Ykkypol looking at him emphatically.
“ Okay! So... this meeting is over then. I hope that the night will be of good counsel and that tomorrow morning you'll all be interrupting each other over all the ideas you’ll have for me.”
Everyone stood up in silence and left the room, except Ykkypol who, last in line, stopped at the door to close it. He returned to sit in the front of his partner and said:
“ We may have the solution. In any case, I know the one that Ralchadomac has chosen.”
“ Your spy finally discovered their trick?”
“ Yes. The bastard asked me for a nice raise. He claimed that he was taking risks and that the info was so important that if he were to keep it from us, Ralchadomac would sink us for sure.”
“ So, you paid?
“ Yes, fifty thousand.”
“ Bastard! Okay... we’ll find a line for it in our budget... So, this info?”
“ Hold on tight. Remain properly seated in your chair. I hope you're not faint-hearted.”
“ Get on with it, okay!”
“ Uh... Listen carefully. In fact, it’s not to reduce the cost of meat that they have found a solution, but to reduce that of milk.”
“ So!”
“ I know! I know that it’s the price of meat that they’re attacking us with, but let me speak. Listen. They’ve a lower milk cost price than ours and this allows them to finance a lower selling price on meat. So they’ve no profit on meat, but are able to catch up on milk. This is a stratagem intended to mislead us, to reduce our chances of finding out how they do it.”
“ Okay! Then how is it done with milk”
Akkal liked Ykkypol, but his way of too slowly getting to the point often annoyed him.
“ Very simple, it only needs the courage to do it. If you can’t reduce the price of the puree, you have to ensure that the animals eat less, that they need less.”
“… ?”
“ They remove their four limbs.”
“ Eh? What? How?”
“ You heard me. I told you to hold on to your chair. They amputate their limbs when they reach the age of one week. Their need for protein is thus reduced since there is less to be fed.”
“ That’s atrocious!”
“ Perhaps, but it works. In addition, small limbs are recycled into the puree.”
“ I'm going to puke!” cried Akkal pinching significantly his beak.
“ You’ll have time to vomit all you want when we’re doing the same thing.”
“ Why not denounce them to the media rather than doing the same thing? They’d be fucked if this scandal was made public!”
“ So that the same media could become interested in us? Do you think that we’re squishy clean? Do you want us to find ourselves with all the associations for the protection of animals on our back? Starting with your sister.”
Akkal kept silent, scratching the scales of his forehead. His crest waved ominously.
*
Etos had noticed that his prison’s floor was made with strange branches all flat. Really very flat! Yes, rather strange indeed, but everything was strange in this prison anyway! The standing branches all around were so straight that they seemed surreal, so hard that they defied the laws of the forest. No tree produced wood in this way? He had also noticed that flooring elements weren’t tightly joined. And when he solidly struck his foot on one of them, it didn’t seem rock-solid. And what if? ... He said to himself. And what if... it could be broken ...
He lifted the big rock over his head and let it fall as violently as possible on the floor, close to the bars. This also, he hadn’t invented. For generations, his kin had used this method for cracking nuts. However, he was using a much heavier stone, because what he wanted to break was much bigger. No, he hadn’t invented anything, but he had still had the sense to divert the use of these two tools, the shaft with a hook and the stone for breaking; this was already an undeniable proof of intelligence.
In addition to this,
“ Okay! So... this meeting is over then. I hope that the night will be of good counsel and that tomorrow morning you'll all be interrupting each other over all the ideas you’ll have for me.”
Everyone stood up in silence and left the room, except Ykkypol who, last in line, stopped at the door to close it. He returned to sit in the front of his partner and said:
“ We may have the solution. In any case, I know the one that Ralchadomac has chosen.”
“ Your spy finally discovered their trick?”
“ Yes. The bastard asked me for a nice raise. He claimed that he was taking risks and that the info was so important that if he were to keep it from us, Ralchadomac would sink us for sure.”
“ So, you paid?
“ Yes, fifty thousand.”
“ Bastard! Okay... we’ll find a line for it in our budget... So, this info?”
“ Hold on tight. Remain properly seated in your chair. I hope you're not faint-hearted.”
“ Get on with it, okay!”
“ Uh... Listen carefully. In fact, it’s not to reduce the cost of meat that they have found a solution, but to reduce that of milk.”
“ So!”
“ I know! I know that it’s the price of meat that they’re attacking us with, but let me speak. Listen. They’ve a lower milk cost price than ours and this allows them to finance a lower selling price on meat. So they’ve no profit on meat, but are able to catch up on milk. This is a stratagem intended to mislead us, to reduce our chances of finding out how they do it.”
“ Okay! Then how is it done with milk”
Akkal liked Ykkypol, but his way of too slowly getting to the point often annoyed him.
“ Very simple, it only needs the courage to do it. If you can’t reduce the price of the puree, you have to ensure that the animals eat less, that they need less.”
“… ?”
“ They remove their four limbs.”
“ Eh? What? How?”
“ You heard me. I told you to hold on to your chair. They amputate their limbs when they reach the age of one week. Their need for protein is thus reduced since there is less to be fed.”
“ That’s atrocious!”
“ Perhaps, but it works. In addition, small limbs are recycled into the puree.”
“ I'm going to puke!” cried Akkal pinching significantly his beak.
“ You’ll have time to vomit all you want when we’re doing the same thing.”
“ Why not denounce them to the media rather than doing the same thing? They’d be fucked if this scandal was made public!”
“ So that the same media could become interested in us? Do you think that we’re squishy clean? Do you want us to find ourselves with all the associations for the protection of animals on our back? Starting with your sister.”
Akkal kept silent, scratching the scales of his forehead. His crest waved ominously.
*
Etos had noticed that his prison’s floor was made with strange branches all flat. Really very flat! Yes, rather strange indeed, but everything was strange in this prison anyway! The standing branches all around were so straight that they seemed surreal, so hard that they defied the laws of the forest. No tree produced wood in this way? He had also noticed that flooring elements weren’t tightly joined. And when he solidly struck his foot on one of them, it didn’t seem rock-solid. And what if? ... He said to himself. And what if... it could be broken ...
He lifted the big rock over his head and let it fall as violently as possible on the floor, close to the bars. This also, he hadn’t invented. For generations, his kin had used this method for cracking nuts. However, he was using a much heavier stone, because what he wanted to break was much bigger. No, he hadn’t invented anything, but he had still had the sense to divert the use of these two tools, the shaft with a hook and the stone for breaking; this was already an undeniable proof of intelligence.
In addition to this,
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