New Horizons: Chapter 6

I swallowed. Hard. “What do you mean? Lovath hired me as your mechanic.”

Kryn scoffed. “I have eyes, Derrick. Your eyes, however, only follow Gray. So why are you here?” The water sterilizer gave another creak and my fingers twitched. He really couldn’t sit on that thing; not when he was probably edging on 300 pounds of muscle. Truly, the alien had muscle groups I was certain humans didn’t possess.

“I’m here because staying on Pretia wasn’t an option. This was my best way off the planet that was killing me.” It was the truth, just not all of it.

“Partial truth, you can do better than that.”

To hide how irked I was, I turned around to look at the inertial dampeners behind me. Those were running quietly, in perfect condition. So was the artificial gravity inducer so I had nothing to tinker with while Kryn broached very uncomfortable topics with me.

Wonderful.

“Kryn, it’s really none of your business.” I settled on. It wasn’t. My motivations were my own, and there was no need for him to question me like this. Lovath was the dumbass who hired me, and if the consequence was I eventually stole his ship and Gray, then that was on him.

“It’s my business if you plan to betray us. Though you will fail, if you do.” At Kryn’s amused tone, I whirled back around to face him. This was not the conversation I wanted to be having with him when we’d taken off barely an hour ago.

“You’re pretty cocky, huh? With your fake biceps and—”

Kryn cut me off with a booming laugh. “You are correct, they are fake, in a manner of speaking. No less useful for it, however.”

I blinked. And blinked again. “What do you mean?” The easy admission had thrown me off guard. Men on Earth were so…defensive over their physique that any suggestion of steroids or the like was an easy way to rile up a gym nut. I couldn’t deny having been offended by the notion myself on one occasion; I’d worked hard for how I looked, day in and day out, eating healthy, counting macros. Insinuating I was juicing was an insult.

Crossing aforementioned beefy arms, Kryn explained, “I was made in a test tube, Derrick. If there’s anything my race loves to do, it’s alter the natural order of things. See how far they can take genetics. It has bit us in the ass in the past, as any will tell you.”

“So…the muscles are real.”  I sounded like a drooling idiot. But this was at least taking the topic away from what my goals were on the Event Horizon.

Kryn shrugged those big shoulders. “More or less. They are real, but not natural, but do take real time and effort to maintain. It’s all in how you view it.” He seemed…relatively calm about the whole thing. That he’d been genetically modified as a fetus. That was how things were in the great beyond, apparently. It was another great reason to want to go home.

To the place that, given the opportunity, would definitely never even dream of genetically altering a person before they could ever give consent.

Yeah, Earth wasn’t much better. I knew that. But Earth didn’t have the tech yet that would allow it to be the shittiest place it could be, and I was in no hurry to see the day that humans had access to all this stuff. I was certain it wouldn’t be pretty.

“No parents then?” I wondered if I’d touch a nerve with that, but Kryn didn’t have a visible reaction. Lord knew I missed my parents. And I needed to see my sister, Michelle. Check her out of that mental hospital and tell her she was right about everything. Maybe Gray didn’t have any family to lose, but I did.

“Only the team of scientists that grew me in a lab.” Kryn cocked a way-too-easy grin. “When I was old enough to no longer be interesting, replaced by other projects, I was placed in a care home, which then enlisted me in the military once I was an adult.”

“Also without your consent?”

“A lab experiment does not get to consent to anything. All lab grown children are promised to the Shukasi Federation military for one term in exchange for funding. If you survive, you get a citizen chip and your freedom.” Kryn’s story was…awful. The Shukasi Federation that was so against the slave and exotic trade used their own form of slavery in the way of lab grown experiments?

“I’m…sorry. I didn’t realize I was opening a can of worms.” As I liked to think lately, I was an asshole, not a dick. I knew when to quit. Sometimes.

“I don’t know what a can of worms is, but I can guess your implication. I have no particular feelings about it. I was happy to serve the Federation. Krexxians—including the lab-grown—all vote on this once a decade, and the majority agree to continue.” There were no signs of deception in his body language, but it still didn’t sit right with me.

“But I assume lab-grown krexxians are a minority? If all of them voted against continued experiments, but most natural krexxians voted for it, would the lab-grown krexxians be outvoted?” I knew from Earth that the majority of people being in agreement on something didn’t mean that a fair and just decision had been made.

Kryn shook his head. “No, you misunderstand. Lab-grown and ‘natural-born’, as you put it, vote separately. Both sectors must have a majority vote in favor for us to continue. The lowest the lab-grown vote has been in the last two centuries is 76.12% in favor.”

It made me uncomfortable, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. Was I being judgmental of another culture? Or was Kryn trying to justify a process that wasn’t morally sound? I didn’t really know. “I guess if most of you are happy with it, whatever.” I couldn’t think of much else to say, so I left it at that. It wasn’t as if I had any plans to change krexxians laws and who was I to tell Kryn how he had been created was horrible when he was perfectly fine with it?

“Would you like me to finish showing you around?” Breaking any remaining tension, the krexxian waved at the engine room, which we’d covered most of, and I nodded. It appeared he wouldn’t be questioning me any more about my intentions for the moment.