by Damon Suede
Ox squinted at Runt with solemn eyes. He bunched his mouth a second, like he was about to say the word.
Lonely.
The barnstormers spiraled to the south and the plankton bombing continued, but Ox stopped being nervous standing beside him on the rise looking down over the wave. Again, they stopped working to watch the gooey jewels plunge into the sea, seeding it with biodesigned critters ready to work as hard as they were.
Ox powered through their tasks, joking with Runt and stripping to the waist as the suns climbed into the sky. Never speaking, he made it unnecessary for Runt to speak either. He was just there exactly whenever needed all damn day, with a hand, a hammer, a fresh canteen, helping without being asked. The morning melted past in easy rhythm, the toil a shared pleasure. Ox stopped flinching as the plasma crew crisscrossed the horizon.
Later that afternoon, stringing nets for the kudzu to climb, they realized they needed a ladder. Just as Runt turned to trudge back downhill to the shed to fetch it, Ox shook his head, braced his legs, and beckoned.
Without thinking, Runt took that hard hand and climbed his towering cofarmer like a tree, his calloused soles slipping a little on the wet muscle.
Ox laughed silently and braced Runt’s ankles—his enormous grip completely encircling them.
As soon as Runt stood firmly balanced atop his partner, the subsonic punch of six plasma engines made them both look up the slope—
Thwuuushhh-Thwuushhh-Thwush-Thwushh-Thwuuuushhh—
And another giant necklace of gleaming beads plunged into their ocean, burying treasure, seeding it with fresh life. The six plankton bombers had cut around behind the volcanic rise behind them, their contrails striping the candy-bright sky.
Under him, Ox gasped at the sight, his face tipped up in simple delight.
For no good reason, Runt waved in thanks, knowing they couldn’t see, but certain that Ox would have done the same if he could have spared a hand to do it.
Finally the barnstormers made an arcing slice toward the horizon, braiding their wakes in the cloudless air. Somewhere in the deeps, a trillion tiny lives stirred the dark water.
Thank you.
Ox turned back to the racks and stepped close.
Balanced nearly four meters in the air, Runt’s feet rode warm shoulders steady as stone, and he was able to hook the nets easily. He didn’t even feel small up there; he felt like they were a seamless team, a perfect match for anything thrown at them.
Ox took three steps back to check the hang along the length of the kudzu-lentils.
Runt glanced down and discovered that Ox had glanced up at the same instant. One nod, as always, only they did it in happy tandem.
Snick. It was almost a real sound. The world focused to a sudden, still point. What was it?
What is it?
For that one moment, Runt felt his hot soles on Ox’s burnished shoulders, the curl of Ox’s long fingers holding the bottom of his bunched calves, the sunlight shattered on the sea below. The wordless certainty spiraled into him.
Ox wants me. As a wife would. As a husband should. Runt grappled with the slippery idea and felt himself losing.
The rest of the workday, Ox stayed close and stood guard over him. Ox stood aside on jobs where Runt was better suited. What vat-grown wife would ever match him this way?
We orbit each other. The way the two suns burning overhead made daylight.
Ox laughed silently at something then, and the goofy non-sound stole Runt’s breath.
They sent my mate after all.
More than once during that endless, horny day, Runt tried to remember the person he’d thought he was, the life he’d thought he had. He tried to find his imaginary vat-grown wife in his mind’s eye, to conjure up her lush bottom, her sweet skin, her blank smile, but she melted like a cobweb. His lust kept turning to the hairy beast beside him, salty and scarred. He couldn’t control his desire and he found he didn’t want to try. Ox’s hammering heat hung over him like those suns.
Lunch was quick, and afterward Ox insisted on checking the large sea traps by himself, leaving Runt to send a request for meat pickup.
As he drafted the message for the incoming transport vessel, Runt ran the totals and realized they’d processed twice the meat and soy he’d managed the month prior. At this insane rate, the farm would turn a profit within a year.
Runt smiled to himself.
If HardCell could sculpt and mold this toxic knuckle of rock and gas into paradise, maybe life could happen anywhere. Maybe people came together the way deserts become jungles, the way seeds reach out-out-out toward a flower: by steady millimeters.
