I am Gideon: Chapter #18

Animals

Demeter was a member of the AEW and an agricultural powerhouse.  I knew that.  Had no idea what it meant.  Apparently, it meant crops, and animals.  Alcibus and pomes and other things in endless rows, and animals like nothing I’d ever seen. I rode the buses all day that first day, picking up what I could in the way of conversation.  The large animals were horses.  Used for work and pleasure and sport – never eaten.  The small, fluffy animals were sheep.  Used for mowing and milking and cheese making – never eaten.  At least in theory.

That’s what it meant to be a member of the AEW, the Affined Equi Worlds, of which there are eleven.  Lots of horses and no meat.  In order to even apply for membership a planet has to be primarily vegetarian.  I wondered briefly if I’d starve eating just plants.  It makes me laugh to think about it now, but it was a concern at the time.  I imagined endless rounds of beans and bread and was dismayed, which tells you how far I’d come from near starvation.

We were at breakfast the second day when a short, skinny man with bread stuffed in one cheek commented, “Always plenty of work around here.”

My ears perked up.  “That would suit me,” I said.  

“Hard work,” he said, swapping the bread to the other cheek and adding stewed fruit to his mouth.  

“I’m used to hard work,” I said, and it was true.  Luckily. 

He, who turned out to be Max, steered me to his brother-in-law, who shipped kartfels to Tarkelia, and needed men to hoist boxes from the fields onto the trailers that would carry them to the spaceport.  I was tall.  I was hired.  After the first day I spent some of my credits on a good pair of gloves.  I wore them out in two weeks.  I went every evening back to the boarding house and casual conversation, and I was generally happy if not content.  

Kartfel harvest was over in six weeks – early, mid-season and late, all shipped – and I was out of a job. 

“You need to get a job working with horses,” Max observed, “steadier work with winter coming on.” 

I couldn’t argue.  The nights had a snap that required a comforter, and the mornings were dappled with frost. I picked up work by word-of-mouth harvesting and boxing pomes, then some work for a few weeks tossing bales of hay onto a conveyer, stacking bales of hay in huge barns, and guiding loads of grain into silos for feeding through the winter.  In doing that, I learned that part of everything everybody grew, went into storage on Equus.  

“Then if any planet in the AEW runs short, it gets shipped out to them.” 

It was my last day of working hay and grain, and my boss was handing out credits while he talked to me.  He handed me mine last and said, “You’re a good worker, Gideon.  If you’d like to move into the bunkhouse and work over the winter cleaning stalls and feeding horses, I’d be happy to give you a job. Half the credits you’re earning now, plus free room and board. 

“I think I can do that,” I smiled.  With mixed emotions I gathered up my things, settled up and said goodbye to Mrs. Baxter, and moved on to my next adventure.