

Boris TZAPRENKO

The Visitor

http://ilsera.com/b/le-visiteur/

Translated from French by

Paul Arthur Théorêt

ISBN: 9782366251081

Copyright © 2016 Boris TZAPRENKO

All rights reserved.

Registered with S. N. A. C.

Text protected under international laws and treaties

governing authorship rights.

(001160904)

http://ilsera.com

Warning:

Any resemblance to real persons that may be found is totally fortuitous. It is to be considered as purely coincidental.

To the author who opened my eyes for which I am forever grateful.

# Introductory remark

Compared to the majority of my work, (I am thinking of the ''Il sera ...'' series in particular), it focuses much more on the meaning of the story rather than on scientific and technical aspects. The descriptions of phenomena and objects, natural or artificial, have much less importance. Thus, for example: what in this story looks like an apple will be called "Apple" and what functions like a car will be called "Car".

*

Somewhere in space and in time, on the planet Teruma orbiting a star called Denalbara.

# Eyes of Forest Gods

Etos was one of the few members of his species still living in the wild on his planet. He raised his head to the spectacle of the stars. They were much easier to see from the clearing, where he was at this moment, than in the thickness of the forest where his kind gathered not very far away. He had only a very vague notion of what all these tiny bright points could be, but having often observed them, he had formed a few ideas about them.

First, from the consistency of distribution and light, he was convinced that they were eternal. Many, he recognized. Never did they dim except for a very rare few; never did they change position with one another.

Then, he deduced that since clouds could hide them, they were located higher up. Apparently, there was nothing above them, which was a second reason to give them his admiration.

He wasn't able to say why, but he was convinced that something coming from them may very well change the destiny of many. Maybe they were the eyes of forest gods, he said to himself.

Mahisa's lovely voice calling him brought him out of his contemplation. He ran to join her.

# He Stopped and Quickly Turned

How could've Akkal suspected that with a single tiny finger movement, he was about to upset the course of his own existence? He slowly walked on the soft carpet of dead leaves, gun in hand. He loved the scents that were given off.

These moments of solitude did a world of good for him. They enabled him to empty his mind of his everyday concerns. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency... ever more efficiency! To consistently produce more meat and milk at ever-lower prices. Such was his daily obsession.

Here, the forest was dense. Many bushes limited the field of vision to a maximum of twenty meters. He needed to move stealthily to be able to surprise the game. And if he was lucky, he still had to aim and shoot quickly, because the target never remained exposed for any length of time in the thickness of vegetation.

A rustling!

He stopped and quickly turned to his right shouldering his weapon. But no animal appeared. He remained a time thus, finger on the trigger, heart beating, eyes searching the undergrowth. But nothing... Nothing other than the whooshing of a few breaths of wind stroking the bushes. Disappointed, he resumed his pace forward taking care not to crush a twig. To return empty-handed wouldn't bother him much; it wouldn't be the first time. Akkal was hunting more for taking his mind off things than anything else. Anyway, more than for the pleasure of killing! That's what he had told his daughter who criticized him for this activity. And also what he had said to his sister, who had went as far as calling him a murderer!

But it was especially his daughter feelings that counted for him. How excessive she was when she talked of this inconsequential distraction!, he said to himself, remembering their latest discussion.

A new rustle interrupted the course of his thoughts! Stopping, he held his breath. Something had moved in the grove right in front of him. He raised his weapon and waited. The sound in the foliage was heard again, moving quickly to the right. Akkal saw a shadow slip in that direction. He fired twice through the vegetation. The thicket let out a hoarse scream. Akkal crossed over through it quickly ready to fire again, because he knew that a wounded animal could be dangerous. The hunter discovered his game lying in the grass. It was a young male. It looked dead, but even so, Akkal was careful not to lower his guard. Bovs lived mostly in herds, so it was perhaps accompanied... Weapon still raised and finger on the trigger, the hunter listened carefully and searched through the vicinity. A muffled cry and foliage noise justified his care for vigilance.

So Akkal, still keeping his guard up, turned to the prostrate body. With the tip of his foot, he turned the bloody head towards him. This bov was a magnificent specimen. It would provide enough meat for a long time and his stuffed head would make a most beautiful trophy for his dining room.

Akkal was pleased. He was particularly well positioned to have all the meat he desired, but for the same reason he was also well positioned to know that it was preferable to avoid the produce from his intensive farming. His son and his wife would be glad. His daughter, vegetarian, and even vegan, would make no comment, but he expected to read her usual criticism in her eyes. Akkal hoped that her activism in favor of "animal liberation", as she would say, was a youthful whim, an adolescent's crisis, a way to demonstrate her new adult personality by taking a stand against her father. This fad was mostly born from the bad influence of her aunt. Hoping that she would get over this fancy some day, as soon as she turned really into an adult, he counted on the influence of her brother who sometimes made fun of her childish sentimentality for animal kind.

He fetched his phone from one of his pockets to call his son who was supposed to join him anyway:

"So, my son, where are you?"

"I'm here! Parking right now next to your truck. You're far away?"

"No. No more than three hundred meters. Follow the old mill trail, you will see me on the right."

"Okay, I'm coming!"

Akkal waited for Akkalo.

Listening carefully, he searched again a few shadows in the surroundings. He had experienced in the past an assault by a bov in fury; their bites could be very serious. But the surrounding bushes didn't seem to conceal any danger. He tried to move the carcass, but failed to move it even one centimeter. Terribly heavy, this beast! he said to himself. He sat on the inanimate body and waited, keeping his ears open and shotgun well in hand.

"Wow, nice prize!" exclaimed Akkalo upon seeing his father.

The latter did nothing to conceal his pride:

"Not bad! I'm quite happy, for sure."

"Well, you didn't even wait for me. I came for nothing."

"Except to help me drag this beast up the pick-up."

Each pulling a leg, it wasn't without difficulty that they dragged the bov over the grass.

"Phew!" gasped Akkal, "I don't know if it is me who's getting old or if this guy is particularly heavy, but it isn't easy to move!"

They had to rest several times while crossing the distance to the vehicles. They were parked on the side of the road that skirted the edge of the forest.

Finally emerging from the forest, they let go of the bov. After putting their weapons into their respective vehicles, they toiled to load inert body onto the back of Akkal's pick-up. After much effort, this was finally done, but it wouldn't have been possible if it had been a single kilo more heavy.

Then, a rustling startled them into quickly turning around. Something had moved in the bushes. Akkal opened his vehicle to retrieve his weapon, but then, aware that it was late and saying that it was surely just a marauding lizard, he sat behind its steering wheel. His son did the same.

# You Will Have to Take Care of It all by Yourself

Leaning on the window sill, Akkaliza was gazing dreamingly towards the horizon in front, when she noticed two small clouds of dust rising there. It had to be her father and brother coming back from their hunt. Which was confirmed when the vehicles became visible. She promised herself to try to avoid criticizing them, to control her temper and bitterness. I'll get much better results if I can cozy up to him, she said, thinking especially of her father.

When she was at her room's window like this, she made an effort to look towards the right, to the forest side; she tried not to see the huge building that spanned the left side. High, two thousand two hundred and twenty meters wide, this construction was five kilometers in length. It was a place hermetically closed to the public. No one was welcome. Especially reporters! But, as the boss's daughter, Akkaliza had opportunity to enter three times. Three times, she came back upset, dejected and depressed or in a temper. It was so overbearing that her father had finally decided that she would never gain entry again. He had given his supervisory staff instructions to this end.

The vehicles were getting nearer. When they stopped by the house, she could see what was in the truck's back: a large male. The Akkaliza's mother came out to welcome the hunters. Akkaliza looked on, dreary eyed. Her brother was going to whoop again, her mother also and once more, both were going to compliment the killer. Akkaliza chose not to descend. Having decided not to intervene, she observed them from above. As she had predicted, without real merit as it was too obvious, Akkalo, her brother, keenly expressed his enthusiasm with strong exclamations and much praise. As usual, Akkali, her mother, seeing the prize made compliments, but one could see from her more moderate attitude that it was more to please than by real conviction. Hunting was her husband's undertaking. She had nothing against it, of course, but her interest in the sport wasn't so great. Akkal retrieved his gun and asked:

"Akkaliza isn't here?"

"I think she's in her room," said Akkali.

Akkaliza retreated to hide, but she looked from behind the translucent curtain of the open left window pane. Below, three heads looked up briefly.

"Akkaliza!" called Akkalo.

"Leave her be," said Akkal. "She'll come down sooner or later, for sure!"

 Since she remained invisible, the hunter and his two admirers disappeared into the house. Akkaliza stuck her head out for an instant to see the bov that her father had shot. It was truly rather large. What a magnificent animal! It was so different from those of their livestock! She imagined it for a while, standing tall, living among its kind.

No, she said to herself, I won't make any unpleasant comments. No way would I make him a compliment, but I won't criticize him.

Just as she was closing the window, she thought she noticed something that made her heart flinch in her chest. Had she dreamed it, or had the bov actually moved? She leaned down a little more and watched it with more attention. Nothing during the three seconds that followed happened, but at the end of that time she distinctly saw one leg tremble then slightly stretch. A soft moan accompanied this clearly visible movement.

Akkaliza bailed out of her room and flew down the stairs. In the living room, she rushed outside past her parents and her brother. Surprised, they looked at her exiting as if the house was going to explode.

*

Akkaliza reached the pick-up and fingers clenched on the edge of the truck's back, she observed the creature; it was slowly regaining consciousness in a puddle of blood and making a cavernous groan.

"Hey! What's got into you?" asked her father coming out.

Akkalo and Akkali arrived also not hiding their surprise.

"He's alive, Dad!"

"What?"

Akkal took a look at his prize. He swallowed a curse and cried:

"Get away from it. Especially don't touch it! A wounded beast can be very dangerous. All of you stay clear! I'll get the gun!"

Akkaliza clung to his jacket:

"Dad! Let him live. Please! Don't kill him!"

She was grasping his garment so strongly that he couldn't move without dragging her with him.

"But... uh," he let out embarrassed.

"Mother! Akkalo! Please! Tell him to not kill him! I beg you, help me to convince him."

Embarrassed and moved by his sister's reaction, Akkalo muttered some unintelligible sounds that seemed meant to come to her defense. Akkala approached her husband's ear to whisper:

"If it makes her happy...Put it in a cage. With its injuries, it'll die alone in a day or two, anyway... She won't be able to blame you for having ignored her request."

Akkal felt that the idea had merit. Akkaliza, who watched for the slightest expression on her parent's faces during this brief secret conversation, seemed so tense one would believe that it was her own life that was at stake. Moved by the supplicant face of his daughter, Akkal countered in a tone that he tried to make somewhat gruff:

"Okay! We'll find it a cage. But... you'll have to take care of it all by yourself. I have other things to do than to take care of it! I hope you've underst..."

Akkaliza's tears of gratitude halted the demonstration of authority that he strove to give forth in retaliation to the weakness of conceding to what she asked for.

"Well... okay," he said. "I'll tie it up and put it in a cage right away. I just told you that a wounded animal can be dangerous. Don't stay near it as long as it isn't enclosed."

Willing to do anything to keep her parents in a good disposition, Akkaliza backed away a few steps.

"Bring me a rope and a muzzle," her father told her. "Go see in the garage."

While she was leaving to seek the requested objects, he spoke to his son:

"Find me a cage from the laboratory. Be discreet. I'm not to keen on the idea of the staff asking questions."

In the giant food production building, the laboratory was the place where all experiments designed to improve productivity were performed. To obtain ever more profitable animals, they were testing on some of them the amount of hormones or anabolic steroids needed to increase muscle mass. They were testing various mammary stimulants to produce more milk by beast. Finally, both for meat and milk, they were also making multiple crossbreedings through artificial insemination.

The two children having left, Akkal said to his wife:

"I think you're right. It won't be alive for long. It's barely breathing. But, you never know, I prefer to take precautions. It could still bite or scratch."

*

Multiple sources of pain had finally woken Etos up. He had a terrible headache, but also pain to the left shoulder, neck, nape, on the left side of his face and in both legs. Trying to get up, he was only able to raise a few groans. He remembered the two terrifying noises that had brought him down and a blazing burn, then... nothing. Regaining his senses face down on a hard, cold surface, he had the hardest time to make the slightest movement such was the pain that sanctioned it. Shortly after this return to consciousness, he had heard some of the particular chatter that he knew and feared. He knew that these chirps emanated from lightning-slayers, such was the name that his kind called these chattering creatures. So now he remained still, faking death so as not to draw attention to himself. Heart squeezed by fear, he listened. He soon understood that there were several sources of chirps and they were all close. Terrified, he stayed quiet.

Shortly after, he felt that he was touched. They were grabbing his hands. Then he was pulled quite brutally. A cry of pain escaped him.

*

"Daddy!" cried Akkaliza. "More slowly, poor thing!"

"Sorry, daughter..." answered Akkal in a slightly surly tone. "I'm doing what I can. The beast is wounded."

And for good reason! She said to herself holding back her resentment.

Akkal tied the bov's wrists to secure them behind its back. Then, equipped with strong gloves for bite protection, he slipped the muzzle onto its head. Small muffled cries could be heard.

"Akkalo," he said while opening the truck's tail-gate, "put gloves on to help me tighten the muzzle over its mouth before pulling it into the cage.

*

Etos clenched his teeth to avoid yelling. They turned him over. He saw that he was in something with a flat bottom and flat edges, but pain and fear didn't leave him with any sense of wonder about that. His terror increased again when he saw that he had been seized by two chattering creatures. They were one to each side of him. They were holding him firmly by the thighs and arms. Feeling lifted up, his eyes, dilated by terror, turned to all sides. He was so afraid that he felt almost no pain when he was put down on the grass. The lightning-slayer continued to chirp. They dragged him inside another thing that also had a flat bottom, but the sides consisted of strange very straight upright branches and with no ramifications. To his inexpressible relief, the creatures let him go and wandered off. His terror having dampened his pain, he was able to partly raise himself. It was on his knees that he looked all around him. One of the sides of the thing in which he was now included a passage that the lightning-slayers had used to go out. But one of them closed this entrance. So, there was no longer any visible way to flee. All around him were upright branches, and above, a horizontal surface rendered futile the idea to climb the sides to take flight that way. Go over, he couldn't, but could they be broken? With both hands, he grasped one of the branches on the farthest side of the chattering creatures and began shaking it with all his strength. But his injuries began to bleed profusely and the pain became stronger than his fear. He dropped to the floor of his prison and contorted a groan. Mahisa's image entered his mind. Was she looking for him? Where was she? How was she? He fervently hoped that she hadn't been struck down.

*

"You see, my daughter, that we have done well to confine him," said Akkal while removing his gloves. Even with two bullets in its body... see how this animal is enraged! It would have bitten you through to your blood! Okay, I'll go fetch the mobile crane to move it. Where do you want it put?

"Well, not in the garage or nor in our shed!" launched Akkali. "I prefer to avoid the stink..."

"Let's put it just under the cover of the first trees at the edge of the forest," proposed Akkaliza.

Deeply worried as she watched the bov bleed, she was eager to be alone with him to provide care.

"It's okay with me," said the father.

"Me too," said the mother.

"I guess that you don't care, Akkalo," asked Akkali.

Her brother took off his protective gloves and confirmed his aloofness by taking an aping expression.

*

Akkaliza threw a look towards the mobile crane that was moving away. It was a sort of pickup truck, with a small lifting device attached to the rear part of the chassis. It's with this contraption that Akkal had picked up and then brought the cage up to the agreed place. In the center of its roof, the cage had a ring to facilitate its transport. Her father, at the wheel of the machine, turned briefly to send her a hand wave that she distractedly reciprocated.

Now alone with the injured bov, she would be able to give him all her attention. He was lying on his side. He no longer moaned, but he was still losing a lot of blood. His poor shape was painful to see, probably not for everyone, but at least for her. It even greatly upset her. The teenager began to talk to him gently to try to reassure him:

"I mean you no harm. I'm very unhappy to see you trapped and injured. I know that it's one us who's responsible for what happened to you, that it's my own father even. Yet, I swear that I'm sorry. It even breaks my heart..."

She was silent for a moment, wondering how to clean the coagulated blood that stuck the hairs on his skull and formed dry plates on his left shoulder. Then, seeking his gaze she continued:

"I would like to heal you, heal your wounds, but I dread making you afraid. I don't know how to win your confidence. If you let me take care of you, then, I can free you and you can return among your own. I didn't say that to my father, of course, but it's what I think."

She jumped when she heard the bov make one of the very deep sounds that his kind uttered. She had listened and observed these animals, with very sustained attention, long enough to be convinced that it was a complaint, a moan, but there was also something else. She was sure of it. Perhaps surprise... or curiosity, rather... Something like that, yes.

He began to put pressure on his trembling arms. At the expense of visible effort, he managed to rise up enough to sit.

"Gently," she whispered. "Gently. Don't overextend yourself."

He stared at her with more curiosity than fear. At least, that is what she thought was conveyed by his hairy face spotted with muddy crusts amalgamated with coagulated blood. She advanced her gloved hand between two bars and stated in a quiet and gentle voice:

"You'll have to let me touch you so that I can treat you. Your wounds will worsen if I don't disinfect them. I don't know how to persuade you that I don't mean you any harm."

She advanced her hand a little more. This gesture was more intended to make him understand her intention rather than actually touch him, because he was too far away to reach even with an outstretched arm. The bov looked several times at the glove and at Akkaliza's eyes with an expression of growing curiosity.

"You're asking yourself what this thing is, maybe... It's a glove. Dad wants me to wear it to avoid being bitten. But, I'll remove it, because I trust you, I know that you won't bite me if I don't scare you."

Pressing his back against the bars behind him, he looked at her removing the object. He seemed exhausted. She waved her fingers while returning her hand into the cage.

"I'm not afraid, see. Especially, don't tell Dad! He would be very angry with me. You may be hungry and thirst... Thirsty, for sure! I'll give you something to drink."

Under the bov's still very attentive eyes, she lifted a container and filled a small cylindrical vessel that she passed between two bars. She put the receptacle down and drew her hand back ten centimeters only, hoping that he would come closer to her.

"Come and drink. Don't be afraid of my hand. It's uncovered and holds no weapon. You see? Come! Trust me."

*

Etos listened to the high pitched chattering emitted by the lightning-slayer with perplexity. He never had until now the opportunity to hear these strange chirping sounds for so long. And for good reason! Better, in fact, to quickly flee when one of them approached. Indeed fear gave the best advice as to what action should be taken in such cases: run as fast as possible and hide. However, in the unusual situation in which he found himself, unable to follow this recommendation since he couldn't flee, it was perhaps for this reason that curiosity had been able to take over from fear. So, he was listening to this chattering with a sort of fascination. Despite terrible pain burning in his flesh and anxiety that clenched his gut, he lent an ear and observed the creature with the greatest attention. In doing so, he conceived little by little the idea that it was speaking to him, that it was intentionally addressing him in order to communicate. As this idea went from being an assumption to that of quasi-conviction, his curiosity grew. How was it possible? Why did this lightning-slayer give him such importance? It didn't carry the thing that bangs and kills. Perhaps it would kill him later but, instead, for the moment anyway, it gave him water. He realized that he was very thirsty. The lightning-slayer continued to whistle softly. It didn't seem aggressive. By its attitude, it even seemed to be doing everything to reassure him, to invite him to come near to drink. Was this a trap? Why would this be so since it had the means to strike him down with a single gesture using something that bangs and kills? All lightning-slayers had one, normally... According to what he had been told at least. In any case, this creature knew the one that had injured him by using such an object to bang him. So he had to be wary. He looked at the water and then the strange hand that remained near the container and hesitated. Why didn't the lightning-slayer withdraw completely its fingers from there? Advancing very cautiously, without leaving his eyes off the hand, he grimaced in pain. The slightest of movements woke up pain in his injuries. The hand didn't move. Its owner hadn't stopped to produce the high-pitched wheezing, characteristic of this species of creatures, but its demeanor remained calm. It made no sudden movement. It seemed as if it was seeking to reassure him, at least that's what he felt. He crawled a little more towards the water while meditating on the fact that it didn't need to trap him to cause him harm since he was already at its mercy. It was by reassuring himself this way that he came so close to the container that it was now sufficient to stretch an arm to grab it. At this point, he looked at lightning-slayer in the eye and slowly advanced his fingers, ready to quickly retrieve them on the slightest suspicious movement.

A breath of wind brought him a familiar scent that caught his attention; without a doubt, it was the smell of his own kind. Perhaps distracted by the lightning-slayer, he hadn't noticed the distant clamor that he could easily to associate with this smell. It was made by a very large number of voices from fellow creatures, voices that screamed and seemed to lament. But his burning thirst reminded him that there was water very close by.

*

Akkaliza sunk her gaze into the primate's eyes with almost hypnotic concentration. For her, this moment was exceptional. Although it was only through eyes, she became aware that it was the first time that she communicated with a bov in such an intense way. What was happening in the animal's mind? It was a question which had always fascinated her. How did he perceive her? What was the bov's conception of time? Did he have the capacity of anticipation? Did they, in one way or another, try to explain natural phenomena? What were their faculties for communication between themselves? While it was very probable that the very deep sounds they emitted allowed them to express themselves in a way, had they reached the level of a language? If so, did they have only nouns and verbs... adjectives? Or even linguistic elements unknown in her own language?

"You're staring at my hand with apprehension, huh! I've no evil intentions. Come and drink, if you're thirsty."

The bov glanced at the container and remained motionless, looking constantly between Akkaliza's hand and eyes.

"See, nothing's happening. You're in no danger from me."

The bov bent the end of his finger to hook the edge of the vessel and pull it gently towards him. After, returning to a seated position, he took the container with both hands to bring it to his mouth without taking his eyes off Akkaliza. She looked at him drinking with pleasure in the hope that this small gift and her engaging attitude could begin to conquer his confidence.

"Okay, see! I'm your friend. It would be really a good thing that you let me treat you now."

The bov put down the almost empty vessel and sat back again against the bars. Akkaliza decided to go around the cage to get closer to him. Refusing to lose sight of her, he turned suddenly on himself emitting a shriek of pain. She knew very well that cry. Alas! She had so often heard it in her father's units of meat and milk production. She felt guilty:

"I'm so sorry to have caused you to make that movement. Look! You're bleeding again, by my fault! As it's urgent that I treat you, I'll have to do it another way, without your explicit consent. I hope that you won't hold it against me."

Akkaliza returned slowly on her steps and opened a bag that she had left in the grass.

*

Etos watched the lightning-slayer, his entire body trembling such the pain was intense. He was aware that it wasn't the real cause, that it hadn't been a good idea to turn so abruptly, but nevertheless, he couldn't forget that he owed his terrible wounds to an acquaintance of this creature. It was therefore with some concern that he saw it picking up an object and pointing it at him. It didn't really look like something that bangs and kills... maybe a bit... Suddenly, he felt an impact in his right shoulder. Noticing something had punctured his skin, he wanted to snatch it, but couldn't finish his gesture, as he lost consciousness.

# Odors and Clamors of his Own Kind

At dinner with her parents, her brother and a few guests, Akkaliza occasionally sneaked a few glances through the dining room's window. Night had fallen since about an hour. She thought of the bov that would soon be regaining consciousness in his cage. The table was rather animated, laughter, funny stories and personal anecdotes following one another for a long time. This cheerful hubbub satisfied Akkaliza, since it stole attention away from her. She didn't want to be asked about her bov.

Her brother, seated at her right spoke to her in a low voice:

"So?"

"I'm okay..."

"Did you do something for it?"

"I had to tranquilize him with the narcotics gun. Thank you for lending it to me. Thanks to it, I was able to clean, disinfect and dress his wounds."

"Great!" said Akkalo, forking a morsel of bov and bringing it to his mouth.

"I hope he recovers quickly," she continued trying not to think about what he was chewing.

"I don't want to upset you, but... I don't want you to get your hopes up too much."

"In fact, he's only superficially wounded. Two bullets went through a muscle between the neck and shoulder. But he also received a severe shock to the head. I think he was knocked out when falling. It's more for this reason than any other that he remained unconscious for a while."

"Then perhaps he might recover," he whispered with a smile.

Her brother shared a certain complicity with her, but he had trouble understanding her excessive, he thought, commitment to the animal cause. He loved animals also, but no more nor less than most people. Like all other members of the family, he held great affection for their pets, three thacs and two hinecs. Of course he loved animals! But, not to the point of forgoing meat! He had to eat!

(Note from the translator: in French, cat and dog are respectively 'chat' and 'chien'. Rearranging the letters, you can now see where thac and hinec come from. Sorry that I could not find a way to achieve a similar result with the three letter English words.)

A year ago, Akkaliza had become vegan. Which meant that she consumed nothing that came from the world of animals. Absolutely nothing. No meat, no dairy products and no eggs... nothing. She refused even to wear leather, that she persisted in calling "animal's skin".

The family knew that Akkaliza had been influenced by her aunt Okkala, Akkal's sister.  Following a serious argument in which he told her that he didn't want to ever see her again at his home, Akkal hadn't spoken to her since more then a year. But it was suspected that Akkaliza and her aunt, who for a long time had been vegan also, discreetly met from time to time.

Akkaliza was bored to death at the table. She would have given anything to be somewhere else!

Hanging on two of the room's walls, stuffed wild bov heads seemed to stare at the guests with glassy eyes. They were hunting trophies that Akkaliza tried not to see.

Okkos, one of Akkal's friends, asked him point blank:

"By the way, still angry with your sister?"

Akkaliza stared at her father.

"We're still not talking to each other," answered the latter obviously bothered by the question. "I don't want to hear about her. Since she has created that bullshit Two One Four, she has become impossible to live with!"

Two One Four was the vegan association, fighting for the abolition of slaughterhouses, chaired by Okkala. The three numbers referred to a law concerning animals.

(Note from the translator: tongue in cheek reference by the author to an existing association in France, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L214)

"I don't want to meddle into what's none of my busyness, but, still, I find you quite vindictive."

Akkali threw a worried look to her husband. She knew this was a very sensitive issue for him.

"Okkala has mounted my daughter against me in stuffing her skull with all this nonsense about animals. She has convinced her that I'm only an assassin, that I'm a maker of death! What would you do in my shoes? I should abandon my busyness to make her happy? That way, we'll all die hungry and we'll have to live in the street!"

Okkos turned to Akkaliza:

"Tell your father that you've never thought of him as a maker of death. Tell him, see how upset he is!"

"I've never made such a claim, Dad..." Akkaliza forced herself to repeat."

"You haven't said that to me, but it's what you think! "

"Really now! You're not going to blame your daughter for what you think she thinks!"

"I know what she thinks because I know what my sister has dumped into her head! And that's the reason I no longer want to see her, the bugger. Those were her own words that I'm repeating to you; words that she uttered to me several times in the presence of the children at this very table. I'm a maker of death! That is what she had repeated several times, in addition to a whole bunch of other nonsense. Look where we are, because of that! Akkaliza won't eat anything more than carrots! Umas have always eaten meat, but Okkala and all sick minds of her ilk, who feel smarter than everyone else, claim that they can do without it. And look at how they think of themselves as intellectuals! They even invent new words... 'speciesism' among others..."

Very uncomfortable, Akkaliza thought to get up from table to go to the cage to see how the bov was doing. But increasing her father's anger would be taking the risk of putting the life of her protégé in danger. This possibility forced her to stay seated and do everything possible to calm things down.

"Okay!" exclaimed Okkos. "For someone who's only eating carrots, if it's truly the case, she's not in so bad health as that. So no peril there. Youth will be youth, as they say. She'll eventually end up eating meat like the rest of umanity, don't worry.

"She would be better off at Restaurants for All as a volunteer like her brother," said Akkali. "In giving too much love to animals, one no longer loves umas!"

"Don't use me to reprove of Akkaliza," interjected Akkalo to his mother. "My volunteering at Restaurants for All has nothing to do with the fact that she's vegan."

"Yet I'm doing all I can to be broad-minded," said Akkal. "I've even allowed Akkaliza to tame the bov that I wounded while hunting. I've put it in a cage so she can take care of it. So then! What more can I do? Me, the great maker of death!"

Ykkypol, another guest who was a major shareholder of Akkal's company, was astonished:

"Well! You're going to tame a wild bov now, Akkaliza! Tell us about it."

Akkaliza made a unmeasurable effort to say as little as possible about it. She had but one wish, get this meal over with and let the guests leave to be able to send a few messages to her aunt.

*

Etos had begun to wake up shortly after dusk. He had dreamed of Mahisa. Torpor that numbed his mind and dizziness that gave him a swimming impression were gradually dissipating. He was then able to sit. Intrigued, he had looked at and touched the bandages and the bits of tape that concealed his wounds; while making this discovery, his surprise had grown as his conscience cleared. His pain being significantly reduced, the possibility that the strange things covering his injuries had something to do with it came to mind. Then, he wondered if it was the lightning-slayer who had put them on him during his inexplicable sleep. Remembering the object aimed towards him and the small cylinder piercing his skin, he made the hypothesis that she had put him to sleep by this means. If that was the case, the lightning-slayers didn't systematically kill. They were also able to induce sleep from a distance. He said to himself that was also a great power, but much less to fear than that which killed or injured. But, maybe it had nothing to do with it... in this case, how to explain that he was suddenly put to sleep to wake up with those pain soothing things on his body?

Odors and clamor from his own kind still came to him, the first transported randomly by the whims of the wind, the second, on the contrary, appearing to grow when the leaves fell silent.

He observed for a while the forest gods still glistening with their same eternal purity. While recognizing many, he was impressed that they were powerful enough to reign over the lightning-slayers' territory. He hoped they were benevolent and vowed to show them his courage.

A new object of curiosity pulled him from his deep reflection. A container. There was one near him. In addition to the discovery of these things that hid his wounds, enough to justify that his mind was busy elsewhere, probably darkness explained that he hadn't noticed it earlier. This container, flat and round, was full of white grain. Touching the small mound that they formed with an inquisitive index finger, he noted that it was soft. Two grains remained glued to the tip of his finger when he withdrew it. To be able to give them a closer look, he moved them right before his eyes. This was unlike anything that he had ever seen. These small and elongated soft things were made of two parts joined together. He smelled them. Then, no doubt inspired by this rapid olfactory examination, he pressed one of them on his tongue and nibbled. It seemed edible. He licked his finger to swallow the second grain and seized the vessel and brought it to his mouth. Holding it in one hand, he used the other to eat. He found that it was good and he was hungry. This was the first time he ingested cooked rice. When he had finished, he saw that the water container was still there and it was full. He drank less than half and careful not to spill any, he put it down in a corner of the cage. The moon rising over the tops of the forest began to project a feeble light around him. He found an apple and a long thing, yellow and slightly curved, a banana in fact, but he never had seen one before. It took him only a moment to down the first one, including its core. He sniffed, licked and nibbled the banana for a few seconds before deciding to bite more deeply. When he discovered the white flesh inside, he decided he would rather get rid of its skin that he dropped out of the cage, but close by, in case he didn't have anything else to eat later. He found it a very delicious thing. When he had completed its ingestion, he stood up and began to examine more closely the vertical bars that held him prisoner. He shook many, with more force than before, but still holding a bit back, because, although invisible, his wounds quickly reminded him they were still there.

After a quarter of an hour of this strength testing, eventually he got tired and sat back down next to the standing branches he could neither break, bend or pull out. The distant odors and complaints of his own kind created an anxiety-provoking environment; he wondered to what suffering these lamentations were due. Thankfully for him, Mahisa came back into his thoughts.

*

Mahisa kept on walking along the strange tracks that the just as strange thing had left, in which the lightning-slayer had put Etos. Its incredible shape looked like a big animal with a cavity that was possible to be opened and closed. It had completely round legs that rolled to make it go forward, those that had left the imprints she was trying to follow. Hidden behind a bush, Mahisa had seen everything that happened after that lightning-slayer's fire had struck Etos. She cried in silence and trembled with fear on seeing her lifeless companion dragged on the ground. Her feelings for him were so strong that they had given her the courage to discreetly follow the two lightning-slayers. Terror had bitten her heart when, cracking underfoot, a twig had attracted their attention. Fortunately, they did not use the things that banged and killed. They each had opened the cavity of their big animal to enter what looked like a kind of head. The two monsters had growled and their feet had rolled, one of them carrying Etos on its hollow back.

Meanwhile, Mahisa was walking along the edge of the forest, eyes glued to the ground to follow the tracks that disappeared often over long distances when the land was too dry, or when there was grass but it had risen back. In addition, it was hard to see with only moonlight. Overwhelmed by immense sadness, deep concern and extreme fatigue, she had stopped crying. And if tears no longer fell, it was only due to dehydration that lighted her gut with burning thirst.

But only one thing counted: find him and have the courage to save him to be able to tell him that he would soon be a father. She felt it in her womb for some time, but she waited to be certain before revealing it to him. Was Etos already dead? She couldn't bring herself to believe it. Her feet were hurting and her legs were out of strength, but she couldn't give up. The tracks were almost invisible, but an increasingly clear path appeared. In fact, there were not one, but two narrow parallel paths of hard-packed earth, separated by a strip of grass. She assumed that there was one for the monsters' left rotating legs and one for the right rotating legs. Walking on the greenery between the two, because it was more comfortable for her aching feet, she wept again and prayed that the forest's God would lead her to the one she loved.

*

Akkaliza passed a small bowl containing three boiled potatoes and a paper bag between the bars and said:

"I hope you're feeling better. In any case, I'm pleased to see that you ate everything that I had left. See, I've brought you more."

The bov grunted. In fact, he bovgrunted, which was the word used by Akkaliza and her kind to refer to these animals' very deep cry.

"Aha!... You're trying to talk to me, it seems. That makes me very happy, you know! I'm sure that ultimately, we'll get to understand each other, despite the species barrier. I know I'm much more verbose than you, but I'll let you have speaking time as soon as you decide to express yourself more. For now, I'll fill the silence so that you get used to my voice."

Holding a bar in each hand, the bov emitted a second bovgrunt. She poured water from a bottle to top off the container he used for drinking and said:

"Wow, you'll soon be chatting much more than me! Okay... I'll have to leave you to go to school, but I'll come back to see you at noon, don't worry. I'm studying ethology. I'll tell you more about it later. Other than that, don't tell anyone, but I'll let you go once you are healed, you know. I gave you a painkiller while you slept. That's why you feel less pain. But try to take it easy because as soon as it wears off, you'll risk the return of more pain. Okay, I'm leaving. You have to eat and drink. See you later."

Reluctantly, Akkaliza walked away, but it was late and she couldn't afford to miss her class. Her father would know and that would put him in a bad mood. It was bad enough that the conversation last night about his sister had put his nerves on edge! She quickened her step on the grass towards the house. As soon as she entered the living room, his mother called to her:

"You're not gone yet! You're going to be late!"

Akkaliza didn't answer. She grabbed her bag on the sofa and crossed the floor to other side of the house. Her scooter was waiting under a lean-to.

A quarter of an hour later, Akkaliza left her vehicle under the shelter for two wheelers at the center for the study of psychology and ethology. Just as she was going to climb the stairs of the establishment, she saw her aunt approaching, with a broad smile on her ever cordial face. They kissed.

"I'm so happy to see you," said Akkaliza, "but unfortunately, I'm very late. It's such a pity, I so wanted to talk to you of the bov!"

"I know. You'll be able to do so. I just saw your professor for today."

"Akkaron?"

"Yes. He's a member of Two One Four. So he's a good acquaintance. I asked him if he could overlook your absence for this half-day. He assured me that there'll be no problem, that your parents won't know anything." 

# Etos Mahisa Loves

Milk production was obtained from fifty thousand dairy bovs, fifty rows of one thousand. Genetically selected, crossbred and modified to produce the most milk possible, their teats were so huge that it would be difficult for them to move around without support. But anyway, they didn't have the liberty to walk around; restrained as they were by solid individual barriers, defining their space such that they weren't able to take a single step. Their atrophied limbs no longer able to hold them up, they were supported, leaning down forward to free the breasts, by a strap passing under their belly. Food and water arrived before them automatically and also urine and feces were automatically evacuated from the rear.

To ready their body to produce milk, they were artificially inseminated as many times as necessary. At birth, most of their offspring were killed, crushed and incorporated into the animals' feed. For days on end, dairy bovs threw desperate bovgrunts to call their disappeared progeny, until the pain from their constantly solicited mammary glands and general suffering due to their living conditions finally make them forget.

