Frontier

  If the four farms were the same, I had the answer to my question. Rodrish’s farm was just as large as this one. I forced myself to speak in what I hoped was a normal voice. “Your other two brothers chose the next two nearest farms?”

  “Exactly.” Rodrish grinned at me. “That means we’ve got quite a long walk to get to my farm. Please don’t let the distance worry you. I’ve got plenty of horses you could ride.”

  I’d been mocked as a child for being scared of horses, so I kept my lingering fear of riding as secret as possible, but I had to be honest with someone I was considering marrying.

  “I get frightened on horseback,” I said. “I know that’s ridiculous, but the combination of the jolting and being so high off the ground makes me feel like I’ll fall off at any moment.”

  Rodrish was frowning, but his expression seemed thoughtful rather than disapproving. “If you’ve only ridden the huge farm horses bred for pulling ploughs, you might find you’re more comfortable with a well-trained riding horse. If that doesn’t work, you could always drive some kind of small cart instead. I’ve got a two seater buggy in my stable.”

  I smiled in relief. Rodrish wasn’t laughing at my problem, but trying to help. This was another reason for me to like him. “I’d have no problem driving a buggy.”

  We started walking along the track. Rodrish was talking about the crops we were passing. I tried to say some sensible things in response, but my mind was thinking through the implications of Rodrish having a farm that was ten times the standard size. Even with the help of machinery, he couldn’t possibly get so many fields ploughed and into cultivation when he was working alone. I knew Rodrish Jain’s parents hired men to help work their land, because some of the customers at Mojay’s Bar worked for them. Once Rodrish had the first few fields bearing crops, he’d have to start hiring farm workers too.

  When we reached the closest point to Bened’s farmhouse, I stopped walking to study it. My parents had extended their original wooden cabin several times over the years, first adding extra rooms at the sides, and then a large two storey extension that was bigger than the rest put together. The result was a rambling and oddly shaped wooden house, just about large enough for a family with eleven children.

  Bened’s house was even larger than that, a stunningly elegant structure built of cream stone. It was two storeys high, and I could see from the windows that there were some attic rooms as well. An impressive array of barns, stables, and other outbuildings were off to one side, a fruit and vegetable plot was on the other, and there was what looked like an ornamental flower garden at the front.

  I was quite bewildered by the flower garden, because I’d only seen gardens like it on the vids made on other worlds. Since there were no pollinating insects on Miranda, its plants didn’t have true flowers. The garden in front of me included some Mirandan plants with false fruits that resembled flowers, and a mass of the few species of Earth flowering plants that had been authorized for introduction to Miranda.

  Rodrish gave a nervous cough. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather we didn’t stand around in view of Bened’s house. If he spots us together, he’ll probably come running down here to shout embarrassing remarks at me.”

  I hastily started walking again. If I’d been going to look at any other man’s farm, and his friends or brothers tried anything like that, I’d give them a slap and tell them to stop behaving like toddlers in nappies. I couldn’t imagine slapping a member of the illustrious Jain family though.

  Every Founders Day, people gathered in the settlements of Miranda to honour those who gave us our world. As the leaders of the Colony Ten group, Kellan and Inessa Jain led the ceremony at Memorial, the place where the Military had officially handed over Miranda to them. It was always Bened Jain who represented the family at the Jain’s Ford Settlement’s gathering.

  No, I definitely couldn’t slap someone as important as Bened Jain. I frowned as I realized we’d have to walk past the farms of Rodrish’s other two brothers as well. “Is there a different way to get to your farm?”

  Rodrish nodded eagerly. “There’s a path along the river bank, but it can get muddy sometimes.”

  I shrugged. “I grew up on a farm. I’m used to mud.”

  “In that case, we should take the next side path into the river conservation zone.”

  The side path was very narrow, and kept twisting and turning to find a way between the red-barked trunks of the Mirandan native trees, but we soon reached a much better path running along the river bank.

