Like certain African frogs and South American fishes on Earth, the Mitchegai practice faginism. The adults eat their own children. The flesh of juvenals is the only meat that these carnivores have available for food, it is the only thing that they had ever eaten as adults, and indeed it is the only thing that they can eat.
Duke Kren went to his Place of High Honor and let the feeding stupor come over him as he watched the rest of the ceremony. Except to nod and approve, he would not be needed again until the very end.
Two sergeants of the Body Guard brought an ancient, ornate, blood-stained throne to the center of the arena, positioned it to face Duke Kren exactly, and stood by it on either side at attention. The least of the six greatest generals stood and bowed to Duke Kren, and when her genuflection was acknowledged, the general placed her helmet and weapons belt on her chair and leaped naked into the arena, her body still vigorous and only middle-aged. As with most of those being honored this day, there was no desperate need for her to be eaten yet, but the way before the Krenbold would soon be hard, and none but the most vigorous could stand the battles and the work to be done.
In the center of the arena, the general turned to Duke Kren, saluted and said, “Always I have served you! Always we will serve you, Duke Kren, our only leader, our once and future Duke!” She eagerly sat on the blood-stained chair, facing him.
“Always thou hast served me well, General Kund, and always wilt thou both serve me!” Duke Kren acknowledged, as the two sergeants of the Body Guard strapped the general into the throne.
From the left and right side of the arena, two juvenals who had just completed the metamorphosis to adult carnivores were brought forth in separate cages, each carried by six sergeants. Their new teeth were the meat slashing teeth of carnivores. Their stance was erect and their tails had slimmed down from something resembling an alligator’s to something more like a monkey’s. They were thin and lean with the forced starvation of the change that had come upon them, and now both were ravenously, mindlessly hungry.
Each was carried around the sides of the arena, so those in the crowd could see the ceremonial identification marks that had been tattooed on the arms of these carefully selected youths. They stopped in front of Duke Kren, and he nodded his approval of them. Then the cages were taken to either side of the bound general, who was still sitting rigidly at attention, displaying neither fear nor anticipation of the pain she would soon have to endure, but rather the calm confidence of her belief in two better lives to come.
At a slight hand signal from Duke Kren, the sergeants split open the general’s huge brain case, using only their powerful claws. The brain before them was not convoluted and bifurcated in the Earthly fashion, but was a smooth, undifferentiated mass, much larger than its Earthly counterpart. The sergeants carefully divided the brain in half between them, and quickly fed a half to each of the small-headed youths in the cages. These dripping gobbets were eagerly eaten, to the applause of the crowd.
Then one of the sergeants triggered a mechanism in the gory throne and a huge knife blade sprang up from the bottom of the seat, spraying the area with dark brown blood, and cutting the general’s body exactly in half. These halves were unstrapped, and a half was fed to each of the still ravenous youths. The cages with their occupants were carried to the side of the arena, to wait there as the day’s events went on.
The blade was re-cocked into the throne, the blood was swept onto the grass and the least of the master builders being honored this day bowed to Duke Kren.
He acknowledged her bow, and gestured for the ceremony to continue, though in fact it really didn’t interest him. There was much else to think on.
Adult Mitchegai had many concerns. They saw to the watering of the fields of grass, and its proper care and fertilization. They saw to the proper construction of cities and machines, and their upkeep and maintenance. They taught in the universities and managed the factories, mended the power nets, maintained the communications, and did all else that their fiercely proud civilization required.
And they fought with their neighbors, defending their lands and taking the lands of others whenever possible. And of course there were the endless games of status, wealth and prestige, for these things could bring one the basis of all that was important.
Yet ultimately, adult Mitchegai were totally concerned with only one thing. Land. For with land, one could eventually gain all else that was necessary for a long, prosperous, and well fed life. And not just ordinary land, but rich, arable land, that could grow their single grasslike crop, that could provide the grubs, the polliwogs and the juvenals with food. Then the young could provide the adults with food, with the sport of the kill, and with new bodies when their own were worn out, for the adults had their own form of immortality.
There was much else to think on, and what Kren thought of was land. If his coming mission was successful, Kren’s lands would be expanded to include an entire new planet.
After all dozen and five of the generals and master builders had been ritualistically eaten, the throne was removed, to be replaced by one even larger, older and more ornate. This was placed in front of Duke Kren, facing the crowd, for the main event of this day’s festivities was about to take place, the only truly important event of the day.
The stupor of his earlier kill was still on him, and that was good. It lessened the pain, and it wouldn’t do to show any distress or emotion in front of his highest subordinates. He watched as a particularly fine specimen of recently metamorphosed youth was brought caged to him, and he nodded his approval at both the creature and his tattoos. He had, of course, along with his medical people, carefully examined the youth the day before, and knew him to be perfect. The face was pleasing, the body lovely and the ritual tattoos were all properly shaped and colored. He gestured his readiness to proceed.
As the noise of the crowd hushed, he stood, removed his Helmet of Command, his Weapons Belt of Power, and his Cloak of Authority. He crossed over to and mounted the great ancient throne naked. The cage with the selected youth was placed behind him in the proper manner, as he ritually refused the binding straps. He knew that he would not disgrace himself in this final act. He never had before.
A second cage was placed around him, abutting the first. It encased his body, but left his limbs outside. It was locked in place.
He signaled his readiness with a slight flick of his claws, and the sergeants removed the wall of the cage that separated him from the lean and screaming youngster. The famished creature leaped at his immobile form, instinctively tore open his brain cage, and devoured his brain as he held himself motionless against the pain. Even after the brain was gone, still the body rigidly obeyed its final command. It sat frozen as the youngster ate the rest of the head, the trunk and the tail. The arms and legs, which had been positioned outside the cage, were then removed by the sergeants, to be cut into thousands of tiny slices and distributed to the greatest of his faithful subjects.
The crowd cheered wildly. A noble death!
The most astounding biological peculiarity of the Mitchegai is their motile brain cells. The small cells of the gray matter in their brains, which are in fact bright blue to human eyes, are not digested when eaten alive. Instead, they migrate through the walls of the first stomach. They are picked up by the blood stream and taken into the cranium. This skull has flexible, overlapping plates, and can expand rapidly if the brain recently eaten is inordinately large, as was the case with Duke Kren’s.
If the brain eaten was the small one of a juvenal, the cells would be absorbed into the larger mass of those of the adult. They replace those cells that have worn out and died, and add subtly to the creatures’ capabilities, but no observable personality change occurs.
But when the huge brain of a mature adult is eaten by a recently metamorphosed youth, the influx of cells completely swamps the few that the youth originally had. The newly reformed brain that emerges has the knowledge and personality of the adult who has been eaten, and this, among the Mitchegai, is immortality. Duke Kren remembers events that happened to him over three thousand years before, and he is not an elder of his race.