The Life of Koru, Chapter 11
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After that awful Wiz the King night, Sir Jared decided to take Mulo and Peon away from the supervision of Sir Hannibal. Their current jungle overseer seemed to be a shady individual with a strong penchant for brutality. The way he almost strangled Mulo to death raised a lot of questions about his work ethics. Sir Jared knew that violence and beatings were good teachers for a slave, but he thought that mercy was just as important. He considered himself a merciful, kind overseer, which is precisely why he wanted to help Mulo out of his drug addiction.
The standard detox procedure consisted in making the slave snort chilli pepper powder instead of zirikum in order to make him lose his appetite for snorting.
Every night Sir Jared placed ground chilli pepper on his boot and Mulo had to snort it right from his boot.
The pepper was of a very hot variety that Sir Jared had selected.
It made Mulo roll on the ground coughing and sneezing and spitting his lungs out, but it was in Mulo's own interest, because the next time he encountered a handful of zirikum, he only had to imagine that it was chilli pepper instead, to stay away from it.
The slaves had started to bond to Sir Jared. The fact that Sir Jared had saved Mulo's life from that tough situation with Sir Hannibal made the slaves extra happy when licking his boots.
"Boys, I have good news for you! I am bringing you back to plantation!"
Prof. Kumbaba was a reputed Professor of Zoology and Animal Eugenics. He has studied apes all his life, gorillas, chimps, orangutans and koru. His most famous scientific book, "The Domesticated Ape", covered everything one needed to know about the koru. Prof. Kumbaba was a real specialist. His authority in the subject was unparalleled. He had compiled a free-access library of thousand of hours of video footage of apes hunting, mating, interacting. Through his lab work he wanted to expand Animal Eugenics to the next level.
That year he went to Rio to keep a conference which was attended by many plantation owners in the region.
Few important people came to Brazil, despite it being the largest province of the Black Empire. This is because it was also the least developed, being mostly an agrarian hinterland with a plethora of plantations, rainforests and mines. It was the breadbasket of the Black Empire and had been so for 500 years. Here more than 85% of the population was made of koru slaves. The rest of the population was formed of supervising personnel, overseers, whipmasters, patrol, veterinarians, executioners, farming experts and engineers. People in general avoided Brazil because it had become a very hot and humid place due to global warming. The free Black people that lived there managed to get by comfortably by taking short working shifts, wearing protective clothing and having plenty of liquids around, while the koru were just slaves so they had to work no matter the environment. The flag of the province featured a big koru in chains which was kinda understandable given that the province had such a high density of slaves.
For all these reasons, a visit from such an important scientist like Prof. Kumbaba was a very pleasant surprise. Sir Reginald himself wanted to attend.
At one point in his lecture, the professor said: "The koru has been under the yoke of slavery for more than five centuries, he is the only primate that was domesticated by man. This is not because of him being more intelligent than other apes, no, not at all. He is after all only slightly smarter than a chimpanzee. It is due to his hardworking and compliant nature which basically sets him apart in the animal kingdom. No other species in nature has shown so much eagerness to be subdued by men! No wonder the scientific name for the koru is koruus servus-simius' which means slave-ape' or `docile ape'.
Mind you, the koru was not always so tractable. He had to spend millenia in order to find his true identity. His confused mind, his lack of introspection had made him crave things that were not for him to take, things that were not true to his nature at all! At a certain point in history, he even commited heinous acts of barbary against the Black men, attempting to attack, subvert and destroy the Superior Black Civilization. This part of history is not so interesting now. What matters is that the koru has found his place with the help of Black men and he will hopely stay in that position until the end of time."
The lecture was met with frantic applause...
It was time for the Q&A section.
"Professor, is it true that the koru will soon be able to mate gorillas?" one of the spectators asked.
"Yes, progress has been made in this direction. It seems that soon we will be able to obtain the first crossbreed species, from koru males and gorilla females mating. The progeny will inherit the strength of the gorilla and the submissiveness and dilligence of the koru. We are calling them goru. They will be hairless, we want them that way so they can feel the whip better."
The next question was:
"Professor, is it true that the male koru will soon lactate through its nipples?"
"Yes. His evolution goes towards that direction. We are working on that. It will look like lactation, but in fact it will be sperm released from both nipples. We want the next generation of koru to be brimming with seed and naturally the balls will pump some of that sperm to the chest. Lactation from the nipples is unavoidable."
"Professor, what is the trend for the koru in 100 years?"
"Smaller brains, longer limbs, stronger backs and muscles, that's the general rule! Larger buttocks and cocks too! We are working on that. At the same time, we want to reduce a koru's thought complexity and its capacity for free will, as these are known to interfere with work performance. "
"Professor, will the koru basically become robots?"
"Yes and no. Robots of flesh if this is what you mean."
"Professor..." another guy started, but he had to stop, because someone in the conference room was yelling "Enough!"
"Enough! You are treating these creatures like mere flesh, but you know full well that they have animal rights! You are despicable, Sir! What have these apes done to you to be treated like this?"
The person interrupting was a young man with the name Ishmael Ajani.
"Security!" Prof. Kumbaba yelled. "Security, I think we have a problem!"
Two members of the security staff took hold of Sir Ishmael who struggled to free himself.
"Oh, let me go, you puppets! You can't silence me! I have all the rights to express myself as a Black citizen!"
"Yeah, and all the rights to be wrong about everything!" Prof. Kumbaba added.
That night, Sir Ishmael spent his time in a cell. He was accused of disturbing the public order with subversive messages and anarchist propaganda. Sir Ishmael had found all these accusations unfounded, but there was no way for him to stop the hand of law.
It was humiliating for Sir Ishmael to be in a cell, but it was a comfortable place with clean bed and fresh linen, air conditioning, perfect illumination, plus all the needed bathroom appliances and even a desk with paper and laptop if one needed to write a letter or send an e-mail.
The prison facilities reserved for Black citizens were top-notch, as none of the inmates was considered unimportant or unworthy of care. Not the same could be told about the koru.
As the night progressed, Sir Ishmael tried to fall asleep but couldn't. Memories from the past were assailing him, memories about how he learned about the koru and how he decided to protect their rights. His parents disapproved of this, his friends were turned off by this, even his girlfriend broke up with him, but Sir Ishmael liked to be a rebel.
In his mind he saw a world in which the koru were treated less harshly, they were freed from slavery and even became second-class citizens of the Black Empire. It was true that they would still live like before, only in villages and dirty ghettos, and that their low intelligence recommended them only for the hardest, most menial jobs, but at least the koru could unionize and have representatives that would negociate with the Black employers. The salary of the koru, which would be the minimum wage, would probably be enough to feed the many mouths at his home. And if it didn't, the koru would be able to borrow money while mortgaging his house. And maybe, just maybe, the koru would stop being naked. They would not be wearing "finey" and "glimma" like the Black Lords, but at least they could wear a sort of humble rough sack garment, i.e. shirt and trousers, to distinguish them as second-class former slaves, with crude sandals or even barefoot. Were all these dreams of Sir Ishmael too far-fetched to become true?
By the morning Sir Ishmael was almost asleep when, by an amazing turn of events, Sir Reginald appeared in the door frame:
"I am setting you out, but you have to come with me!"