Akkal rarely entered the gigantic building which contained on one side dairy and on the other meat producing animals. Of course, it sometimes happened, but it became less and less frequent. His staff was there to take care of everything that was not yet automated, which meant less and less things. Such as, removing newborns and replacing bovs no longer able to optimally provide milk.

In his office at the management center, located one kilometer away from his home and adjacent to the aforementioned building, Akkal spent much of his time on his busyness' supervisory screens and on the phone. He took care of everything concerning meat and milk sales, searches for the cheapest suppliers, for both animal feed and automation systems, relations with banks, etc. In adjacent offices, technicians were overseeing on their own screens, the proper operation of all the machinery.

That morning, Akkal was in bad mood. His friend Okkos' criticism about his relationship with his sister he still weighed heavily on his heart. Moreover, yesterday's production hadn't been very good. That's the least that could be sead! Milk was down four percent and meat by three percent. Fluctuations in production had serious consequences. By not meeting demand, they risked paying penalties to the major distribution centers, exceeding it wasn't any better because the surplus was a dead loss that could hardly be recouped by making savings on operating expenses already reduced to the strict minimum. Paying back the huge investments added by the race to modernization of automation systems required ever-increasing monetary input.

But production fluctuations weren't the only bad news for the day. He just found out that the Ralchadomac Company, his main competitor, had proposed its meat a half cent cheaper than his own to the distributors. This morning, he had received from each one of them a series of courteous but inflexible messages. They were all urging him to align himself with this new price if he wanted to keep their busyness. Selling at a one-half per cent cheaper! It was an assassination! This represented one-third of his margin! He would have to find a solution to save it, or at least to minimize its possible meltdown.

He fumed inside thinking that all these problems passed well above his sister's rantings. With all that, had he time or opportunity to be concerned about animal welfare? Instead of making the effort to understand his situation, she found nothing better to do than mount his daughter against him with her extremist and grotesque ideas.

He abruptly stood up to scream into the hallway:

"Meat production! Meeting in my office, right away!"

He could have summoned his assistants by touching a button, but he was unable to hold back this outburst.

Five of his colleagues entered.

"No need to sit down," he told them. "since this won't be long. If you want to help me save Natural Foods, and therefore your wages, I need to find some way to chop the cost of meat down by zero point five percent, minimum. That's all I have to say. I need you urgently to rack your brains to find solutions to propose. As long as they haven't been found, we'll lose money, because I'm forced to align myself with the competition today. Okay, I'm finished! You can go now... I'm hoping that by noon, some ideas will pop out of your heads!"

While his colleagues began to leave the room, Akkal held one back; he was the second largest shareholder:

"Ykkypol, wait."

When they were alone together, Akkal asked:

"What's happening with what we talked about?"

"Well... as I told you, our guy managed to get hired, but he has yet to gain access to all processes. Not easy! I think they're a little wary."

"You truly understand that it's urgent? Natural Foods is in real danger... "

"Of course! I know! I assure you that I'm doing what I can. I feel just as concerned as you. I may own less than you in this venture, but if it sinks, me too, I'm ruined!"

"Yes, Yes... I know... Excuse me. I'm exhausted!"

With his sister and his daughter on his back, thought Ykkypol, I can understand that nothing's going easy for him.

He tried to change the subject:

"By the way, have you received the email from Channel 2?"

"Eh?" said Akkal.

"The e-mail from Channel 2 concerning The Inquirer show."

"Ah, Yes! I saw it, but I haven't had the time or the strength of concentration to find out what it was."

"They're inviting us to a debate to defend our profession."

"What? But to defend against whom?"

"Probably against those who criticize us. Grass eaters associations... Excuse me, I didn't mean your daughter. Really, I wanted to say..."

"Yes, Yes... I get it! So what? What do I care?"

"I think we have to go. To not participate would be an admission of guilt. I'm certain Ralchadomac will send someone... because for sure they must have been approached also.

Akkal offered only a dejected look in response.

"I could represent us, if you prefer."

"I would like that, yes. I've no desire to give myself in spectacle on live TV. Imagine finding myself debating against my own sister!"

"That's what I thought too, but I hadn't dared tell you."

*

Etos felt throbbing pain coming back to his shoulder and neck. He hardly took any interest in the food: three boiled potatoes, nuts and other dried fruit. In truth, all that hadn't even aroused his curiosity. He drank only a few sips. This lack of interest for himself was due to the fact that his mind was elsewhere, drawn to Mahisa. Alone for two hours, he felt overwhelmed with grief; he couldn't remember ever being so sad. What had happened to her? Was she worried about him? He so hoped that she wasn't in any danger! Oppressing anxiety overwhelmed him.

The wind wasn't blowing any more in a direction conducive to bringing him odors from his fellow people and it made the foliage rustle loudly enough to cover the anxiety-provoking clamor. So Etos forgot them for a while.

Once again, he examined the strange standing branches that held him prisoner. They were surprisingly regular in thickness, smooth, lacking ramifications and defects. They were also cold and incredibly hard, impossible to even very slightly plant a fingernail in them. Nor were his teeth any more efficient at scoring these stems, decidedly indestructible. He undertook to examine each of them very carefully, especially at the bottom and at the top, there where they were attached to the floor or ceiling. He had to wipe his eyes several times with the palm of his hand, because sadness had clouded his vision. After completing his examination of the whole perimeter, he had to conclude that none of these branches had any connection defect. Tortured by his distress at the idea of being separated from his love, he wept warmly. Sobs shook his chest, yet he didn't capitulate.

He was surrounded by trees and he could easily touch the end of some low branches, one was even inserted a bit between two bars. He pulled on it as strongly as he could to bring in the greatest length possible. Then using a bar as a pivot point, he pried it until it broke. After having taken a few seconds to consider the stolen object with some satisfaction, he began to dutifully remove almost all the branches, almost, because he kept only one, but this one, he made shorter. What he got was like a long rod equipped with a hook, the latter being formed by the end of the remaining branch. Reviewing once again his work, he beamed with even more displayed satisfaction, on the verge of gloating. Yet Etos hadn't invented anything. This know-how was a cultural acquisition. His parents had taught him how to make one and they learned it themselves from their own ancestors. This convenient object was used to bring down the ends of the branches having fruit too high to reach. But, Etos was planning to use it for something else. And this, on the other hand, was indeed an invention!

His eyes searched for a large rock not too far from the cage and... Ho!

The lightning-slayer who didn't slay was back. He didn't want it to find out what he was up to. Of course, it didn't slay but how to know what it had in mind? Up to now, it hadn't done anything to let him out of this prison!

He hid his tool in the grass outside the cage, behind the thickness of the flooring. But he had no time to discard all the leaves and branches that had been removed and that littered his prison's floor.

*

On approaching the cage, Akkaliza noted that the bov had hastily thrown plant debris between the bars. She slowed down to have time to observe him, feigning not having seen anything. Meanwhile, he was visibly making an effort not to see her arriving.

"So?" she said when she was near. "All's going well for you?

He looked at her miming surprise to perfection. She was intrigued by this unexpected behavior. The few leaves and twigs that remained on the floor of the cage, mixed with grass that she made there for his comfort, didn't convey any information to her about what he was up to, and said even less about why he had wanted to hide it. So, she decided to discreetly keep a watch on him to find out.

"Well... I see that you're not very hungry... nor thirsty, for that matter... I'll leave you for a short while. I'll be back soon!"

She walked away, but instead of heading home, she slipped into the woods to hide behind a tree and monitor his actions in all discretion. But she was surprised to see that he hadn't lost sight of her; whenever she dared a look, he stared back at her. It was like he was saying to her "I know that you haven't gone away." More upset against herself than against him, she came out of hiding and returned to the cage.

"Okay! I see that you're a smart-ass and I accept that you won't entrust me to all your secrets. Sneaky! I'll wait for you to gain more confidence in me. It's for me to win it by unveiling to you some of my own secrets. You know, earlier on, I skipped class to see my aunt. If my father found out! Of course, I talked to her about you! I hope you're able to understand!"

The bov scratched his head, fumbled with both hands in the long black hair on his head and cheeks, apparently seeking to decrypt, and bovgrunted briefly.

"Wow, you're getting to be a big talker! I'll tell you another, a big secret. Okkala... she's my aunt. She told me that she was going to insert someone into Dad's company to get information about what exactly is going on. It annoys me a bit to have been made aware of that because I've the impression that I'm betraying my father. But I know that my aunt is doing it for all the nice bovs like you. So, I'm torn. Do you understand? On the other hand, I think that Okkala told me this information so that I wouldn't feel betrayed by her, the day that I found out."

The bov twisted some hairs around his mouth and let out a new brief bovgrunt without taking his eyes off her.

"Hey! Let me speak! How talkative you're becoming! So, I told you I'm studying ethology. My aunt Okkala, it's her profession. Yes, she's an ethologist. And, you understand, that it's by studying nice guys like you that she has found that you think of stuff, like us, that you can experience fear, that you have feelings for your loved ones, that... all in all, you've much in common with us. That's why she has founded an association to defend you..."

*

Etos listened to the lightning-slayer, but despite all his efforts he couldn't discern a single intelligible detail in all the whistles that it produced. Aside from the fact that it was keeping him prisoner, it didn't seem to harbor ill intentions. For the time being at least. It had offered him food and water... it was probably the one that had placed on him the objects that soothed his wounds... It still didn't carry in its hands the thing that bangs and kills...

He decided to open up. Perhaps then it would release him! If this didn't work, he could always fall back to putting his plan into action as soon as it turned its back.

"Etos Mahisa loves," he said. "Etos very sad far from her! Do you want Etos release? Etos would be so happy to see Mahisa again!"

The lightning-slayer stopped, apparently listening. She remained silent for a moment, as if she was waiting to see if he had anything else to say. Sure enough, he continued to bovgrunt:

"Mahisa small very cute head has," he finished saying. "When to Etos Mahisa smiles, very need Etos to wrap her in arms and tighten her against Etos. Like to make her enter heart of Etos. Yes! My arms hungry for her are. Let Etos go. Etos to Mahisa belongs, not to you."

He noted that, once more, the lightning-slayer kept silent to consider him. But it hadn't opened up his prison so far. He deduced that either it didn't want to, or it couldn't, or it didn't understand his request. So whatever it was, for the time being, there was no longer any reason to seek to communicate. It was better to wait patiently for its departure. To induce it to move away more quickly, he pretended to be tired and to fall asleep.

*

To say the least, Akkaliza was disappointed when he lied down and turned his back to her. She crossed over to the other side of the cage to look at him from the front. His eyes were closed.

Incredibly sudden tiredness and quite expeditious sleep! she said to herself.

Bits of branches were scattered on the ground on this side, but she didn't know what to think.

"I'll leave since you're sleeping. See you later, have a good nap!"

She walked away intending to retrieve from her room the automatic recording device that she used occasionally for filming the animals without their knowledge. When she came back to install it, he was still lying down, but in a different position. Had he simply moved in his sleep? Or had he gotten up, but quickly lied back down on her approach? More and more intrigued, she placed the camera to film the whole cage and she set it so that it would start up when detecting motion. This having been done, she left making an effort not to turn around. It was the time for the family's midday meal. Not easy to avoid! In any case, not every day! She really wanted to eat with her aunt, but had preferred not to annoy her parents to whom family meetings at the table as often as possible meant a lot.

# Sun Prison

There were thirty thousand bovs raised for their meat. Thirty rows of one thousand. Same as the dairy bovs, they were the result of multiple crossbreeding, selections and genetic modifications. Except they had been optimized to produce meat that is mainly muscle mass. Same as for the milk producers, they were fed with meat and bone flour that were made part newborn bovs, part old dairy bovs in loss of performance and of course, part waste from the rendering of their congeners that had been turned into meat. This food source had a double advantage. First, it was very economical since it was just biomaterial recycling. Also, it was an easy way to get rid of animal waste. It would quickly become quite cumbersome if it were necessary to store it somewhere. Thus, transport and service expenditures to reprocess or incinerate them elsewhere were avoided. And as a bonus, no storage meant no pollution. Unwittingly, bovs had thus become cannibals. In addition to that, without knowing it, mothers had even eaten their own children.

Meat bovs living conditions were similar to those of the dairy bovs. Fences and chains prevented them to make the slightest movement so that they do nothing else than to grow and grow as quickly as possible. All castrated, they were aided in this task by growth hormones and anabolic steroids. To forestall any epidemic that would spread like wildfire given the extreme density of their population, they were also continuously fed antibiotics as a preventive measure.

Nobody felt directly responsible for all this terrible suffering because each person's tasks and actions were divided so that no one had the impression of actually participating. Imagine a thousand individuals each pushing a knife only one-tenth of a millimeter into someone's heart. They all could then say: it isn't really me who's killing him.

Keeping in mind that the bovs' heartbreaking moans were too low pitched to be very clearly audible to the ears of their 'unaware' executioners. And add to that facial expressions having no resemblance to those of these same executioners. Everything, alas, converged to allow bad faith, from those who didn't want to hear anything and preferred not to see, to persist.

Ukkosal was an exception; he knew. He knew and he refused to close the eyes of his conscience. He remembered his parents' livestock farm handed down from generation to generation. For sure, although their farm existed to produce bov milk and meat, in those days, animals weren't treated with so much cruelty. Of course, they were killed to be eaten, of course milk intended for their young was taken from the females, of course their skin was used to make clothing and various items of leather goods. He acknowledged that they were considered as simple resources to be exploited, but once again, in those days, the beasts weren't treated with so much cruelty. That's what Ukkosal was trying to tell the abolitionist vegans, especially Okkala, Akkal's sister. But these people weren't appreciative of his words. They answered him that it's not because a reprehensible thing is getting worse with time that it was respectable in the first place; that a murder, even committed with less cruelty, remained a murder. Ukkosal found them a little extreme. Nevertheless, he was touched by the fact that their speech and actions were clearly not motivated by any personal interest. They earned nothing for themselves by spending so much energy on the animal cause. Also, he gradually felt more and more close to them, even though he was still not adhering to one hundred percent of their beliefs; he really couldn't concede to them that his parents were murderers! And this despite the mitigating circumstance kindly proposed by Okkala:

"In those days, people weren't aware. They were doing what they had always seen being done. It was also a time when there was nothing more natural than to have slaves. All those who owned some weren't deliberately cruel. Some in all good faith were doing what was needed to be good masters. They beat their servants only when they felt that they deserved it. Without necessarily being evil, we can do the worst things, simply by education, because it's the cultural environment."

"My parents were neither murderers nor the slavers," answered Ukkosal, angry.

Okkala tried to make herself understood:

"That's not what I'm saying. I took this example to show that ethics evolve, what's considered a crime today wasn't necessarily so at an earlier time. So we can now anticipate and guess that some things that now appear normal may be judged as crimes later. It's called evolution. I remind you again that I'm telling you this while my own parents are doing the same work that yours did."

They were both walking in a nearby park. A silence persisted almost a minute. She broke it:

"So? Are you with us or are you too angry with me to help us?"

"Sure, I'm a little upset! But I'll help you anyway, because the disgust for what Akkal and his colleagues are doing is much stronger than what I'm blaming you for... you and your band of visionaries. I think you're crazy, but not evil. While those who have taken over my parents livelihood are even crazier than you and furthermore very cruel!"

Ukkosal wasn't truly aware that his decision was also partly dictated by the attraction Okkala exerted upon him. Indeed, he found in her an intrinsic charm that strengthened his passionate and dedicated resolve.

"Thank you, on behalf of Two One Four to help the nice fools that we are."

"Eh..." he let out. "If your brother ever finds out what you're asking me to do against him, he'll hate you to the day he dies! I hope that you're aware that you're taking this risk."

"I'm fully aware of that. But understand that I'm doing nothing against him personally. I'm struggling against his establishment of death and against all others too. Don't forget that I'm doing the same thing with his competitors."

"Yes, Yes... In fact, you others... er... how to say... other er..."

"Activists dedicated to the legitimate cause of Two One Four, you mean?"

"A bit long for a name. More simply, I was going to say 'spies'."

"Yes, we have one. But we need more."

"One?"

"Yes."

Ukkosal felt pierced by a small spike of jealousy. Who was this guy? Was he important for her, outside the service he could render to Two One Four? And, himself, what were his feelings on this subject?

*

Akkaliza ate vegetables stuffed with textured soy protein. She was the only one of the four to be consuming that. Her parents and her brother had the same vegetables on their plate, but filled with bov meat.

Akkaliza didn't understand much why her presence was so important because her parents had gotten into the habit of watching television while eating. For the few words they exchanged... She noted that her father seemed particularly preoccupied, but she had no clue for what could cause him such concern. It was news time:

 "We are welcoming today Madam Ekklamisa, Director of the space agency, to tell us about an extraordinary discovery made this morning: an unidentified spacecraft has been discovered by astronomers. The object had been spotted for several days already, but, up to now, it was too far into space to able to discover its surprising nature. Isn't that true Madam Ekklamisa? Did I correctly introduce the topic?"

Akkaliza lent a distracted ear.

"It's exactly that. Our Astronomy Agency friends had actually spotted the thing several days ago. It's a small object relative to what's usually seen in space. It's quickly approaching us. So, as more time passes, more its images are accurate. Thus, it has suddenly become clear that it's not a natural body, but a machine. Imagine their surprise and then ours, when they showed it to us! We've decided to change the planned trajectory of one of our spacecraft to try to approach the thing. I won't go into the technical details, but it won't be easy... »

Akkali turned off the TV and looked at her husband:

"Well, Akkal!" she said putting her four elbows on the table. "Tell us what's wrong, okay? What are you sulking about? Don't tell me that you're still thinking of your sister!"

Akkaliza's father shuddered as if he was suddenly coming back from stupor or a deep dream.

"I've problems," he said. "We must find a way to reduce the cost of meat by zero point five per cent."

He gave a tired look towards his wife while scratching the scales on his forehead, which was recognized as sign of nervousness for him.

"Try to think about something else but your work, Dad!" exclaimed Akkalo.

With those words, he rose from the table to go put his four hands on the shoulders of his father.

"But, my son! The future of Natural Foods worries me, because it's our own future..."

"You'll manage! You always do..."

"Ahem... Believe it or not, we've received an invitation from Channel 2 to attend The Inquirer Show."

"Oh yes! When?"

"I don't remember."

"So, you're going to appear on TV?"

"No. I prefer that Ykkypol go there."

"But honestly, why?" asked Okkalo.

"They'll invite many people for a program on current farming methods. I've no desire to respond to attacks from my sister."

"Nothing says she'll be invited."

"And nothing says she won't."

*

Emerging suddenly from a terrible dream, Mahisa awoke with a start. In her sleep, Etos was threatened by at least ten lightning-slayers. To defend him, she had thrown herself upon these creatures at the risk of her own life. Terrible detonations killed them both, in the arms of each other... She cried out several times before realizing that all this had only been a nightmare. After walking all night, she fell asleep exhausted at dusk, hidden in the forest inside thick shrubbery at about a hundred steps from the path that she had followed.

From the height of the Sun, she saw that the middle of the day had already passed. A thought for her parents, who must be wondering where she was, crossed her mind; she hadn't had the time to let them know. Although she felt sad while thinking of them, her concern quickly returned to Etos. Anchored firmly in her was one certainty: the conviction to be ready to die for him. She knelt down in the grass and laid her two hands on her stomach, imbuing herself with the notion that she was carrying a little of whom she loved.

Reinvigorated by this refreshing thought, she started walking again. She had to find something to nibble and to drink so that she could regain her strength.

*

In wanting so much to pretend to sleep, Etos had finally got trapped by real sleep. But, nevertheless, his slumber wasn't deep. His dreamy thoughts were visibly troubled. In them, he saw himself using his tool to put his plan into action and he was able to break free. He then ran like blazes towards his kin and especially towards Mahisa. But he had a hard time finding her. Where was she?

*

Akkaliza observed the bov with affection. He still hadn't eaten anything, but his nap was good sign. Pain not preventing him to rest showed that his injuries were evolving towards recovery. Taking advantage of this moment, she passed a syringe through the bars to inject him a sedative, and then she entered the cage. Using her four hands, it didn't take long to remove all the bandages from her patient, scrutinize each wound, coat them with new antibacterial gel and protect them with new dressings. Done, she injected him with a new dose of antibiotic, instinctively removed plant debris from his right cheek's hair and let herself out of the cage. It was time for her to return to her ethology school.

*

Akkal shook the two left hands of Ukkosal, who had just been brought into his office.

"Hello," he said "you've come in response to our ad?"

"Yes, sir. From the employment agency."

"Yes, okay. Have you ever worked in this environment?"

"No, Sir. This'll be the first time."

"Okay! Come with me. I'll introduce you to the lady you'll be replacing."

Ukkosal followed his new employer. Outside, the latter requested that he get into an electric vehicle used for travelling within the site. Akkal started off. Rolling on the asphalted roadway that circumvented it, they were passing along by the huge building. About two kilometers further down, Akkal stopped in front of a door and exited the small vehicle.

"It's here," he said. "Come with me."

Ukkosal complied.

Should he ever learn that I'm a spy sent by his sister, he'll kill me, that's for sure! He said to himself while Akkal pushed the doorbell.

Almost immediately, someone opened it.

"Please meet Ukkmato," said Natural Food's boss, "she's the one that you'll be replacing during her leave. She'll train you. Ukkmato, here's Ukkosal who's come to allow you to leave and take a rest. Teach him the job well, so that he may replace you without problem."

"Very well, sir"

Akkal left. Ukkmato closed the heavy armored door. It produced a metal sound that resounded eerily in Ukkosal's ears. Although the dramas that were being lived out here were yet to be revealed in their full breadth, he already had the impression of being suddenly entrapped in the bowels of a damned prison. They were in an airlock. Ukkmato opened its second door and invited him to enter before her. An awful intuition made him hesitate, but the thought that Okkala was counting on him gave strength to his determination. He crossed the opening, followed by his instructor who closed the door behind them.

This second metallic clap was like one of those horror film sound effects, intended to surprise the viewer when a vision of horror was slapped into his retinas. Ukkosal jumped and couldn't suppress a cry. Ukkmato made the scales in her cheek vibrate in an expression a condescending amusement.

"You'll get used to it," she assured. "It's always like that at the beginning."

She let him have time to assimilate what he was seeing.

Ukkosal stood between two rows of dairy bovs which, on both sides, stretched farther than the eyes could see. These females had a minimal space, defined by railings preventing any movement. Bent over by forty-five degrees to the front, they were supported on their stomachs by a metallic structure holding the automated milk collectors that were connected to their enlarged breasts. The staggering size of these struck Ukkosal with stupor. The creatures stood over a grid through which fell their feces and urine. At head's height, automatically filled troughs provided puree nourishment made from flour diluted in water. Their mouths were smeared with partly dried mush. These brownish stains stretched far from the edges of their lips, dripping down on their neck, obstructing nostrils and even forming crusts right up to their ears.

While milk collectors greedily sucked the secretions from the huge sore breasts, one could see the white liquid circulate in transparent tubes that converged into a large central pipe.

Despite constant ventilation, a horrible stench permeated this hell. Ukkmato seemed to be used to it.

"You see, the beasts drink and eat at the same time," she said to her future replacement. "The proportion of water and flour is adjusted to... Hey! You can handle this, eh? You look awful! If you feel unable to take on this job, you just have to say so! I don't want that at the last moment... my time off..."

"Don't worry. I'll do the job!"

"Okay, so you've got two thousand beasts to take care of, a thousand on each side. We're now in rows seven and eight. We say 'in seven eight'. If you have a question that I haven't had time to answer, you can always ask colleagues who manage other rows. The one in eleven twelve, I know well. I'll introduce him to you."

"Two thousand!"

"Yes, two thousand. But you won't have much to do. Everything is automated. You must just ensure that there are no problems. Such as a dead or sick beast. injured breasts, a messed up distributor of puree... you see, those kind of things. In all cases, you'll do nothing other than report it with the special phone that I'll give you."

"What happens to injured breasts?"

"Well, for you, nothing. You've nothing particular to do. As I told you, you call and then someone will take care of it."

"Yes, I understand. But, out of curiosity, what is done for the animal?"

"Well... I don't know! What does it matter to you, since it's not your job? In general, sick or injured animals are ground up... and presto! into the puree!"

Ukkmato showed the number 7 528 tattooed on the front of one of the dairy bovs which was also engraved on its cage.

"All you have to do is to mention this number and say what's wrong," she continued. "Someone will come to fix the problem. From time to time, you'll see a vet. They come to do the inseminations and remove waste from birthing. Whenever there are births, you must report them."

The beast numbered 7528 move its eyes towards Ukkosal with a look that froze him. They conveyed all the resignation of a prisoner of life that had nothing to hope for except the final deliverance of death. He was then besieged by a terrible inner struggle. Part of him wanted to turn his head away, but he feared that then those eyes would see him as one of the torturers. So he remained frozen a few seconds, unable as he was to interrupt their eye contact, in fear that its poignant pleas would become damning accusations.

"You okay?" asked his instructor. "You're feeling sick?"

Ukkosal thought of his parents who, in competitive production, had been ruined by intensive farming. He also thought of what Okkala expected of him.

"Everything is fine," he assured. "I need this job. I'll do it. You can count on me. Don't worry. You can go on vacation."

"Very well," said Ukkmato apparently reassured. "you'll also see someone come to shear the beasts. It's only done every six months, but it should be soon now. See, how long the hairs are on its head and around its mouth there. It raises hygiene issues. It falls into the feed troughs..."

*

Etos slowly awoke. He sat down, looked around, rubbed his head while yawning and then stretched. Wanting to scratch his shoulder, he noticed that the things that were glued on him were all new, all clean, that their shapes were different and that they were not quite in the same places. He wondered if they had evolved or if they had been replaced by other things of the same kind. After reflecting upon this for a few seconds without finding an answer, the first concern which came to mind was to check that his tool was still where he had left it. He squatted down and reached an arm between two bars. To his great relief, it was still there, in the grass, against the floor of the cage. He felt it with his fingertips. Just as he was about to grab it, a slight noise was heard. Quickly turning round, he saw the lightning-slayer. He got up and tried to look unperturbed. Had circumstances been more conducive to introspection, he would have been surprised to find that, although its presence delayed his escape plan, he was more happy than upset to see it again. He looked on at it approaching trying to not think about his tool and even less about his wish to break out of his prison. The lightning-slayer could have powers that were unknown to him, such as reading minds. However, he acknowledged that it didn't appear to harbor ill intentions towards him, although it kept him prisoner. His generous soul came to assume that perhaps it wasn't responsible, that he had been locked up by other lightning-slayers and that it couldn't release him. With this idea in mind, he gave this one the name 'Gentle Lightning'.

*

Akkaliza had just returned from school. In approaching the cage, she noticed that the bov rose with suspicious haste. His embarrassed behavior hadn't escaped her perceptiveness. Bov facial expressions were very different from Akkaliza's and of course from all other umas, the dominant species of this world. The umas regarded bovs, and most other animals of their planet simply as assets. Most we say, therefore not all because some were pets. Species arbitrarily chosen, or rather not chosen, because we should readily agree that to choose arbitrarily is an oxymoron. A few species thus had the chance to be those that were privileged by uma cultural customs. These included prominently the thacs and the hinecs. The first were small felines, the latter canines, generally a little larger.

So, Akkaliza had noted the caged bov's embarrassment despite the difficulty for umas to read these animal's facial expressions. Maybe it could be explained by the fact that she had studied with great interest and remarkable insight the behavior of this particular bov, but especially from many wild bovs images in animal documentaries. Thanks to these, she was fascinated by the discovery that they knew how to make tools. Still rudimentary tools, but sufficiently effective to be very useful. Of course, this demonstrated their intelligence, but also, just like umas, they had a culture. Because they had passed down this know-how from generation to generation.

"Peekaboo!" she said upon arriving. "I've the impression that you were doing something and that I've disturbed you. I've got to persuade you that I'm your friend! I won't steal what you've hidden, if you hid something."

She used two hands to manipulate her recording equipment, while, with the other two, she took a bottle of water from the bag she had slung on her back. With swift gestures, she removed the memory card from the device for safe-keeping in her pocket and put a second one in place, while filling the water vessel in the grass to replenish its contents.

"I've pocketed footage of you," she said. "Don't feel bad for my spying, eh! It's rather a mark of interest, in fact. Tonight, before sleeping, I'll look at what you did. You see, I can no longer do without you!"

The bov delivered several long bovgrunts. Ensuring, with a quick look, that the camera was recording, she was relieved to see that this was the case. When the animal became silent, she also kept silent a while for fear of interrupting. She produced knocking noises as she tapped two flexible fingers on her beak, in a patient attitude that invited discourse, but as he continued to remain silent, she replied:

"You've waited until I removed the memory card to finally start telling me all about your life! You joker! But I'm very happy, I won't scold you. I'm going to retrieve your beautiful speech now for later tonight."

She reinserted the memory card that she had just removed into a second slot on the device to add to it what had just been recorded.

"There! Okay, you still haven't eaten anything. I'm giving you fresh food and getting rid of that. Here you are! I brought you rice, since you seem to like it. And also carrots, soybean and two bananas."

It wasn't strictly speaking rice, carrots, soybeans and bananas, but they were close enough in likeness to make it appropriate to use these words in the translation.

The bov sniffed at the food from a distance.

"I'm leaving you now. We'll be back together shortly. Soon, you know, I'll most likely let you free, because you seem to be getting better and better. I'll be sorry to no longer be able to see you, but it would be much worse if I kept you in prison..."

The animal bovgrunted.

"Well, okay! But, I have to go now. My father has been in a bad mood for a few days! That's the least I can say!"

*

Etos found himself alone, both a bit disappointed to see it go and happy to finally have free rein to act. He watched Gentle-Lightning until it completely disappeared behind the trees and then squatted down again to retrieve his tool. He turned it vertically to allow entry into his cage between two upright branches and looked at it smiling in pride. From time to time, making sure that he was still alone and safe from prying eyes, he indulged in a moment of admiration. It was a very nice tool! There was nothing pretentious about thinking that. He was sure that Mahisa would agree. She made beautiful ones, too. Incidentally, it was high time to go and find her. He would bring his evasion handiwork with him to show her.

After once again making sure that he wasn't seen by anyone, he grasped the tool firmly at the end opposite to the hook and passed his arm outside the cage to try to pull forward a big stone that he had spotted some time ago. Remember that what we're calling a 'hook' was nothing more than about fifteen centimeters of branching that he had left at the end of his pole. By using this tool, starting over several times, with patience and perseverance, he managed to bring little by little the stone towards him. Often, the hook slipped free, but the mental image of Mahisa waiting for him gave him a stubbornness that all the difficulties in the world couldn't weaken. It took him twenty minutes to achieve his goal. But he had succeeded. The stone was finally there, close to his prison at hand's reach. Sliding both his arms, one above the other, between two upright branches, he caught it and tried to bring it into the cage. But it was too big; it wouldn't pass in the gap. He turned it in one direction, then in the other, multiplying his attempts, until finding the angle where it had the smallest dimension. Even then, he had to use much force and exertion to get it to cross the gap; had it been any wider, he wouldn't have been able to get it to enter his cage.

He sat there a moment cross-legged, one hand on this big rock shaped like a ball, panting, sweating and grimacing, as sharp pain awakened in his left shoulder. But he had obtained what he needed. So, his neuralgic stabs decreasing, a smile of satisfaction gradually came to replace his bitter grin. Thinking of Mahisa soon enabled him to completely ignore his shoulder, although the latter still protested a little.

The sun had disappeared behind the ridge of distant mountains, but it was still day. To ensure that he was still alone, he scanned for a moment the forest all around him, and then decided to move to the second and final phase of his plan.

*

Akkal was still in his office. He knew that when he returned home, his wife would once more blame him for spending more time at work than with his family. What could he do? That was the way it was! She worked in an engineering team for a company that manufactured agricultural and earth moving machinery. This activity was her passion, but she knew, and kept repeating it, how to maintain private life separate from professional life. As for himself, he felt less and less passionate, but he had to keep the company afloat.

His four arms resting on the meeting room's round table, he glanced quickly at each of his five colleagues:

"So" he said. "What's your idea to counter Ralchadomac?"

Not a single word was offered, all watching each other in embarrassment.

"We can try to further reduce the cost of the puree..." risked Ykkmaly.

"How? We've recycled all sources of protein. The beasts are already eating retired dairy bovs, their own unnecessary offspring and waste from the rendering off meat bovs. Cereal providers cannot lower their prices at all, we're strangling them. So, how?"

Ykkmaly confined herself to staring at the table before her.

"Another idea?" asked Akkal trying to keep his calm. Ykkmaly was a big shareholder. To make her angry wouldn't fix anything. If she sold her shares... she could very well make their market value tumble. As usual, it was up to him to hold everything together...

He made a second interrogative ocular scan all around. They all remained quiet, but he noticed Ykkypol looking at him emphatically.

"Okay! So... this meeting is over then. I hope that the night will be of good counsel and that tomorrow morning you'll all be interrupting each other over all the ideas you'll have for me."

Everyone stood up in silence and left the room, except Ykkypol who, last in line, stopped at the door to close it. He returned to sit in the front of his partner and said:

"We may have the solution. In any case, I know the one that Ralchadomac has chosen."

"Your spy finally discovered their trick?"

"Yes. The bastard asked me for a nice raise. He claimed that he was taking risks and that the info was so important that if he were to keep it from us, Ralchadomac would sink us for sure."

"So, you paid?

"Yes, fifty thousand."

"Bastard! Okay... we'll find a line for it in our budget... So, this info?"

"Hold on tight. Remain properly seated in your chair. I hope you're not faint-hearted."

"Get on with it, okay!"

"Uh... Listen carefully. In fact, it's not to reduce the cost of meat that they have found a solution, but to reduce that of milk."

"So!"

"I know! I know that it's the price of meat that they're attacking us with, but let me speak. Listen. They've a lower milk cost price than ours and this allows them to finance a lower selling price on meat. So they've no profit on meat, but are able to catch up on milk. This is a stratagem intended to mislead us, to reduce our chances of finding out how they do it."

"Okay! Then how is it done with milk"

Akkal liked Ykkypol, but his way of too slowly getting to the point often annoyed him.

"Very simple, it only needs the courage to do it. If you can't reduce the price of the puree, you have to ensure that the animals eat less, that they need less."

"... ?"

"They remove their four limbs."

"Eh? What? How?"

"You heard me. I told you to hold on to your chair. They amputate their limbs when they reach the age of one week. Their need for protein is thus reduced since there is less to be fed."

"That's atrocious!"

"Perhaps, but it works. In addition, small limbs are recycled into the puree."

"I'm going to puke!" cried Akkal pinching significantly his beak.

"You'll have time to vomit all you want when we're doing the same thing."

"Why not denounce them to the media rather than doing the same thing? They'd be fucked if this scandal was made public!"

"So that the same media could become interested in us? Do you think that we're squishy clean? Do you want us to find ourselves with all the associations for the protection of animals on our back? Starting with your sister."

Akkal kept silent, scratching the scales of his forehead. His crest waved ominously.

*

Etos had noticed that his prison's floor was made with strange branches all flat. Really very flat! Yes, rather strange indeed, but everything was strange in this prison anyway! The standing branches all around were so straight that they seemed surreal, so hard that they defied the laws of the forest. No tree produced wood in this way? He had also noticed that flooring elements weren't tightly joined. And when he solidly struck his foot on one of them, it didn't seem rock-solid. And what if?... He said to himself. And what if... it could be broken...

He lifted the big rock over his head and let it fall as violently as possible on the floor, close to the bars. This also, he hadn't invented. For generations, his kin had used this method for cracking nuts. However, he was using a much heavier stone, because what he wanted to break was much bigger. No, he hadn't invented anything, but he had still had the sense to divert the use of these two tools, the shaft with a hook and the stone for breaking; this was already an undeniable proof of intelligence.

In addition to this, he had the idea of focusing all his efforts on only one of these curious flat branches. Under the first shock, it gave a cracking sound and vibrated, but didn't break. His shoulder protested by sending a neuralgic signal, but he refused to pay any attention to it. He imagined that Mahisa's loving eyes were laid upon him and he didn't want to disappoint her. Taking care to aim for the same point of impact, he raised the stone well up again and accompanied it in its fall for it to gain even more speed. This time the shock was terrible and the floor cracked significantly, but the stone bounced back and he fell onto his right foot. A cry of pain escaped him. He massaged his toes shouting insults to the flat branch and noticed that this time, it was severely damaged. As eager for revenge as for defeating it to be able to escape, he gave it a third furious blow that was fatal. It broke with a sharp crack that flattered his ego and satisfied his need to give punishment. The board, which for him was a strange flat branch, had failed near a bar. He raised it and rotated it several times in both directions, putting in such effort that it ended up broken at the other side of the cage. A strip of land, showing a few tufts of grass that had yellowed somewhat due to lack of light, appeared about 30 centimeters below the floor. He felt an indescribable pleasure slipping in his two feet to trample it. Because, wasn't it already a small victory. Hadn't he done what the lightning-slayer wanted to deny him?

