by Roy Anthony
The comment wounded Bolt's pride. He wanted to know what she considered selfish about him? Because he did not just enrich himself, he enriched the entire GC. Billions of creatures thrived because of his success.
But Bolt did not respond to the comment; he simply smiled the comment off. "Yeah, the Gold Hunter does. I need a favor for a Universal Journalist. I need her request for a more in-depth investigation into the Crimson planet. She has discovered some disturbing things on this planet."
For some reason, Bolt felt a change in mood in Profolmia when he asked this favor. The two entered a transparent tube, attached to a window of the skyscraper.
"To the Glide port," Profolmia said to the tube.
"Destination Glide port." A robotic voice from the tube responded, and detached from the window and smoothly slid down the skyscraper.
"Is this regard to that ex Universal Journalist missing?" Profolmia probed.
"Yes." Bolt reluctantly said because he knew the GC members did not acknowledge independent Journalists outside of the UJ system—which they have control over. To Council members, Universal Journalists were the only Journalists in the galaxy. Their mindset was if one wasn't a UJ, then they weren't a Journalist at all. "It has something to do with it, but there is a much bigger matter at hand."
"They have already been inspected based on the Criterion. Crimson passed everything. Do you know how hard it is to force a re-inspection on a planet?" She said.
"They have a food source called Sapthians, which look exactly like my species, humans. Picture a planet being let into the GC that had a Calimer looking species as their food source. Wouldn't you want them to be double-checked? And shouldn't someone from your species' play a role in the investigation? No human was involved in the inspection of this planet. If they are let into the GC, this planet has no deterrent from smuggling and consuming humans onto their planet."
"The GC is the deterrent, Bolt," Profolmia said firmly.
"Yea, because no illegal actions ever go unnoticed within the GC." Bolt sarcastically said.
Profolmia did not respond at first. Profolmia and her security stared angrily at Bolt. Galactic Council members did not like to be called corrupt in any way, no matter how corrupt they actually were.
The tube located the destination and attached itself to the building. Everyone exited into a small parking structure and walked to Profolmia's glider."
"Look, Bolt, I'm going to act like I didn't hear that. And it would not be a good political move for me to bring up such an accusation in front of the Council. Especially after the planet has already been inspected, and is soon to be coronated."
"This is about protecting the integrity of the great Galactic Council and an entire species, my species, not about protecting your political career, Profolmia." Bolt exclaimed.
Profolmia's security stepped towards him, but she held her hand up, which stopped them in their tracks.
"Bolt, you know how our politics work. You've been apart of it, you've seen it in action. Resources get your voice heard in the Council. Earth is an insignificant planet that has limited resources on it. Your species is in the palm of more powerful planets, and if these powerful planets want Crimson into the Council, then they are in the Council. You know there is nothing I can do about it."
Bolt hated that she kept on saying 'you know,' as if it was an absolute truth. "Then let my friend get more aid in her search of the missing GC citizen.” Bolt tried to demand. “The Criterion states—"
"The Criterion means nothing Bolt." Profolmia interrupted. "The powers that be give it power, and take power away when it suits them… Many of your missions violated a Galactic law but were overturned due to the resources you predicted you could find. Resources Bolt, you know it is all about resources. That's all it has ever been about. Resources are the real law of the GC. Just because you developed a heart, maybe for this Universal Journalist you are trying to impress, it doesn't change the facts, and the REAL law of our system."
Bolt was speechless at her bluntness and just watched as she walked away and left the glide port with her security.
Chapter 16
Palox was growing everywhere during this time, but Aris learned how to pick the fungus away from the roots since it was sickly to the Saps.
At one time, it was hard for Aris to act like the Sapthians, but now it was instinctive. He didn’t have to think about not talking, it was more natural to grunt.
