"Kingsmeat" is a short story by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...

. It appears in his short story collections Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories

Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories

Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Orson Scott Card. Although not purely science fiction and definitely not hard science fiction, the book contains stories that have a futuristic angle or are purely works of fantasy set in current times...

and Maps in a Mirror

Maps in a Mirror

Maps in a Mirror is a collection of short stories by Orson Scott Card. Like Card's novels, most of the stories have a science fiction or fantasy theme...

. It was first published in the Analog Yearbook (1978) edited by Ben Bova

Ben Bova

Benjamin William Bova is an American science-fiction author and editor. He is the recipient of six Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor for his work at Analog Science Fiction in the 1970's.-Personal life:...

.

Plot summary

A human colony world is taken over by an alien breeding couple. Under normal circumstances, the aliens would immediately consume all of the humans. One human (the Shepherd) manages to tame them by feeding them non-essential bits of his fellow colonists. This forestalls the human's doom for several years until they are rescued by offworld astronauts. The astronauts try to convince the people of the planet that the Shepherd is the only reason they survived, but the colonists retaliate by cutting off the Shepherd's limbs.

External links

• The official Orson Scott Card website