Early morning was Dan’s favorite time of the day.  No matter what planet he woke up on, the cool morning air carried with it the promise of new and exciting things, and if he could be up to witness the rising of the local sun, well, more the better.  The damp air and supernatural quiet brought with them a sense of tranquility and inner balance that made the rest of the day easier to bear.

Or not.

This morning he was not the only person up early. Her crabby mood suggested that Danielle Riggins was not enjoying the atmosphere nearly as much as Dan had been, and she seemed determined that Dan would share her misery. “Where’s the meat you promised?” she demanded, upon laying eyes on him. Her florid complexion was growing ruddier by the minute, and Dan was wondering how much redder she could get before she had her first aneurism. “You told us we’d only be eating ration packs for a month, and it’s been over two with no end in sight!”

Dan closed his eyes for a moment, saddened that not everyone valued the peace of the morning as much as he did.  All it would take to maintain that beautiful tranquility was for people not to shout, not to wag their fingers in each other’s faces, and not to be so…

?bitchy?

Bo supplied helpfully, from a distance.

...forceful.   Dan drew the last quiet breath of the morning and faced Danielle.  When they’d first landed he’d thought long and hard about which truths to tell his fellow passengers, what information would keep them calm without ever lying to them. Quelling their fears of starvation had been somewhere at the top of that list, in between informing them that rescue was unlikely and the tragic news that they could no longer use their comms to share cat videos.  Bo had advocated staying mum on all of it, but Dan had reasoned that people would be more calm if they were aware what was going on..

told you so

Bo quipped over their link.

hush

Dan shot back.  He wasn’t in the mood.  Calmly, he turned his attention back to the woman, whose raised voice had drawn the attention of everyone standing within twenty feet. “No,” he corrected her, “I told you that it would be at least a month before we were eating anything other than ration packs.  If you thought that meant you’d be eating prime rib in 30 days, then you weren’t paying attention.”

“But you said-”

“I made a recording of that meeting,” Dan said, cutting her off, “like I made recordings of all the meetings. I can dig it up if it makes you happy.”  He sighed and gathered his patience. “Look,” he said, after a few moments, “I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ll find out, okay?”

“That’s what you said last time!” she protested. “Is there something you’re hiding from us?”

“It is what I said last time,” Dan answered, “when you had an issue with the ration bars giving your husband gas. And last time, if you recall, I did, in fact, get back with you.”

“But you-”

“It took me two days to do so, that is true,” he said, over her protests, “but I had other matters that took priority over Harvey being a gasbag.  As soon as I could after doing all my other duties, I did get back to you, just like I always have.”

“Fine!” she spat, disappointment radiating from her sun-blotched face. “I want to know where the protein is!”  She made a show of examining him. “Seems to me, you’re looking pretty well fed. Must be nice, having the key to the kitchen in your pocket.”

just punch her in the gob

Bo suggested.

nobody will complain if YOU hit her

you are not helping

Dan frowned and clamped down on his end of the link.  “We’re all on the same meal plan, and if there’s more on my plate it’s because I do more work.  If you want more to eat,” he suggested, “sign up on a work roster. Or learn to hunt and forage like other people are doing.”

“Thank you for asking about the meat animals,” he said, before she could tell him all the reasons why she and Harvey weren’t fit for physical effort. “I’ll ask around and get back with you when I know something.”

He met up with Bo outside the maintenance shed and the two walked across the campus to the agricultural office. “I’m not as easily persuaded as Danielle,” Bo explained.  “I want to shove lots of meat in my face as soon as humanly possible.”

“It’s kinda nice not to have to deal with your rancid meat-farts,” Dan admitted.

“Sorry, buddy,” Bo said. “Comes with the package.  I can only get so far on lentils and genegineered rice.” He reached over and gave Dan’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze, then gave it another, longer one.  “This may sound weird, but are you getting bigger?”

Dan self-consciously ran a hand over his bicep and shrugged. “I guess,” he said, “a lot of people are probably getting bigger, with all the construction work we’ve been doing.  But they’re probably going to go right back to the way they were, now that most of the the heavy construction is finished.”

Bo stared at him.  “No,” he said, “they’re not. Everyone else is getting rangy.  They’re losing fat and getting lean. You,” he said, looking appraisingly at Dan, “You almost look like you’re bulking up.  I didn’t really notice it because I see you every day, but… much as I hate to admit it, she’s got a point. You’re actually...”  

“What?” Dan asked, intrigued.

Bo looked uncomfortable. “You’re growing like a varius would.  A battle varius.”

It was not uncommon for varii to inherit certain biochemical markers from their mates after bonding, but the condition rarely extended past a blending of fur color.  It was a well-known phenomenon between varii, but given the rarity of trans-species pairing, Dan’s condition was unique. Their friend Sam had advised them that a Kenzine scholar might shed light on their condition, but so far Victus had been unable to help.

Bo had told Dan about living with his barely controlled muscle growth, and how traits which might be life-saving on the battlefield were often more of an inconvenience in the real world. Nonetheless, the thought of gaining mass without having to struggle for it seemed like more of a dream to Dan than a nightmare. He shrugged. “If all I have to worry about is looking like a powerlifter without having to work at it, I think I can find a way to live with that.”

Bo reached out an oversized handpaw and stroked Dan’s cheek.  He loved Dan’s smile and hated saying anything that might diminish it.  “When something inside me goes pear shaped I have- or had - access to the best docs in the world, backed by a worldwide team of geneticists and endocrinologists.  All you’ve got is the Medalyzer from an expired emergency landing pack.”

