Gender was history, all genes recombined, the gender of the donor was irrelevant.
Hrapa was bred to be effective, what marked him out from his brood sisters and brothers was a simple thing. Sadness, Hrapa was the only person he knew capable of it. He had not even had the capacity to verbalize the feeling until, by accident, he had read about it in a very old book left to his family long ago by a mad ancestor who had hoarded fiction books despite there being nothing useful in them.
Hrapa was embarassed by what was considered, in his society, as a dangerous mental deviation. He wouldn't let his sadness show unless he was by himself, in the comfort and relative safety of his living quarters. Not every evening of course, what would be the point of that? But when he felt the urge to indulge, he would sigh sadly as he set the table for his solitary evening meal, he would exhale wistfully upon biting into his vat grown steak, he would even let a tear escape.
On delicious nights he would bawl unashamedly into his pillow.
End of part 8
