HE WATCHED, INCREDULOUS, frozen, thinking that perhaps he’d imagined the moving of the walls.
But it was not imagination. Slowly, inexorably, the walls were closing in. Had he put out his arms, he could have touched them on either side of him.
“Ship!” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm.
“Yes, Mr. Sherwood.”
“You are malfunctioning. The walls are closing in.”
“No,” said the Ship. “No malfunction, I assure you. A very proper function. My brain grows tired and feeble. It is not the body only—the brain also has its limits. I suspected that it might, but I could not know. There was a chance, of course, that separated from the poison of a body, it might live in its bath of nutrients forever.”
“No!” rasped Sherwood, his breath strangling in his throat. “No, not me!”
“Who else?” asked