Mahisa! he screamed inside himself, Look! I know how to overcome lightning-slayers!

This moment of intoxication fading fairly quickly, he had to admit that, all the same, he wasn't free yet. All this work had taken some time. It was getting to be night and he realized that he was thirsty... and even a little hungry. But the abuse he had imposed upon the floor had rocked the water vessel so much that it was almost empty. He drank down greedily what was left, swallowed a banana and decided to get back to work.

From time to time, the smell and the indistinct plaintive sounds of fellow bovs reached him. He then listened and sniffed the air for a few seconds, then ignored it.

A red spot appeared on his shoulder dressing; he noticed it, but didn't care. It was now important to break a second flat branch to increase the width of the opening in order to completely slip in. It was with admirable zeal that he began. In less than ten minutes, a second board gave way under commendable effort. He threw them outside the cage in two enraged gestures, as if he had wanted them to understand the full contempt that they instilled. Moonlight, the sole reigning light, illuminated his victorious expression.

He lied down on the earth inside the opening and tried to pass under the bars. But the gap not being high enough, even his head failed to pass. About ten centimeters were missing. Fortunately, the rain had the good sense to fall the previous night which made it relatively easy to dig the earth. Which he began to do so with greater alacrity since freedom felt close at hand! But as good as was his will, it still took him dozens of minutes, because he was using his hands to do it. The idea of using the water vessel, now empty, unfortunately didn't come to mind. Not that he was lacking in intelligence, but he had never seen anything like it used as a digging tool. Even among the most brilliant species, spontaneous inventions by individuals are extremely rare; in addition, exceptional circumstances are often needed to be put on the right track. Inventions or discoveries are the convergence of an exceptional intelligence and a great deal of luck. Like Etos and his family, everything we do, every day, for better or for worse, is the result of our education, or at best some modest variations of what we learned.

With aching hands, dirt under his nails and fraying his fingers' skin, he managed to sufficiently enlarge the passage. When he finally arrived to slip outside the cage, the reward for his efforts was a complex mixture of various feelings each more inebriating than the other. Sweet intoxication of freedom. Satisfaction at having triumphed over the terrible lightning-slayer gods. And above all, rejoicing at the idea of finally being able to go back to Mahisa. A deep anxiety also mingled into this. Could braving gods holding such powers remain unpunished? Had he truly escaped their attention? Or were they already having fun at his expense, ready to pounce in any minute? He preferred to no longer think about that and in all haste to get out of there, before the hitherto only lenient lightning-slayer noticed. All his efforts had made him parched. So, despite the relative freshness that the night brought, thirst held him by the throat. While he was just about to move away, also without knowing what direction to take, he became interested in the mysterious thing in front of his cage that Gentle-Lightning had several times manipulated. It was a black object with amazing shapes, like all things related to lightning-slayers, in fact. It was placed on three branches perfectly straight and smooth, a bit like standing branches which circumvented his prison, except that these were thinner. Looking at the thing in its entirety, one would think that it was a big insect with three long stiff legs. He grabbed it, smelled it, licked it, nibbled it and put his index finger into a hole at the back of which we saw a substance transparent as water, but hard as stone. However, this seemingly comprehensive study was done hastily, because he didn't forget that he had to leave before the return of Gentle-Lightning. As nice as it was, there was no reason to anticipate with certainty what would be its reaction. He decided to take the strange object as a souvenir and as testimony of his adventure in the lightning-slayer's world. Also, the wooden tool he had made to catch the stone deserved to be shown to Mahisa; so he decided to take it too. After a last look of defiance directed at his former prison, that he suddenly humbled with a dismissive kick, he turned all around wondering what direction to choose. The distant wailing came again to him. He decided to go that way, which made him come out of the forest. Moonlight made him able to distinguish strange things. Wow! Definitely! The lightning-slayers' world was a world of strangeness!

Far before him, a little to the right, stood what looked like a very flat and low hill. Supernaturally flat!

On the left, at three or four hundred paces was a kind of large rock made up of angles and plane surfaces. It was rather white, apparently, but the most surprising was what jumped out from this curious form, things that shined in the dim light; light was coming out of it.

It was the first time that Etos saw a house. He was fascinated by the windows' illumination. The fine rain that was beginning to fall looked like a curtain of twine in front of them.

The sun shines inside this thing, he said to himself. It can be seen through these holes that shine.

He ran towards what was intriguing him. The cries of a hinec greeted his approach. Etos was surprised to find that this creature, that he didn't recognize, was held back at the neck by a long thing that trailed behind it. He advanced some more, but the animal was becoming clearly threatening, growling and showing its teeth, he slowed down, hesitated more and more, and eventually stopped less than a hundred paces from the thing that encased the sun. To try to unravel its mystery, looking in through the light holes, he moved gently sideways, to one side then to the other, leaning his head right and left, seeking the best point of view, while the tethered animal expressed its rage more loudly.

That's when the unexpected occurred. A new bright hole appeared in the sun prison. Standing out against the light, the dark silhouette of a lightning-slayer appeared there. It had the thing that bangs and kills in its hands.

Terrorized, Etos dropped what he was carrying and ran away as fast as he could.

# A Strange Flat and Low Hill

In her upstairs room, sitting on her bed and leaning on the wall, Akkaliza was watching the bov videos captured by her device. There wasn't much to see. However, especially interested at the time when he was bovgrunting, she had viewed this passage several times.

What was he doing when I disturbed him? She asked herself. He was hiding something, that's for sure! When will people realize that bovs are intelligent, at least as much as a hinec or a thac, anyway?

Almost without realizing it, she had given her protégé a name: "Sneaky".

It was then that she heard the noise that Okkdor, the hinec on guard for the evening, made. She stood up and pulled back the translucent curtain in her room to see what was happening below. Unaccustomed to the dark, her eyes didn't see anything else than darkness. She heard the front door squeak on its hinges and her father shouting: "Who's there?" The voice of her brother also was heard: "What's gotten into you, Okkdor? What have you sensed?" She opened the window and leaned over. The hinec hadn't calmed down. Although her eyes were adapting a little more to the night, and her brother had turned on the outdoor lighting, she saw nothing that could justify the animal's agitation.

*

Akkal and Akkalo saw nothing in particular outside. Akkalo patted the hinec's head:

"Hey! Okkdor, what's gotten into you? I hope that you won't keep on making this racket all night!"

It was raining enough that father and son had little desire to stick around outside. They came back in. Akkal shut off the outside lighting and collapsed in his chair, in front of the TV. One of his thacs came onto his knees to be petted.

"So? What was it?" asked his wife.

"No idea. It looks like the hinec has gone crazy."

In a commercial, rejoicing bovs were singing that dairy products were friends for life. Akkal produced a long screech while shaking his neck's scales. That was the way umas laughed. But this particular laugh was sinister.

"What's making you laugh like that?" asked Akkali. "You look like the devil! You're really weird these days."

He looked at his wife without responding.

"Mom's right, dad... you've been strange for some time," said Akkalo.

"Yes, well... It's just that they aren't everyone's friend! I know what I mean!"

"Okay! That's better!" exclaimed Akkali. "But, myself however, I don't understand you at all! Who are you talking about?"

"Dairy products, of course! They aren't everybody's friend!"

Son and mother exchanged a puzzled look. Mechanically petting the thac with his lower left hand, the father tried to take his mind off things by listening to the news:

"... seems to be a probe coming from the depths of space. A device that hasn't been built on Teruma, of extraterumastrial origin. All the experts say that they don't recognize this craft. In addition, the trajectory that it's following in approaching our planet confirms that it can only come from elsewhere... »

"Such a waste of all that money to go into space with all the misery here on Teruma," said Akkali.

"But, dear! It has nothing to do with that! Listen! They're saying that it's something that is coming from another planet!"

"Yes, that's it! They can tell us all kinds of nonsense and you fall for it!"

Akkal couldn't focus on the news nor on what his wife and son were saying. It was up to him to take the final decision regarding the removal of the dairy bov's limbs. A meeting of the Board of Directors had been urgently called to discuss it. By ridding the animals' mass of everything that wasn't essential to the production of milk, they would make significant savings in feed.

"Actually, the ideal case," pointed out one of the Board members, "would be a dairy bov that's no more than just a mouth on one side, an anus on the other and large breasts in between. We can't easily do without various organs related to digestion and respiration, however we must eliminate everything that's not needed."

This statement had raised murmurs of protest more or less horrified, but because of the prospect for profit and taking into account that the competition was already on that path, everyone had agreed that Natural Foods had no choice.

"I knew that we had to make savings on the puree," said Ykkmaly. "but I confess that I had never thought to reduce the quantity per dairy bov. From habit, I wanted to reduce its price. The idea is pure genius, we should've thought of it before!"

Akkal turned to her with a sad look:

"Then... Must we do the same thing?"

They all gave their approval, with more or less enthusiasm or restraint according to their character, but not one had said no. All knew that their money was at stake.

Akkal was the majority shareholder. It was up to him now to accept or to refuse to go to that extreme. Aware that if he refused, others would rush to sell their shares and that Natural Foods wouldn't be worth anything, did he have a choice? First thing tomorrow morning, they would be expecting his response.

Suddenly, he felt himself being shaken by four hands.

"What? What?" He cried.

"Akkal! What's happening to you? What are you mulling over?" asked Akkali looking over him.

"Hey Dad! What's wrong with you?" anxiously added Akkalo.

"If your work tires you so much, you should take a little rest," said his wife.

"Everything's fine! Everything's fine..."

With two skeptics looking on, he lied:

"I was thinking about that thing, there, from outer space..."

But neither his son nor his wife appeared convinced. He felt exhausted and he had to get up at dawn.

"Okay, I'm going to bed," he concluded extracting himself from his couch.

*

Etos charged ahead as quickly as he could. He headed for the low and flat hill whence came the clamors. Now that he was closer he heard them clearly and the smell of his kind became increasingly stronger. He was no longer running because he couldn't any more. Exhausted, he could barely walk. All the cells in his body were asking for water. His mind was turned to finding something to drink , nothing else was important. Apart from Mahisa, of course! Mouth wide open skywards, he tried to drink by swallowing a few drops, but the rain was subsiding; it was no more than a drizzle that taunted his thirst.

He hoped to find water among his congeners. As he approached this strange hill, the cries made him increasingly uncomfortable. He realized that he couldn't make out a single word although he was now close enough to clearly hear these lamentations. They were undeniably his congeners, however, he didn't understand them. One more strange thing! Like this hill's flat shape which looked a little like the sun prison, except that it was bigger. Not much higher, but considerably longer.

One of the walls of the huge Natural Foods production building, that Etos thought of as a strange low and flat hill, was soon no more than a few meters from him. Howls, complaints, sobbing never ceased. At this short distance, they resonated so loudly in his head and in his heart that he almost forgot in that he was about to die from thirst. Until now, he had never heard so many voices at the same time. How many were there and where were they? Or perhaps rather, how many females were there and where were they? Because he seemed to recognize them as female voices. How could he hear and smell them so distinctly without being able to see them? For him, this was part of what was strange and inexplicable in the land of the lightning-slayers. Indeed, it was in the land of the lightning-slayers, that he thought he was.

At every hundred meters, against this main structure's wall of kilometric dimensions, were adjoining constructs containing motors of ventilation systems, water inlets, puree pumps and other equipment. The door to one of these small appurtenances was ajar, no doubt by one of the maintenance employees' negligence, or by a lock malfunction. As he approached this opening, Etos sensed that there was water. He passed his head, but was unable to enter more. His shoulders didn't pass. Trying to sneak in sideways, he was surprised when 'the hole' grew as soon as he had put a little force on it to achieve his end. One more strange thing! But he wasn't at a loss for surprises. Here, the laws of nature were different, he had no choice but to accept it; he did so all the more easily that he was too thirsty to bother with physics. It was the first time that he had opened a door.

Inside, there was almost total darkness. He distinguished vague shapes, but his senses confirmed the presence of moisture. An idea came to him to enlarge the opening so he could get a little more lunar clarity. Initially, he tried to push the door with his upper body, as that was how it had worked the first time, but he quickly realized that he could rotate the strangeness by hand. When it was opened wide and his eyes became adapted to less light, he distinguished a small puddle on the flat concrete. Not even taking time to wonder at this marvel, this unlikely sort of rock, he got down to lick the surface. That's when he felt drops of water falling on his head. He looked up and saw a wall faucet leaking, which he saw as a kind of small grey branch with a bent end from which trickled a little water. Without questioning the nature of this piece of surreal wood, he began licking it with greed shaking it in the hope that more liquid would fall. His hands jerked it so much, every which way, that eventually he unwittingly opened the tap by an additional one third of a turn. This was a paradise of flowing substance. He drank until his thirst ceded its place to a feeling of heaviness in his stomach. A lesser evil for sure! Body and nature having their requirements and mysteries, he was overcome with fatigue. It was as if something stronger than him had decided now that the most urgent need had been filled, it was important to deal with the second: rest. Moving away from the flowing faucet and, with the intermittent hum from a pump or other motor, he fell asleep on the floor without further ado.

Suddenly it started raining again. It riddled nature with large drops that from the multitude of impacts rumbled with more and more clatter.

*

Mahisa had moved away from the road, but, still keeping it in sight, she walked in the forest. She could just make it out in the moonlight. It was more comfortable for her feet to make progress on the undergrowth's soft soil and she felt safer under the trees than completely out in the open. An hour earlier, she had seen an extraordinary thing. Quite extraordinary, Yes, but very scary! It started with two spots of light far before her. She was walking on the earthen path at the time. She had already seen glowworms in the grass at night and of course the stars in the dark sky and also the moon, as was the case at the moment. But these spots of light didn't look like any of those phenomena. First, they were necessarily much brighter than glowworms since they appeared clearly from much further away. Also, they were visible under skyline unlike the stars. And above all, she was seeing them approaching at high speed. As a precaution, Mahisa had gone into hiding in the forest behind a tree while observing the phenomenon. The lights grew while gradually a noise that she had heard before was getting louder and louder. Something passed in a cloud of dust. A strange and frightening beast resembling that which had took Etos on its back and a lightning-slayer in its hollow head. Mahisa had discovered that, to add to its monstrosity, its eyes glowed at night like two suns. Long after its passage, she remained petrified with terror, legs trembling and her heart shaking her chest. Then, she hesitated. Should she turn back to follow this monster to find the one she loved? But she convinced herself not to. This 'four round feet' was different from that which had captured Etos. It wasn't quite identical in shape and it had another color. Moreover, why follow it since it obviously didn't have Etos on its back? The best was to continue in the same direction until she found the tribe of the four round feet. Perhaps, that's where she would be able to recover her loved one.

She set off again, heavy hearted and full of anxiety. Now, rain crackled on the foliage above her. She licked leaves to quench her thirst. Later, she was able to drink from a puddle.

*

Now that she was responsible for Sneaky's care, Akkaliza planned to get up an hour and a half earlier than usual to go and see him every morning. That morning, she went down the stairs without making a noise to avoid waking her parents that she hoped were still asleep.

But when she arrived in the living room, she saw her father, slumped in his chair, a cup of coffee in one hand. She found that he looked terrible.

"Hi Dad!" she said.

He muttered a few sounds which she believed to sound something like 'my daughter'.

"You're awake early!" she tried.

Garbled response. Absentmindedly staring at his cup, he didn't even raise his eyes to look at her. Everything suggested that he hadn't slept at all that night. Deciding not to lose time over that, she quickly put two apples, a few nuts and a box of soy, that she had cooked the day before, in a bag and then she went out to see Sneaky.

The grass was still soaked; she regretted not having put boots on. As soon as she went around the last tree and the cage was in sight, surprise paralyzed her for a second, and then she rushed forward to look between the bars.

*

Akkal arrived at his office with a headache that numbed his mind. He went into the meeting room, vaguely greeted everyone, sat down in his chair and waited for the others to be seated also. When this was done, these were the words that were uttered from his beak:

"All night, I couldn't close my eyes. Natural Foods not having a choice... It isn't really a decision. But, let's do it! Let's go and beat Ralchadomac. It's urgent now that we solve the technical problems. With our vetoes, Ykkypol, you want to take care of that?"

"Yes, I've even taken a head start. I've already discussed it with Ikkillu."

Ikkillu was a plump green to whom was entrusted the direction of the veterinary service.

"So, what does she think?"

"It'll be much easier to modify the bovs two or three days after their birth. To do it on adults is possible, but this would require substantial labor, additional antibiotics costs and a big risk of decrease in milk production."

"Uhhm... Unfortunate, that. That means that we'll have to wait how long to have dairy bovs that are profitable?"

"Ikkillu thinks that we can proceed with ablations on all females, from new births to all those that are within three months from becoming productive. The latter will have that time to heal."

"So, we'll be more profitable in three months? Is that right?"

"Yes, it is."

"And in the meantime, we must sell at a loss!"

"I know, but what can I say? I've told you what Ikkillu thinks."

Akkal looked around the table. All remained silent.

"You others, what do you think?"

"If Ikkillu says so..." settled Ukkbeyri pensively examining his upper right hand's ten claws.

Ukkbeyri was the shareholder that participated the least in discussions at Board of Director's meetings. But as he was always in agreement with final decisions, Akkal liked him a lot.

"Okay!" concluded the latter. "Ykkypol, you tell Ikkillu to do whatever it takes, but I want some new profitable dairy bovs in only two months. Have her do something to make them heal more quickly... I don't know, have her use her brains!"

"Understood, I'll tell her."

"Okay... Does anyone have something else to add?"

"Yes," says Ukkbeyri.

Akkal looked at him surprised.

Ukkbeyri has something to say! he thought. What a surprise! He noticed that he wasn't the only one surprised. All eyes were turned to the one who usually said so little.

"I've an idea to make a little money," said the latter, "just enough to carry us over while waiting to have more profitable dairy bovs."

"We're listening," ensured Akkal.

"You may find it... how to say... Okay, I'll explain. You'll see! I was thinking of force-feeding meat bovs. Make them swallow everything they can up to the limit of what they can ingest without exploding."

"Ah! And what good would that do?" said Akkal astonished looking to the others as witnesses.

"Let me talk without interruption, otherwise, I won't be able to explain. I said we need to force-feed them until they're sick. That's the goal. To make them sick."

They all looked surprised. Akkal wondered if he wasn't the one who was sick, but he kept silent. Ukkbeyri continued.

"The purpose is to cause a liver disease or more specifically hepatic steatosis."

"Ah!" Akkal couldn't help himself saying. "I see that you have studied this in earnest, but its purpose still escapes me."

"Liver affected by this disease grows to an enormous size! Ten, fifteen or even twenty times larger than its normal size. We'll be able to sell this organ as a luxury commodity. We'll need to market it as an item of good taste, as terroir, for social graces and luxury... see what I mean."

Everyone was so surprised that their first response was a long silence. The second was from Ykkmaly:

"How do you expect people to buy sick liver? And that in addition to get them to regard it as a luxury product?"

"Ads... Ads!" exclaimed Ukkbeyri clinging to his idea like a castaway to a buoy. "Advertising is everything!"

The seven other participants at the meeting stared each other looking like they thought their associate was out of his mind.

Akkal understood from their facial expressions that it was up to him to put an end to this far-fetched idea:

"It won't work, Ukkbeyri! Nobody'll buy sick liver, even with advertising. I'm sorry, but it's absurd!"

*

Of course, the first thing that Etos did waking up was to think of Mahisa, but this didn't stop him to head outdoors. There was full daylight. This wasn't reassuring for him. Of course, the day had the advantage of being able to see clearly, but it also had the major disadvantage of making him too visible. Squinting his eyes because of the sun, he noticed, thankfully a far enough away, four creatures that he vaguely reminded him of something. They resembled the thing that had transported his cage when he was first inside it; except, although they had same feet that rolled, there was no big arm on its back. He wondered if it would be better to wait till night to return to the forest and be able to get away as far as possible from this place full of oddities and lightning-slayers. The last one he had seen had the thing that bangs and kills in its hands. It had imprisoned the sun, but apparently it had managed to escape as it was now high in the sky. Unless they had voluntarily released it... How to know? Whatever, better not to be seen at the moment. Horrible wailing still eerily filled the auditory environment. He was sure that they were complaints, crying, expressions of suffering, but although there were articulated sounds also, he couldn't make out a single word. Never had he heard anything so distressing. All members of Etos's tribe spoke the same language. So the idea that he might one day hear words from one or more of his congeners without understanding didn't come to him. It was even more disturbing than seeing the sun imprisoned.

Returning inside the dependency, he glanced at what it contained. Of course, he didn't understand the purpose of everything that was offered to his eyes, motors, piping, valves, electrical cables, switches and a number of other various devices, but he noticed that there was another strange thing on the opposite side of the first, one of those flat shapes that rotated when you pushed them. It was closed, but he recognized it as being the same thing. Initially, he tried to push it with his right shoulder, but it didn't budge. He wanted to insert his finger-nails between the wall and the thing to pull it. Impossible! Spying the handle, he conceived the idea to grab this good grip to force it in all directions. So with commendable determination, he shook it and he ended up rotating it appropriately and the door opened. It's hard to fully realize the sense of power that invaded him: wasn't he able to maneuver insane things in the world of the lightning-slayers? What a pity that Mahisa wasn't there to admire him! How frustrating it was to waste such elements of seduction!

But his sense of triumph quickly gave way to curiosity. He was in a room two times smaller than the previous one. The wall that it shared with the huge building of Natural Foods contained a rectangle of mysterious darkness. It was an opening through which passed many electrical cables and pipes of large diameter coming up from the floor. He took two seconds to consider all of this, wondering what the lightning-slayers could be doing with their lives by residing in such a singular world. But this question had no time to stick around in his mind because he was overcome with great anxiety upon hearing the sounds emanating from this dark opening. There still was horrible wailing, but it was considerably closer. From female voices, this time he was certain. They had to be so numerous! So many, many, such a big number that a single head couldn't phantom it, he thought. Terrified and shocked to listen to so many expressions of such great suffering, adrenaline poured into his blood and his eyes filled with tears. With his whole body trembling, he decided to enter the devil's den to come to the aid of those who tirelessly screamed their martyrdom. How many were they? What horrible torture lightning-slayers had inflicted upon them within the bowels of this cursed hill? He was terrified at the idea of suffering the same fate, but even more so at imagining what would be his remorse if he did nothing for them.

So, he leaned into this dark tunnel. Then he put a knee on its edge and entered completely on all fours.

*

Ukkosal was showing Okkala pictures and videos. She looked at the viewer display with concentration, without making any comment. Ukkosal was surprised by her lack of reaction. He was finding the scene very hard to support yet he had filmed it himself! To vision once more these atrocious moments was torture. How could she stay so cold in front of that? Then came the scene where an employee watched the treadmill where hundreds of live newborns, mostly male, were dumped into a grinder. You could see the creatures crammed one on top the other carried along then toppled into the large funnel of the machine. Rising quickly, he screamed and sent his chair two meters behind him:

"You're not saying anything!" he said outraged. "How can you remain insensitive to it? You yourself asked me to bring back images of this hell that your brother manages?"

She had a bitter smile, which umas expressed by a particular vibration of their neck scales.

"If I don't react in a visible way," she retorted, "it's for several reasons. The first is that I am reacting inside myself with such violence that I'm about to pass out in front you. The second is that, as you've mentioned, my brother is involved; and I am ashamed despite myself. The third is that I've already seen worse! Much worse!"

With these last words, her eyes stared down on him with an intensity that scared him. He felt sheepish.

"Do you want to see worse?" she proposed almost not opening her beak. "Do you want to see bovs butchered still alive and aware on the slaughter line? Or you may prefer those skinned alive for their leather?"

"No. Not..."

"So don't tell me how to react, if you please."

"Excuse me," he whispered. "I... I'm upset and..."

"Don't worry. I understand. Thanks for this evidence. Your work for our cause is precious. I'll select some for The Inquirer. You knew that I was invited?"

"Ah, no. What a superb opportunity to expose the truth."

She had a wry smile:

"I'm afraid that the network won't take the risk of disseminating anything too disturbing for their viewers. They will be told the classic: 'We have chosen not to show you the most shocking scenes.' You understand, we mustn't cut off their appetites, poor things."

"But! They're there to provide information, no?"

"Yes, maybe... They're mainly there to reach the maximum number of viewers to be able to sell their advertising at the highest price. The networks are also competing companies with shareholders demanding that they make the best profits. And furthermore, the idea of being attacked in court by the meat and milk giants makes them timid. Especially, if in addition, it's these same giants who buy their advertising!"

"But then what will these images be used for?"

"We'll see. Perhaps they will let a few pass. And we must also and above all, show all of it on the social networks."

While Okkala was speaking, the viewer had continued forward. She made the device rewind. He didn't utter one more word until the end, but he looked away. I'll have nightmares for months! he said to himself. When she had gotten to the end, she thanked him again:

"Thanks, it'll be very useful."

"In spite of what you said?"

"Yes. I assure you that we'll try to show it to the maximum number of people possible. It's true that the media will broadcast only small snippets of it, the least painful to watch because they wish to protect their public, I mean their interests. But, as I told you, there's Internet and we'll also organize private debates and projections... Sometimes, those who don't want their story to be told invite themselves very brutally to these meetings and from time to time things get broken."

"Equipment?"

"Yes, but often people are aggressed also. Three members of the Association were badly beaten up the last time."

"But, surely, you're not going to tell me that your own brother would attack you."

"My brother doesn't do those kinds of things. The company he heads pays people to do the dirty work. You know, he doesn't control all what happens. He may be the main shareholder... I know he's overwhelmed. I'm not saying this to excuse him, but... You see what I mean?"

He preferred to abstain from responding to that.

"You said that you saw worse?" he risked.

He regretted his question as soon as he had uttered the last word. He was unable to say why it had eluded him.

"Yes. But I won't show you any pictures; you're too sensitive for that. I can tell by looking at you that already you'll have a lot of trouble sleeping in the coming days."

"You're right. I don't want to see any. But how can it be worse? I have trouble to..."

"It's easy to make it worse. The worst has no limits. Little by little, you get used to everything! The worst is progressing in small steps. Each of them really doesn't seem any more serious than the previous one that has become a habit. Imagine a staircase which leads to the deepest depths of meanness. With each step that we go down, we don't have the impression of being much lower..."

"But..."

"Yes?"

"The public..."

"What about the public?"

"Once they know, everything will cease."

"I hope so. But, everything is done to keep the public uninformed. People don't see tortured dairy bovs in stores. All they see in front of them are containers illustrated with drawings of animals happy to give them their milk. They don't see meat bovs spending their short, miserable lives in the concentration camp you've visited. They're only shown packaged parts. They've learned to view the flesh as separate from its provenance. For them, dairy products and meat are simply edible substances. You must know that already yourself since you were like that, only a few days ago. Yet your parents were farmers."

"Yes. I admit that... I hadn't seen it like that."

"And yet... I remind you that you saw nothing!"

"But how could it be worse?"

"Ralchadomac has found a way. I'm almost grateful for them to have exceeded my brother in horror."

"... ?"

"The amputation of the milk bovs' four limbs at birth. These poor beasts live suspended by straps. They said that the limbs were a cause for expenditure in proteins unnecessary for the production of milk. They're devising means for additional savings. To reduce the costs related to feed distribution and evacuation of feces, animals will be soon connected to three tubes, one down the throat for the purée. You've surely guessed, the other two are to carry away excrement and urine. The experimenting has already gotten underway. They've just found out that psychotropic drugs need to be added into the puree because some animals eventually spontaneously die from mental distress."

Ukkosal held his head moaning.

"Argh!" he cried. "We need to stop it all! Now. now, I'm telling you! Do you hear me? Now! At this moment!"

He was screaming.

"That's what we're trying to do in Two One Four. That's why we're fighting!

But it looked like Ukkosal had suddenly lost his mind. Holding his head with all four hands, on the verge of tearing his vocal cords, he bellowed:

"You're not listening to me! I said that it must stop now. Right away! At this moment!"

She looked at him, dumbfounded, without knowing what to answer.

"There is a way!" he said ferociously. There's a way! A single one! The only one!"

"... I'm listening. But please calm down."

"We must blow up all Ralchadomac and Natural Foods facilities. We need to kill their leadership with sniper rifles."

"You want me to kill my brother?"

Ukkosal grumbled a few incomprehensible words.

"Your parents too raised animals that were intended to be eaten. They also stole milk from their dairy bovs, milk that was normally intended to feed their children."

"My parents never tortured their animals like Natural Foods and Ralchadomac! How can you compare them? And yours have done the same!"

"I agree that they were much less cruel, but they participated in a process that involves getting nutrition from living beings, to be regarded as assets and this process never stopped getting worse little by little, as I said. Neither my brother nor your parents invented it completely, but everyone participated. Certainly, not as low as us on the stairs of the abyss, they were there all the same. They had already gone down a few steps."

"..."

"Killing those who manage these death camps won't change anything! As long as there's a demand... We only need to inform the public every way we can."

"People will say that they have to eat!"

"It's up to us to explain to them that they are not forced to eat animal resources. All vegans are proof that it's possible. In the meantime, do what you can to bring back images of meat bovs. If you can't, we won't be angry at you, but if you can you'll serve the cause. Thank you so much for what you did already. And don't believe I think your parents were evil. Don't forget that mine had the same trade and that my brother is worse still. I want only you to understand that it's impossible to return to the methods they practiced. History shows that, little by little, the machine will take over and we would return quickly to what we're doing today. And even! And even if it were possible to raise livestock as it was done in their time, it wouldn't be okay anyway. Animals aren't assets at our disposal, they are beings who think and suffer. To kill one of them is murder. We allow ourselves to do so because we are the dominant species. It's the law of the strongest, but not of the most noble."

*

Akkaliza parked her scooter against a wall on the narrow Kkoojor street sidewalk. She stopped the vehicle's engine and descended in such haste that she almost fell. Pain indicated that she was twisted a claw in her left foot, but she was in too much of a hurry to see to it more closely. She made a few paces limping to door number 269. There, one of the ten fingers on her upper right hand pressed the doorbell, while her other three hands drummed the door.

"Akkaliza!" exclaimed her aunt upon opening. "What's going on?"

"Sneaky escaped!" cried her niece.

"Who?"

"Oh sorry! The bov that I've talken to you about. That my father let me take care of."

"Ah... Okay! Don't stay there, come on in."

Entering, Akkaliza passed by an individual that was leaving at the same time. He looked upset. The vibrations of his cheek's scales expressed dismay. He mumbled something that sounded like something polite and walked away, shoulders hunched as if all the evils of the world were on his back.

In response to the surprised and questioning look of her niece, Okkala moved her crest in an expression that seemed to say: 'it's nothing...'

"So? Tell me!" she asked.

"He managed to break the cage and escape," said Akkaliza.

"Break his cage? But..."

"He made a tool with a branch and he used it for... Wait, best to see it yourself."

Akkaliza handed over the memory card taken from her camera. Intrigued, Okkala introduced the object into her computer and both looked at the display.

"But... how did he get the stick with that sort of hook on its end?"

"I hadn't installed the camera yet, but despite lack of evidence, I believe that he made it himself from a branch. In fact, that's the reason that I've named him Sneaky."

 Akkaliza was explaining what had caused her to assume that while her aunt continued to discover all that the fugitive had done to break out of his prison and flee.

"Then how did you find your camera then? It's clear that he let it fall in the grass far enough away from the house."

"It's Okkdor, our guard hinec that found it. When I unleashed him, he sniffed everywhere and stopped in front of the camera and the tool that Sneaky made. But with all that fell last night... impossible to go further."

"It's true that it rained too, the hinec wouldn't be able to find the scent."

"See how intelligent he is! I knew that bovs were able to use and even make tools. But knowing that it was him who... To see it on these images... you understand?"

The green scales on Okkala's neck vibrated in a way that expressed a loving smile:

"For sure! He seems particularly intelligent. The funny thing is that he saw fit to bring your camera! What did he really want it for? Anyway, you possess an extraordinary video, because it was taken by a bov! It can't be said that he's good at framing, but... For a beginner, this isn't bad! It's funny when he filmed himself point-blank while he examined the objective."

With a smile, she added:

"Close-up of his tongue and teeth when he tasted it..."

"Yes," agreed Akkaliza smiling also, "I'm probably the sole person having such a self-portrait."

"The biggest difficulty, as I've often said, is that people don't realize that animals, bovs among others, express themselves with facial expressions and means that are so different from ours that it's impossible to understand them with any ease. I'm presently doing some work on this subject... But I'm wasting your time there, no?"

"Not really... I think that Sneaky must have fled into the forest. I was intending to release him anyway. I would have liked to have opened his cage to show him that I was his friend. Too bad! I hope that he'll get back with his own kind. They must be at about sixty kilometers from the house. At the place that Dad usually goes hunting."

"I think that he'll eventually find them. Don't worry."

"Well... I'm worried a little bit anyway... But you said that you were working on a topic?"

"Yes. I've observed that bovs communicate a lot with the way they raise their lips and probably by moving the hair they have over their eyes also. I'll show you some images that I've put aside for this study. By the way, that did your father say about his escape?"

"He doesn't know yet. I don't know at all how he'll react when I tell him about it this evening. We'll see!"

*

Bent down forward and head low down, Etos had progressed. He had advanced very slowly at first, because of the darkness that had slyly administered several blows to his head, and then more easily, as he crawled towards more light. As he approached, the distressing moans had gradually become almost deafening, as much for his ears as for his compassion.

This increased volume of sound and his anxiety-provoked tension were the only gradual transition given to him in preparation to his entry into hell. However, as to the scene...

Unveiled suddenly before him was an ocean of suffering which ranged, it seemed, into infinity. He was four meters above the rows of dairy bovs. Thus, he saw them all the way as far as his gaze could go. The shock was so brutal that he didn't even notice the two lightning-slayers slowly approaching between the first two rows, just under him. The emotional scope of wailing and sobbing was so extensive that they all became indistinguishable to him. It was no longer individuals who were crying, it was his entire species. He thought that they must be all collected here. It was such a certainty for him that he began to wonder by what miracle he had escaped this obviously forced gathering, but he ceased to wonder once he became conscious that there were only female victims here. When his shocked gaze was no longer lost among the multitude, that it managed to attach itself to those who were at the forefront and then, he noticed the monstrous hypertrophied mammary infirmity, he noted the small size of their prison, he was struck by the extreme thinness of their limbs, and when catching their gaze, it revealed that they were wearing their life as a burden, once he had received all these visions as violent blows to his heart, he screamed in turn. His screams and his tears came together with those that tore through his heart. He screamed and screamed again, he wept and wept just as much.

But no more than a drop of water in a deluge, he couldn't be heard. Losing consciousness, he fell forward.

*

Ikkillu, as we recall, head of the Veterinary Department, was walking between rows one and two of the dairy bovs. She was accompanied by Ekkbokk, her best assistant. He was a competent green uma. Although he used a language that was a little rustic at times, she didn't find it unpleasant to be in his company.

Usually, Ikkillu worked in her office, setting the dosage of each puree antibiotic based on the analysis of blood and of various other samples, taken from the animals by personnel under her direction. Also, she determined the dosage of anabolic steroids and growth hormones for the meat bovs, lactation stimulatory hormones for the dairy bovs... Today, she came here compelled and forced by circumstances. The smell was unbearable and she didn't like seeing all these animals suffer. But the profession being what it is... The mission her superiors had entrusted her with was to imagine how to build facilities to accommodate limbless dairy bovs. While other professionals of her team were already setting about the task of amputating the young animals, her mission was to imagine what could be done to be able to harness them here while spending the least amount of money possible. She was told that the competition held them up with straps. Wondering if it wouldn't be easier to hang them in netting, she was discussing it with Ekkbokk:

"Why not use nets?" she said.

"Yeah! Why not?" he said. "Provided that it doesn't hinder their breasts..."

"Crazy idea all the same," she confided to herself.

"You mean depriving them of their limbs or using a net?"

"Of their limbs, obviously!"

"Yeah! Crazy idea! Should the public learn of it, we'll pass for monsters once again! You know, associations like Two One Four will once more be screaming scandal."

