Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

The farm immediately overhead, on the other hand, was basically a huge heap of somewhat modified dirt, above which a few seedlings, sprouts, and shoots should just be starting to become visible. If the Zog was on that deck, I could probably pick him out by eye very quickly. It was definitely the place to start looking. And I had a hunch it was where I would find him: where green things grew up out of soil you could plunge your hands into.

It wasn’t quite that easy, in fact. But close. The Destination Farm was designed to be as close as possible to one enormous deck, with long sight lines in nearly all directions. But it was also designed to be kept at destination-normal conditions. That meant, among other things—at least at the moment—air that was half again as rich in oxygen, slightly denser, a lot more humid, and a bit warmer than ship-normal (Terran Sealevel Standard). All of which meant, among other things, weather —specifically, fog. It was controlled somewhat by air circulation, but less than it could have been, obviously by intent. Apparently we were all going to spend our golden years on a planet that was prone to low-lying fogs and mists for at least part of the year. Brasil Novo would be a kind of Jungle World, a steamy hothouse of a place.

(It began to dawn on me that there was a lot I did not know about our destination planet—my new home-to-be. I had more or less presumed that if a whole lot of people were willing to go there, forever, it must be a nice place. It might, I thought, be well to delve into that just a little deeper.)

Another problem facing me was that since this was the deck with the most open space and the most experimental food, this was the deck where the majority of the livestock was quartered and processed. Not to put too fine a point on it, the fog stank , and rude noises seemed to come distantly from all directions, as if some mad ventriloquist had descended to fart jokes.

And finally, it was blinkin’ dark in there. Brasil Novo had a day just a hair over twenty-four Terran Standard hours long—thirty-six minutes longer. Therefore so did this deck, which meant that its day and ours diverged. And had been diverging since whenever the Zog had started its clock. It was the beginning of the morning shift everywhere else in the Sheffield , but here it appeared to be at least an hour before dawn.

Despite all these handicaps I found the Zog within a minute or two of my arrival. I had heard him laugh once before, and heard him now from a few hundred meters away. That got me started in the right direction, and luck took me the rest of the way. If that’s the word I want: he was at the goat quarters, one of the riper of the animal enclaves. Goats just are not happy unless you give them some equivalent of a cave or shed to hide in at night, even though there’s nothing to hide from … and then it concentrates the smell wonderfully. Maybe that’s what they like about it.

Admittedly they are worth a bit of smell. A goat eats ten percent as much as a cow, but produces twenty-five percent as much milk. And many, among them me, say it tastes better than cow’s milk. It’s also easier to digest.

“Ah, Joel.” He looked up from a hoof he was trimming and gave me a slow once-over, beginning and ending at my eyes. He had done that the first time we’d met, too. I wondered why I didn’t find it offensive. When he was done, he smiled with his whole face. “I’m very glad to see you’re in better spirits.”

“Director Zogby, I want—”

“Zog, please.”

“Zog, I appreciate your understanding and patience, this last week. I needed to work some things out, and I have.”

“I can see that. You’re ready to come to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is Kathy—she’s a Marsman like me, new to farming.”

Intent on my new boss, I had almost completely tuned out the companion holding the goat for him. She was about my age, slim, fit, and extremely uncomfortable holding a goat. We exchanged polite noises.

“Kathy, Joel’s from Ganymede. He has a lot of farming experience, dirt and hydro both. You’ll be his assistant.” She nodded, too busy to keep eye contact.

I took a deep breath. I was not looking forward to this next bit, but there was no sense putting it off any longer. “Uh, Zog, perhaps I should correct one small mis—oh, shit.”

The sentence aborted in that odd way because I had just seen what she was about to do. There was no time for me to say anything to stop her—and it wouldn’t have helped anyway, because there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t have gotten a hand free without being kicked. There was just time for me to drop to my knees, cup one hand behind her head, place my other index finger just below her nose, and press hard. She let out a yelp and tried to shake free, but I wouldn’t let her until I was sure the job was done. Then I released her at once and backed away.

“I’m very sorry, Kathy,” I said. “I had to do that.”

She was staring at me as if I’d grown fangs. “Why?”

“It’s the only sure way I know to stop someone from sneezing.”

“What?”

“Excuse me just a minute, Kathy,” Zog interrupted. “Joel, what was it you were just about to say?”

“Oh. Uh…”

“You were going to correct something?”

“Why shouldn’t I sneeze if I want to?”

“You really don’t want to sneeze in a goat shed,” I told her. “Look, Zog, I—”

“Why the hell not?”

“Kathy, please, he’ll explain in a minute. Go on, Joel. Correct what?”

“No, wait a minute, Zog,” she insisted. “That hurt .”

“I know,” I said, “and I’m really very sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

I started to argue, and stopped. “You’re right. I kind of feel like you had it coming, for not knowing what you’re doing. And now I’m also a little annoyed at you for presuming that I don’t. If you’d—”

“Joel,” Zog cut in firmly, “I understand that you’d rather have that conversation. First, though, we’re going to have the one where you tell me just what misunderstanding on my part needs to be corrected. Kathy, pipe down and let her go.”

She sighed in exasperation and released her hold on the goat, which sprang up and trotted to the far end of the small shed, limping slightly on its half-trimmed hoof. I turned to meet the Zog’s eyes. Irritation was in them, but compassion as well. “Well, look, what you have to understand—”

Kathy sneezed.

I think it was at least half deliberate, a gesture of defiance. Her hands were now free; she could have done as I’d just shown her. Instead she sneezed. And not just a ladylike little choof , either, but a breathquake that might have snuffed out a blowtorch.

Unfortunately, a human sneeze apparently sounds very much like the word for “Run for your life!” in Goat.

So we all got very busy there for a while.

When things settled down a bit, I poked my head up and found that I was in the corner of the shed farthest from the exit. The original exit. I had begun to congratulate myself on my good instincts when I realized there were now several brand-new exits, one of them less than a meter from my head. A goat hoof can be a weapon of terrifying power, and a partially trimmed goat hoof could only be worse.

Then I discovered Kathy, underneath me. Maybe my instincts were okay after all.

I rolled off her, intending to ask if she was all right. Instead I let out a squeal and kept on rolling. Killer monkeys—

But, no. Within a revolution or two I had seen that what was dangling from the ceiling was not the huge ape my brain had first decided it was seeing, but someone with considerably better instincts than mine. Only by luck had Kathy and I managed not to be in the path of a fleeing goat—but none of them had been running up . Zog let go of the rafter and dropped back to the floor. He landed just beside Kathy, and lifted her to her feet with one big hand. “Are you all right?” he asked, and she ran a quick inventory and assured him she was.