Ox is a miracle. My miracle.
Ox had poured himself into the farm, into Runt, filling the space waiting for him. If he had come to this island to hide from something, he’d found something here as well.
We both did.
Then Ox came back after dark, bleeding and naked.
Runt went to the door and saw his partner’s gigantic worksuit crumpled and split on the ground just outside.
Runt almost had a heart attack. His panic froze him there in the doorway while the gore drip-drip-dripped from Ox’s fingers onto the sand. His mouth dried, his breath stopped, and his chest seized. “Eel bite?”
Ox nodded, his face tight with pain. He was squeezing his upper arm tightly. Blood pooled between his rough fingers.
“Let’s have a look.” Runt said, peeling the big hand loose.
Fresh blood welled between Ox’s knuckles, which he kept pressed firmly to slow the flow. Gore smeared all down Ox’s side, spattered across his corded thighs and on top of one wide foot.
For some reason, Ox kept his eyes on the ground as if apologizing for bleeding so close to the habitat.
Runt nodded, keeping his voice low and soothing. “They’re only defending the pups. You must’ve gotten too close to the nest. C’mon in.”
Ox refused to enter the habitat and make a mess. Beyond him, bright scraps fluttered in the dark distance over the crop terraces and kudzu racks; the glowing moths he’d hatched that first week were pollinating their fields.
Thlip-thlip. The blood peppered the sand.
Runt’s dry tongue licked drier lips. His pulse slowed to a painful thud that made him queasy. “I need to patch that skin. Come inside before you bleed out.”
Staring at Runt in apology and grimacing at the red-spattered threshold, Ox shook his head once, as if embarrassed that some dumb eel had gotten the better of him.
Runt knew the bite probably looked worse than it was, but he hated seeing Ox’s pain.
He’s fine.
“Don’t be stupid, ya fucking ogre. C’mon. Odd’s Gods! You think I mind walking in your gravy?” Runt gripped the thick arm, his own hand red and slippery. “Else I’m gonna have to do a fucking amputation right here on the doorstep!”
Ox relented. Nodded once and let Runt tug him inside. His hand pressed against the wound itself and he didn’t seem able to move his hand. A slow dark seep slid from under the clenched knuckles.
“It’s just blood. I’ll wipe it up. Quit moaning.” Despite the large man’s protests, Runt sat him on their bed.
“Stay put. ’Til I can— Hang on.” Runt swallowed his terror and tried to stay logical, calm, competent. They only had each other.
Ox looked gray, but obeyed as his partner scrabbled in the cabinets. His breathing was very shallow, just sipping air into his lungs.
Runt stopped and choked the anxiety down, wiping Ox’s blood on his own chest, right over his hammering heart. His eyes focused and the medkit sat right where it always did.
“You can breathe okay?”
Ox gave a small nod and shivered.
Runt kept epi-darts for anaphylactic shock, but Ox wasn’t wheezing. “If blood got in the bite—”
Ox raised his eyes, swimming up through the pain.
No rash and no cramping . . . so no eel blood had gotten in the wound. Or the water had washed it away.
&nbs
p; “Ox, I’m gonna need you to let go so I can see your little scratch.”
Ox nodded, but his hand stayed against the bite.
Runt put his small hand on the larger one. He didn’t tug or push, just rested his palm against it and made a soothing sound to calm Ox down.
C’mon.
Millimeter by millimeter, the massive hand lifted under Runt’s away from the bite. Ox’s panic made the pulse throb in his big throat. He was going into shock.
Runt saw why.
With the hand out of the way, serious damage was visible. Torn skin, sure, but a circle of shredded intercostal muscles, almost down to the bone. Worst of all, a long, serrated tooth had buried itself between two ribs. Dark blood oozed out of him like syrup.
The cuts were nothing, and the muscle would heal with a patch in a few days. But the tooth could kill him. Lodged there like a shunt, the barbs had stopped it from sliding in and puncturing a lung. Ox could easily bleed out if they didn’t remove it. Much worse than slow poisoning.