  We could walk side by side again here. Rodrish seemed much more relaxed now, and I was relieved to have escaped the hot sunshine on the track for the cooler air by the river. Either my encounter with Shelby Summerhaze, or the shock of learning the size of Rodrish’s farm, had started my headache nagging me again.

  “I remember your father gave you your farm last November,” I said. “Did you start work on it right away?”

  “Yes. Once I’d passed the last module of my Farming Studies Certificate, Father gave me the farm and some starting capital. That meant I could make my own decisions on what to plant for the autumn harvest. All the fields had been alternating between Mirandan cabbage for spring harvest and medcorn for autumn harvest up until then, but I’m starting to grow other crops now.”

  I’d been comforting myself with the thought that Rodrish owned a daunting amount of land, but it would take many years to get it all ploughed and into cultivation. That wasn’t true. His father had given him a working farm. I’d never heard the phrase “starting capital” before, but it sounded like Rodrish had also been given the credits he’d need to run the farm and pay his workers until he got the income from his first harvest.

  “Of course I couldn’t ask you to look at my farm until the house was built,” said Rodrish. “I’m sorry that meant keeping you waiting for months, but Father believes in building in stone wherever possible. He says that in a hundred years from now, all the flexiplas domes will have fallen apart and the timber houses will have rotted away. Our stone houses will be the ones that last and become the historic buildings of Miranda.”

  Rodrish gave me an anxious look. “Does that make sense to you? Father is much better at saying these things than I am.”

  “It makes a lot of sense.” After all the history texts I’d been reading lately, I was struck by this idea. History and historians had no place on Miranda now, but things would be different in a century or two. Jain’s Ford would be remembered as one of Miranda’s first settlements. People would come to admire the Jains’ stone houses, and historians would write about the families who’d lived in them and how they’d helped make Miranda into a famous world.

  “We can put up wooden barns and stone outbuildings quickly and easily ourselves,” said Rodrish. “Even with the help of skilled builders, a large stone house takes far longer. Anyway, my house is finally finished, except for the doors, windows, and some painting.”

  “Does it look much like Bened’s house?” I asked.

  “My parents wanted each of us brothers to have houses that are the same size and built in the same local stone, but we chose the style and the details ourselves. I wanted something less stiffly formal than Bened’s house. I hope you’ll like the result.”

  “I’m sure I will,” I said.

  We walked on for a couple of minutes before Rodrish spoke again. “I should warn you that my parents are rather ... dedicated to Colony Ten. I suppose that’s obvious from the fact they were the leaders of the Colony Ten group on Miranda.”

  I nodded. “It must take true dedication to go through the Colony Ten years on one world, and then apply to do it a second time as group leaders on another. Your two oldest brothers were born during your parents’ Colony Ten years on their first world, weren’t they?”

  “Yes. When Percival went into full colonization, and my parents’ application for Colony Ten group leadership was accepted, they left Bened and Caden with friends on Percival while they took their new Colony T
en group through the preparation phase and led them to Miranda.”

  Rodrish paused to pull an odd face. “The colonists aren’t allowed to have children in the first two years of Colony Ten, because that’s when a world is most likely to hit serious problems. That meant Bened and Caden had to stay on Percival for nearly two and a half years before joining my parents on Miranda. Caden barely remembers that time, but Bened is always talking about it. He knows our mother still feels guilty about leaving them on Percival, so he just has to start whining about missing its flowers and butterflies to get her to agree to anything he wants.”

  I’d only ever seen Bened from a distance or on Miranda Rolling News, never even said hello to the man in person, but I was already starting to dislike him.

  “Patryk and my sisters were born on Miranda during the remaining Colony Ten years,” continued Rodrish. “Bened keeps pointing out that I wasn’t born until a couple of years after Miranda went into full colonization, and saying I’m the only one of us who isn’t a Colony Ten child.”

  “I don’t wish to upset you by criticizing your brother,” I said, “but Bened must be nearly twenty years older than you. I think he should have grown out of teasing his younger brothers by now.”

