‘The most important thing you’ve got to realise when making sausages is that the finished product is only as good as the ingredients it contains,’ the butcher’s voice bellowed, silencing the few who were still engaged in conversation. ‘The meat must be fresh.’ He paused to let that point sink in. ‘It must also be high quality and have the proper lean-to-fat ratio. It’s no good using overweight specimens for this, which is why farmers who know what they are doing, make sure their stock receives plenty of exercise. You give a human half a chance and he’ll just sit around doing nothing.’ Laughter erupted at that last comment. The butcher didn’t smile. ‘That’s not good. A fat human makes for a poor sausage indeed.’
He then raised his meat cleaver high above his head and brought it down with enough force to cut a round portion of the upper thigh. He picked up the chunk of meat and held it forward. It was now inches away from Ona’s terrified face. ‘See! No fat on this one. She’s a beauty. And look at the colour, it’s just marvellous.’ Ur was nodding in agreement. The majority of humans from Centre Point were beautifully sun-kissed, making their meat particularly tasty. The butcher flung the meat into a solar-powered grinder.
‘The temperature of the meat should be kept as cold as possible during the grinding and mixing. This grinder is kept at a constant four degrees and can be flicked into self-sterilizing mode when not in use. The low temperature keeps any nasty human germs from being active. Later, the meat is cured with a mixture of antibacterial and antiviral formulations before stuffing into hog casings. Any questions so far?’
‘Yeah, I have a question,’ a youngster shouted from the back. ‘Why is there such a big price difference between the sausages?’
The butcher lodged his cleaver in the middle of the leg and said, ‘It’s to do with the type of meat. Humans come in all varieties: black, brown, pink, yellow. This determines the flavour but also those of us from Sectors 1 to 20 have taste buds that pick up other qualities. Scientists now think that what the human was thinking or feeling at the moment before processing can affect the quality of the meat.’
A feminine voice announced through concealed speakers: ‘Will guests with tickets to the fashion show please proceed to the Inferno Hall. Take the gravity elevators down to 7/8.’
The gravity elevator was a huge round platform rimmed with unconnected metal bars and studded with hovering rubber poles. Through the gaps in the metal bars the guests, including Ur and Ona, entered, and were told to hang on to the poles suspended in mid-air. The platform then descended slowly through a shaft that doubled as a giant, cylindrical aquarium. Ona gasped at the beauty of the scene that encased them: a multitude of brilliantly coloured fish gliding in perfect formation like hoverjets in traffic, yet capable, at a moment’s notice, of changing direction. A school of them can break away with a twist and a jerk reminiscent of a limb twitching in sleep. Humans had lived in the midst of this beauty but failed to appreciate it. This was one of the points discussed at length in a government document called ‘The Moral Case for Sector 42 Invasion’ which everyone had been sent. Standing there, knowing she would not be able to describe the beauty of these fish, she wondered how anyone would be able prove or disprove human appreciation of anything. Maybe that document had overlooked this point deliberately.
Ona thought of the lessons she received at the fundament before leaving for Sector 42. Most people moving to the sector for work, including Ur, didn’t bother going on such courses, but she wanted to learn about the place she would have to call home for a while. Amongst the things they debated at the fundament was the question of whether humans had a civilisation. This question cropped up regularly and was hotly contested. She remembers her professor explaining that whilst humans themselves considered their system of cohabitation to constitute a civilisation or, even more bizarrely, a series of civilisations separated by time and/or geography, this wasn’t proof of anything. Just because native beings think something is true does not make it so, the professor explained. After all, their art was repetitive; their science laughably limited and they had very little respect for one another and least of all for the globe where they lived. ‘No,’ the professor argued, ‘you can call it what you like but civilisation it was not.’
