It was a small town, so much different from the sprawling metropolis that they were used to. Was it actually a town? Village might be the right word for it. Nothing about this new place was familiar though. That’s what they’d wanted. Someplace new. Something that could challenge them. The colony of Promise was said to be rough, without any of the modern conveniences, but Merik bought the tickets immediately. 

They chose Promise because it was the first shuttle off Earth, but Jackson had found something he liked on the mostly barren world. Any colony that fought against the Landcastle Corporate model was fine by Merik. 

“Its...quaint?” Jackson suggested as he hefted his pack over his shoulder.  

Merik looked over the horizon again and nodded his head. “Let’s find someone who can point us in the right direction.”

“You need a hand, Wets?”

“Excuse me?” Merik asked the teen girl who had addressed them. She wore a mask over the lower half of her face and dirt covered her clothes as well as the dirtshifter she drove. Neither the clothes nor the vehicle looked any the worse for wear, though. 

“Just got off the shuttle, right?” she asked. “We’re small enough that everyone knows everyone around here. We don’t get a lot of new people.”

“Jackson,” his husband said as he offered a hand to her. “And this is Merik.”

She shook it and her eyes crinkled in the corners as she did. “You need a ride somewhere?”

“Are you a taxi service?” Merik asked.

“Nope, but like I said, it’s a small community. If you were looking to get away to someplace where they’ll leave you alone, you might as well turn around and get back on the next shuttle. We help each other out. We take care of each other. Mayor Tom says it's the only way to prove ‘em wrong.”

“Prove who wrong?” Jackson asked.

“All the people that said we were crazy to leave Earth in the first place without a Landcastle manufacturing plant in sight.”

Merik couldn’t help but laugh. He’d bought a ticket just to get them away from his family. The Landcastles were old money and new tech. His family hated that he hadn’t married someone in the same social strata, no matter how brilliant Jackson was. Or how much they loved one another. Merik was tired of the fighting, of listening to the constant debasement his husband went through because of Merik’s parents.

Maybe he’d found the only place in the universe that wouldn’t look at them that way.  

“We bought a place.  It was called…” he started patting his pockets to grab his comm that had all the information, but Jackson grabbed his hand to stop him. After they’d bought the tickets, Jackson had spent the trip to the spaceport finding a new place for them. Merik didn’t know much about it, but he’d trust his husband and bought the place, unseen. The only advantage of being a Landcastle was the bank account. It would probably be the last chance he had to use it. His family was certain to disinherit him once they realized he’d left Earth.  

“The Countryside Arboretum,” Jackson told the girl.

“They said someone was coming in today. It isn’t much of a place to look at,” the teen said. “Not what I would call an arboretum, anyway.  Hope you didn’t waste your money.”

Jackson smiled wider. “I heard it’s a place to grow things. That’s all I need.”

“Hop on in,” the girl said. “And put on those dust masks. It’s all dirt roads where we’re going.”

“What’s your name?” Merik asked.

“Avie. I was helping at Countryside, me and my shifter, before the last guy left. That was about a year ago.”

“I guess you know the way then,” Jackson said. They crawled into the small seating area of the dirtshifter, pulled their masks on, and strapped in.  

It was a fifteen-minute drive with the shifter and there was too much noise to talk over. Merik was nervous, but Jackson watched the scenery go by with a smile in his eyes that calmed Merik’s anxiety. 

What little he knew of the Countryside Arboretum was that it had been the brainchild of the colony’s founder. He believed that having a garden of flowers collected from across the galaxy would give the colonists hope in their first years. That it would lift their spirits and give them a place of beauty as they transformed their new world. It had been a long time since anything had grown in the gardens though. While Merik had looked askance at Jackson’s choice, his husband was the xenobotanist and he had practically vibrated over the soil readings that had been sent as part of the realtor’s packet.

Whatever Jackson saw in their destination, Merik was happy to give it a go.

A stone arch over the driveway let them know they’d reached Countryside. Avie’s eyes watched them almost as much as they watched the dirt road as they pulled past long fields of barren grounds and up to the house.

“The house has been shut up tight so it should still be clean,” Avie said as she pulled the shifter to a halt. “But this is it. This path goes back around the house, all the way along the property line if you want to follow it to see what you got.”

“Would you mind coming back tomorrow and driving us around the fields with the shifter? We can start with the property and then maybe you could show us around town?” Jackson asked.

“Call me when you’re ready for pickup,” Avie said, tapping her comm to Merik’s when he held it up so that they’d have her contact information. “I’ll come to get you.”

“Thank you, Avie,” Merik said.  Jackson had wandered away, his eyes on the surrounding grounds, consumed by whatever he saw.

“We should have lunch in town tomorrow,” Avie suggested. “Everyone will want to meet you. See what you have planned out here.”

“I better figure out what he’s planning then,” Merik said with a laugh. Avie took off with a wave and a small spattering of dust and dirt in her wake. When she was a few minutes out he could follow her gaining speed by the dust cloud that followed.

Jackson had crouched down and had a handful of dirt that he was sifting between his fingers. His husband’s brain was working a mile a minute, so he let him be. He took their bags and set his palm to the door lock, opening the biometrically sealed house. Dim lights popped on and the air filtration system kicked in. The house was pleasant. Modern, but there were no personal touches on the walls or mementos left on the tables by the past owners. It was a blank slate, something that they could imprint with their lives as they grew with their new community.

He wandered through the house, checked that there were pre-packaged synth packs ready to eat as they’d been promised, and then dropped their bags in the master bedroom. He grabbed a cold-water bottle, then walked out to find Jackson sitting at the back of the house on a porch step.

“The house is nice,” Merik said.  He took a long pull of water from the bottle, then handed it to Jackson.  His husband took a drink and rolled it between his fingers.

“Not as nice as this place could be,” he said. “It’s gonna be a lot of work, but this is perfect.”

“Yeah?”

“I did a little more digging while you were napping on the shuttle,” Jackson teased. “They tried to make an exotic floral garden. They couldn’t keep the money coming in to take care of the plants and keep a full-time staff.”

“How are you planning to do that then?”

“I’m not. This planet doesn’t need an exotic garden. It needs more farms. Fewer imports. More hands in the field and fewer carrying shipping crates. The greenhouse over there,” he pointed towards a half-acre of sectioned off lands, “is more than enough to create a flower garden. They were using it for local celebrations, weddings, that sort of thing. We plant that with local flowers and imported varieties that thrive here and use the rest of the place to grow food.”

“That’s...what about the synth packs?”

“You really enjoy eating that instead of fresh food?”

“No,” Merik admitted.  Coming from a wealthy family, he’d always been blessed with earth-grown food. He never thought of growing food for a colony as rough as this though. “So, this is it? This is the fresh beginning you wanted?”

Jackson smiled as he leaned into Merik’s shoulder. “Quaint.”

“Quiet,” Merik agreed.

“There are no buildings with your name on it,” Jackson reminded him.

“And no family yelling at me to follow in their footsteps instead of living my own life.”

“Getting a chance to take this ill-conceived garden and turn it into something real and workable is a dream for me. But what about your dreams?”

“A growing community like this will need new buildings. What better challenge could there be for an architect, than to breathe beauty into plans for functional spaces, for this community?”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Jackson spoke. “I think we have everything we need right here.”

Merik smiled as he kissed his husband softly and looked back over the new colony they were settling. “You’re right.  Everything we need is right here.”