  Rodrish laughed. “You can criticize Bened as much as you like. Ever since I got my farm, he’s been really spiteful to me, constantly talking about me being the baby of the family. I think he’s jealous because Father approves of me trying to grow challenging crops. Father thinks Bened neglects his farm to waste time on his flowers.”

  He shook his head. “Never mind that now. I wanted to warn you that my parents’ obsession with Colony Ten didn’t end when Miranda moved into full colonization. The age rules meant they couldn’t move on to yet another world themselves, but they wanted one of their children to follow their example and apply to Colony Ten. My brothers and sisters have all disappointed them in turn, so now I’m their last hope.”

  I gulped. “If I agree to marry you, you’ll want us to apply to Colony Ten?”

  “Naya.” Rodrish didn’t just use the Mirandan heavily emphasized version of no, but gave a theatrical shudder to make his position perfectly clear. “I’ve spent my whole childhood hearing tales of the hardship, and the time something went so badly wrong on Percival that they thought they might have to abandon the world. You’ll probably think me a dreadful coward, but the idea of applying to Colony Ten scares me to death.”

  “It scares me too,” I said. “The ent vid channel shows too many of those old horror vids set in the Thetis chaos year.”

  We walked on for a minute in silence. Thetis was the world where the frontier dream became a nightmare. The Military had been rushed into declaring it safe for colonization, quarantine measures had failed, and the horror of the chimera had been loosed on humanity. After what happened on Thetis, it was no wonder that everyone felt people like Rodrish’s parents were heroes.

  “I’m glad you feel the same way as me about this,” said Rodrish. “I’m quite content to be a Mirandan farmer, so my parents will have to transfer their Colony Ten hopes to their grandchildren.”

  He stopped and pointed at the ground ahead. “We’re getting to the muddy bit of river path now. I could carry you if you like.”

  His tone of voice had changed, and his face was flushed and eager. Given how unattractive I’d felt when I looked in the mirror this morning, I found his expression reassuring, but it warned me what would happen if I agreed to let him carry me.

  “We aren’t betrothed yet,” I said sternly.

  “Yet.” He repeated the word, and grinned in delight. “You mean you’re going to say yes?”

  I’d said the words without thinking, but I could see why Rodrish would see that meaning in them. I was caught totally off guard by this situation. I’d expected to have an hour or two wandering round Rodrish’s farm before committing myself to marrying him.

  “I knew you were right for me from the moment you saved my life,” added Rodrish.

  “What?” I stared at him. “When did I save your life?”

  “When I failed a module of the Farming Studies Certificate, my father acted like it was the end of the world. I was lucky that he put the blame on the teaching at Memorial School and transferred me to Jain’s Ford School, but I knew I mustn’t fail again or he’d disown me. You helped me study to take that module again, Amalie. You helped me pass it with a high enough grade to placate my father.”

  Rodrish was obviously joking, exaggerating his father’s disappointment and the importance of passing that module, but I was glad he’d appreciated my help.

  “You saved my life, Amalie,” repeated Rodrish. “You are going to marry me, aren’t you?”

  He looked at me expectantly, waiting for my answer. If I’d changed my mind about marrying him, I had to say so right now.

  Chapter Nine

  I wasn’t sure why I hesitated before speaking. Mother had been right when she said I’d already made my decision, and I had no reason to change it. I’d had some surprises this morning, but not exactly unpleasant ones.

  Of course I was going to marry Rodrish. Not because he was a son of the famous Jains, or because I’d discovered his house and farm were staggeringly impressive. I was going to marry Rodrish because we loved each other.

  It was a decision based on pure emotion, but I could back it up with some logical reasons as well. Things like the fact Rodrish felt I’d helped him with his Farming Studies Certificate, and wanted to help me with my fear of riding horses. I’d seen my parents supporting each other through the countless problems of a busy farm and a large family. I believed Rodrish and I could have a marriage like that too.

