The Silkie is a fix-up science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt, first published in complete form in 1969. The component stories had previously been published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine.
Plot introduction
Taking its inspiration from the Celtic legend of the Selkie, the novel describes a race of apparent humans with the ability to change into other forms. One, like the Selkie of legend, can live underwater. Another can survive and travel unprotected in outer space. In all three forms the Silkies can wield mental powers over energy to some degree.
After a prologue which purports to explain the origin of the Silkies as an experiment in genetic manipulation, the action moves forward over a hundred years to a future in which the Silkies are numerous and live on Earth. Humanity has assimilated them by means of the Special People, who can establish telepathic rapport with the Silkies. All Silkies are male, and most are married to women of the Special People. They are employed as police in space, and most are comfortable with that role. One dedicated Silkie, Nat Cemp, encounters three different alien races, and with each encounter he gains more powers and learns more about the true nature of the Silkies, and of the Universe.
As with other Van Vogt works, the novel introduces a psychological element similar to general semantics. Here the Silkies use the so-called "Logic of Levels". Instead of the symbol/reality dichotomy of General Semantics, the Logic of Levels substitutes the concept of behaviors and instincts as complex neurological structures and feedback loops, simpler levels being built on more complex ones. By manipulating these complexes with their powers the Silkies can defeat adversaries, who find themselves caught in self-amplifying feedback from their own instincts and desires.
Plot summary
The novel has four sections. The prologue was created specifically for the book; each of the remaining sections consists of a story previously published as part of a series.
Prologue to the Silkie
A young woman, eking out an existence with her father on a boat moored somewhere in Haiti, learns of a medical man with a possible secret of eternal youth. Suspecting a swindle, but keen to get close to any source of money, she joins the various elderly expatriates in a trek to Echo Island, where the supposed genius, Dr. Sawyer, is living. Instead she is confronted with a young man who emerges from swimming underwater, transforming from a fish-like form to human as he does so. He identifies himself as the product of Sawyer's work, and tells her that he and Sawyer need women to bear his children. The story concludes with him saying, "I'm a Silkie. The first Silkie."
The Silkie
Nat Cemp, a Silkie travelling through space under his own power, is hailed by a ship full of Variants. These are the result of further experimentation on the Silkie genome. Each has Silkie abilities to some degree. This particular ship consists mostly of aquatic Variants. Cemp is conducted into the ship, shifting from his hard, bony, space-travelling form into his aquatic shape as he does so.
Cemp meets a powerful boy aged about 10 who claims to be his son. Since Silkies have to return to water to breed every 9.5 years, and are not allowed to meet their children afterwards, the boy's claim is credible. He tells Cemp that he wishes to return to Earth to learn how to tame his unusual powers.
Cemp agrees to this, even though it means he himself will not be allowed to return to Earth as he needs to, in order to complete another breeding cycle. However, after Cemp contacts Earth and then leaves the ship, the boy reveals himself to be a malevolent shape-shifting alien.
Cemp returns to Earth clandestinely in order to see his wife Joanne, but finds that the alien has taken on her form and is waiting in his house. The alien, known as the Kibmadine, displays Silkie-like control over energy during the fight which occurs after Cemp discovers the deception. The alien flees.
With the aid of the main computer at Silkie Authority, Cemp analyzes his own sense-impressions of the Kibmadine. The result is a picture of a race which enters into an erotic-cannibalistic relationship with its victims, taking on their shapes and then consuming them. Armed with this, Cemp meets the Kibmadine and uses Logic of Levels to send it into an amplified memory of the previous victims. Taking on the shape of the former race, the alien then consumes itself.