Raz the Farmer

I leaned over to get a better look and saw that the pickup was indeed stuck in the drainage ditch that ran between the two fields, the back wheels suspended in the air as the truck lay across the gap.

"Can't you get one of the tractors to come pull you out?"

"I can't trust these damned robots to drive in a straight line, never mind tow my truck free. They'd probably just tear the front axle right off of it."

"I'll walk back up to the farm and bring Mom's car around, maybe we can tow the-"

Raz dropped down heavily into the ditch with a crunch of dry foliage, the two of us watching her curiously as she crouched to position herself beneath the truck. She braced her shoulder against its undercarriage, planting her feet firmly on the ground, then heaved. The truck bounced, my father's eyes widening as he watched the alien give it another shove, loosing a snarl as she briefly lifted what must have been at least a two or three-ton vehicle into the air before it fell back down. The muscles in her legs bulged beneath her clothing as she strained against its weight, adding some forward momentum to her shove this time to send it rolling back onto our side of the ditch. The back wheels landed on the dirt, bouncing on their suspension as we looked on in disbelief, Raz leaping back out of the ditch to stand beside it.

"Well I'll be," Dad mused, scratching his beard as he appraised his newly freed truck. "Strong as an ox, this one. Thank you, Raz." That was the first word he had said to her so far, and judging by his expression she had gone some way towards winning his respect. "Hop in the back, I'll drive you two up to the house."

I sat beside him in the passenger seat as Raz climbed into the flatbed, the truck sagging a little under her weight as Dad turned it towards the dirt path, giving the combine a wide berth.

"I didn't really know what to think when you showed up with Raz," he muttered, keeping his voice low so that she wouldn't overhear him from her seat in the flatbed. "I've never seen anything like her before. When she stepped off the shuttle I didn't know what to say, I was a little frightened I guess."

"Well, that's kind of why I didn't tell you and Mom about her sooner. I wasn't sure how you'd react."

"I suppose we didn't part ways on the best of terms," Dad said as his expression softened somewhat, his eyes focused on the road. "I wanted you to take over the farm when I retired but you up and left us so suddenly. I thought that you'd gotten your head full of propaganda and that you'd end up coming home in a box. When you told us that they'd made you a firing instructor, well...you can imagine our relief."

"I've seen combat," I replied a little tersely. "It's not as if the Pinwheel is completely safe."

"I'm not trying to say that you're any less of a soldier, just that I'm glad you're not fighting on a different planet every week, that's all. They sanitize the news to make the war look a lot cleaner than it really is, but we all know what's really going on."

He turned off the dirt track and headed for the farmhouse in the distance. It was perched atop a hill along with the grain silos and the barn, which was painted in the traditional red despite the cluster of transmitters that protruded from the roof.

"You didn't discuss it with your mother and I, you just signed up and then off you went without so much as a by your leave. We didn't hear hardly head nor tail of you for the better part of two years, and now you show up with a giant alien in tow. You just keep throwing me curveballs, Stan."

"I'm not trying to be difficult, Dad," I sighed. "But you're not always easy to talk to. Look at the auto-tractors. Mom tried to get you to buy those for years and you wouldn't, but now you've come around to the idea. You tend to trust your gut reaction, and I couldn't wait around for you to see things my way this time."

"Well...for what it's worth, I'm proud of you. It didn't really hit me until I saw you in your uniform, but if you were never going to be a farmer, then I can't think of anything better for you to be."

"Thanks, Dad, that means a lot to me."

"Raz is quite the...er....handful. Is my daughter in law really going to be an alien?"

"It's looking that way, yeah. She's pretty special, Dad, I hope you'll take the time to get to know her before we have to leave."

"Well you never had a way with women Stanley, I was starting to get worried about you, but it looks like you skipped the little leagues and went straight for the world series."

CHAPTER 2: SKINNY DIPPING

We arrived home after a short drive, and Raz hopped out of the back of the pickup, the suspension bouncing as her weight left the flatbed. My father got out and stretched his legs, the midday sun burning above us like a fiery ball in the azure, cloudless sky. The heat was stifling, I was used to the climate-controlled torus of the Pinwheel, kept at a constant comfortable temperature by the station's computer monitored systems. Raz seemed to be enjoying it, however. This was a lot closer to the climate of her home planet, after all, though it must have fallen short of the intense heat of Elysia.

