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.
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.