Humanity

I’ll start this whole affair by saying that it is going to be extraordinarily difficult. Before I begin the story itself, I must express my own ethos and the story’s explanation, by which you will understand how hard this is going to be. I, the writer, do not speak this language—English, they called it. Neither am I what the readers of ‘English’ were; I am not human, nor am I mammal (my gratitude for that datum is immense). I am of the classification Reptilis Advantae, translated roughly into the ancient language ‘Latin.’

Yes, the Age of Mammals is over, and a second Age of Reptiles has dawned on the earth. But please, do not be drawn to the juvenile assumption that dinosaurs are clumsily waltzing the earth again. We are of a higher order, just as humans were in comparison to other apes. And I have no qualms and no embarrassment about saying that we are much more advanced than the mammal homo sapiens.

I’ll call myself Hartledge; for your greater understanding I will give myself one of those grunting titles you once called speech. There is no real point in trying to explain what exactly I am, and I suppose I have no choice but to let your little imaginations wander with what I must be like. But I can’t go into too many details; I have a lot to say. So I’ll give you a rough sketch.

I am scaled only on my back; as you lost body hair in the process of evolution, so we lost the use of protective scales. Males have slightly more displayable scales in a spinal ridge whereas females have a much softer, lesser crest. Our limbs are wiry and tough, our bones are thin but solid. Our eyes are large, our pupils slit-like and sensitive. Our neurological functions are much more capable, and our bodies are more evolutionarily successful in general. We have lost the ornamental tail and it has become, as it did for you, the sign of a much lesser and more brutish animal.

I, Hartledge, am the supervisory administrator of Carnivore Management, for lack of more sophisticated terms. Are you surprised at the fact that the reptiles have evolved into communities like mammals did? Don’t be; colonies of organisms increase their rate of survival in the primitive stages. By the time they eventually advance, then, their race has inbred a like for others of its kind and a sort of colonial organization. Civilization was born of herds in more than one way, humanity.

I digress. I am the supervisory administrator of Carnivore Management and have been appointed to write this narrative in a series of steps designed to inject a greater amount of culture into the industrial rank. I will, thus, center the work around one day of mine.

My day begins in my home, which is just southwest of where I work. This particular morning I woke to the low hawing of one of my wives; ‘wife’ for lack of a better word. Polygyny is the logical rule in our civilization, because it increases the number of offspring and betters the race by its very nature. When I found that most humans practiced monogamy I was surprised they lasted as long as they did.

Anyway, I woke to that cacophony and rose to find the problem. ‘Penelope,’ as I shall call her for you, was being beleaguered by four of the others. Penelope was swollen with a clutch of unlaid eggs, and the other four were presumably angered because I had not paid any attention to them since I found that Penelope was carrying the brood. Selfish of me, but that’s what I had done. The four were surrounding Penelope and threatening, with their long female claws, to rip her open.

I put a stop to the nonsense and ushered Penelope into my room for the day. She was shaken, of course, and it took some convincing before she could be quiet. Finally, I was able to start my day.

I’ll call it an ‘office’ for your own sanity, but it really is no such thing. It’s much more straightforward. For example: I am the supervisory administrator, so the people under me are radially set up so that I may reach them quickly without a ‘memo’ or ‘email.’ The people under them are set up radially, and so on and so on.

This day was the appointed day for my monthly inspection of the carnivores. They are supervised by the minute, of course, by lower workers. They are checked on regularly by the medical staff. They are visited biweekly by the food dispensers. But I only have the repulsive task once a month, ‘thank God.’

I take a guard and a secretary with me down to the carnivore pens for the inspection. One moment; have I lost you? Do you wonder why I continue to refer to the carnivores in this way? I should think it obvious.

Naturally, you know what a carnivore is: a meat-eater. They evolved as a biological necessity to pick off the lesser herbivores and strengthen the race. But in our higher understanding, they are what they are: ruthless, heartless, and mindless murdering machines. You think us vegetarians heartless? It only takes one carnivore-at-large to wreak havoc on a playground and rob a score of parents of their offspring. You may decide which group is more heartless.

Besides that obvious proof, our scientists have done innumerable tests: the carnivores have lesser neurological, cognitive, and emotional abilities than we.

And we treat them well; we are not heartless as they would be to us. We keep them in roomy pens, fed on the smaller mammals—of course, there are still mammals left this world, just as there were reptiles in the Age of Mammals—and able to have their brute companions. It is necessary, fair, and gentle subjugation.

