Grown Men

he made mistakes more often, but like all children who grow up in spaceport alleys, he specialized in cutting corners and creative solutions. He found ways to own the land so the land stopped owning him .
    By the end of week three, they began to rely on each other as a matter of habit. Cooperating with a giant made him feel bigger, not smaller. Runt stopped surviving and began growing .
    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