Witness

Edith was just a computer, but a very good one and a very observing one. So it was quite natural that she be consulted about the doctor's murder....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Ballard was quite dead. There could be no doubt of it. He lay sprawled in front of Edith, with his head very messily bashed in and with one hand still extended toward her. A long shimmering stream of blood ran half-way across the large room. Dr. Dudley Ballard had been as inconsiderate in his dying as he had been in his living.

Art MacKinney and I stood in the doorway and stared. We were shocked not so much by the fact that Ballard was dead as by the fact that he lay in this most secret room, this holy of holies. Ours was the most security conscious project in the whole country; and this was where he had picked to get himself killed.

"God! There'll really be a stink about this," MacKinney breathed.

"Well, I can't think of anyone who had it coming more than he did," I said. I hated Ballard's guts and everyone knew it, so there was no point in being hypocritical now.

Edith stood silently. She didn't seem to be interested in the fact that the man who had run her life, who had spent hours shouting questions at her and criticizing her slightest error with burning sarcasm was now dead. No, Edith wasn't interested, but you couldn't really expect her to be--she was only a computing machine, a mechanical brain, the final result of years of work by the best cybernetics experts in the world. Edith was silent, and would be, until we turned her on and fed the tapes into her.

"It looks as though this is what did it," MacKinney said, indicating a large spanner lying on the floor beside Ballard. He touched it gingerly with his foot. His face was white and strained and it occurred to me that he was more upset than I thought he should be. After all, he had as much reason to hate the dead man as the rest of us. Ballard had taken advantage of his position as head of the research project to make passes at Jane Currey and MacKinney wasn't at all a cool scientist when it came to Jane. He was engaged to her and quite naturally resented Ballard's attentions to her.

"You'd better not touch that until the police get here," I said as he bent over to pick up the spanner.

"Yeah, I guess you're right--I forgot. How do you suppose this got in here anyway?"

"One of the workmen making adjustments on Edith's outer casing must have left it. I saw it sitting up there on top of her late yesterday afternoon," I told him. "You'd better go call Mr. Thompson and--the FBI."

With Ballard gone, I was in charge. Maybe someone would think that was reason enough for me to kill him. I didn't care, I was just glad he was gone. Now he couldn't mistreat Edith anymore.

I turned Edith on just as MacKinney returned. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Why I'm going to wake Edith up and feed these tapes into her. After all these are more important than any one man's life."

"You didn't care much for Ballard, did you Bill?"

I gave him look for look as I replied. "Can you name anyone around here that did?"

He shook his head. "No--I guess not. But maybe it wasn't one of us. It might have been an outside job, you know. Edith was working on that space station stuff and the iron curtain people would give a lot to know about it."