He had not spoken aloud to himself in quite some time. His animal instincts were at the forefront, but he still tried to overhear if Quora, or any other Journalist, were coming to his farm. The Damurian workers would always talk as if they knew when the Journalist was coming, but they knew nothing. The Journalist was supposed to be here at least seven times already, according to the workers.
Aris suddenly realized it was time for food. He saw the Damurian getting ready to pour slop for the Sapthians. Aris ran to where the farm-worker was, and he defecated on the way there. Aris wanted to get good positioning because a new batch of Sapthians arrived some days ago, and he wanted to assert his dominance amongst the newcomers. He wanted to make sure he had the best position during feeding time, so he pushed and bit his way in front of the Saps.
“Hey, damn it!” Jarmu said while grabbing Aris and throwing him to the back of the feeding frenzy. “Let others eat.”
Aris aggressively gained his position back and began to eat the slop that was in front of him and grunted and growled at any Sap that came close to him. Most of the Saps feared Aris because he had become more aggressive than any other Sap.
One of the Saps attempted to take some slop out of the hand of Aris, and instinctively Aris snapped at the Sap’s hand and bit the tip of the Sap’s pinky finger off. The Sap screamed and grunted in pain.
“Aye! Aye!” Jarmu barked, as he ran over and kicked and pushed the other Saps out of the way to get to Aris.
Jarmu attempted to grab Aris, but Aris pulled away and growled at the Damurian worker.
“Who are you growling at? You need to be tamed, Sap!” Jarmu snapped as he grabbed Aris by the neck and then threw him to the ground on his back. With extreme speed, Jarmu quickly tied the hands of Aris together with a rope and grabbed hold of the head of Aris, pushing it in the mud.
Aris tried to struggle and put up a fight, but the Damurian was too strong. Aris thought the Damurian was about to drown him to death, but at the last minute, Jarmu pulled his head out of the mud, and Aris was able to get his breath back.
“You’re going to the cage,” Jarmu said as he grabbed Aris by the hair and dragged him into the barn.
While he was being taken into the barn, Aris glanced at the large female Saps who were breastfeeding their young. They had to be locked in their own cages because they were fed differently from the others. The fertile females always stayed connected to tubes that sucked their blood. Because pregnant female Sap blood was the farm’s highest moneymaker and the wild, natural blood Saps, which Aris was apart of, was the farm’s secondary income. The females were continuously fed, and that explained the slop of filth that was on their breasts and stomachs. It looked disgusting to Aris when he first arrived on the farm, but now it was intoxicating to him, and if he had the power, he would try and eat the food that rested on their breasts.
He was thrown into a cage by Jarmu, and the cage door was violently slammed.
Jarmu glared at Aris inside the cage. He grabbed the hands of Aris through the cage and took the rope off of him. He then licked the blood off of the hands of Aris, which was the blood of the Sap Aris had bit.
Aris watched the eyes of Jarmu turn red and black, as the Damurian licked the rest of the blood off of his fingers. Aris tried to pull his hand back, but the Damurian had such a tight grip on him.
With one of his fangs, Jarmu bit a finger of Aris, and blood slowly came out of the small wound. Aris tried to pull away even harder, but he couldn’t escape from the Damurian’s grip. Jarum tasted the blood of Aris and let him go.
> “I know,” Jarmu said to Aris. “I know what you are.”
There was so much rage, fear, and anxiety going through the mind of Aris, he couldn’t process what the Damurian meant. Aris asked himself, did he know I am a human? If he does, why doesn’t he kill me? Will he try to wait for me to slip up and kill me later? Aris proposed a bunch of questions to himself that he could not find the answers for, as he trembled in anxiety in his cage.
Jarmu gave Aris a cryptic glare and left the building.
Chapter 17
Quora was sick of the smell of blood-filled rooms. The sight of the barrel of blood that she stared at made her nauseous. She had done six different inspections on other facilities, and she had found no trace of Aris. Quora forced herself to get used to what the Sapthians had to endure on Crimson. She suppressed many cruel actions done by other species, on previous planets she inspected, to the back of her mind. She tried to force herself not to treat this situation any differently, but, in all honesty, this situation was too close to home for Quora. It was because of how the Sapthians looked and the fact Aris could be amongst them.
