"Are you hungry?" I asked, setting food in front of Garthe, who gave me a lovely smile before lifting his fork.
"Of course," Keedan grinned. I'd gotten a comp-vid to order food and supplies, and I'd asked for fish as one of our choices. I was serving it now. Keedan got the extra bit of fish I'd cooked.
"Does she always cook this well?" Keedan asked, stunned after his first bite.
"Every night," Yendah smiled. "We clean up, Reah cooks. Works great for us. I've never eaten this well."
"What about barracks one and two?" Keedan asked, cutting into the fish again.
"I'm not up to cooking for that many," I said. "I'm pregnant and I need as much rest as I can get." If I'd dropped a bomb on the floor, it might have caused less of a stir. Keedan was staring and Yendah was fussing suddenly. Garthe and Calde were staring at one another.
"I've done everything there is to do with gishi fruit while pregnant before," I said. "I'm just not cooking for nearly thirty people after a long day in the groves. Four I can handle. Maybe five or six, but that's it. I won't cook for more than that."
"How far along?" Keedan went back to his food.
"Close to three months. I'll have to see about getting energy bars or something to carry with me soon, so I won't get sick. Besides, the harvest should be done in another six eight-days. I'll find something else after that if you're uncomfortable with an expectant mother working in your groves." I gave Keedan a hard look. I'd picked gishi fruit while eight months pregnant with my middle twins. It certainly hadn't bothered Gardevik Rath that I'd done it. Or Kifirin or any one of my mates.
"Do you have a husband?" Yendah asked.
"I do, but we're not speaking right now. Harvesting gishi fruit gives me a bit of peace and quiet." I dumped the last of the fish sauce on Keedan's plate; he was scraping up the last of it and still had a third of his fish left. Turning back to my dinner, I took a bite of fish and chewed, wondering exactly what it was that Keedan had come to barracks three to say.
"I was hoping you'd work as my assistant," he said, as soon as he'd finished his meal. "You seem to know everything already, although I don't understand how that is. I've never seen you in the groves before, and I've worked with practically everybody, even the ones who work for our two competitors."
"I worked the Kifirini groves," I shrugged. There wasn't any reason to lie about it. "And I have done everything there is to do, including grafting, raising seedlings and pruning."
"Why did you leave Kifirin, then?" Keedan asked.
"New management," I said. "We couldn't seem to agree." That was certainly true. That bitch had stolen my rings and burned my stuff. Teeg could worry about getting his Tiralian crystal ring back—it was worth millions.
"You'll be running errands between me and the big house," Keedan said, leaning back and rubbing his stomach. "And it'll get you quarters closer in. It hurts to lose my best picker, but I think I can depend on you to know what I'm talking about when I send you to the boss. I don't have time to argue with him as much as he wants and still get this harvest in. You start tomorrow; somebody will be here to pick up your things early in the morning. You'll move into your new cottage tomorrow morning, then I'll pick you up and drive you to the big house for breakfast with the boss around nine bells. Got something a little nicer than what you're wearing now?" Keedan perused my jeans and sleeveless shirt.
"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.