Chapter 11

Company paid the shot ... for all of us.

Frank came back with the golden ... umh ... turd ... brick ... whatever. “I weighed it on the kitchen scales. Today’s gold fix is close to 62,050.00 a kilo ... rounding down ... two kilos is worth damn close to One hundred twenty Thousand dollars.” The Thousand was a squeaky shout.

He wiped his face with a greasy grill towel.

Ernie said, “I can’t give you change ... I don’t have anywhere near that much.”

“How about you feed the four of us until it’s gone?” said Company.

“Today ... five of you came to 32 plus tax ... Ms. ‘One of everything,’ here...” Ernie gesticulated dramatically at the silver saucer, “ ... spent three hundred and ninety dollars...”

“Worth every dollar,” said Company.

“ ... plus tax.” said Ernie, a little miffed at being interrupted.

And that’s what they did. Surprise, Junior, Tyche and Company ate dinner every night at The Antler. Company was spending a minimum of two hundred and fifty bucks a night ... until she overdosed on an ‘experiment’ Ernie cooked one night.

Corned beef and cabbage ... and it was gooder ... had reacted to what ever stomach an alien spacecraft has ... it wasn’t as bad as alum pickled cucumbers that had been fermenting for six months ... but it was nearly as bad as the time she had the gold fever. And that was enough for any silver saucer.

It was bad enough that Company was banned from Pentwater for a week. She spent the last week of December in the National forest east of US 31.

The spot she retired to was just that ... a spot ... it showed up on Google Earth. A forty acre ‘dead spot’ in the middle of the woods. Nothing grew on that spot. The spot had a ‘Notice to Airmen’ on the charts for almost 70 years. The area wasn’t ‘radioactive’ ... per se ... but the odor that had permeated the earth did ‘things,’ as the soil worked to regain a balance, to aircraft engines. That took a couple of crashes before scientists discovered... ‘mostly’ ... what was causing the engine failures. Usually it was just a blurp and a restart but there were those few...

It’s not like she... [I decided the saucer is a She. Authors prerogative] ... was starving ... but nuclear waste isn’t as tasty or comfortable ... except corned beef and cabbage ... that wasn’t comfortable at all ... as people food.

Blame the people food on The Princess ... not Junior ... Junior’s mom. Toasted cheese sammiches and homemade cream of mushroom soup. The second day, breakfast was basted eggs and hash browns ... with real butter on whole wheat toast ... and hickory smoked bacon. The crown and glory was the meatloaf dinner that night. The dinner included corn dodgers, lumpy mashed ‘taters with drippings gravy, homemade rolls with real butter and spinach salad for desert. Company loved it. She ate people food every chance she got. When the President nuked the Island, and tried to nuke the UN ... Company was More than glad to destroy Camp David ... along with the bitch that had killed the best home-cooking she’d ever had ... and her best friend’s family.

Friend ... an unusual thought for an alien artifact. She had ‘friends.’

She had never been treated like ‘somebody’ by her originators. She didn’t even rate a name ... just a number. Wasn’t even a low number ... no ... scouts like her numbered in the tens of millions. Sent out to all the habitable planets in this and other universes, her crew of four in stasis, she had landed just after a world wide war and waited to wake them until she was sure it was over.

It was only after the wakened crew had been obliterated that she found friends.

Her time of solitude due to reagents over, she lifted and returned to The Antler ... just in time for lunch.

“Company!” cried Tyche, “You’re back. Just in time for lunch.”

“Hold on,” said Frank, and gave the silver disk a sniff. “Ernie ... come check my sniffing.”

Ernie ... it was his day to cook ... came out, sniffed, and nodded. “What’ll you have, Company?”

“Two Wendy’s, and fries, please.”