Preface

This story occurred more than a hundred thousand billion years ago, before the formation of our Solar system, in another Universe…

In a sense this story is about the human race, even if it is not about humans. Because now I will tell you, Dear Reader, how the race of the elves evolved. Nevertheless, please do not think of a magical, wizard-like, ethereal creature when you read the word ‘elf’. For although in the great many years that had passed since the events referred to in this novel took place the elves had gained mastery over magic, in the time this story is set they had no such abilities. How could they have been capable of such a marvel if they still weren’t able to speak?

So this novel is about the elves, but from here onward the word ‘elf’ will no longer be mentioned. Instead we will call them ‘humans’. There are two reasons for this: one is that elves are completely anthropomorphic, that is, their appearance is very human-like, or at least similar to perhaps prehistoric humans. In any case, I can assure you Dear Reader that if you came across such an ancient elf, you would say without hesitation that it was a human.

The other reason they should be seen as ‘humans’ in this story is that many billions of years later, humans did in fact evolve from this elf race-the humans we are now-because the human race is nothing more than a degenerated elf.

Well, let’s begin the story…

The hekirs were the inhabitants of the planet Roonya. They were evidently intelligent beings, since they had demonstrated their intelligence to be beyond that of animals through creating an abundance of civilization’s ingenuities, for example nationalism, frontiers, money, torture, patriotism, nuclear bombs, general obligation of national defence and child prostitution. Animals, who are irrational, would not envision such things as described above, so in this manner the hekirs had given overwhelming evidence that they were not animals but intelligent beings.

When they discovered the science of archaeology and found fossils of the less civilized prehistoric hekir races, then their own kind needed to be named somehow as being distinct from the previous ones, and they were elated by the fact of how much cleverer they were than their ancestors, because they didn’t have a nuclear bomb (this must have been the reason they died out). So their own kind was named ‘Hekir Sapir’. The meaning of the word ‘sapir’ was ‘intelligent’ in an extinct, ancient language. And they labeled with great ardor the different sub-variants of this hekir sapir race, each variant being named one form or another of course, and finally their own race, the current hekirs, received the honorable scientific label of ‘Hekir Sapir Sapir’, as they regarded themselves as doubly-intelligent.

However the hekirs did not have a human form. Perhaps from a distance, in dim light, a hekir might be mistaken for a human, but certainly not at close range. The only similarity between the hekirs and humans was that they both had two arms and legs. In all other aspects they were very different. For example, the average height of an adult hekir was around two and a half meters, and to a human eye they seemed extremely gaunt. The most striking difference was that, with the exception of their face, their entire body was covered in feathers. The feathers could be a wide variety of colors, in fact, if the hekir became bored with their natural color, they could dye them. In their society the different kinds of feather-dyeing denoted the fashion, as they had little need for clothing. They did not have hair, but instead short, fluffy feathers grew on the top of their heads. Although they had a special name for this plumage, we might as well translate it as ‘hair’.

The hekir’s head was rather egg-shaped, its height much larger than its width. Their two eyeballs bulged considerably on the sides. Their nose was almost non-existent, it barely protruded from their face, however under this nose was no mouth, but a long beak, just a little shorter than that of a stork. Their legs were quite thin, and scaled from the knee down with wide webbing. Consequently the hekirs did not easily sink in marshes or quicksand. Particularly because they had light, hollow bones, and even the most robust, strongest and heaviest hekir didn’t weigh more than thirty-five kilograms. But generally speaking, the weight of an adult hekir was below thirty kilograms. In addition, hekirs had short tails, or rather just a coccyx adorned with a tuft of feathers.

All these features existed due to the fact that hekirs had evolved from birds. So much so that even the hekir sapir sapir reproduced with eggs. However the current hekirs were not able to fly, because during the course of thousands of years of evolution, their body-mass grew and their tails became vestigial, as they no longer found it necessary to fly. So the hekir transformed first into a large, flightless bird, then later the purposeless wing was gradually modified to an arm-shaped limb, which made it possible to manipulate objects, and so technical civilization could be developed. But the original diet of the prehistoric hekirs remained, who as wading birds have long been eating all kinds of small worms, maggots, fish and rodents that they fished out of the mud, the marsh, or from shallow water with their long beaks. Accordingly hekirs did not grow any teeth.