"That's what makes me worry. But it seems that we have no choice."

Ekkbokk retrieved his beak polisher, a small square of felted fabric, from an inside pocket of his jacket and he rubbed his beak while answering:

"It's quite indecent of them to put pressure on us, with all the problems we have at the moment. On top of the economic crisis facing our sector, still we must endure all those persons who have no other concern than the livestock's comfort! Those assholes, they want us to our jobs..."

It was at that point that, thirty meters ahead, they saw a bov fall heavily to the floor between the two rows. It was a male. Obviously savage. That was visible at first glance. Meat bovs, stuffed full of anabolic steroids, had five to six times higher muscle mass. Compared to such hypertrophy of muscles, it appeared skinny.

"Where did this fucking beast come from?" cried Ekkbokk.

"From there," said Ikkillu showing the entry to the conduit tunnel.

"Apparently, yeah! But... what was it doing up there?"

"I don't know. Phone security. Don't go near, it could bite."

She could just as well have made the call herself, but any opportunity to give orders was her way to express hierarchy. So she rarely made herself useful when a subordinate was at her disposal to perform any given action; unless doing it would be valorizing for her.

The event had sown disorder among the dairy bovs in the vicinity of the intruder; their agitation was visible. For the first time, something had interrupted the eternal monotony of their miserable existence.

While Ekkbokk was on the phone with the security service, having, it seemed, a hard time to be understood, she noted that the animal had something she had trouble identifying on its left shoulder and a part of its neck. Perfectly still, lying on its back, left leg and right arm in improbable positions that betrayed fractures, it didn't seem very dangerous. Approaching carefully nevertheless, she discovered the nature of what had intrigued her. She showed it to her assistant who had followed her and had just hanged up:

"Look!"

"Shit! Dressings? How about that?"

"So, what did they tell you?"

"There's someone coming to see. They had trouble understanding. They thought that I was telling them bullshit."

"I hope they'll hurry. You should have specified that a dozen beasts have gotten agitated."

"I told them to move their ass," he assured.

"I wonder how this animal could fit in there," she said looking at the entrance of the conduit tunnel.

"I was asking myself the same question. Somewhere, something was poorly closed. But what do you think of these dressings?"

"It's necessarily a tamed beast. Unless it is escaped from an experimentation lab..."

"Yeah, that's possible! In any case, you don't think that it would be wise to report it to the bosses. You never know."

"That's what I'm about to do, it just so happens."

*

Exhausted by the bad night that he had suffered through, Akkal decided to reserve his afternoon for resting. His headache hadn't weakened, maintained as it was by all his preoccupations for accounting, investments, supplier invoices, rental of advertising space, taxation, updates to standards, distribution, applications for rebates, costing, unpaid items, social security contributions, health verification... To forget it all, he wanted to go hunting. This is what he was preparing to do by changing clothes, under the lifeless eyes of the stuffed heads, when his phone rang. He picked it up and without hiding his bad mood shot back:

"I'm not available till tomorrow. I don't want to be bothered! Unless it's of vital importance!"

"Up to you to decide," said Ykkypol. "A wild bov got itself into the dairy bov building. It has bandages on his shoulder."

"But!... What?"

"Ikkillu was the one that told me. To avoid disturbing you, I went to see. Well, it's true. A wild bov fell from one of the ducts. You know, the tunnels where electricity and various fluids enter... Well, in short, there really were dressings. I thought that maybe it was the one that you injured in the hunt and that you put in a cage for your daughter."

"..."

"Hey ? You're still there? What do we do? Do I put it in the grinder or do you want to come see what it's about?"

Akkal didn't want to enter the building. Even less since he had taken the decision to amputate them.

"No, don't send it to grinding. Have it captured and brought to me in front of my house."

"Capturing it won't be hard. It looks like it's already dead... at least, it isn't moving."

"Well, well... Then, put it in a vehicle and come. Alone, if you please. And above all, don't tell anyone where you're going. No one needs to know."

"Understood..."

Akkal hung up and ran as fast as he could towards the cage under the trees. When he discovered the broken floor, he stood puzzled a few seconds, staring at it as if he was waiting for his eyes to confirm what they presumed to see. Scratching his forehead's green scales, he reached for his phone.

*

"In this sequence, you see two male bovs about to spar," said Okkala showing film excerps. It so happens that they don't fight, but each tries to impress the other. Observe carefully the position of the hair over their eyes."

Akkaliza wrinkled the green and blue scales of her neck, which, for umas, was a sign of a great concentration.

"Yes, I see..."

Her aunt showed her a second sequence in another part of the screen:

"Look, there! It's the same bov, but this time he's in the presence of his child. You'll notice that in this case the hair above the eyes... "

She stopped because Akkaliza's phone began to ring.

"It's my father," she reported looking at the device's display.

The vibrations of the scales on her cheeks expressed surprise and concern:

"Yes? Great!"

After a moment, she hung up and informed her aunt:

"Sneaky has been found. I have to go!"

*

Akkaliza arrived two minutes after Ykkypol. He had already put the body of the escapee on the grass at twenty meters from the house. Falling to her knees before the animal, she discovered with horror the fractures to his limbs. The one on the right arm, open and particularly horrible, made her shriek. However, she was reassured to see that he was still breathing.

The two Nature Foods shareholders exchanged glances. Akkal's made it clear that he wanted to be alone with his daughter. Ykkypol nodded and left.

"What happened?" asked Akkaliza.

"I was going to ask you the same question. You hadn't told me that you had released it. We hadn't discussed that possibility."

"I didn't release him. He escaped all by himself."

"Please, don't take me for a fool!"

His crest stretched backwards expressing his annoyance.

"Go see the cage! He broke through the floor. "

"I saw the cage, Akkaliza! Your subterfuge is ridiculous. Make me believe that it broke it by itself! Tell me also that it drove off in a car!"

Akkaliza didn't answer as her protégé started to moan.

"Dad, he's regaining conciousness! He's in pain! He's in pain! We'll talk more about this later. Please call one of your vets."

Without waiting for his answer, she rushed into the house to look for something to sedate the injured bov. She thought of immobilizing him fearing that in his fright, he could aggravate his fractures in wanting to flee. There were two doses of narcotics left. She prepared a syringe in her room and ran down the stairs at full speed, fearing that her father and the hinecs would scare him during her absence. When she arrived on the doorstep, Akkal, rifle in hand, was approaching the injured bov. She wanted to intervene, but he motioned for her to get out of the way:

"Now, enough is enough with this beast! I've had more than enough!" he cried shouldering while she lunged at him.

The bullet struck her lower left arm. The pain was terrible, but she still had the strength to shout:

"If you kill him, I'll commit suicide!"

And then she fainted.

*

Mahisa had just eaten some berries, lots of hazelnuts and two apples. This wasn't enough to satiate her fully, but she felt much better. She resumed her trek. Since the morning, she no longer followed a dirt road, but a strange thing that still had the general shape of a wide path, but that was very smooth, without any earth, gravel or grass. It could only be a path that led to the lightning-slayers' world, as she saw them more and more frequently inside their round-footed monsters. Mahisa took good care not to be seen by staying behind the vegetation cover. She kept thinking of Etos. Almost all the time, she was mentally speaking to him, and sometimes even out loud, as if he was near her. It did her good. For example, see how huge that four round legged thing is, she would say. She also loved to evoke the moment when she would make him touch her womb, trying to imagine his reaction. Sometimes she also worried about her little brother and her parents, but it was always back to Etos that her mind returned.

*

In her Director's office of the space agency, Ekklamisa was reading a technical article about the specific thrust from different propellants. She was at a lost on how to make the public more interested in space, which would facilitate the acquisition of more credits to develop more efficient propulsion systems.

Ekklamisa was an athletic looking blue, although she abhorred sports of any kind. She devoted her life to the conquest of the cosmos. Fascinated by space, nothing else held any interest. It was with nostalgia that she thought of the cold war eras that promoted space race competition between rival nations.

A vessel, coming from another world, was approaching at around forty thousand kilometers per hour. It might graze Teruma before leaving, receding into infinity. And... the public didn't care! She had so little means available to try to capture it that there was really very little chance for her to pull it off. A messenger coming from an unknown world had traveled during a time close to eternity, only to pass by under their beaks never to return. And all in general indifference! One could die of rage!

*

Ikkillu wondered why the boss cared so much for this animal. She found it strange. Before leaving hastily, who knows where, he gave the order that veterinarians take care of it in all haste, even appointing her with primary responsibility for its recovery. Afraid that it may worsen its fractures by moving it, she had sedated it where it laid, surprised, by the way, to discover a full syringe abandoned in the grass not far from the body. Ekkbokk had then helped her carry the animal towards a cage. A cage that was where Akkal had claimed that it could be found, under the first trees in the forest one hundred meters away.

"Ask for help from the technical team to repair it," he had added before he left running off.

While she raised with Ekkbokk many hypotheses to explain all this, technicians were now finishing to rebuild the cage's floor. Curious also, they had asked a few questions about this bov. Ikkillu declared that she knew no more than them. Since they appeared ready to further discuss this topic, vibrations from the blue scales on her neck expressed her impatience, politely, but firmly. They hadn't insisted.

 As soon as they were gone, the two vets carried, not without difficulty, the sleeping animal into the cage. Gently, they laid it down and got ready to deal with the fractures.

"It's getting to be late," said Ekkbokk, "I don't know what the boss is planning with this beast, but we'll now have to work overtime!"

"I know. Don't worry about your hours. I'll talk to him, should he forget. Anyway, you can go now. I can finish up by myself. In a little over an hour, it'll be night..."

"No, I'll stay. I want to learn more. Just another dose of sleepy, so that it snoozing deeply and we'll fix everything."

"Of course, give him four cc."

Ekkbokk made the injection.

"Done," he said.

"We'll begin with the leg, just help me pull. Watch out though, you're walking on the hairs of its skull! If the boss saw you do that..."

"Oops!"

*

Akkaliza regained her wits in the bed of a white-walled hospital room. Her parents and her brother were near her. Akkal's crest was overwhelmed by guilt.

"Where's Sneaky, how is he?" were the first words that came out of his daughter's beak.

The father, mother and brother stared at each other.

"Who, my daughter?" asked Akkali.

"The bov that dad wanted to kill. How is he?"

"It'll live," ensured Akkal. "Ikkillu, head veterinarian will take care of it. I asked her to do everything possible."

Akkaliza was partly reassured. She was going to respond, but her aunt suddenly burst into the room.

"My niece!" she shouted. "What happened to you? Why are you here?"

"I'm fine," said Akkaliza sitting up. "Just an incident... the lower left arm. See, it doesn't look serious."

She showed the bandage that she just discovered herself.

While Akkal was breaking down at the sight of his sister and Akkali looked on with anxiety fearing his reaction, Akkalo took the lead:

"The surgeon told us that indeed it wasn't very serious. The bullet went through the muscle. There won't be any consequences. But you'll have to watch out for your arm until it's completely healed."

"The bullet?" cried Okkala.

She looked at them all one by one seeking a response.

"It's me who..." tried to confess Akkal.

"I foolishly threw myself into the wrong place at the wrong time," said Akkaliza. "Dad had the gun and the shot went off."

The others already knew what had actually happened. Head down, mechanically scratching his beak, Akkal corrected:

"I wanted to shoot her bov and she put herself in between."

Okkala made an effort not to insult her brother. Akkali watched for her husband's reaction. Fearing that a violent quarrel might break out in front of their daughter, her neck's blue scales expressed concern. Speaking to Okkala:

"By the way, how?..."

"I'm the one that called her, Mom," confessed Akkalo. "I knew it would please Akkaliza. And I thought we've had enough of this whole mess between Dad and his sister. It's high time that you explain yourselves and end it once and for all!"

There were tense and embarrassed glances between the two belligerents, but it only lasted a second, because it was interrupted by Akkaliza's determined voice:

"Let's go!"she said, rising from her bed. "I must see how Sneaky is being taken care of."

Protests were expressed, but she didn't care.

*

Ekklamisa was deep in her sofa. Her right lower hand was absently stroking her thac. The small pet was lounging on her knees. She used her other three hands to manipulate pieces of a puzzle. The subject was still shapeless, but it was supposed to represent a rocket once each piece was properly oriented. Her team had offered her this game which was beginning to irritate her, but she hadn't found anything better to pass the time pending the upcoming results of the Astronomical Observatory. The TV broadcasted an advertisement featuring bovs dancing arm in arm singing together:

"There's nothing better than a good barbecue with friends. Ralchadomac's pure muscle meat is the best, hummmmm!"

Her phone rang. She turned the television off, put down the puzzle and answered:

"Yes?"

"Ekklamisa, the latest calculations and observations allow us to think that the thing will pass at a maximum distance of one hundred thousand kilometers from Teruma. In a little more than three days."

"At what speed?"

"Eleven thousand meters per second."

"Okay. When will you be able to refine this prediction?"

She knew the answer, but she was unable to hold back the question.

"In an hour, if you want. But the longer we wait, the more accurate we'll be. In five hours, we'll have a much better idea of its trajectory."

"Okay, I'll wait, I'll wait... Do you have a few new details about its shape?"

"Yes, good interferometry was performed. It has a parabola. I'll send you the image."

"Thanks."

She hung up, stood and hurried to her computer. Not having a choice other than to jump quickly to the ground, the thac cried out in protest.

The image made her dream. Where did this machine come from? What did its designers look like? How long has it been traveling in space? The nearest star in the direction of its trajectory was thirty-five light-years away. If that was from where it came, and if its speed relative to Teruma had been constant, a quick calculation indicated that the trip lasted a little more than a million years.

(The period of Teruma's revolution around its star being sufficiently close to that of the Earth around the Sun, a light year for the umas was therefore almost equal to a light year for humans)

What would a civilization already capable of designing spacecraft so long ago would be like today? This question made her head spin. And now this mysterious witness in all likelihood would pass them by without stopping!

For the umpteenth time, she mentally made an inventory of their means for interception. At one hundred thousand kilometers, at around eleven kilometers per second... Ah... But on what plane? And in which direction, direct or retrograde? If retrograde, there was no hope, she had no launcher powerful enough.

*

Indeed, the wound was superficial. A few stitches had been enough to close it. Her loss of consciousness had been attributed hypothetically to intense shock. The doctor saw no reason to prevent Akkaliza from leaving the hospital if she followed a few basic recommendations.

It was two hours after nightfall when they all arrived back at home. Largely under family pressure and personal feeling of guilt, Akkal had even asked his sister if she wanted to spend some time in his home. It had been years that Okkala hadn't set foot in her brother's house.

Barely having arrived, Akkaliza wanted to go see Sneaky. They all followed her. Ikkillu and Ekkbokk had finished their work since only half an hour ago. They were waiting, in discussion while sitting in the grass in front of the cage. The bov was lying on its repaired floor. On the arrival of Akkaliza and her family, the veterinarians stood up. After an exchange of a few concise courtesies, Ikkillu provided an update:

"He's okay," she assured. "We did everything that was possible. The arm fracture is the more serious of the two, but we were able to set the bones. They should mend properly. As for the leg, it required a lot of force to get everything aligned, but it'll be okay also."

"Please, how long will it take for him to wake up?" Akkaliza asked.

"Oh!" Ikkillu exclaimed. "Not before tomorrow, Miss. Around noon maybe."

"Thank you," said Akkal. "Don't charge your work to overtime. I'll personally pay you. You may go. Thanks again."

Both took their leave.

Without waiting to give an explanation, Akkaliza circled the cage and took great care to check that no branch passed too close to the bars. She spotted only one. To avoid too large and abrupt movements, she asked for her aunt's help to break it and move it away. Just as much as her request appeared inexplicable to her parents and her brother, Okkala understood why. Also, she was the only one to know why her niece was using her foot to roll a stone away from the cage.

*

Akkaliza had just shown her father the video of Sneaky's escape.

"Honestly, I can't believe it!" he exclaimed. "I never thought that a bov was capable of..."

"... reflection," completed Okkala. "To be able to think even, quite simply. You considered them to be objects."

The high tension prevailing between brother and sister was struggling to subside.

"Put some effort in making peace with one another," risked Akkalo. "Grandfather would have been so happy if he was still alive. You know how hard it was for him to see you two in conflict. I wouldn't go all the way to say that he is dead because of it, but it's still hard to think that he never had the chance to see you make up."

"My son is right!" approved Akkali. "You end up being ridiculous. Each of you two must accept what the other is."

"She's the one who treats me as a mass murderer!" protested Akkal.

"I don't treat. I'm trying to make you realize that you are a mass murderer. But I have to make an effort because you aren't conscious of that fact."

"So mom and dad were murderers also?" retorted Akkal.

The mother and two children exchanged glances of resignation.

"At least, the're talking to each other again," concluded Akkali.

"Mom and dad too were unaware of what they were doing, but under much more mitigating circumstances. It was a different era. Before them, their great-grandparents had blue slaves. At that time, it was normal for a green uma to own, to sell and to buy blue slaves simply as merchandise. Today, happily, slavery is prohibited. The time where green umas enslaved blue umas is over, thank God, allowing you to marry Akkali and to have with her Akkalo and Akkaliza, these magnificent mixed-race children. Your life has given you all the necessary information to be convinced that slavery was a horrible thing that should be abolished and that racism, which, unfortunately, still persists today, must be fought by all means. Remember that the first to have claimed that slavery was inuman and that it was necessary to abolish it were considered as extremists, meek fools, raving lunatics... or at best intellectuals who wanted to show off by making romantic umanist speeches. They were accused of sentimentality."

So now you're considering yourself to be a vanguard in the same situation as the first abolitionists, but in the defense of animals."

"Yes. But fortunately I'm not the only one."

"Okay! So, I've a sister who pretends to be avant-garde. What humility!"

"My humility has nothing to do with the fate of our current slaves. It's my own problem. Yours is your conscience. The only question you have to ask is: 'What am I doing?' Think of the great suffering generated by your trade. You often say that you love animals because you love your thacs and your hinecs, isn't that so? Would you think of inflicting them with half even of what Nature Food's bovs suffer?"

"..."

"So, why discriminate between species? For what logical reason thacs and hinecs are entitled to cuddles, while the bovs deserve to be tortured to death?

"..."

"What's called racism in regards to the race is called speciesism between species."

Akkal screamed suddenly:

"I know! I know! Speciesism, Yes! You've told me that bullshit word before! But, I can't stop! You hear? I can't! I can't!"

Akkali intervened:

"Maybe you'd better go, Okkala..."

"No, no! I don't want her to leave," said Akkal. "Let's talk about it, since it's necessary that we speak! Let her hear me out, too! I've listened to her. So now let her hear me!"

"In that case, calm down," advised Akkali. "Lets all sit and... What would you like to drink, Okkala?"

"No thanks, Akkali, I'm not thirsty."

"But, it has nothing to do with thirst! A little fortified wine?"

"Okay... Thanks."

All sat down. The children were silent wishing for the best.

"I'll go see Sneaky," said Akkaliza. "I won't be long."

"Can I go with you?" asked her brother.

"Come!" she said with a smile.

They looked at them leaving.

"Everyone would be so pleased if you could get along with each other," said Akkali, handing a glass to her sister-in-law. "Surely, it should be possible!"

Brother and sister paused sharing embarrassed looks.

"I told you I understand what you say, but I can't stop," said Akkal. "I've far too many debts, responsibilities towards employees, other..."

Okkala decided to allow her brother a breather. She changed the subject. Well, almost:

"I assume that you've received an invitation from channel 2."

"Yes, we've received it. From your question, I suppose that you did too. It's what I feared."

"Are you coming?"

"No."

"Nature Foods won't be present on the show?"

"Yes. But, unless by that time I've a change of heart, I won't burden myself with representing the company. You'll have someone else before of you."

*

Toro didn't know that the umas called him Toro. Furthermore, he didn't know that he had a name for someone. And to tell the truth, he didn't even know what a name was. As a reproductive bov, Toro had the privilege to enjoy a much bigger space than that allocated to his fellow kind whose destiny was to produce meat or milk. He lived in a twenty-five square meter pen, delimited by sturdy bars. He was a male whose sperm had the advantage to generate individuals that grew quickly for a given quantity of food and that had a relatively low bone mass. Appreciated characteristics for producing profitable meat bovs. Nature Foods' veterinarians came regularly collect his seed for safekeeping. For a few months a year, he was left outdoors, rather than locked up, for fear that captivity under conditions that were too harsh would reduce his fertility. And so, beautiful pictures could be made, much more flattering than bovs confined to jails that could barely fit them in.

His living conditions were indeed very enviable as compared to those of his ilk in livestock intensive farming. But that also, he had no knowledge of, because it would have required that he already knew that they existed. No, Toro really didn't know much. Not that his intelligence, his cognitive faculties were reduced; the paucity of his knowledge was only due to his isolation. His world was limited to what was available to his eyes: some trees that there were around his enclosure and the rare umas coming, either to bring him food and to clean his prison or to proceed to activities upon him that he wasn't aware of, since beforehand, he had been put to sleep using some substance mixed into his food. Toro was terribly bored. There was nothing else to do but to eat and to watch the same trees and the same earth around him. When an animal passed in his field of vision, it was quite an event. Alas, it happened sometimes, but much too rarely! One time, something ran along the trees. It looked like a kind of squirrel. Toro had immediately realized that it was a some kind of living being, like himself. Despite his extremely reduced repository of knowledge, something innate in him had let him know. He had cried out with enthusiasm thrusting his arms through the bars. But he had only succeeded in scaring the creature, which had quickly fled away. Then Toro had cried, not knowing that he was crying; the only thing that he knew was that it sometimes happened when he was sad, without actually knowing that he was sad. He was unaware that he wasn't the only one to have feelings.

So far, this morning was a morning like any other for Toro, but...

A small noise from a crushed twig solicited his hearing. Listening carefully, he looked in the direction of its origin. What was then projected onto his bored retinas froze him with stupor: coming out of the vegetation, a creature had just appeared. A creature almost similar to himself. It wasn't quite the same, but he hadn't ever seen anything that resembled him as much. He was so astonished that he lost the use of his speech and of his muscles. Which was a good thing, since it avoided the shouting and gesticulating that risked scaring off this incredible encounter. As soon as he recovered the use of his vocal cords and his limbs, he consciously forced himself to tone down his reactions to prevent a repeat of his experience with the squirrel. That would have been catastrophic, because this creature was significantly more interesting than the latter. He contented himself to tighten the bars in his hands and make a few small whimpers of welcome.

*

Mahisa was surprised. One of her fellow kind stood before her. After several days of walking, it was the first time she met one.

"Hello," she said.

The individual was whimpering. His fingers were gripping onto strange upright trunks very smooth, without branches and leafless. He didn't respond, but continued to whine softly. He was a male with impressive muscles. She approached and said:

"I'm Mahisa. I'm looking for Etos. Etos was kidnapped by lightning-slayers with the help of monsters having four round legs. Do you think that Mahisa is nearing their territory?"

The stranger only fell to his knees and continued to whimper his entire body trembling. Then, he began to produce a series of sounds more or less articulated and meaningless. The idea that Toro couldn't speak didn't enter Mahisa's mind. How could she suspect that he'd never met a being of his species before? His behavior puzzled her, but her attention was attracted to the bananas and huge apples that were lying all around on the ground, beyond the standing trunks. One of the big apples was within her grasp. She reached out her hand and quickly took it. This done, she started to devouring it backing up in fear that her theft would upset the stranger. But quickly realizing that he couldn't overcome the obstacles surrounding him, she was reassured. Even more so when instead of outrage, he lobbed all the apples from his territory to offer them to her. These offerings as generous as unexpected touched her deeply.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you, they are really very beautiful and very good. But... Why are you enclosed in those strange things?"

All she got for answer were grunts, groans and barely articulated random sounds. She greedily ate two apples, that calmed her hunger a bit, and then she repeated:

"Do you think that the territory of lightning-slayers and of the four round feet is still far away?"

This strange character's reaction was identical to before, but with more frenzy. His cries, grunts and whimpers filled the forest.

"Okay," she concluded. "Thanks for the apples. Mahisa must leave."

After loading her hands with three more of the fruit, she started to walk away when she heard him crying broken-heartedly. He tended his arms through the things that held him prisoner as to implore her to stay. She hesitated. But then a conspicuous physical reaction between his legs had just complicated the situation; she no desire at all to mate.

*

Toro was in a trance. The creature that looked like him had uttered sounds that he had never heard before, but that evoked in him something so strong that his heart beats shook his whole being. Oh! And also, something inexplicable happened while looking at her. He felt growing inside him such a troubling desire. He wouldn't have been able to identify, even to himself, how he felt for her, but he was no longer able to detach his eyes from her. When she began to go away, he felt unbearable inner pain, intimate and profound rupture that annihilated him. He could no longer see her except through his tears. His experience with the squirrel had been hard to live with, but if she left also, it would simply be unbearable; he knew.

*

Ikklobar was a young veterinarian, mixed-race with slightly more blue scales than green. Ikkillu had given him the task of caring for Toro. When he saw on the surveillance camera screen the condition the male breeder was in, he wondered what was wrong with it. He had been absent only for a short while to satisfy nature's call and he had chatted a little with a maintenance technician also. What could have happened in such a short time? He hadn't an inkling of an idea. Ikkillu had asked him to call her in the event of a major problem. He decided that this was one.

*

Ikkillu, Ekkbokk, and Ikklobar got off the small open off-road vehicle and approached the enclosure.

"So, Toro!" launched Ikkillu. "What's wrong?"

"Oh my! Something's the matter there," said Ikklobar. "Look how red its eyes are!"

"Perhaps it's been stung by insects," proposed Ikkillu. "It has something in its eyes, that's for sure. They are flooded with tears."

"These damned beasts have eyes that are very fragile," added Ekkbokk. "We've problems with them too often."

"Let's put it to sleep," suggested his boss. "I'll enter to examine it. You, Ikklobar,  go review the camera recordings to see what happened from all angles. I'll call you when you have to come pick us up."

Ekkbokk placed a dart into the hypodermic rifle and fired it at Toro. They waited a few seconds. Toro stopped moaning and gesticulating. When it sank slowly on its side, they entered the enclosure and began to examine the male breeder.

"It must have wanted to run away from something," observed Ekkbokk. "Look at these bruises on its mouth and many other places. We can see that it crashed into the bars."

"Yes, it's possible that it was attacked by a swarm of wasps or something like that. Ikklobar will find out from the videos. The timing is wrong whatever it is, I must go and have a look at the boss's beast that we treated yesterday."

"You still don't know what he wants to do with it?"

"Well... No," she said.

"Whatever it is, it's personal, because he told us that he would pay for it himself."

"Who knows what he has in mind!" she exclaimed, while opening each of Toro's eyes to examine it closely."

"Perhaps a new breeder. But the beast doesn't seem right. It's far from looking like a meat machine."

"Yes, but maybe it has another interesting gene. Toro doesn't seem to have an infection problem in its eyes. Still, I'll take a sample for the lab."

"Good idea. In case he's infected with a damned bacteria. Anyway, I don't understand why it's taken outside. It would surely be safer...

"It's an idea of the guy who preceded me in my function. He said that it promoted fertility. I didn't find it urgent to stop it when I took office. You know, it isn't easy to question past practices when you're new."

"Yeah, I understand!"

*

If Ekklamisa seemed dead still before her screen, it was in fact because she really was dead still before her screen. But her mind was far from being frozen. She was staring at the last picture of the space machine that was hurtling toward them with an inexpressible fascination. I'm observing the product of extraterumastrial engineering she kept saying to herself. Of course, on Teruma, satellite dishes were made also, identical to the one mounted on the device; the same needs often generate the same technological responses. But knowing that its components had been designed and manufactured by non terumastrial minds was sufficient to make it thrilling. The list of questions arising from this seemed infinite. What did its designers looked like? What was their technological level at the time that their cosmic traveler was launched? And was it within the reach of an uman mind to imagine what level they should have reached by now?

The latest calculations were even more encouraging than the previous ones. More encouraging, yes, but more anxiety-producing also. Indeed, they showed that the thing would pass by at a maximum of fifty thousand kilometers from Teruma. So, of course, there was more hope to be able to intercept it, but at the same time so was the even greater certainty of frustration in the event of failure.

*

Mahisa had been terrified when she saw three lightning-slayers arriving on the hollow back of a four round feet. She ran away while still following her route from the cover of trees, but without losing sight of the edge of the forest. That was a good way to avoid getting lost in its depths, where unknown trees eventually looked all alike. She had run for a long time. Her lungs were demanding lots of air. Now, she walked. Exhaustion fell onto her. She had advanced for too long. She needed to sleep. She sank a little more in the forest, taking care to find a landmark to be able to return to the edge when she woke up; it was a tree with five branches, above a short, massive trunk, that looked like a big hand. Going beyond it by about ten meters, she lied down in a slight depression padded with moss and short grass figuring that to find the edge, all she had to do was to go in the direction of the hand. The bed was comfortable, she fell asleep thinking of Etos.

*

Etos slowly awoke thinking of Mahisa. He had a confused memory of having had a horrible nightmare. Eventually his multiple aches woke him up completely. He sat gritting his teeth and examined himself. To his great surprise, he discovered that his left leg and his right arm were inside something that was as stiff as wood. Those somethings were hurting him. After a few seconds, he became more finely aware that apparently the pain wasn't caused by these envelopes, but pain was coming from somewhere within his limbs. But that didn't make them any more to his liking. As he tried to remove them, he saw that Gentle Lightning was observing him. She immediately began whistling, like she usually did. Then she quickly thrust both arms through the smooth and upright branches forming his prison to take hold of his left hand. His amazement was such that at first he forgot to be afraid and thus to dodge this contact. The three seconds that followed gave no more room for fear in his mind because he was captivated by the fondling made by ten nimble and very soft fingers. He had, for now, none of the necessary concentration and motivation to engage in the difficult exercise of counting them, but he saw at a glance that lightning-slayers had many more fingers on each hand that he and his kind. This fact hadn't really eluded him previously, but he had almost forgotten. It was only one more oddity among many others in these creatures that imprisoned the sun at night. It continued to whistle softly. He decided that it wasn't urgent to remove his hand that was still being caressed. The silent words of this universal language appeased him. Diffuse pain in his leg and his arm brought him back to what he still believed to be a dreadful nightmare, because the vague memory of a fall and a brutal shock could be associated with it. Doubt then began to tickle his mind: was it really a dream? Looking around himself, he found that the floor that he thought he had broken was in perfect condition. Despite the grass that had been littered in his cage for his comfort, he saw it was now whole. This made him all the more puzzled that memories of his escape started to take consistency in his mind. When the infinite sea of suffering came forth again before him, on the screen of his memory, he made a long moan and began to shiver. His stiff leg made sitting uncomfortable and painful. He lay down. His eyes sought out those of Gentle Lightning who was still stroking his hand and whistling.

"Etos would like so much be with Mahisa," he said. "What happenned to Etos? What are these things around Etos' leg and arm? Etos has pain... Etos has seen so much and so much suffering inside the flat hill. Why does your kind imprison the sun? Why does your kind throw lightning at us?"

*

Akkaliza was experiencing an unforgettable moment. She was sure that Sneaky was speaking to her. She saw it in the depths of his eyes. She had kept silent as soon as he began to bovgrunt. It was such an exhilarating experience to have managed to get this willingness to communicate, but so frustrating at not being able to decode the language. Fortunately, everything was recorded; the camera hadn't lost any part of this moment. She planned to study these images with her aunt; both would try to find a link between the movements of his mouth, and even of his face, and the sounds that he produced. This wouldn't mean that expressed thoughts could be read, but to contribute to making a little more progress in this direction would make her proud.

When Sneaky ceased his bovgrunting, she said:

"I hope that you'll speak to me again often like that. And also I hope that you'll tell me how you discovered that horrible place where you fell hurting yourself so badly. Listen, Ikkillu will be arriving any minute now. It'll only be to see if you're doing well. I'm honored that you ended up getting used to me, but I know that, not without reason, you're suspicious of other umas. Also, I'm afraid that you'll be scared of Ikkillu and that you won't let her examine you."

Although her left lower arm was still bandaged and a bit painful, Akkaliza was only slightly handicapped. Discreetly, with her lower right hand, she grabbed a syringe from a bag carried slung over her shoulder.

"I must make you sleep a little," she said making an injection while caressing his arm.

Umas could easily do a lot of things at once with their four hands each having slender and flexible fingers that were all opposable to each other and that could bend in all directions, because they had no more joints than an octopus' tentacle.

*

Ikkarix was a large mixed-race individual, more green than blue, lanky-looking. A brilliant mathematician who developed a passion for everything to do with orbits. The kind of person who mechanically calculated Hohmann transfers, just for his pleasure, as easily as others could whistle. Suffice to say that Ekklamisa had complete confidence in his predictions. Yet, this was the third time that she was asking him if he was certain of what he posited.

"I'm confirming it," he repeated. "And I'm reconfirming it over and over again. From the astronomical data provided, I'm able to say that it'll pass by at less than twenty thousand kilometers away from us. If the Observatory hasn't made an error, if their numbers are right... What I've found is a certainty. Our space visitor won't pass any further away from Teruma. It'll skim us!"

Ekklamisa was rubbing nervously her upper arm scales with her lower hands. The stirrings of her crest displayed her excitement.

"I've never felt as tense," she said.

"I can see that. Relax a little."

They were both at her home, sitting in front of a coffee table. She put her four hands on her knees:

"And to think how few people are aware of what's happening and measuring what's at stake."

With a discreet finger, he polished his beak's right side while answering:

"At the same time... If they aren't aware, how do you want them to measure the stakes, as you say. We must make more statements, keep the public informed."

"It doesn't interest the networks any more than that. And on the internet, we're only able to capture the attention of two to three percent of the population."

"Anyway, what would that change if everyone was interested? Nothing... Isn't that so?"

"You're right."

In full concentration, Ikkarix generated a small "tip, tip, tip" by tapping a claw on his beak. After a moment, he exclaimed.

"It's up to us to do everything in our power to capture this, this contraption! So, let's do an inventory of all the means at our disposal. Suppose that we have incredible luck and it passes in the right plane and on the right side. What spacecraft do we have ready to launch?"

"I've four shuttles and three small-lift launchers. Delta v of twenty kilometers per second for the two shuttles, fifteen only for the other two. Small-lift launchers... it depends on the payload... I'll give you the specifications for your calculations. I've equipped the four shuttles with a telescopic arm fitted with hooks and prehensile mechanisms. I'm about to give the order to launch them in orbits crossing at thirty or fifty degrees. Two in direct and two in retrograde orbits. Let's hope that one of the four won't be too far from the right place at the right time and on a near optimal capture plane. I don't know what to do with the three small-lift launchers."

"Okay... we'll see about that."

*

An almost vertical ray of sun awoke Mahisa. She got up quickly to immediately move on, accusing herself of losing time while Etos was probably in danger. The presence of the three lightning slayers seen the day before was an encouraging sign indicating that she had probably entered their territory. Finally! In addition, the prisoner who gave her apples, as strange as he was, gave her hope that they had also kept Etos alive.

She walked towards the tree-hand, passed around it and continued in the same direction to find the edge. This done, she would only need to turn left to continue on her way hoping to soon be able to see Etos again. She repeated to herself that there were chances that he was still alive, held prisoner like the poor stranger who had apparently lost the use of speech. To free the one that she loved, she was ready to do anything. This time she wouldn't flee the lightning-slayers, even if they were more numerous than all the fingers of both hands. Mentally making that promise, she bowed her head to cross over an area full of over-ground roots where she risked getting her foot caught.

When she lifted her eyes, just around a bush, she discovered many of these strange standing branches she had already seen before the one who threw her apples. Her eyes widened and her heart raced when she recognized Etos behind them.

*

Ykkypol opened the door to let Ikkillu enter into his office. After having closed it, he invited the head of the veterinary department to sit in a chair. Himself, he only half sat putting a leg on the edge of his desk and, crossing his four arms, he asked:

"So? What's the problem? I know that you've left a message with Akkal, but he prefers that I meet with you because he doesn't have a lot of time."

She ignored the question for the moment to compliment him:

"You have a very nice varnish."

"Thank you! That's kind..."

Ykkypol was a particularly coquettish uma who loved cover his beak with varnish to show off. It was a vividly bright red that contrasted strongly with his blue satin scales.

"Yes," she went on, "I know that the boss is very busy at the moment. I've just gone to see the wild bov that he keeps in a cage, that injured itself in a fall after entering the dairy bov building."

She paused to give her interlocutor time to eventually provide her with some information about it, but he remained silent.

