Saucer: Savage Planet (9 page)

“I am sorry to hear that,” Egg said, trying to be patient. “Your mother has had a long life, and I hope a wonderful one, full of good memories and family. I don’t have an antiaging drug. Please send the sheriff.”

“So you won’t help her. Because we don’t have enough money? Or because you are willing to let her die? Which is it?”

“I am not God—” Egg began severely but found he was talking to a dead phone. He replaced the instrument on its cradle, and immediately it began to ring. He unplugged the device and added water to the coffeemaker.

“I am not God,” he repeated aloud, although there was no one to hear. “I did not make the universe. I am not going to help change it. I am just going to live in it, and when my body wears out, die like everyone else … and hope that God has mercy on my soul.”

6

Adam Solo had finally gotten to sleep. He was dreaming. The green, brown and blue planet was below, partially covered with clouds. Clouds in rows, towering thunderstorms, rivers of clouds streaming from the ocean onto the land. The brown deserts were clear, with only wisps of high cirrus.

“Looks inviting,” the woman said. She was a biologist, on her first library mission to this galaxy. This was only the second planet they had visited.

“Not much here,” Adam Solo replied. “A few cities in the temperate zone, but they haven’t advanced to running water and indoor toilets.” He was flying the saucer.

The woman shivered. “Let’s avoid the natives,” she remarked.

“If possible,” her fellow scientist remarked. His specialty was paleontology. He was a nice enough guy, into his science.

The fourth team member, a medical doctor, was deeply depressed. The signs were unmistakable. He was on medication for it and had delusional moments. Solo had argued with the expedition commander that the man should not descend to the planet’s surface and had been overruled. The doctor’s specialty was airborne bacteria, which might have evolved into deadly strains since the librarians’ last visit.

Now he stared through the canopy at the planet, which was overhead since Solo was orbiting upside down. “Savages,” he whispered. “We’ll never get home.”

Solo glanced at the medical man and withheld comment. Every planet they visited was uncivilized, and only a few hosted intelligent life. This one, according to the computer, had been home to manlike hominids for over a million earth years, and to creatures like the saucer crew for a hundred and fifty thousand or so. There was even speculation that the planet’s people were descendants of stranded space travelers.

“When was the first mission to this planet?” the biologist asked.

“About then,” Solo said distractedly, for she was wearing a headband too and he sensed where she was in the saucer’s memory.

The problem of where to land had been addressed aboard the starship, in conjunction with the scientific staff. Prior missions’ landing locations were plotted, and natural species dispersion factored in. This mission was supposed to check to see that the introduced DNA data containers were being dispersed as the original plan predicted.

They were going to land on an island that was often under cloud decks that streamed in over a warm sea current that made it a wet, rainy place, and considering the latitude a warm one. Today the island was clear. Well, it was late summer there, so perhaps the weather would hold for a few days, allowing the saucer crew to land, take their samples, then depart.

In his dream Adam Solo relived it again; the landing, the check of airborne and waterborne bacteria and viruses, a quick survey of the area to ensure natives wouldn’t attack them while they worked, the erratic behavior of the medical man.

Solo could hear him arguing that they should not open the hatch even though the testing equipment showed the air and water were safe, because he was sure the gear was malfunctioning. Hear his voice, see his face, see the irrational fear. In his dream he reached for him, tried to grab his neck and strangle the fool … but the man was just out of reach, just beyond his grasp, moving, babbling and laughing and … It hadn’t really happened that way, of course, but in Solo’s dream the memories and his fears were all jumbled up.

God damn that man.

Then, while the team was outside working, the doctor stole the saucer.

In his dream Solo could see it rising into the night sky on a pillar of fire, hear the earsplitting exhaust roar, feel the helplessness.

He awoke. In a cold sweat.

This room … he ran his eyes over it, felt the tangible solidity of the bed, felt the air going in and out of his chest, felt his heart pounding.

He rolled over, put his feet on the floor and sat with his head in his hands while the dream faded.