There was yet another difference between the hekirs and humans-which inevitably must be mentioned-that was invisible from the outside. This was that hekirs did not use sound waves to communicate with each other but radio waves. They could perceive and transmit these waves in a narrow radio frequency range, therefore they conversed with amplitude-modulation of these waves. The frequency’s amplitude was analogous to the pitch of human speech. They could even “shout”, if they transmitted their “words” with greater energy. Also, every concept in human speech could be interpreted with this hekir communication form. But even if a hekir “shouted” forcefully, he was not able to transmit further than a few dozen meters. Thus, as with human speech, this type of conversing also had its limitations.

The evolution of this communication was thanks to the fact that a long time ago the prehistoric hekirs used the magnetic field of the planet Roonya for orientation while they were capable of flight, and later, when they could no longer fly, this sense organ began to perform other duties. However the hekirs were capable of speech with sound waves, but it was only used in exceptional cases, and not all of them had this ability. Occasionally in the hekir society there were such unfortunates born who lacked the organs to either transmit or receive radio waves, and they felt equivalent to the deaf or mute people in human society. For these handicapped hekirs, a method of communicating with sound waves was developed by the hekir educators, as a sort of deaf-mute sign language, but of course they had to learn this separately, and there were very few among the entire hekir race who had learned it.

The hekir civilization had evolved on the Fixup continent of the planet Roonya. This is interesting, because apart from this continent there was only one other continent on the planet, and it was almost directly on the opposite side of the planet. In addition, this other continent, which was called Lubar, was merely a quarter of the size of Fixup. And there weren’t any islands either between these two continents, because each island that existed was in close proximity to either Fixup or Lubar. One of the islands near Lubar, a largish one called Beo, had special significance. Namely the hekirs discovered humans on this island.

This discovery occurred when the hekir society already knew about nuclear energy, in fact they also had some powerful computers. The discovery, at least that of the Lubar continent, was absolutely devoid of any adventure, because it simply happened that when the first satellite was put into orbit, it took a photo of the continent, which until then wasn’t known of by the hekirs. Given the fact that it was located on the other side of the planet and there were no islands between the two continents, the hekir navigators soon came to realize that sailing far away was futile as there was only the empty sea, so they turned back, assuming that there was no other firm ground on the planet. Therefore up until the age of advanced technology, that continent remained undiscovered.

But now however, since they had found a reason for traveling to the other side of the planet, the situation had totally changed, and they did indeed send an expedition over there to explore, all the more so because a substantial part of Fixup was in a temperate zone. Lubar was however nothing more than jungle and rainforest, so the hekirs hoped they would find here a multitude of valuable plants, particularly fruits, because although hekirs liked to eat small vertebrates, and invertebrates even more so, they were fond of delicious fruits too, which made up at least forty percent of their diet.

So the expedition set sail, reached its destination, then came home bringing delicious fruits. But that is not all. They discovered humans.

This discovery was credited to one of the expedition’s geologists, who thereby became world-famous. He was called Flexorboot, and his name was included in the high-school curriculum, but Flexorboot wasn’t able to bask in the glory, as he died from it. Not from the glory, but from the discovery.

Namely an incident occurred, in which he was walking on the island Beo, searching for ore deposits, when he came upon two human children. They had been playing under a large tree. These children did not run away from him, which-as subsequent studies revealed-may have been due to the humans being the largest animals on the island, you might say the dominant predators, so they had nothing at all to fear. In fact, perhaps they took Flexorboot for some strange kind of human.

They allowed the geologist near them, who was completely astounded at finding such odd, bare-skinned creatures that were so fun and adorable, so hekir-like. And because he wasn’t a biologist, not even an ethologist, but only a geologist, he made the mistake of grabbing one of the small children and hauling it back to the camp. He didn’t give a thought to the fact that wild animals do not take kindly to having their young stolen. Although it’s possible that he just assumed they were adults. He didn’t know they were just children, human young, since he didn’t have any notion of how large a grown human was. Until then, none of the hekirs had ever seen one.

Anyhow, he arrived back successfully to the expedition’s camp, and they were already shouting from afar (in the hekir manner-with radio waves) about what a strange animal he had found, when the rest of the expedition crew saw the appalling scene. A tall being, almost two meters in height, charged out of the jungle, howling and snarling, and flung himself rapidly onto Flexorboot. The geologist dropped the young child in order to escape, but he couldn’t, the human was much stronger than him, and he sprang onto Flexorboot’s back, gripped his beak, yanked it with just one hand, and with this single movement broke the geologist’s neck, for now his head could be seen hanging down the middle of his back. But this was still not enough for the human, because he bit the geologist’s throat, thrashing him with his fists.

