Saucer (6 page)

“You mean you told them about the saucer?”

“I had to.”

“I’ll bet they’re on the horn this very second,” Rip said glumly.

“Well—”

“What about that pile of stuff we found in the machinery spaces?” Rip asked.

“Our lab man was working on that when I left. The stuff isn’t paper.” Soldi poured a second cup of coffee. “He’s running some chemical tests, but I think we’ll have to send it to a lab in the States to get a reliable analysis.”

• • •

It was one a.m. when Rip awakened with a start. He had been dozing, examining the saucer inch by inch in his mind when the answer came to him. He sat up in his sleeping bag.

No one else was awake. The camp lanterns were out, a million stars looked down from a deep black sky.

In the starlight he could just see the outline of the tarp that covered the saucer.

Shivering in the chill air, he felt for his boots, knocked them out, slipped them on. Pulled on a sweater, fumbled for his flashlight.

Inside the saucer the temperature had not changed. It was insulated equally well from heat and cold.

Warmer, Rip crawled straight into the machinery compartment and put his light on the inscription he had first noticed.

Well, it could be. Maybe. If that raised figure between the two symbols stood for the number two, then the inscription might mean H2O. Water.

If so, then there should be a cracker, some device that separates the hydrogen and oxygen. Mix gaseous hydrogen and oxygen together, burn the mixture in the rocket engines, use some of the oxygen for the cabin atmosphere.

Rip traced the line. Okay, this thing could be a tank. This could hold water. The line went… This thing with the reinforcing bands must be the cracker, or separator.

Lines leading out, yes, they are labeled with one of the two symbols from the water line. This one must be hydrogen, this one oxygen.

Full of his discovery, Rip sat on the floor staring at the machinery. Everything was packed so tightly it was difficult to see how the system functioned, but he had it figured out now. He hoped. Well, it made sense… sort of.

The water intake valve must be on the outside of the ship. How had he missed it?

He had been busy with the jackhammer breaking rocks. He hadn’t had time to examine the surface of the ship inch by inch or the nooks and crannies of the exhaust nozzle area. There must be a water intake there somewhere and he hadn’t seen it.

He went outside, began exploring with the flashlight.

Water!

Oh, man. Water is everywhere. Except here in the desert, of course. Maybe they ran out of fuel over the desert…

But it might not have been desert then. Maybe the crew was out exploring and something happened to them. Something ate them, or they got sick… Or humans attacked them.

He found it. He found a tiny hairline crack and used his pocket knife to pry on it. Finally it opened. A cover. Yes.

Inside the cover was a cap, a bit like a fuel cap on a car. This must be where the water goes in.

He had just closed the cover when a flashlight beam hit him. He turned toward it and heard a male voice say,

“Well, hello friend. Didn’t expect you.” The words were English, the voice definitely American.

The flashlight played over the skin of the ship. Did he have the cover closed before the flashlight beam hit him? He decided he did.

The voice reflected its owner’s amazement. “By all that’s holy! It is a flying saucer!”

“Or a good mock-up.” That was an American voice too, a woman’s.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

“Who are you people?” Rip asked and pointed his own flashlight toward the voices. He saw a khaki uniform and a gray-green flight suit.

“U.S. Air Force. And just who are you?” A male voice with a flat Texas twang to it.

“Name’s Rip Cantrell.”

“Did you fly this thing here?”

“Yeah, sure. I just park it under this tarp when we need to work on it. Don’t want it to get rained on.”

“Who you work for, smart-ass?”

“Wellstar Petroleum. We’re seismic surveyors.”

“Uh-huh.” They were standing just above him, near the edge of the rock ledge, looking under the flap of the tarp at the saucer. The man was in his thirties, maybe, and the woman was… well, with just the flashlight, it was hard to tell. Mid twenties. Late twenties, perhaps. Pretty, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a flight suit and a flight jacket.

“You people got names?” Rip asked.

“I’m Major Stiborek and this is Captain Pine.” He gestured toward the woman.

“Not anymore,” the woman said. “Now it’s just plain ol’ Charley Pine. I got out of the Air Force two weeks ago.”

“What are you doing hanging around with these flyboys?”

