“I don’t know, son. No one’s been able to understand their dialect yet.”
The faces on the strange creatures hung limp, and their eyes watered. What were they trying to tell them?
“At this factory, we mostly have females. There are many processes being carried out all over the planet as phase one. The males have been shipped off somewhere else.”
Lord Scartoo stopped by one of the cages. The female human inside was hunched over on all fours. There was very little space for her to move. “This thing,” he said as he poked a particularly fleshy part of the creature’s body with his long index finger, “produces the sustenance for their young.”
The creature’s eyes widened, and it hissed. The beast withdrew, the loud crash! making Marlaac jump when she connected with the back of the cage.
Crash!
Her head smashed into the cage as she tried to look over one shoulder.
Crash!
The same thing happened as she tried to look over the other one.
How long had she been in there? How long would she have to stay in there?
As if she didn’t know what else to do, the human continued moving backwards and forwards. Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash! It was impossible to understand the noises that came out of her mouth, but it was clear she was distressed.
Lord Scartoo grabbed Marlaac’s shoulder and pulled him back. “Let her calm down.”
When they were a few paces farther away, the human’s behavior leveled out, and her thrashing changed to a more contained but violent shake. Deep purple and puffy skin sat beneath her green eyes, which were now watering. She stared straight at Marlaac. What was she trying to say to him? And what could he do about it anyway? “So they feed their young from their own body?” Marlaac asked.
Stroking his chin as he stared at the human, Lord Scartoo said, “Yeah, it’s strange, isn’t it?”
When his dad walked off, Marlaac followed behind, breathing a sigh of relief because they were moving away from the human and the horrible noises that came from her mouth.
Every step up the long room deepened the pit of dread in Marlaac’s stomachs. The humans got fatter the closer they were to the exit. Some were so large their pale and waxy flesh pushed through the bars of the cages, and their bodies were emblazoned with dark red and purple lines. They looked like they could burst at any moment.
By the time they reached the end of the room, most of them were too big to even move. What were they doing to these strange creatures? How long did they live in the cages for?
“We don’t know much about humans yet,” Lord Scartoo said, “but from what we can see, their planet is set up for efficiency. It seems that their main motivator for every action is to make processes as efficient as possible. Mass production with the highest productivity.”
The concrete floor was stinging so badly, Marlaac could feel blisters forming beneath the blisters on the soles of his feet. Instead of responding to his father, he continued to look at the miserable creatures, and they continued to stare back.
While some of the humans at the other end of the room had made strange noises, those up this end were all silent. They sat in their own filth, and their hair was clogged with dirt and grease. One of them at the very end had fallen forward in her cage, and her face was pressed into the bars as she dozed.
It was only when four Andredians approached her and banged on the cage that she woke up. Like the other women, her eyes shot wide. She knew what was coming.
Before she could do anything, the back of her cage was flung open, and she was dragged out by her ankles.
With a deep and echoing bray, she put up a feeble fight before being forced to stand. Upright, she looked even more swollen than when she was in the cage. Her stomach was distended, and she looked like she could fall over at any moment.
Her gait was peculiar as she was led from the room through some double doors at the end. She moved with her legs spread wide and a hand resting on her lower back. She kept stopping to breathe as if the little exercise was too much for her swollen body. How was this the dominant species on the planet? They looked so fragile.
Marlaac jumped again when a firm grip took a hold of his left bicep. He looked up at his dad.
“We’re going to go in there, but we need to hold back and let them go first. The more Andredians there are around them—especially one of my stature—the more distressed these creatures get. It slows the process down.”
What process? What were they doing to them? Could they not see the human was in pain? Marlaac didn’t ask any of these questions. Instead, he watched the closed door, his dad’s grip still around his bicep, and he waited to be told what he needed to do next. That was how it worked when you were Lord Scartoo’s son.
###
After a few minutes, Marlaac felt his dad tap him on the shoulder. When he looked up, Lord Scartoo opened the door and led him through to the next room.
There was a humid fug in the air that made it harder to breathe. But that was nothing compared to the noise…
On the floor to their right was the female human who’d been taken from the cage. She screamed as she twisted and writhed. Six Andredians surrounded her and two of them were holding her legs open. While she yelled, she looked from one Andredian to the next, her breaths short, her head movements jerky. How would Marlaac and his dad have made it any worse for her? This creature had clearly reached her limit.
Marlaac pulled his hand away from his nose. The smell was still bad but not as potent as in the other room. Maybe he was desensitizing to it already. Whatever it was, Marlaac clamped both of his hands over his ears to shut out the human’s sounds.
Impassivity sat on his dad’s face as he watched on. How could Marlaac ever do this job?
###
They’d stood there for so long that a shake ran through Marlaac’s legs as he continued to watch the process. It had lasted for hours. Every time he turned to his dad to ask him what was happening, his dad answered by nodding at the human.
The truth was finally revealed when one of the Andredians pulled a baby from between the female’s legs. Marlaac’s breath caught in his throat. “She was pregnant?”