It was easier to distance herself from the other species she traveled to because they looked so different. Examining a species that looked just like her own, tore down the Journalistic wall that was usually around her emotions. The walls were up to make sure she thought logically about her decisions and didn't let her feelings get in the way of her judgment when she was doing her job.
She tried to do the same in searching for Aris, so she decided to obstruct her sympathy towards the Sapthians and Aris. Quora dived into her notes in an attempt to take it one step at a time. Her goal was to focus on the small details so she wouldn't be horrified by the larger ones.
"What kind of Sap does this blood belong to?" Quora asked while she examined the blood. Three other Damurians that worked at the factory surrounded her. All of them stared at her instead of the blood she was studying, maybe because they were used to it, she thought. "An elderly woman or a young girl?"
The Damurians stared at her with a blank expression for what seemed like, forever, until one of them pointed to the blood and said, "that's baby Sap blood."
"Wh, what?" Quora asked in a panic but quickly controlled herself.
"Baby Sap blood." The Damurian reiterated, "Once it's boiled, we call it Wadin."
"Oh, of course, it is." She forced herself to say with an expressionless face. "What does the word 'Wadin' mean?" She asked.
They looked at each other to decide which one was going to tell her.
"Wadin is a smell that is so delicious." The worker that spoke earlier said. "That the god Damai comes down from heaven just to smell the aroma."
Quora took a deep breath. "That is interesting." She slowly said. She attempted to get back to her old self. "Can you show me where all your Sapthians are?"
The three workers led Quora out of the factory that was full of barrels of blood. The Damurians then led her into a building that was filled with Sapthians in cages.
She focused her thoughts on Aris and her mission in an attempt to drown out the grunts and screams that filled the building. The smell of blood filled the air just like the other factory, but in this building, the smell was even more potent.
Upon the ceiling of the building, purple dust began to fall, and Quora could hear footsteps and loud scraping noises. She was then given a gas mask, which she quickly put on.
"That is, workers scrapping the building of Palox." A farmer said. "That stuff grows everywhere on our planet."
Quora nodded her head and begun to walk through the first caged aisle, of three.
The first aisle was full of male and females Sapthians in cages. Quora couldn't guess the ages of the Sapthians, but they looked well-fed. The male Sapthians had muscular arms and chest, but with a bit of a belly, and the female Sapthians were large and thick. It was usually one or two males per cage with four or more females. Their bodies were intensely scarred, but with two types of scars, one that seemed to be caused by other Sapthians, perhaps from fighting one another. And the other scars were more surgical and precise and seemed to be caused by a surgical machine. It was were the Damurians opened the Sapthians to drain them, and stitched them back up once they got the amount of blood they needed. These Sapthians had the burden of their harsh lives written on their faces. Some would look at Quora sniffing and examining the foreigner. She didn't see anyone who resembled Aris. As she studied their faces, some would aggressively snap and growl at her. Quora jumped and got scared at each growl and snap.
Though it was hard to do, as Quora made her way down the aisles, she would take pictures of the Sapthians for her files.
In the second aisle, there were pregnant female Sapthians. All the females had tubes, filled with blood protruding out of their stomachs and other veins in their bodies. This aisle was filled with tubes. All tubes led to the building that Quora was previously in, and the blood was separated accordingly to its category. Some were shaped like normal pregnant females, and some were extremely large and grotesque.
"Why are most of the female Saps extremely large, and some are not?" Quora asked.
"The large ones are fed a different feed then the rest. A mixture of their regular feed with a sweet and fatty substance called Damai's milk. They love it. If we feed them the stuff, nonstop, they would eat it until their hearts stopped." A farmer said, and the rest started to lightly chuckle. "That actually did happen, you know. When the mixture was first discovered, they tried to feed it to the Saps like normal feed, and a hundred Saps died within six days. Some were still chewing as they lied dead." The Damurians laughs intensified.
