Page 14 of Kiss of Steel

“You both will have tomorrow free to get acclimated, and then you’ll start work the next day.”

Phibious pointed to a sprawling shed inside the enclosure with the hornigers. “You, Mr. Steel, will report to work there. Dusty is the lead ranch hand and will teach you the ropes. Look for a man in a cowboy hat.” He paused, maybe to give Jason a moment to ask questions, but her husband didn’t say anything.

I guess it’s not just me he’s disinclined to speak to.

He might not have questions, but she did. “Those, um, shaggy animals with the horns we saw driving in. Will Jason be working with those?”

“They’re called hornigers, yes,” he confirmed. “Besides mending fences and various other tasks, he’ll drive them to different pastures, trailer them to market, round up the calves for the domestication program. Dusty will have all the details. And speaking of hornigers—the yellow building in the strip is the infirmary.”

The segue made her nervous, but Jason didn’t react. Then again, he didn’t react to anything. What did it take to get a response out of the man?

“Hopefully neither of you will ever need to go there,” Phibious added. “The green building next to the infirmary is the school. The gathering hall is at the far end of the square. If we need to have an all-hands meeting, that’s where it’s held. But there are games, vids, and a library inside.”

“How many people live here?” she asked.

“About three hundred, not counting a dozen children.”

The foreman pointed to another huge building at the far end of the quad. “That’s the mess hall. Between the mess and the meeting place is the bunkhouse—but you won’t be staying there. It’s for singles. Couples and families get private units. That’s one of the benefits of being married.”

Benefit or drawback? She’d prefer the bunkhouse where she might live with friendly people instead of this taciturn stranger.Maybe I should have waited to see if my asylum application got approved on my own, without going through Cosmic Mates.

She immediately rejected the idea as too risky. She had been a sitting duck; Blane had figured out where she lived, and he could have struck at any time. Getting married to expedite her sanctuary application had been a necessary evil. She snuck a peek at Jason’s stony face.But I wish I had a buffer.

She did not look forward to the talk they needed to have. People entered marriage with certain common assumptions and expectations. While their union couldn’t be considered normal, for better or worse, theyweremarried. She needed to discover what he expected and inform him of her hard limits.

“Grab the trunk, Jason, and I’ll show you to your dwelling unit,” Phibious said, unaware it belonged to her.

Jason blinked with such comic surprise at being asked to tote her luggage, she had to bite her lip to stifle a laugh. She’d arrived at Refuge under her own steam. She didn’t need his help, nor did she expect favors. Chivalry had been relegated to the past, but common courtesy still existed. The man had been barely civil. It wouldn’t kill him to bring her trunk.

He did give me his coat though.Rather reluctantly, but he had done it. Cold didn’t seem to affect him. Phibious, however, wore a heavy jacket.

The foreman led them through a gap between the office and the mercantile. To her surprise, she discovered a neighborhood of prefab units hidden behind the strip of buildings. “All domiciles have two bedrooms, one for the couple, and one for current or future children,” he explained. “You both received your pay credits card?”

“Yes,” Jason said.

“There is a small fee for meals in the mess hall. You may eat there, or you may purchase food from the mercantile and prepare your own meals. You can use the card at the mess and the mercantile. Keep in mind, you have only enough credits to tide you over until you get paid, so if you don’t wish to go hungry, it behooves you to be frugal.”

The cookie-cutter stark-white boxy units reminded her of marshmallows lined up in a row. Mirrored solar panels covered the sloping roofs, higher in the front than in the rear. An alien couple sitting on their small porch watching their child play in the dirt waved at them. Phibious and Honoria waved back.

The foreman marched on to the next lane. “I don’t know what your stories are—but everybody here has one. Misfortune or tragedy has struck everyone on Refuge. The question is, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to give up or stand up? Do you expect others to carry your weight? Or do you accept responsibility for your future?”

Phibious referred to the big picture, but she glanced guiltily at Jason lugging her trunk.I guess I should have toted my own baggage.

He intercepted her gaze, and she’d have sworn he flashed a nano-second smirk.

“At Refuge and Haven Ranch, we give you a leg up so you can stand on your own two feet or four feet or however many you have. People unwilling to fend for themselves don’t last very long. We offer sanctuary, but you must do your part to earn it retroactively.

“You’ll find the accommodations sparse and the amenities meager—to motivate you to work for what you need and desire—and to encourage you to help each other. We don’t incentivize laziness, self-pity, complacency, or lack of initiative by rewarding those behaviors with handouts. If you consider yourself to be a victim, you’ll always be one. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Jason said.

“Yes,” she answered.Welcome to Refuge and Haven Ranch!She didn’t disagree with its policy or the reasoning behind it, and a gentler version of the rules had been in the asylum application materials, but Phibious didn’t beat around the bush. Overall, she preferred to have expectations stated clearly to avoid misunderstandings.

She’d been wondering how to ease into a discussion about her expectations and limits and decided maybe she should follow the foreman’s lead and just spit it out and let the chips fall where they may. After all, what recourse would Jason have at this juncture? Divorce? Claim bad faith and annul the marriage? They both had too much to lose by splitting up before their probation ended. They’d lose their asylum, and Refuge was the place of last resort. You only came here when you ran out of options.

Phibious turned right at the fourth block and stopped in front of the third house. “Your unit.” He marched up two steps to the tiny porch. To the right of the door was a small bench, to the left a bin of brown bricks.

She picked up one. “What are these?” She sniffed. It exuded a pungent, somewhat unpleasant odor.

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