That story was called “The Cold Soutions”. The pilot also amputated the kids legs. (In this story the stowaway was a child.) He was young enough for them to be regenerated. The pilot was not.
That story is absolutely horrible.
I recall a short story where humans use a form of fast interstellar travel called “metric surfing”, that works by creating new spacetime behind the spacecraft. It turns out that this is the actual reason for the runaway expansion of the universe; billions of spacefaring races across the universe using a drive that makes more spacetime. There are slower, more limited alternatives…but in the choice between immediate convenience that dooms the universal to dispersal in the long run and greater difficulty and inconvenience now, virtually every race chooses the former option and leaves the consequences for future generations to deal with.
The metaphor for certain modern behaviors is rather obvious.
In at least some cases they also find out that they are the unlucky copy who is on a suicide mission.
Ah, yes. A fresh take on Omelas. The sort of story that, if an earnest young newcomer writes it, it never makes it out of the slush pile (rightly, I think). But if a regular (published) contributor to the “professional” rate outlets writes it, not only does it get published in Clarkesworld Magazine (a feat in and of itself to the people who never make it out of the slush pile), it gets nominated for a Hugo. Because of course it does.
Like writing a story in second person or not naming your main character: one of those things that the people going into the slush pile are warned to avoid like the plague if they ever want to get out, and yet when established authors do it, they are hailed as gutsy and innovative. Who ever knew you could write something like that!
And then another kid gets thrown into the slush pile and never makes it out, because all the space in The Amazing Omelastories Magazine is devoted to the same damn authors rehashing or doing new takes on the same damn stories. Such a conundrum. Perhaps even an ethical conundrum in science fiction (just not in the way I think the thread means it—it’s about how stories get published, not the stories themselves).
Oh damn. I felt that one.
It’s good bit it is also very: “I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards”.
In ST:DS9 Section 31 developed the morphogenic virus to kill all the Founders. The good guys decide to give them the cure. It came back to bite everyone in the ass in Picard.