Best-Solution - 4. Chapter 4

“Wrong?” I stared at him. What the hell did he mean by wrong? “He’s the only one who makes sense.”

“I agree that Gorseman is probably behind this. Somehow he learned about your new hybridization techniques, and he’s threatened. You said he’s the only big seller of the main breed of female cows you need, right? And another guy has the type of bulls you’re looking for. The only one who stands to gain from you losing the cows now is Gorseman. If you succeed, he loses business. Probably a lot of it over the years.”

I knew he wouldn’t like that. The man had the reputation of an absolute shark in all his dealings.

“But I don’t think this is the first incident of sabotage—it’s just the most overt, and the most devastating.” Moshe gave a sharp nod.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“What about the fence breaking down? You said you walked it all; it was in great condition. Shouldn’t have split and broken open, even if the cattle were trying to get out. Even if the canal collapsed, the cows shouldn’t have been that thirsty; there were closer sources of water to the barn. They were lured out, just like today.”

Thinking about it, Moshe was right.

“That’s not all. What about your fertilizer compound? I bet you’ll find something’s been added to it. That had to have happened before you left the city; that rules out the foreman. You’d have noticed him on campus; he’d have stuck out like a sore thumb among all the city folks.”

“True.” He was right again. “So who do you think it is? Some random guys Gorseman hired?”

“I doubt that. They’d be a liability,” Lisco said. He’d been so quiet, wrapped around me while Moshe spoke, that I’d almost forgotten he was there. “He’d want someone who he could guarantee their loyalty.”

Wracking my brain brought me no answers. “I don’t know who that might be. But you do, don’t you?” I looked up at Moshe. “Who?”

“Keon.”

I blinked. Blinked again. “Say what now? Keon, as in my college roommate, Keon?” Keon was not a stakeholder. He didn’t want to be; he lived for the city and wouldn’t touch a speck of dirt if he didn’t have to. Why would he sabotage me?

If I thought I’d heard it all, I was sorely mistaken.

“Gorseman is his father.”

“What? No way! His parents are some yuppie couple who own a bunch of clothing stores.” Breeding wasn’t a new concept; we just hadn’t been as successful with animals. People were encouraged to marry, and marry young, to create more children. But it was a cardinal sin to have a child out of wedlock. It was too dangerous not to know who the parents were—the human race had nearly exterminated itself; the pockets of remaining survivors had to play by certain rules to ensure we didn’t start dying out due to indiscretions. And even though many populations had bounced back, we still died easy traveling between enclaves or when disease struck, ravaging whole cities.

Anyone who didn’t follow this guiding principal was shunned.

Gorseman would be ruined.

My dad shook his head. “You can’t just go accusing a man of something like that. It ain’t right.”

“Say you have proof!” I looked up at Moshe. He never said or did anything he wasn’t sure of. “I know you do, don’t you?”

He nodded. “I found an old contract Gorseman’s father made, back when the cattle king was just an idiot twenty-something. A monthly stipend would go to the mother and the man who agreed to play the part of the father. The child’s schooling would be paid for, and a trust fund set up for them when they hit the age of majority, but only if they kept up their side of the contract.

“Keon is that child.”

I sucked in a huge air and let it out in a yell. “Finally!” Something had gone my way. And all because of my alien. I pulled Moshe down and kissed him fiercely, ignoring my father’s presence. Then I rubbed Lisco’s head, stroking his smooth scales. “I’d kiss you too, if you were in human form. You’ve saved the stake!”

Lisco undulated, and I thought he was going to shift, but he didn’t. He just curled up in my lap, looking content.

“How is what I told you helpful?” Moshe asked.

Explaining about the laws of paternity and the huge scandal that would break if it were revealed Gorseman had an illegitimate child left me itching to contact the asshole. “What did you do with the contract?” I asked Moshe.

He did something with his holo, and suddenly the document appeared in front of us. It was exactly what Moshe said it was. I knew then I’d get the cattle I needed for my stake, and Gorseman would never bother me again. If he did, he’d lose far more than some of his cattle business. But first we needed to get some help; we had cattle to butcher.

“Dad, could you contact the neighbors? See about them bringing out their butchering equipment. We’ll do it here and have a bit of a picnic. Then everyone can share out the meat.”

“I can do that. We’ll all be right glad of the change from subsistence rations. And if this plan of yours works… maybe soon we’ll never have to eat them again.”

My dad’s comments shocked me more than anything else I’d heard. He wasn’t one for change, just like most Interlanders, but for the first time, he was backing me and my plans. Believing in me. I choked up, my throat hurting and my eyes burning, but I kept it together. “Thanks, Dad, but… what changed your mind?”

His gaze flicked from Lisco, still curled around my arm in his striking blue true form, looking for all the world like a snake curled up against my chest, to Moshe, my gentle giant whose size still dwarfed me while kneeling in the mud next to my chair, just so that we were on eye level. In our relationship, no matter how different we were, we were all equal. We all had something we brought to the others that was vital to making us work.

Dad cleared his throat. “The world’s changing; it has been for years, but out here it’s easy to ignore it as the silly nattering of harebrained city folk. But we can’t ignore you. And anyone who treats you as well as your two do, who love and look out for you and your interests as carefully as they’ve shown, must be good men because you love them back. How can I not respect that, no matter what it looks like on the outside?”

I was barely holding on to my composure. We hadn’t spoken of love, not yet. But Dad was right, I did love them.

And I knew they loved me. We may have met because, out of a crowd of humans in a bar, I smelled good to them, but we’d shared so much more between us since that moment. It hadn’t taken long, but I wasn’t about to regret that we hadn’t taken the roundabout way through the maze to get from there to here.

Nope, direct was best.

I looked at my alien shifters, and I said three words I never expected I’d get to tell any human man. “I love you.”

Moshe beamed at me, and Lisco began to shimmer, a bright white light growing around us. I couldn’t see it, but I felt his body move as he changed shape, growing heaving and bigger, but still just right for my lap.

Dad had already turned away, giving us this moment alone. Moshe and Lisco both leaned close, until our breaths mingled together. “We love you too,” Lisco said. I clutched at his bare back, pulling him as close as I could, needing to feel him.

Moshe put his arms around us, surrounding us. “We’ve bonded with you. We want you, always.”

“I want you too.” I knew a way to show them just how much, and I squirmed in my chair thinking about it. My face was already hot and flushed just thinking about it. I wasn’t scared anymore, not of anything. After the butchering, I’d tell them. Tomorrow would be soon enough to call Gorseman and straighten him out… tonight I had some bonding to do.