A Different Flesh
Harry Turtledove
 1610: At Jamestown colony, Edward Wingfield must rescue his infant daughter from the tribe of wild sims who kidnapped her. 1661: The story is made up of a series of entries in Samuel Pepys's diary. Pepys owns several sims and contemplates the origin of the species. By watching these sims, as well as observing various other animals found in North America, Pepys develops the theory of evolution. Only one of the diary's entries in the story has a corresponding entry in the real diary Pepys kept. 1691: Thomas Kenton, a scout from Virginia and descendant of Edward Wingfield, and his sim companion, Charles, explore the interior of North America. Kenton is after the teeth of the spearfang cats that populate the area. He is captured by a group of wild sims, and must hope that Charles will rescue him. 1782: Steam-driven trains first appear, and a race is held with one of the hairy elephant-pulled trains they threaten to replace. 1804: A house-slave named Jeremiah goes on trial for running away, and his attorney presents the argument that with sims, there is no reason for human beings to enslave other human beings. They are successful and the court's decision leads to the emancipation of all human slaves. 1812: Henry Quick, a trapper in the Rockies, is wounded by a bear and is nursed back to health by sims. While there, he ends up impregnating one of the sims, resulting in a Sim-Human hybrid. 1988: A group of sim's rights activists, including a female descendant of Henry Quick, protesting experimentation on sims "rescue" Matt, a sim infected with HIV, from a medical lab but fail to take enough HIV inhibitor, which is medicine that suppresses the effects of HIV/AIDS. Eventually, this forces the activists to return Matt to the researchers.