HardCell would have to evacuate him.
Now.
Ox tried to sit up.
“No.” Runt kept his face steady. “Why don’t you stretch out a few ticks? Lemme see if we’ve got something to pull a tooth.” He pushed Ox back onto the foam and grabbed the basics from the medkit.
The room stank of musk and copper.
“First thing, we need to stop the bleeding, yeah?”
Ox nodded, his pupils blown black by his adrenal levels.
Runt slapped a dermal patch on Ox’s smeared hip. And then another one on his pec to be safe. They would lower his heart rate, which would slow the blood loss for a bit.
Runt disinfected the wound twice, and sealed it with plasti-skin with a hole for the tooth. The bandage would buy him a few minutes to contact transport for evac.
He’ll be fine.
They didn’t have a surgery. Terraforming was a high-risk, high-yield profession. If you lost a couple fingers, your profits and your citizenship took away some of the sting.
But that ragged tooth couldn’t stay in his rib. And the synthetic skin would only stabilize the wound until Ox could be evacuated.
What if he left and didn’t come back? I’d— Well—
Runt took a shuddery breath and kept scratching Ox’s head, trying to soothe him.
I can’t go with him.
If Runt left, HardCell would claim abandonment, repossess, and install new cofarmers. They’d both lose the land, the citizenship, everything.
Runt‘s mind skittered over the crappy options: call HardCell or risk worse?
With Ox in shock and none of the facts, the decision had to be Runt’s, and it would be blind. Luck fucks me again.
If Ox was hiding, a hospital visit could ruin everything. If he had betrayed HardCell, they might retire him there rather than risk the publicity. No way Ox wanted corporate scrutiny or his vitals splashed over data terminals.
Runt went to the terminal but stopped, his bloody hands hovering over the keyboard.
What am I forgetting?
Once he sent the request, the rules would change entirely. A medical team would make decisions based on cost and odds. They’d control Ox’s body completely, because according to his indenture contract they owned every millimeter of it.
HardCell means business!
But if Runt couldn’t get that tooth out, Ox’s death would be slow and painful. Sepsis would devour his giant from inside.
If I’d gone with him.
If the wetsuits were armored. If the medkit had a scalpel. Fuck.
What am I forgetting?
All he cared about was stretched out on the fucking mattress.
All I care about.
Ox panted in pain, hissing air between his teeth. He blinked over eyes dark and slick as volcanic glass.
What is it? Something about the bee-moths.
Runt flicked his eyes around the sleep-space trying to dislodge the thought. Something in the sheds? Focus.
“Try to breathe slowly.” Again Runt’s memory churned and itched. The digital queen chirped inside his head. C’mon. He ran a hand over his own face.
Alone.
Ox’s blood leaked around the tooth, puddling on the bed, their bed, the dark ooze creeping wider. A shudder ran across his muscles.
Think.
Runt’s mouth filled with aluminum spit and he swallowed the urge to vomit. Think. The answer hovered in his peripheral vision. The smell of chopped mango leaves.
The retirement package!
The kill-kit! Welded into the walls. The sonic blade. Runt’s mind raced.
Drugs. Knife.
Ox flinched when Runt stood up suddenly. Red dripped fresh and hot to the floor.
“Stay!”
Ox’s eyes widened, swimming in agony, and he took a sharp breath. He shook his head and held out a pleading hand, as if Runt was abandoning him. His mouth moved as if trying to make words.
“No, buddy, I mean—” Runt held up a finger and started to leave. He turned back to say, “Wait right here. And I’m coming back to fix you.”
Out the habitat door, past the palms, Runt sprinted up the low slope. Up on the terraces, he could see the soft bee-moths out in the fields working the night shift. He almost tore the door off the shed getting at the submachete and cracked something getting out of there, but he felt nothing. The blood roaring in his ears amounting to one word:
Hive. And then: Knife.
In three strides, Runt faced the hollow hive wall and cocked the whirring blade. Not pausing to think, he sliced the panel in a wide, blistering cut that exposed the kill-kit. Before it could fall, he dropped the smoking submachete in the sand, scooped up the murder box and ran back down to the habitat.
Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.
As soon as he barged across the threshold, the quiet sounded like thunder. “I’m back. I’m here! We’re okay, huh?”
Ox nodded once, his face pale and slick. He closed his eyes a moment, as if he hadn’t blinked since Runt left, as if some part of him had expected Runt to just leave him to suffer. Leave him to die. Ox’s breathing had gotten more shallow, but still no signs of toxicity.
Runt’s heart squeezed into a tight, determined fist behind his breastbone.
Chance brought him here, and chance’ll keep him safe.
He set the weapon case on the bed and popped it open. It didn’t matter to him now if Ox saw it or not.
“Ox . . . Ox? Can you hear me?” Runt’s hands shook as he attempted to roll the oversized body into a fetal curl on the bed. “I’m going to knock you out for a second. And then I’m gonna get that thing out of you.”
Ox rolled. The bleeding under the bandage had continued, a dark pad of sluggish blood gathered there under the synthetic skin, seeping a little where the tooth pierced it.
Using one of the trank darts, Runt stung Ox before any silent questions got asked. The giant sighed, his eyes rolled back, and his pulse slowed instantly, not comatose but definitely sub-sentient. Tension washed out of his sinews. The bulldog creases of his face softened into trusting slumber.
Finally.
Runt took a real breath. For once, for this, he tried to be as methodical as Ox: listing the steps he would take. Extracting this tooth would be like fishing out a broken lock pick when he was a kid sleeping in alleys.
Easy-squeezy.
Slow, smart, steady was the way to get in and out easiest. When it mattered. For a second, Runt remembered squatting with other punks teaching him the ropes so he could jack enough food to survive. The rattle of the wire, the snick of the bolt’s release.
Make the hole a fraction wider, then fish it loose.
Runt cracked his knuckles and exhaled fully, forcing his heart rate to calm so his stubby fingers wouldn’t shake more than they were already. A droplet of sweat fell from his eyebrow and onto Ox’s feverish, stained skin.
Take what you need.
Runt took a breath and held it. His pulse pounded
so hard his vision began to throb, blurring just barely with every pound of his heart as it pushed his sap where he needed it.
Using calipers to grip the hard tooth, he picked up the sonic knife and got his face as close to the wound as he could. He squeezed the bone handle, and a shivering scalpel flickered from the hilt: vibrations sharp enough to slice a hair.
Just a nick. Just this once.
As soon as it tapped the synthetic skin, the flat disk of blood under the bandage slid scarlet down his side and hip, soaking the bed. More blood than seemed safe. Runt exhaled and took another breath.
Please, please—
With shaking hands, Runt set the point at the tooth’s insertion point. The sonic-blade never seemed to cut, it just . . . entered without resistance as the molecules thrummed a passage into the skin. Like light passing through plexicrete, neither one broken.
All of Odd’s Gods, firm and foolish—
The humming tip scratched the tooth, balanced there. Runt relaxed his grip a fraction.
Carefully, carefully, Runt picked the lock of Ox’s wound. He let the bone weight of the knife widen the cut ever so slightly, then lifted it away quickly. He dropped it on the floor with a clank. It fell silent without his hand to arm it.
—dice gently with our fortunes—
Blood started to well under the synthetic skin still stabilizing the wound. Ox barely breathed, but that was best.
Runt realized he had cried, that he was crying. He could feel it tracking through the dust on his face. Only one tear, but enough to shame him. And he couldn’t spare a hand to wipe it.
—Because I’d sooner die than lose him.
Now that the barbs had clearance, Runt used the calipers and tugged the vicious tooth free, wincing every time it sawed Ox open a little more. That his cofarmer didn’t flinch only made him hate the evil spike more. He growled under his breath.
So much blood. Every scarlet drop burned his eyes like acid, but he didn’t cry another tear. Spine by spine the tooth slipped free of Ox’s muscle and bone.
All better.
Runt sterilized the reopened wound. He cleaned the gore and slapped another strip of synth-skin over it to stop the bleeding and numb the torn flesh. He’d done the right thing, so completely the right thing that he felt lightheaded.