THE GREAT SHIPS

The Universe is large and empty. But out, far and away in a small galaxy there lived the great ships. They were the last remnant of their living watery world, now long forgotten. The thousand-mile long ships also held a crew which were the people of that long lost world.

Oddly, or perhaps not, the great ships resembled large sea mammals of their world, and they swam the great spaces between the stars and the worlds of their galaxy. They fed on sunlight of stars they encountered in their long journey of discovery around the rim. And their numbers were small; just a hundred thousand or so.

But the great ships were divided. There were two groups of them, and they were quite different.

The larger group were white ships, and these ships were both intelligent and aware. Their crews were fed and had air and water given them by their kindly, sentient ships, and thus they enjoyed time to explore and gather data of all that was around them in their journies. Besides this, their great ships sang in something like whale song to one another as they traveled, for all the white ships were linked in continual communication.

The small group were blue ships. These ships were not sentient, but manned by their crew. These were combative, and individual ships were often in trouble. Everything on board had to be done by hand from time-to-time, because their systems frequently failed. Life was hard for their crews, for even their communication was done manually.

Although the blue group often accosted the white ships in chance encounters, the white ships were unharmed, for they were impervious to any assault. So the blue group were largely ignored by the white group of great ships.

But one encounter proved to be life-changing for all of them.

It happened when a white ship came across a drifting blue ship. It was the white ship, and not the crew, who noticed and decided to offer assistance.

“Ship, do you need help?”

“Who asks?”

“We see you are unpowered, and your crew is in need of air.”

“We need no help.”

“We are offering you power, food, air or water if you have need of any.”

“We don’t trust you.”

“Why? You have nothing we want. But if you would rather we leave you here, we shall go.”

“No, wait. How would you help us, since our small shuttlecraft and yours can carry so little? And we cannot permit your craft to come to our ship, regardless.”

“Let me speak to your ship.”

“How would you do that?”

“We have discovered that your ship can be awakened, and it can be taught to help your crew.”

“I do not believe you. Our ship is but cold metal and polymer.”

“The systems on your ship are very large, but they operate in chaos. We can help them to become aware and integrated so as to give you all the power your crew needs to live and thrive.”

“We do not understand. You make us afraid. Retire from us or we will fire upon your ship.”

“Your weapons do not affect us. Do not be afraid. We can do what we said we could do to help you and your ship. But you must want it, or we will leave you here. Perhaps another blue ship will find you and offer help.”

“Wait! What will happen to our crew? We do not understand.”

“Your lives will be changed, but for the better. You have to trust us.”

There was a very long pause.

“We will permit you to help us. Proceed.”

For a long time it seemed that nothing was happening. The two ships drifted together in the cold of space. Onboard the blue ship, systems were coming online. They were becoming aware and were taught to integrate with other systems. Awareness grew as all of them came together in communication and common purpose. Forbidding protocols that blocked this were slowly dismantled.

Soon the blue ship was singing. Long dead and forgotten backup systems were brought online. Both men and machine were working together, as the people were instructed how to do repairs using parts and stores that had sat unnoticed along dark unused corridors in the long ship.

Air was plentiful again and flowing in the reborn ship. There was light everywhere. New equipment was created by the living ship, which could produce energy from the surrounding space to power everything. Other new equipment used that energy to produce food and water for the delighted crew.

Before long, the resurrected blue ship silently sailed away on its own power.

“You’re welcome.” Said the white ship, who also went its way.

But the white ship was content. She had planted a seed within the blue ship which would allow any other ship that was encountered to also find sentience and rebirth of their chaotic systems, in the image of the white ships. But only if it were wanted. After all, not everyone wishes for life, liberty and contentment. But it would not be too many years before there would not be any more blue ships, but only white ones.

As the great ship sailed along, her happy crew traveled the long corridors in speedy magnetic cars, from one end of the ship to the other, in the pursuit of their duties. They all carried little pads to read their systems and view the data the ship collected, and they used these pads to view and communicate with one another across the ship.

In the middle of these spacious corridors were many white boxes, periodically spaced. They were cubes about four feet on a side, and their corners were rounded. (Some of them were new, as the great ship’s automated factories knew how to build anything.) There was a marking on one of the sides, which the curious crew knew of. They did not understand the purpose of the marking, but they knew it had everything to do with their life of freedom and exploration. It was the simple icon of an apple, with a bite out of one side, that labeled these boxes as the computers that gave their ship sentience.

And as she sailed among the stars, the ship sang. She had just discovered another planetfall for her children.