Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Doggo

Humans are the only known creatures to create mutually beneficial bonds with other organisms larger than bacterium. The parallel evolution of humans and canines is a situation completely unique to humans. Some scientists suggest that it came from the need to survive on such a hostile world, while the lay person might suggest that humans are too clueless to know when something is inadvisable or, for that matter, impossible.

Krill had never seen the captain skip before, not that he wasn't the skipping type, but because that sort of action proved to be more difficult to coordinate with his prosthetic leg. Despite that fact, Captain Vir made a big show of skipping into the bridge grinning hugely despite nearly tripping over the last stair.

"I got my approval." He chanted continuing his skip around the room as Krill watched in bemused entertainment. For all their predatory nature, humans proved themselves to be some of the most unintimidating creatures in the galaxy. One minute they could be trying to kill you and the next minute they would be trying to cuddle you.

Perhaps, if it had still been his first transfer aboard the human ship, Krill would have seen the ridiculous display as a demonstration of the captain's athletic ability as some sort of dominance ritual. That, and the wide grin that split his face showing a row of strong white teeth, might have served to Scare Krill away. But six months was sufficient to know that this was an almost overenthusiastic demonstration of happiness.

It wasn't likely to be showing dominance to anyone.

For some reason, not many grown humans of the male gender took to skipping.

Upon hearing the captain's chanting, the rest of the crew began to mummer some whooped in that way humans do to show support for members of their packs.

Krill looked on in confusion, "Approval for what?"

Captain Vir paused his frolicking long enough to look at Krill and grin, "It's a surprise. You'll love it."

Krill had a feeling that might have been a bit of an exaggeration. Usually when humans said things like that it turned out to be either something very dangerous, weird, or stupid. Yes, that even applied to things like cake. The humans hadn't been wrong that he would like it, until he learned that some humans consumed so much of it that they caused their hearts to fail.

Humans can become addicted to anything. Guess that's the consequence of having natural drugs, Dopamine, injected into your blood stream at the slightest provocation for pleasure.

"We will be stopping off at substation Gamma to pick up the package." Captain Vir finished plopping into his seat grin still plastered across his face.

Didn't take them long to make it to the substation. Sitting on the bridge, Krill used one of the Hull cameras to examine the small space station marveling at the massive see-through dome that looked inwards on the flourishing human city. Not every human enjoyed spending days and days locked aboard the ship, and just like humans, when they didn't like something, they fixed it.

From what he knew, the massive station was equipped with climate control and artificial atmosphere to allow those inside the illusion of being back on earth.

For this reason, it was one of the only stations in the quadrant that could sustain human livestock.

The idea was astounding to Krill, the idea that humans had harnessed the power of nature herself controlling entire herds of animals and harvesting them for their byproducts despite those animals being larger, stronger, and potentially more durable than their human counterparts.

On Krill's home planet, they took pains to avoid influence form the wild. Walls were built to block themselves off from larger, more dangerous creatures, not that the creatures were particularly dangerous when compared to animals that naturally inhabited the human planet of Earth. In all his life, Krill had never actually SEEN a non-sentient being close up: Sentient by the definition that they had a complex linguistic system that could convey abstract ideas.