Now that I have explained the entire scene for you, I will continue.

I walked down the length of the pen hallways, looking over the cells as I went. The head of the medical staff accompanied me and we spoke. “There’s been a little epidemic of mites here and there,” he said, “and several cases of kwashiorkor in the younger ones, but no complaints.”

“Good,” I said grimly, watching through the transparent aluminum cage covers. It was nearing feeding time, and the monsters were nervously beating their tails against the sides of the cage and clacking their sharp teeth together. “I heard there was one rebel the other day; what was that about?”

“2764787-AHD showed aggression to the medical attendant,” explained the doctor. “We dealt with it swiftly; one silent injection in his meat,” he said, waving a hand to finish the sentence. I nodded, approving. A good carnivore is a dead carnivore.

The doctor left on business and I next met with the head of Meat Production. He invariably smelled of the ferret fodder, which irritated me to no end. I continued my walk down the hall of pens as we spoke. He was pushing a large crate of just-dead ermine. “Who are those for?” I asked. Usually the ermine were for the smaller carnivores, but we were heading into a larger-carnivore area.

“7809543-BCR,” he replied fluidly. “He’s on a stunt diet for misbehavior, sir.”

I accompanied the head of Meat Production to see the misbehaver. He was a large fellow, so large that his thick tail had to curl in the pen. His eyes were milky and his scales were grey with discoloration and peeling. Carnivores; ugly things. I watched the head of Meat Production expertly flip a few ermine through the feeding slot. The dumb beast inside the pen looked up as his floppy meal was delivered. His short arms scrabbled for the weasely thing and he lapped it up grotesquely.

He punctured a nerve with one long incisor and the just-dead animal gave a sudden jerk; he split the backbone with a sickening crack and sucked the reddish fluid as if it were sap. Then he chewed the head into a pulp and swallowed it, and as he ate the back half of the mammal he punctured its gall bladder and green bile swamped his teeth.

I grimaced and turned away. “Sickening things,” I muttered. I bid adieu to the head of Meat Production and set out again on my own for the last stretch of the shop of horrors.

“Nothing much to report here,” said the lead scientist said as we met. “All’s calm. Two dead yesterday, one euthanized.”

“I heard,” I said as we passed a female’s cage. She was laying a clutch of eggs, shrilly squealing in her pain. Disgusted for the umpteenth time that day, I spoke again to the scientist because the female had reminded me of something. “How many eggs have there been this season?”

“Too many,” the scientist sighed. “A bumper crop of toothy problems, sir.” A medical assistant came out of the female carnivore’s pen with a cart of large, pearly eggs.

“Twenty eggs,” the assistant reported. The scientist drew out a marker and put a dash on ten of them.

“Euthanize the marked ones,” he said, “and give the rest back to the mother. She’ll probably eat six, at least. That takes care of four-fifths of our problems for next season.”

I nodded approvingly. “Reduction in action,” I said, amazed at the scientists’ quick thinking.

Mercifully, that was the end of my monthly inspection. I planned to wrap up some ‘desk work,’ as you called it, and head home to spend time with my argumentative wives.

But just as I was nearing the end of the corridor, there came a deafening crash and a guttural roar from the some carnivore’s throat. Before I could initiate any safety measures, the huge meat-eater came around the corner I’d just come from and headed right for me, shrieking maliciously.

Behind the monster, I could see the security officers, so I simply backed through the door to watch the capture. But instead, the huge thing whacked the guards with its mammoth posterior add-on and snapped its menacing teeth at them. Then it went crashing down another hallway. I ran back up to the office.

‘Carnivore at large!’ was already being communicated when I got there. I got the full report then: not only had the first huge beast escaped, but he had freed seven others, only five of which had been recaptured. A carnivore at large was frightening, but I remained calm as the security officers ushered everyone out of the building and to their homes. The city went on high defense as every available officer, highly armed, scoured the streets for the escapees. The smaller of the pair was rounded up and promptly disposed of, but the larger—the one I had seen escape—was still unconfined.

I came home to a bunch of frazzled wives. I dismissed their fears with the promise that our superior men would catch the beast. With that, I dined and then went to lie with one of my wives. We were interrupted by another, who came in awkwardly. “Penelope’s laying her first eggs,” she said. I stayed where I was.

