Symbios by Jack Kilborn Read Free Book Online Page B

taste like.
    Like that synthetic meat, locked away in the ship’s pantry?
    I’ve never had real meat. Could never afford it. My father had a cat steak once, and said it was delicious. My grandfather remembers when he was young and there were still a few cows left, and he used to get meat on holidays.
    What do these little dog people taste like?
    If I wanted to I could wipe out the entire village in just a few minutes. They have no weapons. They don’t move very fast. Their teeth are rounded. I could kill their entire population and not even get scratched.
    But I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.
    Voice Module 199573
    Record Mode:
    I ate the Brain today.
    I thought it would be rotten, but there was no decay at all. I have a hypothesis why. Decay is caused by bacteria, and perhaps this world has none.
    I boiled the Brain, picked out the glass shards, and ate with my eyes closed, trying not to think about what it was.
    But I did think about it.
    It shouldn’t matter. After all, the Brain had ceased operation. Tissue is tissue.
    Even if the tissue is human.
    Besides, the volunteers who sign up for the Organic Processor Program are elderly, near the ends of their lives. Running a starship gave a brain donor dozens of extra years of sentience, of life.
    And, important point, this one did go mad and kill my crew and destroy my ship.
    It owed me.
    There wasn’t any taste to it. Not really. But when I was finished eating, I cried like a child.
    Not because of what I had done.
    But because I wanted more.
    Voice Module 199574
    Record Mode:
    I can’t eat an intelligent life form. Not that the dog people are particularly intelligent. No tools, no clothing, no artificial shelter, though they do have a rudimentary form of communication. I even understand some of their words now.
    I can’t eat things that speak.
    But all I’ve consumed in the past fifteen days were two shoe laces and a soggy, very small Brain.
    I have a few solar matches left. I could spit-roast one of these doggies using a piece of pipe.
    What did my grandfather call it? A barbeque.
    The village has named me. When I come by, they yip out something that sounds like “Griimmm!”
    So to the dog people I am Grim.
    They sleep next to me and hug my legs and smile like babies.
    Please let a rescue ship find me tonight, so I don’t have to do what I’m planning to do.
    Voice Module 199575
    Record Mode:
    I ate one.
    When I awoke this morning I had such a single-mindedness, such a raw craving to eat, that I didn’t even try to fight it.
    I went to the dog people’s village, picked up the nearest one, and as it yipped “Griiimmm!” with a smile on its face, I broke its neck.
    I didn’t wait around to see what the others did. I just ran back to ship, drooling like a baby.
    Then I skinned the little dog person with a paring knife.
    It was delicious.
    Roasted over an open fire. Cooked to perfection. I only left the bones.
    When I was done, the feeling was euphoric. I was sated. I was satisfied.
    I smacked my lips and patted my stomach and knew how grandfather must have felt. Real meat was amazing. It made the synthetic stuff seem like garbage.
    Then I noticed all of dog people around me.
    They stared, their eyes accusatory and sad. And they began to cry. Howling cries, with tears.
    When I realized what I had done, I cried too.
    Voice Module 195576
    Record Mode:
    Two months on this damn planet, and that’s according to these sixty hour days, so it’s more like half a year. I haven’t recorded anything in a while, because I haven’t wanted to think about what I’ve been doing.
    I’ve eaten fifty-four dog people so far.
    I’ve stopped losing weight, but I can count my ribs through my shirt. One a day isn’t enough nourishment for a man my size.
    I try to make it enough. I have to ration. And not because of any moral reason.
    The population is dwindling.
    I don’t know why they haven’t run away. Packed up and left.
    But they haven’t.
    They don’t fear me. Maybe