"You do not understand," said the Ship. "There is no need of anyone. I am myself. I am intelligent. I am part machine, part human. Rather, perhaps, at one time I was. I have thought, in recent years, the two of us have merged so we're neither human nor machine, but something new entirely."
"You're kidding me," said Sherwood, beginning to get frightened. "There can't be such a thing."
"Consider," said the Ship, "a certain human who had worked for years to build me and who, as he finished me, found death was closing in...."
"Let me out!" yelled Sherwood. "Let me out of here! I don't want to be rescued. I don't want...."
"I'm afraid, Mr. Sherwood, it is rather late for that. We're already out in space."
"Out in space! We can't be! It isn't possible!"
"Of course it is," the Ship told him. "You expected thrust. There was no thrust. We simply lifted."
"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."