May 5, 2440, 11:15 AM
Krieger Littleton rolled into what the survey map called Park 17 in a Polaris side-by-side, which was a clear sign Uncle Matt was feeling generous. He could have been assigned a golf cart.
A golf cart would have meant go check on things and try not to get in the way.
The Polaris meant he had a job, a route, a radio, cargo space, and enough implied trust that nobody had better ask why a fourteen-year-old was driving it like he owned the orchard lanes.
Pedro sat in the passenger seat, fat, solemn, and already acting like the V’ren refugee crisis had personally interrupted his breakfast.
“Do not look at me like that,” Krieger told him. “You ate half my sandwich before we left the house.”
Pedro sighed and placed his chin on the dashboard with the weight of a dog who had never known kindness.
Krieger ignored him and slowed at the southwest corner of the park. The farm crew was only a step ahead of him. Orange tape already marked neat twenty-five-foot squares in three long rows: eight plots, eight plots, then six plots on the row where his command tent would go. The bark paths around the park were clear. White flags marked the six-foot lanes. A black twenty-five-hundred-gallon water tank sat on a trailer near the irrigation hookup, and beside it a second trailer waited for cold-water bladders.
The shower trailer had just arrived, steel screen flooring still bright from the fab barn, six shower stalls lined up like somebody had decided civilization began with not smelling like fear and ship air.
His cousin Ernie Bell was shoving a laminated instruction sheet at him.
Krieger approved of the showers. He did not approve of the blatant corruption of his dog by string cheese. The next time he saw Ernie’s two-year-old, he was going to teach the toddler to say fuck.
He rolled the Polaris into the taped-off twenty-five-by-fifty command space and climbed out, tugging his ball cap lower against the heat. The air smelled like mown grass, dust, orchard leaves, and hot rubber. It was not even noon, and already the day had the heavy, wet feel of early May pretending to be mid-July.
He let out a grin as Maisie Hart backed a trailer-mounted grill into place with one hand on the wheel and the other braced on the seat beside her. Nyla Littleton rode the golf cart’s rear deck like she had been born there, one hand gripping the rail, ponytail swinging, yelling corrections that Maisie ignored until they became useful.
“You’re crooked,” Nyla called.
“I am not crooked,” Maisie said.
“The grill is crooked.”
“The grill is attached to the trailer, genius.”
“Then the trailer is crooked.”
Krieger watched them for half a second too long.
Maisie caught him looking and smiled like she had won something. Nyla noticed Maisie noticing, then stretched just enough to make sure Krieger saw her too.
Krieger looked away first, because he was not stupid. Also, because he was technically in charge, and Uncle Matt did not give people a Polaris so they could stand around admiring country girls in shorts.
Though if he and Uncle Matt suddenly switched bodies, Krieger was pretty sure staring at those two would be the first thing he did.
“Command tent goes here,” he said, pointing to the southwest corner.
Maisie hopped down from the trailer. “We know. Pam sent the map.”
“I know. I made the map for her.”
“That does not make the map less bossy.”
Nyla opened the ice chest and pulled out a bottle of water. “Your mom said we are supposed to keep you from acting important.”
Krieger took the bottle she tossed him. “My orders come from Dave, and the Polaris came from Uncle Matt.”
“Your Uncle Matt,” Maisie said, rolling her eyes at the phrase like someone who had never been part of the Uncle Matt club, “gave you the vehicle.”
Krieger allowed himself one small smile. “Tossed me the keys from his own pocket. Said something about not getting either of you pregnant.”
Both girls rolled their eyes, but neither of them had been handed a Polaris, and everybody standing there knew it. They could believe Matt had said something that crass, too. Not that either of them was about to admit they had gone out of their way to do things to make Krieger stare before.
Maisie looked at Pedro and instantly wanted to feed him, but stayed her hand. Her chonky cat put on the same starving-animal act.
“Oh, no,” Maisie said softly.
Pedro’s ears shifted.
“Nope.” She pointed at him. “I know that face.”
Pedro blinked, wounded.
Krieger followed her gaze and looked to Nyla. “Do not feed him.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were absolutely going to.”
“I was considering whether he had been emotionally neglected.”
“He ate half my sandwich before we left.”
“I know better,” Maisie said, narrowing her eyes at Pedro. “My cat does this. Chonky little fraud sits by the fridge like we haven’t fed her since Christmas.”
Pedro’s tail thumped once against the seat.
“See?” Krieger said. “He understands fraud.”
Nyla leaned in to study him. “He looks so sad.”
“That is how he gets you,” Krieger said. “That dog has eaten breakfast, second breakfast, and a moral victory.”
Maisie dragged her attention away from Pedro with visible effort and turned toward the trailer grill. “I’ll get the grill going if you two want to start on the tent.”
Krieger couldn’t decide whether Nyla was intentionally trying to show off her cleavage every time she bent over or if she just needed a different top, but he decided to quit looking before he had his own embarrassing moment.
He took it as a small victory that the tent was up and there were still no flames in his science partner’s grill.
He walked over with the propane torch and a small bundle of dried juniper and oak splinters he had snagged from the garage before leaving. He was well aware he should not hand it to the cheerleader who had once removed an eyebrow lighting a Bunsen burner.
Maisie turned from the grill. “I had it.”
“No, you had piles of ashes and determination not to ask for help,” Krieger said.
Nyla leaned against the trailer, grinning. “He’s right. I was about to move behind the water tank when you reached for your nail polish remover.”
Maisie pointed at her. “Traitor.”
“Eyebrows are important,” Nyla said.
Krieger rearranged Maisie’s mess, checked the valve, and waited one second longer than he needed to.
“Flame on!”
He pulled the trigger, pointing the torch at the kindling.
Pedro, hearing fire and smelling the possibility of meat, climbed down from the Polaris with the grave determination of a starving creature who had eaten twice before noon.
“Do not feed him,” Krieger said without looking back, because he could hear the opening of another cheese stick.
He shut the torch off and still did not hand it to Maisie, even when she reached for it with a sad look that would have worked if he had not been trained by his own chihuahua-pug-beagle-coyote con artist.
“No.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
Maisie huffed. “One eyebrow. One time.”
“Yours are cute where they are.”
Nyla scoffed, playing with her long black braid. “That was almost good, except you can barely tell where they are on blondes.”
