Witness by George H. Smith -Vintage science fiction short story sleepstory human voice

"That's ridiculous," I said, badly frightened. "A machine can't be a witness to murder." - This short story is about the first sentient computer, or AI if you will, and how humans react to it. Ballard the hated boss of the secret computer lab is very dead. Lying on the floor showing blunt force trauma to the head. Murder! Only, this is in the inner sanctum, highest security in the building, locks, guards and all. Which means it has to be an inside job. Everyone there has some sort of motive, Ballard was a piece of work. But there are no witnesses...apart from Edith the supercomputer that is in this room. But a computer cannot be a witness, can it? Enjoy! - Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 1:42 Witness 19:29 About the author 21:52 Project Gutenberg - This story is available as a free ebook at https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/59242 Please choose a paid subscription on substack help save more stories: Go to StoriesOfFuturesPast.substack.com/about - About the author: George Henry Smith (1922-1996) was an American author who wrote a large amount of science fiction and also quite a bit of sleaze/ softcore erotica, many with fantastical elements, under a whole slew of pseudonyms. Here are a few of them: M J Deer (with his wife, Jane Deer Smith); Jeremy August, Jerry August, Don Bellmore, Ross Camra, George Devlin, Robert Hadley, Jerry Jason, Clancy O'Brien, Alan Robinson, Jan Smith, G. H. Smith, George Hudson Smith, Holt Standish, Diana Summers, Hal Stryker, Hank Stryker, Morgan Trehune, Roy Warren, and he is also known to have published under shared house pseudonyms such as J. X.Williams, Jan Hudson and John Dexter. He is believed to have published more than a hundred novels, in addition to a long list of shorter stories. A I have not been able to locate a complete bibliography, just ones with a few from a certain genre here and there. I expect there is no such bibliography in existence. To really muddle the waters, add the fact that there were at least three active authors at the time with the name George H. Smith, and some books have been (and probably still are) attributed in error to one or the other. I can tell you as much as that the google search engine AI does not know to differentiate between the authors, and serves up a right bird's nest of conflicting bollocks when I search. In addition there is also his fellow Science Fiction author George O. Smith active in the same era. The confusion is real. - This narration was recorded in 2026. - Stories of Futures Past presents a vintage Science Fiction short story, narrated by myself, Tom Trussel. An actual, real living human being, warts and all. Any and all voices and effects are produced live during reading with my actual voice. No obnoxious after effects, synthetic voices or filters used. English is not my first language, inaccurate accents and the occasional strange pronunciation will happen. No mockery is intended. These stories are good for English learners / ESL. The full text is right there on the screen in a big and easy to read font. Read along with me. It's great practice! Copyright notice: The written text of this story is in the public domain, as determined by my research. The story is and should be free for anyone to enjoy. Use of the audio is subject to license. Boilerplate license wording off the Gutenberg website: “This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world 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.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.”