This did not last long, because naturally the hekirs had hastily grabbed a gun and shot the beast. Well, the geologist had been mauled for barely thirty seconds. But by the time they reached his corpse, he was well and truly dead, all his blood spilled from his body; and during the autopsy it was established that not only was his neck broken, but also thirty-four other bones. Furthermore, his skull became so flattened due to the blow that the injury to his brain alone would have been fatal.

And thus transpired their first encounter with humans.

Of course when all this occurred, the new species did not yet have a name. However they didn’t have to wait long to be named, because the name arose almost automatically. Namely, hekirs had their own Middle Ages too, with all kinds of bizarre religions, and in one of the most widespread religions featured a particular god who was called ‘Human’. This god of course looked exactly like the hekirs, according to the mythology, because the hekirs’ gods were created in their own image and likeness. Legend has it that the Human god committed a certain sin, provoking the other gods to throw him down from the sky, and what is more, as special punishment he was deprived of his feathers so that he would forever look like a worm.

It took only a single day for the idea to be proposed by the expedition crew-who weren’t religious at all, of course-that these new species were to be called ‘humans’. After all, they were rather similar to the featherless god of mythology. They presumed that religion would not be ridiculed by this, because although there were still religious hekirs here and there, nobody on the planet believed in that old religion anymore.

After Flexorboot’s death the expedition crew were more cautious, but they were very interested in the new species and so a hunt was planned for the humans. The reason for their interest was that relatively few new large animal species had been discovered on the continent Lubar, and moreover it could not be denied that the human’s appearance really was very similar to the hekir’s, simply because they both walked on two legs. On the hunt they managed to shoot more humans, males and females, and even a few of their young. These were immediately analyzed and dissected by the biologists, in fact it was even established very cautiously, that human meat was exceptionally delicious, at least the meat of the young, and if it was thoroughly cooked. Furthermore, several humans were captured on the hunt, both adults and children, who were put into cages so they could later be taken home to the zoos.

However, although the hekirs possessed shotguns, they could see from experience that hunting humans was not free from danger, as humans were indeed dangerous wild animals, who had learned very quickly that hekirs were their enemies, and in turn the hekirs had lost five of their own during the hunt, because these damned humans absconded and attacked them unexpectedly, or jumped onto their necks from the top of high trees, in fact some more intelligent humans even used weapons against them: large sticks, with which they could slay any hekir in no time at all.

But it soon came to light that if they were unarmed, even the strongest hekir didn’t stand a chance. It would be in vain. They had evolved from birds, and their bones were hollow and lightweight, so although they were taller than the humans, the humans looked muscular and robust beside the hekirs; in fact they not only looked it, but did indeed have strong muscles. However thanks to improved technology and a higher level of organization, they managed to capture, alive, around thirty of these dangerous predators and transport them home in cages.

Not much time was necessary before the humans became a real sensation back in the hekirs’ home country. Huge crowds made pilgrimages to the zoos in order to marvel at them. They created little human-shaped dolls, stickers, postcards, posters, key-rings, book and notepad covers. The first hit songs appeared about humans, and soon several films were created about them too.

The first of these films was naturally about the expedition and the discovery of the humans. Soon after this came the first, second and umpteenth nature film, which attempted to elaborate on the real life of humans, however these were not very successful. It quickly became apparent that the hekirs did not care at all about the actual life of humans, but much preferred their own positive or negative prejudices they had created in their minds. A famous psychologist explained this in a radio program, when the interviewer asked him about the psychological reasons for human madness:

“Well, fortunately this is relatively easy to understand. Most hekirs, and particularly their children, are not biologists or zoologists. Hekirs tend to be drawn to any animal that is more or less hekir-shaped. The closer the animal’s appearance is to the hekir, the more appealing it is to him. It is also preferable that the animal stands in a vertical position. Well, humans are indeed such animals. Not birds, but two-legged. Although they do not have a beak like us, they nevertheless have an expressive face, which is capable of showing a diverse range of emotions, and this makes them hekir-like.

