Grown Men (8 page)

For once, HardCell’s ploy worked: they were a perfect team, even in temperament, and they learned each other quickly. Ox lived with a short fuse and got frustrated with himself easily, so Runt learned to keep him calm when they tackled tough jobs together.

A kind of balance stole over the farmstead. Ox came to Runt for miracles; Runt relied on Ox for focus. Productivity improved exponentially and Runt couldn’t remember how he’d been able to live out here alone.

The future took root.

Ox relaxed more, and didn’t hurt himself as often. Runt finally slept regular hours and woke rested, making fewer catastrophic mistakes and rigging crazy solutions to save labor.

Ox liked to hear Runt’s stories about the spaceport or soldiering. He’d seen some kind of combat himself; the scars on his hands were testament to that, but the larger man’s history stayed off-limits.

Runt knew better than to pry, although he did spend more time than he ought trying to figure out how all this manpower had wound up transplanted to planetoid HD10307-E somewhere in Andromeda’s hair.

Some things are better buried. But some things grow.

When Ox had relaxed some, his knotty sense of humor blossomed as unexpectedly as sea orchids under the tropical suns. As it turned out, he had an appetite for elaborate practical jokes that took prep and patience: mud fights, sea-slugs in the underwear, tickle-tackling Runt in the surf until he wept and begged.

Ox had a poker face like granite and his laughter was silent too; as each goofy ambush unfolded, his guarded chuckle would build and build in his broad chest. Finally his huge smile would crack open and he’d guffaw ’til he choked and crowed . . . even though he never made a sound.

Runt loved to see Ox laughing so much that he came to look forward to the teasing with a kind of comic masochism. Eventually he didn’t even mind being the brunt of so many pranks, and stopped trying to match them. Ox’s affectionate ribbing became part of the cadence of their workdays.

Runt’s anxieties about his cofarmer made the farm funnier somehow, not quite knowing if the kill-kit would appear. Ox never threatened him or shirked his chores, but the potential violence made gentler jobs seem demented. Sometimes Runt thought of the hidden kill-kit and his laughter teetered on the edge of hysteria, but he stopped minding, mostly.

At some point, though he couldn’t say when, Runt forgot that Ox couldn’t talk. They certainly had entire conversations without Ox speaking a word. And Runt found that he talked less, even to himself. There was no need. They grew to be like mismatched brothers and worked together in a kind of seamless symbiosis, until Runt couldn’t remember living solo or wanting to.

As the weeks became a month, the two went from cofarmers to bosom friends. Ox’s HardCell ID indicated they were nearly the same age, with Ox a few years older, but oddly enough, the larger man proved more reckless and playful. For once in Runt’s stupid life he needed to be the grown-up, dressing Ox’s hourly wounds and forcing the bigger man to eat and rest.

Then again, Ox tackled so
much
of the grunt work and put up with Runt’s addiction to trashy advertainment. He sat through any formulaic crap so long as Runt scratched Ox’s head like an overgrown cat while some lame holo-vid ran.

Eventually, Runt knew Ox better than he’d ever known another living person, better than his parents or his platoon or the other runaways at the spaceport even, yet knew next to nothing about Ox’s past. Mostly Runt didn’t notice, but sometimes the curiosity grew into a maddening itch. Ox hadn’t offered, and Runt knew better than to nose around. No telling what he’d find and no part of it his business.

One afternoon, Runt did find Ox’s HardCell contract in their data terminal, mostly by accident. He almost wished he hadn’t, but he couldn’t stop himself swiping a look-see.

He hadn’t intended to snoop, but the terms were right there, and as usual, his curiosity clobbered his scruples and he took a peek. They were
partners
after all; his nosiness was purely friendly. It wasn’t like Ox chatted about his past. Not like he really could, right?

“Gods!” Runt leaned forward, knowing he shouldn’t be looking at all.

According to the HardCell agreement, the Terraformation division had recruited Ox actively, offering him a
double
stock option as bait and a bonus for signing!

In light of his superior genetics, probably. That made sense, and if Runt felt a little jealous, that made sense too.
Only fair. He finishes four times the work I can.
If anything, Runt rode Ox’s oversized coattails. They’d both be voting shareholders one day, so it hardly mattered.

So who is he?

A mutant question mark, it seemed. The rushed agreement contained more holes than data. Apparently, his cofarmer had met and signed with HardCell on the spot and shipped from New Baghdad, which explained the surprise arrival.

He left in a fucking hurry.

Ox would be back any second.

Again Runt combed through the contract from the beginning. Apparently, Ox had DNA-signed and verified his identity with three tissue samples: blood, hair, bone. A legal employee at least.
Hrmm.
Not a clone or vat-grown, but obviously
more
than natural. So . . . the genetic augmentation predated the HardCell contract.

C’mon, c’mon.

Hitting it a line at a time, Runt dug through the legal-speak for any kernels of info. Former occupation: unknown
.
Training: unknown. Associates: unknown. Vitals: anomalous.
Duh.
His physiognomy every bit as superhuman as it seemed, yet no cause or clarification given. No diseases. No parasites. No allergies.

No assets.

But the receipts were attached. As soon as he’d signed, Ox had spent half that fat bonus up front, buying the overstuffed container of bleeding-edge biodesign.

A peace offering? A bribe? Bait?

No details on the erotic pheromone splice. No mention of the damaged voice. No explanation of his wealth. No note about the bleeding-edge assassin gear stashed in the hive wall.

Runt flicked his eyes to the door and raced to reread the digital document once more before Ox walked in and caught him prying into his private life. Every question Runt thought he’d quelled branched and tangled in his imagination.

No criminal record. A witness? A refugee?

Growling in frustration, Runt scanned the rows of dates and numbers on the terminal’s screen, trying to intuit his partner’s story between the stats.

