Saucer (16 page)

Yet even if the serious people were uncooperative, the insatiable appetite of the medium had to be filled somehow. Enterprising producers sent their minions after the God squad.

“How dare the networks air this trash,” one prominent divine raved on camera. “This talk of flying saucers and aliens is all right for the movies, but it has no place in serious conversation.”

The president’s advisers nodded in sympathy. What could they say on camera? In television everything is on the record. The camera captures every moment, good or bad. If, as seemed probable, the saucer scare turned out to be some kind of hoax, the serious ones would be covered in ignominy if they treated it seriously now. On the other hand, if buried under all this sensationalism was a real flying saucer filled with real aliens, the serious ones had to be out there in the arena ready to fight or shake hands. At least, they had to appear to be ready.

“How did we get into this fix?” the president’s chief of staff, PJ. O’Reilly, demanded of Bombing Joe De Laurio. The serious people were very unhappy with the Air Force and Bombing Joe, whom they suspected was somehow responsible for this unholy mess.

Bombing Joe glowered at O’Reilly, who would blame the weatherman for a thunderstorm.

“This whole thing is very troubling,” the president said. “I don’t know what our options are.”

“Mr. President,” Bombing Joe began, “the CIA tells me that Qaddafi may have our UFO team in custody, and—”

“Don’t try to blame this on Qaddafi,” O’Reilly snarled, interrupting.

“I was trying to say that—”

“I know high-tech when I see it. That thing”—O’Reilly pointed at the video from Egypt—“sure as hell looks high-tech to me.”

“Who knows what it is?” Bombing Joe sneered. “You ought to go to the movies more often. It’s absolutely amazing what the special effects crowd can do with computers these days.”

The national security adviser picked up a wad of computer printouts of wire service stories on the St. Louis boom and the Indiana appearance and fluttered them. “Twenty-seven sane people in Indiana swore they saw a flying saucer in broad daylight from a range of less than a hundred yards. Four of those twenty-seven swore they touched it! Special effects?”

Bombing Joe tried earnestly to explain: ‘I’m telling you that nothing in anybody’s inventory looks like that thing on television or flies like that. Sure, we have some black projects, but they are airplanes, for God’s sake. You know that! I resent the implication that the Air Force has developed some magic machine without the knowledge of the government.”

“What if it’s really a flying saucer?” the president asked. The president was a politician because he enjoyed being in front of a crowd. He wanted to be liked, yet he hated making decisions. “From somewhere out there? Do you realize the implications? Technically advanced beings from another world? Would I have to meet them in the Rose Garden, surrender the nation?”

Just then Dr. Jim Bob Cantwell, the famous evangelist, appeared on CNN. “The events we are witnessing today herald the coming of the Antichrist,” he intoned.

Furious, P.J. O’Reilly grabbed the television remote control and shut off Cantwell. “Cantwell is a fool,” he growled.

Another serious person pointed out, “A sizable percentage of the voters are churchgoers. They are worried about the implications of this saucer mania on their faith.”

“I don’t do religion,” the president said firmly. “Other than a few platitudes on holidays—”

Bombing Joe excused himself and walked from the room, looking for a telephone. He should have retired years ago and got seriously into golf; he knew that now.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

It was early evening when Rip and Egg Cantrell climbed the gentle grade to the small house nestled in the trees. Charley Pine was wearing her gray flight suit, now clean, and pacing back and forth in front of the television.

Both the men looked tired, she thought. “The water cracker was full of mud,” Rip told her. “Egg cleaned it out. We’re ready to go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know,” Rip said crossly. “Somewhere that the Air Force and Qaddafi and those Aussie nuts can’t find us.” The injustice of the pursuit bothered him. The saucer was his.

Charley gestured toward the television. “Sit down, you two. Watch some of this. It’s a media meltdown. Every channel has flying saucers continuously or is offering instant updates for breaking news.”

They sat. CNN was running the video of the saucer lifting off from the shore of Lake Nasser one more time. “This has been on every channel on earth ten dozen times today,” Charley explained. “The only saving grace is that the tape starts with the saucer lifting off, not with Rip and me pouring water into it or climbing aboard.”

“Humpf.”

