Clifford Simak - The Shipshape Miracle - And Other Stories

He reached the hatch and tumbled through it. There was no one waiting. The inner lock stood open and there was no one there.

He stopped to stare at the emptiness and behind him the retracting ladder rumbled softly and the hatch hissed to a close.

“Hey,” he shouted, “where is everyone?”

“There is no one here,” the voice said, “but me.”

“All right,” said Sherwood. “Where do I go to find you?”

“You have found me,” said the Ship. “You are standing in me.”

“You mean…”

“I told you,” said the Ship. “I said I was the Ship. That is what I am.”

“But no one…”

“You do not understand,” said the Ship. “There is no need of anyone. I am myself. I am intelligent. I am part machine, part human. Rather, perhaps, at one time I was. I have thought, in recent years, the two of us have merged so we’re neither human nor machine, but something new entirely.”

“You’re kidding me,” said Sherwood, beginning to get frightened. “There can’t be such a thing.”

“Consider,” said the Ship, “a certain human who had worked for years to build me and who, as he finished me, found death was closing in …”

“Let me out!” yelled Sherwood. “Let me out of here! I don’t want to be rescued. I don’t want …”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Sherwood, it is rather late for that. We’re already out in space.”

“Out in space! We can’t be! It isn’t possible!”

“Of course it is,” the Ship told him. “You expected thrust. There was no thrust. We simply lifted.”

“No ship,” insisted Sherwood, “can get off a planet …”

“You’re thinking, Mr. Sherwood, of the ships built by human hands. Not of a living ship. Not of an intelligent machine. Not of what becomes possible with the merging of a man and a machine.”

“You mean you built yourself?”

“Of course not. Not to start with. I was built by human hands to start with. But I’ve redesigned myself and rebuilt myself, not once, but many times. I knew my capabilities. I knew my dreams and wishes. I made myself the kind of thing that I was capable of being—not the halfway, makeshift thing that was the best the human race could do.”

“The man you spoke of,” Sherwood said. “The one who was about to die …”

“He is part of me,” said the Ship. “If you must think of him as a separate entity, he, then, is talking to you. For when I say ‘I,’ I mean both of us, for we’ve become as one.”

“I don’t get it,” Sherwood told the Ship, feeling the panic coming back again.

“He built me, long ago, as a ship which would respond, not to the pushing of a lever or the pressing of a button, but to the mental commands of the man who drove me. I was to become, in effect, an extension of that man. There was a helmet that the man would wear and he’d think into the helmet.”

“I understand,” said Sherwood.

“He’d think into the helmet and I was so programmed that I’d obey his thoughts. I became, in effect, a man, and the man became in effect the ship he operated.”

“Nice deal,” Sherwood said enthusiastically, never being one upon whom the niceties of certain advantages were ever lost.

“He finished me and he was about to die and it was a pity that such a one should die—one who had worked so hard to do what he had done. Who’d given up so much. Who never had seen space. Who had gone nowhere.”

“No,” said Sherwood, in revulsion, knowing what was coming. “No, he’d not done that.”

“It was a kindness,” said the Ship. “It was what he wanted. He managed it himself. He simply gave up his body. His body was a worthless hulk that was about to die. The modifications to accommodate a human brain rather than a human skull were quite elementary. We have both of us been happy.”

Sherwood stood without saying anything. In the silence he was listening for some sound, for any kind of tiny rattle or hum, for anything at all to tell him the ship was operating. But there was no sound and no sense of motion of any sort.

“Happy,” he said. “Where would you have found happiness? What’s the point of all this?”

“That,” the Ship said solemnly, “is a bit hard to explain.”

Sherwood stood and thought about it—the endless voyaging through space without a body—with all the desires, all the advantages, all the capabilities of a body gone forever.

“There is nothing for you to fear,” said the Ship. “You need not concern yourself. We have a cabin for you. Just down the corridor, the first door to your left.”

“I thank you,” Sherwood said, although he was nervous still.

If he had had a choice, he told himself, he’d stayed back on the planet. But since he was here, he’d have to make the best of it. And there were, he admitted to himself, certain advantages and certain possibilities that needed further thought.

He went down the corridor and pushed on the door. It opened on the cabin. For a spaceship it looked comfortable enough. A little cramped, of course, but then all cabins were. Space is at a premium on any sort of ship.

He went in and placed his sack of diamonds on the bunk that hinged out from the wall. He sat down in the single metal chair that stood beside the bunk.

“Are you comfortable, Mr. Sherwood?” asked the Ship.

“Very comfortable,” he said.

It was going to be all right, he told himself. A very crazy setup, but it would be all right. Perhaps a little spooky and a bit hard to believe, but probably better, after all, than staying marooned, back there on the planet. For this would not last forever. And the planet could have been, most probably would have been, forever.

It would take a while to reach another planet, for space was rather sparsely populated in this area. There would be time to think and plan. He might be able to work out something that would be to his great advantage.

He leaned back in the chair and stretched out his legs. His brain began to click in a ceaseless scurrying back and forth, nosing from every angle all the possibilities that existed in this setup.

It was nice, he thought—this entire operation. The Ship undoubtedly had figured out some angles for itself which no human yet had thought of.

There were a lot of things to do. He’d have to learn the capabilities of the Ship and give close study to its personality, seeking out its weak points and its strength. Then he’d have to plan his strategy and be careful not to give away his thinking. He must not move until he was entirely ready.

There might be many ways to do it. There might be flattery or there might be a business proposition or there might be blackmail. He’d have to think on it and study and follow out the line of action that seemed to be the best.

He wondered at the Ship’s means of operation. Anti-gravity, perhaps. Or a fusion chamber. Or perhaps some method which had not been so far considered as a source of power.

He got up from the chair and paced, three paces across the room and back, restlessly pondering odds.

Yes, he thought, it would be a nice kind of ship to have. More than likely there was nothing in all of space that could touch it in speed and maneuverability. Nothing that could overhaul it should he ever have to run. It could apparently set down anywhere. It was probably self-repairing, for the Ship had spoken of redesigning and of rebuilding itself. With the memory of his recent situation still fresh inside his mind, this was comforting.

There must be a way to get the Ship, he told himself. There had to be a way to get it. It was something that he needed.

He could buy another ship, of course; with the diamonds in the sacking he could buy a fleet of ships. But this was the one he wanted.