Saucer: Savage Planet (10 page)

“Is there a formula for an antiaging drug on that thing?”

Egg knew this question was coming, and he still didn’t know exactly how to answer it. He stood there blinking while he made up his mind. After a moment he nodded, once. Yes.

“I want the formula.”

“No,” Egg said forcefully. “You don’t.” He repeated his arguments about the drug distorting the economy by artificially extending human life, talked about the ecological damage that would result from an ever-increasing human population and explained that the species would become extinct as all those people gobbled up the earth’s resources. He finished with the remark, “You and Congress can’t even balance the government’s budget, and now you want to repeal the law of evolution? The expanding population of hungry people will result in anarchy, here and abroad. The future will become a horrible nightmare for everyone on the planet. Do you want our species to become extinct? Giving mankind this drug will accomplish just that, and in the not too distant future. This drug is the purple Kool-Aid.” He took a deep breath. “Maybe the beetles will win after all.”

The president let Egg have his say. When Egg fell silent, he said, “I’m inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, America is a democracy. If a significant majority of the voters want this drug, they are going to find a way to get it. Hell, we can’t even stop people from using marijuana, heroin and cocaine.”

“No,” Egg said.

“How about you, Solo? You know the formula for this drug?”

“Mr. President,” said Adam Solo, “the networks are turning over every rock, questioning people all over this planet about me. No doubt your FBI and police agencies can and will join the investigation. Sooner or later your investigators will learn enough of the truth to guess at the rest. I was a pilot of a saucer that landed some years ago. I have not aged since then. The conclusion will be inescapable: I know the formula and how to manufacture the drug, and I have extended my life by using it. So I admit it to you, here and now.”

“Well,” the president said after examining Solo’s face and scrutinizing the faces of Rip, Charley and Egg. “Well, well, well.” He looked again at Solo. “When did you arrive on earth?”

“About a thousand years ago.”

The president’s mouth fell open and he stared at Solo.

“Mr. Cantrell is right, and you know it,” Solo said forcefully. “The existence of this drug commercially will doom the human species. The desire to acquire and use it, at whatever price, will be irresistible for a great many people. Too many. The economy will crash, the planet will be raped, and humanity will become extinct.”

The president took his time answering. When he spoke, he said, “In a democracy the people get to make their own mistakes.”

Rip snorted. “When this cat gets out of the bag, no one will ever be able to put it back in. The damage will have been done.”

The president smashed his fist on the kitchen table, making his coffee cup and the rifle jump. “You think I am the dictator of the world? I’m just an elected public official, and there’s another election coming along—there always is. People are putting excruciating pressure on their senators and congressmen. They are elected officials too.”

He waved his arm at the window. “You know what’s out there. Four hundred people and television cameras piping signals all over the globe. That’s the world we live in. They want it and they’re going to get it, one way or the other. Now, your choice, quite simply, is whether you are going to give up the formula willingly or wait a short while to get run over by the train.”

Solo looked from face to face, then turned to the president. “I’ll write it out for you.”

“The hell you will. I take a piece of paper home and give it to the FDA and meanwhile you people boogie. Then the formula turns out to be fiction. You’ll make me look like a goddamn fool.”

“Which you are,” Charley Pine said to his face.

The president ignored her. “I want Egg’s computer,” he said. “The wizards can get the formula off of that thing, and whatever happens, I won’t get covered with crap.”

They argued for several more minutes. P. J. O’Reilly weighed in when the president ran out of words, issuing threats. Egg ignored him, helped himself to more coffee and sipped it.

Finally even O’Reilly ran down.

Reluctantly Egg opened the kitchen cupboard and took a computer case from the top shelf.

“No, Uncle,” Rip said. “Screw ’em all. Don’t give them that thing.”

“You shouldn’t,” Charley said, grasping Egg’s arm.

“We don’t have a choice,” Egg said, resigned. “This fool wants to give the human race a suicide pill, and we don’t have any way of preventing it.” He stepped toward the president and started to hand him the case, then drew it back.

“You must get all those people the hell off my farm. Go outside, hold a press conference, then have the Secret Service run everyone off. I can’t live like this. And I won’t.”

