The Human Operators

Ellison, Harlan, and A. E. Van Vogt. "The Human Operators." © 1970 by authors. F&SF Jan. 1971. Coll. HE, Robert Bloch, et al., Partners in Wonder. New York: Walker and Company, 1971. New York: Avon, 1972. New York: Pyramid, 1975. Amazon.com reports a 1983 edn. Rpt. Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year (1971). Lester del Rey, ed. New York: Dutton, 1972. Audiocassette. Read by HE. Brilliance Corp., 1997. ("Stellar Audio Books," with R. Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope.")

A three-character novelette combining computer take-over, coming-of-age, rebelling against the Machine motifs, working out to a horror story with a romantic-comic ending. The human operators are adolescents, a boy and a girl. The boy is the protagonist-narrator, who serves "Ship," as his father before him did, doing maintenance requiring a human being. Ship turns out to be Starfighter 31, a former warship that killed its crew (save for one) and became a "slave-ship";it is run by what we'd call AI and is in the tradition of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The girl appears to be brought over by Starfighter 88 to mate with the boy and breed their replacements. (Boys are raised by boys and men, girls by women; when the offspring are 14, the parents are killed by the ship.) The girl rebelled earlier and had won control of Starfighter 88; the boy wins against Ship, his home and ruler. Together the human operators find a planet and will live there, while Starship 31 rusts. See in this section J. Williamson's "Jamboree," and F. Herbert's Destination: Void and the Herbert and Bill Ransom sequel, The Jesus Incident. (RDE, 07/11/98)