Chapter 3(farm)
Pablo Fernandez's back ached terribly as he lifted a 90 pound bright blue Kepler melon up off the ground, straining to put it gently onto the slowly moving harvest wagon.
Kepler melons were an alien fruit that humans domesticated over 30 thousand years ago, originally from one of the so called Kepler planets according to legend. The melons were over 95 percent water and very very soft. They burst open extremely easily if handled too roughly, and spoiled quickly if burst, so had to be handled with the uttermost care.
Pablo had a special hatred for harvesting Kepler melons. They were without doubt one of the most fragile fruits he had ever worked with, and yet they were so heavy that handling them gently enough was extremely difficult.
Even worse was how insanely expensive these fragile melons were. Kepler melons were notoriously fussy about the soil conditions they would grow in, and if the soil magnesium concentration was more than 1 tenth of 1 percent higher or lower than the soil of their tiny natural habitat the damn things refused to grow!
Only a few planets in the entire Imperium of Man had the right soil to grow Kepler melons, and even then it was usually only a tiny area of those planets that had this perfect soil. Even on their home planet Kepler melons were apparently only found in a single valley, their native range was barely 10 miles it was said.
Well this made Kepler melons extremely rare, and this rarity made them very expensive. Only a few farms on Yambini had the right soil for them, and these few farms grew nothing else.
This was one such farm, a few thousand acres where the soil magnesium concentration was in this absolutely precise range, and the family who owned this farm was rich by local standards. According to rumour the head of this family could afford to keep 25 extremely beautiful wives, all for himself! Such wealth!
Pablo wondered what it would be like to have 25 wives. He figured that it was probably a mixed blessing, the man would probably have to put up with 25 times as much nagging as other men, Pablo didn't think that he would be able to cope with that.
At the moment Pablo would be happy if he had even just one woman to call his own. He hadn't been with a woman yet, and to be honest he wasn't even completely sure what he would do with her if he got one. He knew that it had something to do with private parts, but he wasn't completely sure what went in where, people didn't discuss such taboo things!
As much as women were a mystery to Pablo, they sure were nice to look at.
Pablo put women from his mind and focused on what he was doing. These Kepler melons would cost him his pay today if he broke too many.
Kepler melons broke so easily that even the most dedicated picker would break at least one or two each harvest, especially if they were overripe. These fruits were evolved to split apart and release their seeds, it's what the fruit wanted to do. Sometimes the fruit just got the better of even the most careful picker.
The farmers understood this, and were generally reasonable about it, but only up to a point. Break too many and they will send you home without pay for the day. Kepler melons were far too expensive for a day labourer to ever afford to reimburse the cost of one, so the farmers didn't even bother asking you to pay, they just threw you out.
The one good thing about Kepler melons was that if you went the whole day without breaking too many you got 3 times your usual pay, as an incentive to really try your best. Pablo could really use the money, he earned so little.
Pablo lifted up another 90 pound Kepler melon, ignoring the terrible pain in his back, and placed it very gently on the carefully padded harvesting wagon.
The wagon itself was swarming with workers who carefully wrapped up each melon in padded material and stacked them very carefully at the other end of the wagon. The wagon was over twenty meters wide and designed solely for harvesting Kepler melons. It was pulled along very slowly by a fancy imported tractor that ran on refined imported fuel, much more reliable than local engines.
It had only been a few hours but Pablo was already exhausted. The work was so heavy that Pablo wasn't even feeling the cold today, he was almost feeling warm right now! His back was hurting terribly, and he was almost ready to collapse from exertion.
Pablo dropped to his knees, panting with exhaustion. He could not go on lifting these 90 pound melons without a rest. He wasn't allowed to eat these expensive fruits, so he was getting weak with hunger now.
The supervisor noticed Pablo was at the end of his strength, and told him to trade places with a man on the wagon. Pablo shakily tried to climb onto the wagon but was obviously too weak to do this either so the supervisor stopped him.
"Go to the dock and buy yourself some lunch from the cook barge, you can't work like this," the supervisor ordered.
"Yes boss," Pablo said weakly and shakily walked toward the dock area a few hundred metres away.
Pablo was not alone in walking to the docks, the work crews were haemorrhaging weak and shaky workers, heading to get some food. Harvesting Kepler melons really took it's toll.
Ahead of them was already harvested fields, which eventually gave way to a dirt track along the canal waterfront and a wooden dock area for boats to moor. Moored at this dock was a small barge with a canopy roof and a lot of smoking stove chimneys. From this barge came the delicious smell of frying fish.
Pablo increased his speed at the smell of food, and soon arrived joining the end of a line of workers waiting to be served.
The cook barges were mostly staffed by local women, usually older women, but sometimes they would have a teenage daughter helping them. Pablo and every other man in the line were eagerly peering around for a teenage girl to look at, they wouldn't touch her, they just liked to look.
Pablo was thrilled to see a pimple covered chubby white face of a rather overweight local teenage girl! She was sweating profusely as she stood frying fish at a stove, with an extremely overheated and uncomfortable look on her face, with huge dark sweat patches soaking through her conservative long sleeved blue dress, especially around her armpits and back.
Pablo and the others admired this young woman, enjoying looking at her as she wiped a sleeve across her sweating forehead. She was mid to late teens, at that age when teenage girls become especially pleasant to look at, and Pablo felt a wave of pleasure from looking at her.
Pablo had wanted to look at her for longer but far too soon he found himself at the front of the line facing the crude wooden counter.
"Yep she's a girl, you gonna look at my daughter all day or you gonna buy something?" an irritated sounding older female voice snapped impatiently.
Pablo stopped looking at the interesting teenage girl and turned his gaze to see the irritated face of a much older woman. This woman had deep wrinkles and grey hair, and Pablo didn't get the same rush of pleasure from looking at this woman. He fumbled for his money and asked for a meal.
The barge had only one thing on the menu, fried local fish. The hated jumping fish that filled the canals were abundant and free for the taking, and local widows and their daughters had taken to catching these fish to sell cooked to farm labourers for a meagre income.
Yambini was a man's world, the work was mostly reserved for men, and the women were expected to get married and be supported by their husbands. The women who lost their husbands usually got remarried as soon as possible, unless they were too old, the older widows had more difficulty in life, and were forced to find work like this.
The teenage girl on the cook barge would be married off as soon as she came of age and found a husband, that's the only reason she was here. Any brothers she had would be already working on the local farms, but until she got married she would help her mother make a living cooking fish.
Pablo handed over a crumpled credit note, and the old woman gave him fried fish on a disposable paper plate. Pablo took his meal and stood in an out of the way spot with a good view of the teenage girl, and ate his food with his hands.
Pablo lingered for a little while after eating to keep gazing at the girl. He worked such long hours that all the young women in the town were in their homes for the night by the time he usually got home. It had been such a long time since he had seen many girls, so he enjoyed admiring them in the rare instances that he got to see one.
Pablo reluctantly stopped looking at the girl, and unhappily returned to harvest the heavy Kepler melons. Given the choice between lifting 90 pound melons and looking at a girl, he would gladly take the second option. Unfortunately however, he needed the money.
The day was long and horrible, filled with terrible pain. Apart from occasionally visiting the cook barge to buy food and admire the girl, the day was utterly unpleasant.
It was late at night and freezing cold when he finished working. He felt absolutely terrible all over, his back especially was killing him. He had definitely earned the triple pay he had made today!
Pablo rushed to the dock to see if he could see the girl again, but was disappointed to find that the cook barge had already left for the night.
Pablo frowned unhappily as he waited for his own barge home, his disappointment made his pain and misery feel even worse. He felt utterly sorry for himself all the way home.