“You didn’t seem to be having problems, though.” Dan observed. “At least, not before your pills ran out.”

Bo considered for a moment. “It’s been a few years,” he said, thoughtfully. “Three?  Maybe four? I hardly even think about it any more. The pill packs come every month, I take them on schedule and don’t have a problem.”

“Well,” Dan said, resolutely, “we’ll just have to get rescued before I start needing supplements.”  He looked over at Bo. “You haven’t said anything about feeling wonky. You’re still okay?”

“Right as rain,” Bo said, cheerfully. “Must be my cast-iron constitution.”

“Or maybe my endocrine system is helping to regulate yours?” Dan guessed. “You gotta be getting something out of the deal.”

Bo shrugged amiably.  “Could be.“ He motioned to one of the dozen Quonset huts that served as the colony’s work buildings.  “This is our stop.”

The husbandry building had the silhouette of a large, generic cow painted on the front.  The bovine in the image was genderless, leading Dan to wonder whether it had been painted by one of the more prurient members of their party.  He read the name on the door as they entered. “D. Robinson,” he muttered, in an attempt to remember it.

“David!” Bo called out. “You in here?”

“Back here,” came a muffled voice from somewhere in the dusty darkness. Eventually they traced the voice back to a middle-aged, balding man who sat hunched over a glowing computer monitor in a back office. When they finally located him he seemed happy for the distraction.  “Hey!” He pushed away from the array of technical manuals covering his small desk and pulled a pair of old-fashioned reading glasses off of his nose. “What can I do for you?”

“Hey...”

David

Bo smoothly supplied a reminder.

“...David,” Dan continued, “Some of the folks are getting grumpy again and I thought maybe we could help keep them off your back.”

“They want meat?”  the agronomist guessed.

“They do indeed,” Dan said, as he shot the older man a sympathetic grin.  “They were happy enough when you trotted out the beans a month ago, and the rice a week after that, but now,” he shifted his voice into a horrible Elizabethan accent, “we desire more!”

Bo put a playful handpaw over Dan’s face. “Any news?” he asked, hopefully.

“Yeah,” the agronomist said, “and it’s all bad.”  He sighed and ran a hand through what was left of his hair.  “It’s not that bad, really. I’ve got eight of the fetuses lined up, and they’re all plugging along at a 1:1 ratio. After thirty-six days, they’re all exactly thirty-six days old, just like nature intended.”

“But it was supposed to go a bit faster than that, right?” Dan guessed.

“The food stock should grow at a four-to-one ratio, but it’s not working out that way.”

"How difficult is it to grow a cow?"  Bo didn't even bother to try keeping his annoyance out of his voice.  "We did it all the time back home, and it didn’t seem all that hard."

The livestock manager was already frustrated, and getting second-guessed by someone who didn't know his job a tenth as well as he did wasn't helping his mood. "Well, you probably started with two full-grown cows that liked each other, and they made more little cows all by themselves." He held two fingers a hair's breadth apart. "We're starting with little bitty fetuses about thiiiiis big and they're not growing like they should."  

“I’m new to this,” Dan said, apologetically. “What’s the gestation period of a cow? A regular one?”

“About the same as a human.” Bo supplied.

“That’s...about two hundred and seventy five days, then?” Dan guessed.

“Two hundred and eighty three for the breeding stock,” the agronomist answered. “Give or take.  The meat cows only take a hundred and eighty five. About six months. If the acceleration was working right they would have been out ten days from now.”

“Any clue what’s slowing them down?" Dan asked.

The biologist sighed and pushed his glasses back up on his forehead.  "I don't know. The embryos aren't dying, they're just not thriving. It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong,” he explained, “the whole process is automated. It should be bulletproof.  We’ve had a dozen different people look over the setup, and as far as we can tell we should be chugging along. The machine’s only got four buttons so it would be hard to screw something up.”

David stood and motioned them to follow.  “Come take a look at this. Who knows? Maybe you’ll see something nobody else has.” He gestured to a large, immaculately clean piece of industrial equipment that had eight windows ringing the body. “We weren’t planning on feeding nearly this many people at first, so when it came time to choose which embryos to thaw, we chose the animals that would be the most productive.  Eight cows will feed a hell of a lot more people than eight goats, so cows it was.”

Dan peered through the deep red window to see the grapefruit-sized fetus suspended in the middle of each chamber.  At this stage, the growing bovine embryos still looked disquietingly like human embryos.

“The meat cows are just to get you on your feet,” David explained. “They grow up fast, but that can make their genetics a little weird so they’re also sterile. You can eat ‘em, but you can’t breed ‘em.”

A few steps away, he pointed to the large, heavily insulated freezer containing the colony’s stock of embryos. “Breeding animals come later. They’ve got a regular genetic complement with as much diversity as possible, which we safeguard by growing them at normal speed so they’ve got the best chance of interbreeding without random mutations.”

Dan looked worried. “Are the other animals going to be affected like this?”

David shrugged. “No way to tell until we start thawing them.”

“Should we defrost a goat or a sheep to see if they’re going to do the same thing?” Dan suggested.

“Now that this batch is started, we can’t stop the process without killing them. I think we all agree that it’s better to have a slow cow than a dead one.”