At the time, Ona had been troubled that some of the implied failings of humanity could also be found in her sector. But whenever she tried to raise this point, she was told that human failings were of much greater magnitude and moral repugnancy. The decision to invade, taken by the Elders of Sectors 1 to 3, was not made lightly, she was constantly assured, and there was ample documentation for her to pore through, if she wanted, to reassure herself about the reasoning behind it. Every time she tried, however, the endless stream of dry reports and hearings sent her quickly to sleep.
‘What was surprising is that humans failed to grasp the inevitability of their defeat,’ the professor said. ‘They actually put up a fight!’ This didn’t happen immediately because when the Alliance forces first arrived they picked Centre Point as their first base, which took many by surprise. Centre Point was a city that humans referred to as Baggy-Dad (the natives may pronounce it differently, the professor said as an aside). Humans in the elite Western and Eastern flanks of Sector 42 were particularly surprised, indeed insulted, that it was not one of their own cities that had been occupied first. They had always imagined—very repetitively, through their so-called ‘art’—that this would ultimately be the case in what they called a ‘space invasion’. And their ‘intellectuals’ speculated wildly on why Baggy-Dad was picked above cities such as Newey Pork or Lindon or Beige-Inn. Was it location? Climate? Geography? Or the fact that Baggy-Dad was already war-torn and its inhabitants weary of fighting that attracted the ‘aliens’ to it?
Here Ona remembers her professor digressing. ‘It’s funny the words humans used to refer to us. In one of their dominant languages they describe us as “aliens”, a horrid term. Whereas humans in Centre Point who spoke Arabaic, call us “ka-in-at-fatha-i-ya” or something similar-sounding which meant “space creatures”, an arguably more neutral term. Of course, what they should have called us, based on logic if nothing else, was their betters. I mean how hard is it to work out that having crossed vast distances to reach this sector, we are the superior race technologically, and therefore their betters? But then humans were never that good at logic.’ Something about this argument had struck Ona as suspect but before she’d had time to formulate what exactly, the professor had moved on to the next point.
When Baggy-Dad was first colonised, humans in the rest of Sector 42 were alarmed, but not to the point of taking decisive action. All too soon they learnt that, unlike a virus outbreak or a rampaging fanatical armed group, this threat could not be ignored for very long. Baggy-Dad proved to be an excellent base for the Alliance from which to spread north, south, east and west, conquering the entire sector in a relatively short space of time. What was odd, the professor pointed out, was that humans eventually organised an activity they called ‘resistance’. It was the only time that all flavours of humans: pink, black, brown and yellow united for a common purpose. This flicker of intelligence came far too late, however, and ultimately it was easy to defeat humans by making deals with some of their more powerful members. It is rumoured that a select few who collaborated with the Alliance were spared slavery and subjugation. It is not clear where these exceptions are living now. Some say they were teleported to the caves of Sector 3078. The names of human cities and districts were quickly changed on all available maps so that they were at once made familiar to the Alliance and disorientating for the natives. Hence places like Revolution City, a short lived hub of resistance, became Alliance City.
Ur was also lost in thought, as the gravity elevator continued to descend through it’s aquarium sleeve. But he wasn’t contemplating the history of Sector 42. He was rather thinking about his job instead. Sorting clerks such as himself were needed after the change (or ‘the invasion’ as some humans irritatingly referred to it) to ca
talogue everything. Throw out the useless, keep what was relevant to the Alliance and most importantly destroy all remnants of so-called ‘human culture’ that could give rise to another resistance. It’s amazing, Ur thought. How one can carry out as complex a task as a change of an entire sector with the absolute minimum of knowledge? Ur consulted databases that gave him the information he needed to catalogue, but he rarely had to dig deep into the details. There simply was no time to be thorough, considering the volume of work. Occasionally the databases had some missing information and Ur would have to activate Protocol 7 in order to investigate the item he was cataloguing, using information that humans themselves had kept about it. This was generally discouraged and a sorting clerk could not activate Protocol 7 more than three times in any given work cycle. Otherwise alarms would sound with the higher-ups. Once Ur had come across a book made out of something called ‘paper’. It carried a drawing on the front of a bald human with a huge white collar, looking apprehensively at the viewer. The information on this particular human was very sketchy and nowhere near as detailed as say the entries on anatomy books that were of particular interests to chefs working for the Alliance.
