“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 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
