.


When I was six months old, they took me away from my mother's breast, never to see her again. I have not been able to get the sound of her despairing cries out of my head. Every instinct in her being was demanding that she protect me, yet she was powerless to do so.

A few weeks later, they removed my testicles with a knife. I wish they'd used anaesthetic -- it hurt like hell. It also stung a bit when they stamped a hole through my ear and hung a heavy tag off it, but not as much as when they slammed that red hot iron onto my ribs. Burning flesh is just about the worst smell there is.

Now I'm crammed onto a cargo vessel headed for the last place I will ever see alive -- if I survive this trip, that is. Invariably, a number of us don't.

If I'm lucky, the metal bolt they shatter my skull with will render me insensible immediately; I'd hate it just to poke out an eye or something, and for them to have to take a second shot; or worse -- to still be awake when they hang me upside down and slash my throat open, like so many of my friends.

Apparently the Alpha-Centaurians think humans taste quite delicious. But I understand -- it's not personal. They are smarter and more powerful than us, so this is the way it must be. Actually, if you ask them, they are proud of themselves for being so loving and kind in their care of us before we become their dinner.

“For what we are about to receive....”