Was Ox in hiding? Had he run from something or toward this? Why buy so much equipment? What drove him to maroon himself here as a laborer rather than work as a brood-stud or a high-performance bounty hunter? Had HardCell demoted him from skilled services to
employee
? Who sent the deadly retirement package and for what possible purpose? And what the fuck could make a pre-citizen that enhanced into a fugitive?

Ox might have been born on that beach the day Runt almost killed him.

Hsssssst.

The front door whisked open and daylight sliced across the habitat’s molded plasticrete interior.

Blinded, Runt almost bit through his tongue in panic. He closed the digital contract with a nervous jerk that made his heart thump and his stomach turn inside out.

Ox stepped through the doorway covered in grease, with no suspicions or questions other than lunch. A deep scratch on one beefy forearm needed disinfecting.

Runt would never ask, but he wondered: what had Ox escaped?

Something fuck-awful.

Feeling stupid and guilty, Runt winked a hello and sent HardCell the request for harvest pickup.
Two weeks early!
With Ox on board, they had beaten the executives and saved both their lives.

As Ox went to the cook-space to start the digi-wok, the bigger man nodded.

Runt nodded back automatically, though as he did, he wondered if he might have just agreed to something he couldn’t understand.

Ox astonished Runt constantly.

The fifth week, in the middle of a scorched morning when the beach blinded and the waves churned soupy hot, Ox waded out to the sandbar and strangled a four meter eel with his big bare hands. His mighty body shone in the water like a statue . . . Laocoön wrapped in serpents. Impossibly primal and potent, the way advertainments tried to make men seem.

If Runt hadn’t witnessed the kill with his own eyes, he might have doubted it was even possible, and Ox did it as a present for Runt.

Midmorning, while they were baling bamboo, Runt complained about wanting fresh meat instead of paste and freeze-dried kibble; forty minutes later, when they were headed down to the greenhouse, Ox bolted before Runt could react.

Without warning, the larger man took off at a jog and dove into the surf.

Luck’s fuckery, I wasn’t serious.

Ox cut through the waves like a spear and then, arcing up a moment for momentum, plunged below the surface.

Shitwit.

Runt knew his cofarmer could swim. They’d done plenty of undersea repairs together. But without his gear, even seaboots, Ox could be mauled badly. The adult eels got aggressively territorial and they could take a finger or worse. And eel blood could be deadly. Runt had only harvested full-grown eels with equipment. And this herd had remained too small to consider regular harvest.

A queasy feeling in the pit of his gut, Runt walked straight down to the water expecting the worst.
Whoosh!
A spray of water and Ox popped to the surface wrestling with a pissed-off male, its mandibles chewing the air. These conger hybrids could weigh up to fifty kilos, but Ox lifted it like a data cable in the churning water. He pulled it to the shallows and got his feet under him, two predators knotted together.

Ox managed to loop part of the iridescent body around one superhuman triceps. Blood ran from his hands and arms, smearing his torso.

“Crazy . . . That’s crazy.” Runt whispered to himself. “Impossible.”

The creature managed to flip loose, then arched up and snapped close.

Runt winced and almost shouted a warning.

Just in time, Ox’s skull jerked back and his face hardened into a savage mask Runt had never seen before. His tremendous sinews braced with brutal purpose.

Fuck
me
.

Muscle coiling, the creature put up a fierce struggle as it lunged at Ox with a buzzsaw mouth, frantic to get back under the waves where it could breathe. The tail whipped the greenish water and Ox’s abdomen, leaving raw stripes.

Ox froze; he seemed to be waiting for a signal from the slithering beast. Abruptly, he caught its other end behind the skull, snapping its neck clean in one pitiless mitt.

The thrashing stopped.

Ox stood breathing hard in the breakers about fifteen meters out. That terrible mask melted from him with every lungful until he beamed in triumph.

Runt cheered and whooped on the shore, his voice echoing off the endless hot surf.

Ox strode back through the shallows with the eel’s silvered length draped over his shoulders like a rubbery mantle.

Watching his cofarmer return to the cove, Runt had the strangest sensation: a kind of foreknowing, as if he and Ox were immortal and ancient in this alien place. The suns hammered down on them both, beating their skin into identical bronze. At this distance they even seemed the same size, perfectly matched, the entire horizon bookended between them equally.

Runt knew something then, but exactly what he couldn’t say . . . something about here and now, about Ox plowing through the surf on his huge sturdy legs, the water glittering on all his hair, his wide sunburned grin aimed at his partner and the shore.

For an endless moment, Runt imagined the crooked corporation had folded and they’d been forgotten, laughing and living together under these perfect suns, waiting for wives that would never come, happily hunting fresh meat at the sharp edge of the galaxy.

While Ox swam back dragging his quarry ashore, Runt cleared the sunken fire pit he’d only used when he first arrived. It had sat scorched and cold since he’d realized grilling for one seemed like a waste of wood.

Ox strode naked across the sand, his tread slapping from the shore to the fire. Drops of water hung in his chest hair and his hair was gold in the sun. The eel was so long that even draped over his shoulder, its tail still trailed the ground, drawing a thin stripe beside his enormous footprints.

Runt felt like he’d stepped into an adventure holo-vid. He’d split bamboo into spits and soaked them in seawater by the time Ox reached the edge of the fire pit. Runt looked up with a grateful smile.

Ox coiled the eel like heavy rope and deposited it on a flat rock and nodded, just once, though no question had been asked. Veins stood visible along his throat and arms. He sat in the sand breathing hard.

Using his work blades, Runt butchered the fatty meat right on the beach. He had already managed to get a fire going. He skewered the pale flesh with chunks of raw mango. In a matter of minutes, Ox’s prize was dressed and sizzling on the grill.