From the article archive
World A Week: Herbivorous
I woke on something soft, and from the feel of the edge around me, rather bed-like. Paranoia awoke, and do not be getting that tolerant to idiots look, my friend. If you knew how many times I had woken on a table about to be a medical experiment, or implanted with a control device, or burned at the stake, you would be paranoid too.
My Lekostian cyberware functioned so I was effectively a fifth degree black-belt crossed with an Olympic weight-lifter on steroids, and I had the added advantage of almost a dozen tiny war toys inbuilt.
My hearing isolated noises, and the very smart(which means it does not work that often in most worlds) software listened, and confirmed that the sounds were breathing. Non-standard. I checked deeper because Humans were non-standard to the Lekostian Star Empire. Non-human, as well, the software informed me sulkily inside my head.
So I leapt up, and prepared to spring at the two rather massive figures. Each was over eight feet tall, and at least a thousand pounds. But before I could pound them into unconsciousness, they both folded like a checkerboard.
Puzzled, I did not stay to examine them, but I ran out of a huge doorway in the general direction of my stuff. We versers, worldwalkers, gatesmen, can sense the stuff we brought with us.
I saw several more of these mountainous figures with dangerous looking alien mechanical devices in their hands. Desperately, I sprinted toward them to close to hand-to-hand combat range. None of the tiny ranged weapons I had implanted in my body were suited to taking out something the size of an overgrown bull(at least the non-broken ones were not. It was kind-of hard to take the cyberware back for repairs since I had never been back to that world, yet. I intended to remedy that error about letting things slide as soon as possible.
The crew of three folded, and I vaulted them. It could not be that they were being affected by a virus because versing out cured you of such.
Beyond them, I saw a room full of them, a cafeteria it seemed with heavy shield-sized salads all around. Any of the dozens could have taken my head off with a thrown plate, or crushed me with a chair.
I got ready to fight and die because I was so not going to be disected while alive again. The nearest to me folded, and then others beyond them started falling with me as the obvious epicenter of the effect.
An elderly being, supported on both sides by beings who looked like they could bend an I-beam, croaked a few words as he came out of a door on the far side of the cafeteria.
"Please, stop being mean."
"Mean, buddy, you have not seen anything yet."
More fell.
"Stop."
"Not while you got me lined up for a little medical experiment."
"What are you talking about?"
"Y'know, cut me open, dope me with drugs, see what makes the weird looking alien tick?"
Around the room, about half the lot fell into their salads.
"That would hurt, wouldn't it?" The elderly leader-type asked me.
"Yeah, it would. Which is why I am not going to let you do it. So who wants some? Come and get it."
"Wants what, alien? You are very perplexing, very mean creature."
"Me? You are the one who is going to dice me up for sausage?"
"No, and no. Stop alien, you hurt us. We invite you into our home, and offer you a place to sleep out of the rain in which you were sleeping, and then you come and stink bad thoughts of blood and pain at us. You hurt us, I am sorry to have to tell you. If you like the rain that much, we will be glad to let you sleep in it all the time. We are sorry to have offended you, but please, please stop being mean."
A flashing light produced inside my optic nerve finally got my attention as I calmed down. The Lekostian drug, H43, is useful for a lot of things in Lekostians, but primarily in humans it produces rampant paranoia. Seems my software dumped a load into my bloodstream for reasons currently undetermined.
I looked at the tables filled with rabbit food.
"So you are psis?" I got an affirmative. "You are herbivorous?" That got me a puzzled look and a question.
"Is there any other way to be?"
I dodged the question not wanting to go into war, murder, cannibalism, and the eating of a nice tasty hamburger right at the moment.
"Will these people be all right?" I asked as I pointed at my victims scattered about the cafeteria.
"Yes, if they get rest and a peaceful week to graze in their own private gardens. And no more horrifying images from your mind."
I nodded, and attempted to think pink, fuzzy thoughts.
"Can you determine why this device in my head dumped a chemical in me at this time when I did not tell it to do so?"
They looked inside my body and inside the software. The herbivores wondered at the design, and they puzzled over what possible use my retractable claws could have.(Digging for legumes was their favorite theory.) Finally, they decided that my cyberware had done so 'because every Lekostian needed such a dose every ten years.' Despite my status in the central database as a non-normal, all the separate databases in my cyberware had not gotten the memo.
I snarled nasty thoughts at the Lekostians, and the whole medical team passed out.
When they woke, I apologized profusely, but I understood why they were a little leery of me. They suggested lunch alone.
So, I faced a mound of lettuce and other vegetables. Luckily, I had brought some blue cheese, and was able to make a good dressing.
I lived there for some time among these gentle giants with their star-spanning civilization, and their psionic gifts, and gradually I forgot what meat tasted like.
That is until, I was cleaning out my backpack, and came across a dented can of wieners. It did not look like it had expanded, I told myself, as I feverishly opened it. Frankly, I was a little out of my mind. I liked it here, but I did not belong, or fit in.
Shortly thereafter, Salmonella made itself known. And when the doctors came for me, well, I could not tell them I had eaten meat. It would probably kill them. So, I versed out.
