Warship

Warship is a science-fiction short story by George R. R. Martin and George Guthridge, first published in the April 1979 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It takes place in the "Thousand Worlds" universe, and is set in space on a return journey to Earth during the period of the Federal Empire. It is about a warship whose crew has become infected with a deadly virus, killing all but one of them.

Plot Summary
— WARNING: THIS SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS — The story opens with a description of the powerful Earth warship Alecto. The planet Sarrissa has rebelled against the Federal Empire of Earth, and Alecto has been dispatched to end the rebellion.

The story then skips ahead in time as the ship is returning to Earth. First dutyman Lewis Akklar is the last alive on board. The entire crew has died of disease and Akklar assumes that it was the rebelling Sarissans who deployed a weaponized virus against them. Akklar is mourning the deaths of his friends and crewmen and is suffering from thoughts about his own demise. He goes to the sick bay to look at the dead body of his former lover Lieutenant Judanya Kahr. Akklar recognises that while he loved Judanya, she was simply using him for sex. Akklar realises that his situation is desperate - i he dies and the ship falls into Sarissan hands they can use it to attack earth. However, he cannot return to Earth for fear that the virus will infect the human population. He concludes that his only option is to destroy the ship before he dies of disease.

Akklar records a final log, explaining how disease broke out. The captain and doctors died early and all efforts to combat the outbreak failed. Lieutenant Judanya attempted to quarantine the remaining crew, jettisoning dead bodies and finally jettisoning the sick. There was a failed mutiny and in the end everyone died except himself. Akklar accepts his fate, perhaps feeling guilty about his past actions or sadness for the loss of his friends. In an effort to save earth, he plants a bomb on himself near the warheads of the ship.

Afterwards, it is revealed that the warship survives the explosion and that it was actually Alecto’s artificial intelligence computer that was responsible for killing off the crew. After the infection, Alecto decided that it couldn't risk bringing disease back to Earth and so it passed the virus through the ship, infecting the crew's food and water. — END OF SPOILERS —

Themes
Like the protagonist of The Hero, the crew of the Alecto are killed so that they cannot return to earth. In both stories, an authority figure—Major Grady and Alecto respectively—harbours fears that the soldiers will somehow contaminate the civilian population of Earth. In Warship, this contamination takes the form of a disease, while in The Hero, the fear is related more to how violent or traumatised soldiers might affect a civilian population. However, a possible secondary fear is the knowledge these soldiers may divulge to civilians, particularly regarding Earth's oppressive enforcement tactics. Alecto infects the crew with an actual deadly virus, prevents them from quarantining the virus, and then paradoxically uses that infections as a pretext to eradicate them. The decision echoes the cold, inhuman logic of imperialism, which dehumanises both the people it seeks to subjugate, and the people it sends to subjegate them - its own citizens.

Author's Notes
Warship was originally entitled "Protector." It was the first story Martin ever tried to sell professionally. However, no publications were interested in it. Several years later, he showed it to his friend George Guthridge, who revised and retitled the story, and submitted it for publication.

Publication History
Warship was published in the April 1979 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Reception
In 2020, an audiobook version of Warship was released by YouTuber Valkyrist:

Connections to the "Thousand Worlds" Universe
In "The Plague Star," (the first chapter of Tuf Voyaging) Havaland Tuf mentions the Alecto incident, along with other rebellions, as the reason humanity avoids using artificial intelligence.

Warship contains no references to the Double War, and it depicts Earth attempting to regain control of one of its colony planets. The human homeworld is also referred to as "Earth," rather than "Old Earth." This suggests that the story takes place during the period of the Federal Empire, before Earth isolated itself and before the colony worlds became independent.

The story mentions duralloy, viewscreens and stardrives, technology which is ubiquitous throughout the "Thousand Worlds" universe.

Allusions to Other GRRM Works
Warship alludes to themes which are expored more fully in Nightflyers and The Second Kind of Lonliness - namely, the threat of automated technology and artificial intelligence to human beings, and the distinction between existential angst and social anxiety. Notably, Warship was drafted several years before those two stories, suggesting it served as a spiritual precursor.