“The West Coast… St Louis… Upshur, Indiana… the press has done it up brown. They’ve interviewed everyone who might have a pebble to contribute. Just for balance, they’ve also interviewed every UFO nutcase in the country who is willing to say something outrageous.”

She flipped through the channels to give them a taste of it.

Five minutes was enough. “Turn it off,” Rip said. “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starved.”

As Charley reached for the clicker, the talking head mentioned Clarksville, Missouri. Egg held up his hand. “Wait,” he said. “Clarksville is just east of here.”

A farmer appeared. “I saw a saucer this morning, so I did,” he announced solemnly. “Right over the treetops, flying along quiet as a prayer. Round it was, sorta dark, black-like in the mist and rain, sinister as all get-out. I was on the tractor, going down to plow the winter-wheat field, when it caught my eye…

“Wouldn’t be talking about it now, you understand, but I called my minister. He said it was my Christian duty to tell what I know so the government can take steps, do what has to be done to protect us from them.”

“Them?” Egg asked.

“Them,” Charley said firmly and turned off the television. “The hunters are close, Rip. Just a few miles from here. They’ll be here soon.”

Egg swiveled to examine her face. “The government is looking for the saucer?”

“Absolutely. Satellites photographed the saucer in the Sahara. My UFO team was sent to investigate.” She wasn’t about to mention the hypersonic reconnaissance plane, the very existence of which was a top secret. “The other members of the team were there when Rip and I flew it out. As soon as the U.S. government knows who we are, they’ll find out where our parents live, where we grew up. They’ll look for us by talking to all those people, checking every place we might be.”

“You’re speculating,” Rip said, his face ominous.

“Bet on it, Rip,” Egg replied, not in the mood for argument. “Go on, Ms. Pine. Tell us all of it.”

“The only reason the FBI isn’t knocking on your door right now is that the Libyans probably are holding Rip’s colleagues and mine—and the Aussies—incommunicado. As soon as the Air Force learns our identities from the UFO team, the FBI will be called in to find us.”

“The FBI will try to hold on to the information,” Egg mused. “They won’t want to get trampled by reporters.”

“It’ll get out anyway,” Rip said, rubbing his chin. “Of course it will,” Charley said. “Someone will leak it or one of our relatives will talk to a friend, who will talk to a reporter or talk to someone who will. This is too hot. The press will find out. The FBI will be trying to stay a jump ahead.”

“How long do we have?” Rip asked. “However long the Libyans give us. As soon as they release our crowd, all of them will dive for a phone. I think we’ll know when it happens because Professor Soldi has to get on television as fast as he can. If he doesn’t get the story out, the Air Force will scarf the saucer when they find it, and neither he nor you nor anyone else will ever see it again. It’ll go straight to Area Fifty-one; no one in government will ever admit that it exists. Soldi’s no fool. He knows what is at stake.”

“It sounds as if you have a little time,” Egg said to Rip. “Uncle Egg,” said Charley Pine, “people are out there looking this very minute. Space Command tracked the saucer as it came into the atmosphere. The Air Force will assume the object they saw on radar was the saucer or a meteor. They will use every law enforcement resource available to find where the thing came down: state police, county mounties, National Guard, everybody. Those people are out there right now beating the bushes, looking for little green men. Some of that has been on television. There’s an element of public hysteria in all this that television and government are both pandering to. The politicians get on camera and ask that everyone remain calm. It’s ludicrous.”

“So just what is at stake, Ms. Pine?” Egg asked.

“You’ve seen the saucer,” Charley Pine shot back. “You tell me.”

“I can cook here or we can go to town,” Egg told his guests. “Town is twenty miles down the road.”

“I vote for town,” Rip said. “I’ve been three months in the desert. I want a decent meal, and Charley and I need to buy some clothes.”

“Are you insulting my cooking?” Egg asked hotly, which made Rip laugh.

“Can Air Traffic Control see the saucer on their radar?” Rip asked Charley as they rode down the two-lane asphalt in Egg’s pickup.

“Only if they are looking for it. Their radars are set up to receive coded signals from aircraft transponders, not pick up skin paints.”

“Wouldn’t the saucer’s shape be hard to see?”