"I wanted to talk about Toro," she was forced to continue.

"Ah good? I hope it's doing well! We have enough problems as it is."

"Its life isn't in danger, but we still have a problem."

"... ?"

Ikkillu recounted what she had seen and done on the scene.

"So? Your prognosis?"

"From the analyses, nothing special to report, for the moment, but it is still too early to tell. On the other hand, I asked Ikklobar to view the camera recordings and thanks to that we know what got it all excited. It was a wild female, imagine."

"Indeed! Is it possible that it transmitted a germ?"

"That's entirely conceivable. Let's wait for the lacrimal analyses, but even if they are negative... it'll always be a valid hypothesis. One can still suspect a pathogen that escapes lab investigations."

"Okay, and then?"

"So... First, I was asking myself if it's a good idea to leave Toro outside. There would be less risk if it was kept locked up. Also it would be a good idea to regulate the population of these animals in the forest. They can be carriers of disease that may contaminate our livestock. You know, the wind carries everything."

"Yes, that's true. I've already requested security to track down this female and kill it. Then, I'll ask the prefect to organize a search party."

"Okay... But think of what I told you about protecting Toro inside four walls."

"Very well! I don't have to think. Do whatever you have to. You're the head of the veterinarian department. Put in a request to maintenance on my behalf for a closed local."

"Sure! I'll take care of that."

"Would it be useful for your analysis to send you the female's carcass?"

"Eventually, yes... "

"Okay! And, how are we doing with respect to the modification of the dairy bovs?"

"You mean about the amputation of their limbs... A team is already at work."

"Well, that's good! But I prefer that we use the term 'modification' rather than 'amputation of limbs'. It's less disturbing."

"Indeed, I understand. Then, modifications are currently underway."

"Good! Have you seen our latest commercial?"

"No, not yet," confessed Ikkillu.

"It's the communications agency that has proposed it to us. I find it okay. Tell me what you think. Watch!"

He started the video in question on his desktop. Dozens of bovs were having fun in a green and luscious prairie flooded with sun. These happy animals, very uman like, began to dance while singing that dairy products are your friends for life.

*

Mahisa's eyes filled with tears of joy. Etos was sleeping lying on strange flat pieces of wood covered with grass. His arm and his leg abnormally large, rigid and surrounded by an unknown thing worried her. She went all around what held him prisoner without finding a way to join him. To touch him was impossible, because he was out of her reach.

"Etos! Etos, darling!" she cried.

The effects of the narcotic were beginning to dissipate in Etos' cerebral convolutions. In what he believed to be a dream, he heard his love to calling him and he replied:

"Mahisa! The one that Etos loves! You are finally here! Mahisa! Mahisa! Mahisa!"

In his semi-consciousness, burning happiness took possession of him. He was so happy that his joy almost made his chest hurt.

Mahisa made a small cry of delight when she heard him answer. Although his words were pronounced in a slurred voice, they were the most beautiful in the world because they were his own and that he sent them to her to express his love.

She felt therefore capable of anything to free him. Shaking, trying to move apart or biting the standing branches was of no use. She was about to mount on top of the thing that enclosed him when Etos awoke completely and held his arms out to her.

They hugged through the upright branches while exchanging words of love, crying with joy and caressing with tenderness, swept into intoxicating happiness. The analgesic Ikkillu had injected Etos with, at Akkaliza's request, was thankfully still working.

"What has Etos on the arm, the leg and the shoulder?" inquired Mahisa.

Lacking air from both kissing and their chests being compressed by their heart's exaltation, they were barely able to speak. Their bliss stifled them.

"Etos doesn't know."

"Did the lightning-slayers made that to Etos?"

"For sure, yes. Etos woke up with these things. Etos knows nothing else."

"I'll free Etos. Etos will tell me later."

"How did you find Etos?"

"Love has guided Mahisa and gave her the strength to walk.

Etos began to cry with heavy teared tenderness. They hugged again as hard as they could.

"Mahisa met a stranger, prisoner like Etos, behind unbreakable upright branches," she said. "The poor guy didn't know how to speak... Strange, no?"

"Everything is strange in the world of lightning-slayers," he said sniffing and wiping his tears of tenderness. "But Etos is almost happy to know that Etos isn't the only one to suffer this."

"When Etos is out of there, Mahisa will make you touch my womb," she whispered into his ear. "There's a small someone inside."

 At these words, Etos who had barely calmed down began to weep heavily again. His face quivered with emotion. And he was making a series of squeaks that would have passed as complaints if we didn't know that they were due to so much happiness.

That was when two whistles were heard. Etos instantly recognized one of them. It was Gentle Lightning.

"Quickly, run away, dearest!" he said.

"Lightning-slayers! I won't abandon you. I want to fight them off."

 "Go! Please. They won't kill me. But you?"

She was hard to convince.

"You've got to trust me. Go hide and with caution, come back later."

Reluctantly, she left, but she didn't go too far away, seeking to see and hear what would happen to him.

*

"It won't be long before he'll wake up," Akkaliza told her aunt. "What happened to him was horrible. I was thinking of releasing him in a day or two, but he couldn't know."

"Well, no... Anyway, continue to film him. It's quite informative. You know, I'm more and more convinced that the tiny deformations of the edge of the mouth and the folding of the skin around the eyes have important significance in their communications... in addition to sounds, of course."

"Yes, I'm now filming continuously. I hope that he hasn't been traumatized by what he saw in the dairy building."

"Certainly he must've had quite a shock! They are his congeners. We were shocked too, both of us when seeing them. And they aren't even our congeners."

"By the way, it's really fun to see each other a little more at home. It's partly thanks to Akkalo."

"Yes indeed, your brother had a lot to do with it. I know that you suffered for what was happening between your father and I. The situation wasn't fun for anyone. But, you know, this disagreement with my brother is only ideological. Actually, I feel very sorry for him, and never would I wish him wrong."

"I know..."

Passing by the last bush, they came to the front of Sneaky's cage. Akkaliza noticed immediately that he wasn't in his usual state.

"Something's wrong," she said. "He's extremely nervous. It looks like he's scared."

"Of me, no doubt, because he doesn't know me. I back away so that he won't be scared. It might even be better if I leave you alone with him."

"Yes, he might be afraid of you, but I feel that there's something else. See how his eyes are wet. No, don't go. I would like him to get used to you. But stand back a little. A little behind and to the side, not behind me so that he can see that you don't have weapon. I'm sure that he recognizes a rifle."

"Surely! He must have seen your father aiming it at him."

Okkala stood three meters behind her niece and a little to her right. Two hands in her trouser pockets and the other two arms folded across her chest, she waited without moving.

*

Security service agents Kklapos and Ikklussu's mission was to kill the wild female that was seen in the vicinity. They walked quickly behind the hunting hinec that Kklapos held on a leash. It was clearly visible that the animal was on a scent.

"A little game will do no harm," said Ikklussu. "I hope that nobody'll claim the meat from us."

"Well yes! We must bring it back to the vets..."

"Is that so! You didn't tell me that."

"You hadn't asked," said Kklapos.

"What'll they do with it?"

"It seems that they will be checking to see if there's a disease that could contaminate all Nature Foods bovs."

"Ha ha!" cried Ikklussu. "Let me laugh! The bastards! For sure, they will share meat between themselves!"

"I believe you're right! I hope we get this over with quickly, because I wanted to finish early this evening. I have to take my thac to the vet."

"What's wrong?"

"Earache. Damn... I really could have done without that, vets aren't cheap!"

"Nature Food vets don't...

"I don't want to ask," said Kklapos. "To not be liable. I'd rather pay. What can I say, if you love animals, you don't look at the expense, eh!"

"Right!"

"And to think that there are some who abandon them once they're sick..."

"Yeah! Or, just when they are tired of taking care of them..."

"Me, I'd throw them in prison, quick and easy!"

"Hush! It must be close by, see how the hinec's getting excited."

*

Ykkypol was watching the news on his desktop computer when Akkal rushed in.

"So, what did our head veterinarian want?" he asked closing the door.

Ykkypol lowered the volume to respond:

"Oh! small vet problems..."

"Such as?"

"Toro had sore eyes. She suspects he was infected by a wild bov."

"If that's all it is..."

"..."

"What were you watching?"

"The news," said Ykkypol.

"Ah!..."

"..."

"So?" insisted Akkal.

"They were talking about that thing that came from who knows where in space. They'll try to capture it as it passes by."

"Ah yes... I've heard it too. Strange! Don't you say? It's funny to find that we're not alone in the universe. It's crazy!"

"Yes, indeed!"

"How are they going to capture it?"

"What do I know?" wondered Ykkypol while checking his beak's polish in the reflection offered to him by a wall mirror.

"I thought that maybe you knew..."

"Hum... and what if you told me what you really want to talk about since you entered in my office! Instead of wasting time."

Akkal scratched the scales on his forehead.

"You're right," he recognized. "I'm wondering though... how to say..."

Ykkypol held his chin with one hand, patted his beak with another and crossed and uncrossed the fingers of the two others, demeanor by which he showed that he was waiting patiently. Akkal felt compelled to continue:

"I'm wondering if... if you would like to buy back my shares."

Ykkypol opened wide his eyes dilated by stupor:

"What's the matter?" he stammered.

"..."

"Listen!" said Ykkypol putting his four hands flat on the desk, "you're having a bad time, but things will get better. We'll go back to being profitable. I know. Modified milk bovs will soon be in production and we'll crush Ralchadomac, that's for sure! You're not going to let us down now! Both of us, we've seen worse!"

"... I don't know what to say. Perhaps I'll sell. It's not certain, but maybe... But if I sell, I would prefer that it was to you. Or that, at least, if you cannot or don't want to buy me out, you buy from me what you lack to hold a majority."

"But... what's?"

"Another thing: finally, it might be me who'll debate against my sister on TV."

"What! But, I don't find you very motivated to defend our business!"

"That's true, you're right," recognized Akkal his crest suddenly so soft that one would have thought it was sinking into his head. "I don't know where I stand. I really don't know where I stand..."

*

Etos was sitting, chin resting on the bent knee of his good leg. He watched the last of the foliage closing behind the two lightning-slayers. Listening carefully to make sure that they continued to move away, he waited until they were as far as possible. He had to fight against himself to maintain a constrained patience. The lightning-slayer  accompanying Gentle Lightning didn't have the thing that bangs and kills in its hands, but... better to be too careful than not enough. Just as he was turning around by pivoting on his rear end to call Mahisa, the sound of the thing that bangs and kills made him wince.

"Mahisa!" he yelled his heart racing painfully. He felt anguish crushing his chest. His crazed eyes searched the gaps in the bushes.

With the noise of disturbed foliage, Mahisa emerged from the forest. She wrapped her fingers around the standing branches of his prison, and smiled at him.

"My love!" she said.

His relief made him go instantly from horrible terror to insane joy. The shock of this transition was so violent that, without even realizing it, he had managed to get up on his one good leg.

"My love!" he replied, threading her fingers through his own.

But suddenly, Mahisa moaned and collapsed. Etos then discovered the huge hole dripping with blood under her neck. He threw himself to the floor of his cage screaming and passed his arm out to touch, to pull her towards him, to try to help her. Only two of his fingers could reach her shoulder. He felt her skin. Continuously shouting Mahisa, he wriggled about straining to further advance his arm. The vision of the horrible wound revealing the inside of his love's flesh to his bulging eyes tore screams of despair from him. He didn't notice the animal that had just arrived. No more that he saw the two lightning-slayers, that held the latter by the neck at the end of a long thing.

At this moment, for him, the world dwindled to Mahisa and his despondency. Nothing more could reach his conscience. Arm outstretched towards the one he loved, he kept calling her. It was the only thing he could do to try to curb the unbearable course of events.

# Never before have bov and uma weeped as one

Ikklussu stooped down to calm Yepp. Wailing with excitement, lifting leaves with its truffle the hunting hinec pulled with all its strength against the leash.

"Buckshot, the only way!" exclaimed Kklapos. "You saw the hole I made in it! I've really blasted that critter!"

"Sure! But that the fuck is that other beast doing there, lying in this cage?"

"Don't know! It isn't far from the boss' home, here. He must be making experiments. With all that stuff he has on him..."

"Looks rather like splints to repair fractures? No?"

"Maybe. In any case, it isn't looking well, howling like that. We'd be better to go away. If it dies, we even risk that they put the blame on us."

"You're right!" he approved. "You'll see it'll be our fault! Especially since I remind you that we were asked to eliminate this beast because it may be contagious for the bovs. Something affecting their eyes, it seems."

 "No, but... It couldn't contaminate it so quickly."

"How do you know that it's the first time that it came near? Looks like it actually has a problem with its eyes."

"True. It hasn't stopped trying to touch it."

"Don't touch, shit!" said an angered Kklapos kicking the outstretched arm of caged the bov. "It's going to catch the virus, this asshole of a beast, and it's going to be our fault! It's better that we leave and say that it was killed elsewhere, further away. Yepp! that's enough! Calm, calm, Yepp!"

"Oh, hey! not our fault if it came to die here! You shot it way over there..."

"Yes, but... you know when they're not happy, they need a scapegoat. Let's carry it further away."

Each holding it by a leg, they moved the bov away a few metres. Kklapos came back to raise the grass back up with his feet to conceal the traces of blood, and then they dragged it into the depths of the forest.

"I would've brought a leg back with me, but I don't want to any more, if it's sick. It's surely isn't healthy," said Ikklussu.

"Besides, I already told you that they want to retrieve it for analysis. So, we have no choice. Let's go, let's haul it to the vehicle. We'll say it was killed near Toro."

"Yeah, but pull this beast harder! I'm already holding Yepp who's going in every direction but the right one! Not easy!"

"Hard work..."

"Yepp! Calm down! Stop pulling!"

*

Toro felt inner suffering that he had never known before. Nature had given a voice to his testosterone, but it also struck him in his heart. Thus, it had turned into an adolescent's tender heart so vulnerable to Cupid's legendary love at first sight. The creature was so similar to him and yet so different from him also! Although Toro was, without knowing it, a father a thousand times over, he had until then yet never met a female. She that had remained only a moment near him occupied the totality of his mind. Her image, her voice, her smell, her demeanor, all of it was engulfed into his memory. One could even say that his memory became her, since he thought of nothing else.

He barely noticed the beings that had been whistling near him for some time. Although their presence was often linked to food, he didn't grant them any importance. He remained lying on his stomach against the earth, spread eagled, listening to his suffering, only thing that remained from that magical moment in his so monotonous life.

*

"We'll move him later," said Ikkillu. "If we're sure that he has nothing major."

"By the way, still nothing from the lab?" asked Ekkbokk.

"No, nothing."

"Yet it doesn't seem to be fit as a fiddle."

"That's the least we can say!" exclaimed Ikklobar. "I've never seen him like that. He doesn't want to eat anything. Usually, when I him throw bananas and apples... we don't need to twist his arm."

"Could it be infected by an unknown contaminant vector?" wondered Ikkillu while thoughtfully pinching the underside of her beak.

"Or a stupid allergy..." proposed Ekkbokk.

"Or an allergy, yes, why not."

"In the food, you think?" asked Ikklobar.

"I thinking more like something that was carried by the female," said the boss.

"Fucking beast! It really has disturbed everything!" Ekkbokk  remarked philosophically. "Where will we put it when it has finished to be an asshole?"

"I don't know yet," confessed Ikkillu. "The technical service has prepared a room, but I don't know exactly where..."

A noise in the forest interrupted them. Turning around, they saw two hunters coming dragging their kill.

"Ha! You've finally nabbed it!" said Ekkbokk.

"Yes! Not easily, but yes," answered Kklapos with some pride.

Welcoming the opportunity to rest a bit, they let go of the body a few meters away from the cage.

"We're supposed to bring it to the lab," explained Ikklussu. "It seems they have tests to do to find out if..."

Ikkillu interrupted:

"I know, I know! It's for me, in fact. Just leave it there. We deal with it."

"Okay! Good, it's okay with me! I'll just say that it was you... Yepp! Stop pulling now! It's over, okay!...... Excuse me, I was saying that I'll report that it was left in your care, then."

"Yes, that's it. Thanks for your help!"

"It was nothing!"

The two security officers excused themselves and went off.

"Now, what's gotten into Toro, to get it all excited like that," grumbled Ekkbokk.

Toro was shaking the bars of his enclosure bovgrunting so hard that it was almost suffocating him.

"It's obvious that it's the female that putting it in that state," pointed out Ikkillu. "It's the first time that he has seen one."

"Aha! Hormones! Hey! but, the jackass'll break himself out, look!"

Toro was thrusting himself with all his might against the bars.

"Quick!" cried Ikkillu. "Remove the carcass! Take it to the vehicle, while I calm this one."

She prepared a tranquilizer dart.

*

Lying on the ground, Etos was stretching his arm through the standing branches to fetch blades of grass that he brought to his lips twisted with pain. Mahisa's body had been lying on them. They had been in contact with her skin. A lightning-slayer had walked over the place, but there were still some stained with strands of red. Etos had gathered all those that were within reach. He kissed them and rubbed them on his cheeks, weeping enough to drain all the water from his body. The torture his heart endured was so great, that it was the only thing that allowed him to exist. He wasn't anything else. All that he had been was gone, blown away by the explosion of his suffering. He was nothing more than pain. The image of blood and revealed flesh in Mahisa's back burned his spirit. It didn't want to leave him. Shaking his head to make it go away, he screamed his distress and despair. He continued to fetch grass with his trembling fingers to pick up all of the sacred strands. Blind and deaf to the rest of the world, he didn't see nor hear Gentle Lightning who was talking to him and touching him.

 *

Akkaliza was tenderly stroking Sneaky's back weeping, too, in her own way.

In her own way, because, strictly speaking, we couldn't really say that she was weeping, because umas showed their sadness in a quite different way. Indeed, nothing changed in their eyes; their tear glands didn't express emotion, they were only used to wet the cornea when it was necessary.

When umas 'cried', the two parts of their beak vibrated against each other, producing a very particular sound recognized by all their contemporaries, were they blue or green. That's what Akkaliza was doing stroking the animal to which she was so attached. She felt his huge distress and shared it.

Never before have bov and uma weeped as one. It was the very first time.

Akkaliza's beak vibrated in a way that would have moved the most impassive uma. At this moment, even more than usual, she felt immense frustration caused by the interspecies communication barrier. She didn't understand why Sneaky was so sad, but she felt him suffer. That hyperactivity of lacrimal glands reflected more than physical pain became a certainty for her. The day starting to decline, she said that she would never have the courage to leave him by himself while in that state. Without ceasing to pat, she grabbed the camera to see what had happened during her absence, hoping to find the cause of this overwhelming distress.

# Like his 199 999 companions

Once again, Ekklamisa looked up at the space control center's giant screen. It showed the same thing as did all the personal monitors in the front of each ground crew member:

Coordinates of the target at optimal time T = 0:

X = 32 ° 27' 42 ".

Y = 27 ° 33 ' 56.

Z = 18 023 056 m.

V in forward direction = 11 103 m/s.

Current T = - 117,334.

"We'll get your lovely toy that came from elsewhere," Ikkarix told her in a low voice. "Stop watching the countdown every four seconds! You'll end up fraying the numbers! They'll be of no use after that!"

The tall mixed-race was sitting to her right. Four hands resting on his thighs, he sported a friendly bantering way. In response, Ekklamisa made screeches by waving her neck scales, which meant her laugh was forced.

"Very funny! It would be far better to lose numbers than to lose this vehicle that has travelled for at least a million years to reach us."

"Yes, but without numbers, one wouldn't know what one million means."

Ekklamisa waved her crest from one side to side, a friendly exasperated body language which had the same meaning as a shrug, expressing impatience.

T = - 117,311, she saw on her monitor.

The Adventure was the best placed shuttle. Ekklamisa had great confidence in its captain and his crew. Everything should be okay. The orbital plane change maneuver took place perfectly. Adventure was on the right inclination. For the shuttle, all that was needed was the right acceleration at the right time. It was only a space rendezvous after all. Unless at the last moment, an engine failure..."

But even more complexity was involved. The craft to be captured had to be slowed down, as it would be passing at 11 103 m/s while the shuttle would be only at 9 500 m/s at that altitude. So they had to make it lose 1 603 m/s. If this precaution wasn't taken, any attempt to capture would result in a terrible collision that would destroy both the target and the shuttle. Fortunately, Ikkarix and his squad of mathletes had worked hard. The engineers and technicians also. The result of all this beautiful intelligence was what Ekklamisa was relying on: at T = - 30, Adventure would launch a rocket propulsed vehicle called a Falcon, which would go to the front of the target to capture it in a net, at T = 0, to slow it down and place it in a terumastrial orbit. At T = 0, the Falcon would be at 11 102.5 m/s just in front of the target. It would then use its retrorockets to decelerate its capture.

If that worked, it could be said that the mission was successful, because once the target was in orbit around the planet, its retrieval would become a simple rendezvous like any other. Everything was calculated so that Adventure would capture it two more orbits later, but if that failed to work they would have time under these conditions to try again as many times as necessary.

T = - 117,107, Ekklamisa read on the giant screen. She was holding herself back from calling Adventure to request another verification of Falcon.

I must do everything I can not to faint at T minus thirty, she said to herself.

"Make an effort not to faint at T minus thirty,"  whispered Ikkarix.

"I don't know why, but I have an urge to sink my teeth into you," she replied.

*

122724's knowledge was even less than Toro's.

Same as 1, as 2, as 3, as 267 or 23796 or as 200000 also, he knew virtually nothing. 200000 castrated bovs knew only that there existed food before them, fences so close that it was impossible to extend a limb, itches over their whole body, wounds to their backsides because of the grid they were sitting on, and finally an extreme weariness to be alive.

This short list was all that they knew of existence.

Like his 199999 companions in misfortune and Toro, but contrary to their fellow kind in the wild, 122724 didn't know how to communicate, because, isolated, he hadn't learned any language. Force-fed with everything he needed to grow and to grow as quickly as possible, he had very quickly reached the optimal size to be consumable; so fast in fact, that he was still a teenager. It was now time for him to be cut into pieces of meat.

Today, he and a few hundred of his companions would know this fate.

Although these farmed animals were all literally deformed because their muscle had been enhanced by anabolic steroids, none knew how to walk, because never in their life had they the opportunity to take a single step. But, they didn't have to walk, because everything had been planned.

An employee of Nature Foods put a ring around his left ankle and tied his two wrists together behind his back. The relatively low frequency of these gestures on each workstation didn't warrant the investment to automate them. 122724 felt those objects, but had no time to worry, because immediately he was unceremoniously turned upside down and hoisted by the ankle using a winch mounted on a rail attached to the ceiling. This lifting device began to roll. Following a branching network, it transported 122724 horizontally, upside down, about ten meters above his companions. Under him they were two hundred thousand, all sitting, as he had been himself for so long.

However, what he saw from up there inspired him absolutely nothing, because so far having seen almost nothing but his feeder, he couldn't understand it. He didn't even have the cognitive means to realize that he was in the air. But, unfortunately, no need to be particularly erudite to feel pain and fear. 122724 had a very sore ankle and he was terrified. The painful pressure sensation of blood descending into his head increased his distress. He made heart-rending bovgrunts gesturing instinctively, but the more he moved, the more pain he felt in his ankle and leg. Twenty meters ahead, 122723 was suffering the same torture, preceding him by a few seconds towards death. Over all, a liberating death. Himself, he was ahead of 122725 who was the victim of a similar adversity. Others and others, again and again, before 122723, after 122725, flapping and screaming in terror and pain, all hanging upside down. A long parade of suspended distress that never ended; macabre garland constantly advancing. Continuously or almost, we could say, because the few rare times where the mechanism stopped for an instant corresponded to short quickly repaired breakdowns. Nature Foods and Ralchadomac were huge machines that had to produce their tonnage of meat every day.

122724 was thus transported to the slaughter line. There, the cable unwound to lower him until his neck was at a comfortable height for the operator.

Although his vision was reversed since he was upside down, 122724 recognized a uma. He had already seen some from time to time in his short life. Even the first time, something in him, something innate, made him guess that it was a being. A being different from him, but a being as he was one himself. Of course, as he had no vocabulary to fix this concept, this certainty remained a thought without a name. But the mental image that relates to the words 'being' or 'creature' was no less clear in his mind.

So 122724 recognized a uma, but he didn't understand so far what it wanted. But the screams of his companions in misfortune and the smell of blood gave him an idea of what awaited him. Terror completely filled him.

The official procedure required that the animals be killed instantly and painlessly before cutting. But the station responsible for this task was a little neglected because it wasn't an important element in the service's performance; it even slowed down the work. The captive bolt pistols, designed to puncture the skull to destroy the brain, only worked once out of two. It's also true that this equipment judged superfluous for productivity wasn't maintained, but in any case the employees often 'forgot' to use it to go faster. Thus, fully aware, 122724 came before the first station in the chain that would transform him into pieces of meat in laminated trays intended for consumers.

When the blade opened his throat and he began to choke in breathing in his own blood, his vision darkened. Vocal cords sliced, he was reduced to endure it in silence. He struggled at the end of the cable, but the pain in his throat was such that he didn't feel his ankle any more. A reduction in blood flow in the cerebral arteries should have offered him a timely loss of consciousness, but alas the position in which he was, promoted irrigation of the brain, thus delaying the liberating syncope. Continuing to advance to the next operator, he was still fully conscious when the saw began to cut him into pieces. No one is able to describe his sufferings, because no one has survived such a treatment.

*

Divorced and childless, Ikkillu lived alone. She was quietly watching television while eating the flesh of 122124, a meat bov that had suffered two days ago a treatment identical to the one that 122724 had endured. It was cooked in sauce dish that she was particularly fond of. From time to time, Kkamdora, her pedigree hinec, came to beg for a piece of cooked meat. She would give him one always repeating the same phrase:

"That's enough begging, you bad girl! Here, this is the last one, okay!"

In the local news, the anchor was talking about a young uma sentenced to two months in prison for abuse of a small thac thrown against a wall in front of outraged witnesses.

Two months! she said to herself. That's not enough! I would have locked him up for ten years! Hurting animals like that... Piece of dirt! People like that don't deserve to live!

She was putting a piece of meat in her beak when the doorbell rang.

Who could be coming at this hour without warning? She asked herself.

Her hinec snarled.

"Quiet, Kkamdora!" she ordered.

Quickly swallowing, she got up and walked to the door. Surprised to see her boss through the peephole, forgetting all forms of politeness, she opened:

"Mister Akkal? Why?... What...?"

"Good evening Ikkillu. Excuse me for disturbing you at this hour, but I had to see you urgently."

"Good evening, Mister Akkal. Excuse my casual outfit, but I didn't expect anyone..."

"I don't have much time. Every second counts. I'll give you everything I have, if you can..."

"What? But do enter, enter... What's going on?"

Akkal made two steps to cross the opening. She could barely close the door without shoving him. Crest fallen, the veneer of his beak chipped a little, he looked dejected and unkempt.

"Where's the wild bov that was wounded by the security service?"

"In the lab. Why?"

"Come immediately with me, it's urgent. I'll give you everything I have if you can save her."

"But..."

"We're losing time. We must act now!"

The situation was so unexpected that Ikkillu had difficulty to really grasp what was happening. She didn't know how to react. Should she insist that he enter at least the time necessary for a clearer explanation, or should she follow him as he requested? In that case, she should change into something more presentable or...

"I beg you, Ikkillu," said Akkal scratching his front scales. "It's a question of life or death. I offer you all my shares of Nature Foods if you're able to keep this beast alive."

"But, sir... It's already dead."

"Are you sure?"

"..."

"Did you make certain?"

"No."

"All my shares of Nature Foods," Ikkillu. "All! Fifty-one per cent. You'll take my place as boss."

It was so surreal that she took three seconds to decide:

"Let's go."

*

Ekklamisa was at home. She was unable to prevent her eyes from turning towards the countdown: T = - 85,532.

It was displayed on her laptop, set on the living room table, as well as on the wall, on the monitor connected to the space center. Ikkarix was keeping her company. She had invited him to spend the evening with her. His humor was sometimes annoying, but she needed him to be less anxious in waiting. They had swallowed a ready to eat meal in front of the television. Ikkarix, who was vegan for years, wanted to see The Inquirer on channel 2. Member of the association Two One Four, he didn't hide his admiration for its President Okkala. The show was about to begin.

"It'll help me wait and I'll learn things that will help me to better understand your veganism," said Ekklamisa.

"I hope you'll go that way too. It's more compatible with your profession..."

"Why?"

"Because, ethically, consuming products of animal origin is primitive!"

"Primitive?"

"Well, yes! You know that I've always dreamed to be an astronaut..."

Ikkarix was unable to embrace this career because of vision problems.

"Yes, I know... but what are you getting at?"

"I imagined myself aboard a shuttle, ready to go into space, in my nice suit, surrounded by the most advanced technologies... with animal flesh in my stomach! Ah! What an anachronism would that be! Why not a club on the shoulder too! You should think about that for yourself too, you know! You the director of space mission operations..."

"..."

"... Chewed muscles in your stomach and a club set beside your keyboard! Ha Ha Ha!"

He made creaks, shaking his neck scales, which corresponded to a wry chuckle that often irritated Ekklamisa. But this time she was more disconcerted than annoyed.

# One More Step on the Stairway to Progress

Okkala was very surprised to see Ukkosal among the guests on the program. He looked somewhat disturbingly sullen. She was unable to talk to him because he had arrived at the last minute, almost at the moment when the host had all of them seated facing the cameras. She found him really weird. Nervously flipping his crest every few seconds to one side and then to the other, it was evident that he was avoiding to look her way. He preferred to stare at an undefined point right in front of him. She hoped that he wouldn't make a counterproductive scandal.

"Dear viewers, good evening!" began Ukkaire the host. "Welcome to the set of The Inquirer, on channel 2. Tonight show's theme is: "Is veganism a passing fad or a nascent movement meant to grow? '' I'll now introduce our nine guests that have come for this debate. In order to be impartial, we tried to bring together people concerned from all points of view."

The field of the camera widened to show a semicircle of white armchairs in which the guests were installed. They all faced the host located at the center of this arc.

"So, to begin from the left," continued Ukkaire. "Good evening, Madam Ukkuulaae! You're in charge of a small farm. And from what it says on my card, you, Madam, own hundred dairy bovs and a slightly less meat bovs, is that so? Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Good evening... Yes, that's right..."

The camera showed a close-up of each guest:

"Good evening, Mister Akkoronta! You, you're here, to talk on behalf of the Ralchadomac company, one of the largest of meat and dairy production units. Ralchadomac has no less than eighty thousand dairy bovs and three hundred thousand meat bovs. It's huge!"

"Good evening, Mister Ukkaire! Yes, indeed, it's doing well."

"Madam Okkala, good evening! You're here as the Two One Four association spokesperson. Later, you'll tell us the origin of that strange name. We've invited you because you are one of the icons of veganism. So expect to be riddled with questions since that's precisely what we are going to talk about tonight. You're purely and simply fighting against animal exploitation and for food of exclusively vegetal origin."

"Good evening. We are vegan, so we refuse to consume or make use of any product of animal origin. Not only food. We don't use any animal's skin, for example."

"Animal's skin?"

"Yes, the skin of an animal. You call it 'leather' to forget that it's animal skin."

"Er... Yes! Okay, you'll talk about it more precisely in a moment."

The host turned to the next guest:

"Good evening, Mister Ykkypol!"

"Good evening."

"You too represent very large company. It's well known by consumers and is called Nature Foods. This company has fifty thousand dairy bovs and two hundred thousand meat bovs in production."

Ykkypol nodded his crest. His scarlet beak polish was shining like pure gold under the generous light of floodlights.

"Good evening, Madam Minister of Agriculture!"

"Good evening, Mister Ukkaire."

"Thank you for accepting our invitation."

"My pleasure..."

"We are counting on you to answer questions from our guests, but of course you'll have ample opportunity to put in a spontaneous opinion to enrich the debate."

Okkala noticed that Ukkosal's eyes hadn't turned even one degree. He continued to stare straight ahead to somewhere on the wall that had no particular detail. His beak wasn't varnished. In day to day living, this would be considered quite unkempt for a uma. So, on television... He was the focal point for many disapproving glances.

"Good evening, Mister Akklonp!"

"Good evening, Mister Ukkaire!"

"No presentation is necessary for the great and well known philosopher that you are. We have no doubt of the relevance and enlightenment that your interventions will bring us this evening."

"Monsignor Ikkroya, good evening. You're here to give us the theological vision of uma-animal relations. I'm sure that your presence will provide enriching elements to our debate."

"Good evening, Mister Ukkaire."

"Professor Kkmura, good evening. you're an ethologist."

"Yes, good evening."

"Your expertise about the psychology of the animals will be invaluable to us tonight."

"And finally, let's get acquainted with Mister Ukkosal. Good evening, Mister!"

"... evening," muttered Ukkosal, finally turning his eyes to the host.

"Mister Ukkosal will be our Mister Candid for tonight. He may ask any question that comes to mind. It should be noted that Mister Ukkosal said that his parents were farmers, that they made their living on a small farm, but that it couldn't survive the competition from industrial farming. Is that so?"

"That's right."

Okkala was struggling to detach her eyes from Ukkosal who was still visibly avoiding to look at her.

Presentations completed, Ukkaire said:

"I propose we start with Madam Okkala. No favoritism, but only because she came with some videos that she would like to show to open the debate. Anyway, debating time will be counted and we will endeavor to share it equitably between you. To avoid protests, the projection's duration will be deducted from Madam Okkala's speaking time.

Fifty seconds of scenes taken at Ralchadomac and Nature Foods appeared. Perspective views of a row of milk bovs, some short close-ups of bovs mouths eating, chunks of meat at the end of the slaughter line and finally end products packed in cellophane covered trays scrolling on a treadmill.

"There, Madam Okkala. You have the floor. First and foremost, where do these images come from?"

"Before this first and foremost, I would like to point out that you have only shown a short excerpt from what I wanted to reveal to the public and you have only kept scenes that aren't interesting when taken in isolation. Notably, you've removed everything that shows the smallness of the cages in which the animals live, the slaughter scenes where we see them struggling, upside down, drowning in their own blood when they are executed. The prepared flesh scene, shown at the very end of my video, was there so that the public could make the link between what they buy and the terrible suffering experienced by sentient beings, cut in pieces while still alive after living through hell."

"We didn't want to shock the public, Madam Okkala. We have ethics. As such, I would be grateful that you subdue your comments, this is prime time and..."

"And you're afraid of losing audience, isn't that so? You prefer that viewers continue to watch quietly eating the flesh that is on their plates without knowing where it came from. Flesh sold in small trays by Nature Foods or Ralchadomac! Shouldn't they learn that the animal was still conscious when the slaughter line operator began cutting them up with electric saws! That he couldn't cry out in pain because his vocal cords had been sliced!"

"Madam Okkala, I swear to you that we strive to respect freedom of expression, but you're going too far. I would be grateful not to abuse of it to shock viewers. Think of the children that may be in front of the television."

"You give me the right to speak, but censor my videos and ask me to sweeten my words..."

"Let's say, to present them in a less aggressive manner. We don't want viewers to feel assaulted. They didn't ask for that..."

"Neither have they explicitly requested that we hide the truth from them, as far as I know! Yet, by filtering the information that I bring, from my videos as well as from my comments, it's exactly what you're contributing to. You ask me to respect the people who listen to us, but it is precisely what I'm doing by bringing to them elements of reflection that you hide from them. That you hide from them deliberately too! And why? To please to Ralchadomac and Nature Foods, of course! Your bosses would certainly not want to lose revenue brought to them by advertising their products."

"Mister Akkoronta and Mister Ykkypol, your operating methods are being questioned by Madam Okkala. Would you care to respond?... You want to start, Mister Akkoronta, it's your turn."

"I would only like to point out that this lady advocates veganism. That she has decided to no longer eat meat, that's her business, but if she imposes her choice on everybody else, that's when it's going too far! Everyone must be free to eat whatever they want..."

 "Refraining from eating flesh is the only solution to permanently shut down your death camps," cut in Okkala. "To finally put an end to your concentration camp universe."

Ykkypol stared at his partner's sister and took the floor:

"You may dispute the production and slaughter methods, but be aware that we do all we can for the welfare of our animals. We put them to death in a respectful manner and..."