“There is no doubt that humans have hands, even if they are different in nature to ours. Let us not forget that above all, adults-in fact humans of every age-are most similar to overgrown hekir nestlings, because our children don’t have real feathers at birth, but instead a significant portion of their bodies are completely bare, and where they are not bare there is only a small amount of fluffy hair, very similar to human hair. Furthermore, the beak of our nestlings is still small, so even though they do have a beak, unlike the humans, the beakless face of humans gives them a childlike appearance, and this triggers the hekir’s parental protective tendencies, awakening in them a desire to coddle the humans as if they were some kind of giant babies. So apparently humans are excellent subjects to be treasured by the entire hekir society.”

“But the humans have already killed several hekir crew members on the day of their discovery,” countered the interviewer.

“That’s true, only it’s not a confutation. This would increase their appeal even more. It is not only that they look cute and seem infantile, but also because they are strong, they dare and are able to defend themselves. Do not forget that first of all, our society is already very accustomed to a wide variety of violent acts. Because it is well known that all day long, nothing else can be heard from the media but that someone was killed, shot, raped, taken for ransom, had an accident, crashed, or that something was blown up, or hijacked… and in order for news to be interesting, it must report more dead people from places a great distance from the listener. Considering what is going on in the world nowadays, humans haven’t killed many hekirs at all.

“Secondly, the average hekir believes that the humans’ hekir killing was actually justifiable, because they wanted to catch them. In fact, they are inclined to think as most women do about their drunken husbands: that someday she will save this respectable man and make him give up his drinking habit. It is believed by the hekirs who are fond of humans, that they would actually be capable of taming a human, to make it give up the habit of savagery!

“I would like however to call the listener’s attention to the fact that although humans can seem to be amicable beings, let us not forget that teeth glint in their mouths, which indicates that they occasionally eat fruits and worms or mollusks, but they are fundamentally a predator race. And it’s not possible for a predator to give up the habit of hunting for prey. It would be like the hekirs giving up the habit of walking on two feet. In any case, humans are most certainly predators. All biological examinations support this too, for example human intestines are much shorter than that of the herbivorous animals, their teeth are completely different, and furthermore, on the island Beo there is no predator that is larger than a human. So humans are not only simply predators, but dominant predators.

“I have heard reports that certain perverse hekirs are beginning to keep human children in their apartments. Well, I am warning everybody that this will have serious consequences. I foresee the run of tragedies. Do not be misled by the fact that humans live in groups and they tend to accept the domination of a human leader. It is true that for a little while they will respect the hekir master as being leader of the group, especially since we are a good half meter taller than humans. But the human has only to think once about trying to challenge the leadership of its master, and at that moment the hekir doesn’t stand a chance against the human, unless he has a pistol on him. But even then they would have to be lightning-quick, because if there is the slightest delay they will be dead instantly. And the human’s nose, albeit it not the finest in the animal kingdom, is good enough to perceive the smell of the hekir’s fear.”

But the radio interview was in vain, because there was a big demand for keeping humans as pets, and this was exploited by the astute pet shop owners and animal dealers. It turned into a mass kidnapping of humans from Beo Island, the consequence of which was the near extinction of the savage human population. In vain, humans were put on the list of protected species, following the claims of the animal rights activists. Eventually the human race was saved from extinction by just one fact: the human traders themselves realized that it would be much more profitable to breed humans, because unlike many other species, humans reproduced remarkably well in captivity. Well, human females didn’t seem to have a great desire to mate, however the males’ desire was much greater, and because they were stronger than their females, it was enough to round them up and the procedure would automatically begin, which once started they would hardly want to end. So the savage humans were saved by the fact that their race proved to be good breeders…

Meanwhile in the hekir world, the great acclamation for humans continued. The first fantastic films about humans came into existence as well. Initially in these, the humans acted in ways that weren’t too far off the abilities of real humans. For example the movie about the little boy hekir, who had a big, strong, friendly and obedient human. The boy gets involved in various adventures, for example bandits kidnap him, and naturally his human rescues him. This human goes on to help him in other adventures too. Many other similar series were made as well. Bestseller movies were released from the film studios with titles like:

‘The Domestic Human’

‘The Lord of the Humans’

‘The Human Detective’

‘The Human in Space’

‘My Friend, the Human’

‘The Return of the Human’

‘The Super-Human’

But there was a film that was really perverse, which was titled: ‘My Love for the Human’. This was naturally about a hekir girl who falls in love with a human. But there was also a horror film, which was about the love of a human for a hekir girl, whom he raped.