David looked decidedly annoyed with himself. “We should have just put in one or two to make sure everything was running right before we filled the rest of the chambers, but it was all green lights and hungry bellies so we filled the chambers before we thought better of it.  The books, the monitors, and everything I’ve learned confirms that everything is right, but,” he shrugged helplessly, “obviously something isn’t. If we had a jump gate to work with, I’d just call in for technical support. Out here?” He barked a laugh. “That ain’t happening.”

“Once they’re decanted they mature at a normal rate, right?” Dan asked.

“The meat cows grow up a little faster,” David said. “They’re ready for slaughter after about eight good months, if you feed ‘em right.”

“So from what you’re telling us, we’re actually not that bad off,” Bo reasoned.  “Whatever’s fucking up the system is just slowing things down, not bringing it to a halt.”

Bo added up the timelines in his head.  “It’s going to be at least fourteen months between thawing those embryos and slapping steaks on the grill.  If everything had gone right it would have saved three or four months, but that’s not going to kill us. As much as I want it, meat’s a luxury that we won’t die without.”

When they left, the agronomist actually looked less harried than when they’d appeared at his door.  Dan was glad, for once, to feel as if they’d actually lightened someone’s burden.

Once the door to the husbandry building was securely shut behind them Bo spoke.  "You know this is still going to be a major issue, right?"

"Of course," Dan grumbled.  "And Bartram's going to listen to whoever yells the loudest, and you know who that's going to be."

“The rich ones, of course.” Bo said, sourly.  "Why is it that the ones who do the least work around here are the ones who scream the loudest?”

“Soft hands and hard hearts?” Dan guessed.  He took his mate’s handpaw and did his best to intertwine their fingers.  Their difference in size made the attempt laughable, but that was okay.

hard hands

warm heart

he thought, looking up at his varius husband.  The man towered at least a foot over him and outweighed him by at least a hundred kilos.  He looked as fierce as any of the monsters hiding inside his closet as a child, yet was the most intelligent, gentle man Dan had ever met.

They were almost back at their shelter before Dan spoke again. "The camp is far enough along that it can do without us for a day or two, right?"

Bo shrugged. "I guess."

"Let's grab Vic and Luc and explore those dead zones."  When he felt Bo's curiosity perk, he added, "Maybe we'll find evidence of a long-lost alien civilization, or something!"

"Not likely," Bo scoffed, gruffly.  "There's probably just one little bad-assed pepper bush in the dead center of each ring that’s killing everything around it for a twenty meters.”

"Do you think?" Dan asked, excitedly.  "If it is, I want to use it in a pepper sauce!"

Bo rolled his eyes. "You would. Warn me if you do so I can steer clear of your insides for a month or two.  I don't want anything that spicy anywhere near my junk."

***

“Are we almost there?” Bo asked. “We’ve got to be getting close.  It already smells like rotten fish.”

Dan checked the skimmer’s navigation display. “Five more minutes, give or take.”  On this trip he’d decided to drive, under the guise of needing more practice to maintain his skills. Along with Victus and Lucas, they’d tagged along with a few of the colony’s biologists to explore the mysterious bald patches and make certain that whatever was killing the plant life posed no threat to their growing home.

This close to the coast, the smell of salt water was strong even to Dan's inferior sapiens nose. To Bo it was redolent with the smells of aquatic minerals, fish, and decay.  With each passing kilometer, they saw more of the large, bat-like creatures which passed for seagulls on their new home.

"Make a slow circle before you land," Doctor Marion Archer instructed. "Give me a couple of passes to make a slow scan from - what, a hundred meters up?  Then drop down to about fifty and do it again." Before joining the expedition Dr. Archer had held tenure at a prominent west-coast university back on Earth, and she wore her bona fides with the same gravitas with which she’d donned the black gown and mortar.  In spite of her stuffy air, there was something about her that made Dan want to like her.

?strong mommy complex?

hush

“Got it.” Dan lifted the transport, and they crested the final hill a few minutes later.  The ground over which they traveled was as pock-marked and uninviting as a lunar landscape, carrying an odd odor that became stronger a few minutes later when Dan dropped to half their height.  "What’s that smell?" he asked. It reminded him of the petting zoo he’d visited on his seventh birthday. Hot, sweaty animals competed with each other for space, attention and dropped food in a space that was far too small to hold them all. This was similar, but different in a way that was unpleasantly fishy.

"I don't know yet," the biologist answered, as she tapped away at her terminal, ”but I'm going to find out." She looked over the side of the mule and pointed to a rocky outcropping on the outer edge of the nearest circle.  "Can you put us down over there?"

Ten minutes later the scientists had erected a small tent and their four volunteers, armed with detection devices, were probing the barren circles.  Each man passed his detector over the ground in regular sweeps, gathering data that might help explain the odd bare patches. "You promised me adventure, Vic," Lucas complained, casually waving his device back and forth as he walked over the uneven ground. "This is boring as hell."

"Slow down," Victus warned.  "If you get bad data we'll have to do it over again."  He saw Lucas slow his pace but could feel the man's impatience through their bond.  It was kind of him to offer to help, but he truly was ill-suited to tasks like this.  "If you can endure this for an hour we’ll take a break," Victus promised. "We can run through the woods if you want.  When we’re finished with this survey we can run out to the beach.” He loved how the excitement rolling through their bond precisely matched the happy expression on his mate’s face.   

