The Hekirs are an avian race in the sci-fi short story: Breeding Humans By Harold King. They evolved on the planet Roonya a hundred thousand billion years ago in the previous Universe.
Biology
Scientifically known as Hekir Sapir Sapir, the Hekir were the dominant lifeforms on Roonya. They were gaunt bipedal beings, possessing four limbs. The average height of an adult hekir was 2.5 meters. They were descended from avian stock, their entire bodies covered in feathers that came in a wide variety of colours. A hekir’s head was rather egg-shaped with two bulging eyeballs on both sides. A beak protruded from its face similar to a stork, but shorter. Their legs were thin and their feet were webbed, allowing them to stand easily over marshy surfaces.
True to their avian origin, the hekirs had hollow bones; even the most robust hekir weighed no more than 30 kilograms. In addition the hekirs had short tails ending with a tuft of feathers. Due to thousands of years of evolution hekirs naturally lost the ability to fly in favour of traits for arms to manipulate tools. They were originally carnivores/insectivores subsisting on worms, fish, and rodents like their ancestors. The current hekir is mostly an omnivores creature, its diet expanding to include a wide variety of plants, and animal life. The hekirs communicate differently from humans. Rather than using sound waves, the avian creatures perceive and use radio waves to transit information between each other. This trait evolved from the prehistoric hekirs using the magnetic field of Roonya for orientation when they still were flight-capable.
Hekirs can communicate using sound waves but it is rare. In some instance in which hekirs are unable to transit radio waves and thus handicapped, are forced to use sign language to express themselves. The average hekir lifespsan is 200 years.
History
The hekir civilisation developed on the Fixup continent of planet Roonya. By the time the hekirs on Fixup discovered the use of nuclear energy, through the application of nuclear energy they launched their first orbital satellite that took its first accurate picture of their world. The image revealed the hekirs of the sister continent of Lubar and the island of Beo. After discovering these new frontiers, the hekirs then had begun to explore the rest of the planet.
The exploration of Lubar brought a wealth of valuable foodstuffs. However the most remarkable discovery was found on Bebo. A hekir geologist named Flexorboot discovered a new species living on the isolated island of Bebe. Fascinated Flexorboot captured one with the intent in bringing it back to his expedition’s camp for study. However he was unaware that the creature that he caught was just a child, and Flexorboot met his death by an adult seeking to rescue its young, en-route to camp. The others of his expedition retaliated when several others of its kind attacked them. Using their firearms the company easily repulsed them and using the bodies of the slain creatures managed to determine that they were a new large animal species. The hekirs named the creatures ‘humans’ derived from ancient fallen god of hekir mythology.
The hekirs found human meat to be to their liking, particularly the young. They captured several humans for exhibition at zoos. Soon after the existence of the humanity was revealed to the larger hekir race, it sparked a phenomenal cultural sensation. Humanity became the focus of hekir culture: films, toys, books, etc. were based on a single theme: human. The hekirs were appalled and enthralled by humanity due to their strength and rarity. Due to the fact that humans were capable of killing the hekirs were their bare hands, hunts upon the humans were called upon and justified, putting humanity on the endangered species list. However the numerous environmentalists within the hekirs called for change and protection of humans were finally answered by the various corporations. However the purpose of saving the human race was to exploit them for profit. Breeding corporations were made to create new breeds of humans as pets and a source of meat for their hekir clients.
Eventually by the time the hekir became to reach the space age, the hekirs were investing in genetic research to create a new type of human: Human Sapir. Human Sapir was a concept developed by science fiction fantasy of a truly intelligent human that rivals a hekir’s intelligence.
The Human Profit Corporation was established to breed new strains of humans. Other competing companies such as the Human Breeding Corporation, GeneTech, MicRobot, MacRobot also joined the business of human exploitation. A female hekir named Trinci was the leading scientist of the Human Breeding Corporation headed a project to make the fantasy of Human Sapir possible. Thirty years later the corporations have yet to produce results in creating a true Human Sapir, Trinci to assist her deaf impair child, Gigo, raised a human boy as her own named Zax. Zax was able to easily communicate through sign language and through the years mentally developed. Trinci kept this a secret from the rest of her colleagues. To aid Zax in understanding hekir speech she developed a headset that allowed him to understand radio transmissions and also to communicate with hekirs.
Zax grew increasingly disturbed by the treatment of his kind, especially after a gruesome trip to a human meat market, believing that his kind deserved to be free. His thoughts of freedom became more embolden when the Human Breeding Corporation unveiled a the first female Human Sapir: Muica. Zax entranced by her realised that she was being mistreated by her captors and upon discovering that there were at least six hundred supposed Human Sapir, resolved to save them. Trinic's superiors at the Human Profit Corporation, desperate for a breakthrough to overtake their corporate rival learned of Trinci's secret project. Just as Zax left on his mission to free the Human Sapir, the Corporation arrested his adopted family.
After freeing the human captives, Zax and his small army of Human Sapirs launched an attack on a hekir military base where his adopted mother and sister were kept. Learning that the base contained biological weapons and an antidote, Zac unleashed them and injected the antidote to his followers and family. Roonya was contaminated by the plague, however Zax gave the hekirs a chance to escape using what little ships the hekirs had so long as Roonya was his to claim. The surviving hekirs retreated to their space station to migrate to the nearest uninhabited world to rebuild their civilisation.
Culture
Hekirs had very little use for clothing, being covered in feathers negated discomfort in weather changes. Feather dying was a fashion-sense similar to humans dyeing their hair for expression. Hekirs did not record the bloodline through the fathers but through the mothers. Males were only needed to produce an egg and provide labour to ease the female's burden. The males would leave after the conception of the egg having little to do with the mother or the offspring.
Source
- Breeding Humans by Harold King (2017)