CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories by J. Posthumus (read after txt) 📕

saying anything, they waved and stumbled down separate corridors, toward their respective bedrooms.

“It’s about that time,” Sallie said, stretching.

Aashi and Cynthia were chatting with their heads close together. They’d be engrossed for an hour.

John nodded and stood. “Have a good meeting.” He and Cynthia shared a look. John headed toward the command room, and Cynthia went back to her conversation with Aashi.

Sallie checked his wrist monitor. The misting cycle should be completed, and he had just enough time to inoculate the dirt before the morning meeting at 0900. He jogged back to the ag module.

Twenty minutes later, Aashi was back. “Need any help?”

“Sol waits for no man, and I’m hoping I can catch a dirt devil for the feed before my meeting with the transport for the chicken update.”

“Good idea. I don’t think anyone’s caught a dusty vortex yet.” She grabbed the other pitchfork from the small shed and rammed it into the mound beside him.

He lifted a scoop, turned it, and then flipped the pitchfork over to spread it. While he spread his portion, she selected her own. They settled into a companionable rhythm.

“I think I need to work harder on the ARED.” She leaned on her implement, her chest moving up and down the way his had that morning.

He laughed. “Me, too.”

“What do you call this again?” She waved her hand around the room. “I mean with the chickens.”

“It’s called permaculture,” he said, swiping a canister from the table in the middle. He took a swig and then offered it to her. She took a drink. “The regenerative method was co-invented in the 1970’s by a man named Bill Mollison, but the concepts have been around for much longer. In 1978, Mollison wrote about the idea with David Holmgren in Permaculture One.”

“So there’s more to it than this?” Aashi handed the bottle back to him. “I never came across it in my botany studies. They don’t teach it often.”

“More than they used to. It’s management-heavy old-tech in a new-tech hungry world. It’s out there. You just have to know where to look. There’s a whole design system we could use someday.” Sallie stared at the nearest section of wall.

Instead of the beige panel, he imagined a terraforming movement that worked its way across Mars, impacting a yard at a time. With enough plants absorbing carbon dioxide, they could even sequester all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and replace it with oxygen. Small components used over and over again… They had the ability to completely change the planet.

He glanced back at Aashi. “Big dreams don’t happen in an instant. That’s hundreds of years off. First, we have to figure out if chickens can even survive here.”

“Chickens on Mars…” She shook her head.

“It’s amazing what can be accomplished with a little intentional design.” Sallie bent over the pile, surprised to see it was almost gone. His scoop was the last one.

Aashi crossed to the shed to deposit her pitchfork. “I had a talk with Cynthia,” Aashi said. She sounded breathy, almost nervous. Strange. For her.

“That’s good.” Sallie let the sentence trail out, focused on the task at hand. He wasn’t sure where the conversation was going, and he had a job to finish.

“She said sex on Mars is about like sex on Earth. Good as the two people participating.” Her words came out in a flood, like a damn burst forth, bumping into one another in a vocal, trembling rush. “If you ever wanted to try, I’m open to experiment.”

Sallie froze. Wait. What had she just said?

Her offer broke through his tunnel vision and his eyes widened. The idea punched him in the gut… and then other places followed. He turned away from her and crossed to the shed to deposit his pitchfork. It had been a long time since…

“Uh, I, well, I,” he stammered. He stayed with his back toward her, his throat working up and down as he collected his thoughts, focusing on anything but Aashi’s… He stared at the ceiling.

Poultry… Roosters… Cocks. No. Not that one.

Shit glitter, cold showers, baseball, and grandmas.

In keeping with the long-term mission handbook, she’d expressed interest in a no-nonsense way. He’d just gotten around to thinking she might be an option. He never figured she’d beat him to the asking. In her head, she was an awkward AU ahead of him. Finally, he said, “That’s an intriguing idea.”

Noncommittal was the best he could manage and not give himself away. He turned around slowly. Shit glitter, cold showers…

Her gaze narrowed. “Good interesting or bad interesting?” She crossed her arms.

“God,” he said, his voice strangled. He put up his hands. He’d been ambushed. “Good. It’s good. That’s what I meant. Aashi,” he rubbed his forehead, “you sure know how to sneak up on a guy.”

A smile broke her scowl, and she uncrossed her arms. She kicked her hips to the side. “It’s been six months, Sallie. I wasn’t sure you were going to get around to it.” Without waiting for his response, she left.

Sallie stared long after she’d disappeared.

The next morning, Sallie squinted into the heavy haze and rolled to a stop on a rise that overlooked the circular compound. Some days, the view through the windshield of the Rover was spectacular. That day’s wind made the dust too thick to see Harmony. It almost obscured Sol.

Smaller than it was on Earth, Sol shined as bright as it could through the dusty atmosphere. It always reminded him of the moon through midnight clouds from the roof of his house in Riverside, Iowa. Funny how he compared everything with “back home.” He’d been highly motivated to leave it, and he couldn’t get much farther from it. Maybe he could have saved himself thirty-four million miles if he’d tried Mumbai before trying Mars.

He was out on his customary morning spin. He needed time to himself. Aashi’s words had kept him pacing in his quarters all night, so he’d climbed into his exosuit—or exo for short—and went out first thing. He wasn’t sure what