Leo Frankowski - Copernick's Rebellion

As they approached the hospital, they heard the nurse screaming from the second floor, where he found a Siberian tiger busily devouring the body of a woman who had been dying of cancer. The tiger viewed Tao’s appearance as a threat to its first meal in eight days. Roaring, it charged.

The tiger weighed seven-hundred pounds, more than twice that of the LDU, but in speed, intelligence, and ferocity, there was no contest. As the tiger leaped, Tao dropped below him. Thrusting a foot-long dagger-claw between the tiger’s swinging forepaws, he slit its throat to the spinal column. As the dead tiger hit the floor, Tao was already examining the patients in the room.

Both were dead.

The nurse entered as Tao was tying the tiger’s carcass upside down to the ceiling with Venetian blind cords.

“Oh, thank you, Tao. The patients—”

“Are both dead. I’ll attend to their bodies. You must care for the living. Get the men in the courtyard working. I want this building evacuated by evening. And send one of them, Antonio Biseglio, up here.”

“Yes, sir. What are you doing?” the nurse asked.

“We have three hundred hungry people here, and this carcass is protein edible for your species.” He had the tiger skinned and gutted, and was slicing the meat into one-inch cubes.

“But it’s a tiger!”

“Protein. Look, they’re eating a rhinoceros in Griffith Park. Just tell people it’s beef. Now move!”

Antonio Biseglio arrived shortly. “You wanted me, boss?”

“I would prefer that you didn’t use honorifics on me. Except in emergencies, we LDUs maintain a subordinate role to humans.”

“Sorry, Tao.”

“Better. Now, people are hungry, you’re a cook, and this is meat. Do something,” Tao said as he worked.

“Cat meat?”

“The Watusi consider it a delicacy. Tell people it’s beef.”

“I don’t have any utensils.”

“I saw a four-foot Pyrex bell jar in one of the labs. It should serve as a cauldron. And there must be something salvageable in the kitchens. Get some men to help you. I’ll have the meat on stretchers in the hallway waiting for you. Move.”

All told, eight hundred pounds of meat went into the cauldron. And if some of it tasted like pork, no one mentioned it.

At the rim of a wide Colorado valley near the Continental Divide, Saber stopped to survey the terrain. Extending his tentacled eyes out until they were eight feet apart, he adjusted his vision to 20X magnification and slowly scanned the area in search of anyone who might need his help. Well above the tree line, all was lichen-covered boulders. A food tree was growing several thousand feet below, to his right. Saber noted the position for future use; in eight weeks it would start producing.

All seemed quiet, deserted, with no sign of human life at all.

No! On the opposite end of the valley, six miles away, he saw two humans, a man and a woman. They seemed to be struggling, although it was difficult to tell at this distance.

The woman broke away from the man, running away from him. The man pursued, tackling her, knocking her to the ground. Saber ran as fast as he could over the huge boulders.

He kept the pair in view as he charged into the valley. The woman broke away again; her blouse was torn off, her bra hanging at her elbow. It was still hard to tell, but it seemed that she was bleeding in several places. She made it to the top of a large boulder and from there threw a rock at the man, who was still pursuing her. The rock struck the man, injuring but not stopping him.

Saber was then halfway across the valley, considering his course of action. If the man killed the woman before he got there, it would be an obvious case of murder, and, in accordance with Lord Copernick’s instructions, he would kill the man. If the woman killed the man? She was retreating. Self-defense. No punishment. If neither was killed, he would incapacitate the man and assist the woman to safety.

The man had the woman down on the boulder and ripped off the balance of her clothing.

The motive, then, seemed to be rape, one of the humans’ sexual reproduction customs. As the LDUs understood it, rape was generally frowned on, but Lord Copernick had not placed it on the list of capital offenses. Saber would administer no punishment for the offense.

As the LDU approached, the woman was struggling and screaming loudly. The man was hitting her on the face and upper torso while trying to hold her down and remove his own clothes.

Saber struck the man with a body check, and all three tumbled from the boulder. The man was on his feet almost as quickly as the LDU and, wild eyed, he threw a rock at Saber.

The LDU tapped the man on the chin with his knuckles, rendering him unconscious. Turning to the woman, he saw she was sitting naked on the ground, dirty and sobbing uncontrollably. Her lips and one eye were swelling, and blood trickled down her chin. Her back was scratched and her ribs and breasts were badly bruised.

“Don’t be afraid,” Saber said, handing the woman the remnants of her clothing. “I am a friend. It’s all over now. I’ll take you somewhere where you will be safe and tend your wounds.”

The woman continued to cry.

“I know that I look strange to you. I am a labor and defense unit. I am here to protect you, to keep you from harm.”

“Well, who the hell asked you for help?” she screamed.

“You were being injured. Naturally I came to your assistance.” The woman’s reaction wasn’t what the LDU had expected.

“God damn you!” she shouted. “It was just getting good!”

Suddenly a ten-pound rock bounced off Saber’s back. “Yeah, you damned animal,” the man yelled. “Get out!”

Saber retreated, unsure as to what the correct course of action was. He stopped to engage in a meaningful conversation and was struck by a rock thrown by the woman.

A very confused labor and defense unit abandoned the valley.

Winnie found a small, shady canyon a few hundred yards from the road and settled down for the night. Liebchen was sleeping normally, and Dirk, who never slept completely, but sequentially took his brains offline, crouched near her.

Dirk. Mukta here, an LDU in Utah thought.

Dirk here. What do you need?

Mukta here. What is a soul and do we have one?

Dirk here. A soul is supposedly a part of an entity that persists after physical death. Its existence is an interesting question. Has it anything to do with the present emergency?

Mukta here. I’m with a religious community that is in obvious need of my assistance. But they’ll refuse my help unless I have a soul.

Dirk here. The existence of your soul depends on your socioreligious frame of reference. The western religions generally grant souls only to human beings. They’ll be two hundred years deciding on intelligent engineered life forms. The eastern religions, especially Buddhism and Hinduism, definitely grant souls to nonhumans. The answer to your question is yes and no.

Mukta here. Not good enough. I need a definite answer. These people have a western frame of reference.

Dirk here. Well, in the Norse religion, any being that died with a weapon in its hand went to Valhalla, which logically presupposes a soul. Since each LDU always has a weapon in each hand, or at least each forearm, we will logically die with it there. Therefore all LDUs have souls.

Mukta here. Thanks. Out.

Dirk. Birchi here. Got time for another one?

Dirk here. Shoot.

Birchi here. I was in a successful action two hours ago, but I don’t understand why I was successful.

Dirk here. So?

Birchi here. In a marble quarry, I encountered two groups of young adult human males fighting. The negro group, being larger, was inflicting serious damage on the Caucasian group. I broke up the conflict quickly, there being only forty-six humans involved, but I was forced to do considerably more damage to the numerically superior negro group than to the Caucasians.