A knock on the door. “Adam?” The woman’s voice. Charley. “If you are awake, you better come downstairs. The house is surrounded.”

*   *   *

When Rip arrived in the kitchen, he found his uncle standing at the window with binoculars, looking out. Egg tersely told him about the news crews and offered him the binoculars for a look. Rip didn’t bother with the glasses. He looked, ran to the living room, looked there, then checked the other side and back of the house.

When he returned, he said, “Lots of people out there in back and on the other side, carrying flashlights and lanterns. We’re completely surrounded. Call the law.”

“I tried. We’re on our own.”

Rip turned and raced up the stairs to his bedroom. In less than a minute he was back with his old Model 94 Winchester and a box of shells. He dumped the cartridges on the kitchen table and began feeding them into the loading gate of the rifle as he eyed the reporter broadcasting near the hangar. The saucer on the rock was immediately behind the reporter, probably being used as background.

“Rip,” Egg said, his voice cracking.

“This is completely out of control, Unc. There’s a mob out there. Someone may get hurt, and it isn’t going to be us.”

“You once told Charley that you didn’t want to shoot anyone over the saucer.”

“I don’t think I said that to you.”

“It’s on the computer.”

Rip took a deep breath. “The saucer isn’t the issue.” The rifle’s magazine was full. He worked the action, chambering a round, then lowered the hammer to half-cock. “Our safety is. I will shoot any of those people to protect you and Charley and Solo.”

Rip gestured toward the television. “Turn up the sound. We might as well listen and get the whole greasy enchilada.”

Egg did as requested, just in time to hear the reporter say, “Stay with us. We’ll be back after the break.” The television began running a Viagra commercial.

“Want some coffee?” Egg asked.

Rip sighed and laid the rifle on the table. “Sure.” He pocketed the remainder of the cartridges.

In a few minutes Charley and Solo joined Rip and Egg in the kitchen. Egg poured coffee while he briefed them. They stood at the unbroken window looking out.

The rising sun was lighting up the sky to the east.

“Maybe we’d better get some breakfast before the party begins,” Rip suggested. “When the day is completely here the TV people won’t need those lights and will be up on the porch pounding on the door and looking in the windows.”

Charley sipped her coffee and looked directly at Egg. “You are going to have to give them that computer you took from Rip’s saucer,” she said. “This is just too big.”

“No,” Rip shot back.

“What do you think?” Egg asked Solo.

Adam Solo took his time answering. “Sooner or later someone always wondered why I wasn’t aging like they were. The trick was to be moving along before that thought turned into action.”

“Little late for that now,” Rip said curtly.

“Apparently,” Solo agreed amiably.

“So?”

“I don’t know what is on your computer. And it’s your computer. You people will have to decide.”

“Everything that was on yours, less a hundred and forty thousand years of research.”

“Actually, it doesn’t work like that,” Solo said, glancing from face to face. “Space and time are warped by gravity. Your Albert Einstein explained it rather well, I thought. If you travel in space, you travel in time. They are essentially one and the same.”

“That explains the space maps in the computer,” Egg said thoughtfully. “You must chart your course to arrive at your destination at your chosen time.”

“That’s basically it,” Solo said. “The computer contains sailing directions.”

“So why didn’t your people return for you and your colleagues?” Charley asked.

“They tried, apparently, but going back in time is very difficult. Think of a ship’s course being dictated by the wind. In space we go where black holes and concentrations of matter let us go. Perhaps the Roswell saucer was on a rescue mission. Or perhaps not. Obviously I am still here.”

“Stay with us,” the television reporter intoned breathlessly. “We’ll be here at the Cantrell farm all day reporting events as they unfold. We hope to interview Egg Cantrell and Adam Solo, both of whom are believed to be still in the house.” This was followed by an appeal from a Houston law firm for clients who might have been injured by a bad drug. There was apparently lots of money in human suffering.

“Hell,” Rip said to Solo, “don’t despair. You have a great career ahead of you hawking antiaging pills.”

Solo smiled.

Rip glanced out the window. Dawn was well along.

