SOLVED. Golden age science fiction short story, human colony on another planet, shepherd/chef selects woman's breast to cook and serve to aliens. Maimed flee from him. [s]

[captainsharonpants]

Somewhere along the line an old roommate threw out my very battered collection of vintage (50s-70s) science fiction "magazines"--mostly Asimov's and Sci Fi/Fantasy. I'm looking to put together a science fiction literature course, and I want to dig up the one story out of that whole collection that has stuck with me through the years, but I can't remember the title or author (though I'm almost positive it was one of the greats like Bradbury or Heinlein).

I know the plot of the story, though the protagonist was unnamed--most of the characters functioned in allegorical roles.

Human colony on another planet, giant aliens have landed their palace just outside the colony and established their rule (I think they're referred to by another allegorical name like The Monarchs), and the story follows a man in the village who acts as their shepherd and chef. It opens with him walking into the village carrying his special tools, the various maimed people fleeing him, and his selecting of a nursing mother for the day's main dish. He uses a stun rod to paralyze her, cuts off her breast, cooks it in its own milk and serves it up to the aliens for dinner.

Of course the colony is liberated, and the man is punished--and it's a bit "Johnny Got His Gun": the human authorities find him guilty of obscene crimes but leave it up to the colonists to punish him appropriately, and they do so to the letter. Which means they maim him as he maimed them. There is a yearly holiday where the villagers walk through to view him lying in his hammock.

Since we get the story primarily from his perspective, the tension here is the conflict in his view of his actions (saving the lives of the people at the expense of their wholeness--he seems to have been responsible for teaching the aliens husbandry) and the way the villagers see him (as a monster responsible for their prolonged torture).


Ahhh please help!

[Justanotherbiblophile]

I've totally read this, but drawing a complete blank like you.

It is however, NOT "To Serve Man" by Damon Knight - which reveals that (view spoiler)[the alien's book is a cookbook for human meat (hide spoiler)]

[caracal-eyes]

By Orson Scott Card - "Kingsmeat." Appears in Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card.

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Damn, you just beat me :P

[Andy]

"Kingsmeat" was first published in the Analog Yearbook, May 1978 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2...

[captainsharonpants]

That's the one! You guys are seriously my favorite people right now; I swear I've been looking for this story on and off for years.

I'm also glad I wasn't imagining things, since I think OSC counts as a sci-fi great (and he's in love with the allegory), and it really was in an Analog edition. A slightly newer one than I thought, but I had so many I'm not surprised.

Muahaha. Now to subject my college frosh to the joys of cooking people...