"I'm gonna get on the horn with the dealership and give 'em a piece of my mind about that damned auto-tractor," my father complained, making his way towards the farmhouse. "Thank you for your help, you two."

Raz seemed pleased with herself, standing in the dusty courtyard and planting her hands on her wide hips, shooting me a toothy grin. The wind blew her orange hair, her long tail waving back and forth, and I couldn't help but smile along with her.

"Why don't we go for a walk?" I suggested. "There's a stream near here where I used to play when I was younger, it wouldn't do to visit an alien planet and stay cooped up inside the whole time."

"Lead the way," she replied. As I watched, she hooked the curved claw on her index finger through the loop on her zipper and pulled it down to the waist. She shrugged out of the sleeves, letting the torso of her blue UNN jumpsuit fall to hang around her hips. She was wearing a grey tank top beneath it that struggled to contain her exaggerated chest, stopping just below them to expose her belly, fresh sweat giving her prominent abdominal muscles a reflective sheen. Now liberated, she stretched her arms above her head and yawned widely, her breasts bouncing beneath the inadequate garment with the motion. Her round, furry ears swiveled in my direction as she watched my eyes play over her muscular figure, her grin turning into a sly smirk.

"Are you going to show me around or are you just going to stare at me, monkey?"

My brow furrowed in mock anger at the use of my pet name, originally an insult that she had used in reference to my species' simian ancestry and now a playful nickname.

"Come on then, follow me. We'd better find some way to occupy you before you get yourself into trouble."

She bounced over to me on her springy, digitigrade legs like an excited child, the low gravity letting the already agile alien jump about like she was on the moon. She came to a stop beside me and ruffled my hair with her dinner-plate sized hand, then we set off down the dirt path.

While most of this region was completely flat farmland, there were pockets of forest along with ponds and rivers here and there. I had spent much of my time exploring the area that surrounded my family's farmhouse as a child. The nearest school had been quite a bus ride, and none of my friends had lived within visiting range, so most of my free time had been taken up investigating the natural wealth that surrounded me.

I led Raz down the path and off towards the nearest pocket of trees that broke up the endless fields and grasslands. One could imagine that the Earth was flat, standing here and looking out over a landscape that was almost completely level from horizon to horizon. Raz sauntered along beside me, walking slowly so as not to outpace me with her longer strides.

"Everything smells strange," she commented, "unfamiliar. There are plants and animals that I've never smelled before, sounds from birds and insects that I don't recognize. I feel like I should be on edge, but the Earth is a tame planet."

"How do you mean?" I asked, looking up at her.

"Everything on Borealis has evolved to kill something else, everything is dangerous. It's an endless competition for survival."

"Surely you have some animals that aren't out to get you? Pets? Domesticated livestock? Smaller creatures evolved to evade predators?"

"Yes, though they are few. Even our herd animals are perfectly capable of crushing a Borealan if provoked."

"Well there's nothing like that around here," I said, trying to sound reassuring. "I suppose black bears and wolves are dangerous, but they're rarely sighted, and there certainly aren't any near the farmland. You'd have to really get on the bad side of a deer or an elk to provoke it into attacking you rather than just running away."

"I don't know these animals," she chuckled, and I patted her on the thigh apologetically.

"We'll get you a kid's book, you can learn your animals. A is for antelope, B is for bison..."

She whipped the back of my legs playfully with her long tail, making me stumble.

"You'll have to visit Elysia one day," she said, then laughed at my worried expression. "Oh, you thought this meet the parents tradition only went one way? I hope you like blistering heat, crushing gravity and vicious wildlife. Oh, and my father is the size of a Krell and controls his own fleet."

"Maybe in the winter," I conceded, "when is it coldest on Borealis?"

"Winter in Elysia comes twice a month and lasts for three days."

"Of course..."

A butterfly floated towards Raz on the breeze and her amber eyes locked onto it, her pupils dilating from vertical slits to dark circles. Her ears twitched as she tracked it, watching the colorful insect disappear into the tall grass of an adjacent field.