Ukkosal made a long creaking noise with his neck scales expressing sinister laughter. For a short time, he became the center of attention, but Ykkypol resumed speaking:

"I was saying that we could dispute the methods of production and slaughter, but Madam Okkala moves the debate to the legitimacy of eating animals. I would like to point out to her that it's how nature works. Animals devour each other. The lions, for example, hunt herbivores to eat. We, umas, we are at the top of the food chain because obviously our species dominates all others. It's not a question of pride, it's because we are the most advanced. The strong eat the weak. Even our friendly hinecs eat meat. Isn't that so, Madam?"

"But, Mister Ykkypol, since you feel that we should take example on animals, it's my turn to point out that the lions, that inspire your conduct, also kill new-borns that aren't theirs and that the hinecs that you cite so much sagacity quite often sniff each other's anus. Does that allow us to kill babies by biting them and sniff each other's posterior? It's a really funny paradox to stress that we are the most advanced while taking as a model species that are less so than us. 'I justify my actions taking you as a model, because you are my inferior' is absolutely meaningless! I hope that you'll have the good grace to agree with me!"

"..."

"Yes, Madam Ukkuulaae," said the host. "You want to intervene?"

"Indeed! Unlike Madam Okkala, I myself defend the right to eat meat. However, I have lots of criticism for farms such as Ralchadomac or Nature Foods. I would like to explain my problems as a manager of a small farm.

"We're listening to you..."

"I only share a part of what you said, Madam Okkala. I have no doubt that the conditions for breeding and slaughter are inuman in these large holdings. But then to advocate discontinuation of meat consumption! That's a really extremist position."

"Viewers will note that veganism is the only case where the extremist is the one who's opposed to death. In all other cases, it's the one who doesn't hesitate to kill."

"Me and my husband, we love our profession and our beasts. Don't put all farmers in the same bag. Us, we respect our animals."

"By taking them in the end to the slaughterhouse. This scares me! I hope that you don't intend to respect me!"

Once more, Ukkosal's laughter was heard, more discreet, but also sinister.

"But all the same! We must eat to live!"

"Of course! But here, before you, I'm living proof that we can live without eating flesh."

"I'm not prepared to talk about that. We've always eaten meat and I have trouble understanding this vegan movement, as you call it, that decides from one day to the next that we can do without it. I'm willing to discuss that later, but for now I have other concerns. I would like to speak to the Minister of Agriculture."

"I'm listening, Madam,"said the woman.

"Products found in the stores that come from Ralchadomac and Nature Foods are sold cheaper than mine cost to produce. I'm therefore forced to sell at a loss, and by a large amount, so that distribution  purchasing centers are willing to take them from me. I'm not the only one in this situation, I'm the spokesperson for all small operators who are in my situation. I would ask you, Minister of Agriculture, what do you think of that and what are you planning to do for us."

"I'm very sensitive to your problems, Madam, believe me. But, ultimately, the consumer is king. We cannot require that products be sold at a higher price to help you. But we are considering to help small producers by lowering the social charges. I'll take care of this urgent issue as soon as possible. But, since I have the floor, I would like to ask a question of Madam Okkala."

"I'm all yours, Madam," declared the President of Two One Four.

"Yes... Er... Don't you find it indecent, Madam, in light of the current situation of farmers, to defend animals with as much determination? By loving beasts so much, aren't you scorning umas? And my question goes even further: with everything that is happening in our world, all these conflicts that are tearing us apart, don't you find it ridiculous to defend the comfort a few bovs and a few chickens or ducks? I think that your misplaced sentimentality is a mark of contempt for umas."

"What I find indecent is that you would encourage an industry based on the daily murder of millions of sensitive creatures, that you participate in the scheming of cover-ups so that consumers cannot make the link between what they are buying and these crimes. What I find obscene is that you accuse me of contempt for my fellows while I'm just bringing them the truth, while you are trying to prevent me from doing so in order to keep the producers voting for you. As for what I find ridiculous, they are the pathetic efforts of your question to go further, as you said."

"You've just told us the lack of consideration that you have for all farmers who feed us and for me in particular. It's possible that some viewers susceptible to your words will have a poorer opinion of me. But, so far, you haven't really answered my question: do you think it's appropriate to worry about animals when umas have so many problems?"

"Imagine yourself under the rule of a superior species that exploits us, just as we ourselves are exploiting other Teruma species. Imagine also that these beings, while dominating us, are also occupied like us in slaughtering each other, with the same insanity as us. Would you not with all your heart wish that some of them would be fighting to free us, to shut down their slaughterhouses? Or would you find this activism uncalled for, as long as all their own conflicts and other problems aren't resolved?"

"Your science fiction images lead away us from true subject, Madam... I didn't expect such a whimsical response!"

"And myself, of a retort so empty of meaning, Madam Minister. Fortunately you have made the effort, meritorious, but unsuccessful, to go further. This isn't science fiction, but instead an image intended to put you in the shoes of beings that we oppress. I want to make you realize that it isn't 'worrying about animals' as you say, but only to stop exploiting them. I'm not speaking of active support. So it isn't even a question to spending time or finding ways to help these populations, because they are populations, but only to stop exploiting them."

While the Minister of Agriculture struggled to keep her composure and a demeanor to her advantage, the philosopher scratched his throat and made a meaningful movement of his crest.

"Mister Akklonp, you wish to intervene, it seems?"

"Yes... I would like to speak to the President of Two One Four."

"I'm at your disposal, sir!" said Okkala.

"Before getting into the heart of my remarks, can you clarify to the public the meaning of those three digits?"

"It's in reference to the law that declares that "all animals as sentient beings must be placed by their owner in conditions consistent with the biological imperatives of its kind", sir."

"You can well see that it specifies 'of its kind', Madam."

"Yes, I see that. It's no surprise. The conditions for a fish are not the same as for a bird."

"Of course, of course, but I would like to point out that considering a species goes much further than conditions for physical comfort. According to the term that you love very much to use, you vegans, you designate yourselves as antispeciesists. Please, can you explain to this assembly the meaning of this word? This will help me come to the fact."

"Antispeciesist means against speciesism. Speciesism is the ideology of discrimination based on the species. As racism is discrimination based on race. It's essential to have a word for an evil, to track it down, when it is insidiously lurks in the dark recesses of our cultural habits. Before that the word 'racist' existed, we were racist without knowing it. Before the word 'sexism' was added to our vocabulary, it was difficult to make someone aware that he had this flaw. We must now live with this new word 'speciesism' that will help us move forward to uncover this evil by pointing it out."

"I see that you're a strongly passionate person and that you expose your convictions with a lot of fervor. So antispeciesism puts forward the idea that all species have the same worth, isn't that so? In other words, they are equal? Is that right?"

"Under the law, yes. All creatures should have the right to freely live their lives without being exploited. It's for this reason that we must start by no longer eating them. It's equality concerning that particular right and not equality of treatment, of course, because it goes without saying that a bird doesn't have the same needs as a uma, a mole or a bov. To summarize, each species has the right to live free in the environment that it belongs to and which is necessary for it."

"Hmm... I understand. So must we endure mosquito bites without trying to get rid of them because our blood is necessary?"

"I've never denied the right to defend ourselves. Defending and exploiting, isn't the same thing. I only said that it wasn't moral to exploit a species. Do you think that cruelly torturing bovs, that don't bite us, will protect us from mosquitoes? If that was really the case, we would have nothing to fear from these insects!"

"Okay, I understand what you mean. According to you, all species are equal in what concerns their right to dispose freely of their lives."

"Exactly."

"Hmm... Yet the sacrifice of an animal's life can serve the interest of a uma. For food, leather, to make experiments in medical research, also and many other things that I must be forgetting. And understand that it's difficult to give the same importance to the life of poultry than that of a uma! All lives are not created equal!"

"Why?"

"Come on!" interjected the Rachaldomac representative. "It's a no-brainer! A chicken's life is less important than that of a uma, because a chicken is much less intelligent. Umas have a complex life. They tend towards a goal. They have hopes, projects, and... A chicken doesn't do much more in his life than eat and sleep."

"And you, Mister Akkoronta," replied Okkala in an affable tone, "what else do you do with your life other than pecking money and sleeping? Do you really think that your life has more meaning than that of a chicken? One fills its gizzard with grain, the other his bank account with money. Does this single difference of container and content suffice to make you superior? Can you explain to us why? Enlighten us please, because, at first glance, we can't help but think that the essence of these two activities seems identical."

"Madam..."

"But in any case, it's not about measuring the value of a life according to any criteria whatsoever. That's not the issue at this time. It's obvious that the life of a mosquito is of lesser value that of a uma, if only from the sole fact that the first is much more ephemeral than the second. But like I said, that is not the crux of our debate, it's entirely different. It's about being aware that a certain amount of suffering is always the same amount of suffering, regardless of the victim. In suffering, all beings are equal. In addition, there is ethically a huge difference of intent between crushing a mosquito to avoid its bite and raising a sentient being in the worst living conditions in order to use its body as a simple resource. I remind you that this isn't about making the choice between the life of a uma or that of a fly, but only to become aware that we produce suffering by exploiting creatures endowed with sensitivity, at the same level as ours. No, no uman interest justifies the production of this suffering. Ask Madam Kkmura what she thinks of the sensitivity of animals other than uman. Are they not also as sentient as us?"

The ethologist took the floor:

"I can only endorse the words of Madam Okkala. Animals have a nervous system that makes them feel pain like us. I hope that everyone knows that as a certainty. Dressage is proof since very often sanctions of pain are used to impose behavior in animals, which means that they also feel fear. In fact, they certainly can feel as many things as we do. Sadness, joy. Love for their offspring, for a mate. Compassion too. Even compassion for a member of another species, I've had the opportunity to see that. It's not easy to realize how much that animals feel, because they don't always have facial and body language that we can read easily. It can be very different from ours! For example, we umas, we express our sorrow by weeping, which is done through particular vibrations of our beaks. Bovs though have no beak, but they cry in their own way."

"How so?" said the host astonished.

"It's going to surprise you, but I'm convinced. They manifest their moral or physical suffering by filling their eyes with tears. Indeed, I noted that when they have reasons to be sad, their tear glands gushed. So somehow, that's their way of crying."

After a short moment of silence filled with surprise or disbelief, the ethologist added:

"Another difficulty that doesn't promote our empathy towards them: the sound spectrum in which they speak lies partly in infrasound to our ears. It's possible on the other hand that our voices are very high pitched for them. So we hear only about half of their speech. Finally, I would add that we ourselves are animals. And I can confirm that, as alleged Madam Okkala, non uman animals are like uman animals, they're endowed with sensitivity."

Okkala continued:

"You see, Mister Akkoronta, you who take pride in being smarter than a chicken! No need to have great intellectual capacity to feel pain, fear, sadness. If intellectual capacities were a criterion for discrimination, the most intelligent of us should be eating simpletons. What do you think? Should we start by slaughtering and devouring our mentally disabled?"

The ethologist's crest waved in a knowing smile addressed to Okkala.

"What horrible words I'm hearing!" said Bishop Ikkroya outraged. "Devour our mentally disabled! Is it really necessary to say of such horrors to make a point, Madam?"

"The church is so quickly upset about words while staying aloof before acts of torture?"

"... Madam..."

"Since you're doing me great honor by speaking to me, Monsignor, I'm taking this opportunity to send a message to all those who pray to God, asking Him for particular favors, to make their trade prosper, to cure some illness for themselves or for someone close, to provide rain for a crop, to win the lottery, to give them glory , wealth, love, health... all these kinds of requests that they address Him. All that I want to tell them, to open their minds, is that, themselves, they are gods for creatures that are at their mercy. Why would God quickly make their wishes come true when He sees them deaf to the suffering of other creatures that He is supposed to have created? Of those that they dominate without the slightest pity. Of those that they have reduced to slavery. Of those that they make into clothing. Of those that they eat. Of those with terror filled eyes imploring compassion before being slaughtered or mistreated. Of those that they could give a better fate by simply wanting to, by simply stopping their exploitation. Yes, I'm talking to those who dare ask from above far more than what they're willing to do for those below. In response to all their prayers, they should be happy that God doesn't eat them!"

Okkala got a little carried away, but she had still managed to keep calm. She had spoken with passion but without real anger. Her last sentence however aroused some unworthy whispers.

"Madam, you say dreadful horrors! God forgive you!"

"Oh! I'm not the one that has the most to forgive. I have a lot less need for His absolution than those that endorse all these crimes!"

 "I acknowledge that your faith in the animal cause seems quite authentic and that this sincerity makes it quite touching. But you are also far from being convincing, Madam. I wouldn't say that the subject is without any interest, but the strength of your commitment makes me wish that you spend all this beautiful energy for umanity."

"But, Monsignor, I swear to you that all those who struggle for animal liberation, equally and simultaneously, care for creatures that umanity exploits and umas themselves."

"Oh yes? How so?"

"By trying to convince consumers to no longer eat meat, we're caring for umas on at least three points of the utmost importance."

"Three points of utmost importance?" repeated Monseigneur Ikkroya visibly intrigued and captivated.

"Indeed, three points. First, this would release huge amounts of plant food resources produced by the poor regions of our planet and that only serve to feed the sensitive creatures that we eat. As it takes four times more vegetable proteins to produce a single amount of animal protein, the amount of food available would be multiplied by the same factor. It would be the answer for hunger in the world."

"And the second point?" the prelate wanted to know.

"The second point concerns health, Monsignor. The poor creatures bred by the flesh and the milk industry are gorged with antibiotics, hormones and anabolic steroids which are then found in food placed on the market. And even without these substances, it is now recognized that proteins of plant origin are better for uman health."

"Okay! But what are you going to give us as the third point?"

"The third isn't physical, Monsignor. It's to elevate the uma. Raise them ethically and spiritually if you prefer. It's certainly the one that should touch you the most."

"That's very interesting! I'm listening carefully."

"The only law that authorizes umas to exploit creatures that share their world is called the survival of the fittest. Everyone knows that this law may not be just. Because if we did find it just, we couldn't blame a tyrant to rule brutally, we couldn't blame a uma that beats a partner physically weaker than himself and it would be considered normal that the strongest of us reduce to slavery the feeblest and even the disabled. If this idea is revolting, it's because of the examples that I've just mentioned that we believe that the law of fittest is unjust. There's no reason not to also find unjust all forms of domination, if it's only custom and culture that prevents us from seeing it that way. We must increase the radius of our moral sphere. If umas realize this and definitively abandon the law of the fittest for all situations, they will grow. They will become better ethically or spiritually; call it what you like, but they'll be better."

"..."

"To summarize, Monsignor, we simply need to cease to exploit non uman populations that are our companions, to suppress hunger in the world, to eat more healthily and to raise us morally."

"Believe me that your words give food for thought, Madam. And you claim that it's possible to be fed without eating meat?"

"Without flesh or any animal resource, Monsignor. I stand before you as living proof."

"Why do you say 'flesh'?"

"Because we must call things by their rightful name. 'Meat' is a speciesist term, because it's only used for non umans. We never say uman meat, it's rightfully called uman flesh. We must remove from our vocabulary terms that make us forget that the things that we are talking about come from the body of a living being. For example, leather is skin."

"All that's only obscure philosophy," intervened Akkoronta, the Rachaldomac representative. "In reality, to deserve consideration equal to that given to umas, beasts should be our equals. But the difference in intelligence will never allow an animal will rise to the level of an uma."

"But it'll never fall as low, replied Okkala. It's an average. As I've already said, it isn't the intellectual performance that counts, but the ability to suffer. But since you want to stay on the basis of what you call intelligence, Mister Akkoronta, I invite you to not confuse yours with those of the elite of our species. What you consider as your own intelligence is only what you have learned from them. We are almost all like that. Tell us what you've invented, all by yourself, which can place you above one of these simple chickens that you despise so much."

"..."

"Umas have a bad tendency to measure the intelligence of a creature by its faculty to resemble them. If wild bovs did the same thing with you, they would measure your intellectual capacity by your ability to live in a jungle with only your body available as a tool. Do you think they would find you very intelligent? Migratory birds would watch how without any help you could cross thousands of kilometers without getting lost. You would they take to be a genius?"

Mister Akkoronta grumbled some answer which had difficulty to get across his beak.

"So, and you, Mister Ukkosal?" said the host. "You haven't asked many questions tonight for a Mister Candid. It's surprising because you were the one who spontaneously contacted us proposing your role in this program. Ourselves, we hadn't planned on a Mister Candid. But upon your insistence, we thought it might be interesting to liven the debate. How is it that..."

"Don't worry, I'll be very useful. Most useful, I'm sure," he answered with a surprisingly strong voice. "Because, indeed it's true that I don't have questions. But I've got a solution!"

"A solution?"

Ukkosal appeared to deliberately change the conversation:

"Our enemy cannot be found on any front. No, no! Like terrorists, he's among us. We don't see him. Isn't it true, that we don't see?"

Ukkaire was visibly struggling to understand where his interlocutor was going."

"Er?..." He mumbled.

"Our enemy is our culture, our customs, our traditions. They prevent us from seeing clearly. We are suffering from moral blindness. For this reason, we need a great public debate to change an element of our civilization that's keeping us in ignorance and cruelty. We need a shock to rattle our consciences and force us to climb up the stairs of the progress. That's the solution."

Ukkaire hesitated:

"Solution? Such as, Mister Ukkosal?"

 "Yes, a shock! The solution is a shock! We've got to have one."

Having said that, he stood up abruptly, brandished a weapon and fired several times on Akkoronta and Ykkypol. Both collapsed under the horrified and surprised eyes of Okkala and the others.

There were screams from all those who were on the plateau and different technicians to the surrounding area. The host and guests all ran away, except for Ukkosal and Okkala. The first stood facing the second. For the first time tonight, he looked into her eyes:

"That's the solution," he told her dropping his weapon. "That's the solution..."

She was sorry for him and took the blame. What a mess! She should have seen that he was too fragile. What a mistake! She never should have entrusted him with that mission. Luckily her brother had delegated someone else to participate on this show.

# Racism and Speciesism Have the Same Essence

Night had well fallen when Okkala left the building of channel 2. She was about to take a taxi to get to the railway station, but she changed her mind. It's been a long time since I last had physical exercise, she said to herself, she finally decided to go there on foot. She had only made about a hundred steps when she heard her name being called preceded by and followed by short honks:

"Madam Okkala! Madam Okkala!"

She turned and saw Madame Ukkuulaae who, slowly rolling in a small red car, was prompting her by opening the passenger side door.

"Would you like me to accompany you somewhere?" she proposed.

"Gladly, if you don't mind!"

Telling herself that it surely wasn't her fault if fate refused to let her exercise, she entered the vehicle and offered:

"Thank you so much, you're very kind."

"Oh, its nothing! Where do you want me to take you?"

"To the railway station, please."

"Here we go!"

"A glance to the rear-view mirror, signaling... She drove into the trafic and asked:

"Where do you live if it isn't too indiscreet?"

"In Ravales."

"Wow! How about that!"

"Why?"

"That's where I live too!"

"No!"

"Yes, yes! Well... Rather than the railway station... would you like to make the trip with me..."

"Ah... in that case... of course, I'm really grateful to take advantage of this happy coincidence."

Ukkuulaae drove with a certain ease through traffic jams. After two minutes of embarrassed silence, it was she who broke it:

"What a drama! What a terrible tragedy! Did you know this Mister Ukkosal?"

"Yes," Okkala was forced to admit.

She couldn't deny it, because she was the only one that hadn't fled the set and many had noticed Ukkosal talking to her after having committed his insane act. Pending the arrival of the police, the channel's security service had intervened to isolate Ukkosal. He had offered no resistance. To conceal her desire to leave it at that, she felt necessary to add a small inconsequential complement to her probably too laconic reply:

"He's from Ravales, too."

Ukkuulaae felt her discomfort. She had the delicacy to change the subject to avoid the heavy silence:

"You know..." she said searching for words.

"Yes?"

"Earlier, on the set of The Inquirer, I told you that I love and respect my beasts."

"Yes..."

"You joked in response that you were hoping not to be respected by me, so I wouldn't take you to the slaughterhouse."

"It was in jest, yes. But... nonetheless..."

"My bovs are in an outdoor pen. They aren't imprisoned their entire lives in a building like Nature Foods or Ralchadomac. I wouldn't want you to put me in the same camp as the people there. I swear to you that I love animals."

"I know that, Ukkuulaae. I know. I know you far more than you think, you see?"

"Oh yes? How so?"

"I've seen you before on television. In a show about racism. I heard you speak lovingly of your hinec and your two thacs. That wasn't the subject, but nevertheless, you spoke of them when you presented yourself and gave us some details about your family. Your participation in this program was because you had painfully suffered from racism. You're green. Your husband is blue. You have two mixed-race children. You suffer each time that people complain that there are too many blues here. Whenever your children undergo painful teasing about the mixed colors of their scales. I remember that."

"What's your point?"

"The point is, it's discrimination, Ukkuulaae. It's all about discrimination."

"I don't understand..."

"You've decided arbitrarily, or rather you haven't decided it because an arbitrary decision is doesn't make sense. Let's say that, by education, you discriminate against animals. In fact, you feel that your hinec and your thacs deserve hugs and good care throughout their lives, while your bovs are made to be eaten. Why? Why don't you eat your hinec? Or your thacs? Why don't you pamper your bovs until they die?"

"... That's life... It's like that. What do I know?"

"When the greens held blues in slavery... It was life, it was like that. Today, fortunately, that's no longer so, because otherwise, your husband would've been a slave and you would've been severely punished for having a relationship with him. The ideology on which slavery of blues was based is called racism. The one that allows us to exploit animals, as we do, is called speciesism. These two ideologies are basically the same. Racism and speciesism have the same essence: discrimination towards one that is different."

A new silence settled upon them. They were leaving the city on a highway.

"There are jobs, lots of jobs in this field, Okkala..."

"Abolition of slavery also caused the loss of a lot of jobs. All those who made their living by this commerce. All those who captured slaves for sale, all the resellers, those who whipped them to work, manufacturers of chains and whips... Wow! That had to be quite an economic disaster!"

Again silence. They were now on the highway.

"You're right, Okkala. It's more easy for me, and less praiseworthy, to admit it anyway... You know... I don't believe that the Minister will do anything for us, small farmers. We're going to die."

"I was scared of saying that to you. The worst being always more profitable than the best and profitability always winning out at the end... It can only get worse. Your only way to survive would be to do worse than them. But to do that, it's obvious that you won't catch up, Ukkuulaae; they're way too in advance!"

Silence. The sound of air on the vehicle. Headlights of cars in the opposite lane.

"You know, Ukkuulaae... There's something that I haven't told you yet."

"Hmm?"

"My parents were farmers."

"Ah!"

"Yes... Their farm was barely larger than yours. About three hundred heads."

"Truly! I wouldn't have thought so."

"There is another thing that you would've thought even less..."

"..."

"Imagine that the manager, the majority shareholder, the boss actually, of Nature Foods... he's my brother."

"What! But... Noooo... You're pulling my leg!"

"No. I swear to you that it's the strict truth. Nature Foods is only the small farm that my parents and my brother were able to increase in size. He's a good businessman... He has taken associates and today he still owns fifty-one per cent of the shares."

"But... It must be tense between you two? How er... "

"It's often very very tense, yes."

"If I understand correctly, you also could've you been rich, but... you've chosen to stick to your convictions."

"Yes."

"But, how do you make a living?"

"I'm an ethologist."

Silence.

"But, Okkala! When you told me that for worse, they're way ahead of me, it's of, among others, your own brother that you were talking about."

"Yes. But what can I say? I'm not passing Manichean judgment on the animal exploitation industry. As Ukkosal said earlier, responsibility lies with our culture. It's primarily consumers of animal products that sustain it. Ralchadomac and Nature Foods are just two of the many monsters in competition that this market has created."

"One would profit from better knowing you, Okkala."

"From knowing you too, Ukkuulaae."

"In a way, I envy you because you've given meaning to your life."

"..."

"More than that of a chicken, anyway... Oops! Let's not make you angry with this speciesist comparison. I meant more than Mister Akkoronta."

Okkala smiled:

"You're a good person, Ukkuulaae. You should join Two One Four."

Shaking the scales of her neck, Ukkuulaae made a sound that was the equivalent of a disenchanted laugh:

"And what would my family and I do to live?"

"We'll find a solution all together. Why not convert to the production of organic products for the vegans? Cereal, pulse , oilseed crops... You could even provide finished products such as tofu or seitan. I would make you known to the vegan community."

"I'll talk it over with my husband and think about it with him."

"Don't hesitate to call me if you need me."

"Thanks. I would like to ask you... your companion and your children?..."

"My companion! He eventually got tired of my activism. He left."

"And your children? I assume that you've given them a vegan education. It mustn't have been always easy... the school canteen, for example."

"I've an adult daughter. I didn't give her a vegan education, no. I wasn't vegan yet when she was a minor."

"Well well! And now, how's it going with her about that?"

"Nothing's happening on this subject. She prefers that I don't speak about it."

"Is that so! And... how to say?... Does it bother you?"

"At the beginning no doubt, but today not much. I've come to terms with it. Isn't it said that no one is a prophet in his own country?"

"It's surprising that you've given up talking about it with her, while you openly and officially make war with your brother's company."

"Surprising! Not really... First, my daughter isn't involved in a murder factory. Also, it's more difficult to be opposed on an idea with a child than with a brother. A brother feels equal. A child won't hesitate to claim her right to be an adult, even if she still needs you physically. If you try to convince her, she'll contest, almost by principle."

"Yes, but that's only in adolescence!"

"Some adolescences last longer than others."

Ukkuulaae remained a silent moment, appearing to be focused on her driving.

Okkala thought about Ukkosal again, to the years of prison awaiting him. She couldn't help blaming herself saying that she necessarily had something to do with it, that she should never have entrusted him with that mission, that she ought to have realized that he wasn't strong enough to bear it. Ukkuulaae took her from her thoughts:

"There goes our mutual friend," she exclaimed.

It was a big truck with a tarpaulin having "Ralchadomac" written on it in large white letters on a red background. Under this logo was a drawing of a lion and three cubs with a slogan: 'a mother's instinct knows what's best for her children!'.

"Aha! The famous example of carnivores to justify the fact that we ourselves can eat animals!"

"That reminds me, Okkala, of your reply to Ykkypol concerning lions earlier on the show."

# They Cry with their Eyes

It was midnight. In Nature Foods' veterinary laboratory, the head of the department, crouching near the wild bov's body, was watching the screen of her medical device.

"Don't take any risks, Ikkillu. I mean don't try to save her by yourself just to look good in my eyes. You can make use of other means or other people if necessary. The only thing that counts is to succeed in this undertaking. I'll pay. I'll pay."

She looked up at her boss:

"Mister Akkal, its heart is no longer beating..."

"Can't you try to revive her? Cardiac massage, defibrillation... whatever?"

Ikkillu didn't believe in it, but given what was apparently at stake for him, but mostly for her, she was determined to try everything.

"Let's move it as soon as possible to Animal Comfort clinic. It's the best and I worked there for three years. We must call an ambulan..."

Akkal was already screaming into his phone:

"I need two men immediately in the veto lab. It's of the utmost urgency."

He responded to the interrogative gaze of the veterinarian:

"If we waited until the ambulance arrived, we would've lost time. I asked for assistance from security. I know that it's outside of their task description, but... Well, that's where we find the most muscular."

The two guards arrived running with four elbows held to their sides.

"Mister Akkal, what...?" muttered the most senior.

"Take this beast to the Animal Comfort veterinary clinic as fast as you can and taking maximum possible precautions. If anything happens to it, you'll be all fired on the spot. So stop looking at me with dumb looking eyes! I said it was urgent! Use the most appropriate service vehicle at your disposal. We'll follow you. Madam Ikkillu, watch the way these gentlemen do this so that they lift it properly."

*

Lying on his back, Etos seemed to be looking at the ceiling of his cage. His pupils were projecting correctly the image on his retinas, but, nevertheless, he didn't recognize it, because he only saw Mahisa in his mind. Nor did he feel Gentle Lightning who was lying by him and whose head rested on his chest. She talked to him, but he didn't perceive her whistling, because his consciousness only heard Mahisa. His entire being was hungry for her. His hands wanted to caress her, his arms to embrace her, his eyes to behold her, his ears to listen to her, his skin to feel hers. His fingers dreamed of slipping through the long hairs on her head.

Etos and his kind knew perfectly well what death was. Or at least, they knew as much as umas did with regard to its visible effects, that it transformed the living into an inanimate object.

Etos wasn't paying attention any more to what was rigidifying his broken limbs. To be even more precise, he was deaf to all of his body signals... well, almost all. Of his entire outside world, he could smell the blades of grass that he held in his right hand. These few fragments spotted with Mahisa's blood were his treasure. From time to time he kissed them tenderly and his reddened eyes watched them with fevered fervor that only passionate love can burn in a heart.

Following the mental images that were at the forefront in his mind, his face changed in appearance. When he thought of Mahisa's beautiful bursts of laughter when blew hard while shaking his mouth on her slender neck, a tender smile stretched his lips, though his eyes were still flooded. He was smiling in tenderness while crying. But then there was the horrible wound, this indelible mark in his memory as painful as a mark being branded onto the skin. Then his cries rose to heartbreaking tones and he kissed his very tight fist holding his treasure, or else he pressed it to his cheek.

*

Akkaliza raising from time to time her head to look at Sneaky couldn't quite interpret his complex expression. She saw it as a wincing in pain like any other.

If she had been told that she would miss the Inquirer show on channel 2 the day that her aunt was invited, and due to the incredible reason of why this evening she would have another things in her mind, of course, she wouldn't have believed it. Yet, this long-awaited moment was completely absent from her thoughts. She rested her head on the Sneaky's chest. Something had changed: she even felt more communion of sentiments since the video from the camera had revealed to her why he was suffering so much. She knew. She knew that the bov was mourning the loss of his loved one. He was crying with his eyes, where umas would have in a similar circumstance cried with their beak. She figured it out, she was certain. Same as umas, bovs knew love. The same, just as strong, just as beautiful. She was increasingly confident that they had a range of feelings no less rich than that of her own species. Intuition told her that Sneaky would let himself die, if he couldn't recover the one he loved. That's what she had explained to her father while showing him the video of the bov reacting to the death of his companion.

"Look at him!" she had told him. "See how he stretched his arm out to gather blades of grass stained with blood. Look how he cherishes the only thing that's left of her. See! Look and understand! Dad, I'm going into his cage. I'll eat when he eats. I'll drink when he drinks. If he lets himself die, I'll do the same."

Was it only due to the emotion carried in the voice of his daughter or had Akkal been touched by the video itself? Probably both. In any case, he had seemed terribly upset. He hadn't stopped his daughter from entering the animal's cage.

"I'll do everything in my power to fix things," he simply promised before hurrying off.

*

T = 5,130.

Ekklamisa was zigzagging every which way in her living room under the eyes of Ikkarix, who remained placidly sitting in his chair. While he quietly scratched the veneer from his beak using his varnish removing scraper, she was shouting, now and then, "Yeeeaaah!" and all kinds of cries of enthusiasm quickly raising her four arms to the skies.

On the big wall screen, two astronauts in the Adventure shuttle were watching her thanks to a camera that provided a view of the whole room. You could see them floating in weightlessness showing pleasure and amusement from the posturing of the manager of space missions.

Everything had gone smoothly. Falcon had fully accomplished the mission for which it was designed in a hurry. The mysterious machine which had come from deep space had been sufficiently slowed down to be captured by the Teruma's gravity. Ekklamisa, finally freed from her worst trances, was feeling wings growing. All those on the ground control team and the two cosmonauts had joined their voices to cry out in joy. The Visitor, that's how they tacitly ended up calling it, was dutifully parked in a nearly circular orbit. He couldn't escape them. For Ekklamisa, it was just like if it had been placed here, beside her, on the floor of her living room.

Ikkarix carefully folded back the cotton-wool cloth that contained small shards of his beak's varnish and put it into the kitchen trashcan. This done, he put a bottle of glossy black varnish and a mirror on the table, sat down on a chair and began to revarnish his beak with dedication.

"How can you stay so calm with all that's happening?" she said surprised. "I've trouble thinking that you aren't taking the full measure of this moment's importance!"

"Apparently, I'm giving it more than yourself!"

"... ?"

"What do we know of our capture? What tells you that there isn't, inside, something smart enough to be sensitive to the quality of our welcome. Myself, I don't know... a kind of computer program so sophisticated that... Or else, some living being, even... In a few hours, after our decontamination precautions, we'll bring it down to Teruma and... I don't want to look sloppy. You never know."

Ekklamisa ceased all demonstrations of enthusiasm and shut herself  in the bathroom to put new powder on her crest.

*

Sitting in the veterinary clinic's waiting room, Akkal was scratching the scales of his forehead.

He had just summarized the situation for Akkali on the phone. She was very much concerned for Akkaliza.

"I'll try to convince her to come home to rest," she said. "Surely, she can't spend the night in that cage!"

He had hung up, tired of hearing her lamenting.

Ikkillu had asked him to wait for her there. He had no other choice but to trust her and hope. All staff members were very surprised that it was a bov that had been brought into their emergency department. In all their careers, this was the first time. Generally, it was most of the time for hinecs or thacs, but sometimes for birds, hamsters, rabbits and other pets. It was mainly for animals that had the good fortune to be considered 'cute' by people. Since they weren't in this category, but instead culturally designated to be eaten, bovs were never seen in a general veterinary clinic. It was as incongruous as a banana in a toolbox or a drill in a freezer. Furtive and perplexed glances towards Akkal made by four other people, who were waiting with him, and who had seen arrive the anachronistic animal, said a lot about their surprise. They gave him the impression of being one of those jaded eccentrics who, not knowing what to do to spend their money, invented every day new whims to stand out. No doubt they imagine that tomorrow, I'll bring a camel to the movies, he thought bitterly. But their glances didn't worry him that much. He thought of the day when he had fired two shots at that bov. Two small nothing gestures. Two small flections of a single finger. And yet, only one really counted since only one had found the target! And bang! Another finger movement and he found himself here, at night, under critical eyes, praying with all his soul that an another bov, that he had never seen before, would not die. How could life enter such mazes with so confusing paths? How could fate make such pirouettes? What link could there be between a movement of finger somewhere in a forest and the threat that his daughter would starve herself to death a few days later?

Speaking of a finger on a trigger, Ykkypol's wife had called him on the phone, early this very morning, to let him know that her husband had been the target of a madman on the set of The Inquirer. Viewers hadn't seen the incident, since the broadcast was slightly deferred to be able to cut passages likely to offend the public. Ykkypol was currently in the emergency ward of a clinic. Akkal hoped that he wasn't responsible for any part of that event.

He thought of this bov which seemed so attached to the one that his daughter had named Sneaky. She had most likely covered one hundred kilometers to find her companion. We can't really call that love, he said to himself. That's instinct, that's all. It's animal instinct... But he had the greatest difficulty to convince himself.

Is God pursuing a means to make me understand something... or to punish me for my actions? He asked himself.

Not speaking to him except in similar difficult times, he began to pray fervently, eyes closed, four hands on his knees joined together by forty intertwined fingers.

*

A full moon was seeping through the sparse foliage above the cage.

"Akkaliza!" said Okkala softly. "It's me. Your mother called me to tell me what was happening. Please answer me."

 Akkaliza looked up. Crest crumpled, she looked at her aunt as if she didn't recognize her. And then she exclaimed with a faded voice:

"Okkala... it's nice of you to come see us."

"Is your arm getting better?"

"Yes," said Akkaliza showing her dressing. "It doesn't really hurt any more."

"Well!... You're not going to spend all night here?"

"I promised Sneaky that I'll stay with him."

"Humph... Tell me what happened," asked Okkala putting a loving hand on her niece's foot.

"Sneaky is in love, his companion was killed. He'll let himself die. I promised him to accompany him to the end. I'll eat or drink when he does it himself."

"How can that be, Sneaky in love?"

Akkaliza thrust her hand into one of her pockets and pulled out her camera memory card. She handed it to her aunt:

"See for yourself."

Okkala took the object.

"You know..." added Akkaliza. "I learned something. Bovs..."

"Yes?"

"Well... They cry with their eyes. In the wetting."

"... It's funny that you tell me that today."

"Why?"

"Because I've just learned of it myself from Professor Kkmura, during the Inquirer show."

"Oh! Excuse me... I didn't watch. Forgot."

"It's okay. I understand. In your place, I would have forgotten also."

Okkala didn't find, for now, any need to speak of the tragedy that occurred on the set. She introduced the card into her phone to view the video.

