Saucer: The Conquest (24 page)

The president wiggled the controls. “And this saucer has a weapon?”

“Yessir. An antiproton beam.”

“What’s an antiproton?”

“Antimatter. When an antiproton hits a regular proton, it destroys it, releasing a lot of energy. A whole lot. E = mc
2
.”

“Your uncle will be at the lunar base. That will complicate things.”

“We’re going to need a couple of assault rifles and some grenades. They’ll work the same there as they do here.”

“Want to take a couple of marines with you?”

“It’s sorta cramped in here now. When we add the water tanks, there won’t be room.”

“Okay.” The president stirred the stick, kicked the rudders and took in the displays one more time. “Before you go, can I get a ride in this thing?”

• • •

To get to the restroom Charley walked through a large office and along a hallway. When she came out, she paused to examine the framed photos of World War I aviators hanging on the hallway wall. There was Georges Guynemer, with lean cheeks and haunted eyes, wearing a coat with a fur collar; Charles Nungesser standing in front of his plane in a leather coat, his hands in his pockets; Albert Ball in profile, only nineteen, in the cockpit of his Nieuport; the wild man, Frank Luke, with his arms folded across his chest, leaning against the lower wing of a Spad; Mick Mannock bending down to pat a dog… ahh, and Billy Bishop seated in a Nieuport, with his head turned, looking at the camera.

She wiped at her tears, trying to see clearly. Bishop’s eyes bored into hers. Bishop, the consummate aerial warrior, was the only one of the group to die of old age. Seventy-two confirmed kills, Billy, and you lived with every one of them the rest of your days.

So was she feeling sorry for the men she killed, or for herself?

“Are you the saucer pilot?”

Charley Pine looked up. The questioner was a girl, perhaps ten years old, with yellow hair pulled back in pigtails. “Yes,” Charley said. “I’m the pilot.”

“Why are you crying?”

Charley was sitting in a chair with her legs drawn up in the office off the main hangar floor, amid a dozen desks, each holding a computer and printer. The walls were lined with filing cabinets. She swabbed at her eyes. “People do, you know. Cry sometimes.”

“Sometimes it helps,” the girl said, very grown up.

Charley used the sleeves of her flight suit to dry her eyes, then tried to smile. It was a miserable effort, she thought.

The girl took a chair nearby. “I’m Amanda. I’m eight.”

“Charley.”

“That’s a funny name for a girl.”

“It’s actually Charlotte. My dad started calling me Charley because I was a tomboy, and it stuck.”

“I like being a girl,” Amanda said.

“I do too.”

“Boys are so icky.”

“Sometimes,” Charley agreed, and hugged her legs.

“What’s it like to fly the saucer?”

“Sometimes it’s pretty cool. Other times…”

“I mean, what’s it really like?” Amanda leaned forward, her eyes shining. “When you go zooming up and fly off into space and see the world from way out there, with a billion stars shining and the moon so bright and the sun hanging there on fire.”

“Way cool,” Charley admitted, remembering.

“Tell me.”

Charley searched for words, which had never been her long suit. She could fly it and live it and savor it, but she had never tried to tell anyone about it, except for one female reporter, who turned out to be more interested in Charley’s sex life than her flying experiences.

Looking at Amanda, she started talking. She told about the G forces, the rush of acceleration with empty heaven ahead, the way the sky turned dark as the saucer climbed above the atmosphere, how the clouds looked from twenty, fifty, a hundred miles high looking down. She explained about the oceans, the million shades of blue, the mountains with snow, windstorms over the deserts, cities twinkling at night… told it to Amanda with the shining eyes.

Rip bent down and kissed Charley’s cheek. “Hey there, lady. How you doing?”

“Visiting with Amanda.”

“I see you met my granddaughter,” a man said from behind Charley. She turned to see who it was. The president.

“She’s going to be a pilot,” Charley Pine replied, winking at Amanda.

“They’re going to install the water tank, get us some new clothes and underwear and provide some MREs.” MREs were Meals, Ready to Eat. “Can you think of anything else?”

