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From time to time Richard Shanti passed by the calving pens. Though he tried not to, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the arrival of new generations of Chosen, especially the stock from BLUE-792. It was the only time he disengaged that part of himself that was a calm dealer of an endless pack of death cards. It was a fantasy he engaged in, he couldn’t help himself. Perhaps, he thought, it’s a natural response to all the slaughter. In the fantasy, the calves weren’t taken from their mothers to be ‘worked’. Their fingers weren’t clipped down to the second knuckle, their thumbs weren’t removed, their tongues were whole and their vocal cords intact. The males weren’t castrated and none of them were hobbled by the removal of their big toes. They were not dipped. They became children not cattle, and they did not die by Richard Shanti’s deft, compassionate hand.

It was a dangerous fantasy. The kind of mental process that could cost him his job and more. While the bored stockmen leaned against the walls talking and smoking, Shanti’s eyes were drawn to the moment of birth again and again. Maya hadn’t made it to the hospital when she’d given birth. If she had, he wouldn’t have been allowed in during the labour. Welfare didn’t like men, especially MMP employees, to see their wives’ birth processes for themselves. They knew how similar it looked to calving. But Maya had gone into labour with the twins on a Sunday when he was at home and though the Welfare had arranged to collect her, by the time they arrived, Shanti had already delivered the twins himself, cut the umbilicals, wrapped the girls in towels and handed them to their mother for their first feed. The midwife, arriving half an hour later, had looked at him with awed contempt. How had a man done this? There was nothing for her to do except weigh the girls, ask the exact time of birth and perform the ritual prayers. Somewhere, he guessed, a note was made that the father had been present for the entire labour. His behaviour would be monitored.

But Richard Shanti’s name was already an MMP legend. He was the Ice Pick, the most efficient and cool-headed stunner there had ever been. Nothing could cast doubt on his abilities, not even a Welfare midwife’s report. Knowing this, the midwife’s disgust didn’t worry him.

As he walked along the calving pens, spending a moment at each one, he knew he was also the only man in the barn who understood what it was about human labour and bovine labour that was so similar. Would the stockmen have been even a little bit disturbed by it? He doubted it. Every MMP worker in the town was far too inured to systematic cruelty to give it a moment’s attention. Look at them now, he thought, not even moved by the sight of new life coming into the world; unaware of the potential and unresponsive to the pain of the cattle as they gave birth to their calves. The stockmen were unmoved by what the future held, not only for the newborns but for the calving cows themselves. After their time of service in the dairy, when their milk yield began to decline below acceptable levels, they would be slaughtered. Their meat, being of a lower standard, would go into pies and sausages and pasties. That would be the end of their story.

He came to WHITE-047’s pen and recognised her immediately. This was a cow that had mated with BLUE-792. He remembered their encounter very well.

It had been chilly in the mating pens that day. Another unseasonably cold morning at the beginning of Abyrne’s short-lived summer. What little heating there was had already been turned off and many of the Chosen were shivering in their stalls. BLUE-792 had been mating with the newest herd of mature cows for three days by then; taken from one stall to the next by an entourage of stockmen and closely scrutinised to make sure he inseminated every cow.

It was another process that Shanti watched from time to time when his week on the stun had passed and he was freer to move around the various buildings of the plant. BLUE-792 was his favourite bull of all time; a powerful, noble creature that went about its business with uncommon energy. Shanti kept an eye on the bull whenever he had a chance. During the annual mating season, BLUE-792 was pushed to the limits of his stamina.

Without exception, BLUE-792 would enter each new mating crate and sniff the air. At the far end of the narrow cubicle would be a young cow of between 12 and 16 years of age, ready for its first mating. Shanti always thought the cows paired with BLUE-792 were the lucky ones. The bull knew exactly what it was doing and always spent time relaxing and coaxing the skittish cows into their duties. He was the most efficient bull in MMP history; larger, stronger, more fertile and able than any other.

Some bulls didn’t show enough mastery with their nervous heifers and mated successfully only a small percentage of the time. Others, in ignorance, hurt their cows with their clumsy approaches. A few bulls, despite robust health, off-the-scale sperm counts and great size, were so inept in the mating pens that they were dispatched for immediate slaughter. It was too expensive to keep such animals alive – their meat would fetch good money and offset the loss invested in their upkeep.

BLUE-792 was a bull of a different calibre. Literally. Its huge pizzle was the joke of the stockmen. They’d even made up a song about it that began ‘Oh, what a man could do, with a cock like BLUE-792’. But it wasn’t merely his size. He seemed to lull his cows into a willing trance before he mounted them, stroking and manipulating them to his will. The sighs from the cows were so harsh that Shanti knew they’d be deafening as screams. But somehow they were happy screams, screams of mingled pain and pleasure, silent screams lifting every moment of the mating to a level of experience Shanti could only imagine. As if they were drawing from the mating something that would last them their short lifetimes. Dairy cows usually mated only once and they were the ones that ‘screamed’ the hardest. Even the meat cows, that would produce a calf every year for as long as they were able, sighed as though the pleasure and the pain of mating was the last they would ever have.

When BLUE-792 was involved, the sighs were harshest of all.

Shanti suspected the other bulls were well aware of BLUE-792’s abilities. Bulls were always kept separate and in this case it was a particularly good thing. He didn’t like to imagine the fight that would have ensued if BLUE-792 ever had contact with any of the other males. There were places in the town where smuggled bulls were baited to fight each other to the death but he’d never been tempted to attend. Even watching the magnificent BLUE-792 sleep was enough entertainment for him.

Shanti had been watching the matings the day that BLUE-792 entered WHITE-047’s mating pen. It was subtle; he didn’t know if any of the stockmen even noticed – they were too busy shouting encouragement and laughing at BLUE-792’s huge pizzle. Something was different about the process that day. The bull sniffed at the air in the crate as he always did but Shanti saw him freeze without taking a single step further. At first, he thought his favourite bull was afraid. Instead of hiding timidly in the corner, nervous and tense like most of the other young cows, WHITE-047 was standing upright and facing BLUE-792. She was staring at him and the bull was staring back.

‘Watch this now,’ said Freeman, the burly head stockmen. ‘Gonna be messy, this one. Gonna be a fight.’

The other stockmen pressed closer.

Shanti stayed where he was, near the crate but to one side of the small group of onlookers. Freeman was wrong. From where Shanti was standing, he could see the side of BLUE-792’s face. He could see the expression there. He’d watched the bull through the cracks in his pen and in a dozen situations – so many times he understood its behaviour. This wasn’t a moment of aggression. WHITE-047 was standing unusually straight for a cow, her shoulders back and her young, unused udders thrust forwards. Her legs were apart so there was nothing she was hiding from her potential mate. But it was her eyes that gave it away, at least for Shanti.