by Damon Suede
The reflective packaging moved again and one of its occupants gave a bass groan. Transport anesthesia wearing off. With a tearing sound, the flex-wrap split, and one gigantic hairy arm clawed at the sand a moment as Runt’s assassin struggled free from the life-support sack and the silvered fabric.
A man, large enough to be two people, but no mate.
Because he’s too oversized to share a stasis sleeve.
Huge. Naked. Drugged. Alone.
Runt goggled in confusion as the superhuman body squirmed out of the shiny canvas like a colossal larva to flop on the sand and gulp the briny air.
I sat on him. I ate a mealpak sitting on my executioner.
Runt circled nearer, submachete by his side with the safety off. He took a step. He took another one.
Still shivering from the drugs and the bruising impact, the strapping stranger didn’t react. He twitched and curled on the hot ground, heaving.
Fuck, he’s huge. Runt took another wary step. He’s a fucking mutant.
The stranger unfolded his limbs and rolled onto his side. His bulging arms were longer than Runt’s legs. His broad back was a shifting wall of muscle over a high, square ass. His flaccid penis hung like some kind of blunt trunk.
Runt knew he had about a thirty-second window as the transport tranquilizers wore off. If he was going to kill his replacement, this was the only moment. The submachete whirred softly in Runt’s calloused hand a few centimeters above the ground as he crept.
Closer . . . closer.
Runt’s mouth hardened into a scowl under his salt-stiff mustache. If he slaughtered this circus clone now, he could claim the goon had died on entry like his long-lost wife.
Do it.
The groggy giant gasped and spat, then rolled onto all fours, his head hanging. He shuddered, and drool ran from his mouth. He had close-cropped tawny hair, bronzed skin, and a stubbled face that looked like it had seen plenty of fights.
He’s a killer.
Brawny slabs of military-grade synthetic muscle covered his frame. Maybe not a full clone, but growth hormones out the wazoo, obviously. The broad paw spread on the ground had a palm bigger than Runt’s entire face.
Don’t look at him.
Runt’s eyes scanned for the sweet spots: throat, kidney, groin. He raised the humming submachete, his hand sweaty on the gel grip. He glanced up at the habitat, his crop terraces, the little kingdom he’d built by himself for eighteen months a millimeter at a time.
Retire him now.
Suddenly, the troll turned his head and looked right into Runt’s eyes and simply smiled in relief . . . as if greeting an old friend. A small smile . . . no triumph, no cruelty, a faint hopeful curve of childlike pleasure which dampened Runt’s murderous thoughts. As if the big dumb freak was happy to be naked and puking on the sand at the ass-end of the universe.
Shit.
A human smile after so long.
Runt couldn’t stop himself: his face smiled back reflexively. He killed the blade and lowered it, stepping near enough to look the burly bastard in the eye.
Kneeling, the ogre was easily as tall as Runt was standing. The window of opportunity was gone, but this idiot didn’t seem to want to slaughter anybody. For now.
The ocean rolled gently, mango syrup simmering under the mismatched suns. Over the bay, long scarves of humidity hung in the air behind the giant.
The big stranger tried to use the cracked transport container to pull himself to his feet, but his thick legs were too wobbly. As he leaned against the shell, a form transmission crackled into life, the holographic words hovering in the air between them as a feminine synth voice read aloud, putting odd stress on the few customized phrases HardCell’s recruitment division had inserted by way of explanation:
“Well met, terraformer! Our sensors indicate that you currently occupy only . . . thirty-seven percent . . . of the living quarters of your habitat. In the interest of efficiency, we have identified and negotiated with a cohabitant facing similar . . . physio-spatial challenges . . . to fill the remaining . . . sixty-three percent . . . as the optimal solution for all employees concerned. HardCell means business!”
Those corporate pinheads had given him a new partner who wasn’t female? Odd’s Gods! Someone had fucked him big time.
The hulk looked at Runt. He licked his cracked lips and swallowed, still too woozy to speak, apparently. Instead, he patted his chest and pressed his open hands toward the ground.
The form message calmly continued cataloging Runt’s deficiencies.
