Grown Men

lightning striking the curdled sky and his walls split in two places.
    Worse, the sky had thrown back a bolt of charged ions and obliterated Runt’s hive-shed; for two nights after the tempest, thousands of bright bee-moths drifted on the tides as they tried and failed to fight their way back to the farmstead. The air had smelled like burnt ozone for a week.
    Some genius goofs, grunts pay the price. Business as usual.
    Once HardCellfinished fine-tuning the climate, the storms would cease and the planetoid would stabilize like every other corporate combine: islands of fertile dirt and brackish oceans, perfect for eel-ranching and irrigation. In the meantime, Runt had patched his habitat as best he could and hunkered down. Losing the moths had ruined his meager harvest and he’d started rationing to be safe.
    Then— blam —this loaded container: twelve cubic meters of salvation. With his shitty harvest stats, Runt knew he should feel grateful, and yet . . . Stepping over that big rolled tarp, he cleared a path through the supplies to the back of the container.
    A few of his requests were missing like always, but he’d gotten his essentials and more: eight crates of spirulina pellets, six barrels of desiccated vegetable cubes, clean worksuits, a case of bright pink Soyshimi, fresh medkits, new tools, two pairs of sea boots twice his size, even some fresh holo-porn from the company’s sex resorts.
    Thank fuck .
    HardCell hadn’t supplied this much when they’d hired him. In his head, he logged the contents quickly as he shuttled packages onto the warm beach.
    That silvery weatherproofing for his habitat would change his life. With luck, this one would be reflective enough to cover the entire habitat against the blinding double daylight and drop the temperature inside by at least thirty degrees.
    Still no wife. Yet.
    His stomach growled at the nearness of all those nutrients. For the first time in his life, saliva pooled in his mouth at the thought of the “tasty” mealpak paste. Hunched inside the cool darkness of the transport container, he devoured another two mealpaks, forcing himself to go slowlyand licking even the odor off his stiff mustache.
    With a beggar’s wisdom, he chose textures and entrees he loathed (curry and pickled tongue) to save the good stuff. His taste buds exploded . In seconds, he had new favorite cuisines and let himself lick the wrapper to get at every speck.
    Now sated, Runt climbed out, blinking at the sudden brightness, and shuffled the supplies into piles: edibles for his habitat cook-space and the meds, new blades, and lotion for the wash-space and auto-privy. Hammergun and seed to the greenhouse, pipe and plasticrete and cubes of krill to the shed, the stasis canisters of eel pups to the brood tanks. He continued to pluck the massive supply container clean, not wanting to waste anything Dispatch might have sent to help him not die out here. Even the packing would prove useful.
    Terraforming was lonely work, but at the end of a seven-year tour, Runt’d own a stake in the farm he’d built here on the edge of nowhere and become a voting HardCell shareholder. Building a planet gave you a head start on the other knobjobs.
    They were building paradise. Or he was.
    What Runt really needed was his new clone bride. Odd’s Gods! Eighteen months of masturbation didn’t breed too many brats to help at harvest. Even if it primed the pump.
    Far as Runt knew, assigned mates were one of the only perks of terraforming. Runt knew he was too small and too rough to court a real civilized bride, but he’d be able to charm whatever fertile female they cooked up for him, no matter how ugly or ill-tempered. Clone spouses were engineered for compatibility.
    No wife yet . Still, the lavish provisions eased his let-down.
    Runt cracked his neck and decided to store the crates of food first. Thankfully, the past year had packed so much sinew onto his compact frame that he could manage alone. It was grunting, sweaty work, even with the suns throwing long, low shadows.
    This was three times the produce the transport pricks had dropped last time. Odd . He’d almost starved last season. As he hauled a hundred kilos of mealpaks and food tanks from the shore and into the habitat cook-space, he moved at the rhythm set by his heart thumping in his ears. Silent work came easily now. He had stopped talking to himself after about six months because it made him feel even crazier.
    HardCell always placed cofarmers