Before they'd bonded, Victus had been certain that at least some part of Lucas’s ebullience was an act. No man, he thought, could wear his feelings on his sleeve so effusively without being at least a little synthetic. To his delight, that had not been the case at all.  In fact, Lucas was all but incapable of hiding his feelings. Whatever was in the man’s heart had a direct pipeline to his face, and right now Luke’s naked anticipation of getting to spend some time with his friends and his mate while frolicking in the water was making Victus’ own tail spasm in happy sympathy.

“Bo!” the Shepherd shouted, turning to his friend without breaking his rhythm.

“Call?” the battle varius responded, using the special, abbreviated language that military varii sometimes adopted.  Highly concise, it was easily reproducible by a variety of mouth structures.

“Chron!”

“Time?”

“Two hack two.”

Bo set a mental reminder for four hours from now, but didn’t alter his methodical sweeping of the ground as he responded. “Confirm.  Motive?”

“Opentime!”

Bo waved at Lucas and kept moving his own instrument back and forth, playing the invisible beams over the dusty soil.  “Task up!” he yelled, giving Lucas a friendly reminder to pay attention to what he was doing.

***

Four hours later they returned the sensors to Doctor Archer for download, then headed for the beach while she compiled the data.  She peered up from her work just long enough to call out to them. “Don’t forget to take a comm with you.”

“I’ve got one,” Bo yelled back, but was stopped by a questioning look from Dan.  He pulled the device from its belt pouch to check the charge, then cursed softly when he saw that it was nearly empty.  "Oh, hell. I didn't put it out to charge."

"What a surprise," Dan drawled.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucas said, waving his comm unit as he spoke. “Mine’s good.”

Bo nodded and started to put his away, but Dan pulled it out of his hand.  “It’s not going to charge if you put it back in the holster.” He walked the few steps back to the transport and placed Bo’s com on top of the control panel, where it could soak up the sun's rays without being disturbed.

“Come on, guys!” Lucas yelled behind him as he and Victus took off at a fast pace.  “Last one to the water’s a feral!”

Victus’ hand was a blur as it shot out to flick Lucas’s ear, sharply enough that Dan heard the snap even from that distance.  “Language!” Lucas gave chase, and the two disappeared into the ring of trees surrounding the mysterious barren circles.

“We’ll catch up,” Bo called out unnecessarily, taking Dan’s hand in his own.  “Yeah,” he said more quietly, reading Dan’s thoughts, “they’re cute together.”

“You think they’ll be okay without us?” Dan asked, thinking about the scientists.

“Sure,” Bo gave his hand an exceptionally gentle squeeze. “There’s nothing out here to hurt them.  The biggest animal we’ve seen so far are those little bunny things.”

“I think they look more like chinchillas,” Dan said. “Soft and cute.”

“And tasty,” Bo added, “if you can catch one.” He waved off Dan’s worry. “If anything happens they can always call Lucas.  At the speed he runs, he could be back there in less than a minute.”

“I guess you’re right,” Dan said, stealing a glance back over his shoulder to where the mule was parked, before sight of their transport was lost to him. “I just can’t help- Whoa!”  Dan’s foot caught a tree root and he nearly fell, but was saved by the grip of Bo’s black-furred handpaw.

For an instant it felt as if Dan’s hand was encased in warm concrete as Bo instinctively tightened his grip, but then the sensation was gone as soon as it had appeared. A second later, Dan found himself snuggled protectively against Bo’s warm, black-furred torso.  “Are you okay?” the varius asked, chocolate-brown eyes peering down into Dan’s with undisguised concern.

“I think so,” Dan felt Bo’s relief far more greatly than his own embarrassment.  The varius changed his grip and pulled Dan close, snuffling the top of his head while moving Dan’s nose closer to the fur at the hollow of Bo’s neck where his pheromones were strong.  Dan opened wide the gate between them and breathed in deeply, allowing both men to experience the sensations of the other.

Light years away from anyone who might judge them, they had nothing to hide.  This was their world, and nothing in it could keep them apart. Dan breathed deeply and felt the familiar rush of blood that was the inevitable result of doing so.  He tilted his head back and looked up toward his mate's eyes as Bo's eyes sought his. They were alone, and-

"Hey, you two!"   Lucas, naked and dripping wet, crashed through the underbrush. "Come on!  You're missing out on the fun!" Message delivered, he turned and ran back to the beach front, his wagging tail a blur over his black and tan rump.

Bo smiled and looked down into the face of his lover.  Dan didn't look entirely displeased. The young varius' energy and enthusiasm were infectious.   With a gentle kiss on the lips and a mental promise of more to come, Bo took Dan's hand and resumed their walk.

By the time Bo and Dan made it to the beach, Lucas was back in the water.  Dan, cautious as usual, was uncertain of the man's wisdom. The survey crew hadn't found evidence of large predators in the water, and so far nothing had eaten Lucas for a snack so maybe they were okay.  Dan sidled up to Victus. “Naked again, huh?”

Victus shook his head in mock annoyance. “Just can’t keep pants on that man.”

Dan chuckled at the young varius’s enthusiasm. “Bo can be pretty wild, but he’d never...” His argument was forestalled by a Bo-colored blur shooting past them, racing for the water at top speed.  Tracking the motion, Dan watched his mate's stubby, bear-like tail wagging back and forth with every stride as he ran for the waterline. As soon as he was knee deep, Bo leaped up and spun a half-somersault before crashing to the water on his back, inundating Lucas with the salty, mineral-rich spray.

