Borders of Infinity

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Besides, eventually I’ll run out of unreplaced bones. By the time I’m thirty I could be entirely plastic.” Glumly, Miles considered this possibility. If more than half of him became spare parts, could he be declared legally dead? Would he ever walk into a prosthetics manufacturing plant and cry, “Mother!”? Were the medical sedatives making him just a little spacey . . . ?

But it does matter, thought Miles. Peace to you, small lady, after our rude invasions. I will give you a better sacrifice, I swear by my word as Vorkosigan. And the smoke of that burning will rise and be seen from one end of these mountains to the other.

The fundamental principle was clear; the spirit was to be preferred over the letter, truth over technicalities. Precedent was held subordinate to the judgment of the man on the spot. Alas, the man on the spot was himself. There was no refuge for him in automated rules, no hiding behind the law says

How our legal system USED to be. Not anymore.

It must be, Miles thought, akin to the same drive that used to propel men to climb sheer rock faces without an antigrav belt, or jump out of ancient aircraft with nothing to stop them going splat but a wad of silk cloth. He felt the fascination rising in him, the death-defying laugh.

I tried to evade it for a long time, but God finds ways of dealing with draft dodgers.”

“It’s true,” agreed Oliver, “that if your religion failed to deliver a miracle, that a human sacrifice would certainly follow.” “Ah . . . quite,” Miles gulped. “You are a man of acute insight.” “That’s not an insight,” said Oliver. “That’s a personal guarantee.”

when I present the bill for this expanded operation.

“Did it again, did you?” muttered the surgeon. “I’d think you’d learn . . .” A pass with the medical stunner, and Miles’s swollen hand disappeared

The soldier saluted and marched off. Ah, the pleasure again of being able to give a command without having to follow it up with a supporting theological argument.

“The loonies who sought a glorious death in battle found it very early on. This rapidly cleared the chain of command of the accumulated fools.