*

Upper arms crossed on her chest, the other two in the pockets of her pants, Akkali was walking around the large living-dining room table. She wondered why her daughter gave so much importance to the life of this beast that she had never seen and why Akkal instead of trying to make her more reasonable spent his time at the veterinary clinic. He must be disturbed by what happened to Ykkypol, she said to herself. He had made her a brief telephone call her to tell her. She stopped for two seconds then resumed her patrol around the table in the other direction.

The eyes of the stuffed bov heads watched this manifestation of anxiety with the coldness of the glass which they were made of. However, had it not been for the certainty that they could no longer think, one might be led to believe that these creatures knew that the end of this torment depended on the recovery of a congener. And that the one that had contributed to putting its life on a razor wire was none other than the one that had put an end to theirs. Anyway, that was what Akkaliza's mother was feeling at the time that Okkala arrived.

"So?" started Akkali while ceasing her infernal trek around the table.

"She won't return. She'll spend the night in that cage. If you had seen what I just saw, you would understand."

"You can't convince her to sleep in her bed?" insisted Akkali sounding polite for the first time in a long while.

Okkala replied on the same tone:

"No. As I've told..."

She handed her phone to her and completed with:

"Watch this video and you'll understand. Give me two blankets, if you please. One for her and one for me. I'll go spend the night beside her. You can return the phone after you've finished viewing. We need to call Akkal to get the latest news."

Resigned, Akkali went to fetch two blankets and gave them to her sister-in-law who left immediately. As soon as she was alone, she dropped into a chair and looked at the video. Before arriving at the final image, her beak began to vibrate. And when she had seen it all, she lifted her eyes to see the stuffed heads. On the wall in front of her, there were three females and two males. The first were easily recognizable by their hairless faces, the latter, on the contrary, had hairs around their mouths.

Why, up to this moment, haven't I never truly realized that these things weren't always just objects? was the question that suddenly struck her heart and her mind.

At the time when she was about to call her husband, the noise of a violently opened door startled her. Akkal crossed the room like a hurricane, almost tore away the handle when opening the door leading to the garden and disappeared into the obscurity. She ran behind him.

*

Okkala had taken a garden chair from front of the house to use it here, in front of the cage, to spend the night with Akkaliza and Sneaky. After giving a blanket to her niece, she sat and put the other on her knees.

"You don't have to do that, aunty..."

"No, nobody's making me. I just want to spend the night with you two."

"So you saw the video?"

"Yes."

"Did you see how much he loved her?"

"Yes. That's why I'm here with you. I left my phone with your mother so she can look as your video too. I think it's going to..."

She was interrupted by the arrival of Akkal who has gripping the cage's bars with four hands to yell:

"She's alive! Akkaliza, she's alive! Your Sneaky's bov is alive! They resuscitated her!"

# Two Creatures Were Drawn upon it

T = 35,172.

The Visitor was only five meters from Adventure.

Kkarms, the shuttle captain, was looking at Kkagaryne through the viewports with envy and jealousy. Imbued with the feeling that the moment was historic, he would have given everything to change places with him. Kkagaryne, responsible for bringing the Visitor back into the cargo bay, was performing a spacewalk. His suit was attached at the back to the end of the shuttle arm and he was maneuvering himself using a control box strapped to his lower left forearm. Toggling it with care, he was slowly approaching the mysterious craft, under the eyes of Kkarms and the ground team. Aware that now he had only to stretch an arm to touch the thing that had come from elsewhere, he was inhabited by exalted feelings.

With a slightly cursor movement, he advanced still a little bit more to be able to grasp the extraterumastrial machine. Both cameras, located above his visor, allowed a part of the ground team and Kkarms to see what he was watching in stereo.

"This is Kkagaryne. Okay! I'm there," he said. "At first glance, it seems to me that I can start by touching the edge of the antenna dish. That part seems sufficiently rigid to withstand a slight pull without deformation. There are rectangular plates on the back... What's that?... Mystery!"

"This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, look in the direction of each three masts, if you please."

Kkagaryne did so. Behind the dish, which was almost three meters in diameter, three masts protruded radially, all at one hundred twenty degrees from one another. One was very thin, a simple cylinder no thicker than a finger and some four meters long. The other two were shorter and a little bigger.

Kkagaryne began by showing the smaller one, lingering on the small device it held at its end.

"This is Ekklamisa. This one seems very fragile. Kkagaryne, please show us the other two."

Kkagaryne turned to one of them without comment. At first glance, they were identical and were carrying the same devices. The latter were ten times larger than the device located at the end of the longest and thinnest mast.

"This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, show us the other one."

Kkagaryne complied. Just in front of him, the edge of the parabolic antenna fascinated him. Once more, he tried to imagine the creatures that had made this machine. Were they umanoids?... Or had they ten arms?... Or the flexible stalks like octopuses?... He rethought of the extraterumastrial representations in the comic books of his adolescence that, making him dream, participated to guide the choice of his profession today. Thus, he said to himself, one should never lose his childhood dreams...

"This is Ekklamisa, Kkagaryne, you're still alive?"

The astronaut was startled out of his musings:

"This is Kkagaryne, go ahead."

"This is Ekklamisa. I'm asking you if you could with extreme caution stroke the edge of the parabola with your fingertips. You are allowed to apply a maximum pressure of only one nanogram!"

Of course, nanogram was just in jest However, it gave a measure for the appropriate precautions to be taken to handle this fascinating object from so far away.

"This is Kkagaryne. Understood. I'll do it."

Everyone saw his hand approaching the antenna slowly. Floating inside the cockpit, Kkarms followed the event, alternately through the viewport and on his screen.

"Lucky guy!" he whispered in their private channel.

When his finger was no more than half a centimeter away from the Visitor, Kkagaryne felt his heart beat faster and his throat knot. His years of study and training were justified. A slight pressure at his fingertip made known to him that he had touched the thing. Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn't really a physical contact; the thickness of his glove still separating him from it. However, subjectively, it was so awesome!

"This is the medic. Kkagaryne, permission granted to breathe. In fact, it's our recommendation."

Kkagaryne brutally came out of his apnea just as his lungs were screaming their need for oxygen. He didn't know for how long he forgot to ventilate them, but, for half a second, he was annoyed to feel monitored this way by the medical team who were watching what his combination sensors had spied. He ignored them and said:

"This is Kkagaryne. I touched it."

"This is Ekklamisa, Kkagaryne, your impressions?"

"This is Kkagaryne. It looks solid enough to be grasped by the clamp."

"This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, permission granted to grasp it. Take as much time as you need."

"This is Kkagaryne. Understood, I'll proceed to the grasping."

Kkagaryne prepared himself to perform the gesture that he had repeatedly rehearsed in the pool. He slowly approached the open clamp, and closed it onto the edge of the dish. Its low torque and soft plastic lining pincers were designed to cause the least damage possible. To limit risks as much as possible, it was decided not bring the Visitor down to Teruma. It was more prudent to study it, at least initially, in weightless conditions. Chances were that some elements could be damaged by gravity. The gravity field in which this machine was designed was unknown. It could be from a very small world. Or, it could have been assembled in orbit even. Kkagaryne's mission was to transfer the thing into the shuttle cargo bay that would be then pressurized to facilitate its study.

"This is Kkagaryne. The Visitor has been grasped. There's nothing more to do but bring it home."

"This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, permission granted to proceed. As agreed, a centimeter per second. No more!"

Kkagaryne confirmed her statement and agreed. Adventure's arm began to contract, bringing the Visitor into the cargo bay at a speed of 60 centimeters per minute.

*

Early morning, in an Animal Comfort veterinary clinic room.

"Yes, we confirm that we managed to restart her heart,"said Ikkillu.

"When will she regain consciousness?" asked Akkaliza.

"I don't know... in a quarter of an hour, half an hour... maybe a little more."

The bov was on a treatment table. She was lying on her back. Her four limbs were secured with straps holding them away forming an X. A muzzle hid her mouth.

"Does she risk suffering?"

Ikkillu's crest movement could be translated as marking uncertainty and slight surprise to its lack of significance:

"Maybe... We don't know much about what bovs can feel. They must be very tolerant of pain, I think... But hey..."

"Please, can you do what you can to minimize any risk of suffering"

Ikkillu turned her gaze to Akkal. He made her understand that he agreed with his daughter.

"I'll get what it takes to give her an injection," said the head veterinarian.

She left the room. Kklibab, the young surgeon who was there and who was watching Akkal the way one looked at a rich eccentric ready to spend a fortune to save the life of an animal that others eat, made a slightly embarrassed smile with his crest and said:

"We were able to extract two buckshot balls from its neck, but..."

"But what?" asked Akkaliza.

"But, I can't hide the fact that the animal won't be able to frolic right away. Other than that, it also had a few small injuries to its mouth; we've sutured them."

"Thank you," said Akkaliza. "She must have hurt herself when falling."

She held out her four arms towards the straps and added:

"Is it really necessary to tie her up like that?"

"They're per safety rules. We want to avoid scratches and bites."

"I understand! But can't you loosen the straps a little? She's almost quartered, there!"

"That's true," said Akkal in support.

The surgeon ogled the bandage on Akkaliza's left lower arm:

"I hope that it's not this one that did that to you!"

"No!" she answered, indignant. "It was an accident that has nothing to do with her."

Her father lowered his crest.

Kklibab slightly loosened the straps. There was a silence after which curiosity prompted him to ask:

"Is it tame?"

"No," replied Akkaliza. "She was free and a bov in love!"

In love? marveled to himself the surgeon, reading a corroboration of this information in the expression of the father. What are we going to hear next! He insisted despite himself by giving him an interrogative look.

"I'm not the best person to explain something that I came to understand only a few hours ago," confessed Akkal accented with sincere emotion which made him vibrate his beak.

Proof that one can be totally crazy and rich, concluded Kklibab.

Ikkillu walked back in. She held a cardboard box where she retrieved a syringe and set the dose to inject by turning a dial. After pocketing the empty box, she approached the treatment table on which the reanimated bov was resting. Using cotton wool soaked with an antiseptic, she disinfected an area on the arm and made the injection.

"Oh! She's waking up," she said.

*

A throbbing pain extracted Mahisa from unconsciousness. She saw a white surface. Fairly quickly, she became aware that she was lying on her back and that this white surface was above her. On all sides of her field of vision, it was white also. That was the top of the four walls of the room she was in, but she couldn't know. She wanted to turn her head to find out what was surrounding her, but at her extreme surprise, she couldn't. Not that her head was held still by some device making it prisoner, but simply because her will to move it remained without effect.

She associated this frightening inability to pain radiating from her neck, but little by little it became less painful. Her mind began to drift into a kind of plush softness. She thought of Etos. Memories of him started to return to her. One that saw him locked up behind standing branches, very smooth and very hard. One of his arms passing between these funny things to hug her with passion and tenderness. The one of hearing him beg for her to go quickly to hide. Then she also remembered the terrible lightning from the thing that bangs and kills.

Again, she wanted to look around her, but her head still refused to turn. As everyone would have done in her place, she tried rotating her body, but it remained inert. No matter what she wished to move, no matter the will power she put into it, no part of her moved or nor even quivered. To aggravate the already critical situation, she only just noticed that she was in the middle of lightning slayer screeches. She heard them all around her.

*

"She's scared," said Akkaliza. "She's terrified. Still... Oh! It's horrible! It's horrible!"

"What is it?" inquired Akkal, alert to the slightest annoyance of his daughter.

Ikkillu and the surgeon were looking at her.

"She's paralysed," she cried. "That's for sure! See her eyes as they express terror and yet she doesn't make the smallest movement! If she had the use of her body, she would pull on the straps to try to escape."

*

Adventure's arm continued to reduce the distance between the Visitor and the cargo bay, but its movement had been slowed down. The machine that had come from the mysterious far reaches of space was approaching at five millimeters per second. Kkagaryne reduced this speed further, going to three millimeters per second. He knew that they were counting on him. The slightest shock against a shuttle part could cause damage. The words 'The Visitor hasn't travelled millions of years to get slaughtered by us!' repeated endlessly by Ekklamisa echoed in his mind as if they were the only ones he had heard during his lifetime. Every  ground crew eye could see, from the multiple points of view offered by the cameras attached all over the shuttle, how things were going. At last, the Visitor arrived just above the cargo bay. All that was left to do was to get it inside. Unlocking the magnetic mechanism that glued him to Adventure's arm, Kkagaryne began to float in space secured to the shuttle only by the safety line. He passed behind the parabola, and looking for the best point of view to manoeuver, he went closer to the body of the interstellar traveler. And there!...!...

First, he believed that the importance of his mission had made him lose his mind. Then, he thought he was the victim of a grotesque joke, but this assumption disappeared immediately, because no one else but him had the opportunity to intervene here and now. The only remaining explanation was a hallucination; if it weren't for his helmet, he would have rubbed his eyes. Maybe this object that had been made by...? ... was able to interact with his brain or his retinas.

"This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, what's going on? What's that thing?"

He didn't hear the question. Before him, fixed to the body of the Visitor, there was something insane. Something that could not be, but which yet seemed to be. He held out a gloved finger to that object which could only be an illusion. However, he found that it could be touched.

Am I the victim of a double hallucination, visual and tactile? he asked himself.

"This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne! Answer! Answer! Where did you get that? Please, stop fooling around! Okay!"

 Kkagaryne remembered that part of the ground crew was seing the same thing as him, including Ekklamisa who refused, too, the existence of this thing. She had to believe that he had tampered with his helmet cameras or he had brought with him the object to play a trick. She was angry:

"This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne! I order you to get rid of that grotesque thing and finish your work!"

"... I... I swear that I've got nothing to do with it. I only just discovered it like you. You can see that there are four bolts! When would I have had the time to install them?"

It was basically what Ekklamisa had understood. And she wasn't the only one; all those who shared this view had the same thought. It was against her own best judgement that she got upset.

"I'll be damned..." murmured Kkarms forgetting to switch to the private communication channel.

It was a golden metal plate slightly more than twenty by fifteen centimeters. Different patterns were etched on it. It was clear to see a drawing of the Visitor and also one of a star and its planets, a curved line, obviously a trajectory, indicating from which of these worlds the space craft had come from, the third in this case. All this to say that there could be no doubt about the usefulness of this plate: it was a message providing information about the provenance of the machine. Of its provenance and of its designers, because there was a drawing of two creatures. That was precisely what had inspired the concise but explicit, remark from Kkarms and the amazement of the ground crew.

Without any possible ambiguity, these two creatures were bovs. A female and a male. A female bov and a male bov. There couldn't be any doubt. Their representation was too clear to leave room for the slightest uncertainty. The Visitor had been designed by a population of bovs.

# Difference between Ignorance and Refusal to Know

It was the middle of the afternoon.

Okkala knew that Ykkypol's and Akkoronta's vital functions weren't threatened. Ukkosal hadn't committed murder; he had only used projectiles filled with a strong narcotic. However, his legal situation remained a concern, but it could have been much worse.

The prison employee, a large mixed-race woman looking annoyed, made Okkala sign a register prior to accompanying her to the visiting room.

"You have a maximum of fifteen minutes," she said entering a small room divided in two by a grid behind which Ukkosal was already seated.

"I have to lock you up. If you want to leave early, ring," said the guardian, showing a button near the door.

The latter closed with a metallic clunk that froze Okkala's heart.

"So? What's gotten into you? You've gone completely crazy, huh!"

Four hands in the pockets of his prisoner clothing, he replied:

"That was the solution. We needed to trigger media hype. It was necessary to create an event that focused attention, to get everybody to talk about it."

"Can you stop talking a second?"

"What?"

"So, first, there's next to no one talking. The network has done everything to stifle your buzz."

"Huh?"

"Then, you did much more for the cause with the videos that you brought back than with your spectacular action. Because it has done only one thing: make us look crazy."

"No one's talking about it?"

"No."

"You're l..."

'You're lying' he was about to say, but he saw in her eyes and the expression of her crest that she was telling the truth.

Ukkosal raised his two upper hands to massage his eyelids. With the other two, he leaned onto the grid.

"I'm exhausted," he said. "I have nightmares day and night. Everything that I saw at your brother's haunts me."

"I'm sorry. Get a grip on yourself. I'll see what I can do to out get you of here. And above all, don't make statements that might be turned against you. It would be best if you don't say anything."

Watching her press the call button, he refrained from answering.

*

"We were six to see it," said Ekklamisa to Ikkarix. "Kkagaryne and Kkarms, of course, plus you, me and the two communication technicians. I insisted that the usual discretion rules be applied. Everybody knows to keep silent. I asked Kkagaryne to transmit his cameras recordings in private, to you, me and Kkarms.

"Come home with me to review this quietly."

"Okay..."

During the trip in Ekklamisa's car, Ikkarix scratched his throat, diligently joined his forty fingers, as if they had been the only reason for his concentration, and said:

"Okay... Let's summarize. We have in our hands a device designed by bovs living on the third planet of a star that they..."

"Who lived, most likely, on the third planet from their star, at the time when they designed the Visitor," corrected Ekklamisa."

"You're right. A population of bovs, I should say, living in a star system that we have yet to identify, but..."

Looking in the rear view mirror to change lanes, she completed to show that she understood his thoughts:

"But even without identifying it, we know that they designed this machine at least a million years ago."

"And that, if they still exist, they would necessarily have today such a technological advance over us that for them we would be no more than worms."

"And still!"

"And still, as you say! And that..."

"Given that we are torturing and slaughtering by millions ours that look like them feature for feature, here on Teruma... I mean that used to look like them."

"If they find out, it may piss them off! And I think it will take much more than beautiful beak polish to make good impression!"

"Same conclusion!" she exclaimed while parking in front of Ikkarix's home.

The latter released his fingers to leave the car.

Ikkarix also had a large wall screen connected to the space agency. He turned it on and said:

"Make yourself at home. I'll get something to snack."

"Above all, no bov, okay!" she said seating herself on the couch."

"Sure! I'll completely empty my freezer and hide under a sheet," he answered from the kitchen.

She made a little laugh. Hollow, the little laugh.

"But, didn't you tell me you were vegan?"

"Yes, of course! I'm just kidding about the bov. I don't have any meat at home."

"..."

" I warming up two pieces of pizza for us, vegetarian," he suggested coming back. "Okay?"

"Right! If I understand correctly, you are likely to be spared if the designers of the Visitor decide to punish us. While me..."

"I'll hide you under my bed."

He connected his mobile phone to the wall display to send the image of the object.

"Okay... So?..." he said.

"So, I don't have the right to keep it secret for too long. Just the time to recover and to better understand the thing before making information about it public.

"There's binary markings, for sure..."

"That's obvious, yes. Still we need to understand what that means."

"I confess that I'm still under shock so..." she admitted.

"Well, me too, it so happens. I won't be able to solve this puzzle in a minute. We'll have to ask for help. I propose we submit the thing to the sagacity of as many heads as possible, taking for the time being the precaution to erase the two bovs and without saying where it came from."

"Yes, that's a good idea. Let's do that as quickly as possible. I would like you to take charge of that. Better to remove the two creatures rather than share this space puzzle to the best brains on the planet. I'm exhausted. I slept less than an hour these past few days."

"Okay, I'll get on it right away."

"Thanks... You know... Just thinking... What's to prove that they were really the designers?"

"What do you mean?" he asked surprised.

"That perhaps these two animals are only for... well for another reason than to say: 'Cuckoo!  It's us who did this!'"

"You see another explanation?"

—...

"To decorate it?" he jested.

"... Uh..."

"Because bovs were sacred in their world?"

"You're right! I'm ridiculous," she capitulated. "It's because I just can't imagine that bovs could... Otherwise, something else..."

"Hum?"

"I think we should contact someone you know. Maybe even start with that."

"Who?"

"The one we saw on television, ...the vegan."

"Okkala?"

"That's her, yes. You know her well, I guess."

"No more than that. I'm a simple Two One Four member there to help a little. But I know her a little, yes. Do you think that..."

"Yes. You can. You've got my approval. With your false look of surprise, I'm sure that you want to go. Admit that you thought of it."

"I confess..."

"Do you think we can trust her? I mean I would like her to be asked what she thinks, but that she keep it secret the time to let us find the best time to formalize the info."

"Yes, I think you can trust her for that. If we don't keep it secret for years, of course."

"Then go ahead, call her."

*

"Hi!" Okkala initiated upon entering.

She found Ykkypol lying in his hospital bed. He was watching television. A voice spoke of the thing from outer space that astronauts were going to intercept.

"Well well, it's you?" he said surprised.

He lowered the sound from the TV.

"Did my brother come to see you?"

"Not yet."

"He'll surely be coming at any moment now "

"What do you want? Don't tell me that you care about my health!"

"No, I confess. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

He looked at her for a while, touched the controls to raise his bed to an almost sitting position and said:

"Give me that kit, there, on the bedside table."

Okkala gave him the object that he had pointed out.

"Thank you. So?"

He opened the pouch to retrieve a mirror, a bottle of beak polish and a brush. Then, looking at her with an interrogative look, he added:

"What's so hard to say?"

"Well, not that much. First of all, glad to see you looking better. You've recovered quickly."

Holding the mirror with an upper hand, he used the other three to make small touch-ups here and there on his beak.

"Okay, thank you. Then, now... the purpose of your visit."

"I would like to know if you pressed charges against the person who did this to you."

"You can name him, you know! I think you know him. For my part, indeed I recognized him. He worked with us a while. He was probably a spy sent by you, if not by Ralchadomac. Of course I'll press charges! Why wouldn't I?"

"Precisely because he is indeed a spy sent by me, I mean by me... let's say by Two One Four, instead."

He moved his mirror around and turned his head in different ways, to observe his beak from several angles before he answered staring at her:

"Two One Four or you, whatever! It's the same no? Why would that deter me to lodge a complaint?"

"Because I have enough video to cause a great deal of harm to Nature Foods."

"You say so! Let me laugh! Even the television networks doesn't want your videos!"

"TV networks, no doubt, but Ralchadomac would be happy to use them to make some publicity for you."

A little stern, he put the mirror on the bed, closed the bottle of beak polish and put it back into the pouch.

"You would cause harm to your brother's firm?"

"You know very well that I would and with no afterthought whatsoever."

"Poor Akkal! He's not lucky to have a sister like that! But..."

"But what?"

"You're taking me for a fool because you'll definitely go see Akkoronta, if you haven't already, to suggest the opposite. That is to provide those videos if he doesn't press charges on his side. Because, it's obviously what he's going to do."

"You're only half right."

"Please explain?"

"That I'll actually go see him, but I won't offer him your videos. I will make him a proposal symmetrical to that I've just made to you. Because I also have videos of Ralchadomac that he wouldn't want me to let you have."

"Ha! Let me applaud with four hands! You're the devil!"

"No more compliments, vile flatterer! But to be called a devil by a concentration camp manager! You know what I mean? I have to go."

"..."

"And remember to drop the charges as soon as possible," she added leaving him.

Her last words were almost uttered from the other side of the door.

Akkoronta's room was in the same clinic, a few steps away. As she approached, Okkala saw a uma and three children coming out. Probably his wife and offspring, she said to herself. She slowed down her walk to give them time to move away, and then she entered.

"Okkala? What...?"

"You aren't dead, Akkoronta! Too bad! Fore sure you're doing everything you can to upset me!"

"You're really setting the tone!"

"Bah! Let's do away with civilities! You know the vastness of all the contempt I have for you! Then..."

"Me too, I hate you, and you know it too."

"Yes. And I'm very flattered. So let's put aside all hypocrisies and false politeness. Don't press the alarm, I didn't kill you."

"Yet your cohort has very well tried."

"That's precisely who I want to talk to you about. One, he's not my cohort. And two, I'm asking you not to press charges or to drop them. I'll explain why you're going to follow this advice."

She repeated the rationale that she had used with his competitor. But, when she had finished, against all odds, he looked at her with an air of amusement:

"My poor Okkala! I imagine you used the same argument with Ykkypol. Besides, I wondered why it wasn't your brother who was on the set, but that's not the point. You said the same thing to Ykkypol, no?

"Yes."

"You're without a doubt a uma with principles, Okkala, and some might find that noble. But, you're not a strategist; in that area, you're but a child!"

"..."

"I'll file a complaint against Ukkosal and also against you based on the fact that he is your cohort. Regardless of whether that's true or false, even. I'll encourage Ykkypol to do the same. It's in our interest for both of us to weaken you. I'll simply tell him that if he agrees to not use your videos against me, in return, I'll promise not use them against him either. There's nothing simpler. Your symmetrical blackmail doesn't work, since we just have to agree with one another to be protected."

Okkala's confidence crumbled: this guy sure is a tough one!

Just then her phone vibrated in her pocket. She looked at the screen and read the following message:

"As a member of Two One Four, I have important information! Call me as soon as possible. It is very important that you be the first to acquaint yourself with it, but I will not be able to keep it secret forever"

"As you wish, Akkoronta! Feel free to take that risk."

Having said that, she left so that he wouldn't see that she had been shaken by his counterattack. It was better to leave him in doubt.

In the hospital hallway, she called the text message's author:

"Hello!" said a uma. "Okkala, I'm sending you my address. Please come as quickly as you can."

He had already cut communication. She put a finger on the address to pull up the map. It wasn't far from where she was. She decided to go there on foot. The sender's name seemed vaguely familiar. If he was really a member, he wasn't often present. Coming out of the hospital, she hurried on.

*

"We'll have to feed your beast through a nasogastric tube,"explained the young veterinary surgeon. "It won't be able to feed itself naturally."

"We followed your instructions, Akkaliza," added Ikkillu. "We have put it back to sleep. So, it'll no longer suffer and be afraid."

Ikkillu and Kklibab were speaking with Akkal and his daughter in an Animal Comfort Clinic Office.

"How long will she stay paralyzed?" asked Akkaliza.

Ikkillu looked at Akkal then her assistant hesitatingly. Her glare inspired him to pronounce.

"Chances are for it to be permanent," confessed the surgeon.

Finally, Akkaliza didn't know if the reanimation of the bov was a good or a bad thing. First, she wondered how Sneaky would react seeing her in that state. Then, trying to imagine what would now be the life of this poor beast sentenced to remain forever motionless, she began to strongly doubt that her return to life was a good thing.

Overwhelmed by what he was experiencing, Akkal spoke little, but he asked:

"In practical terms, how can we... uh... I mean? How can we return Sneaky his companion. ... I mean..."

"Sneaky?" said Kklibab surprised.

Ikkillu explained:

"Sneaky is the name of the bov male that you've operated on. Akkaliza was the one that chose it, isn't that so?"

"Who chose the male?"

"No. The name. It is she who chose to call him that."

She glanced at the person concerned. Immersed in her thoughts, she nodded her crest absently.

"Ah!..." said Kklibab. "So to answer your question... Wow! It won't be easy to move it to its male. Even artificial insemination will be problematic. Uh... For that matter, perhaps it doesn't matter, as it is still in gestation."

Not knowing what else to say, he sought help by looking into Ikkillu's eyes. After all, these aren't my clients, he thought. I did my job, it's her turn!

"You don't understand," said Akkaliza. "This isn't a coupling! These two beings love each other! My father asked how to get them together. In fact, how to give them their life back simply and more generally?

Kklibab found it hard to conceal how much he found the question surreal and the concerns that it brought about futile. Although years of practice in this clinic had taught him how to put on a good face before the most extravagant of customer whims, this time, he was at a total loss.

'How to bring together two bovs that love each other?' Now I've definitely heard everything, he said to himself. Unless the next madman asks me to heal a crushed slug who wanted to marry a goat.

"We've done all what we could," said Ikkillu looking at Akkal insistently.

She was trying to make him understand that she had fulfilled her part of the contract and that she didn't want him to rescind on his commitment. The bov was alive: so he had to give her all his shares of Nature Foods.

Wanting in good faith to help his colleague satisfy her particularly demanding and eccentric customers, that he saw as spoiled children, Kklibab tried:

"I admit it won't be easy for you to keep the emotional ties you had with this bov. It should be noted that keep her alive in these conditions will require care incurring significant costs. I understand that it's very difficult to lose a pet to which one is attached... But if you decide to leave it at that, I know a great taxidermist. He can stuff its whole body, if you want to. In a very natural pose."

At these words, Akkaliza could not restrain her weeps and seeing his daughter weep, Akkal started to cry. On hearing the vibrations of these two beaks, Ikkillu glared at the surgeon with a look made to make him understand that she wanted to be alone with her customers.

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave you for a moment," he said while leaving.

*

Okkala shook the two left hands of the large mixed-race who welcomed her at his home.

"Hello!" he said.

He showed her to the living room and pointed to the couch:

"Please sit down! Sit next to Ekklamisa. I'll introduce you to each other."

Okkala complied. She turned to her neighbor and both cordially shook their left hands.

Ikkarix drew a chair to sit in front of them and said:

"Okkala, I present you Ekklamisa, Director of the space agency. I'm working under her as a mathematician specializing in orbital calculations. I'm a member of Two One Four, but I only went a couple of times to the meetings. I paid the dues because I share the ideas defended by the association, but I confess that I haven't spent a lot of time and energy to promote them. You'll soon understand that what we discovered and will reveal to you makes me regret that. Ekklamisa, let me introduce Okkala..."

"I know Okkala, Ikkarix. I enjoyed seeing her on television. I congratulate you, Madam. I especially remember the moment that you questioned those who pray. I even remember your last two sentences, because they shook me: 'Yes, I'm talking to those who dare ask from above far more than what they're willing to do for those below. In response to all their prayers, they should be happy that God doesn't eat them!' The first touched me, the second made me laugh.

Okkala's crest displayed a somewhat embarrassed smile:

"I happen to be a bit... passionate, sometimes, I confess."

"My boss hadn't told me that you had made such a strong impression on her," marveled Ikkarix. "I'm discovering this at the same time as you are. I'll get to the point as quickly as possible, but would you like a drink?"

"Not for now, thanks. I can't wait to find out what all this is about."

Ikkarix turned his big wall display on which showed a part of the etchings from the Visitor's plaque.

"What do you see here?" he asked Okkala.

"Well... a funny drawing of two strange bovs, why?"

"Why are they strange?" asked Ekklamisa.

Okkala turned towards her:

"Have you invited me so urgently just to pass a psychological test?"

Ikkarix reassured her:

"No. It's only because what we have to say is so, so..."

"...?"

"Did you hear about the spacecraft of alien construction?"

"Yes, yes... I saw you talking about it, Ekklamisa; me too I saw you on television. But what has that to do with me?"

Ikkarix asked her:

"Do you know that we were able to capture it and that it is currently parked in orbit inside a shuttle?"

"No. I didn't. I've been very busy and... But what are you getting at, then?"

"I'll tell you now. Keep in mind that this machine comes from somewhere in outer space. Very very very far away. It has traveled, at least, really at least, a million years at an average of fifty thousand kilometers per hour to reach us."

"I agree it's fascinating when you think..."

"Highly! Isn't it? Then, now I can tell you that the drawing you see here on the display, is on this craft."

After three seconds of silent stupefaction, Okkala uttered:

"Do you mean that the extraterumastrials who made this craft have bovs on their planet and that they have seen fit to draw them on their machine? Are they sacred animals or something of the sort at their home?"

Ekklamisa and Ikkarix exchanged looks. The first left the floor to the second.

"Actually, that isn't quite what we wanted to convey, no. First, it's important to say it's from the past, because remember this machine left its home at least a million years ago."

"Yes, that's true," recognized Okkala. "I meant that they had bovs on their world."

"Yes... That's better... But what we think is that they are the ones who designed the Visitor. The Visitor is the name we gave to the machine."

"Who?"

"Bovs."

"!..."

"The Visitor has been designed, manufactured and launched into space by a population of bovs," insisted Ikkarix.

Okkala remained unable to articulate a sound, looking alternately two space agency employees in the eyes.

"We're very serious, Okkala," finally said Ekklamisa hoping to get her talking again. "We wouldn't have allowed ourselves to..."

"How many people know this?"

"To our knowledge, for the moment, you're the seventh."

"Why do you do me this honor?"

"Who's better placed than you?"

Before the puzzled look of the President of Two One Four, Ikkarix explained:

"Let's recapitulate. At least a million years ago, a population of bovs mastered the science of launching vehicles into space. If these creatures still exist today, they must've attained a level so high, that for them we're nothing but..."

"Technologically wise only bovs." completed Okkala. "That's funny! We'd be bovs for these bovs!"

"Probably not even that," said Ikkarix. "Probably not even that. I've heard that our bovs know how to make tools. Coarse tools, but tools nonetheless."

"It's true," said Okkala.

"In that case, I also fear that we aren't even our bovs when compared to those bovs."

"That's odd," noticed Okkala. "On the drawing, the male has no hairs on his face."

"That's true," said Ekklamisa. "We noticed that detail too. It's likely a slightly different species than the one we know on Teruma."

"And... why does the male raise a hand like that?"

"We don't have the slightest idea. Perhaps to highlight this detail of their anatomy. The hand is an important element."

"That could explain it," said Okkala. "In any case, the female, she isn't doing anything. They had the technology to create the Visitor, but maybe they were still in a sexist phallocratic society. After all, it's still a little our case too, even if we can also send craft into space. But I interrupted you, Ikkarix. You've highlighted the huge difference in the level of technology that separate us from these bovs, if they still exist. So..."

"So, seeing how we have behaved against their own kind on Teruma..."

Okkala interrupted him:

"You're afraid of their revenge, if they ever came to visit us."

Ikkarix and Ekklamisa kept their beaks closed.

"And you've imagined that Two One Four's  fight would make me a sort of Ambassador to redeem umanity in their eyes."

"Maybe a little of that, but we were mainly keen to talk it over with you, to hear your advice. We were wondering when and how to reveal this to the entire planet."

Okkala knew that answer. She didn't even have to think. Stunned by this information, there was only one thing that came in mind. She didn't deny it.

"I'm sorry to be so useless right now, but what you've just told me is so surprising and unexpected that for the moment, I can think of only one thing."

Two sets of interrogative eyes stared intensely at her.

"I think that it can only serve the cause of Two One Four. People will fear retaliation from these ultra-advanced bovs. Their self-preservation being far greater than their compassion, fear will tear from them what their hearts have never wanted to give. Unfortunately, we will never know if our species could have climbed this ethical step in the absence of this threat."

"But everyone still isn't aware of what's happening," pleaded Ekklamisa.

"Aware of what?"

"Well... of what you're thinking, about what we're doing to other species."

"Oh yes? You know what I'm thinking? So you are well informed of what's happening as you say!"

There was silence after which Okkala softened a little.

"Excuse me," she said. "but animal freedom activists spend so much energy to provide information to the public! How does one tell the difference between ignorance and refusal to know? Because there is one essential difference, between not knowing and avoiding knowledge. When we show videos, how many times have we heard: 'Oh! me, I can't watch that, I'm too sensitive!' Too sensitive to watch, but quite indifferent when planting their fork into a piece of flesh a few hours after that statement. How many times have we heard 'How indecent of you to show us things like that!'  So many find it indecent to be shown the truth, but don't find it indecent to participate in this appalling cruelty by closing their eyes and by blocking their ears. I'm sorry to tell you that if all these people end up under the tyranny of a dominating species of bovs, they'll just have what they deserve."

"But, Okkala, not all umas deserve that fate." insisted Ekklamisa. "Me, perhaps, but Ikkarix, for example... Ikkarix, no, since he's a member of your association. It means that he isn't insensitive to the suffering of animals. And then, as you yourself raise, we've been educated that way. From childhood, we were taught to..."

"Please excuse my outburst, Ekklamisa. You're right, my tolerance gets eroded at times. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. I am as you are overwhelmed by this amazing information. I am stunned! My mind has not yet been fully digested it. I have trouble to measure all the consequences of this incredible news. Not to speak of the dizzying philosophical implications. But... A question comes to mind, here, now..."

"Yes?"

"If what you're saying is true... about the million years of advance that they should have on us... Why aren't they already here? How is it they let us mistreat this way their peers without intervening? With a million years of scientific and technological advance, they should have the means to know what's happening everywhere, at least in any case, here where one of their craft has come. You who work in this field, are you going to tell me that you don't know where our space probes currently are?"

"Yes, of course, we know. We even know the position of those that have left our solar system.

"So they surely must know where the Visitor is."

"You're insightful, Okkala," recognized Ikkarix. "But we can only speculate. How is it that they're not already here? Indeed. Either they don't want to, either they cannot, or they no longer exist... We're only telling you the facts."

"Yes, I understand. I understand... It is incredibly funny! The universe is so strange!"