“The shape of the top and bottom would give it some stealth characteristics,” she said after a moment’s thought, “but the curved leading edge will glint, make a return on a screen, if there is a radar close enough and properly tuned to pick it up.”

“So what are our chances of, say, flying to Denver tonight, making an appearance with the saucer, then sneaking back here?”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“If we can make these people look in Colorado, we’ve got another day or two we can stay with Egg.”

“Why do you want to stay here?”

“Speaking just for myself,” Rip replied, “I’d like a decent night’s sleep and a couple of good meals. And we need to do some figuring about what happens next.”

“What does happen next?”

“Every day you hang out with me is another day deeper in trouble for you. Have you thought about it?”

“Yes,” Charley Pine admitted.

“And?”

“My troubles are mine. I’ll handle them.”

Rip Cantrell shrugged. “Okay, lady. You being an older woman and all, I guess I have to live with that. But back to my question, can we sneak the saucer out of here without blowing the eardrums out of every hick within fifty miles?”

“Let’s talk a bit more about Denver. The television people are talking about an invasion of saucers. Plural. They’ve got the American public looking for a swarm of saucers, an aerial armada.”

“The more saucers they think there are, the less chance they have of finding just one.”

“Denver?”

“Denver.”

“If we left after dark,” Charley mused, “rode the antigravity rings for a while before we lit the rockets…”

“If we used the rockets sparingly to get to altitude, maybe the ship would sound like a low-flying jet,” Rip suggested hopefully.

“It might work,” Charley mused. “Or it might not.”

“Maybe the best thing to do is leave it right where it is,” Egg said.

• • •

A state police car passed the pickup going the other way. All three of them watched the car go by.

“So what are you going to do with the saucer, Rip?” Egg asked when the police car was out of sight.

“I don’t know, Unc.” Rip’s voice reflected his misery. “Honest, I don’t know what the right thing is. Giving it to the Air Force doesn’t have much appeal.”

“Ms. Pine, what do you think?” Egg asked, his eyes on the road.

“Rip has to make a decision he can live with,” Charley replied.

“That’s a cop-out,” Rip said and sighed. “Maybe you ought to steal the damned thing and fly it to Area Fifty-One.”

“Maybe I should,” Charley said lightly.

• • •

“What is this?” Rip asked the waitress at the cafe.

The woman looked at him as if he were stupid. “It’s what you ordered: banana cream pie.”

“I didn’t want a piece. I wanted the whole pie.”

She stared at him for a moment. Then her eyes narrowed. “I remember you. You were here last summer.”

“That’s right. Would you bring the rest of the pie, please?”

The waitress looked at Charley and Egg with suspicion, then marched for the kitchen. In a moment she returned. The heads of the rest of the kitchen staff were visible behind her, peeking through the door. She put the pie in front of Rip with a flourish. “Enjoy,” she ordered and marched away.

As Rip ate, Egg asked, “Why do you want to go to Denver tonight, Rip?”

“You want a ride, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t? But I don’t want to get you guys in trouble giving me one.”

“No trouble,” Rip said between bites.

“What do you think, Ms. Pine?” Egg asked.

“Someone is liable to see us coming or going from your place.”

Rip nodded. “Life’s a risk.”

“Being around you, it certainly is.”

“Hey! I don’t know how this saucer adventure is going to turn out. While we have it, let’s enjoy it. Let’s take Egg for a ride. Twenty years from now he and I can sit in front of his hangar talking about how great it was.”

“Makes sense to me,” Egg said.

• • •

“Try this tonight,” Rip said, handing Charley a headband. He had already plugged it into the computer, which presented the main display in front of the pilot. The reactor was on, so the ship had power. “Egg figured out the computers this afternoon. Put it on, try it out before we light out of here.”

“You’ve done this yourself?” Charley asked, checking the expression on his face. She was sitting in the pilot’s seat of the saucer with the reactor on, waiting for things to warm up. Egg was standing on her left and Rip on her right.

“Oh, yeah,” Rip assured her. “Nothin’ to it.”

She looked at Egg. “Why the headband?”

“Near as we can determine,” Egg explained, “the computer uses the headband to determine what you want to know, then gives you that information. You will have a few choices to make—just move toward the icon or selection you want.”