But this was not all, for even porn films were created. It turned out that it was possible to persuade the humans, with a little training, to mate with hekir females, and then a wide variety of rather distasteful animal pornography flooded the sex market, for those with more specific and bizarre perversions, in which the humans did everything that was formerly done only by the hekir actors. The spread and popularity of these films was certainly furthered by the fact that humans generally had significantly larger penises than the hekir males, and they were much more “diligent” too, concerning mating.

This was however only the surface regarding the later events. The crucial juncture was in reference to the future of the Universe, when an adventure movie was created that at first sight seemed entirely common. The title was in the hekir language, ‘Human Sapir’, that is, ‘The Intelligent Human’. It was about a mad scientist in a laboratory, who experiments with the creation of a super hekir by creating a drug, which injected into hekirs intensifies their brain activity. But the drug is accidentally given to a test human, and it makes him intelligent. Then this human escapes, getting involved in all kinds of adventures, but he always fights for a good cause, and because he is not a hekir but human, therefore stronger and more agile, he invariably wins.

The film was a huge success, so much so that the manufacturers themselves did not imagine such an accomplishment in their wildest dreams. Billions in profits. Naturally the sequel was quickly created, and then its continuation with ‘Human Sapir Returns’, ‘The Son of Human Sapir’ and other similar titles. Soon this figure became so popular that they no longer referred to him as ‘Human Sapir’, but as the abbreviated acronym ‘HS’, so the title of the next movie became, ‘The Ghost of HS’.

All this was very conducive to keeping humans as pets. The enthusiasm for it increased, and they came up with special human foods. Several companies specialized in this, and fierce cut-throat competition broke out. They advertised themselves and their products indiscriminately, with slogans like ‘The human’s choice’, ‘For the creation of beautiful, shiny, human hair’, ‘Contains all the dietary supplements and trace elements that humans need’.

Hidden in this latter slogan was a fair-sized lie, because the biology of humans was not really known about yet, but the fact was it had begun to be studied; and specialized vets appeared who were experts in human medicine. And not only them, but human beauticians too, who regularly led the little human pets of bored, rich ladies away by their collars. As for the cosmetic treatments, they were not particularly relished by the humans, generally not even the bathing, and often they kicked, scratched and bit. A few tragedies even happened, which the tabloids chewed up with delight.

Because of this, several more zoologists spoke up and admonished the hekirs for keeping humans as pets, saying that humans were basically predators. To not be fooled by the humans’ nakedness; this was not a sign of their helplessness-on the contrary. The zoologists thought that the nakedness of humans was strong evidence of their endless savagery.

“According to our investigations,” said one of the zoologist professors, “it appears probable that some hundred thousand years ago, Beo Island was still part of the Lubar continent. In those days, the humans’ ancestors were still hairy, and they lived in the jungle, nibbling fruits primarily, although they would have probably eaten smaller animals too if they could obtain them, as well as nestlings and eggs. Their fur covering then made them look similar to other mammals. And they stood on two feet, because it was the easiest way to reach fruits that were high up, while still standing on the ground. As they had such a large body weight, they were reluctant to climb trees for the fruit.

“Later however, Beo Island broke away from the continent, and its climate changed. The coastline became grassland, and here they had difficulty finding food for themselves, but they would not have fared any better had they gone to the interior of the island, because due to the mountainous environment, they weren’t accustomed to the vegetation there. The humans had to give up their gatherer lifestyle and become active hunters. They needed to catch fast-moving animals. This required fast running on their part, hence a large increase in their body temperature. To endure this they lost their fur, and in turn this increased the exothermic capacity of their bodies. It also served the purpose of enabling the humans to sweat. The other predators did not lose their fur because they ran on four legs, however the humans had already converted to the active predator life-style in the two-legged age, and on two feet a greater effort was needed to reach the four-legged prey than the four-legged predators, so for this reason they weren’t able to keep their fur.