Lord Scartoo nodded. “Yes. They all are. Wasn’t that obvious?”
It was now.
When the human reached out to her baby, her hands were knocked away by one of the Andredians with a loud slap! Another walked off with the infant.
More screeches and cries came from the human, and she lashed out and kicked in the direction of the Andredians. This wasn’t right. She was clearly distressed. Why had they taken her baby away? Within seconds, she was overpowered and dragged away, her child disappearing in the opposite direction, her screams calling after it.
“If only we could understand what she was saying,” Marlaac said.
Although his dad didn’t speak, the way he looked down at Marlaac said it all. They didn’t need to know how they felt. To understand them would be to feel guilt, and colonization wasn’t about feeling guilty. Marlaac had heard that line a thousand times before. Usually soon after a trip away. Usually when his dad was at his most tired and stressed from months of taking over a planet.
Like in the other section, this room had cages all the way down either side. Each one was so small, the humans could only kneel and look forward. If anything, the cages were slightly smaller than in the last room. The women were without child now after all.
It was only when the new mother got close to an empty cage that the fight finally left her weak and sweating body. She was folded into one of the small prisons and strapped into restraints. In an instant, she went from a birthing mother to just one of many naked females in a long line of cages.
Looking at his dad again, Marlaac couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “Is this right? Should we be doing this to them?”
Without taking his eyes from the human, Scartoo shrugged. “In all honesty, I don’t know. They certainly seem distressed, but to try and understand the feelings
of a race alien to our own is the pursuit of a fool. I’ve told you this already. Phase one is about sending as few ripples through a planet’s infrastructure as possible. We don’t have time for sentimentality.”
When his father walked away again, Marlaac stared at his wide, green back for a few seconds. If Marlaac was to do this job, he would have to learn to stop being so soft.
As they walked down the room, Marlaac looked at the females on either side of them. They were all hooked up to metal tubes and instruments. The gentle, pulsing throb of active machinery rang out through the warehouse. Many of them had watering eyes. Many of them had drawn features, their mouths hanging down as if they didn’t have the energy to close them.
Having walked the line of cages, Marlaac—as he had done in the previous room—watched the appearance of the females deteriorate. In the final cage was a human rocking back and forth. A continuous droning sound came from her mouth as she crashed into the bars both behind and in front of her. She seemed oblivious to Marlaac watching her.
“Marlaac!”
Lord Scartoo was waiting at the doors to the next room. One more glance at the broken human and Marlaac ran after his father.
###
When they stepped into the next room, it was so dark that Marlaac buried his fists into his eyes as if it would clear them. The action did nothing other than sting slightly, but after a few seconds, his vision adjusted again to the poor light.
The cages in this room were tiny in comparison to the others. Each one was no longer than Marlaac’s forearm. Instead of metal bars, they had solid but transparent sides. They were small, clear boxes. They too ran the length of the room on either side.
The Andredians who had taken the newborn baby were currently sliding it into one of the tiny prisons.
Lord Scartoo pointed at the cages. “The cells are small to maximize space. The tighter you can pack the humans in, the more you can accommodate. Efficiency, see.”
The air was alive with the shrill cries of the little ones. There was something about them that made Marlaac’s pulse race. Like he should be doing something to help. Some sounded cross, as if they expected their cries to be heard and acted upon. Others seemed like they were just making a noise because they didn’t know what else to do. Deaf ears ran this place, and it seemed like some of the babies already understood that.
Marlaac’s father took his hand and led him over to one of the small boxes.
At first, Marlaac turned away, but when his dad tapped the top of the box, Marlaac looked at the baby inside.
“This one’s been here for over a month now. It doesn’t take long for them to get used to where the food’s coming from.”
A rubber tube with a teat on the end hung from the lid. The infant was suckling on it, its wide eyes staring up, unblinking and vacant.
A quick scan showed Marlaac that all of the babies were laying on their backs in the boxes. There wasn’t room for them to do anything else. Some were suckling, some were crying, and many were simply staring. Some of the babies lay in pools of their own waste and barely moved.
“They’re a curious species,” Lord Scartoo said. “They seem incredibly vulnerable. Look at the gunk coming out of that one’s nose. They get diseases and viruses easily. How any of them live past a few months is a mystery.”
The words came out before Marlaac had time to stop them. “Shouldn’t they still be with their mothers?”
Lord Scartoo didn’t reply.
The same deterioration progressed along the room. Toward the end, the babies were fat and pale. Covered in dark red and festering wounds, they barely moved beyond chewing their own tongues. Some of them had taken to the task with such gusto, blood leaked from the sides of their mouths as a scarlet goo. Regardless of this, they continued chewing.
Marlaac pulled hard on his dad’s thick arm and waited for him to look down. “Why are you doing this, Dad? There must be another way.”
“We’re doing what’s necessary. This is phase one. This is the best way to take over a planet. You need to understand this. When you apprentice with me, you’ll be helping me implement phase one.”
