Free Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind by Johnny Stone Page A

that an artificial being, such as himself was. The complete merging of man and machine was the only logical step, an inevitability, and after that the possibilities for the ‘new’ human race would be endless. Alex, and possibly others that thought like him, would one day be mankind’s salvation.
    Now there was something new for Alex to mull over, he’d felt a new emotion when the Owner expressed his wishes to return the sleeping creature, the Captain, home. Why had he convinced him to keep her here, when she would have received the proper medical care she needed elsewhere? She was such a fascinating creature though, much different than any other female to his knowledge. He’d evaluated both her physical appearance and internal structure a hundred times already, and she still remained an unfolding mystery. There was no recorded data anywhere to compare his findings to. She was something that he could learn and grow from for some time to come.
    He’d never had a chance to study a human female with such scrutiny before, let alone one in the beginning stages of artificially induced evolution. The Owner called her human, but she was far from it – extensive cybernetic augmentation, combined with a strange mix of human and Equis ferus caballus DNA. So much new and intriguing data to process… So many unknown possibilities to comprehend. No, he couldn’t let a unique specimen like the Captain be taken away from him until his research was complete. There were far too many unanswered questions about her, and she’d obviously been created for a specific purpose, an artificial tool, not unlike himself.
    Why? Why would someone wish her to exhibit the traits and appearance of a hybrid, native earth horse? Ears and a tail, with progressive-growth full body hair at this stage of her evolution, did some human males find that attractive in their females? In addition to mimicking its primitive form of communication on numerous occasions, she’d already demonstrated the strong fight or flight instinct inherent to the animal. Alex had been impressed with her quick response to the supposed threat during takeoff, her reaction time had only been .248 seconds slower than his would have been in that situation, and he’d barely had time to lock the weapons out, before she attempted to return fire. By his estimate, the property damage and loss of innocent, human life would have been substantial.
    Why? Why the extensive cosmetic alteration to her outward appearance? Her facial symmetry was within 2 percent of what humans would call ‘perfect’ for a female of her height and stature, making her extremely attractive by visual standards. Everything about the Captain seemed engineered for her desirable appearance by a prospective mate; he’d only found two small imperfections in her epidermis, and those weren’t even noticeable without intense examination.
    Why? Why would someone wish the Captain to be a creature engineered for visual pleasure and procreation? The fact that two unborn humans currently grew in her womb attested to the fact. Regardless of all obvious damage to her genetic strands from multiple chemical contaminants injected or absorbed throughout her life, she had still conceived. Perhaps it was due to the presence of her new DNA? It was slowly growing more dominant throughout her body – the new replacing the old – the superior replacing the inferior. By his calculation, based on the probability of conception before the infusion of new DNA into her genetic stands, the Captain would have had to engage in sexual intercourse 2.34 times per day on average, for 4.33 continual months. Interesting… The Owner had not been aware that she was still capable of conception.
    Alex deduced that human sexuality was a strange thing; they were one of the few races that interacted sexually with one another for reasons other than simple procreation. They seemed to enjoy the sensation immensely, able to have sexual contact with little to no