The Ride. Tom Ph.D. Anderson
sky or the bird that sat on a branch and just stared at me… I was home. I had never felt the sun feel so good on my skin. It took a conscious effort not to take off all my clothes and run naked.
The landing pad was on a bluff overlooking a small valley. There was green everywhere, mostly well ordered if slightly overgrown grapevines. There was also a patch of forest and a lake with a stream running in one end and out the other. Between the bluff and the lake was a large house flanked by rows of sheds. A man came out one of the sheds and came up the walkway towards us. He and Merritt embraced and Merritt introduced me and explained why I had come.
“Buy the estate. Are you in the business of making wine? Do you know what’s involved?” asked the man named Michael.
“The only thing I know about wine is how to drink it. I love the wine that’s made here. I want it to keep being produced. That’s why I want to buy the estate,” I told him.
Michael showed me around the grounds. Michael pointed out the equipment that needed to be repaired or replaced, the sheds that needed to be rebuilt, and the equipment that was so old that replacement parts were no longer being made. We walked the fields and talked about the irrigation system that needed to be completely rebuilt. Michael also showed me the grapes. He told me that because the weather had been ideal, this year was going to be a bumper crop.
“I take it that’s a good thing?” I asked him.
“It means that if I have the equipment to pick and process the grapes and age and bottle the wine, the estate could make a real profit this year,” Michael told me.
We went over the numbers. With improvements and repairs to the business, minor repairs to the big house, and keeping a reasonable reserve, I could match the Torenbough bid. If it came to a bidding war, I would be in trouble.
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Silus Torenbough and Samuel Petterton had just finished lunch. Silus knew he had Samuel over a barrel. Silus lowered his bid by 10 percent. Samuel grumbled, but he knew he would have to take the lower bid. Silus told Samuel he had till morning to decide or the price would go down again.
Returning home Samuel found an annoying young man with an idiotic grin on his face waiting for him. The young man offered to match Silus’ higher bid. The child babbled on about how much the vineyards felt like home, and how much he loved Cocuru, and how much he loved the Petterton wine, and blah, blah, blah. Samuel signed over the deed, pocketed the payment code, grabbed a handful of clothes, and left Cocuru never to return.
Mildred loved the planet of Cocuru. She had always loved Cocuru. Still her children and grandchildren loved the planet of Thracsis and she would find a way to be happy there too. Michael stumbled through the door.
“A man from the planet Udell just bought the estate. His name is Bob Nesslun. He gave me money for repairs, he is giving me half the profits, and he is giving me a year’s salary as a bonus for staying. Bob doesn’t know anything about growing grapes or making wine, but I think his heart is in the right place. He is even willing to let me bring in grapes from other planets for a potential new house wine.” Producing a blended grape wine by bringing in grapes from other planets had been a dream of Michael’s since he had first set foot on Cocuru.
“How old is he? Is Bob married?” asked Mildred.
“Mid twenties I guess. I don’t think Bob’s married. He didn’t say anything about a wife. Samuel has already left. Bob’s staying in Samuel’s rooms in the big house.”
“You did invite him to dinner?” Mildred asked.
“I didn’t think to....”
Mildred was out the door and down the path to the big house before Michael finished his sentence. As she walked in the door the young man jumped up with a startled expression on his face. The startled expression gave way to bewilderment. Michael had overestimated his age. “If Bob is a day over twenty, I’m the green piper,” thought Mildred. “Hello, my name is Mildred. I’m Michael’s wife. He told me you just bought the estate.”
“I guess I did. This is happening way too fast. I have never owned anything more than the clothes on my back, and now I own all this,” the boy told her.
If ever a boy needed a hug, this one did. A woman knows when a boy has never had a mother. As Mildred hugged Bob, she adopted him. She never told Bob or signed any papers, but Mildred would always care for Bob as a mother cares for a son. Bob gratefully ushered Mildred into that place in his heart that a mother would take, and no woman had ever touched. Mildred disengaged herself from the hug and insisted that Bob come to dinner.
Mildred was a skilled cook and the meal was all about eating. After they finished, they had coffee in the living room. They sat around the fireplace, the small fire more for the comfort of the flames than for warmth.
Michael looked at the young man. Mildred was right; Bob probably was far closer to twenty than twenty five. “So how did you get the money to buy the estate?” Michael asked him.
“It’s kind of embracing. I killed three crocs in a gloride mine on Nimbus and a tic in a mine owned by the Falcus.”
“Why would that be embarrassing? Ghoul hunting is hard, dangerous, honorable work. Did the rest of your team retire too, or did they just replace you and keep hunting?”
“No ghoul hunter team, just me. I don’t know how I killed them. It just kind of happened,” I told him.
Michael said “I don’t understand?” What Michael meant was, I hope I don’t understand you, because if I do, you are lying to me and I hate to be lied to.
Mildred felt the same way, only with absolute certainty that the young man’s words had not come out the way he wanted them to.
◊I couldn’t believe I bought the estate so easily and Michael’s wife Mildred was just like what I imagined my mother would have been like had she lived. I was so happy that she invited me for dinner. Things were going very well until they started to ask me about how I got the money to buy the estate. I stupidly told them the truth. Of course they didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have believed me. I looked at their faces. “I have recordings of me killing them in my luggage, let me get them.” I walked to the door and when it closed behind me I ran to the big house. I desperately wanted these people to like me. I tore through my luggage, pocketed the recordings, and ran back to Michael’s house. At the door I tried to control my breathing. I walked over to their viewer and inserted the recordings.
As I killed the first croc, I explained that while it was happening I had no control and was only an observer in my own body. While they watched me kill the two crocs in the bar, I explained that I was drunk and didn’t remember any of it. When they watched me with the tic, I showed them when I lost control of my body and when I got control back. Michael jumped up and grabbed my hand. “Forgive me for doubting you, you have a rare skill.”
“It’s not a skill, it just kind of happened. I don’t ever want to put myself in a position to find out if it will happen again.”
“So you’re not going to hunt any more gloride monsters?” To say that Mildred looked relieved was putting it mildly.
“If I never see another gloride monster again, it will still be much too soon,” I told her.
“Michael I think we should open the last bottle of wine from the old estate to welcome the owner of the new estate,” Mildred said. They wouldn’t be leaving Cocuru. Michael and Mildred opened the last bottle of wine from the old owner to celebrate the new owner. Three large wine glasses were produced and filled. With each new toast we each took a drink.
“To the new estate,” said Michael.
“To a new life,” I said.
“To Cocuru, may it warm us and keep us and stay gloride monster free,” said Mildred.
“So you have no idea how you killed those gloride monsters or if you would be able to do it again?” asked Michael.
“None