The Gardener

[Earth 2035.]

Clara reloaded the old-fashioned double-barreled shotgun. Well, this one won't be here again, she thought contentedly, as she tied a noose around the ankle of the robber she had been trying to catch for weeks, not letting him devastate her vegetable garden. She tied him behind the tractor, dragged him to the composter, and then used the small grapple to turn the cooling body among the rotting greens. By the time the crops needed fertilizing again, she wouldn't even care about him, and who knows what made her roses the most beautiful.

*****

[Somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy, E(arth. 2387.]

Mona woke up from her afternoon nap, which she had installed after every lunch in recent years, to the sound of the alarm. The wind of old age touched her, she could no longer bear to get up early as she used to. When she was young, she had been on the farm from morning to night; she had seen everything, known everything, and taken care of everything. The workers knew that nothing could escape her watchful eye on the ten-hectare area that had been owned by her family for almost as long as human memory.

Over the centuries, they had slowly bought up the surrounding lands; some had been persuaded to sell their land with fine words, others with more forceful methods, for generations. Her great-grandfather had won a piece of forest at cards, by fraud of course; and her great-great-great-grandmother had received the pond wedged between the low hills to the north as a wedding present. Her ancestors, like her, were famous for acquiring what they set their eyes on, and for protecting what was theirs at all costs.

Humanity set foot on the tiny planet orbiting a red dwarf-star about two hundred years ago, after their own homeland was rendered completely uninhabitable. On Earth, the last hundred years have been about the masses struggling, and the World Government searching for a new homeland. Mona's ancestors were among the lucky ones who had enough money to relocate.

They were already farmers on Earth, and they didn't change that here either, after all, why would they leave what worked, what they were good at; they rather developed their knowledge further, supplementing it with the resources of their new home.

With seeds, seedlings, and animals brought from Earth, they began to invade their originally one-hectare plot of land, and they constantly learned, experimented, and crossed. They profited from the misfortunes of others, learned from the mistakes of others, didn't take risks, and always went for the calculated safe route. They spent only a few percent of their crops and livestock on breeding and crossbreeding with the New World; what did not work out was immediately discarded, the successes of others were used, their ideas were bought and appropriated.

Mona was born into incredible prosperity; her family's wealth far exceeded that of her earthly ancestors, and their wealth also raised them far above average in society. They had the most workers, recruited from among the ruined farmers, who were grateful to them even for the meager starvation wages they received in return. They could cultivate their own land, which was now owned by Mona's family, but they could still feel that it was theirs because they could live in their usual house and keep a certain part of the crop.

Mona, like her father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and all her ancestors before her, walked around the estate twice every day. She flew around in her small, single-seater glider morning and evening, stopping here and there to check, chat a few words, listen to requests, give instructions. She loved her life, she loved farming, and she conscientiously cared for every square meter of it.

This morning was no different, after she had dragged herself out of bed with difficulty and eaten her breakfast of local vegetables. But this morning was a little different from the others, because Bovur, who was her newest grower, had been delivering less goods than expected for weeks, and when questioned, he defended himself by saying that the crops had been decimated. They hadn't taken much, but since this was not the first time, he thought that action should be taken, for which he had asked Mona's approval.

She was annoyed that the man had only told her now, not immediately, the first time, but after she had slept well that night, she had only reprimanded him verbally, and graciously remitted his punishment so that he would pay for the stolen crops. The damage was on her, not Bovur, who had yet to get used to the fact that his land was no longer his, even though he was working it.

The alarm kept beeping and beeping as she got up from the couch where she usually took her afternoon siesta and pressed the appropriate button on her living room control panel to have Mina, the household AI, show her the location of the alarm on the camera feed. Yes, there was someone walking around in the crops that Bovur was cultivating, someone who Mina didn't think was part of the farm's staff.

Why hadn't Mina reported the previous times the raider had been there? She looked back at the footage from the past few weeks, but she hadn't seen any suspicious activity, just Bovur moving around among the crops. She looked at the footage from the current alarm, but once again, all she could see was Bovur pulling carrots out of the ground and collecting them into crates that would be used to transport the goods to the city market, yet Mina had reported that there was a stranger in the crops.

This is interesting, she thought to herself, and she hurried to her single-seater glider, during checking the carefully guarded family heirloom, the double-barreled shotgun, to make sure it was loaded. She loved this weapon. She could have bought a more modern one, but she couldn't part with it; it had been in her family for almost four hundred years, and it nestled as intimately in her palm as a well-fed cat in a furnace. She knew every notch on it, every worn spot, and she kept it in order, renovated it by herself, and didn't let anyone else touch it.

While she was at the scene, she wondered if Mina had broken down, but she knew that was impossible; an artificial intelligence doesn't break down. By the time she reached Bovur's crop, she already knew the answer. She stopped the glider a little further away and walked to the carrot field, holding her old-fashioned weapon ready to shoot. The man stood with his back to her, quickly packing the carrots, not even noticing as Mona adjusted the gun to her shoulder. He didn't even cry out, he just fell silently to the ground like a ripe peach from a tree.

Then she heard running footsteps behind her, and with a quick half-turn she fired again. The shirt on the chest of the figure running towards her suddenly turned into bloody rags, and by the time she walked over, he was staring into space with glassy eyes. It was as she had thought. More of that, she shook her head angrily. It seems she really is getting old, some things are already escaping her attention.

She walked comfortably to the barn, backed out with the little grapple, and all the while she hummed an ancient, Earthly song that she had heard on the radio a few days ago, and she couldn't get the bittersweet melody out of her head. Raindrops keep falling on my head, she hummed endlessly, while with the grapple she turned Bovur and his twin brother, who was not a member of the staff, into the rotting compost, with whom his brother had conspired to rob their employer; and yet she could not allow this bad example, which might be contagious.

Raindrops keep falling on my head…

Hungarian version/ magyarul: https://asfield.webnode.hu/l/a-s-field-a-kertesz/