  “Rodrish Jain, there are customs for when a girl goes to look at a man’s farm,” I said. “We’re going to follow those customs properly and do things in the correct order. I can’t tell you I like your farm when I haven’t even seen it yet.”

  “Yaya!” Rodrish gave a mock Military salute, grabbed my hand, and started running.

  “Mind the mud!” I yelled, as I was towed along with him.

  He laughed as we splashed through a puddle. “You can always change your mind and let me carry you, Amalie.”

  “Chaos take you, Rodrish Jain.” I started laughing too. The boy was literally running wild with exhilaration and I couldn’t help getting caught up in his mood.

  “We take the side path here,” he said, and swerved into the trees.

  We had to slow our pace on the narrower path, but it still only took us a couple of minutes to rejoin the track we’d left earlier. Rodrish waved his free hand at the fields in front of us.

  “My farm, Amalie.”

  I could see medcorn in the distance, but the field next to us was filled with rows of almond bushes. Some things, like the interplanting with Mirandan cabbage, were almost identical to the field back at my parents’ farm. One thing was totally different though. This field had a whole troop of moon monkeys roaming it, all greedily eating the false fruits.

  Of course if anyone knew how to get moon monkeys to come to the almond bushes, it would be the first colonists to set foot on Miranda, and they would share their knowledge with their children.

  Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I’d known that none of the farmers on our side of Jain’s Ford Settlement grew almond bushes, and it hadn’t occurred to me to search further afield. Instead of studying the few scanty details of almond growing that people had written and put on the Mirandan data net, I could have come to the Jain family farms and seen what the experts did.

  I opened my mouth to ask Rodrish what I’d been doing wrong at home, but closed it again as I saw the answer for myself. The moon monkeys suddenly stopped eating, bounded across to the centre of the field, and started scooping up water from a muddy pool.

  No, they weren’t just scooping up the water, they were deliberately churning up the ground to mix clay with the water before drinking. The moon monkeys needed clay to soothe their stomachs, but they didn’t wa
nt to eat dry soil. I’d been worrying myself sick over something that turned out to be so simple and obvious.

  Rodrish pointed further down the cart track. “There’s my house.”

  I gave a last look at the moon monkeys feasting on the false fruits, before turning to look at the house. It was precisely as Rodrish had described it. The same size as Bened’s house, built of the same stone, but definitely less formal. Bened’s house had been built for people to admire. This house looked more like a home.

  There were two barns and the usual other outbuildings too. Some pink on the roof of the nearer barn puzzled me, but then I worked out what it was.

  “You painted a pink hummingbird on the roof of your barn!”

  Rodrish blushed. “Not exactly. You remember how I climbed on the roof to paint the pink hummingbird on the school dome, and fell off and broke my arm in the middle of proposing to you?”

  “It would be hard to forget,” I said.

  “Well, everyone heard about the story. After we built my first barn, Bened, Caden and Patryk sneaked over in the middle of the night and painted a pink hummingbird on the roof. I’m still trying to work out how to get rid of it.”

  I grinned. “A shame Bened didn’t fall off the roof like you did.”

  Rodrish grinned too. “He hadn’t made the mistake of getting drunk.”

  “I saw two real hummingbirds by the river earlier,” I said.

  “There’ve been a few sightings lately.” Rodrish paused to study me for a moment before speaking again in formal tones. “You’ve seen my farm now, Amalie Roche. Do you like it?”

  I smiled and gave him the traditional answer that sealed our betrothal. “I like your farm, Rodrish Jain.”

  “Yaya!”

  Rodrish threw his arms upwards in jubilation, and then moved eagerly towards me. I lifted my face for our first kiss. His lips were gentle on mine to begin with, but then they pressed harder, and I felt his fingers running over my hair plait. I held my breath, a thrill running through me, as I waited for him to untie the ribbon and let my hair loose round my shoulders to claim me as his future bride. I was shocked when he pulled away and gave me an anxious look.