"I do."
"Don't make it too fancy; we'll go straight to the groves afterward."
"All right."
True to his word, Keedan had someone at the barracks the following morning at dawn. Yendah almost wept when I left, and Garthe and Calde weren't happy either. Yendah hugged me as my bags were loaded onto the small hovertruck by the driver, who gave Yendah more than a cursory glance. He took me straight to a small cottage, from which I could see what Keedan termed "the big house." It was big. Farzi and Nenzi would likely swoon and fashion their next home after it. It rivaled Teeg's palace on Campiaa, with beautiful, curved windows and turrets on every corner. The rest was whitewashed, with blue and silver trim around the windows and doors. Surrounded by the green of gishi fruit groves, it was something out of a myth or legend.
"Ready?" Keedan called after knocking on my front door. My cottage held a small kitchen, a bedroom, private bath and a sitting room. I'd dumped my bags onto the bed but had no time to unpack them before Keedan arrived.
"I'm ready," I said, walking out of the bedroom to greet Keedan.
"Very nice," Keedan took in my outfit. A nicer blouse, black jeans and sandals made up my outfit, and I'd clipped my hair back, letting most of it hang loose instead of braiding it and covering my head with an old straw hat as I usually did. "Come on, the boss and the other three will be waiting." Keedan drove his personal hovercart to the big house, which sat, I discovered, on an artificially created hill so the owner could look over his groves for clicks.
"Is this a competition?" I muttered when Keedan brought me into a private dining room where three other supervisors sat, their assistants sitting beside them. All the assistants were women, and each was quite pretty.
"Maybe, but you're the only one who knows what she's doing, and the prettiest, on top of that," Keedan smiled, his eyes crinkling.
I'd brought a comp-vid with me; in fact, it was the one I'd been given as a gift by Pripps Electronics on Surnath. I'd gotten it back from Lendill and kept it with me constantly. Schuul Enterprises had nothing to do with its manufacture, and I preferred it that way.
"And the western grove has arrived with his new assistant," one of the others commented, smiling at me.
"Drennen, of the eastern grove," Keedan introduced the man. "And his assistant, Annita. Crofford of the Southern Grove, and his assistant Retta, plus Phelpas of the Northern Grove, with his assistant Jadis." I was introduced to all the supervisors who ran EastStar Groves on Avendor, the smallest of the four gishi fruit farming concerns on the planet. Word had it that the owner was a recluse, refusing to attend most of the Governor's balls and banquets, as some of the other owners did.
I couldn't blame him; those things were something I'd come to loathe, having been to more than my share on Teeg's arm. President Drix had been injured during a meeting on Campiaa not long ago, but word had it that he was recovered and back to work at full efficiency, glad that the pirating problem had been eliminated.
"And this is Reah, my new assistant, who worked in the Kifirini Groves before moving here," Keedan introduced me as we sat down. The seat at the head of the table was empty, but servants were waiting in a wide doorway nearby, hovering in anticipation of their lord and master's arrival so breakfast could be served.
"What did you do for the Kifirini groves?" Drennen of the eastern groves asked.
"Everything," I said.
"Everything?" He lifted an eyebrow skeptically.
"Yes," I said. "I've even been known to lay new water pipes or repair the sprinkler system from time to time, although I don't like digging trenches to lay new lines. We didn't own a trencher for a while and digging by hand always makes my back ache."
"How can they sell their fruit as organic?" Crofford of the southern groves asked. "Surely they use insecticides for pests."
"I can assure you that they don't, they use a natural repellent," I said. Crofford huffed out his disbelief.
"Everyone here? Great." The boss had arrived. I stared at him. He was looking at the others at first, giving them a smile. Until he came to me. His mouth dropped open the moment his eyes rested on my face. He covered the gaffe quickly, however. I had no idea who he was, but my heart was suddenly pounding a click a tick, and that most certainly shouldn't be. He was tall—at least six feet. He had thick, dark-brown hair that curled slightly and bright, hazel eyes that would likely cause any girl to swoon, should those eyes smile in her direction.
Of course, his actual smile with beautiful, even white teeth would make her swoon again. A pale hint of freckles might have been on his face, too, but I was too busy staring at his eyes and smile. I think every female at the table was hoping to wiggle her way into the boss's good graces; I realized that right away.