The two varii frolicked in the ocean as their mates watched from the beach.  "You're sure you don't want to get out there and join the fun?" Dan teased Victus, his voice rich with happy mirth.  "I'll hold the comm for you."

"That's okay," Victus chuckled.  "I'm happy Bo's out there with him." He turned his gaze to the two men, who had started a splash-fight.  "Getting this much hair dry is a pain as it is, and knowing that it would smell like dead fish for the next two weeks does not add appeal."

"I'm with you," Dan said, I'd rather have a good book and a coconut full of rum, myself."  His eyes got a far-away look in them. "I remember when I went to Tahiti..." The warning klaxon of the comm's emergency tone stopped him cold.

Victus pulled it out of its holster and flipped it open.  "Hello?" He said, just as it rang again. He quickly pulled it away from his ear and gave the "receive" button another solid push.  "Hello?" he tried again, and was rewarded this time by a tinny-sounding voice.

"Are you at the beach?" the caller asked, sounding concerned.

"Yes," Victus answered.  "We got here a couple of minutes ago."

"Are you in the water?" The voice definitely sounded strained.

"No," Victus answered, looking at Dan.  "We are on the shore." He activated the speaker so Dan could hear what was being said.

"Good," the voice was relieved.  "Whatever you do, don't go in the water!"

!bo!

Dan thought, frantically,

*danger*
!get out of the water!
!now!

He had no idea what Dan was talking about, but the panic in his mind was very real, and Bo trusted him without exception.  Looking around them, Bo thought he saw the tubelike shadow-shape of something eel-like gliding through the water nearby.

!protect!

Bo reached down to Lucas and, without asking, unceremoniously pulled him out of the water.  As quickly as he could while holding the wriggling canine above his head, Bo made his way towards the shore.   

Thinking at first that this was some sort of wrestling match, Lucas first tried to free himself. He relented when he realized that Bo was holding him out of harm's way and his struggles were only slowing their progress. When the water was knee deep Bo began running.

Finally on dry land, Bo put his friend down as gently as he could.  "I can take care of myself, buddy," Lucas said, disgruntled at having been carried out of danger.  

"It made more sense to only have one pair of legs as targets," Bo rationalized.  

"Targets for what?" Lucas asked, after shaking himself to unload most of the water his fur carried.

When Bo looked at Dan, Lucas's eyes naturally followed.  "I...uh..." Dan stammered. "I have no idea." then turned to stare at the fourth man. "Vic?"

Although he might have the ability to follow several conversations at once, in the excitement of the moment Victus' mind had only captured a portion of whatever the man on the other end of the comm was telling them.   "Say again, please."

"...predator that tunnels through the ground," the scientist was saying. "It lives in the water and comes on land to feed."

"If it feeds on dry land, then why the hell can't we get in the water?" Bo asked, annoyed.

"We found a dead one," the disembodied voice told him.  "You'd better get back here. You've got to see this thing."

***

The rotting body on the table in front of them had all the visual appeal of a lamprey.  Lucas whistled appreciatively. "That's one ugly motherfucker."

Victus considered disciplining his student for the vulgarity, but elected to ignore the transgression after he saw the creature for himself.  Coarse though it may have been, Lucas' description was apt. The creature really was one ugly motherfucker. Insects buzzed around the rotting corpse. Lucas, Victus noted, had tensed. “Why are you bracing yourself?”

“Where’s the hit?” Lucas asked. “It’s weird, your not smacking me.”

Victus’ gaze was cool, but his eyes sparkled with mirth. “It’s less fun if you’re expecting it.”  He did give Lucas a playful swat on the arm, though. “Once you know you deserve to be punished, punishment ceases to be effective.”

Lucas cavalierly leaned one arm on the dissection table, centimeters from the rotting corpse.  “So as long as I’m aware I’m being really naughty, I can get away with it?” He purposefully misunderstood Victus’ meaning.

“There are many forms of discipline, you know,” Victus said, moving casually toward Lucas.  

"So these things tunnel all the way up to these circles to eat?" Dan asked, feeling vaguely sick to his stomach.  

"Feed on what?" Lucas asked. "There's nothing here."

"That's because... hold on."  Doctor Archer turned around and found a jar of preservative, in which floated some sort of chubby insect. "It looks like that now, but only because these haven't matured yet."

She put on a pair of magnifying glasses and stared at the specimen.  "My best guess is that these things feed on the feces of the... let's call them eels for now.  They multiply quickly, and after month or so of growth, the eels come in and...harvest them?"

"It's like they're ranching the grubs," Dan observed.  "Could they be sentient?"

"I don't think so," Archer guessed.  "Brain's awfully small and doesn't have very many convolutions.  I think it's just learned behavior."

"How long until the next feeding cycle?" Dan asked, bending closer to look at the creature's head. The creature's large mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth was disturbing, to say the least.

"Hard to say," the scientist crossed her arms, thinking about what they'd seen that day.  "The tunnels leading to the four circles we visited today join together about a quarter mile toward the beach.  The grubs in each circle are at different development points, so that means the... what did I call them? Eels? They probably keep a regular feeding cycle going."  She pursed her lips. "If they grow at a rate equal to other animals we've seen so far, maybe... they maybe hit each circle every three or four weeks?

"If that's right, we've got three or four days before the next batch are full-grown."