“Furthermore, the humans had excellent color-vision, which was useful in locating the elusive animals. Notedly, their color-vision evolved further in their fruit-eating era. This was a fundamental necessity for them, to recognize fruits among the foliage, in fact they could already distinguish at a glance whether a fruit was ripe or unripe, and their color-vision came in handy here; this ability truly gave them a big advantage in their predatory age too. They had binocular vision, and with this ability they could estimate the distance of their prey, furthermore predisposing them to living in groups and hunting, making them extremely dangerous and efficient. Humans are highly specialized hunters, which is proved to a large extent by their loss of fur. This is uncharacteristic of any other animal, so it is possible that the human can be well trained, but it is still dangerous, therefore it is not suitable for the purpose of a domestic animal.”

But for now the signs indicated otherwise. The human had proved to be suitable for many things. So much so that it wasn’t long before the Human Profit Corporation was established, with the aim of breeding special humans. Soon they were known everywhere, thanks to their distinguished bloodline, which was meticulously controlled. Their humans were thoroughbred and they were in great demand. Just five years after its formation, there were few hekirs alive in the world who did not know the meaning of the Human Profit Corporation’s logo. This logo was branded onto the left buttock of each of their humans, to indicate where the human had come from.

A young woman called Trinci worked for this company, who had promising talent in several scientific fields. In addition to obtaining a degree in ethology, general biology and applied psychology, she even knew a little about genetics. But this wasn’t surprising; the Human Profit Corporation employed only the very best specialists, and could do this because it was supported by rich and influential hekirs. It seemed that the business of human breeding was enormous, but especially if it succeeded in breeding special humans. Well there was plenty of money, and it didn’t even deter the investors that they would likely have to wait at least thirty years before it succeeded, after all, humans lived longer than rodents, and so they also reproduced slower. But the hekirs also had a long lifespan, their average age being around two hundred years, so human breeding still seemed quite an attractive investment.

Anyway, Trinci came from a well-known family; her mother, Brixi, was a psychologist (in fact still is, as she was still alive), and it was this Brixi who invented writing on the planet Roonya, because curiously the science of writing had not yet been developed over there. Well, it was no wonder that everybody expected a lot from Brixi’s daughter Trinci, too.

The big event happened at one of the meetings of the Human Profit Corporation. Mr. Arlek, the almighty President of the Corporation, made the big announcement.

“Nobody knows about it yet in the outside world, apart from our company’s concern, but thanks to my good connections I attained some confidential information. According to this knowledge, I can claim for certain that our existing monopoly on human breeding, which till now was supposedly unbroken, is threatened by serious danger. That is, important business circles have decided to found a competing company, with the name, Human Breeder Corporation. Several industrial consortiums have joined the business, for example even the two otherwise arch-rival microelectronics firms, MicRobot and MacRobot, and GeneTech as well. In other words, all this implies that they consider the business opportunities for human breeding to be much bigger than what we have utilized up to this point. What I mean is that we have to do something! The formation of the Human Breeder Corporation can in no way be prevented by us, it is a foregone conclusion, and the announcement of their existence will be made in a week’s time. Nonetheless, I already know that their capital stock will be four and a half times greater than ours!” He motioned with his hand.

“Don’t ask me how I know, I just know! So this means a huge threat to our company. We need to come up with something hair-raising and impressive, possibly even wipe them out of the market in their preliminary stage. And I have already decided what it should be. It was not by accident that I ordered the company’s most brilliant researchers here.

“The thing is,” he continued, “that until now, in regards to human breeding, we have only been concerned with the irrelevant details. We didn’t care about the essence. We aspired after stately and beautiful humans with selective breeding, and have been concerned with things like humans being healthier, disease-resistant, or being gentle… so we cared about their general characteristics. You could say that we were not any better than a stockbreeder, who specialized in a single species. But I have an idea of why GeneTech got into human breeding. Because this can only mean one thing, and I see it on your faces ladies and gentlemen, that even you are aware of what this means. However if the Human Breeder Corporation does this, then we must also get going on this course, otherwise we will lag behind and go bust! Therefore we must breed extra special humans. Ones that are capable of the highest standards in their given range of duties. And I can already tell you the kinds of things I’m thinking of. Namely I had a brief bit of market research done.

“There may be a big demand for example, for a human whose body weight in adulthood does not reach as high as seventy to a hundred kilograms, but is also not much heavier than our weight, so forty, or at most fifty kilograms. But it would be even better to have thirty kilogram humans, as this would make them no heavier than us hekirs. But let’s say if there is no better possibility, their weight may be increased up to fifty kilograms. Aiming for this would be enough initially, and later on it will be even easier to breed humans. These humans would be able to climb trees magnificently, and they could harvest fruits. In addition they could be trained for acrobat stunts. In the long run, the human is the only animal that has hands, and of course the hekir society wouldn’t want to lose this opportunity as an unutilized resource.