“Now I’m a civil servant. Same job.”

“Get acquainted later,” the major snarled at her.

“Easy, buddy,” Rip said. “Don’t be so touchy.”

“We didn’t expect to find Americans here,” Charley remarked.

“Who did you expect to find?”

She didn’t answer. The major merely played his flashlight back and forth across the saucer.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered to the woman, so softly that Rip almost missed it.

Rip cleared his throat. “So,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could, “did your camel break down near here, or are you just scoping out desert real estate?”

“Something like that.”

“Or are you out snooping around?”

The major was still running his flashlight back and forth over the saucer. After a moment or two he asked, “Did your survey crew uncover this thing?”

Rip flipped off his flashlight and stuck it in his hip pocket. “Tell you what, Tex,” he said. “This isn’t Uncle Sam’s business. Why don’t you folks just buzz off into the wild black yonder?”

“Sorry,” the woman said. She actually did sound sorry. “This is government business.”

“Bullshit,” Rip shot back, feeling his face flush. He hated being talked down to. “We’re smack in the middle of the Sahara Desert. You people get back on your camels and fork ’em out of here.”

“There’s six of our people down at the camp, kid,” the major said brusquely. “You have two options. You can walk down like a gentleman to join your friends, or I can take you down there by the scruff of the neck.”

Rip took two steps toward the ledge. The major’s ankles were within range, so he grabbed them and pulled. The major smacked down hard on his butt, and groaned.

“You’ve made your brag, buddy. You think you’re man enough, you take me there.”

“Rip!” Dutch Haagen’s shout split the night. “Get down here. We got company.”

“Holy Jesus, Charley!” the major exclaimed. “I think my left hip is broken.”

“Mr. Cantrell,” the woman said, exasperated. “Would you please be so kind as to help me carry Major Big Mouth to the camp?”

“Just a minute,” Rip said and slipped under the saucer. He closed the hatch.

When he got back to the groaning major and the woman, he said, “So your name is Charley?”

“Charlotte. Charley.”

“Who are you people?” Rip asked her as they hoisted the major. Rip had the major’s left arm over his shoulders, Pine his right.

“I’m a test pilot,” she said. “Major Macho is an aerospace engineer. Our boss, Colonel West, whom you will meet shortly, is head of the Air Force’s UFO project.”

“UFOs! Oh, wow. Did someone around here call you about one?”

“Very funny. Our primary mission is to keep the public from panicking over unexplained phenomena.”

“Let’s not talk out of school, Charley,” Major Stiborek muttered.

“How about I drop you again, Tex?”

“Please be nice, Mr. Cantrell,” Charley Pine said. “We’ve had a very long day. We started out thirty-six hours ago in Nevada.”

“Charley!”

“Shut up, Mike.”

“Are you two married or something?” Rip asked.

“Or something. A mistake I made in one of my weaker moments.”

“Do you really like him or just need sex?”

Major Stiborek cussed; Charley laughed. Rip thought she had a good laugh.

“So you guys flew in from Cairo?”

“From Aswan. And then rode twenty miles across the desert at night in a hummer.”

Colonel West was talking when Rip and Charley Pine deposited the major by one of the lanterns that was brilliantly illuminating the camp area. The colonel and five enlisted men stood facing Bill, Dutch, and Professor Soldi. The Air Force people wore sweat-stained fatigues. The enlisted men carried rifles on straps over their shoulders. For the first time, Rip noticed that Major Stiborek and Charley Pine were wearing pistols in holsters, as was Colonel West. The vehicles the Air Force people had used were not in sight.

West was saying: “…are here by the direct order of the National Command Authority. By that I mean the president of the United States. I certainly hope you gentlemen are going to give the United States government your full and complete cooperation.”

“Well, of course, Colonel,” Dutch Haagen said, then looked curiously at the major, who was rubbing his hip and chewing savagely on his lower lip.

“He had an accident,” Rip explained. “Fell.”

West had other things on his mind. “I want to see this saucer shape. Will you please lead the way, Mr. Haagen?”

“Before we go anywhere, Colonel,” Professor Soldi put in, “perhaps we should have an understanding. This is an archaeological site, as defined by the United States Code. The Air Force has no jurisdiction whatever over an archaeological site. As a professional archaeologist, as defined by the United States Code, I do. I am in charge here.”

