WITNESS
BY GEORGE H. SMITH
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 sprawledin front of Edith, with his head very messily bashed in and with onehand still extended toward her. A long shimmering stream of bloodran half-way across the large room. Dr. Dudley Ballard had been asinconsiderate in his dying as he had been in his living.
Art MacKinney and I stood in the doorway and stared. We were shockednot so much by the fact that Ballard was dead as by the fact that helay in this most secret room, this holy of holies. Ours was the mostsecurity conscious project in the whole country; and this was where hehad 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 nopoint in being hypocritical now.
Edith stood silently. She didn't seem to be interested in the factthat the man who had run her life, who had spent hours shoutingquestions at her and criticizing her slightest error with burningsarcasm was now dead. No, Edith wasn't interested, but you couldn'treally expect her to be—she was only a computing machine, a mechanicalbrain, the final result of years of work by the best cyberneticsexperts in the world. Edith was silent, and would be, until we turnedher on and fed the tapes into her.
"It looks as though this is what did it," MacKinney said, indicating alarge spanner lying on the floor beside Ballard. He touched it gingerlywith his foot. His face was white and strained and it occurred to methat he was more upset than I thought he should be. After all, he hadas much reason to hate the dead man as the rest of us. Ballard hadtaken advantage of his position as head of the research project to makepasses at Jane Currey and MacKinney wasn't at all a cool scientist whenit came to Jane. He was engaged to her and quite naturally resentedBallard's attentions to her.
"You'd better not touch that until the police get here," I said as hebent over to pick up the spanner.
"Yeah, I guess you're right—I forgot. How do you suppose this got inhere anyway?"
"One of the workmen making adjustments on Edith's outer casing musthave left it. I saw it sitting up there on top of her late yesterdayafternoon," I told him. "You'd better go call Mr. Thompson and—theFBI."
With Ballard gone, I was in charge. Maybe someone would think that wasreason enough for me to kill him. I didn't care, I was just glad he wasgone. Now he couldn't mistreat Edith anymore.
I turned Edith on just as MacKinney returned. "What are you doing?" heasked.
"Why I'm going to wake Edith up and feed these tapes into her. Afterall 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 herethat did?"
He shook his head. "No—I guess not. But maybe it wasn't one of us. Itmight have been an outside job, you know. Edith was working on thatspace station stuff and the iron curtain people would give a lot toknow about it."