Harvest Moons

Harvest Moons

Melisse
Aires

Copyright: 
Melisse Aires 2013

This
short scifi romance contains adult scenes.

BLURB

With the death of her no-account husband,
Polly is the sole owner of a farm steading on the planet Celstar. She is
determined to hold the steading and make a life for herself and two Synth
children in her care. Her nearest neighbor, widower  Fallon Verdad, is the big
landowner in the territory and also her local Councilman. Like most of the
other settlers, Fallon is a Shimmer, a horse shifter, while Polly is
human—well, mostly human. Their attraction to each other is electric and hard
to deny. An affair would lead to scandal in this conservative community.
Scandal is the last thing Polly needs.

Sci-fi space western romance, futuristic,
short story.

~**~

Her husband was dead and she was glad for
it. With this one last ugly chore Polly would be done with Hoggart Avila forever
and someday the memories of their short, ugly marriage would fade. Owning the Steading
would certainly help with forgetting the unpleasant way she got it. More
stability than she’d sure ever had, and she meant to keep it. She was legal
wife by law of the Terran Confederacy. Somehow, she was an upstanding, vote
carrying citizen of Celstar Mid-Territory.

It was more than she’d ever hoped to have
in life.

Polly paused in her labor, stopped and
rubbed her aching back. Dragging the body far from the Steading was dangerous
but necessary. Her laser was in her apron pocket, and high day was the rare
time to see a volve or a pack of woolers. Woolers, with their deadly horns and
short tempers, headed for the river banks during the heat of the day to nap and
volves came out after sunset. No extra credits to spend for the precious fuel
in the flitter to carry the body, since the solar array on it had busted. After
harvest she’d get in fixed. Meanwhile, she couldn’t allow this rotting hulk to
corrupt their water supply. He’d caused her enough misery.  The Steading only
had the one well and no credit to drill another.  

She gripped the coarse cloth of the bag
she’d sewed him into and pulled him over the rocky ground, uphill, almost to
the hole. Sweat trickled so her shirtwaist was wet with it. And immediately after
this chore, she’d be in the fields until dark. Harvest. Of course Hoggart would
die at the time of year he was needed most.

Sweat removed toxins. By the end of the
week she would be toxin free.

The woven sack ripped as she pulled the heavy
body over the rocky ridge at the top of the hill, exposing Hoggart’s waxy
countenance, blood dried in his hair from the fatal wound. Polly had not done
him the final courtesy of cleaning him up. She’d sewed him in the bag, and dug his
hole on the far side of the hill so she wouldn’t have to see the grave marker
everyday. Shortly she would be done with the wretched man forever.

Hoofbeats thundered behind her and she twisted
around to see one of the Shimmers in horse shape trotting down the far hill across
the vale that separated her land from her nearest neighbor. Shimmers. That was
how Hoggart got a cheap Class  Three land Package on what was clearly Class Two
land. The Mid-Territory on Celstar allowed Shimmer settlers and most Steadings
has been purchased by Equine Shimmers. In town they looked like anyone else,
collars and cuffs, city coats, proper dresses down to their boots. But across
the fields she sometimes saw a wild horse running free on the open grasslands,
mane flowing in the wind. It was a pretty enough sight, and the Shimmers kept
to themselves in their clan Steadings, so she never reckoned them to be a
problem.

Until now. What if this one thought
Hoggart’s death might not be accidental? Her heart, already pumping hard from
the work of dragging the body, sped up so she felt the need to breath heavy.

The horse coming toward her was
beautiful, large with feathers on strong legs, a dark brown, nearly black, with
a sheen in the sunlight.

Upon reaching her it shimmered and before
her was the finest looking man she’d ever seen, and she could see a lot of him
because Shimmers shifted in the skin. Dark hair waved near to his shoulders, which
were broad. Tall, well muscled. Long, sculpted legs and not a smidgen of flab
on him.

The Shimmer looked at her husband’s dead
countenance.

“He fell. On a rock.” No one need know
she’d shoved him when he took a drunken swing at her. And that she’d had to
stop him from raping the little six year old Synth, Ivy. Who would suspect a
small woman such as herself for having the strength to down a hulk of a man
like Hoggart?

The nude man nodded. “I am sorry for your
loss, ma’am. You must be Mrs. Avila? We haven’t met, though I met Mr. Avila
several times.  Fallon Verdad,  head of Clan Verdad. Your near neighbors. I’m
also the territory councilman.” He held out a hand and she shook it aware of
how warm and large his palm, and how naked he was. She did not allow her eyes
to stray south, though she did want to.

“I am Polly Avila.”

He walked passed her and looked at the
hole she had scraped in the hard, rocky earth. “Your grave is too shallow, it will
attract  volves. I can deepen the grave and we have several casket shells. I would
be pleased to give one to you  for the burial, ma’am.”

“That would be right generous. I have no
credits for such, nor time for the trip to town.”

“Understood. I will send over my young nephews
to assist you with  the harvest. Your Synths are immature, correct?”

“Yes. I do not have them doing the hard
labor. They are also keyed to Hoggart. They will need rekeyed.” Polly felt like
she was watching an absurd vid. She was talking legal matters with a naked councilman
over the body of her dead husband. A wave of dizziness swept through her and
she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, reminding herself to breathe.

“I will come over as soon as possible and
rekey them to your command. I assume you have control through Mr. Avila?”

 “ Yes I do, so there is no rush. Thank
you, Councilman. I do appreciate your taking the time to help.” She pulled a
small ceramic marker from her apron. They used them to mark crops. She had erased
the crop data and scribed her husband’s names and dates.
“Sleep in the
Stars, Beloved Husband.”
A lie of course, but it suited her that others
might think her marriage was an ordinary one, with warm feelings between them. 
“I made a marker for the grave.”