Quora showed no emotions to their jokes. "The tubes inside their stomachs, are they connected to the fetuses?"
"Yea, that's where most of our profits come from. It's rare blood. It doesn't produce as rapidly as the others due to the Saps small size."
Most of the Damurians advanced technology was dedicated to extracting blood from Sapthians while keeping the Sapthian alive for as long as possible. To cipher the blood from a delicate fetus while still keeping the fetus alive was impressive, and evil as well. They had weapons, but the science and technology in which they extracted the blood from Sapthians was more unique and far superior. Quora had never witnessed an advanced species so technologically indulged in their food source.
All the female Sapthians looked tired, and for the ones that weren't too large to move around, they moved sluggishly, as if the life was drained from them. Quora watched as one of them licked the leftover food off of her own breast.
In the third aisle, Quora saw small little Sap children in cages. Ten to a cage. They looked very healthy and gorged themselves in delight as they ate and played in their feed, which looked disgusting to Quora but smelled delightful. This was the scariest aisle to Quora because the Sapthian children looked the most human. It could have been her own child. They looked just like the children on Earth who would ask her questions about her missions when she would visit a school to talk to them about being a UJ. The look of innocence was written all over their faces. They all smiled, and some pointed at Quora and made incoherent sounds. Quora went to one of the cages and touched a child Sapthian's hand. It felt soft just like a human child's hand, and the child's eyes were riddled with hope. It felt like Quora's stomach fell to her stomach when she stared at that child.
She began to think about her own child, and she knew the fate of those children, and the cruel end they would succumb to. She kept her composure throughout the inspection, but as she exited the factory, she was emotionally scarred. She could no longer control the emotions that entered her mind. The wall that usually blocked her feelings when she did her job was tearing down.
Quora left the factory angered and frustrated at the situation. Her emotions were overriding her reason. She was depressed and didn't know how much she could take of viewing a species that looked just like her own, being treated like livestock. She wanted to quit, but the thought of Ari
s being kept in a place like this, she couldn't stop. She never felt so powerless, because she was trapped by the rules and laws of the UJ and the GC from helping, what looked like, her own kind from suffering. She felt she couldn't save the Sapthians, but the only person she could possibly save was Aris. So this made her persist in her search.
Chapter 18
If Jarmu knew Aris was a human, then why has he kept him alive? Was a question that Aris tried to solve when he wasn't feigning over slop, but he could not develop an answer.
It was quiet in the building in which Aris was being caged. He had been separated from the rest of the herd, for what seemed like weeks.
The sound of slop from outside grabbed the attention of Aris. That's all he thought about.
The clacking of feet in the mud and loud chewing sounds filled the air, and the images of the Saps eating filled his mind because he had not yet eaten in many days. Jarmu would sometimes come into the building and feed Aris a little bit of slop after he fed the rest of the herd. Aris had violent cravings and preferred to eat his feed before the others because the teasing sounds of the others eating while he had nothing drove him mad.
Aris had to mentally go to war with himself to think about something else other than slop. He struggled to remember what Quora even looked like. She was the last person Aris could really remember from his life. He also forgot what his dead son looked like. He was losing his mind, and he couldn't control it.
When he wasn't thinking about eating slop, short glimpses of his past life would pop up in his head, and it felt like it was the life of another person and not his own. He was losing all emotional ties to those memories. He was no longer sad or angry at the universe, he just wanted slop.
Jarmu entered the building with a bucket of slop and walked toward the cage of Aris. Aris stayed in the corner of his cage because he knew that's what Jarmu liked before he poured the slop in the cage, but this time Jarmu did not give Aris his food so fast. Instead, he grabbed a chair and sat in front of the cage, staring at Aris.