"Short and sweet," he told Macintyre. "We're to shut down temporarily."
"That won't be so easy," Macintyre said. "The watchbirds operate independent of any central control, you know. They come back once a week for a repair checkup. We'll have to turn them off then, one by one."
"Well, let's get to it. Monroe over on the Coast has shut down about a quarter of his birds."
"I think I can dope out a restricting circuit," Macintyre said.
"Fine," Gelsen replied bitterly. "You make me very happy."
The watchbirds were learning rapidly, expanding and adding to their knowledge. Loosely defined abstractions were extended, acted upon and re-extended.
To stop murder ...
Metal and electrons reason well, but not in a human fashion.
A living organism? Any living organism!