First, came the women. They were ten of them; one mistress and one Unblooded for each part. They settled around and the Unblooded opened their mistresses' bags before them. They brought out one stick of incense each and lit it on the right beside their mistresses, then they each brought out a parcel of oilcloth. They each untied the twine that held its content together and unrolled the cloths on the floor beside the incense.
The mistresses sat, limbs folded into each other, their eyes picking every detail, mapping every route that they will take, noting infirmities and making adjustments in their plans in order to maintain a superb quality.
A bell pinged in the gloom and they began. First they washed their hands in the hot water, their Unblooded had poured in a bowl, then they rinsed in another bowl filled with icy spring water, then they dipped their hands into the oil of Corus, said to prevent any infection. The mistresses touched their glistening hands to their heads, their eyes and their lips signifying their knowledge, their sight and their silence, then they turned and picked up their scalpels and in the semi-darkness of a half moon, began the skinning.
The Unblooded kept the incense on and at certain intervals, they each wiped the face of their mistresses with a white rag. The hands of the women moved deftly over the body, caressing, moulding, peeling and revealing the body to the eye of the moon.
Each mistress had her place; the two youngest had the two feet, the two older ones had the two hands and the oldest had the head. It was the job of the oldest to shave off the hair on the head as well as the facial hair, peel off the scalp, remove the skin from the eyes, nose, the lips, and down to the neck. It was the job of the two older ones to peel off the skin from the shoulder down to the waist, the pelvis and the two youngest peeled from the legs to the penis and scrotum.
They worked in silence for hours, slowly, carefully, removing the first layer of covering that protected the body. They paused to turn the body face down in order to work on the back of the head, the neck, the back, the buttocks, the laps and legs. By the time the first cock crowed in the slowly fading night, they were done.
They laid their scalpels down, washed their hands and got up. They stood aside as their Unblooded took their place and drew out gold needles from the oilcloth. They threaded the needles with black threads and began to stitch the skins into one whole. When this was done, they cleaned the instruments, packed them back into the oilcloth, rolled it together and tied it with the twines. They all left with the stitched skin rolled into a tube as they had come, silently. The incense burned in the early morning quiet as light slowly filtered into the room. The bell pinged one last time.
The skin will be cured and dried in the sun and when it was properly cured, it would be stuffed with cotton and hung in the Hall of Memory.
Some few minutes after the women had gone, the old men came in. They were the Masters of the Crypt and retired medicine men. They knew everything there was to know about bodies, any body. They were followed by their journeymen who carried the bags that contained the tools of their trade. They were ten in number; one journeyman to one master.
The old men knelt before the puzzle of flesh that stood before them. This was the first time they were seeing something of its kind. It looked like them but some things were different. It was considered an honour among the men to be the first to study the creature and understand its anatomy.
The journeymen opened their bags and set out the tools needed. The old men cleaned their hands in the same manner as the women before them but after dipping their hands in Corus, they touched their heads and their eyes but didn't touch their lips. There was knowledge, there was sight but there will be no silence. They will be discussing what they are about to do for years to come.
The work that they had to do was not as delicate as the one the women had done, also they had light to see as the day had brightened considerably. The oldest knelt before the head, two sat on either side of the torso, one sat between the laps and the last one knelt behind them all, a small writing table with a piece of parchment held down with gold weights, a weighing scale made of silver, an inkwell with a stylus shaped tube inside it, placed before him. He was to be the scribe, the one to record the proceedings, their findings as well as their conclusions.
The journeymen bustled around with basins which they placed beside their respective masters, then they knelt and the work began. The oldest man picked his scalpel and cut into the flesh that wrapped the skull. He carefully cut silvers of flesh of the bone until the skull gleamed clean then he picked a chisel and carefully tapped a hole into the skull. When a tiny fissure appeared on the skull, he picked up a tiny bone saw and sawed into the skull. He sawed round until he was back at the fissure, then he removed the top of the skull revealing the brain.
The old men and the journeymen all pored over it, their eyes bright with interest. The oldest man looked at the one kneeling before the writing table and that one began to write. No words passed between them but they had communicated.
The oldest man dipped his hand into the skull and grabbed the brain gently. With care, he raised it out of the skull and his journeyman drew closer and cut the brain's link to the spine. The oldest man placed the brain carefully in a bowl . His journeynman passed the bowl to the journeyman of the scribe, who took the brain and placed it on the weighing scale. Everyone turned to watch the scribe as he wrote and measured.
When the scribe was done he raised his head and looked at the other men and buzz of excitement filled the room. After some minutes of staring at each other and at the scribe, they turned back to the body.
Carefully, each organ was pulled out; the heart, the kidneys, the lungs, the liver, the bladder and all. Even the eyes, tongues and teeth were not spared. The men paid a great amount of interest on the scrotum and the penis. Finally, the spine was pulled off and all that remained was a gleaming white skeleton.
The scribe filled parchment after parchment with data; drawings, calculations of weight and size, speculations on material of manufacture based on the texture and density of the organs, speculations on the age and feeding habits and more. When he was done he got up and knelt before the skeleton. The others stood before him as he studied the skeleton, and then he drew it.
As the scribe got up, the journeymen gathered around the skeleton and started breaking them at the joints using their hands. The bones popped as joints and ligaments separated finally. They bored holes into the bones and carefully scooped out the marrow which was smeared into plates they each had by their side. Each of them picked up a hammer and laying a crushing blow on the face of the skull, set to turn the parts of the skeleton into dust. As the sun rose high Into the sky, dust motes danced within the rays that pierced into the room. After several crushing blows, there was nothing left on the floor but white and rust brown dust.
The men dropped their hammers and gathered the dust. At that instant the picture froze.
A man walked to the front of the room and turned to the audience. He watched the reactions in the different faces and smiled sadly;
"Yes my friends, that is the video transmission made by Captain Fatai Mboma before we lost contact. We believe him to be dead and probably have undergone the same process as Mr Caleb Ayamabo here" He said, pointing to the screen.
"What are they?" someone asked from among the men and women seated with pale, curious faces.
"They are the species of humans that inhabit a planet no different from ours in another universe very much like ours. They seem to have evolved differently though but the physiognomy is identical" The man replied.
"They are like us? How do you know this? " A man with thick glasses covering his eyes, asked.
"I know because last night, an unidentified object was sighted and it was brought down. In it were four of them; an old woman, a young girl, an old man and a young man." he replied.
"They want to know what we are?" A woman asked, her eyes wide with awe.
"No they already know that. Three of them are dead. The fourth one is being held for questioning but she refuses to speak or cannot speak."
"What will you do with them?" The guy with the thick lenses asked.
"We want to know what they are and how they can communicate without speaking then we want to go to where they live and see what they have that we need." the man replied smugly.
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