"B is for butterfly," I volunteered.

We walked a while longer, Raz taking the time to appreciate the landscape as we approached the small patch of forest where the stream was. We passed under the canopy, the rays of sunlight that penetrated the leaves stained green, pleasant shadows cooling us as we followed the old dirt path between the trunks. The air was full of insects, birds chirped as they hopped between the branches of the trees and the sound of flowing water rose to my ears as we neared our destination. I pushed through the undergrowth and found the stream nearby, the clear water rushing over the smooth pebbles that lined its bed.

I leaned down on the bank and dipped my fingers into the water, it was cool and pleasant on my skin, a few small fish darting away as my hand disturbed them. Raz wasted no time, stripping off her jumpsuit down to her underwear and crudely wading into the stream until it reached her knees. She let herself fall backwards into the water with a splash, floating as she beckoned for me to join her. I shrugged and began to strip off my clothes. Borealans loved water and Raz was no exception. She spent a great deal of time at the Pinwheel's gym where there were several Olympic sized swimming pools, her affinity for water reminding me of a tiger as she lurked near the surface and waited for imaginary prey to pass by. Her home city was built around the shore of a gigantic lake, and her people spent much of their leisure time fishing and lounging around in the shallows.

Now wearing nothing but my shorts, I stepped into the stream to join her, the flow too gentle to knock me off balance or carry us away. There weren't many weeds, the bottom was made up of pebbles that had been smoothed by eons of rushing water, and they felt pleasant under my bare feet. She splashed me, drenching me with a torrent of water in order to sabotage my slow acclimatization, laughing as I shivered.

"Just jump in, the water's nice."

I gave in and let myself sink, the stream almost deep enough to reach my waist in places. I copied Raz and let myself fall backwards, floating on the surface and watching the breeze rustle the leaves in the canopy above us. It was a welcome reprieve from the heat, the sounds of birdsong and chirping insects almost made me want to fall asleep here.

I felt Raz coil her tail around my leg, the fur damp against my skin, and she tugged me closer to her. She caught me in her arms and crossed them over my chest, nestling my head between her buoyant breasts. The tank top that contained them was sodden and clung to her figure as I sank into her soft bust.

"Borealans don't really have vacations," she mumbled into my ear, "this is one human custom that I wish to adopt."

We floated there for a while, just enjoying the sounds of nature and the sensation of the cool water on our skin. I lay atop Raz like she was some kind of giant inflatable pool toy, her chest making an admirable pillow as my head sank into the soft meat of her bosom. Jokes about her massive breasts aside, I was shocked at just how buoyant she was, she easily weighed as much as four or five humans and yet she was able to float on the surface of the stream with me lying on top of her. Maybe it was just her immense lung capacity, or perhaps evolution had favored some aquatic traits in creatures that commonly lived near large bodies of water.

"So this is where you spent a lot of your time as a kitten?"

"I was never a kitten," I laughed. "As a child, yes. I'd come down here quite often, I spent many a summer exploring the area."

"What did you do here?" Raz asked, watching a stray leaf as it passed us by on its way downstream.

"Sometimes I just relaxed, like we're doing now. Sometimes I brought a tablet computer with me and watched videos or played games. Did a fair amount of hunting too."

That seemed to peak her interested, her fuzzy ears turning to monitor me.

"That might explain why you're so good with a rifle, what did you hunt? Is there big game here?"

"No, nothing like that. Well, there are deer and elk in the region, but mostly I just hunted rabbits and wild turkeys." I remembered that she had no idea what those were and so I elaborated. "Turkeys are big, dumb birds, good eating. Rabbits are these little, furred mammals that are fast on their feet, but they make good stew if you can ambush them. I had a little .22LR rifle, a pea shooter really, but it was enough to kill small game."

"Quite the little Ranger. It's no wonder they made you a firing range instructor if you've been shooting from such an early age."

"How about you?" I asked. "Borealans are a martial people, when did you start fighting?"

"Even kittens playfight," she replied, "but I never fired a weapon until I came of age. You've seen how large our guns are, a kitten couldn't wield one, and we never miniaturized our designs."