“They’ll be gone before the helicopter is out of sight,” the president promised and took the case from Egg’s hands.

*   *   *

The president was almost right. He held his press conference, gave the cameras a good look at the case in his arms, then boarded the chopper. The helicopter was over the horizon when the television crews began breaking down their equipment and loading it in their trucks.

“What do you think will happen when the president finds out the computer is smashed?” Rip asked Egg.

“Won’t be pretty,” Egg said.

Rip went to the back of the house and watched Secret Service agents there herd the crowd away. The men with the submachine guns weren’t tolerating lollygagging. The sheriff and his fat deputies got busy directing traffic.

Grabbing a garbage bag from Egg’s kitchen stash, Rip tossed in a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, some cold cuts from the refrigerator, two six-packs of bottled water and all the canned soup the bag would hold.

Fifteen minutes after the helicopter departed, the last of the television trucks and vans headed off up the road to the gate. The Secret Service agents rode along with them. The sheriff was the last man to drive away.

“Well, folks, let’s get out of Dodge while we still can,” Egg said. Solo hoisted his backpack, and Rip, Egg and Charley picked up pillowcases containing clothes. Rip grabbed the black garbage bag full of food and water, then had another thought. He handed his bag to Solo and went back to the kitchen for his rifle.

They gathered on the front porch.

Solo said, “I hope the comm gear in your saucer works and I can send my messages. Then all I must do is wait. Are you sure you want to leave here?”

Egg spoke first. “You’ve been waiting a thousand years, you said.”

“Believe me, I had given up hope of ever living until this day,” Solo replied. “A few more weeks or months or even years won’t matter much.”

Solo seemed reluctant to say more. In the silence that followed, Charley Pine put the question, “So what do we do now?”

“Canada,” Solo said. “There is a place on the southwest shore of Hudson’s Bay, with a cave that was used by ancient people. We can put the saucer in the bay.”

“If it isn’t covered with ice.”

“If there is an ice sheet, it will be thin. We’ll put the saucer in, then let the ice freeze on top of it.”

“We aren’t really dressed for the Canadian winter,” Egg pointed out.

“Get coats and winter gear. Boots. Sleeping bags if you have them. Blankets. Everything you can carry. And matches. We’ll make do.” He scrutinized their faces. “I’ve had some experience with that.”

Ten minutes later they gathered again on the porch. Everyone had bundles. Egg locked the door behind them.

They trooped down the hill to the saucer resting on the stone outcropping. As they approached, it lifted off the rock into a hover.

The saucer set out at a walking pace toward the two-acre farm pond on the other side of Egg’s runway. The people trailed along toting their bundles.

Egg flew the saucer into the middle of the pond, dipped it once in the water to get it wet and raised it about four inches above the surface.

“Better cover your eyes,” he said.

All of them turned their backs and put their hands over their eyes. Still, the flash that followed was so bright they could see it through their eyelids. In seconds the first flash was followed by another as millions of volts coursed from the saucer into the water of the pond, then into the earth. The electrons in the atoms of the saucer were making quantum leaps in their orbits, releasing extraordinary amounts of energy.

Three more flashes followed, then Egg’s voice. “That’s it, I think.”

They turned and looked. The saucer was back to its normal size, about seventy feet in diameter. It looked black and ominous in the diffused morning sunlight.

Egg opened the refueling cap on top of the saucer and submerged it into the pond. The water level rose a few feet, then seemed to subside somewhat as water rushed into the saucer’s tank.

When the gurgling stopped and the surface of the pond was once again placid, he lifted the saucer from the water. It looked majestic rising slowly, dark and wet. When it was free of the water, Egg brought it over to the shore and sat it down on the ground a few feet from them. The hatch opened slowly. They all began shoving bundles in.

“Mr. Solo, do you want to fly it?”

“Why not?” Solo said and led the way into the ship. As Egg and Charley stowed their gear, Rip ran into the hangar to grab his fishing rod and tackle. When he returned, he threw it up into the saucer and clambered aboard. Solo was already in the pilot’s seat, and the reactor was on, the computer displays dancing vividly across the screens. Rip closed the hatch. Everyone took a seat and strapped in.