Dan stared at the repulsive creature laid out on the table in front of them.  His interest was more than mere morbid fascination. He wanted to know as much as possible about the animals so he didn't end up on the wrong end of those jaws.

***

The campfire their group surrounded was cheery and bright, the perfect ending to a day filled with fresh air and hard but productive labor.  They had finished building the makeshift research station for the scientists a few hours ago, and hadn't seen them since. The last thing Dan remembered hearing from any of them sounded like it had to do with the amount of feces a grub could eat, and he had quickly tuned out.  Spending time with his friends around a campfire was far more pleasant than listening to them talk about poop-eating worms.

“Yesterday, I heard a group of young-uns complaining that they missed their vid screens,” Dan said, sending a wave of eye-rolls around the fire.  

“If they’re that bored,” Bo said, sourly, “they obviously need more work.”

"More work?" Dan barked a laugh. "How about any work?  Every time I try to sign them up for a work detail, they’re too tired, or too sore, or whatever.”

“I believe I heard someone on a sanitation team comment that they needed extra hands to dig latrines,” Victus added, helpfully.

“Aaw, come on,” Lucas chided, “cut them some slack. This hasn’t been so bad for us, really.  Vic grew up in a monastery so he’s used to deprivation. The slave pits make this look like Nirvana.  And you two,” he pointed to Bo and Dan, “you...well, you actually had to work for a living.” He shook his head sadly.  “They all grew up with everything they wanted without ever having to work for any of it, and that made them into delicate little puffballs.”

“Compassion.” Victus moved his arm around as if to lovingly touch Lucas’ chest, and suddenly the young man was laying on the ground behind his seat.

“How do you do that?” Lucas wheezed, rubbing his solar plexus as he climbed to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

Victus suspected his mate was going to relieve his bladder. “Bring more wood when you return, please,” he called after the canine’s retreating back.

While Lucas was away on his errand Bo retrieved the portable chiller they’d stowed in the shuttle.  Earlier that day Lucas had impressed them all by using a sling and a stone to bag three of the small, furred chinchila-rabbits.  He’d packed the meat away after skewering the chunks and wrapping them in the aromatic herb grass that Victus had found on one of his long walks in the woods.  With great care, Bo arranged the skewers on top of the grill he’d cobbled together out of an old piece of exhaust grating. Now, they would roast the meat in their fire and eat like kings!  Dan could sense Bo’s mouth watering for even these tiny pieces of meat after having gone so long without.

Thirty kilos of wood hitting the ground alerted the others to Lucas' return. “Those smell awesome!” He shouldered his way into the ring and bent over the fire to inhale the aroma.  He fiddled with the skewers, carefully turning them over one by one to expose the uncooked sides to the flames.

They sat in happy silence, listening to the faint sounds of the surf pounding the shore and meat sizzling on their improvised grill until their dinner was ready.

meat...
meat...
meat…

“Not that you're obsessing, or anything,” Dan teased, poking Bo in the ribs.

“I'm hungry," Bo grumped. "Are you sure they’re not ready yet?” he asked, sounding worried.  The thought of precious meat getting tough from overcooking was making his ears droop. But then, to many canine varius, even being heated through was ‘overcooking’.  Bo was in the minority in liking his to be on the medium-rare side.

“We don’t know what parasites might be hiding in this,” Victus explained, reasonably. “It’s best to be safe.”

Bo’s anxiety turned to laughter when Dan shot him a mental image of the varius scooting his rump across the carpet like a dog with worms.  The distraction was effective, and before Bo could revisit his obsessive behavior, Lucas handed out the kebabs. "You're the biggest, so you get the biggest skewer," Lucas proudly proclaimed, handing Bo a charred stick with four large hunks of steaming meat on it.  "Enjoy, big fella!"

Bo wasted no time in shoving the first one in his mouth, then had to stop and fan his mouth.  "Iss haw!" He exclaimed, blowing rapidly in and out to cool the blisteringly hot gobbet.

"Of course it's hot, dummy!" Dan said, feeling the burning sensation in his own mouth before he could clamp down on his side of their link.  "It's probably three-hundred degrees on the outside!"

"Sawwy,"  Bo said, holding a paw over his muzzle as he blew cooling air in and out. "I gaw essi-ed"

"It's okay, big guy," Dan said, rubbing his partner's shoulder.  "I'm sorry you burned your mouth."

"Iss o-ay." Bo chewed gingerly to clear space in his mouth. "The skin's probably going to peel off again.  I hate when it does that. It always feels- Oh..." Finally able to taste what he'd shoved in his mouth, his eyes went wide.  Lucas, unable to contain his mirth, started to giggle.

"This is really tasty!" Bo said, blowing on the second chunk to cool it.  Dan could feel through their link that, too hot or not, he was aching to stuff the second piece into his mouth.  "I don't know what you did to season these, but this is absolutely fantastic!" No sooner were his fingers free of the second bit than the third took their place.  

Lucas held up his comm, and with a flash of light he took a holo of Bo thoroughly enjoying his food.  "I told you I could cook," he smirked at Victus as he snapped another picture of Bo giving him a thumbs-up sign and a huge smile after popping a chunk of meat into his mouth.  "See?" he smirked. "I can even make grubs taste good!"

Bo shot him a disbelieving look and went back to chewing, but only a second later he felt compelled to count the skewers.  He had two in his hand, Dan held one, Victus had one and Lucas had two. Six, with seven more staying warm over the fire, and he distinctly remembered only taking eleven from the cooler.

