Grown Men

work. He had tipped the panels from his shipping container inward, rounding the structure against the elements. HardCell’s digital queen chirped and purred in the center. Ox had remounted the device so it sat about a meter higher in the dead center of the expanded building, calming the drones and issuing instructions.
    The adult bee-moths hung quiet along the dim walls, glowing softly, resting for tonight’s duties. The best of two species . Rather than pollen, they harvested pests and samples which they fed to their computerized “queen” to analyze so she could assign tasks. Runt inspected the long pupal trays where a few new caterpillars munched on their bamboo salad; most already lay cocooned in silky pods. They’d hatch in the next day or so.
    The only thing: Runt couldn’t decide if his experiment had succeeded or failed.
    At the very least, he owed Ox a great supper for the miracle he’d worked in here. Corporate citizenship and comfort had never seemed closer.
    If he doesn’t get tired of outfarming his partner and murder me in my sleep.
    Back in the cook-space, Runt outdid himself, stir frying pilaf mealpaks. Ox hovered for a while, curious, until Runt tossed him a mango and a knife and pointed at the bench by way of an order.
    Runt watched Ox’s rough paws vivisect the mango swiftly. The giant returned with a bright pile of shreds, and at a nod from Runt, plunked them in the hissing digi-wok. The fruit seared quickly; the juice would disguise the multivitamin tang of the mealpak paste.
    Teamwork .
    After supper, Ox fell asleep on the bench again while Runt sat through a fantasy holo-vid plugging HardCell cosmetics while elves cast spells and raped each other. A few times, the dozing giant’s pheromones spiked, which meant Runt’s boner came and went without harm.
    He was grateful to have the sleep-space to himself again.
    Enjoy it while you can .
    Runt lay awake in his big bed. Even alone there, he felt keenly aware of the gigantic predator breathing deeply and near-silently a few meters away . . . death in his hands and his head full of secrets.
    What did Ox expect? Why had he come to this place? What did he have planned?
    In the clock-lit darkness, sleep came slow. Runt curled toward the wall, as if his back could do a better job of watching Ox, as if his eyes could see a way forward.
     

     
    The next day, Ox ducked outside at the first sunrise, making almost no sound.
    The moment he was gone, Runt rolled to his feet and cracked his neck. He’d slept wrong and his muscles felt like wet sand. He washed, wanked, and waited to eat breakfast with his cofarmer before getting to work.
    As soon as Ox returned from the sea, he dressed quickly. His boots were twenty-threes, as it happened.
    Runt had been wrong about that too.
    Let’s just see . . .
    As Ox wolfed down the steamy protein scramble, Runt leaned forward on his elbows as though an idea had sprouted just then: a test. “Are you mechanical then? I mean, you like to twiddle with machines and that?”
    Ox shrugged and smiled, showing his white choppers. He flexed his big fingers like a magician and waggled his eyebrows.
    “Can you have a look at the soybeaner today?” The gabbled question sounded planned and anxious even to Runt’s ears.
    Ox nodded firmly and rapped the table with his knuckles in agreement.
    Smug bugger .
    “I’ve been able to do fuck-all by way of repairs.” A bald lie. Runt had given the appliance a wide berth since it fucked itself up somehownine weeks ago. He could pick any lock in the galaxy if need be, but tech scared him shitless. He hadn’t wanted to notify HardCell or spend the money for a replacement.
    After breakfast, Runt walked the big bastard up the rise to the stepped crop terraces, giving the tour he hadn’t offered the day before: fields, mango orchard, silos, greenhouse. On the sandy footpath, his trail of size eight-wide bootprints trotted beside those twenty-threes. What of it? Whether Ox was a spy or an ally, he should know just how much Runt had managed even with his shortcomings.
    Ox scrutinized the layout.
    Runt paused on a rise to point down to the eelbeds in the cove. The soft glare of both suns bounced off the waves and made them both squint the rest of the way up. Ox fidgeted as they reached the lush green rows.
    The automated soy-mill sat notched into the hill about fifteen meters from the fields where the beans grew. Drones fed the harvest straight into the silo beside the processors