When I finished, and not before, I went to see Penelope. Fourteen ebony eggs were already laid, and she was crying out over another pair, which then dropped softly onto the nesting material as she stopped screaming. I tried to come near her, but she bayed me away with a hoarse growl. Women.

So, I stood obstinately in the corner, watching her lay four more eggs. Finally she slumped to the floor, exhausted and finished. I came closer to touch the eggs; they were actually my first surviving brood. One claw was centimeters from the shells when I heard a crash from the hallway, and a low scream from my other wives.

Suddenly the head of the carnivore butted through the door, splintering the wall. Shaking off dust, the huge beast reared into the room with a frightening roar. I backed against the wall, my only exit being occupied by…it.

It screamed again and took a thundering step toward the eggs. I mirrored it, fearing for the brood. It shook its head.

I was surprised; was it actively communicating?

It took another step toward the eggs and screamed. I backed up, pressing myself against the wall. It picked up one of my perfect eggs. “Stop!” I yelled.

Before I even finished the word, the beast snarled again, showing its red and purple mouth, gleaming with yellowed teeth. It raised the egg high with its small arms. My jaw was trembling, and my hands were fists. I watched as it brought the muscular arm down fast and broke the egg against its fellows. Yolk oozed from the dark shell, and the tiny embryo wriggled for an instant before it died.

Face contorted in anger, I rushed the beast, but it picked up another egg and raised it threateningly, glaring at me and salivating ominously. Ten eggs it smashed. The floor was awash with yolk and white, and I could see the tiny babies punctured in the fragments of their own shells.

Then the carnivore picked up the eleventh and raised it to its mouth. I lost all control and ran for the brute; this time not deferred by the mouthful of teeth and bloodshot eyes.

But it caught my neck with one sharp claw and pinned me painfully to the ground with a huge, horned foot. All the time, the beast was biting the egg and licking the juices of my baby from his gums. It stepped harder and harder on my chest, crushing the air from my lungs and breaking ribs. And ate five more eggs.

“Why?” I finally cried when he’d licked the sixth shell clean. “Why are you doing this?” I couldn’t move, and feared my back was broken. And my first brood was dying, and my wife lay unconscious or dead, and this crudely-made beast couldn’t understand me and would likely eat the rest of the eggs, my wife, and me. “Why are you doing this?”

The dumb beast dropped the eggshell and looked at me. I feared instantly that I’d invited my own death. But it met my eyes, and then something came from that meaty throat. Words.

“Because,” he said in a rough, cacophonous voice, “you did the same to my wife’s.”

My mind flashed to the female in the carnivore pen; twenty eggs. Ten euthanized, six eaten from starvation. The carnivore raised his foot and air rushed into my bruised lungs.

“See,” he said, “that it never, ever happens again.”

He turned and thundered his way to the door. I heard the click of weapons; probably, my wives had called security and they’d come for the monster. With those clicks, and with a wakening groan from my wife, I slipped into unconsciousness.

I woke in a ‘hospital,’ for lack of a better explanation. Penelope was in the ‘bed’ next to me, and my other wives stood around the room. On seeing me waken, they rushed around and began to babble explanations and questions and other such annoyances. “You’ve been out for days,” they droned. But their buzzing conversations were interrupted by the chief of security, who entered and stood next to my bed. “The carnivore was captured,” he said.

The carnivore…the word triggered a flood of memory and a deluge of consequence. How could I convey my experience? How could I convey the discovery I had made in an instant; how could I define my new paradigm to him?

“I need exactly what happened for the press,” he continued, “and for the case record, of course.”

“They’re just like us,” I murmured. “They think, they care—”

“‘They’?” the officer asked.

“The carnivores,” I explained. “He was on a mission of vengeance, something pre-planned. He spoke!” It took some doing, but finally I felt that I had made my point to the officer. He seemed to understand, and sank into a chair.

I thought I had made him understand; I felt victorious. And now I wanted to make everyone else understand. Guilt and the knowledge that I was right was driving me to this; a sort of ‘Civil Rights movement,’ I fancied. I could see the horizon, coming quickly. Perhaps we could sort things out, I thought. That carnivore and I…we could change the world.

“Sir,” broke in the officer, “the beast was euthanized. And the government’s initiated the Sequential Extinction program because of this event. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop it now. Most of ‘em are…already dead.”