Ur was able to find out that this male wrote words that humans kept repeating for centuries, often on a stage, for the ‘entertainment’ of other humans. This illustrated handsomely the point often made about the limitation of human art and its inherently repetitive nature. Yet as Ur went through the book, he found the stories oddly compelling, despite their often preposterous and primitive plots, made perhaps even more intriguing by the fog of a double translation (Ur was deciphering the book—which had been translated into Arabaic from its original language—with the aid of an interpretation device). Linguistic opacity notwithstanding, he found himself laughing at a macabre joke in one of these stories about a human trying to avenge the murder of the male that gave rise to him, but procrastinating over the act in odd and elaborate ways. Everyone in the sorting chamber where Ur worked turned to look at him in surprise that day, as he struggled to stifle his laughter. To compose himself, Ur reminded himself of how pathetically humans had failed to work out the basics of intergalactic space flight, driving back his momentary fascination with the book and restoring his old feelings of revulsion towards these creatures. It was only when this feeling of superiority had a physical manifestation—a shudder of revulsion—that balance to his psyche was restored.
Such a crisis never happened again and Ur made excellent progress in his work. What he wanted more than anything was to be promoted to Head of Filing. Tonight was his chance to further that ambition, if he could only make the right contacts.
These were his thoughts as the gravity elevator continued to descend. Then, finally, one of the fish caught his eye. Its colours and its strange movements infiltrated his most private thoughts. He looked over at Ona and wondered about the cause of their unhappiness. What if he actually were promoted? What then? Maybe they’d save enough credit and return to Sector 3 sooner. Would that restore the desire they’d once felt for each other? Their relationship felt empty; he was at a loss to explain it. All he knew was that it was causing them both tremendous pain.
The platform reached level 7/8. The guests walked through a wide, dimly lit corridor which opened onto the cavernous space of the Inferno Hall. At the back of the hall stood a stage, and Ona and Ur made their way toward it. A light show had already begun, accompanied by loud music. They were seated at a table along with several other couples. Ur realised they had found their way to a particularly exclusive area of the hall, as everyone around looked impeccably well turned out. Of course this would be the case, he thought, as the tickets belonged to his boss who was constantly socialising to further his career. Models were parading the latest winter collection on stage including a coat made out of sheep hair (what humans called ‘woollen’). The buttons on the coat were made from chemically-preserved, steel-reinforced human fingers. An elegant design, thought Ur. Ona, however, looked ashen-faced as she stared at the models, though Ur would never have noticed in the low lighting.
He spotted some of the other guests reaching for a jar from the set placed at the centre of each table. They were fishing things out with thin steel forks and placing them in their mouths as their bodies bobbed up and down in time to the music. Ur glanced at the couple next to him. The male looked familiar. He decided to take a chance, and break the ice with some of these higher-ups. A chance like this doesn’t come every day. He leaned over to the male sitting next to him and pointing at the contents of the jar in front of them asked: ‘What are these?’ The male answered but Ur couldn’t hear him over the music. He cupped his ear and said, ‘Say that again.’ The male shouted in his ear. ‘Oh, okay.’ Ur’s eyes lit up. It suddenly dawned on him that the male was none other than the Chief Archivist, responsible for firing and hiring all heads of filing. Ur smiled meekly and said, ‘I’ve never tried these before.’ He picked up the fork in front of him and plunged it into the jar. He had to fish around until the teeth of his fork bit into their prey. He pulled out his catch and popped it into his mouth. ‘Mmm. Zingy!’ he declared as if his approval of the food could win the Chief Archivist’s favour.
Ona was always less daring when it came to trying new food. She whispered to Ur, ‘What is it Ur?’
