Riggs observed his intended as she drove the vehicle back to the farm.

Sage gazed at the road before her with her usual determined expression, both hands firmly on the steering wheel.

Burton had described riding in the truck with Tansy as being similar to taking a ship out of Ajyxdrive. But Sage was slow and steady at the wheel, which Riggs appreciated very much.

There was so much he appreciated about her.

Her hair had dried in the sun. It fell around her shoulders, looking as glossy soft as a kitten. Her full breasts bounced and shivered at each bump in the road.

Riggs knew it was the height of bad manners to stare, but he was having a hard time helping himself. His body was beginning to make demands that could not be fulfilled until she accepted him.

He forced himself to look away, wishing more than anything that Sage would speak. Her thoughts and feelings were even more attractive to him than her body. But they did not have the same unintended physical consequences for him.

Usually.

“I wonder if any of the newcomers will be interested in picking peaches,” Sage pondered out loud, as if in answer to his unspoken request.

Riggs had a hard time understanding how anyone could fail to be interested in picking peaches. But this was something the women in his life worried about very much.

“I guess they only want to see aliens,” Sage went on. “Though isn’t it funny? They would be much more likely to see aliens on our farm than they are in the open air market in town.”

She laughed and Riggs laughed with her.

“At any rate, we only need to hit the crowds we got last year,” Sage went on. “Since the Wilsons aren’t open for tourists maybe we’ll get a few extra customers. Though that means the Wilsons won’t be advertising either. I always thought Bud got people in the mood for pick-your-own when he drove his truck around with the logo on the side. Well, here we are.”

Riggs was startled to find that they were home already.

They pulled up the gravel drive and Sage gasped.

Riggs followed her gaze to the source of her alarm.

“I guess someone spotted that ladder and decided to play a prank,” Sage said, a mix of anger and surprise in her voice.

In his haste to get to breakfast, he must have left the ladder out.

The big sign over the barn no longer read Welcome to Martin’s Bounty. Bright red spray paint adjusted the lettering so that it now said:

Welcome to Martian’s Booty

“Do they know we’re here?” Riggs asked.

“No,” Sage said immediately. “At least I don’t think so. I hope not.”

A line formed on her forehead. She was concerned too.

“But it’s not good that they’re referencing aliens,” she said.

“We are not from Mars,” he reminded her.

“No, but to a bigoted vandal it’s all the same thing,” she said. “Plus there’s the other part.”

“Ah, yes, the part about the treasure,” he said. “What do they mean by that? Are they pirates of some sort?”

“Oh,” Sage said. “That’s not what booty means in this context. They mean the, er, other booty.”

“What other booty?” Riggs searched his memory for some other use of the term. “Like a baby shoe?”

“Oh dear,” said Sage. “Booty can also refer to a woman’s… buttocks.”

“But there are only male aliens on this farm,” Riggs pointed out, feeling more confused by the moment.

“It implies, um, mating,” Sage said. “So if they are calling this farm Martian’s Booty, they’re saying that this is where women who have sex with aliens live.” Her face was red as a beet by the time she was finished.

Riggs looked at the sign again, this time admiring how efficiently the sign painter had adapted those two short words into a remarkably apt description.

But he could also sense that it would not please Sage for him to say so.

Besides, mating was private, and this sign was public, and therefore dreadful manners, no matter how truthful it was.

“This is an affront to your sister’s honor,” he realized out loud.

“Oh god, we can’t let Tansy see it,” Sage said.

“She will be offended,” Riggs agreed.

“No,” Sage said. “She will probably think it’s funny. But then she’ll start to worry about someone vandalizing the farm.”

“Do you think she should be worried?” Riggs asked.

“I think this is the work of teenagers,” Sage said. “It seems like a one-time thing. And it was my fault for not making sure the ladder was put away.”

“I was the one who was using the ladder,” Riggs said. “But I’ll run up and take the sign down. We can repaint it and no one will have to see this.”

“Who would do this?” Sage wondered out loud. “Most of the teenagers are at the pool all day.”

It occurred to Riggs that the only person on the farm who wasn’t usually there was Otis.

“I’ll just climb up and take it down,” he said, choosing not to upset Sage with this idea. Surely Otis was sincerely sorry for what he had done before. Besides, Riggs couldn’t understand how the man could bake their breakfast all morning and then vandalize their sign the moment they left.

It just didn’t make sense.