With the way my heart was racing, I was frightened that I might have joined their ranks. Settling myself with a sigh, I pulled out my comp-vid and made ready to take notes if necessary. Pregnancy notwithstanding, I had too many mates already and none of them had thought to pay attention to me for a very long time. I wasn't prepared to take on another, who very likely would do exactly the same.
"This is Edward Pendley, owner of EastStar Groves," Keedan introduced the boss with a smile. I smiled at the boss as best I could, taking his hand when it was offered and giving him my name. We sat down after that, breakfast was served and we got right to business.
"We're caught up now," Keedan said. "We've hired a really good replacement crew and they've made up lost time after we fired the others." I learned that his previous assistant had been one of the terminated crew. Likely the ringleader, unless I missed my guess. I wasn't about to question Keedan about it. If he wanted me to know, he'd tell me.
"How did you do it so quickly?" Phelpas asked.
"Fired the slowest ones first day and then told the rest they had to keep up with the fastest picker," Keedan grinned. I mentally gulped. That had been me. I hadn't known he'd set me up as the example. I'd have to come out of my own thoughts more often. Plates of food were set in front of us, along with coffee, juice and water.
"Do you have decaf?" Keedan placed a hand over my coffee cup as he looked up at the server.
"We can make it," the young man said.
"Do it. She's pregnant," Keedan said. My cheeks went pink immediately. I was glad when they all started talking business again. I set my comp-vid on record so I could get all the information in case I needed it again. They spoke of how much fertilizer would be needed after the harvest, discussed new groves that had been planted and which trees required grafting to produce sooner. The discussion also turned to how many new employees to keep on the payroll to mulch, prune and spray.
"What did you use to fertilize on Kifirin?" Crofford asked. He seemed unnaturally interested in the Kifirini groves for some reason.
"Cow manure compost," I said, "after the harvests. We composted in between and added that mix when it was time. The Crown owns vast cattle herds, and as you know, the Crown also owns the gishi fruit groves. It was an easy exchange; the only cost was getting the manure to the groves. We worked compost into the soil and the trees thrived on it, with a little natural bean crop mixed in."
"I understand that most of the farms and ranches on Kifirin are owned by the Crown," Edward observed. He'd been quiet for the most part and seemed content to eat and listen to what his supervisors had to say.
"They are," I nodded, pushing the eggs around on my plate. The food was standard fare—nothing special. "A few people on Kifirin own land and grow their own crops, but most are employed by the Crown in some way or another. The exceptions are the artisans, weavers and such. Kifirin produces very good quality hand-woven cloth and handmade pottery and glass."
"And it's expensive," Keedan agreed. "I saw a bowl in Adrixx priced at five hundred credits. And it wasn't even their top of the line, according to the shop owner."
"You have to forgive the feudal system they have," I said. "It's much better now than it used to be. They're slowly making their way toward the light, I think."
"Sir, I hate to interrupt," a middle-aged man walked into the dining room. "But there's a fire in the southern grove."
Everybody was up and rushing toward the back of the house. A wide deck was there, overlooking the southern portion of EastStar's massive groves. Edward Pendley began to curse—in English. "I'm going down there," he shouted in common and disappeared, just like that.
"Fuck!" Keedan muttered beside me. "Somebody get a hovercar here. We need to be down there, too."
"I can take two," I said, grabbing Keedan and the first one of the others I could reach, (which turned out to be Crofford) and skipped directly to the spot in the groves where the smoke curled toward the sky.
"Get the sprinklers on!" I shouted, dumping Keedan and Crofford before racing toward the manual control. Those were located every quarter click or so within the groves. Turning the wheel as quickly as I could, the sprinklers came to life, spraying water everywhere while the smoke thickened, forcing me to cough in an attempt to get it out of my lungs.
I couldn't imagine what might have started a fire—the groves were moist enough from rain and the sprinklers that came on during the evening hours. Keedan and Crofford had raced in the opposite direction to get the sprinklers on the other side turned on. I had no idea where Edward had gone; he wasn't there when we arrived.
After only a few moments, we were left with a few smoldering trees, smoke that still hung knee-high above the ground and a mystery as to how the fire had started. Edward had finally shown up, looking angry. I understood that look—at least a dozen trees had been destroyed, and each gishi fruit tree was worth around a million credits over its lifetime.
"They were already gone," Edward muttered. He'd gone after the arsonists while we'd hurried to save the trees. We followed him, then, until we found the origin of the fire. Two trees were now reduced to cinders, and they shouldn't have burned that quickly unless they had help.