Before their astonished eyes, she completed:

"Yes! I've used the specter of extraterumastrials that could dominate us and exploit us, as we ourselves exploit non uman animals of our world, so often to try to make people understand that we have on our side only a single law, the most unfair one of all, the law of the fittest. And now we know for sure that these extraterumastrials are a reality! Not only are they a reality, but, ironically, they are bovs, one of the species that we exploit the most here."

"They were bovs a million or more years ago," corrected Ikkarix putting emphasis on the word 'were '. "Let's remember that the Visitor comes from an all too distant elsewhere in space and in time. It's important to keep that constantly in mind. That may answer your question Okkala. They're not here, either because they no longer exist, as I already hypothesized, or because they have evolved so much that bovs that we exploit on Teruma aren't really important to them."

"I've a lot of trouble to understand this second hypothesis." exclaimed Okkala. "How could a species lose that much interest in its origins?"

"Are you concerned about the fate of protozoa, that we kill billions of whenever we sanitize or disinfect something? They're at the origin of all forms of life and therefore ours, too."

"Really now! What a comparison! Protozoa, you're exaggerating Ikkarix! Surely, they cannot have evolved to the point that Teruma bovs are for them similar to protozoa."

Ekklamisa agreed with Ikkarix's analogy:

"A million years, Okkala! A million years! Taking into account the fact that progress follows an exponential curve and that they were already at the level of a civilization having space technology."

"That's staggering! I'm dumbfounded!"

"Getting back to what you were saying just now," said Ikkarix, "it's true that I heard you use the idea of powerful extraterumastrials that could come and make us endure what we're doing to Teruma animals."

"Oh yes! Yet I haven't seen you often at the Association's meetings!"

"True, but I've diligently followed your interventions on the internet." he assured.

A big smile waving in his crest, he added:

"I'm not saying that to redeem my soul so that you'll put in a good word for me with the bovs who sent the Visitor."

All three of them laughed a little.

"When do you plan to make an official statement?" inquired Okkala.

"Any time now," said Ekklamisa, "I can't hold back this information for any length of time. I would be chastised."

Okkala appeared to be thinking:

"It's almost one o'clock in the morning. Can you wait until tomorrow noon?"

"Noon tomorrow... Yes. It can be done, but why?"

"I'm asking you this as a personal favor."

# Etos will join Mahisa

Okkala left Ikkarix's home at about ten after one. She made a small stop at her home then immediately rushed off to the city's penitentiary to ask to see Ukkosal in all haste. The guard on duty let her know that visits began only at eight o'clock. A banknote having immediately convinced the officer that they could also start right away, he called someone on the phone to take Okkala to the visiting room.

Ukkosal looked at Okkala with eyes reddened by sleep and dejection. His soft crest and dull scales reflected his state of extreme fatigue.

"What?" he said barely opening his beak.

"I've brought you some paper and a pen."

"Why...?"

"So that you can write what I'll dictate."

On each side of the glass partition, there was a small shelf that one could lean on. She passed the sheet and pen through the narrow slit in the glass between these two shelves."

"... dictate me?"

"Yes. Go ahead, write..."

A lower hand holding the pen, the other resting flat on the paper he waited, the two upper arms folded across his chest. Okkala began:

"I, Ukkosal, declare that I shot Ykkypol and Akkoronta on the set of The Inquirer channel 2 broadcast for the following reason."

She waited until he had finished writing and went on:

"to show bovs coming from outer space that some umas have compassion for their fellow kind who live on our world of Teruma."

Rather than write, Ukkosal looked at her with an open beak.

"Write, I'm telling you," she insisted. "Trust me."

"You want to have me interned in a psychiatric ward to avoid prison. Huh? Is that it?"

"Write. I swear it isn't for that. I'll get a bailiff. Right away. You must give him what you have declared on this sheet that you'll date and sign. You're not going to a psychiatric ward and you'll soon be getting out of prison with honors."

"If you say so..." he said looking as tired as resigned. "So what do I need to add?"

She dictated it to him a second time.

"Bovs coming from outer space..." he repeated. "Are you sure you're okay? You didn't get a recent blow to your head, perchance?"

 She had to convince him to write.

*

Sneaky hadn't eaten or drunk for three days. Same as his unfortunate mate, he was fed and hydrated medically. He was left lying on the floor of a room inside the Animal Comfort Veterinary Clinic. He had let himself be carried without the slightest reaction. His left leg and his right arm, still locked in rigid casts, didn't seem to hurt any more. Most of the time, his eyes were closed, but when his eyelids opened it was to show blurred absent looking eyes. He still kept his treasure very tightly in his hand, the same blades of grass stained with the blood of the one he loved. The latter was resting under high sedation in a nearby room. Not bearing to see her terror-filled eyes as soon as someone approached her, Akkaliza preferred to know her to be asleep.

Sneaky's treasure had dried up between his fingers despite the wetness of his palm. A well-intentioned nurse had wanted to open the animal's hand to see what it contained. The bov complained loudly taking his tightened fist to his lips and hisforehead. Akkaliza had to intervene:

"Please, no! Don't do that. Let him keep what he's holding."

The nurse hadn't insisted. He had been warned that these customers were a bit special, but that they shouldn't be antagonized. They paid well. On that subject, Akkaliza had learned from Ikkillu in a conversation taken in her presence, that her father had offered all his shares in Nature Foods to the vet to save Sneaky's bov. She was deeply touched, but it bothered her and even made her feel guilty because she was certain that Akkal had made this commitment on a whim to make her happy.

Kklibab, the surgeon who was best placed to comment since he had extracted the lead shots from the bov's neck, had met with his colleagues. At the end of their discussion, came some hope of curing the paralyzed beast, but the intervention was so expensive that Akkal couldn't even pay a small portion of the amount requested. Even had he sold, rather than given, his shares, it wouldn't have been enough to pay for that. Akkaliza resigned herself to this idea and also that it would be just as well to decide to let the poor animal die, because such an existence was more a burden than a gift and that to maintain this pseudo-life would cost each month more money than her father disposed of.

*

A naso-gastric probe entered the Mahisa's nose.

As still as an object, nobody had the smallest idea of what she was going through in her mind. Artificial sleep prevented her to tell the difference between dreams, memories and reality.

At times, she was drifting on the peaceful waters of a dream. Or she was running in the woods holding hands with Etos. Or she was making love with him. Or he caressed her cheeks, with his strong fingers that lightly brushed against her skin, looking deeply into her eyes to tell her that he loved her.

At times, her soul fidgeted in the claws of a nightmare which held her in terrible throes. Either she was lying in an unknown location without being able to move a single finger, while lightning-slayers leaned over her. Or something that bangs and kills struck her in the neck. Unbearable pain exploded in her back; she knew that she was going to die. Then she used the last of her strength to take one last look at Etos. She clung to the standing branches which kept him prisoner seeking his gaze, but already her's was fogging and her strength abandoned her. While she collapsed to the grass, next to the love of her life, hearing his voice screaming her name mellowed her last breath.

*

Meanwhile, Etos was clutching his treasure against his heart. It looked like he was staring at the ceiling with a smile, but he wasn't seeing anything. However, he was actually smiling, because he was thinking of Mahisa's laughter when they were having fun both tickling each other. Sometimes, lightning-slayers leaned over him. He noticed them, but it was completely indifferent to him. One of them had driven something up his nose. He had pulled it out. It was put back. He had pulled it out again. It was once again put in place and other lightning-slayers had held back his arms so that he couldn't reach his head. Finally, he resigned himself to leave this thing in his nostril. It was all part of the strange behaviors of these beings. Gentle Lightning came to see him several times. She had spoken to him by whistling. He made her a reply to please her because he was convinced she was a good creature who was doing what she could for him.

"Mahisa dead," said Etos, "soon Etos also will join Mahisa."

She whistled.

"Etos belong to Mahisa," he added. "A long time already... Etos given to Mahisa. Etos go to land of the dead to give Etos back to Mahisa. Etos, without Mahisa not Etos any more."

She whistled again, as usual. She had also made her beak vibrate, as she did occasionally for some time. Etos had smiled to her with his lips then he had closed his eyes to be alone with his mental image of Mahisa. Then she left. He had felt that she was sad. That made him feel bad, because he was attached to her. But, very quickly, tightly clutching his treasure, he had gone back to thinking of Mahisa.

*

Akkaliza pocketed her phone. She had just given her aunt news about Sneaky and his bov.

It was ten after eleven, Akkal and his daughter were exhausted. They had slept very little during the past two days. Prompted by the many calls from her brother and her mother, Akkaliza eventually resigned herself to return home with her father.

Akkal was driving in a daze. It was raining.

"Dad," said Akkaliza, "be careful. I can see you're tired."

"It's okay, daughter! "he assured starting the windshield wipers.

"You shouldn't have given all your shares to Ikkillu, you know."

"I gave my word, dear."

"But she hasn't really kept her part of the contract. It can't be said that Sneaky's companion is really alive. It's even worse than if she were dead!"

"..."

"I'm not holding that against you. You did what you could, and I'm very grateful. But admit that you didn't think it would end up like this when you made that proposal."

"I told her: 'I offer you all my shares of Nature Foods, if you keep this beast alive' something like that."

They passed the clinic's gate. Akkal drove on into the road.

"Yes, well... She's not really alive. So you don't have to really give them to her, your shares. Especially since I know that we'll have to let her die, in the end. This isn't just a question of money. It's also to let her go."

"I'm so sorry, daughter! I know that this is my entire fault. It all started when I shot Sneaky."

"You didn't realize what you were doing at that time. And you did what you could to make up for it. You know, he actually talked to me, I'm sure of that.

"..."

"Sneaky. He spoke to me."

"What did he say?"

"I don't understand of course. But, I guess that he was speaking about the misfortune that befell him. Maybe he was telling me about his sweet-heart."

Modesty made father and daughter try to prevent their beaks from vibrating. Akkaliza pretended to look to one side to hide a little from paternal vigilance. Watching the water flowing on the side window, she thought about the singular way that bovs cried.

*

Father and daughter got out of the car. Noting that she hadn't parked her scooter properly under the canopy, Akkaliza went to push it under the roof to protect it from the rain. So Akkal was the first to go into the house. He made a start when arriving in the living room. The glassy eyes of a bov, appearing to stare at him from beyond death, chilled his soul. He thought she looked like the Sneaky's companion. But it was only a stuffed head resting on the table. There were more on the floor everywhere.

"Ah, Dad!" said Akkalo. "There you are!"

He was standing on a chair with another bov head in his hands.

"Son, what are you doing?"

"Mom wants to take these things away. She said that they depress her. I hope you agree..."

"Yes, Yes, she's right. You can take all of them far away from here, to the dump."

"Glad you're agree," said Akkali coming from the garden. "I couldn't stand these things any more. Where's Akkaliza?"

"Here, Mom!" said the person concerned entering. "Oh! You..."

"Yes, dear, we're getting rid of them!" confirmed her mother.

"What a great idea!"

Akkalo got down from the chair and laid the last head on the ground. They touched each other's beak with affection.

"While waiting to be taken to the dump, put all these horrors somewhere else," asked Akkali, "in the garage, for example. It's time to eat and I've placed an order from the caterer."

 "Let's listen to the news! Let's take our minds of things!" said Akkal turning on the television.

Channel 1's usual newsman wasn't on his set. He had an exceptionally serious look that drew attention. Many other reporters thronged in front of a stage on which a uma was speaking. At the bottom of the screen, one could read: 'Live press conference from the Space Agency. An extraterumastrial civilization reveals itself to us.'

Akkal raised the volume:

"... ist therefore that a civilization of bovs able to build this spacecraft. Cryptanalysis and decoding specialists, champions of enigmas of all kinds who are working on the inscriptions and drawings of this plaque haven't managed so far to decrypt it more than that. But the two beings that we see, probably drawn to the scale of the machine, couldn't be more explicit. It is indeed from a population of bovs."

The person uttering those words held out a finger behind him in the direction of a photograph of the mysterious Visitor plaque. Believing himself the victim of a diabolical conspiracy, Akkal changed channels several times. But all of them showed the same images from slightly different perspectives, depending on the location of their cameras.

*

The next day, the news had made its way around the planet. It was the only thing that was talked about. All TV channels, all radio stations, all newspapers, all broadcasters of information had a word to say on the subject. Reporters and columnists that usually were the most likely to turn into derision veganism were now backpedaling with zeal. To hear them, you'd think that they all were the first to begin the fight for animal rights.

The president of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, the Director of channel 2 and the host Ukkaire had all three received a copy of a letter signed by a certain Ukkosal. An appendix explained that the original remained with a bailiff who could testify under oath of the date and time at which it had been given to him. Ukkosal was freed less than three hours later with a strong apology, almost subservient. Which was the most difficult thing for him to understand, given that, isolated from all sources of information in his cell, he wasn't aware of anything.

Okkala awaited him upon his release from prison. She had to call him out loud, as he was surrounded by a cordon of policemen inside which were also the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice, multiplying their expressions of deep regret.

"Ukkosal! Ukkosal!" she yelled.

The ring of police officers broke up to let him pass. He turned a dumbfounded face to Okkala.

"Sorry," he said "I'm expected."

They let him pass sending him off with compelling politeness and many niceties.

Okkala offered him her two left hands. He shook them proposing:

"Now, let's touch beaks! I know I owe you a lot."

She accepted and led him to her car, which was not far from there. They entered the vehicle just as three reporters, probably informed by prison officials, were running towards them, camera in front. She quickly started the car and sped away.

"I'm inviting you to come to my home to figure out what next," she said.

"How ever did you do that?"

"What, precisely?"

"Well, that! You know that! Ministers releasing me from prison with a profusion of apologies. Don't tell me that it has to do with the madman letter that you made me write?"

"Well... Yes."

She opened the glove box to give him a newspaper and explained everything to him.

*

Elbows on the table in the living room, Ukkosal held his head with both of his upper hands. Alternately, he watched television and flipped through the newspaper using his lower hands. They were still talking about him on all the channels. Okkala let him digest this information while she prepared coffee in the kitchen.

"But how did you know before anyone else, you, when you came to visit me in prison?"

She explained it to him.

"I don't believe you! You're pulling a stunt on me! There's a hidden camera somewhere. I'm not watching live TV."

"And I've had a fake newspaper printed too?"

"Oh, Yes! Exactly! You confess?"

"Yes, I confess! To pull this stunt, I ordered that they let you out of prison. I demanded that the two Ministers come deliver their apology. I also paid extras dressed as policemen... all that. I organized this whole setup in less than a day. I'm tiiiiirrred!"

"..."

"As for the TV, we can go and look at it at your home, if you want. And then, also you can look on the Internet with your phone."

That's what he did. It still took him ten minutes to accept what was happening.

"I must be dreaming! I'll  pinch my crest," he uttered putting his words into action. "Bovs from outer space! Sounds like a bad science fiction movie."

"They didn't come. Only one of their constructs has come to us."

"Yes, but there are the bovs in space, if you prefer."

"There were, in any case. There were at least a million years ago."

"Yes, but nonetheless, it's crazy!"

"I agree. Here you are! Some coffee," she said, putting his cup on the table.

She poured herself one also and came to sit next to him. Just as she was lowering the volume on the television to talk to him more easily, he held out an arm and exclaimed:

"Look, look! There! Please raise the volume!"

She took the remote and complied.

"It's the front of my home!" he exclaimed.

"You're a star now. Prison staff, or whoever, have sold your address to reporters."

Bewildered, he saw a crowd of reporters in front of his apartment.

"No, but can you see that!"

"Don't forget that you're a uma who has prophesied the bovs civilization. You're going to be considered as a messenger. It was the only way to get you out of prison."

He grabbed the remote and changed channels several times. More than one showed images of his landing:

'We are in front of the apartment of Ukkosal, the uma who predicted the existence of extraterumastrial bovs...'

"Please shut it off," he asked.

She did and told him:

"Now, I'll tell you the misfortunes of a certain Sneaky and his companion. Then, I'll explain what you can do to try to save them."

# They Were Reabsorbed into the Forest

Ukkaire, host of The Inquirer on channel 2, was delighted to welcome Ukkosal for a second time on his set.

"Good evening, Mister Ukkosal," he said. "It's a great pleasure and a great honor to see again you. I won't make you the affront to introduce you to our viewers; for two days now, you've been the talk of all medias."

"Good evening, everyone!"

"Madam Okkala, we are also pleased to count you among our guests. You were here the day where Mister Ukkosal had brought upon himself the duty to cast a blow against speciesism. Which was all to his honor. Mister Ukkosal wanted you to be  present tonight. It was a pleasure to comply to his request."

"Good evening to all!"

"Good evening Monsignor Ikkroya. You insisted to participate in our show. So here you are among us. We thank you very much for that."

"Good evening Mister Ukkaire."

"So, only three guests tonight to participate in this new edition of The Inquirer. To ask questions and lead the discussions, two of our current chroniclers: Madam Akkistame and Mister Kkolosmot."

They both displayed their crest in a professional smile.

"For my part," continued the host, "rather than as usual just arbitrate the debate between guests and columnists, I'll ask the first question myself. And, you've guessed it, it's addressed to Mister Ukkosal."

"Hum?"

"Mister Ukkosal, I have the honor of being the first TV professional, and even of all the media in general, to gather your thoughts since this was made known. So I have a very simple question: what can you tell us again about these infamous civilized extraterumastrials that resemble bovs?"

"Why say 'resemble'? Does it bother you if really they were simply bovs?"

"No. This isn't what I meant... I"

"In that case, don't hold back, say what you mean. It'll be easier for everyone."

Okkala's crest addressed to Ukkosal a complicit and discreet smile that she encouraged him to have fun.

"Yes, Yes... What more can you teach us about these extraterumastrial bovs?"

"Nothing really. All I know about them was told during the Space Agency's press conference."

"Then how is it, if it's not intrusive, that you knew all this before everyone else?"

"If by 'all this' you mean that there existed extraterumastrial bovs, the question is moot since I didn't. If by 'all this' you mean that we treat the bovs of our world to the most horrible cruelties, it's rather for me to ask you why you have always refused to know that; as betrayed by your reserved attitude on the matter the last time I was here, on your set. You did nothing to help Okkala to inform your viewers. On the contrary, even!"

There were three seconds of hesitation at the end of which Ukkaire made a pleading glance to his columnists that he needed them.

"I've a question for Madam Okkala," began Kkasalame.

"I'm all yours, Madam," replied Okkala.

"You've fought speciesism for a long time, Madam, and I can only congratulate you. Can't we say, and that will be my question, that you had, to a lesser degree than Mister Ukkosal, but all the same, a sort of premonition of these events that are upsetting the planet today?"

"No. We can't say that. First, I want to remind you that I'm far from alone in this fight since a long time. Furthermore it was never anything else than a conviction. A real conviction. Not an idea falsely adopted by mediatic opportunism. Not a posture taken in fear, as it's your case today."

"Fear? My case?"

"Yes, the one of being punished by these bovs that, we've been told, must have at least a million years of advance on us. No, I have never had any foreknowledge of that. I just one day realized that speciesism existed and that it isn't something we should accept. No more than racism, or sexism. We are dealing with an ethical darkness that has to do with habit, with education. Here and now: a bov can be tortured and it can be eaten whereas a thac is petted. That's all. No explanation. Today, fortunately, it is rather fashionable to denounce racism or sexism. Number of journalists and columnists, like you in good faith, who like to use air time to rub the public the right way, do it; there's no risk charging through doors broken down by others, it doesn't hurt your shoulders. On the other hand, on their television shows, a so very short time ago, these same people at best, were watching with a knowing and amused look those who were denouncing speciesism, and at worst, openly mocking them. Like you, they are modern buffoons striving to please the royal ratings. Now because of this disturbing revelation coming from space, they will denounce speciesism with apparent conviction that will give the impression that they always thought that way, that they were the forerunners in this area. Excelling in the art of not being useful, they'll still smile condescendingly at the leaders of new battles."

"You're being very severe with our profession," shyly pointed out Kkolosmot.

"Oh! I'm not saying that all journalists are in the same bag. I know some who have been penalized for being more authentic than careerist. Sadly, those poor souls have much less audience than you. It's a vicious circle that is inevitable. More you say the expected, more you get listened to. The bigger your audience, more you are influential. The more influence you have, the more you comfort your audience in what it wants to hear and then you're obligated to provide more of the same. Your careerism locks you up in this hellish loop without end."

"We can also simply be mistaken. I mean be authentic, as you say, but without taking full measure of the value of a new idea."

"Definitely, yes! Fortunately, in your profession, there are also those kind of people, but you can easily recognize them, because they aren't arrogant."

Monsignor Ikkroya intervened:

"Mister Ukkosal and Madam Okkala, I would like to ask you a question: you, Madam Okkala, you talked about fear, fear of being punished, to be more precise. Do you think that some of us, umas, have something to fear?"

"God only knows!" exclaimed Ukkosal.

The prelate did not know how to react to this laconic reply.

"And, you Madam Okkala?"

"Well!... No doubt those bovine creatures would copy his actions."

"His? Who's actions?"

"The only one that knows, according to Ukkosal, God."

"These bovs from outer space will take example on God, I don't understand."

"I mean they'll recognize their own kind as God recognizes his own."

Once again, Monsignor Ikkroya didn't know how to grasp the answer.

Ukkaire, who had become increasingly anxious that the show should come to an end, tried to create a diversion to relax the atmosphere:

"Mister Ukkosal, of course, probably due to your humility, we understand that you had no foreknowledge pertaining to bovs from outer space. But, anyway, could you provide us from your obvious intuition advice for our future conduct?"

"Most likely you mean advice for staying in the good graces of extraterumastrial bovs to avoid their punishment."

"That's putting it a bit... roughly... but..."

"But it's a bit like that, isn't it? It's good that you've asked me that question. I'll address the viewers also because their help will be invaluable."

"Truly? We're all ears."

"I'll tell you something and you'll understand. It's a true story that happened to a bov and his companion. The male we'll call Sneaky, you'll soon know why. Both are very much in love with one other."

"Excuse me, you're talking about outer space bovs, now! Are you in contact with them?"

"No. I'm talking about bovs who are living among us. As terumastrial as you and me."

"Ah, but! Bovs from here! Very much in love with one another?"

"Yes. Our bovs, very much in love one another! What's shocking you?"

"Uh... nothing, nothing... I just wanted viewers..."

"Let me tell you their story and show you the videos I brought. Then, I'll tell you what we can do for them, because they need help."

In his recounting, Ukkosal forgot only one thing, he didn't identify who fired on Sneaky and his companion. He simply spoke of hunters.

*

Thanks to the story that Ukkosal told of the terrible adventures of Sneaky and of his female, there was an enormous amount of donations. Sincerely touched by the story, or wanting to buy redemption in the eyes of the 'bovs from outer space', as the public were now calling them, umas gave more than was necessary to operate Mahisa. Much more indeed since her care had suddenly become free. All participants, from surgeons to owners of facilities and equipment, would no longer accept any money.

The paralyzed bov was operated upon successfully. The problem that remained was not to scare her when she awoke from anesthesia. They found no other solution than to give anti-anxiety medication at sufficient dosage to keep her relatively calm. She regained full use of her body before Sneaky did.

The latter had to wait thirty days for his fractures to heal, the most urgent was to first get him out of his mortal depression. But, to do that, Akkaliza knew that there was only one solution. He had to see his companion alive, healthy and clear of mind. Alive, that was already the case. Healthy too, though since less long. Clear of mind, how to achieve that, as it was impossible to approach her without knocking her out with a psychotropic drug?

Akkaliza had no other idea to let Sneaky heal in his cage in the presence of his companion. All that had to be done was to put them both to sleep while transferring them together.

*

Etos was beginning to awaken. Lying on his back, his treasure tight against his right cheek, he smiled fondly while thinking of Mahisa. Although he seemed to be almost happy, he suddenly began to cry is eyes out. The terrible memory of Mahisa collapsing suddenly in front of him, just behind the standing branches, had just resurfaced in his mind. He shed huge tears with heart-rending moans. He saw himself again stretching out his arm to touch her and he also saw two lightning-slayers take her away from him.

The narcotic releasing gradually its hold on his spirit, his senses awoke at the same time he did. This was how a sweet, familiar scent fondled the depths of his sensibility. He turned his head to the right to follow this magical emanation. Then stupor enlarged his eyes and an explosion of happiness shook his heart. Mahisa! Mahisa was there, lying near him. Raising his head, he saw that they were both lying on a layer of grass in the thing that consisted of standing branches all around. The smell of Gentle Lightning also came to tickle his nostrils, but he wasn't interested no more than that. He put his left hand on the Mahisa's cheek with such caution and such softness, that this contact wouldn't even have damaged a dandelion's fluff. Maybe he was afraid that his hand was crossing into a dream. No doubt he dreaded confirmation that this was only an illusion produced by his heart. But as soft as his gesture was, he did feet a contact and warmth in his hand. Both claimed that she wasn't a mirage, but reality, that Mahisa was indeed there, next to him, and that he touched her. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully. So crazy with happiness, he continued to caress her face while tenderly calling her.

*

Akkaliza's beak vibrated with emotion when she saw Sneaky caress his female's mouth with so much delicacy. The tactile manifestations of tenderness were universal; the two species had at least that in common.

Touched by what the bov had endured to find Sneaky, she had named her Loyalty.

She had asked that the doses of sedative were made so that the male would wake the first. As Sneaky was already used to seeing her and that he wasn't afraid of her, she relied on him to reassure his companion, to convince her that she wasn't a dangerous uma. It was essential to be able to provide the last treatments that would allow complete recovery and avoid systematic sedation.

*

At the bottom of the mists of what she was taking for a dream, Mahisa heard wonderful words uttered by a wonderful voice. Etos told her he loved her and that he was overjoyed to see her again:

"Mahisa! Etos love Mahisa! Heart of Etos full with love. Etos so happy to see Mahisa again that heart of Etos dances with joy. Etos belongs to Mahisa, always, always."

Being used to dreaming of him while all awake, she was happy to provide whispered replies that barely crossed her lips that were still numb:

"Etos, Mahisa wants you! Mahisa is yours. Mahisa love Etos stronger than all the forces of all the forests! Mahisa gave Mahisa to you."

It would have been a shame, but Etos was about to succumb to happiness. Which nearly happened to Mahisa also as soon as she recovered her lucidity and she realized that she wasn't dreaming. In the arms of one another, the two lovers were dizzy with ecstatic bliss.

*

In all likelihood thanks to Sneaky, Fidelity let herself be cared for. It was just to regularly replace the bandages on her neck and giving her a few injections of antibiotics. Akkaliza did this work to try to win, every time a little more, the confidence of the animal, that at the beginning was scared, despite the reassuring bovgrunting of her companion.

The two bovs accepted to be fed, and even demonstrated a good appetite. Thirty days had passed since they were reunited in the cage. Loyalty was still in gestation. Both would keep traces of their physical and psychological traumas, but they seemed in perfect health. During this time, they had been exchanging gestures of tenderness and even mated several times despite Sneaky's casts. With more than a little twinge in her heart, from the idea of soon not seeing them anymore, Akkaliza decided it was time for their release. She wanted to give them their freedom near the place where Akkal had shot Sneaky. To avoid sedating them once again, she hadn't found another solution than to transport them inside the cage to that destination.

*

Ikkillu energetically refused the fifty-one per cent of the shares that Akkal had committed to offering her; it seemed like that he was wanting to give her the worst of illnesses. Anyway, Nature Foods, Ralchadomac and all food production companies based of animal resources, especially in the bovine sector, had become worthless.

From one day to the next, a huge demand for plant food appeared on the market. Okkala had presented Ukkuulaae to her brother because he was looking for partners to be among the first to meet the new requirements. The meeting went well. Ukkuulaae and her companion were very enthusiastic and they knew a lot of other small producers who would be happy to convert.

*

Standing in their cage, Etos and Mahisa watched the landscape passing by. Etos stood holding a bar with his left hand while his free arm squeezed Mahisa's waist.

She couldn't chase off some apprehension from her mind, but the serene attitude of the one she loved reassured her. Gentle Lightning was near them, in the hollow back of the monster with four round legs, on the other side of the standing branches. Etos trusted her; he had no idea what awaited them, but he didn't foresee anything unwelcome.

At times, Mahisa recognized some of the places from the path she took to find Etos.

*

Standing in the bed of the truck next to the cage, Akkaliza held onto the bars with four hands. Her heart was aching. The time had come to free the two bovs. She was sure that she had managed to gain their trust and even somehow their affection because they were letting her pet them; even Loyalty.

Her brother was driving. He had offered his help, because he knew his father's hunting grounds, a father who now had destroyed and thrown away his rifle. Sitting near Akkalo, Okkala was also taking the trip. The two bovs had had time to get used to the presence of both of them, even though they trusted them much less than Akkaliza.

*

The four round legs stopped running. Mahisa and Etos recognized the place perfectly.

"Gentle Lightning brought Mahisa and Etos in their forest," said Etos.

"Yes!" said an enthusiastic Mahisa.

Neither of them suspected that they were going to gain their freedom. They heard two clunks, the four round legs trembled slightly and two other lightning-slayers showed themselves. Mahisa had noticed that they had gone inside the head of the monster that runs by rotating its feet and that they just had come out. They walked a bit and seemed to expect something from Gentille Lightning. She began to manipulate something mysterious while whistling. Mahisa felt Etos taking hold of her hand. Both were very surprised to see the gate of standing branches open in front of them. Etos turned towards Gentle Lightning and stared for a second into her eyes. When he heard her beak vibrate, he had the intuition that maybe it was her way to show her sorrow, that somehow it was as if she was crying. So, he went out holding Mahisa by her hand and approached Gentle Lightning to give her a pat on her head, right next to her ridge. Of course, that was the first time that he did such a thing. Mahisa was very impressed. Though he hadn't done that for this purpose, he was happy to swag a little to dazzle her.

He then turned a distracted glance to the other two lightning-slayers, and next, after a last slightly wet look at Gentle Lightning, he walked into the forest holding Mahisa by her waist.

*

Akkaliza soon lost sight of the two bovs; they were reabsorbed into the forest. Her beak was vibrating a lot. Akkalo and Okkala each put an arm on her shoulders to comfort her.

"Did you see that?" she asked. "He petted me before leaving."

Her voice was strained by emotion and punctuated by vibrations of her beak.

"You're certainly the first uma in the world to be petted by a bov," said her brother.

"He expressed his gratitude to you. He certainly wasn't indifferent."

In the pickup, on the way back, Akkaliza thought aloud:

"In any case, it's thanks to bovs from outer space that all ends well for Sneaky and Loyalty."

"Certainly, certainly!" replied Okkala. "But also thanks to other people I want you to meet. I'll invite them to thank them and to introduce them to you."

# They Could not Have Been Worse than Us

As usual, Okkala's miso lentils were delicious. Ekklamisa, Ikkarix and Ukkosal weren't holding back their praise.

Akkaliza was thrilled to learn so much about the mysterious machine that had travelled in space that in terms of time and distance was impossible to imagine.

"Even when I try to focus," she said, "I can't grasp the sheer size of such numbers. A million years..."

"Speaking of that, we learned where was the exact origin of the Visitor," said Ekklamisa. "Before that we were only guessing.

Three 'Oh yes!...?'s greeted this statement.

"It seems the craft came from the third planet of Ellios. A star located about sixty-five light years from us. It's a very small star as compared to ours."

Three more 'Oh yes!...?'s indicated their astonishment.

"Yes, it's only a little less than a million and a half kilometers in diameter."

"How about that!" exclaimed Akkaliza. "It seems to me that it's already huge. How big is ours then?"

"Denalbara has a diameter more than sixty million kilometers."

"So, the bovs who created the Visitor live, I mean 'lived' around this tiny star!" said Ukkosal enthusiasticly. "Can you see this third planet? What does it look like?"

"No," replied Ekklamisa. "Our current astronomical instruments don't allow us yet to observe planets around other stars. We can only detect their presence indirectly. Among other things, thanks to the small variations in luminosity they cause in front of their star."

"I see... And how do you know with certainty that this craft really came from the vicinity of this star... how's it called?"

"Ellios. In truth, we haven't discovered it. We've learned that from the Visitor's designers themselves."

Three 'Oh yes!...?'s wanted to learn more.

"Yes," replied Ikkarix. "The information was on the plaque. Very brainy guys eventually were able to read it. The position of this star was given relatively to the center of the galaxy and 14 pulsars."

After having asked and learned what were pulsars, coming to the dessert, Akkaliza guided questions in another direction:

"We certainly can't imagine the level that the Ellios bovs have achieved in a million years, but do we have an idea of where they were at the time of the launch of the Visitor?"

"In fact," explained Ekklamisa, "we reassessed the duration of the trip to, not one, but two million years. That said, with such orders of magnitude, it doesn't really matter."

"Indeed!" approved Ukkosal. "Already, anything more than ten thousand years only means a long time for me. It's really hard to see a difference between one hundred thousand and a million years... So?"

"So, what we can say, is that two million years ago, their technology, that of the Visitor in any case, had a few decades of delay with our current level. Engineers  studying the computing hardware of the craft came to that conclusion."

Three 'Oh yes!...?'s revealed their surprise.

"Amazing!" said Akkaliza. "I would give anything to know the social, ethical and philosophical level they had."

"That! "replied Ikkarix," we have no way of knowing."

He looked at Ekklamisa to add:

"Except, they were perhaps still a bit sexist, my boss pointed that out to us, noting that on the plaque the male raises mysteriously a hand while the female is quite passive. But this is just a guess. You will be able to study these drawings at leisure also..."

Two Space Agency's employees exchanged conspiratorial glances at the end of which Ikkarix stooped to pick up a small bag that he had put against a leg of his chair. He took out three golden metal plaques that he placed on the table.

"We have something for everyone," he said. "These are perfect reproductions of the one that's still on the Visitor currently in the cargo bay of the shuttle in orbit."

Three 'Oh yes!'s warmly showed their enthusiasm.

After repeating their thanks in different ways, each examined their one, made comments and asked questions.

"I wonder how your guys managed to understand these mysterious symbols," said Ukkosal.

"It would be hard to explain," said Ekklamisa. "Ikkarix and I would probably never could."

"They're naked," noted Akkaliza. "Do you think that they lived with no clothes?"

"We have no idea."

"The female has no sexual organ," observed Okkala. "And she's the only one to have long hair on her head."

"Yes. And the male has no hair on his face," said Akkaliza by rubbing her crest with a puzzled look. "It might be a race made like that."

"We came to that conclusion too," said Ekklamisa.

"I would love to know if them too, they shared their world with other creatures," said Akkaliza pensively.

"That seems most likely," said Okkala. "I don't think that life can spontaneously generate a single species wherever that may be."

"In that case, I hope they have treated the creatures living around them on their world with more umanity than us."

"You mean with more bovity," corrected Okkala laughing. "Alas! I guess that in that respect, they couldn't have been worse than us."

# To reward them for such courage

The next night, Etos led to Mahisa into the clearing. He hugged her with strength, but very tenderly against him and looked up to the heavens; he looked up with respect to flickering gods of the forest. He thought that they must have seen them, he and Mahisa, stand up to the lightning-slayers and that they must certainly have helped them a little to reward them for such courage.

# Afterword about The Visitor

On March the 3rd, 1972, NASA launched the probe "Pioneer 10" with an Atlas-Centaur D rocket. (It was followed by its twin "Pioneer 11" launched on April 5th, 1973.) These two spacecraft were dedicated to discovering what was going on beyond Mars because it had never been done before.

So, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to go beyond the orbit of Mars in 1972 and then to pass near Jupiter in 1973. It took ten more years to reach Neptune, since it crossed its orbit in 1983. It continued its fantastic journey in the direction of Aldebaran, a star much bigger than the Sun located at 65.23 light-years from Earth. Pioneer 10's relative speed referenced to the Sun was then of 12.224 km per second, or 44 006 km per hour, or one million kilometers per day. The distance to cover between the stars is such that even at this speed, a duration of 2 million years is required.

Attached to Pioneer 10 was a metal plaque, of gold anodized aluminum, on which information was etched for the use of potential alien beings. Behind a couple of naked humans, the probe itself was represented to provide a reference scale.

A drawing and symbols gave information about the origin of the spacecraft.

This shows that the probe comes from the third planet of a star, in this case the Sun. It should be noted that the heavenly bodies are not to scale; the Sun should be substantially larger.

This diagram shows the position of the Sun to the center of the milky way and in relation to 14 pulsars.

# Acknowledgements

All my appreciation to:

Lotta BONDE

Nathalie FLEURET

Jacques GISPERT

Diwezha PICAUD

Bernard POTET

Elen Brig Koridwen

http://ilsera.com 
