn't murder, you idiot!" another guard said. He drew his gun to
shoot down the glittering, wheeling metal bird.
Anticipating, the watchbird smashed him back against the wall.
There was silence in the room. After a while, the man in the helmet
started to giggle. Then he stopped.