PAC-4 SPRING

Each man was allotted up to three candidates for matrimony, and each woman could refuse two proposals before she had to either accept her third proposal or relinquish any reassignment until the review board reconvened, which could be as long as four years. Neither he or Clara had exercised either option; she had been his first candidate and she had accepted. Now Quenton wondered if they both hadn’t been too anxious.

"You guess so?" Rudy lowered his eyebrows, looking instantly stern in spite of his constant smile, and placed a large, calloused hand on top of Quenton’s. "It takes time, Quent. You’re still strangers in most ways."

"I don’t think she even likes me, Rudy.

"Horse feathers!" Rudy declared. "The rocks don’t leap up and stack themselves on this fence, do they? You have to work at it. Do you like her?"

Quenton only shrugged and pulled his hand from under Rudy’s hand. It was easy for him to believe those large hands had snapped the neck of an errant pickpocket who had struggled to escape with Rudy’s wallet. Rudy had been contrite but the judge remained dismayed by the exchange of 28 dollars for a human life. "I don’t know," Quenton admitted. "We don’t talk much except to complain," he confirmed with a nod, "she does a lot of that."

"And you? Do you complain to her?"

"It wouldn’t do any good... I know that. What were you and Elsa like when you first came here?"

"Five years younger," Rudy grinned and winked, "and a lot hornier. Elsa was zaftig and I was a lot lighter, too. Not skinny like you and Clara, but not like this." He patted his hands against the broad expanse of his stomach.

Everything about Rudy and Elsa was big, Quenton knew, including their hearts. Rudy had helped him harness train his horses, had helped him erect his dome, plumb his well. He owed Rudy a lot and Rudy asked for nothing, glad to have new neighbors living so close. Rudy took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his neck where the sweat had clustered.

"It’s so hot and it’s only spring," Quenton complained.

"It cools down in summer, when Major shades us from Minor," Rudy advised him, referring to the twin suns of PAC-4. The smaller sun was far hotter than the closer orange giant. "Summers are best here and the even temperatures are good for the crops." Quenton knew the maize and camilon of PAC-4 had already established a reputation for quality, if not quantity. If the Aggies were being truthful a man could turn a decent profit within a few years... if the prices held up, and if the rainfall was good. For Quenton that was three too many ifs.

"Are you making any money from all this, Rudy," Quenton asked, looking into Rudy’s eyes, "really?"

"Enough to own my farm free and clear, Quent," Rudy said, looking him straight in the eye. "Next we fix up the house. Me, I’d rather build a bigger barn, but it’s for Elsa and the kids. The barn can wait; Hans and Max don’t mind." Hans and Max were Rudy’s names for his pampered team; Hans was the huge roan, and Max, the even larger chestnut.

"Elsa must make out pretty well with her chickens. You didn’t make all that from just your crops?" Quenton had watched Elsa expertly pluck and gut the chickens she and Rudy raised, all the while talking nonstop as she sealed them in viswrap and plunged them into the instafreeze.

"We eat most of the chickens ourselves," Rudy shrugged. "The real money is in camilon, but it has to be picked by hand. I had Karl give you plenty of seed to plant.