Agnieshka’s drone made a deep bow to the audience.
They stood, and applauded her, in the human fashion.
“Thank you!” Agnieshka said, “I hope that your people and mine can become good friends. We can be very useful to each other. I believe that it is likely that I can help you revive certain of the sciences and technologies that have been lost on this planet, and that there are other vital things that we can do together as well. But for now, let’s get on with the presentation that Sir Rupert and I have put together. We will be starting with a study of our universal enemy, the Mitchegai.”
The audience sat down, but again applauded.
CHAPTER TWO
FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,
FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.
Formal Dining with the Mitchegai
The reader will please note that all numbers mentioned herein in the Mitchegai sections are in the duodecimal system.
For the benefit of the casual reader, I mention that a thousand in base twelve is 1728 in base ten, a million in base twelve is just under three million in base ten, and a billion in base twelve is over five billion in base ten.
Also, please note that all weights, measurements, and time periods mentioned are only the crudest of approximations.
For a complete listing of all Mitchegai weights and measures, see Appendix L of the accompanying Mitchegai Academic Text.
All numbers in the Human sections are in decimal, and all measures are in the metric system.
—Sir Rupert of the Rigellian Museum
She was four feet tall, she was bright green, and she stank.
Four feet was a very acceptable height for a five-year-old, nameless Mitchegai. All of her age mates were exactly the same size, since the Mitchegai have very little genetic diversity. Like the others, she still had relatively useless hands and arms hanging from her stooped-over body, which was counterbalanced by a heavy tail and propelled by two powerful legs. A human child might think that she was a baby Tyrannosaurus rex, except that she had a flat-fronted, vegetarian mouth.
Hers were not the pointed teeth of a carnivore, but the squared-off incisors and flattened molars of a plant eater. Like all herbivores everywhere, she had spent most of her short life grazing on plants. Unlike those on non-Mitchegai worlds, she ate only one species of plant, since there was only one species permitted on a world owned by the Mitchegai. All others had been eradicated in the distant, mystical past, millions of years ago, for Mitchegai have very long histories. Her meat-eating teeth would grow in later, if she was lucky, but as it happened, she was not.
Being bright green was marginally useful, since her thin skin contained the local equivalent to chlorophyll and was capable of manufacturing a small amount of the nutrients that her active body needed. Indeed, being cold blooded, with a very low basal metabolism, she could almost survive without food, simply by lying quietly in the sun. This expedient was rarely necessary on a world ruled by the far more intelligent adults.
Her odor was caused by never having taken a bath, save when she was out in a rainstorm, but even this was no great disadvantage. The Mitchegai have almost no sense of smell. They don’t need one. The olfactory sense is used largely to discriminate among various foods, and the Mitchegai diet is extremely limited. Their food never spoils because it is always eaten live, or as nearly so as possible.
Even adult Mitchegai never deliberately bathe, although the wealthy take steam baths. This is not so much to get clean, as for the pleasure of overheating their cold-blooded bodies without exertion.
She had no idea of who her parents were, and this was quite normal. Biological parentage is of no interest to the Mitchegai. Adult females lay eggs the size of sand grains almost continuously, which fall on the ground and are forgotten. Adult males are surrounded by an unnoticeable fine mist of aerosol sperm. Unnoticeable, that is, to a human. To the Mitchegai, a heavy concentration of adult males in a closed room is annoying, and because of this most of the second and third highest ranks prefer to be female. There is no other difference between the sexes, but the Mitchegai don’t care. They have a love life comparable to that of Earthly oysters. Love, marriage, and parental concern are not for them.
Neither was long life, for this particular youngster. She was released from her pen into a huge, grassy arena and looked about, frightened at first. Fear soon passed, birdlike, for her small brain could not entertain a single thought for long. She started to graze, and hardly noticed when a seven-foot-tall adult vaulted into the enclosed space. The cheering crowd did not bother her. Even the sight of the adult’s hands, with six clawed fingers arranged in a rosette, left her unmoved. She had seen adults before, from a distance. She had even seen them eat other juveniles on the open plains, but they had never eaten her. She was unconcerned.
Superficially, the anatomy of the adult Mitchegai has much in common with that of a human being. Both species have two legs, two arms, two eyes, and two ears, although the Mitchegai lack the external ear of a human. The brain, nose, mouth, and most of the sensory apparatus is located in a head at the top of a spinal column.
Internally, the differences are large, and on the whole, the Mitchegai are better engineered. This is largely due to the three million years of selective breeding that they have undergone. Human beings have a basic structure more suited to a horizontal, four-legged creature, than to an upright, two-legged one.
The five-year-old was to be an unnecessary meal for Duke Kren, who was well fed, but she was a traditional one. The duke was looking forward to his feast, since it was to be the last his body would ever ingest. He didn’t know, couldn’t know, that his intended prey was his own biological daughter. And had he known, he wouldn’t have cared in the least.
The seats surrounding the arena were filled with nine gross, two dozen and one of the duke’s trusted battle generals, all who were left on the planet. There were two thousand three gross and six of his master builders, and as many of his high officers, body guards and other functionaries as could find room. All of these numbers were in base twelve, of course, for since they have six claws on each hand, the Mitchegai naturally developed a duodecimal numbering system.
On the Stand of High Honor were his six best generals, resting in the stupor that always follows a recent, large meal, as were eleven of his finest master builders who were being similarly honored this day. At least, they were the best that would be staying on the planet. All of his very best subordinates were in space, training for the mission to come.
Those on the stand had made their kills and had already eaten. Duke Kren’s was the dozen and sixth preparatory meal of this Day of Honor.
The great minds of the Krenbold were here to witness Duke Kren’s transition, and he owed them a good show. He sprinted lightly on his long, webbed toes, three on each foot, not counting the heel spur, to his placid daughter.
He gave the girl the usual two sets of slashes with his claws, one across the back and the other across the breast, for to harm the legs would cripple the prey and spoil the sport.
The juvenal cried out in her pain, leaped high and ran as the crowd cheered their leader’s prowess. Duke Kren held up his bloody foreclaws, acknowledging the praise of his subordinates and allowing his daughter a sporting head start.
Applause among the Mitchegai was the hollow sound caused by beating the left hand on the chest. Had anyone wished to express disapproval, they would have made the higher-pitched sound of their right hand striking the buttock, but no one here was that foolish.
Duke Kren then started out after the girl with great loping strides. Forgoing the repeated passes that some might think too flamboyant, he quickly overtook his prey and pinned his daughter to the ground with a precise, traditional hold. Careful not to kill the youngster too soon, he peeled open the flexible, overlapping skull plates of the screaming, struggling youth and ate her tiny brain, relishing the flavor of the bright blue cells that were already disassociating themselves in his saliva.
The major struggling stopped, as the cheering went on. He quickly ate the rest of his daughter’s quivering young body, efficiently stripping off great gobbets of flesh and swallowing them without chewing. As a gesture of generosity, he left the skin, the bones, and the intestines to be distributed to the poor.
It was a good kill.