*urp*

For a split second Dan felt his mate's revulsion through their link before the pragmatic side of Bo took firm control of the situation.  There wasn't anything inherently disgusting about what he was chewing, so why should it put him off? If he could eat chorizo... He chewed determinedly to keep from giving Lucas the reward of seeing that he'd been rattled.  Without changing the expression on his face Bo considered his options, but there really was only one. The only possible recovery from a prank like this would come not from making his opponent eat a worm, but to make him want to eat it.  

Dan felt Bo's intent and he played along, allowing his eyes to glaze over as if Bo had just shared with him the most tantalizing taste imaginable. "Oh, God," he said, opening his mouth in anticipation. "Trade for one of mine?" he asked, plaintively.

Bo looked as if he were getting the raw end of the deal, but Dan was his mate and he would not turn him down, even if it meant trading away something this delicious.  "Two for four," he bargained.

"Deal!" Dan happily handed over his full skewer of alien rabbit in exchange for a half-skewer of bug.  To Bo's endless gratitude he played his part to the hilt, not just sniffing at the roasted grub, but actually sliding it off the end of the skewer and raising it to his lips.

*revulsion*
you owe me big time

Before Dan could chicken out, Bo sent him a remembrance of how wonderful it had tasted.  Filling his mate with pleasurable sensations took the sting out of what he was doing, and Dan managed to quell his gag reflex sufficiently to take the first bite.  

The second bite came much easier, and the third easier still.  The texture was, thankfully, just like chicken. Roast grub was a taste that was difficult to describe, but was utterly delectable, simultaneously meaty and nutty, with a hint of sweetness to it that hinted at a peanut satay.  Dan looked at Bo in surprise. "I know, right?" When he pulled the last grub from the skewer, it was with an eagerness he would never have imagined.

"What's that over there?" Bo gazed over Dan's shoulder into the darkness.

"Ain't going to work," Dan said, favoring his mate with a knowing look. "You're not getting my grub."  

Bo looked affronted that Dan would suggest such a thing, but couldn't keep his ears from drooping in disappointment.  He stared up at Dan with his best puppy-dog eyes. Being partially canine to begin with, puppy-dog eyes were his specialty.

Dan looked up and saw the hangdog expression on his partner's face.  "Sad-face ain't gonna work either," he dismissed, biting the grub in half and chewing slowly, his stony countenance not softening.  

When a pitifully needful whine emerged from Bo, Dan finally broke.  "Oh, for the love of- !" he almost shouted, practically smashing the bug into Bo's mouth.  "Eat the fucking worm!"

Bo chewed happily, then swallowed and tried to pull Dan into a hug.  Dan pulled away twice, but the third time Bo succeeded, and within seconds the two were laughing again.

Lucas was stymied.  He was positive he'd given Bo the worm-kabob, but the way the two were acting had him puzzled.  Covertly, he glanced at the other skewers. Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit... he counted off. He knew for a fact that his had been rabbit, and so had Victus'.   Bo had definitely eaten grub, and he'd apparently liked it. A lot. And so had Dan!

Lucas reached for the last skewer next to the fire, but it was snatched away before his fingers could close on it.

"Mine," Bo said, holding it protectively close to his chest.  

"Oh, come on, Bo!"  Lucas protested, sounding hurt and angry.  "I want to try it, too!"

"I don't know," Bo said, his tone morally superior.  He looked Lucas up and down, and his countenance was stern.  "You tried to trick us."

"Yeah, I know," Lucas said, guiltily.  "But you liked it!"

"You tried to make me eat a worm,"  Bo accused his voice full of manufactured hurt. "Say you're sorry."

Lucas' ears flattened almost submissively, his tail beating a rapid tattoo behind him. Although he sounded sincere, his eyes never left the tasty shish-kebab. "I'm sorry, Bo.  Really, I am."

"But you're going to do it again the next time you have a chance, aren't you?"

Lucas shrugged.  "Probably."

While Bo thought about his decision, Dan asked, privately,

why doesn't he just go
and dig up more grubs?

his clan has a pack instinct

Bo answered.

He doesn't just want
to eat a grub
he wants to eat a grub
with his friends.

Dan thought he understood.  "Stop torturing the poor man."

Bo relented, handing Lucas the stick with a look of disappointment.  The man wasted little time in popping one of the ovoid chunks into his maw, chewing rapidly.  "Ooh, it's kind of smoky."

Victus' face showed nothing other than his usual expression of amused tolerance, but his eyes went wide.  He could taste it through their bond, and it was nothing short of amazing. "No wonder the eels go all that way to feed," he said.  He smiled when Lucas offered to share the last one with him. "Thanks, but you're enjoying it more than I would."

"I wonder what the protein content of a grub is?" Bo asked, licking the tips of his fingers.  

"Probably has no nutritional value at all," Lucas surmised, sucking on the skewer to extract the last dregs of flavor.  "Nothing that tasty could possibly be good for you. Ow!” He pulled the stick out of his muzzle and used the tip of his limber tongue to probe gently at the roof of his mouth.  He looked at the pointed skewer thoughtfully for a moment, wondering why it seemed important...

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air.  “I’m a fucking idiot. This has nothing to do with anything we’re talking about,” he explained to Bo and Dan, then turned his attention back to a confused Victus. “Mal was a bigger shithead than we thought,” he said. “Right before we smacked that asteroid, or whatever, I took a little trip down to the infirmary and took a good look at Percy’s body.”