‘It’s a foetus, sugarlump. They’re a delicacy. You must try them.’
Ona’s face clouded over. She looked at the other guests, munching away at these small human creatures, and realised that these foetuses could not have been farmed in such quantities unless they had been both germinated and aborted by artificial means. On the stage, a gorgeous female from Sector 1 was modelling a spring dress made from stitched-together nipples. Ona suddenly felt nauseous. ‘I need to cleanse.’ She got up from the table and began to walk quickly. ‘Wait Ona…’ Ur shouted. Then, when everyone at the table including the Chief Archivist turned to look at him, he smiled meekly to suggest that it was nothing, of course.
Ona looked for the sign for the cleansing chamber then quickly crossed the hall toward it. Ur didn’t know what to do. Should he stay and continue socialising with the Chief Archivist or go see to his wife? In the end, he excused himself and left the table, his pace increasing the farther he got away from them. In fact, once out of sight and safely down the corridor that led to the cleansing chamber, Ur broke into a run. Ona couldn’t wait for him. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted him around right then. The dimly lit corridor stretched out for an eternity. There were bars, shops and clubs on either side. Other doors had no signs and it wasn’t obvious what they led to. Finally Ona reached the cleansing chamber and once inside lowered her head into a basin. Her skull labia opened and undigested food, mixed with urine, erupted in thick ejaculations. Ur walked in and steadied her by holding onto her neck with one hand and her short tail with the other. ‘Let it all out,’ he said. When her skull closed again, Ur ran the tap to wash off any remaining traces of vomit on the top of her head. He then dried her with some paper napkins.
‘Leave me alone,’ she said as she pushed him away.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I hate this place.’
‘We can leave if you want. I think the exit is this—’
‘I hate this sector. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.’
‘Hey.… hey, calm down.’
‘We should never have come here. We were happy back home. We just got greedy because of the salary they were offering you and didn’t stop to think, not for one millisecond, about these poor creatures. I can’t bear to think what we’ve done to them. I mean eating their unborn? Really, Ur?’
It took Ur a few seconds to realise what Ona was talking about and what had upset her.
‘They’re just humans, sugarlump.’
‘I know they’re just humans but they have feelings, don’t they?’
‘I suppose.’
‘It’s wrong, Ur. And we’re being punished for what we are doing to them. This is why it’s no good … it’s no g
ood between us anymore.’
Ur had always found Ona’s belief in the ‘Setter of the Cosmological Constant’, with his powers to punish and reward, endearingly anachronistic but right then it irritated him immensely. Still, he was determined to placate her.
‘Sugarlump…’ Ur tried to hug Ona but she pushed him away with even greater vigour than before.
‘Stop calling me that. It’s such a stupid word.’
Ur was hurt. ‘But sugar is the most important fuel for all organisms in all the know—’
‘I don’t give a shitlump!’ Ona interrupted. Ur reached out to her and once again she rejected him.
‘I can’t stand you touching me anymore.’
Ur was beginning to panic. He’d never seen Ona so agitated before. So he stood still until her breathing slowed. His mind drifted towards the Chief Archivist. There was still time for them to return, apologise for their sudden departure, blame it on Ona’s delicate stomach and resume the conversation that could, if he played it right, lead to that promotion. But Ona said, ‘I’m not going back into the Inferno Hall, Ur. No way.’ Ur struggled to believe he had come so close to achieving his goal, only for it to be swept away by something as trivial as a foetus. Then, as he looked at Ona, a pang of guilt swept through him like electricity and he was ashamed of his naked ambition. Finally he said, ‘It’s alright. But let’s at least get a drink before we leave; I spotted a bar down the corridor when I was running after you. It looked quiet.’ Ona didn’t reply or even nod but the look she gave him was no longer hostile.
He walked down the corridor and she walked a few paces behind him. Halfway toward the bar someone called out to them.
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