Skip to main content

Short story with spaceship and humanity not realising they should be on it


The plot is about:




  • A spaceship travelling through the universe

  • Earth is a rogue planet whose inhabitants have been cut off and don't realise that their true purpose is to be part of the spaceship

    • The reason earth was in turmoil (wars etc.) was that they didn't realise that their true role was to fit into the ship



  • The ship contained 3 or 4 beings that made the thing work

  • Planets throughout the universe are populated with the various beings which are components of the space craft

    • I seem to remember like an eye shaped being


    • Each of them fulfil their role

    • Humans are part of that as well.



  • There are loads of planets with humans on but earth has gotten overlooked so it never realised that's what they were designed for


  • The story concludes with the ships picking up someone from Earth



    • and with the "human" realising that this is what they should really be doing





  • Humans have a different name that explains their role in the ship.




I probably read it around 30 years ago in English in a sci-fi collection book.



Answer



"Specialist" by Robert Sheckley. It was the subject of this question and this one. You can read the whole story at the Internet Archive. Here is the plot summary from Wikipedia:



A galactic deep-space cargo ship is blown off course by a photon storm. When the crew recover, they don't know their location in space and one of their members, known as Pusher, is dead.

The Crew comprises varied members of vastly different intelligent races, all in close mental rapport known as the Cooperation, and serving specialized functions; they are known as Engine, Thinker, Eye etc. But without a Pusher, they cannot accelerate to ftl speeds. They manage to locate a planet known to be rich in primitive Pushers, Earth. They try to communicate with a man they find, but he is so violent and resistant that they are forced to bring him on board the ship to try to reason with him.

Gradually, the man begins to realize the nature of the Crew and the pleasure to be found as a part of the mental Cooperation. He agrees to join the crew. Hesitantly at first, he tries to Push and finally learns how it is done. The ship speeds away at eight times the speed of light and accelerating.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...

tolkiens legendarium - Difference between elves and dwarves blacksmithing in the Lord of the Rings

Both the elves and the dwarves were famous for their metal work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but what is the difference between what they made, and which one had the better skill of making amours and swords? Answer James Christopher's answer sums up the second part of your question well, but as to the difference in what they made, a little more detail is needed. Once the Elves learned to forge with steel, the shape of the sword changed, now being able to take on the form of a great broadsword or a light and agile curved sword. Additionally, they took great pride in decorating their swords. As we see in the Lord of the Rings , some swords like Sting had magical properties such as glowing blue when orcs are near. As far as the use of Mithril, lotr.wikia has two contradictory passages: Thus, Elven blades became renowned as great weapons, capable of performing deeds beyond the skill of their handlers and were even more glorious when the use of Mithril was allowed to the Elves. ...

game of thrones - Is Syrio Forel dead?

In the episode 'The Pointy End' (Season 1 Episode 8) when Arya runs from the Lannister guards you hear the sound of a sword being dropped (around 4:56): [embedded content] After that neither Syrio or Ser Meryn Trant is never mentioned or seen in the show again, except when Arya mentions to the Hound that Ser Meryn Trant killed Syrio. Is there any mention in the books that Syrio actually dies?