Read Online Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert J. Sawyer
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late-night TV. Still, when he came across a nature documentary, he paused. You never knew when some topless African woman was going to wander into the scene.
He saw a female lion stalking a herd of zebras beside a water hole. The lion’s tawny hide was almost invisible in the tall yellow grasses. There were hundreds of zebras, but she was interested only in the animals at the margin. The narrator spoke in hushed tones, like the commentator on his dad’s golf shows, as if words added long after the footage was shot could somehow disturb the unfolding of the scene. “The lioness looks for a straggler,” he said. “She wants to pick out a weak member of the herd.”
Kyle sat up; this was much more vivid than the ancient, grainy Wild Kingdom episodes he’d seen before.
The lion continued to stalk. The background noises consisted of zebra hooves falling on baked earth, the rustling of grass, the calls of birds, and the droning of insects. The shadows were short, hugging the animals’ legs like shy toddlers clutching their parents.
Suddenly the lion surged forward, legs pumping, mouth hanging wide open. She leaped onto a zebra’s haunch, biting deeply into it. The other zebras began to gallop away, clouds of dust rising in their wake, the footfalls like thunder. Birds wheeled into flight, squawking loudly.
The attacked animal now had stripes of red running between its black and white ones. It fell to its knees, propelled down by the impact of the lion. The blood mixed with the parched soil, forming a maroon-colored mud. The lion was hungry, or at least thirsty, and it bit deeply into the zebra’s flesh again, scooping out a wet mound of muscle and connective tissue. All the while, the zebra’s head continued to move and its eyelids beat up and down.
The poor thing was alive, thought Kyle. It’s bleeding all over the savannah, it’s about to be eaten, and it’s still alive.
A zebra. Genus Equus, they’d said in science class. Just like a horse.
Kyle had done some riding at summer camp. He knew how intelligent horses were, how sensitive they were, how feeling they were. A zebra couldn’t be that different. The animal had to be in agony, had to be panicked, had to be terrified.
And it hit him. Fifteen years old, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
It wasn’t just this zebra, of course. It was almost all zebras—and Thomson’s gazelles and wildebeests and giraffes.
And it wasn’t just Africa.
It was almost all prey animals anywhere in the world.
Animals didn’t die of old age. They didn’t quietly expire after long, pleasant lives. They didn’t pass on unaided.
No.
They were torn apart, often limb from limb, hemorrhaging severely, usually still conscious, still aware, still sensing.
Death was a horrible, vicious act, almost without exception. Kyle’s grandfather had passed away the year before. Kyle had never really thought about getting old himself, but suddenly the litany of terms he’d heard his parents bat about during Granddad’s illness came back to him.
Heart disease.
Osteoporosis.
Prostate cancer.
Cataracts.
Senility.
Throughout all of history, most people had died horrible deaths, too. Humans had generally not lived long enough to experience old age; evolution, which, as he’d learned in school, had fine-tuned so much of human physiology, had simply had no opportunity to address these problems because almost no one in previous generations had lived long enough to experience them.
The zebra gutted by the lion.
The rat swallowed whole by the snake.
The paralyzed insect that felt itself being eaten alive from within by implanted larvae.
All of them surely aware of what was happening to them.
All of them tortured.
No quick deaths.
No merciful deaths.
Kyle had put down the remote after that, his interest in catching a glimpse of naked breasts gone. He’d gone to bed, but had lain awake for hours.
From that night on, whenever he tried to think of God, he found himself thinking
He saw a female lion stalking a herd of zebras beside a water hole. The lion’s tawny hide was almost invisible in the tall yellow grasses. There were hundreds of zebras, but she was interested only in the animals at the margin. The narrator spoke in hushed tones, like the commentator on his dad’s golf shows, as if words added long after the footage was shot could somehow disturb the unfolding of the scene. “The lioness looks for a straggler,” he said. “She wants to pick out a weak member of the herd.”
Kyle sat up; this was much more vivid than the ancient, grainy Wild Kingdom episodes he’d seen before.
The lion continued to stalk. The background noises consisted of zebra hooves falling on baked earth, the rustling of grass, the calls of birds, and the droning of insects. The shadows were short, hugging the animals’ legs like shy toddlers clutching their parents.
Suddenly the lion surged forward, legs pumping, mouth hanging wide open. She leaped onto a zebra’s haunch, biting deeply into it. The other zebras began to gallop away, clouds of dust rising in their wake, the footfalls like thunder. Birds wheeled into flight, squawking loudly.
The attacked animal now had stripes of red running between its black and white ones. It fell to its knees, propelled down by the impact of the lion. The blood mixed with the parched soil, forming a maroon-colored mud. The lion was hungry, or at least thirsty, and it bit deeply into the zebra’s flesh again, scooping out a wet mound of muscle and connective tissue. All the while, the zebra’s head continued to move and its eyelids beat up and down.
The poor thing was alive, thought Kyle. It’s bleeding all over the savannah, it’s about to be eaten, and it’s still alive.
A zebra. Genus Equus, they’d said in science class. Just like a horse.
Kyle had done some riding at summer camp. He knew how intelligent horses were, how sensitive they were, how feeling they were. A zebra couldn’t be that different. The animal had to be in agony, had to be panicked, had to be terrified.
And it hit him. Fifteen years old, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
It wasn’t just this zebra, of course. It was almost all zebras—and Thomson’s gazelles and wildebeests and giraffes.
And it wasn’t just Africa.
It was almost all prey animals anywhere in the world.
Animals didn’t die of old age. They didn’t quietly expire after long, pleasant lives. They didn’t pass on unaided.
No.
They were torn apart, often limb from limb, hemorrhaging severely, usually still conscious, still aware, still sensing.
Death was a horrible, vicious act, almost without exception. Kyle’s grandfather had passed away the year before. Kyle had never really thought about getting old himself, but suddenly the litany of terms he’d heard his parents bat about during Granddad’s illness came back to him.
Heart disease.
Osteoporosis.
Prostate cancer.
Cataracts.
Senility.
Throughout all of history, most people had died horrible deaths, too. Humans had generally not lived long enough to experience old age; evolution, which, as he’d learned in school, had fine-tuned so much of human physiology, had simply had no opportunity to address these problems because almost no one in previous generations had lived long enough to experience them.
The zebra gutted by the lion.
The rat swallowed whole by the snake.
The paralyzed insect that felt itself being eaten alive from within by implanted larvae.
All of them surely aware of what was happening to them.
All of them tortured.
No quick deaths.
No merciful deaths.
Kyle had put down the remote after that, his interest in catching a glimpse of naked breasts gone. He’d gone to bed, but had lain awake for hours.
From that night on, whenever he tried to think of God, he found himself thinking
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