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    Watchbird
    Watchbird
    Watchbird
    Ebook51 pages35 minutes

    Watchbird

    By Ed Emshwiller and Robert Sheckley

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013

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    Reviews for Watchbird

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    • 5/5
      Short and sweet story about what happens when we let machines decide right and wrong. This is all the more relevant now in an age of surveillance and drone warfare.

    Book preview

    Watchbird - Ed Emshwiller

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of Watchbird, by Robert Sheckley

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

    Title: Watchbird

    Author: Robert Sheckley

    Illustrator: Ed Emshwiller

    Release Date: August 2, 2009 [EBook #29579]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WATCHBIRD ***

    Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online

    Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

    WATCHBIRD

    By ROBERT SHECKLEY

    Illustrated by EMSH

    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

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