Victus was suddenly interested, and his ears perked. “When did you do that?  We were together the whole time.”

“When you were in the shower,” Lucas shrugged the detail off as unimportant. “I told the attendant that I needed to make sure he didn’t have anything security-sensitive on him and she just let me in.  Anyway,” he continued, “Max never did seem very interested in following up with Percy’s death, which made me wonder if that was because he was responsible. I scammed a syringe from the medbay when the attendant wasn’t looking, and I was about to take a blood sample when it occurred to me that I should look at his hands.” He looked at Victus significantly. “The skin over his knuckles had split, but there wasn’t any bruising.”

“So you think he fought back?” Victus reiterated. “Why should this be surprising?”

Lucas grinned and shook his head. “Remember how Percy’s hands were all bandaged up for a week or so after the negin bought me?”

“Yes,” Victus said. He reached out to touch his mate’s mind, but it was closed to casual inspection.  Lucas, apparently, was enjoying telling this tale and didn’t want Victus to spoil the ending. Victus could have broken through the flimsy barrier with ease, but that would have been rude.

“The negin had a set of organic ampoules implanted in Percy’s knuckles.  They act like syringes, pushing out just far enough when you hit somebody to inject a tiny amount of a drug into them. It’s never enough to kill because that might cause questions.  It’s supposed to be just enough to make your opponent a little dizzy, to throw them off and give you the upper hand. But knowing Mal, they were probably full of neurotoxin instead.”

“Every legitimate fighting organization bans them for obvious reasons, but every now and then someone sneaks them in.” He remembered back to his fistfight with Percy the year before, the one that almost killed him. “I thought he just got in a lucky punch or two when he laid me out, but now I think he must have accidentally grazed me with one of those needles.”

“That would explain why it was more difficult than usual to help your body heal from its wounds,” Victus allowed. “So Percy hit his hand against something and accidentally killed himself?”

At this point, Lucas looked uncertain. “Judging by the amount of damage to his knuckles, I think Max probably bashed them hard enough to break all of the vials at once.”

“Wouldn’t that show up when his body was scanned?” Dan asked.

This time, Victus had the answer. “Not unless you were careless which poison you chose.  There’s a whole family of toxins which break down quickly once administered. They are rare and expensive, but it would only be logical that such a sophisticated delivery system would contain an equally sophisticated poison.”

He turned to his mate.  “This is important news,” Victus asked. “Why did you wait so long to tell me about this?”

“We were a little busy,” Lucas answered, defensively.  “I seem to remember something about having a spaceship crashing down around us.  And what would you have done with the information anyway?” he asked. “By that time I was free, the negin was dead, Percy was dead, and by the time you managed to convince anyone that you weren’t crazy, they’d already have burned the bodies.  Trust me on this,” he said, shaking his head, “these people are experts at covering their tracks. We’re both better off just letting them go.”

Victus looked dissatisfied but had nothing to push against.  Intellectually he knew that Lucas was right, but on an emotional level he chafed that the other members of House Mal had manipulated them so thoroughly.

***

When the nutritional analysis of the grubs came back, Dan whistled in appreciation.  He already suspected that something in the grub meat was beneficial. Only a few hours after their campfire, Bo was feeling far more energetic than he had in days.  The screen in front of them confirmed that the meat he'd put in the MedAlyzer was rich in many of the nutrients the camp's varii needed to thrive, and was high enough in protein that there was little point in worrying about cows.  But the question remained - would the passengers eat worms?

"Absolutely not."  The camp's nurse and nutritionist shook her head.  "I can't think of a better way to convert these people to vegetarianism than to tell them their only alternative is to eat grubs."

"But they're really good," Dan enthused.  He fished one out of his pocket and held it out to her.  "Try one for yourself!"

?that's not one of mine is it?

Bo asked, defensively.

hush
you have a whole planet of them
we'll get you more

but those are mine...

In the end it didn't matter whose grub it was.  The young woman recoiled in distaste, wrinkling her nose at the mere suggestion.

Dan shrugged his shoulders and tossed the grub to Bo, who happily popped it into his mouth whole. "Your loss," he said.  "They really do taste like chicken."

Victus spoke up as the voice of moderation.  "We grind up other meats and season them to make sausage, so why not these?  Just because they're grubs doesn't mean they have to look like grubs."

Their first attempt at sausage was somewhat less than successful, and the second was even worse.  The third batch showed promise, and by the fifth, Dan thought they was getting the hang of it.

"What recipe did you end up using?" Victus watched as with no small amount of interest as Dan browned a half-dozen of his creations over the fire.  

"I pre-cooked the grubs to give them some texture, then shredded the meat and mixed it in with raw, uh...grub goo to bind it all together.  Season it with a little of your lemon grass and some dried sea salt, shove it all into an alien rabbit intestine, and bang! Sausage!" He pulled one off the stick and handed it to his mate, who blew on it before cautiously sticking it into his mouth.

"It's not bad," Bo allowed, munching thoughtfully, "but I still like plain old grub better."

"When do we spring it on them?" Lucas asked, a devilish grin on his face.  He was looking forward to seeing the expressions on the faces of some of the more self-important colonists when they found out they were eating bugs.

"Breakfast tomorrow,"  Victus suggested, as he watched Dan pan-fry another half dozen in a little rabbit grease.  "Nobody's paying much attention to what they're putting in their mouths that early in the morning, anyway."