“A couple cases of water to drink, and I want two flight suits with an American flag on the shoulder. I’m tired of wearing this French flight suit.”

“Done,” the president said.

“Uhh,” Rip said, leaning close and whispering. “While they’re getting bladder tanks ready to install, the president wondered if you could give him and Amanda a ride in the saucer. You know, sort of an out and in to see the sights and stuff. Will you?”

Charley Pine winked at Amanda. “Want to try it?”

“Sure,” the youngster replied. “If you’re going to fly it. I only ride with women pilots.”

“She’s a true believer,” said the president, grinning broadly, and rumpled the girl’s hair.

“Let’s put some water in it and light the fires,” Charley said. She led the way out into the hangar bay. The hangar door was already open. Through it she could see the dawn.

Suspecting that Andrews Air Force Base had its share of neighbors who complained about noise and wanting to go easy on her passengers, Charley Pine used the rocket engines sparingly after takeoff. Amanda sat on her lap, the president stood on her left, and Rip stood in his customary place on her right. Rip had briefed the president about hanging on; each man had a death grip on the underside of the instrument panel and the back of Charley’s seat.

Once over the Chesapeake, Charley pulled the nose up to thirty degrees above the horizon and tweaked on more juice.

She was flying with just the headband, using both arms to hold Amanda.

The saucer soared through forty thousand feet, now fifty. The morning sky darkened; the rim of the earth became a vivid, unbroken line. She gently banked the saucer, let the nose fall to the horizon and reduced the rockets’ thrust until they became a murmur behind her.

Here the spaceship was safely above the airliners, and above the high cirrus layer that was coming in from the west. In that direction the cloud formed a bright, gauzy sheet between earth and sky, almost luminescent in the morning sun. Charley Pine thought the sky very beautiful. Gorgeous in all its moods, she reminded herself.

Charley glanced at Rip. He was grinning widely. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

Rip, Rip, Rip, you are the one.

The president was also smiling. “Thank you,” he told her. “And you, Rip.”

She looked for the moon, then remembered that it was below the horizon at this time of day.

Enough. Pierre was waiting, with his plans for world conquest.

She silenced the rocket engines and let the nose drop toward the earth below.

As the ship came down the Potomac, Amanda was full of giggles and comments. She entertained the adults royally with her observations and her mood. “I’m going to be a saucer pilot when I grow up,” she announced.

“You go, girl,” Charley said, and the men seconded her.

Charley flew the saucer straight into the open hangar and set it on the concrete. As Rip opened the hatch, someone handed up a message for the president. He read it, then handed it to Charley.

Golden Gate and Bay Bridge in San Francisco destroyed. Artois demands your answer. On the next pass he will reduce Washington to rubble, he says, unless the United States surrenders.

“Time to go back to work,” the president said sadly, and read the message aloud. He looked at Charley, then Rip, searching their faces. “If you can destroy the other saucer or render it inoperative, Pierre Artois and his friends will be marooned up there. I think they’ll listen to reason then. This saucer will be their only ride home, and we’ve got it.”

“We’re going to the moon to get Egg,” Rip said.

The president opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it and slapped them both on the shoulder. He turned to his granddaughter.

“Say good-bye, Amanda. I’ve got to go to work. These folks need to get some food and sleep while the mechanics work on the saucer.”

He shook hands with both of them and pushed Amanda toward the hatch. When they were all standing in front of the saucer, Amanda told Charley where she lived and her telephone number and asked for another ride for herself and her girlfriends. Finally she bounded away, her grandfather urging her on, her pigtails flying.

• • •

“The Europeans are coming around,” Henri Salmon reported to Pierre Artois. “All but the British and Dutch, who are being obstinate.”

“As usual,” Julie remarked.

She and Pierre had just seated themselves in the lunar base com center to listen to the president of the United States, who had asked for network time to make a speech to the nation. That speech was, of course, being broadcast worldwide. Salmon and his department heads were also there, standing because there were not enough seats.

When he appeared, the president started with a brief exposition of Pierre’s demands, which amounted to a world government that Pierre would rule by fiat. The president even repeated some of Pierre’s stated goals for that government, such as solving the world hunger problem, and so forth.