“Don’t go quoting law to me, Professor. We aren’t in the United States, and I have my orders.”

“I don’t care about your orders, Colonel. I know American and international law. As an archaeologist, I have a moral and legal obligation to protect that artifact. I promise you that if it’s harmed in any way you’re going to wind up in front of a federal judge.”

The colonel gave the professor a hard look.

The professor glared right back. Rip had thought the archaeologist something of an old fossil, but now he revised his opinion.

“Sergeant,” said Colonel West in a flinty voice, “search these men and their gear for satellite telephones. Confiscate all the com gear you find.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is my party, Professor,” West snarled. “I intend to examine that thing. What happens after that depends on what I find.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Take it any way you like.”

Soldi busied himself with his pipe before he spoke. “No one is above the law, Colonel. The brass will swear they never told you to do anything illegal; they will fry you without a qualm to protect themselves. If I were you I’d keep that fact firmly in mind.”

The colonel apparently decided to let Soldi have the last word.

The sergeant frisked each of the civilians while several of the other men went through the gear in the tents. After he had been searched, Professor Soldi took a seat on one of the camp stools. Dutch sat down beside him.

Rip found a seat in the sand beside Bill Taggart.

“You are welcome to accompany me, Professor,” the colonel said gruffly.

“I warn you,” Soldi replied. He raised his voice. “I warn all of you people. That artifact is protected by American and international law.”

“We’ll be careful,” the colonel rumbled. He picked up one of the camp lanterns and marched away. Captain Pine followed.

Major Stiborek got slowly to his feet, massaging his rump. “I owe you one, kid,” he told Rip and limped after the others.

The sergeant detailed three men to watch the civilians. He went into the darkness and came back in a few minutes driving a hummer. He parked it with the headlights pointed at the saucer.

“I guess we should have called your university yesterday,” Dutch said to Soldi.

“I suppose.” Soldi fussed over his pipe. When he had it going well, he muttered, “Damnation,” so softly that Rip almost missed it.

• • •

The Air Force rigged lights. Soon the saucer was lit up like a museum exhibit.

“How did they find out about the saucer?” Soldi wondered aloud. “What do you think, Rip?”

“Satellites, I suspect,” Haagen said. “Or someone at your camp called someone. Does it matter?”

“I guess not.”

“Why does that guy owe you one?” Bill asked Rip.

“He got mouthy. I dumped him on his ass.”

One of the Air Force NCOs took a seat fifteen feet away facing them.

“What the hell is going on here?” Rip demanded of the NCO. “Are we prisoners or what?”

“Can it, kid.”

Rip went into the tent and shook out his sleeping bag. Haagen came in after him. “The officers will be right back,” Rip told him. “Unless they can figure out how to open the hatch.”

“You closed it?”

“Yeah.”

“If we don’t open the hatch for them, they might damage the saucer.”

“You’re kidding!”

“They’re going in one way or the other, I suspect. A detachment of U.S. Air Force people here, in the Sahara? By order of the president?”

“Okay, okay. But I found that saucer. It’s mine.”

“Don’t get cute with me, Rip. I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think you have a claim. You don’t even have a prayer. I don’t think anybody knows exactly what country we’re in.”

“I know this,” Rip Cantrell whispered heatedly. “My father left me a quarter of a million dollars and a third interest in a farm in Minnesota. I’ve got an uncle in Des Moines who’s a junkyard dog lawyer; his speciality is biting people on the ass. You’ll need a rabies shot if Uncle Olie gets anywhere close. With dad’s money and my uncle’s mouth, I can cause the Air Force a hell of a lot of grief.”

“Hey, you!” they heard the major call.

“Yeah.” That was Bill Taggart outside.

“You know how to open the hatch on the saucer?”

“This is your show, flyboy. I don’t know shit.”

Inside the tent, Haagen gestured with his thumb. “Go open it for them, Rip. Stay with them, see if you can learn anything.”

Rip went. The major was standing outside near the camp stove.

“I can open that hatch, Big Mouth.”

“Come on, kid.”