Shakespeare's Planet by Clifford D. Simak Page B

you’re getting on.”
    â€œI wish you would,” said the robot. “I can’t make head nor tail of it.”
    â€œIt’s fairly simple,” said Elayne. “There are two panels, one smaller than the other. The small one controls the shield over the larger panel, the control panel.”
    â€œThere’s not two panels,” said Nicodemus.
    â€œThere should be.”
    â€œWell, there’s not. There is just the one with the force shield over it.”
    â€œThat means, then,” said Elayne, “that it’s not a mere malfunction. Someone closed the tunnel.”
    â€œThe thought had been in my mind,” said Horton. “A closed world. But why should it be closed?”
    â€œI hope,” said Nicodemus, “that we don’t find out.” He picked up his tool kit and left.
    â€œWhy, this is tasty,” exclaimed Elayne. She wiped grease off her lips. “My people do not eat flesh. Although we know of those who do and have despised them for it as a mark of barbarity.”
    â€œWe are all barbarians here,” said Horton, shortly.
    â€œWhat was all that about cold-sleep for the Carnivore?”
    â€œThe Carnivore loathes this planet. He wants to get off it. That’s why he wants so badly for the tunnel to be opened. If the tunnel can’t be opened, he’d like to leave with us.”
    â€œLeave with you? Oh, yes, you have a ship. Or do you?”
    â€œWe do. Out on the plain.”
    â€œWherever that is.”
    â€œJust a few miles from here.”
    â€œSo you’ll be leaving. May I ask where you’ll be headed?”
    â€œDamned if I know,” said Horton. “That is Ship’s department. Ship says we can’t go back to Earth. We’ve been gone too long, it seems. Ship says we’d be obsolescent if we did go back. That they wouldn’t want us back, that we’d embarrass them. And from what you tell me, I guess there’s no point in going back.”
    â€œShip,” said Elayne. “You talk as if the ship’s a person.”
    â€œWell, in a way, it is.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous. I can understand how, over a long period of time, you’d develop a feeling of affection for it. Men have always personalized their machines and tools and weapons, but …”
    â€œDamn it,” Horton told her, “you don’t understand. Ship really is a person. Three persons, actually. Three human brains …”
    She reached out a greasy hand and grasped his arm. “Say that again,” she said. “Say it very slowly.”
    â€œThree brains,” said Horton. “Three brains from three different people. Tied in with the ship. The theory was …”
    She let loose of his arm. “So it is true,” she said. “It wasn’t legend. There really were such ships.”
    â€œHell, yes. There were a number of them. I don’t know how many.”
    â€œI talked about legends earlier,” she said. “How you couldn’t tell the difference between legend and history. How you couldn’t be sure. And this was one of the legends—ships that were part human, part machine.”
    â€œIt was nothing wonderful,” he told her. “Oh, yes, I suppose wonderful, at that. But it tied in with our kind of technology—a melding of the mechanical and biological. It was in the realm of the possible. In the technological climate of our day, it was acceptable.”
    â€œA legend come to life,” she said.
    â€œI feel a little funny being pegged a legend.”
    â€œWell, not really you,” she said, “but the entire story. It seemed incredible to us, one of those kind of things you can’t quite believe.”
    â€œYet you said better ways were found.”
    â€œDifferent ways,” she said. “Faster-than-light ships, based on new principles. But tell me about yourself. You’re not the only human on the ship, of