Mike Stone

The Rats and the Saps Mike Stone

The local robot colony had received reports over the QEB that another human species had appeared near the colony in Draco, of all places. Both human species lived on Draco.763.3b, but in different sectors of the planet. The robots reported that there did not appear to be any kind of sexual commingling between the two groups. Wherever there was competition between them for scarce resources on that impoverished world the new species seemed to beat out the old. The robots called the new species rationals since that seemed to be their dominant characteristic. Robots everywhere were amazed that rationality could have evolved spontaneously as a genetic mutation among biological entities. This tended to lend credence to theories of quantum evolution over theories of biological evolution. Sapiens differentiated the new species on the basis of skin color. The skin pigment of the new human species was indigo blue. The rationals pretty much stayed to themselves. Neither the Sapiens nor their possessions seemed to hold any attraction for the rationals. The opposite was hardly the case. The Sapiens proved to be intensely jealous of the rationals, their possessions, their successes, and their imperturbability. The Sapiens tried to attack and ambush the rationals, but every time the rationals seemed to side-step them easily. Eventually ? well, read the book to find out about the fate of our distant relatives.