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The Mile-Long Spaceship is a 4000-word short story by Kate Wilhelm, about a human who dreams about an alien spacecraft. It was first published in the April, 1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, April 1957.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

Allan Norbett is recovering in the hospital after a spaceship crash, and he has been telling his nurses a strange story about a series of dreams he has had about a mile-long spaceship. The spaceship is real, and is populated by a race of aliens who use telepathy to search the universe for other species. These aliens have made contact with Norbett, and are trying to use him to learn the location of Earth and the capabilities of humans, so that they can launch an invasion and take over our planet. But they are frustrated because Norbett had been a common passenger on his spaceship, and he knows very little about astronomy, so when they show him some star charts (in what Norbett still thinks are just dreams), Norbett is unable to give them any useful information about Earth’s location. Finally, the alien captain orders his telepath to implant in Norbett a desire for more education, in the hopes that Norbett will take some classes on astronomy and become a more useful informant. The telepathic suggestion takes hold, but not in the way they had planned. Much later, the telepath reports to his captain:

"He’s completely over his injury, working again, enrolled in night classes at the school in his town. He’s studying atomic engineering. He’s in the engine room now [of the mile-long ship, during one of Norbett’s ‘dreams’] getting data for something they call a thesis."

Quietly the captain rolled off a list of expletives that would have done justice to one of the rawest space hands. And just as quietly, calmly, and perhaps, stoically, he pushed the red button that began the chain reaction that would completely vaporize the mile-long ship. His last breath was spent in hoping the alien would awaken with a violent headache. He did.

Reprints

This story has been reprinted in Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 19 (1957).