The Trolley Problem
by Tom Mazanec

   Dermont Clawson continued his lecture in the science class of the Fishport Human-Yinglet School. The twenty human children and the
twelve yinglets paid attention, at least as well as children and yinglets are able to.
   "Our local solar constant is about nine percent higher than that of Terra, about what Terra's will be in 700 million years, or 
800 million Terran years. Terra's sun is type 7D, unlike our sun's 7A, or in The Terran's system G2 as opposed to G0. With the higher 
insolation we have an equatorial climate zone, the Hypsitropical, uninhabitable by humans. Some hotter locations are sometimes even
too hot for ying- CHEETA! THAT IS THE THIRD TIME I WARNED YOU! NO CLAMS AT RECESS!"
   Cheeta whined and bowed his long, flexible neck. His ears drooped down sadly. Like any yinglet he loved clams. Mr. Clawson continued:
"In addition, Terra has only one moon, as opposed to our two, and -" Just then, a strange masked man barged into the classroom and
threw a burning bottle at the teacher, yelling "BURN SCAV-LOVER!!"

***********************************************************************************************************************************

   Kodos was passing the school building when he saw several masked humans run out of the doors, accompanied by clouds of smoke.
He quickly dropped his big bag of mail and ran to the school. The masked humans scattered across the vicinity, followed by children,
yinglets and several adult humans. One had badly burned legs but was running on sheer adrenalin. "Alina and Cheeta are still inside!"
Kodos immediately took a deep breath and ran into the smoke clouded, furnace hot school on all fours.
   He was lucky. The first room he ran into he could just hear the crying of human and yinglet voices over the noise of the flames. 
Kodos barged into the room and saw a little human girl and a small yinglet clutching each other in a corner. "Come come must leave!"
The little people just cried the louder.
   Kodos shook his head and made a decision. He grabbed the yinglet, picked him up in his mail bag strengthend arms and made for the door.
The yinglet was coughing heavily, and his fur seemed singed on his side, but he was alive.
   Kodos turned around and headed back to the door. But the flames had grown markedly in just those few moments. Every human adult
had run out, and he could not get back in. Only then did he realize that his own arms and legs were blistered by the heat.

**********************************************************************************************************************************

   Alina Coran had died of smoke inhalation and burns. She was the only fatality of the fire, but the building was a complete loss.
Kodos spent the next couple days being interviewed by reporters for televison and dataweaves on the Tapestry while his burns healed.
But then he made use of the Enclave's public terminals. Along with articles asking "Will You be Able to View the Tapestry With 
Your Pocketphone Next Year?" and ads for New Years presents were references to his rescue. And not all, or even most, of them favorable.
One editorial pointed out that he had extended the life of a yinglet by only twenty or so years, while the little girl could
have potentially lived for eighty or even ninety years. Another said he had no intention of saving the girl at all...that he
was only interested in saving fellow "scavs". But he had tried to go back in to rescue the girl...it was too late. It was just too late.
   Kodos began to cry. "What is the matter, Kodos? You are a hero!" called out Patriarch Beltan.
   "I did not save Alinda. People are saying I did it on purpose. I wanted to save both, but she was bigger and I did not know if I could."
   "You did the right thing, Kodos. It is a miracle she was the only one killed. And she is safe Beyond the Veil now."
   "They say I only care about yinglets like me. That I am just a scav. That I should have let Cheeta die instead of Alina."
   Patriarch Beltan carefully put his four digited hand on Kodos' shoulder, avoiding the bandaged area. "You only had time to save one.
If a small, weak human had entered the school and tried to save them, I am sure he would have done the same. Alina weighed four
or five times what Cheeta did. You are a credit to the Enclave. You will make a fine Patriarch someday. Maybe even a Patriarch of Life
like me."
   Kodos subsided into sniffles and hiccups. "Why are humans getting so angy with us now. It was not like this a couple years ago.
It was bad, but not this bad."
   "I think it is First Contact. We are being visited by a starship as big as a hundred Enclaves that came here in a heartbeat
from a world so far away that its sun can only be seen by our largest telescopes. That world, Terra or, as it calls itself, Earth
only has one species of thinking people on it, instead of seven like us. And that species is human. So the humans here think they 
are special. And not all humans here are that way."
   All this time a susurration had been growing in the background. Beltan and Kodos finally heard it. They ran out to see what
was going on. There was a large crowd outside the Enclave, chanting "HUMANS FIRST!" while waving flags with the Humanity First
monogram symbol. A scarecrow yinglet effigy hung on a hastily constructed gibbet.  
   Kodos wished he had run back into the school and died there. 

This story is set in the universe of Valsaria's Out-Of-Placers webcomic https://www.valsalia.com/, some six hundred years after the setting.