Tadeusz
My Lekostian cyberware functioned so I was effectively a fifth degree black-belt crossed with an Olympic weight-lifter on steroids, and I had the added advantage of almost a dozen tiny war toys inbuilt.
My hearing isolated noises, and the very smart(which means it does not work that often in most worlds) software listened, and confirmed that the sounds were breathing. Non-standard. I checked deeper because Humans were non-standard to the Lekostian Star Empire. Non-human, as well, the software informed me sulkily inside my head.
So I leapt up, and prepared to spring at the two rather massive figures. Each was over eight feet tall, and at least a thousand pounds. But before I could pound them into unconsciousness, they both folded like a checkerboard.
Puzzled, I did not stay to examine them, but I ran out of a huge doorway in the general direction of my stuff. We versers, worldwalkers, gatesmen, can sense the stuff we brought with us.
I saw several more of these mountainous figures with dangerous looking alien mechanical devices in their hands. Desperately, I sprinted toward them to close to hand-to-hand combat range. None of the tiny ranged weapons I had implanted in my body were suited to taking out something the size of an overgrown bull(at least the non-broken ones were not. It was kind-of hard to take the cyberware back for repairs since I had never been back to that world, yet. I intended to remedy that error about letting things slide as soon as possible.
The crew of three folded, and I vaulted them. It could not be that they were being affected by a virus because versing out cured you of such.
Beyond them, I saw a room full of them, a cafeteria it seemed with heavy shield-sized salads all around. Any of the dozens could have taken my head off with a thrown plate, or crushed me with a chair.
I got ready to fight and die because I was so not going to be disected while alive again. The nearest to me folded, and then others beyond them started falling with me as the obvious epicenter of the effect.
An elderly being, supported on both sides by beings who looked like they could bend an I-beam, croaked a few words as he came out of a door on the far side of the cafeteria.
"Please, stop being mean."
"Mean, buddy, you have not seen anything yet."
More fell.
"Stop."
"Not while you got me lined up for a little medical experiment."
"What are you talking about?"
"Y'know, cut me open, dope me with drugs, see what makes the weird looking alien tick?"
Around the room, about half the lot fell into their salads.
"That would hurt, wouldn't it?" The elderly leader-type asked me.
"Yeah, it would. Which is why I am not going to let you do it. So who wants some? Come and get it."
"Wants what, alien? You are very perplexing, very mean creature."
"Me? You are the one who is going to dice me up for sausage?"
"No, and no. Stop alien, you hurt us. We invite you into our home, and offer you a place to sleep out of the rain in which you were sleeping, and then you come and stink bad thoughts of blood and pain at us. You hurt us, I am sorry to have to tell you. If you like the rain that much, we will be glad to let you sleep in it all the time. We are sorry to have offended you, but please, please stop being mean."
A flashing light produced inside my optic nerve finally got my attention as I calmed down. The Lekostian drug, H43, is useful for a lot of things in Lekostians, but primarily in humans it produces rampant paranoia. Seems my software dumped a load into my bloodstream for reasons currently undetermined.
I looked at the tables filled with rabbit food.
"So you are psis?" I got an affirmative. "You are herbivorous?" That got me a puzzled look and a question.
"Is there any other way to be?"
I dodged the question not wanting to go into war, murder, cannibalism, and the eating of a nice tasty hamburger right at the moment.
"Will these people be all right?" I asked as I pointed at my victims scattered about the cafeteria.
"Yes, if they get rest and a peaceful week to graze in their own private gardens. And no more horrifying images from your mind."
I nodded, and attempted to think pink, fuzzy thoughts.
"Can you determine why this device in my head dumped a chemical in me at this time when I did not tell it to do so?"
They looked inside my body and inside the software. The herbivores wondered at the design, and they puzzled over what possible use my retractable claws could have.(Digging for legumes was their favorite theory.) Finally, they decided that my cyberware had done so 'because every Lekostian needed such a dose every ten years.' Despite my status in the central database as a non-normal, all the separate databases in my cyberware had not gotten the memo.
I snarled nasty thoughts at the Lekostians, and the whole medical team passed out.
When they woke, I apologized profusely, but I understood why they were a little leery of me. They suggested lunch alone.
So, I faced a mound of lettuce and other vegetables. Luckily, I had brought some blue cheese, and was able to make a good dressing.
I lived there for some time among these gentle giants with their star-spanning civilization, and their psionic gifts, and gradually I forgot what meat tasted like.
That is until, I was cleaning out my backpack, and came across a dented can of wieners. It did not look like it had expanded, I told myself, as I feverishly opened it. Frankly, I was a little out of my mind. I liked it here, but I did not belong, or fit in.
Shortly thereafter, Salmonella made itself known. And when the doctors came for me, well, I could not tell them I had eaten meat. It would probably kill them. So, I versed out.
Tadeusz
Recovered from the Gaming Outpost database backup. Original wording is preserved; damaged punctuation and presentation markup have been repaired. Historical links without a local match point to the Internet Archive.