I left the small farm on a warm Spring morning. I rode one mule and led another that carried what I needed for the trip out. Everything else had been sold, stored or tossed out. My life was now stripped to its bare essentials: the clothes on my back or in my pack, the two mules, and the camping gear. My wife, my friend, lover and companion for more than sixty years, had died two weeks before. The formalities being finished, nothing more would keep me here. I headed towards the low mountains to the west, to the trail through the pass that would lead me to the city by the sea where I planned to resume my former life.
The road, a rutted, dusty dirt lane used primarily by the few farms even more remote than mine, was rough but otherwise in good condition. The recent winter had been mild and dry, keeping water damage to a minimum. We went slowly, for I had not traveled on the back of an animal like this for many years. Both the mules and I were old. There was no hurry, no need to take a bus or an airplane.
Shortly after noon I passed the last of the farms on this side of the fertile valley. The road diminished to a trail and began to climb into the foothills. The trail had seen little traffic lately, used mostly by hunters. These hills had been logged out decades before and what had been left had burned about ten years back; the new growth was not yet suitable for profitable logging again. Where the trail passed near a small stream I stopped for lunch.
I ate a beef sandwich, some pickled vegetables, and a warm home brewed beer. As I ate I reminisced about the life I was leaving. Susan, my recently deceased wife, was in her early twenties when we met. I had been recently reincarnated and was physically in my middle twenties. We dated for a couple of years, then quietly married. Within two years she convinced me to leave the city, so I bought the remote farm where we spent the next sixty years. We raised two daughters and three sons, who all preferred the city. Both daughters became doctors and did quite well in their marriages as well as in their businesses. All three sons went into business, with varying degrees of success. Our two older sons had died, aging rapidly from tension, overwork and excessive alcohol consumption. Our three surviving children sometimes called but never left the city to visit. They knew of their mother's death but for various reasons had been unable to attend her funeral. They knew they wouldn't profit by her death or mine -- there would be no inheritance. I had a fortune, but I planned to keep it.
I decided to walk for a while, to relieve my knees from the strain of riding. Leading both mules away from the creek, I started the long climb into the mountains. Hunters had reported both wolves and bears in the mountains this year, but I saw no evidence of their presence. Lots of birds and small animals were noisy and active near my route, so I slipped my shotgun from its case and carried it, open and ready for use. Towards evening I shot a pheasant that strayed from the distant grain fields behind me. There being another creek nearby, I decided to camp early.
Stiffer than expected in the morning, I broke camp slowly. The mules seemed pleased at our slow pace. As we climbed through the hills I considered my future. I neglected my business interests the last few years. My probe machine transported people between universes, either permanently or as tourists, bringing me most of my income. I had founded many services -- universities, hotels, newspapers and computer networks -- when the world was younger and lacked these things. Strangers managed them for me. When I got to Outlook, the city by the sea I had founded three thousand years before, I would take back control of these businesses. Old friends were long dead, so I would start making new friends again as I had done so many times before.
The day passed in pleasant speculation and planning; the way got steeper and rougher. After crossing a pleasant green valley, I decided to camp early beside the small lake there, hardly more than a pond, rather than tackling the much more difficult slopes ahead. I made good progress so far, but things would slow down until I hit a more heavily used trail. I managed to shoot a pair of rabbits. When they were roasted I ate one with the remaining pickled vegetables, saving the other for breakfast. I accompanied my dinner with a bottle of very old wine I produced a decade earlier, one of my best vintages. Old wine didn't travel well and would not get any better with its constant shaking.
Waking to a world of mist, I broke camp and started up the path, which soon wound across a stone face. Emerging from the fog, we were greeted by a fantastic view of the lands behind us and the mountains ahead. The trail shook as the hillside above and below us gave way, sweeping us back down into the little valley. It happened so quickly I hardly felt anything before finding myself in ghost form, floating above the rubble. In a moment I was overwhelmed by the force and power of the sun on my unprotected spirit. It was late afternoon before I recovered enough to look for my body. I probed the rubble, finding my body and those of the mules under twenty feet of shattered stone.
The ghost form I now used was a virtual body generated by the probe machine to allow me to retain consciousness until my reincarnation. It could vary from almost nothing to the appearance of a solid body. At my most tenuous, the probe machine provided all of my senses, allowing me various views of the world as well as extreme mobility, the equivalent of flying. The probe senses allowed me to see through the pile of rock to where my body was. In full material form, I was limited in senses and abilities to those of a normal person. I became a ghost only a few days every century. If I died before my body wore out, the probe machine would heal it.
Souls mimic the forms of highly organized matter to protect themselves from energy sources like the sun, which they sense as burning, or their absence, sensed as freezing. When the body it mimics is destroyed, the soul becomes very vulnerable to the energy, being torn between the heat and its absence, until a form of cleansing takes place in a casting off of excess accumulated soul stuff. The soul needs this periodic cleansing to maintain optimum condition.
I directed my soul westward, towards the cleft in the mountains I had been seeking previously. Skimming over the hills much more quickly than I could have in my normal, embodied form, I soon passed the cleft and began to descend. But the sun made its descent even more rapidly, soon sinking below the horizon. The power of the sun was replaced by the cold of its absence.
As the sun's power had stunned me, so too did the chill of the night, bringing calm to replace the former rage. Well after midnight I recovered enough to be able to sense the pinpoint heat sources of the distant stars, which provided no relief from the chill I felt. Not having the sun to guide me, I shifted to other senses that allowed me to see in the dark and continued on my way, the chill losing little of its grip.
Sunrise came as a shock again. In just moments the raging heat of day replaced the calm night chill. Today, though, I recovered and was on my way again by mid morning. I flew the remaining distance to Outlook by mid afternoon. The building I was seeking was on a hill south of the Columbia River, named after the one on Earth it reminded me of. Finding my apartment, I materialized completely. I contacted the law firm handling my affairs and made an appointment to discuss my plans with them.
I had little time. The next transition from night to day could force me to take on a new body. I met the lawyers in their offices, being able to get there more rapidly than they could have come to my apartment.
One of the men, who had introduced himself as Bill, a junior partner of the law firm, asked, "What can we do for you, Mr. Jamison?"
"First I want to sell off several of my businesses, those for which effective competition has developed. Please make a list of those that will fetch a good price, especially from the competition. I want the bulk of them gone in the next year and the remainder within three years. Then I want to take personal control over the remaining businesses. I will deal with just the three of you in initiating any changes I find desirable." I requested. We discussed some details concerning the changes I wanted, then I broke off the meeting as the sun dipped towards the horizon.
I returned to my apartment to catch up on news I had previously ignored. Not needing sleep in ghost form, I spent the night bringing myself up to date with TV news programs and searches on the computer networks. I moved to my eastern balcony as I sensed the approaching sunrise.
For a moment I felt fiercely torn between the peace of the intense chill of the night and the rage of the burning energy of the sun as if I was being ripped apart at the most fundamental levels. This was the clue the probe machine and I had been waiting for and I immediately slipped into the new body provided me. Reincarnated once more, I went inside to dress. Being accustomed to a farmer's work clothes for many decades, the casual suit felt strange.
Outlook had grown since my last visit: more people, more vehicles, more noise, more stink. Just three blocks from my apartment a building torn down to be rebuilt as something else reminded me of me. I took a trolley the rest of the way to the business district to start my new life.