“Our gratitude, terraformer! You have demonstrated . . . spunk and adaptability . . . On reviewing your medical diagnostics and your serious . . . physical limitations . . . it has been determined that . . . perpetuating your genetic material . . . would be of minimal advantage to our Andromeda Enterprise and planetoid HD10307-E’s developing ecosystem. We are confident that you and your new cofarmer will find your skills complimentary. HardCell means business!”
Shitwits. The terraform managers had run short of viable female clones and they’d sent this goon to keep a fucking eye on him! Two freaks on a rock. How was he supposed to make babies? Great. “Dispatch must hate one of us.”
The beach was quiet now except for the surf. HardCell had tuned the planetoid’s manmade climate to tropical paradise and the sea had cooled to an endless rolling pound the temperature of arterial blood.
His unwanted, unfemale cohort scowled at him for that, eyes alert. The transport drugs were wearing off.
Don’t spit on the fresh meat.
“Sorry.” Runt squinted across at the new cofarmer the corporate chuckleheads had sent. “Oi! Can you talk?”
The gigantic man shook his skull and shivered again. His deep-set eyes and blunt features made him look like a husky, hairy infant.
“Do you have a name?” Runt asked, crossing his arms.
The behemoth nodded once but said nothing. He held a hand in front of his lips.
“You can’t tell me?”
The man stared blankly.
Great. Just perfect.
Apparently, his ears worked fine, but he was a mute. After eighteen months of solitary confinement with bugs and eels, Runt had landed a partner who couldn’t speak?
“Can you even write?” Runt’s sarcasm bit the air. Where had they dug this meatbox up?
The naked stranger didn’t flinch. Using one blunt finger, he wrote something in the sand in blurry demi-Arabic, it looked like: Oqsun? Ou’kzon, maybe? Runt’s Arabic was for shit.
“Oks’ayn?” Runt scowled at the blurry cursive abjad. “Shit. What kind of name is that?”
The thick digit tapped the name’s tail end, then tapped the broad chest.
“Ox.” Runt looked up from all that intimidating brawn and hair, all too aware of his own shortcomings. “People call you Ox. Well, that makes sense. You are a big ugly beast.”
But Ox turned to look at Runt with a solemn expression, bulldog eyes asking a question.
His rugged face was creased, but unscarred. And the heavy stubble pushing through the square jaw was as dense as the whorls of hair over his heroic pectorals and gargantuan legs.
How had HardCell Terraformation convinced this brute to slave on a backwater planetoid? He was too freakish to have been genetically engineered or vat-bred, and yet . . .
Light mist had begun to crawl up from the tide pools, softening the sharp edge of the cliffs and the manmade structures nestled around the cove.
“Yeah. Uh. I’m Runnan, but mostly I’m called Runt. For obvious reasons, yeah?” Runt dropped his eyes, embarrassed. His legs were still rigid with tension, and he relaxed them. No one was getting murdered tonight, apparently.
Ox stared at him, face calm as granite. They needed to get indoors and pull some polyblankets before the big man went into shock. He was too huge to drag and Runt was too tired. The twilit ocean seemed unnaturally loud, like a crowd roaring behind a wall.
Runt jerked his head by way of a suggestion. The sec
ond sun had fallen and a few glowing bee-moths had begun tending the crop terraces in the middle distance.
Ox finally managed to rise. All the way up, towering over everything. He nodded, once.
Odd’s Gods!
Runt had to tip his head back to look at him. When he did, he realized that Ox wasn’t ugly at all, just unbelievably oversized.
Gah.
Ox stood easily two and one third meters tall; dense muscle wrapped his bones like tectonic armor. A narrow strip of pale skin and trimmed hair framed his heavy privates . . . that meant the rich tan was fake-bake, which meant he’d probably sold his sex recently. Most likely he’d been used for stud service in one of HardCell’s baby farms or a sex resort; only bodyworkers could afford such careful ultraviolet irradiation. Small wonder, with that DNA! Even soft, his bull cock was half the length and girth of Runt’s forearm.
Runt looked away and felt a droplet of sweat slither down the side of his close-cropped head and down his neck. He was starting to get a complex. Not only had his bosses openly called him a misfit, they’d sent this fucking XYY troglodyte with a meter on him in height and enough testosterone for four colonists to kick his ass with size twenty-two boots. Maybe they were hoping strength was infectious and Runt would come down with a severe case of maleness.
