[ WP ] A race of slaves who really are genetically inferior

The People 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 the People were n't always like this. They had been men once, proud and strong, who had sung ancient songs to their children around the village fire at night. They had been poets and storytellers, heroes and wise men. They had been men. 
 
 Bondage changed them. The masters had beaten and bled the ancient songs out of them. The wise men were killed. The heroes were beaten till they whimpered `` mercy'' through broken teeth. The poets had their tongues torn from their mouths. The People sang no more. 
 
 Mothers hushed the child who spoke with precocious sagacity, knowing that if the Masters took note of his growing wit, he would be taken and buried out in the pits beyond the fields where the People worked. `` Do n't be smart'' they told their sons and daughters, with a blow across the head so they would remember it. `` Do n't be bright, lest you want to die.'' They did it for love, to save their children. 
 
 The Masters bred them like horses. Those who were strong and hard working and were bothered not by the heat of the summer sun were used as Studs, so they would beget sons like them. Above all, they were bred for obedience, for dullness. A slave did n't need the sparkle of intelligence. He just needed a strong back and an empty mind. 
 
 A hundred years passed. Then another. And another. The People forgot who they were. They forgot who they had been. When the Bondage finally ended, they were changed. They were no longer men. The Masters had shaped them to their own design, like a neatly trimmed hedge in one of their palace gardens. 
 
 Now free, they carried on the shaping of the Masters. `` Do n't try and sound smart'' they told their children. `` You are one of the People.'' The Masters, now long dead, would have smiled. Mothers smacked the child who spoke with wit. `` Why are you trying to act like a Master? We are the People. That's not how we act.'' The child hung his head, and spoke no more. The transformation was complete.
