Читать книгу The Whirlwind's Ride - Tom Boone's Anderson - Страница 3

◊This was the worst hangover I had ever had. I was lying in bed while a host of demons was pounding huge spikes into my head. I cringed as I felt the bed creak when Candy got up. It had to be Candy because Deirdre had left before I really started drinking. I suspected that Candy was still naked and I wanted to open my eyes to watch her walk out of the room, but the potential pain of opening my eyes was just too much.

I felt the vibration in the floor as she softly walked back in the room and I managed to not scream out in pain as she gently touched the side of my head.

“Bob, the mine manager’s men are here to take you to the mine,” Candy said softly.

I knew I had to react to her touch or she would touch me harder and my head might split in two. I opened my eyes. The pain of opening my eyes was excruciating. Candy was beautiful. The view was more than worth the pain. She looked in my eyes and jumped back.

“Bob, what the hell happened to you? Your eyes look horrible.”

“I had quite a bit to drink last night after you fell asleep.”

“Bob, I didn’t have that much wine in my apartment.”

“Candy, I had a few bottles of the hard stuff delivered,” I said carefully, as I glanced at the empty bottles in the corner.

She followed my glance. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“No, I’ve just built up quite a capacity for alcohol in the last few years. It takes a lot of drinking to give me a hangover like this.”

“I’ll call a med tec and tell the mine manager’s men to go away,” Candy said as she looked at me compassionately and gently stroked my hair.

“Don’t tell them to go away Candy. This is my pre-mission routine,” I said as I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I tried to stand up, missed the floor, and landed on my face. My body went into pain overload and the excruciating pain turned into an excruciating throbbing pain. I just laid there for a moment wondering if I had broken my nose.

“I’m a professional Ghoul Hunter. I know what I’m doing, I really do.”

“Sure you do,” Candy said as she helped me to my feet. “Bob, I can’t let you go in there until you get better. It’s suicide.”

“Have you ever seen a croc face to face. Just walking in a mine where a croc is hunting is suicide. The only way I can get myself to go into a mine where a croc is hunting is to have a hangover that is so bad that a quick death by claw sounds pretty good.” I tried to force my face into a happy go lucky smile. “It works every time.”

“I suppose the crocs feel so sorry for you that they let you put them in a cage so you can safely stab them to death.”

“I didn’t say it was safe. I only said it works. You’ve seen that scar across my belly.”

My eyes closed by themselves and when I managed to open them again there were three Candy’s standing there looking at me with an exasperated expression on their faces. I figured that only one of them was real. I tried to grab the middle one so I could kiss her. I guessed wrong and found myself back on the floor.

I heard Candy say, “Come and get him.” As I was picked up and half carried out Candy muttered, “Bye Bob. May the Long Dark be good to you.”

◊◊◊

A sickened and dying Earth had finally forced mankind to make it’s leap for the stars. Ten thousand settlement starships sent in ten thousand different directions. Most of the starships came to bad ends. A handful of the starships found perfect worlds where civilization thrived. After that, in the words of the other star traveling species, mankind spread like a plague.

◊My name is Bob Nesslun. I work in interplanetary pest control. I am a licensed Ghoul Hunter. Whenever something dangerous wanders into an area where modern weapons cannot be used, you call me, I come to come to your planet, it attacks me, and your problems are over.

I didn’t start out wanting to work in interplanetary pest control. I was a trained atmosphere technician working in a deep gloride mine on the planet Nimbus, when the three men who were protecting me were sliced to pieces by a croc. The croc charged me and I became paralyzed. I couldn’t move a muscle. Then it was like my body was a fun house ride. I was moving, but I had absolutely no control of what my body did. Not only did my body avoid the croc’s claws so I wasn’t cut in half, my body actually managed to kill the croc.

No one believed I had anything to do with the croc’s death, including me. The croc must have died a natural death as my body was pummeling it with my fists. I went to a lounge to get drunk. I succeeded. While I was drunk out of my mind, two of the mine managers men took me to two other crocs and my body killed them. I saw the recording, I know I killed those two crocs, I just don’t remember any of it.

Then the planetary league that owned another mine offered me a ridiculous amount of money to travel to the planet Serifin to kill a gloride monster, called a tic, in their mine. My greed overcame my good sense and I went. When the monster attacked The Ride began and I was again a powerless observer as I watched my body avoid its claws and finally kill it. When the monster was dead, I was again in control of my own body. My reward was a lifetime of money in one lump.

I had never actually met a member of another star traveling species. The first one I ever met was a Barrillean. They are smaller than humans with significantly larger heads, hands, and feet connected to shorter arms, legs, and torsos. His name was Merritt and, among other things, he sold my favorite wine to the planet Nimbus.

He took me to the human settled planet Cocuru, to buy the winery that produced my favorite wine. I met the master gardener of the previous owner. His name was Michael. I convinced him to stay and be my master gardener as well. I felt a bond with Michael and his wife Mildred as if they were the parents I had never met. They introduced me a man named Cedric, who reminded me of the nicest of the men who had raised me on my Uncle’s estate on the planet Udell. Cedric became my housemaster.

Most of the money was gone, but if the wine continued to sell I would be alright. I was now a gentleman wine producer and I never wanted to fight anything that might kill me ever again.

The next member of another star traveling species that I met was a Kinzu. Kinzu have blue skin and are larger than humans. Their powerful shoulders are twice as wide as a human’s, they have narrow waists, and massively powerful legs set far apart on a pelvis much wider than a human pelvis. His name was Ischuk and he was a Kinzu Warrior. Kinzu Warriors are the white knights of the galaxy and the term Kinzu Warrior is equivalent to hero in any galactic language.

Merritt brought Ischuk to Cocuru to ask for my help. A pod of monsters, called setti, had gotten into a gloride mine where modern weapons could not be used. Young Kinzu Warriors were going into that gloride mine armed only with ceramic blade weapons to fight the creatures. It became a point of honor that the setti must be killed if every young Kinzu Warrior on the planet must die in the attempt. After my success with the gloride monsters on Nimbus and Serifin, Ischuk thought I might be able to kill the setti in the gloride mine on Kinzu Prime.

The child in me accepted before the adult in the back of my mind could object. As the setti attacked me I became only an observer in my own body as The Ride began again. The Ride used my body to kill the setti. I returned to Cocuru wearing the setti spine belt that I had harvested from one of the setti The Ride had used my body to kill. I found that returning to the life of a gentleman wine producer was no longer a possibility.

◊◊◊

This is the story of a man who finds he has an amazing ability over which he has absolutely no control. The story is told in the man’s own words. To read only this story please only read between the ◊ and the ◊◊◊. If you are the type of person who likes to know the story surrounding the story please ignore the ◊ and ◊◊◊ and enjoy ‘THE WHIRLWIND’S RIDE’.