Pinheads.
Ox moved with the measured grace of a predator at the top of every food chain. How did a worker so physically capable wind up with a crap contract? Convict? Soldier? Slave?
Runt sighed and made a rude gesture at the cracked container. “Oi. Guess neither of us is getting married for a while, yeah? Not like we can file a complaint. Tricky pricksters.”
Without responding, Ox crouched naked in the sand and crawled inside the transport container that hadn’t been flimsy enough to kill him.
What took his voice? Years in and out of detention as a spaceport brat had taught Runt to aim low and shoot twice.
After some thumping and scrabbling, Ox pulled himself free and balanced on its lid to stare over the night waves for a moment in the dwarf sun’s ruddy light. In his beefy fist, no weapon, just the standard HardCell travelpak: disinfectants, disposable clothes, and temporary toiletries. He stood bold on his plastic alloy chrysalis, for all the world like a tacky sculpture at a seaside slut-hut for tourists.
Penis on the Half Shell.
Enough. Emasculated and exhausted in the evening light, Runt snorted and stalked toward his habitat, and heard Ox jump down from his perch and follow, his bigger feet thud-thud-thudding on the sand behind him.
The door hissed open. Runt stepped through and—suh-snap—the habitat sparked awake around him. Indirect pearly glow filled the cornerless chamber.
In his absence, the hygiene nozzles had sterilized its creamy surfaces and molded furniture.
Just in time for company.
Ox had paused outside to scrape more of the dust and foam shreds off himself. Behind him, a lopsided magenta barbell of light blazed as the setting suns vanished in tandem under the sea.
He’s so . . . naked.
As Runt watched, the tuok-took of the big night crabs prompted Ox to look at the horizon, his profile chiseled in silhouette.
Runt made an impatient sound and crossed his arms. “Oi. Come inside so I can show you the place.”
Ox did. His shoulders were wider than the habitat doorway. He actually had to turn sideways as he ducked and stepped inside.
Instantly, what had been Runt’s personal palace turned into a crowded cube, bonsaied by Ox’s bulk. The entire habitat seemed flimsy and cramped between them.
Ox took three careful steps into the middle of the live-space. His kneecap showed over the back of the bench; his skull sat less than a meter from the ceiling of his new home.
Our home.
“You can sit down if you need, yeah?” Runt tugged at his itchy balls and tried not to sound irritated. At least if Ox sat down they’d be the same height.
The larger man stayed still as he looked the room over. Runt followed his gaze: an open cook-space on one wall, a wide sleep-space on the opposite, and a curved bench in front of a holo-vid projector on the third. The fourth wall was a doorway to the wash-space.
Runt felt like a pygmy. Why couldn’t he have been vat-grown or full clone? His fucking parents should have thought of the consequences.
At one and three-quarters meters with barely a strip of fuzz at his sternum, he resented this vast bastard. He was built broad and plenty strong; even four centimeters taller and he wouldn’t have had to put up with this shit from his employers.
Runt cursed his short family. It was all his father’s fault. Dwarf bastard shoulda kept his crank in his pants. Or paid for corrective genetics.
Love! What a crock of shit.
Runt snorted. He’d take careful planning and applied genetics over affection any day. He toed off his seaboots and walked past his big cofarmer to rinse his arms and dry them with a faded towelette.
Ox’s movements stayed deliberate and contained. He left space between them as much as the narrow chamber permitted and kept turning to Runt to nod politely.
He’s trying not to frighten me.
Runt scowled. If he had to be stuck with a man, at least they could treat each other like men. He didn’t want any tiptoeing, so he wasn’t going to tiptoe either.
“Go ahead and break something. Break whatever to get the ball rolling.”
Ox’s brow beetled.
“I mean, you’re gonna. So you might as well just smash something now and have it over with.”
But the dumb slab just shook his head once without smiling.
He’ll never break anything, I bet. Or laugh.
Ox inspected the habitat with the caution of a jungle cat.
Rummaging through the cook-space cabinets, Runt’s fist closed on a mealpak, and he threw it hard enough to startle his silent partner. “Oi! Big boy!”
Ox turned in time to catch the food.
