Authors: Boris TZAPRENKO
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.”