“We may have to give them the computer,” Egg muttered. He got busy making breakfast.

*   *   *

Air Force One
landed at Columbia, Missouri. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, the president and P. J. O’Reilly trotted across the mat to a waiting helicopter, which got airborne as soon as the door closed.

An air force major was waiting in the chopper to brief the president. He described the media siege of the Cantrell residence, the traffic jam on the local roads and the estimated four hundred gawkers who surrounded the house. The county sheriff was now on the scene and wringing his hands. “Most of the onlookers are local voters,” the major said to the president, quite superfluously.

“All this on television?” O’Reilly asked sharply.

“Every channel. All the broadcast and most of the major cable networks. Even the cooking channel. The producers go back to their studios occasionally to let the talking heads and hot babes have their moments, interview ‘experts,’ run commercials, that kind of thing. But you, Mr. President, will be on the air worldwide as soon as the helicopter comes into view of the cameras.”

“So what’s happening this morning?” the president asked.

“Nothing,” the major replied. “The Cantrells have stayed in the house. The reporters have knocked on the door, which didn’t open. One of the producers was talking to his boss in New York about cutting the electrical and telephone wires to force the Cantrells out. Egg Cantrell could sue them, but they would have their story.”

“Is Adam Solo there?”

“The networks believe he is. He was there yesterday and hasn’t been seen leaving. I doubt if a field mouse could have gotten out of the house during the last twenty-four hours without being seen.”

“The drug moguls, Douglas and Murkowsky?”

“Watching television somewhere, I imagine.”

The president looked out a window of the chopper at the rolling Missouri countryside sliding by beneath—at the patches of woodland, the fields that were harvested weeks ago and the neat little farms connected to the paved roads that snaked across the land.

As the major predicted, a live shot of the helo approaching the Cantrell farm hit every major network within seconds. Producers almost melted down in ecstasy when the president of the United States stepped out. Reporters tried to mob him, but the Secret Service agents kept them away, mainly through brute force.

The president pretended the press wasn’t there. He set his eyes on the front door of the Cantrell residence and marched up the path, trailed by P. J. O’Reilly and two agents openly carrying submachine guns and wearing headsets with boom mikes.

Rip was already at the door to open it for the president. He had wisely left his rifle in the kitchen, so there was no unpleasantness with the Secret Service agents, who followed O’Reilly, who followed the president.

After the president shook hands with Rip, saying, “Good to see you again,” he motioned the security detail to go into the empty living room and asked, “Where’s your uncle?”

“In the kitchen.” Rip led the way.

Someone had turned off the sound on the TV set, so there was only the video of a reporter gesturing wildly and pointing toward the house as his mouth worked rapidly.

Rip did the introductions. The president held on to Solo’s hands while he looked him in the eyes. “You and I need to have a long chat,” he said.

Solo nodded.

Charley Pine got a kiss on the cheek from the president—he liked to kiss beautiful women and made no secret of it—but Egg got the full treatment. He found his hand trapped by the president’s, and then the president put one arm around his shoulder and hugged him tight.

“Mr. Cantrell—I’ll call you Egg. I came from Washington to have a personal talk with you. Is there a place where we can have a private conversation?”

“Rip and Charley and Solo have a right to hear everything that is said. How about a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

The president started to sit at the kitchen table and found himself staring at Rip’s Winchester. “This thing loaded?”

“Yep,” Rip said flatly.

The president gingerly eased it to one side of the table and dropped into a chair. O’Reilly remained standing in the doorway. From time to time the chief of staff glanced at the television.

“Folks, we have ourselves a real mess here,” the president declared. “The press and the public are convinced that you have a bunch of formulas for some real high-tech drugs on that computer you took out of Rip’s saucer.”

Egg started to speak, but the president stopped him with an upraised palm.

“We know you have it. Everyone on the planet knows you have it. And the public won’t take no for an answer.”

“It’s private property,” Egg pointed out as he handed the president a cup of black coffee. “I have the law on my side and I have possession. I’m keeping it.”