“Leave that here and I will take care of
the rest. You and yours can plant an eternity bush here one day in remembrance.”

“Yes. We will do that one day.”

She grabbed her shovel and waited, knowing
it would look odd if she ran off happily back to her Steading.

“I will leave you to say your goodbyes in
peace, and will return within the hour to bury your husband. Unless you have a
custom which requires your presence?”

“No. No custom.” Where she came from
people of her class were thrown in the recycle bin. “But I would like to say
goodbye.” She was no actress but hoped her downturned face and quiet manner
disguised her complete lack  grief.

Fallon Verdad shimmered back to full
horse and took his leave in a cadence of fast pounding hooves. Polly watched
for a moment. It was kind of him to assist her. All to the good to maintain
some form of neighborly relations with the Shimmers, since they held the
largest population count in the Celstar Mid-Territory. And she planned to be
here the rest of her life.

A stunning handsome man, but man to be
neighborly with and not one thing more, no matter the temptation in his big blue
eyes or fine strong body. She was not immune to attractive men, it was probably
part of her coding to welcome men in her bed, and she refused to feel guilt of
it. But this was Celstar, not a crowded world city with all manner of vice. Looking 
held no dangers. Acting could ruin everything.

One percent Synth made her full Synth
under Terran Confederacy law. Celstar didn’t have a DNA test for immigrants,
though no doubt they would implement one once they had more population to do
such work. She was near twenty percent Synth. It showed, of course, but in her
legs. Shiny, gilt Synth-skin legs. Legs for dancing the Cancan in Saloons and
Theaters. Celstar had  a decency clause in their constitution. No Burlesque
Houses here, or brothels. Ladies’ legs were never seen; they wore long skirts,
pantaloons and stockings.  And Polly had managed marital relations wearing
stocking and garters and a darkened room. Manipulating a drunk husband was
simple, another man might be much harder.

No more beddings for her. Not from her
sorry excuse for a husband and definitely not with a local Shimmer. She’d be a
proper widow lady.

~**~

Fallon trotted back to the gravesite with
a casket shell, and quickly took care of the business of burying Mr. Avila, using
a digger instead of a shovel. No one would miss Hoggart, more often a drunken
problem to be dealt with than a neighbor to work with.

But Hoggart had married well. Odd, that.
Of course, perhaps the woman Polly had considered the fine parcel of land and
decided it gave the troublesome man enough shine to interest her.

Pretty woman.  Delicate but  round in hip
and chest. Big dark eyes with curling lashes, a dimple that showed even with a
sad, partial smile. Very attractive. Something about her made him want to see
more of her.

His ants wanted him to remarry, saying he
was too young to stay single, but the girls paraded in front of him were too
young, just a few years older than his two sons. He still missed Maureen, gone
now five years, and it was hard to imagine someone in her place. But he did
miss a woman’s company, especially in his bed. A widow lady—Not Mrs. Avila, of
course, she was human—but an older woman was so much more appealing than a
girl. He would think on that.

~**~

The next morning at sunrise two teen boys
arrived in her yard. “Uncle Fallon said you would need help since Mr. Avila
passed. He sent us. I’m Evon and this is Charl.” They were tall boys, thin but
athletic looking. Both had dark hair and light eyes like their uncle.

“Very good. I appreciate your neighborly
ways. If you’d like to put your satchels here  on the porch, I’ll show you
where things are. Come have a bite to eat, we are still at the first meal. We
have biscuits and jam.”

They followed her into the kitchen where
her Synths sat at table, their honey gold hair neatly braided, wearing flower
print dresses and  blue pinafores like little human girls wore. They were tiny
with delicate builds and Polly had often wondered what possessed her husband to
purchase such children, who seemed to have  so little ability to be farm
workers. Now she realized he probably intended them for prostitution.

“Come have a biscuit. We will have a hot
meal at noon, and there is ginger beer in the cool room. You may have as much
as you want. Our water is good, too. Won’t get you sick.” They joined her at
the table. “Ivy and Fern are the girl’s names. They are six but don’t talk.”

“Yes ma'am.” The boys sat at the table
and shared the biscuits and jam. After the meal she set the girls to the dishes
and took the boys out to her grain fields.

“You treat your Synths like children.” Evon,
the taller boy spoke. “Dress them like little girls, feed them at the table.”

She shrugged. “They look like children,
act like children. It is not in me to treat them as stock animals. Is that
different than your ways?”

“Shimmers don’t have Synths, ma’am. We
were once slaves ourselves.”

“Well, not us, but our people.” Charl
clarified.

“I understand.” Synths and Shimmers were
both made during the early days of the Confederacy, when a few planets decided
to suspend laws concerning DNA experimentation with human cells. The Shimmer
Wars of the last century had ended the DNA experimentation for the Terran
Confederacy, but some out-worlds, like Jiang, where she and Hoggart had
married, were beyond the Confederation’s reach and still had Synth labs. “I
never sought to own any, but Hoggart got a bargain on them. And since we had no
children they became part of our household.”

Some part of her rebelled about making
Hoggart seem like a man of principle, since they had fought fiercely over the
little Synths. But it was better—safer—in the long run if her neighbors thought
Hoggart a good natured, no account drunk, not the bully he’d truly been. Better
people didn’t think anything odd about her and Hoggart.

Polly showed them her harvesting machine
and set them to work on her golden fields. After getting the stew  in the pot
for lunch, she and the girls joined them, holding bags to the chute and tying
them manually when full, while the boys took turns hefting the bags onto the
carrier. After lunch she sent the girls to play under a tree but she continued
working in the fields. The girls would stay put, they had their music box and
would make mirror dances for hours.