A little ways beyond the base, he was in farm country. It was totally unlike the picture of things he'd had originally. He'd expected only palm trees and citrus groves in Florida, though he'd known vaguely that it was one of the major cattle-producing states. This part wasn't exactly like the Iowa section where he'd grown up, but it wasn't so different, either.
Pete Crane had introduced him to it. At the time, Pete was retiring after twenty years of service and looking for something to do. He'd found a small farm twenty miles from Base and had approached Murdock with the hope of getting the station garbage for food for the hogs he planned to buy. The contractor who took care of the Base garbage wouldn't touch the dehydrated, slightly scorched refuse, and disposal had always been a problem.
They ended up as partners, with permanent rights to all the station wastes. Pete's sister, Sheila, joined them to keep house for them. It beat living in hotels and offered the first hope for the future Murdock had. Unless his application for Moon service was accepted—which seemed unlikely, since he was already at the age limit of thirty-five—he had no other plans for his own compulsory twenty-year retirement. The farm also gave some purpose to his job as garbage collector for the station.
For two years, everything went well. Maybe they grew over-confident then. They sank everything into new buildings and more livestock. When the neighboring farm suddenly became available, they used all their credit in swinging the mortgage, leaving no margin for trouble. And trouble came when Pete was caught in front of a tractor that somehow slipped into gear; he was hospitalized for five weeks, and his medical insurance was only enough for a fraction of the cost. Now, with Hulda cancelling the critically necessary trip to the station....
The truck bumped over the last half mile and into the farm-yard. Murdock parked it near the front door and jumped out. He let out a yell and made a bee-line for the kerosene heater, trying to get his feet warm on the floor near it. The house was better built than many in Florida, but that wasn't saying much. Even with the heater going, it was probably warmer in their new pig sty.
Sheila came through the dining room from the kitchen, spotted his wet feet, and darted for his bedroom. In a second she was back with dry clothes. "Change in here where it's warm. I'll have lunch ready in a couple of minutes," she told him, holding her face up for a kiss.
Sheila wasn't a beautiful woman and apparently didn't care. Murdock's mother would probably have called her plain good looks "wholesome," and referred to her slightly overweight body as "healthy." He only knew that she looked good to him, enough shorter to be comfortable, eyes pleasantly blue, and hair some shade of brown that seemed to fit her.
He pulled her to him snugly, but she wriggled away after a brief kiss. "Pete's in town, trying to get help. He'll be back any minute," she warned him.
He grinned and let her go. They'd gone through the romantic binge of discovering each other long enough ago to be comfortable with each other now, except for the occasional arguments when she didn't want to wait. Mostly, though, she had accepted their agreement. In eight more months he'd be thirty-six and too old for assignment on the Moon; if he didn't make that, they'd get married. But he had no intention of leaving her tied to him if he did leave, since the chance of taking her along was almost nil. Pete had backed him up on his decision, too.