Then he went into a summary of the history of democratic government as it had evolved through the centuries, taking it from the Magna Carta to elected parliaments to the American Revolution to universal suffrage.

“Representative democracy is not perfect,” the president said, “but I am absolutely convinced that it is the best method yet devised for making the public decisions that affect our lives, liberty and property. Similarly, the rule of law is the best method mankind has yet come up with for arbitrating personal and business disputes and resolving legal issues. The rule of law is also not perfect. Still, both institutions have grown and taken root in Western civilization and are, I believe, our legacy to the generations of mankind yet to come. Both institutions are being slowly adopted, and adapted to local conditions, in fits and starts by developing nations all over the globe. I stand before you today as an elected official of our constitutional democracy; like every president before me, I have sworn an oath to uphold and defend that Constitution.”

The president continued on for a few minutes more, but Pierre pushed a button to silence the audio. He had gotten the message.

“We’ve been too gentle,” Julie said. “We’ve been attacking things, trying to minimize the loss of life.” She managed to imply that choice had been an act of humanitarian kindness. A cynic might have disagreed, but there were no cynics in the com center, only true believers. “It’s time to take off the gloves,” she added flatly.

• • •

“Some reporter has gotten wind of your saucer ride,” P.J. O’Reilly told the president after his speech. “He called my office minutes ago to see if we wanted to comment.”

The president pondered a bit before he answered. “No comment,” he said finally.

O’Reilly was horrified. “But, sir, the press will think we have something to hide. The congressional opposition will demand an investigation.”

“Let ’em investigate. We’ve got other things to worry about.”

Sensing that he was not getting through, O’Reilly attacked from another direction. “The press will imply that you’ve launched the saucer on a military mission to the moon.”

The president brightened. “I did.”

“They’ll want to know specifics.”

The president thought about it. Rip Cantrell and Charley Pine—they were sure nice young people. He took a deep breath. A rescue mission, Rip said. Well, he and Charley were bright enough and courageous enough to do the right thing.

“No comment,” the president said, “about the saucer or anything connected to it. Pierre can sweat a little.”

• • •

The trip to the moon in a flying saucer was, Egg Cantrell thought, the high point of his life. During his waking hours he sat in the pilot’s seat wearing the headset that allowed him to talk to the saucer’s computers. Looking through the canopy into deep space, watching the moon move against the stars, glancing over his shoulder at the spinning earth while exploring the wisdom of the ancients—it made him feel as if he were sitting at a window that allowed him to look at the eternal. He was beginning to get a glimmer of the how and why; it felt as if he could see the springs and gears that made the universe turn.

When he took off the headset and sat silently looking, he found himself thinking of the people and events in his own life from a different perspective. His parents and his childhood friends and experiences seemed to become part of the warp and woof of life. His personal and professional triumphs and failures—he had had his share of both—seemed somehow less significant. Now he saw life as a grand, glorious adventure, and in some mysterious, almost mystical way, he was a part of all of it and it was a part of him.

Egg didn’t get to spent all his time lost in thought. Chadwick used his satellite radio to check in with the men in the moon on a regular basis, and to chat with the people at Mission Control in France. That was how he learned of the president’s upcoming speech, which he, Egg and the two Frenchmen, whom Egg referred to as Fry One and Fry Two, listened to as it was broadcast.

“Politicians are ambitious, venal and selfish,” Chadwick said as the president talked about representative democracy.

Egg couldn’t resist. “And dictators aren’t, which is probably why people all over the planet are ridding themselves of them as quickly as they can.”

“Pierre Artois isn’t,” Chadwick asserted. “He’s a friend of all mankind.”

Egg let it drop. He consoled himself with the thought that reasoning with fanatics was a fool’s errand. And Chadwick was a fanatic, he well knew, a dangerous one.

After the speech, they listened to news commentary from “experts” and a report that a saucer had been seen flying around Washington, D.C., earlier in the day and was now thought to be outfitting for a flight to the moon.