Children of Krina

Chapter Four

Victor's POV

After they implanted the knowledge that Ellet said the children of Krinar had obtained by my age, I understood better. Then Voret decide to have our education brought to that of those who just finished school. The council had decided that we needed to learn socialization with others, so we went around to different areas of the center to meet other Krinar. They were friendly people; they explained what they were doing and shared stories of the different jobs they studied.

The Krinar was a long-lived race; the oldest living Krinar was over ten million years old. Two of the elders were part of the team that formed the life that existed on this planet. They designed the DNA and organisms, sending them out in probes to land on other planets, in the hope that a new world would form and flourish. With the planets having such a long distance between them, it took time for them to locate Earth and find that their experiment was working. There were times they had to nudge it, like when the dinosaurs roamed the planet. They could have stopped the meteor from hitting, but decided it was in the planet's best interest for the largest predators to die out. Once human life started to evolve, they would step in to alter the DNA now and then to guide humans into becoming a sister race to ours. Because of our extended life, we had less children. We were not prone to illness; our kind usually died in accidents, the arena or suicide, but the latter was very rare. While humans had short life spans, they multiplied rapidly and were extremely fragile when compared to us.

When the Krinar was still a young race, they shared their planet with another race, one of primates. The Krinar lacked a certain hemoglobin in their blood and could only obtain it by drinking the blood of the primates. Family clans would have blood feuds in order to control the primates, ensuring that their clan survived. When smoother heads noticed how small of number of the primates had become, they started to search out a way to create a substitute for the hemoglobin. That was also when the project for sister worlds and races started. A substitute that was useable came into circulation, but the primates still died out. Like humans, they had a short life span and were prone to disease. Their birth rate dropped and a plague erased them from existence. Yes, humans had the same hemoglobin as the primates, but the Krinar no longer needed it to survive. A Krinar who has a Charl is said to drink their blood, but as a part of the sexual act and not because they require it. It was something between the Krinar and their Charl, which was private and not discussed outside the bedroom.

While Krinar children reached physical maturity around the same age as human children, we did not reach legal adult status until around our two hundredth year. Unlike human children, more than one family raised orphaned Krinar children and the council protected their inheritance for them. Unlike the cities here, there was no smog or air pollution on Krina. They did not deforest their planet in the same way as what was happening here; the Krinar practiced ecology to nth degree. Animals were not a food source and the Krinar diet was mainly vegetarian; it was surprisingly delicious.

"Victor," Sang settled beside me. "Are you nervous about going to Krina?"

"I haven't given it much thought," I admitted. "Are you?

"It's one thing to learn about a place, but quite another to move there on your own. What if we get there and decide we do not like it? Or maybe no one will want to take us in."

"That is possible," I allowed, "and, if that happens, we will do the same thing we are doing here. We will stick together and protect each other's back. It's not forever; we will come back to Earth once we are older and ready to start in a field of our choice."

"Do you plan to rejoin your friends?"

"I don't know." I was honest. "They might not want me back. Humans are having a hard time right now and they are blaming us. Food supplies are growing short as farmers struggle to switch to growing crops, instead of livestock; it is going to take a while as they clean up their lands, plant their crops and wait for them to grow. Businesses are closing their doors and people are losing their jobs. Some will lose their homes and you always have those who would rather take from others than work for it."