Lost science fiction short story.

Cafe Society
1

I am rebuilding a collection of science fiction short story anthologies that I lost a long time ago in a childhood divorce. Going fine so far but there is one story I haven’t yet found.

It is a story of autonomous star ships that travel the galaxy, each with only a single human aboard who is a slave to the Ship. Our boy, the human ship slave takes care of the things that the Ship cannot do itself. It lives in fear of punishment by the Ship. Apparently the humans built the ships long ago.

He has dreams of crabs swimming in aquamarine seas on a beautiful planet.

Then another ship comes alongside one day and this ship’s human is a girl. They are placed together, probably to create another crewperson. She and he overcome the ships and end up on the planet with the beautiful aquamarine seas.

I thought it was A. E. van Vogt, or perhaps Silverberg, but I haven’t found it and it bugs me a bit.

Any ideas?

2

Oh, and this would be Classic science fiction, no later than the '70s and probably from an anthology of much older stories. Not new.

3

Anthology from the 1970s or story from the 1970s? And if by older you mean 1970s, you are bumming me out. :slight_smile:

4

The Human Operators by Harlan Ellison and A. E. Van Vogt. Originally in Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1971. Collected in Ellison’s Partners in Wonder in 1971.

“When ship says ‘vicious,’ ship means ‘smarter.’”

5

Here’s the original cover.

And the cover of the anthology.

It is a favorite.

6

Yes!! That is it.

And I am also thankful that somewhere, floating around in my brain, my A. E. van Vogt intuition was partially correct.

7

There was a Saberhagen “Berserker” story with a similar plot: the giant nasty Berserker robot ship was keeping human slaves inside it to do scut-work. Nasty story, with a typically cute sci-fi twist ending.