“But I will continue. It is strange, but there is a demand, and it’s an enormous demand, for humans whose penises are longer and thicker than their current ones. I know, I know, there is not a human male that can’t already run rings around even the most virile hekir males, as far as this area is concerned. But yes, there is a huge demand for even bigger human penises. I am aware that animal sex is revolting, and I don’t doubt that we’ll sell the fewest of these kinds of humans, but for one of these we’ll receive loads of money from the perverted.

“Then there is also a great demand for ornamental humans. It seems that with human females the hair tends to grow very long. This attribute presumably evolved in the course of natural selection, more precisely as a kind of sexual selection, because human males like long-haired females, who knows why? But the hekir human-owners also prefer the hair of their pets to be long, so we should strive to grow the hair of our female humans longer, possibly even to their bottoms. Then the owner may comb it, wash, curl, braid and adorn it, and meanwhile they can have a great deal of fun with it, which will use up a lot of their spare time. And it would also be good to breed humans with different colored hair. In my opinion it should be relatively easy with some genetic manipulation, to breed humans with multi-colored hair-not only black and brown, but to have blonde strands as well, and even other colors are conceivable.

“Furthermore, humans’ eyes are not as big as ours. But hekirs find big eyes attractive, so it will be necessary to increase the eye-size of humans. This is also beneficial because it will enable them to see better in the dark.”

Now Trinci interrupted.

“Excuse me, but there is evidence that despite the fact our eyes are larger than human eyes, humans are able to see far better than we do, so much so that when we can no longer see our beaks, they are still only awaiting dusk. There are few species in the animal kingdom that can see better than humans. So if we breed humans with even better eyes, the only thing we will achieve is making them even more dangerous.”

“It won’t matter, in fact it won’t make any difference at all. If a human attacks a hekir, then the hekir is already done for anyway. But they will not die because the human looked at them angrily with bigger eyes!

“Now, although I said previously that it is necessary to breed small, lightweight humans, there is also a need for really big, robust humans, who will be used for animal fights as warrior humans. This may be carried on parallel with the breeding of the human females with beautiful hair. As the females seem more gentle than the males, I feel it is necessary when keeping a human pet in an apartment, to strive for one that is preferably female, and worst case a male, but only if he has been desexed. Anyway, this law has already been made in several countries. I was thinking of a human population in which the females are especially attractive, gentle and beautiful. We will sell these as pets, however the males are big, strong, bloodthirsty beasts, that will be utilized for animal fights as warrior men.

“An entirely different breeding trend would be to mate short-statured humans with another population. They would not crossbreed with the aforesaid humans. From the large-sized humans, it would be necessary to select the humans with long and thick penises, because surely the bigger the human’s body, the bigger this part will be too. Then from this group we will select those that can be trained easily, who will be sold for making porn films and to perverse sex-maniacs.

“But now comes the real sensation. These bigger humans will obviously have bigger heads. Because of this, I think it would be appropriate that from this population we breed the novelist’s dream, the Human Sapir. And in this project genetics has the deciding role, although I should say that as I see it, this task will not be too difficult; the crucial point is that our biologists find a way of getting the skull sutures of human children to ossify much later. So their brain is able to enlarge, and a being with a larger brain is bound to be smarter.”

“But won’t this be too dangerous?” Trinci was worried again.

“On the contrary, the more intelligent the human is, the less dangerous he will be because he can control his impulses, so he’ll be less violent. Or at least the violence can be restrained with self-control. And he can be trained more effectively, so then he will understand that certain actions give rise to punishment. I am otherwise not bothered by your worries, Trinci. The point is that you will be doing the work.”

“Me?!”

“Yes. The other tasks can be given to someone else, but the HS project is so important that I want to appoint someone with promising talent for the job, who comes from a well-known family, as you do. You will be the principal leader of the HS project. Of course, as long as I am satisfied with you. Now you can show me what you can do…”

After this, the president continued on speaking, but Trinci did not hear a word of it. She had to think this over thoroughly. The task entrusted to her was very exciting, very respectable, but at the same time it was a huge responsibility.