She was right, the Borealan rifles that I had seen had been enormous. Their native technology was not especially advanced, though the large-bore powder guns that they used were devastating. I had no doubt that they could put a round straight through an elephant's skull.

"You know what Borealans are like. When I was old enough, I fought my way up the hierarchy and became the Alpha of my own little pack. I came from my father's litter after all. I got my fair share of scars, but I spent most of my youth in the city, I never went hunting. That's more of a Ranger thing, and I was a member of the aristocracy."

"Was it hard having all of those expectations on your shoulders?"

"Well, I'm not an only child. If I had failed to meet my father's expectations, then my siblings would have taken up the slack."

"How many siblings do you have?" I asked. I had never really put two and two together before now, but her people reproduced in litters of anywhere up to half a dozen kittens. She might have as many as six brothers and sisters. That would make any family reunion a nightmare. One Raz was almost more than I could handle, never mind a whole litter of them.

"I have uncounted relatives, the status of Patriarch comes with many privileges, one of them being the attentions of powerful women who wish to further their own lines. My father has bred with many women and has produced dozens of children. I have three sisters and two brothers born of the same mother, though I am the largest and the strongest."

"Yeah, I don't doubt that. What are they doing then? Are they soldiers in the UNN like you, or are they back on Borealis doing their own thing?"

"Two of my sisters are mated, they're raising litters of their own. My third sister is a landowner, and my brother is a Royal Guard."

"You're not afraid that one of them will steal the throne from you while you're working on the Pinwheel?"

She chuckled, her chest bouncing around my head as I rested on top of her.

"It doesn't work that way for us. The Patriarch, or Matriarch as it may be, is the Alpha of Alphas. There's no family succession, every Borealan starts out on the same social footing and has to work their way up the ladder. Of course, some are better bred than others, and more is expected of them. If a family can maintain their high position for several generations, then they will have access to more desirable mates, resulting in larger and stronger offspring."

"Like you?"

"Now you're getting it," she chuckled, her claws combing my wet hair. "My father is a great warrior, an impeccable specimen of Elysian stock, and my mother was a Ranger."

"A Ranger?" I asked, surprised. "You've spoken of your parents before, but you never told me that your mother was a Ranger! How did they meet?"

Rangers were reclusive survivalists. They rejected the modern towns and cities that bordered the great lakes and chose to live in the surrounding jungles, which they considered to be the natural state of their kind. They lived off the land and spent their time hunting the vicious creatures that inhabited the dense primeval forests in order to sell their pelts and produce to their more cosmopolitan neighbors.

"They met on a hunt. It is customary for the Patriarch to slay a Rainbow Spider in order to wear its fur as a symbol of status, and she must have impressed him or gained his respect during her time as his guide. After bringing down the beast and feasting on its flesh as is customary, they mated, and I was conceived along with my siblings."

"Quite a story. You know how my parents met?"

Raz shook her head.

"At a bar in Tulsa."

She laughed again, the motions sending ripples across the surface of the water.

"You should give yourself more credit, Stanley. I am of noble birth while you are spawned from humble farmers, yet we have achieved equal rank and status. Either I have slacked, or you are exceptional."

I thought about that statement for a while as we floated in the stream, feeling the cool water pass between my fingers and toes, listening to the birds chirp in the trees as Raz relaxed. We had lived such different lives and yet somehow we had ended up in the same boat. Both of us had wound up as instructors rather than the warriors that we had set out to become. I wouldn't have it any other way, but the parallels were odd considering our drastically different starts in life. Maybe opposites really did attract.

"I like it here, it's peaceful" she mumbled. "Tell me the names of the birds, Stanley."

"Let me see...the blue one with red wings over there is a kingfisher. They dive into the water to catch small fish. The ones singing are jays or maybe thrushes. If we're lucky we might hear a woodpecker, they make a sound like...what are you-"

I twitched as I felt her damp, furry tail snake up the leg of my shorts, creeping around my member and squeezing it with all the dexterity of a gentle hand. Her arms tightened around me, and I felt the warmth of her breath on my ear as she leaned closer to whisper to me.