“You should eat anyways.” Runt pointed at the entree and then Ox’s chiseled mouth. “Slowly or you’ll choke, yeah?”
He nodded once in thanks and smiled again into Runt’s eyes.
Runt’s groin itched like anything, but damned if he’d scratch. Why should he seem uncomfortable?
Maybe I’m allergic to mutants.
He pressed his itchy nuts again from inside his pocket. “Are you all right?”
Again, Ox nodded just once, content. He squinted at Runt, his Cro-Magnon brow wrinkled as if solving a puzzle.
Runt looked away before he smiled back. “And there’s plenty of water. But whatever you drink you have to replace.” He gestured in the direction of the hydrotreatment shed twenty meters away and tossed a bottle that Ox caught with a massive paw. Transport hibernation left everyone starved and dehydrated.
The water looked like a toy in that fist, but Ox’s face bloomed with gratitude. He turned his head and nodded once, sipping the water gingerly. For someone that size, it would be barely a mouthful.
In the close space, Runt began to realize they both needed a wash. He had been rank already from the day’s chores, but Ox was unclothed and the giant’s locker-room reek swirled around Runt, making him sweat and swallow involuntarily.
Gah!
Suddenly his entire crotch tickled, from his belly to his upper legs. That’s what itched: his endocrine system short-circuiting. Ox’s scent was probably altered to cause arousal for sex work.
Runt’s mouth filled again with saliva, and his moist foreskin retracted slightly inside his undergear; his scrotum shifted. He kept his fists bunched so he wouldn’t give in to the maddening itch.
Thanks, HardCell. Just perfect.
Ox stood by the cook-space wall as if waiting for orders, his head only a half-meter under the waxy incandescence where the wall curved into the ceiling.
Runt stood in his sweat-stiff clothing, and licked his salty mustache. “I need a hard scrub, yeah? And then you need at least two. You’re fuckin’ ripe!”
Ox grimaced an apology, rocking on the balls of his bare feet. Maybe the big fucker knew what his pheromones did, what Runt’s skin felt like. Even shifting his weight, his thighs bunched with power. He still hadn’t touched the mealpak.
“Eat. It’s yours. You, uh . . .” Runt pretended nonchalance, leaning against the cook-space counter. “You bought all that gear and food and what, yeah?”
Ox pressed both hands against his chest and then pressed both palms toward Runt. The supplies were theirs to share. He nodded, once.
“Housewarming.” Runt bobbed his head, but wouldn’t raise his eyes. “Good.”
How the hell had he afforded those supplies?
“Ox. Use a chair, huh? Make yourself . . . Well, this is home, so get comfortable as you can. Five ticks.” Runt jabbed a finger toward the BBQ mealpak in Ox’s big mitt. “And fucking eat something, would ya?”
Ox nodded in apology. Without looking at it, he raised the packet to his lips, sucking a mouthful of the paste, his muscular throat swallowing.
Those insidious pheromones filled Runt’s nostrils and his neurons. He could feel his anatomy responding as he crossed the room: cock ticklish and swollen, mouth wet and loose, nipples tightening, hair on end. Until he acclimated to them, he’d have to take anti-allergens or he’d go bonkers.
Runt stepped inside the bathroom cubicle and the door slid shut behind him. The entire space was a shower stall: toilet and sink were mounted on opposite walls and a spray of water fell from directly overhead from the smartbarrels on the roof.
A fucking raw deal is what it is. Slave out here for a year and more and this mutant fucker had jumped in to swipe a piece. Ox was twice as big and eighteen months late so he’d have to do twice the work, no, five times the work.
Runt peeled off his grimy gear straight into the laundry hatch. He looked at the ceiling and wondered if Ox could even fit in here to wash. Then water fell from above, warm from the day’s sunlight. It sluiced the grime from his compact muscles as he scoured his aching body and scalp with the dregs of the disinfectant lotion. He hoped Ox had brought a barrel for himself.
Thieving bastard.
Runt scrubbed and scowled at the unfairness of it. Without preamble, his cock jerked to life under the delicious flow. Fucking freak pheromones. That was going to be a problem. Runt scrubbed under his aching balls a minute and thought about dropping a quick load. Only the towering stranger outside stopped him. Ox didn’t need to slip in a puddle of Runt’s jism on his first night.