The presentations continued to dance across the screens in front of Solo, as fast as thought as he ran the built-in tests of every system in the ship. Two minutes passed as Rip and Charley and Uncle Egg sat silently, alone with their thoughts.

“Is everyone ready?” Solo asked. He already had the saucer off the ground and the landing gear retracting. He moved out over Egg’s runway, accelerating.

The passengers said “Yes” simultaneously. The saucer continued to accelerate on the antigravity system. Then the rocket engines ignited, giving just minimum boost. The acceleration continued, pressing everyone back into their seats.

The nose rose into the sky as the flame from the rockets increased steadily.

Soon the saucer was standing on its tail, pointing straight up, rising atop a pillar of fire.

As the saucer climbed, it shot by two news helicopters. The cameramen beamed their pictures to the satellite. As they received the video feed, television networks broadcast it all over the globe. People in New York and Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston, Minot and Wheeling saw the rising saucer on their television screens. They saw it in London, Paris, Berlin, Cairo, Moscow, Istanbul, Baghdad, Mumbai, Tokyo, Cape Town and Sydney. And everywhere in between.

The saucer rose though the clouds and began tilting toward the northeast. Up, up, up, until it was just a star in the noonday sky and the roar of its rocket engines faded to a whisper.

Then it disappeared from sight. The sound level dropped to a kiss by the breeze; then it too was gone.

Little puffy clouds continued to drift across the Missouri countryside, under that milky sky, just as they had since the world was born, but there was no one at Egg’s farm to look at them.

7

Harrison Douglas and Johnny Murkowsky were in the lounge of the fixed-base operator at the Columbia airport when the television began airing the video of the saucer rising on a cone of fire through puffy clouds into the heavens. They were waiting for the crews of their respective private jets to complete the preflights and come for them.
Air Force One
had just taken off and retracted its wheels. Heidi, Murkowsky’s masseuse, was having a glass of wine in the bar.

Now, as the roar of the saucer’s rockets emanating from the speakers of the TV set filled the room, the two moguls stood in front of the idiot box shoulder to shoulder, watching.

When the saucer’s exhaust was but a pinpoint of light on the screen, Johnny turned to Douglas. “We should join forces, combine our efforts. That flying plate has to come down somewhere. When it does…”

“What is this ‘we’ shit, Kemo Sabe?” Douglas shot back bitterly. “I spent eight million bucks raising that saucer, or one like it, from the Atlantic. You’re a little late to the party, Johnny-boy.”

“Late?” Johnny Murkowsky asked incredulously. “Eight million bucks? What a skinflint you are! That kind of money is chicken feed, pocket change. Every single person on this whole round rock, all six or seven billion of ’em, will want a regular supply of those antiaging pills. We’ll be richer than Buffett and Gates combined. We’re not talking about a nice profit—we’re going to get all the money.
All of it.
Every last, dirty, solitary dollar.”

Harrison Douglas stared at Murkowsky.

“Man, if we work together and don’t try to sabotage each other, you and I can
own
this damn planet,” Johnny Murkowsky roared.

The light began to dawn for Harrison Douglas. “You’re right,” he said softly. After all, somewhere along the way he could always double-cross Johnny Murk, and probably would have to, before Murk did it to him.

“Of course I’m right! All we have to do is cooperate, get that formula one way or another. Any way we can. Then we will have to defend it, keep everyone else from ripping us off. If we can do that, we will have won the game. We’ll get all the marbles.
All!
”

Harrison Douglas had the same vision. “It’s possible,” he said. “A long shot, but possible.”

Murkowsky swelled up like a toad as he contemplated the future. “Maybe we’ll change the name of this planet,” he said. “Name it after ourselves.”

*   *   *

The president was in his private compartment aboard
Air Force One,
somewhere over Illinois, when he opened the computer case that Egg had given him. He reached in to pull out the computer and realized that his hand was touching bits and pieces. He emptied the computer case onto the bunk.