“But it doesn’t seem right.”
Lord Scartoo sighed. Had anyone else have pushed him this hard, they would have been knocked to the floor by now. Instead, Lord Scartoo dropped down into a hunch and put his hands on his son’s shoulders. “This is why we don’t concern ourselves with their feelings. We don’t know what they feel or what their reactions mean. To us, their cries and behavior look like distress, but we just don’t know. Do they even understand distress? Because we can’t communicate with them, we need to stay focused on phase one. It’s all we can do.”
Marlaac’s breath ran away with him as he looked from one of his father’s dark eyes to the other. His dad wasn’t a bad person. He knew he wasn’t, but how did he do what he did? He didn’t say anything.
When Lord Scartoo stood up again, Marlaac followed him over to the next door.
###
Just before opening the door, Marlaac’s father dropped one of his heavy arms around his shoulder again. “You’ve been really brave today. Seeing how phase one is executed is a difficult thing to witness but necessary for when you start working with me. You should just walk through this room and don’t look at what’s going on. You’ve seen enough for today.”
Marlaac’s mouth turned dry and his hearts hammered. What was beyond the doors? If his dad was saying he shouldn’t look, it was obviously bad. Marlaac took a deep breath and nodded, a waver running through his voice. “Okay, Dad.”
Once they were inside, Lord Scartoo pointed at the other end of the room. “Just focus down there, okay?” It was hard to hear him over the screams of children.
The activity in his peripheral vision fought for his attention, but Marlaac did as he was instructed and looked at the white doors at the end of the room.
Focusing on the sting spreading across the soles of his feet, Marlaac ignored what was going on around him. The smell was different again in this room. Thick, like in the other room, and it added to the heat, but it had a metallic quality to it that drove a deep unease through Marlaac’s body.
Although he wasn’t looking, Marlaac was aware that the room wasn’t lined with cages like the others. Instead, something hung from the ceiling down either side.
When his dad sped up, Marlaac did the same, more pain igniting in his feet because of the rough floor. What he’d give stand in a fresh bog right now.
Scartoo glanced behind and sped up again. Surely, this was on purpose. He must have known Marlaac was struggling to keep pace, and it was the best way to keep him focused on walking and not looking to either side. Was it really that bad? Worse than what he’d already seen?
Once they were halfway across the room, the sound became almost unbearable. The demented wails of infants bombarded Marlaac from either side. Whether the Andredians understood them or not, it was clear this species was suffering. How could they ignore that?
When they reached the double doors at the end, Marlaac watched his dad struggle with the door handle. When he finally managed to open it, he pulled the door wide for his son to step through.
And that’s what Marlaac should have done.
Instead, he looked back.
Down either side of this room were hooks hanging from the ceiling. Human babies had their ankles bound and were suspended, upside down, from the hooks. An Andredian stood at the end of each line, a long and bloody knife in hand.
Although his dad tugged his arm, Marlaac shrugged him off and watched one of the Andredians approach a baby on a hook. He raised the knife, clenched his jaw, and swiped it across the baby’s throat. A curtain of blood fell to the floor with a whoosh!
Before he could watch any more, his dad dragged him through to the next room.
###
Marlaac chased his rapid breaths as he watched his dad close the double doors behind them.
“It’s not easy to see, is it? Phase one can be bruta
l, and this was a particularly hard one to witness. It was why I wanted you to see it. I want you to be prepared for what we have to do.”
“But…” Marlaac said before losing his breath. “But why? Why are you doing this?”
“This is what phase one is. We’ve been doing it for millennia. It works.”
“Surely, there’s been a mistake on Earth though? This can’t be right. How can we do this to them?”
Lord Scartoo stepped forward and pulled his son into his hard chest. He stroked the side of his face with his large hands. “You have to trust me, son. We’ve been studying Earth for decades, trying to understand how its delicate ecosystem works.” He pulled away and led his son down the short corridor.
“Humans are the dominant life form. Phase one is about us taking over from the dominant life form and placing ourselves at the top of the food chain.”
Arriving at a single door this time, Lord Scartoo pushed it open.
Marlaac’s hearts sank when he looked into the next room.
“Again,” Lord Scartoo said, “we don’t try to understand their feelings; we simply observe and replicate their behavior. What they’ve taught us is an incredibly efficient way of processing the life forms below them on the food chain and turning them into a source of sustenance. You’ve seen how much bigger I am. It’s because we’ve taken their practices and applied them. All we’ve done is pushed them down a link on their food chain.”
The hall was full of Andredians. Some were sitting at long benches, some were standing in line with dinner plates in their hands. Chatter filled the air as if what they were doing was the most normal thing in the world.
At the front of the line, Andredian servers placed meat onto each dinner plate, and each Andredian was handed a glass of white liquid to go with it. It was the same white liquid that the machine was removing from the women. Behind the servers was an Andredian with a huge knife. He was cutting chunks off a recently slaughtered baby quickly enough for the servers to keep filling the plates.
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