Saucer s-1 Page 17

  Then Professor Soldi appeared on screen, talking about the saucer. 'It is very old, one hundred and forty thousand years, give or take ten thousand. We dug it out of the sandstone.' Some of his photos appeared on the screen. He explained what each of them were.

  'So what happened?' the person interviewing him asked.

  'To make a long story short, the saucer was flown away by a former United States Air Force test pilot, a Ms. Charlotte Pine, and a seismic exploration worker, a Mr. Rip Cantrell.' He spent several minutes explaining how that came about and what the saucer looked like as it took off.

  By now everyone in the room was paying rapt attention to the television, including Rip.

  'As you know,' the professor continued, 'I've been a prisoner of the Libyan government for three days, since the incident happened. We were released just hours ago and taken to the airport in Tripoli, where we boarded a plane for Rome. The other people who were prisoners with me are now en route to the United States, but I wanted to get the story out quickly. That is why I stayed behind to be interviewed.'

  They talked some more about the saucer, how it worked, how it was discovered.

  'Tell me, Professor,' the interviewer said, 'where did this saucer come from?'

  'Obviously it was not made on earth,' Soldi said. 'It appears to be a shuttle craft, designed to take people and materials from orbit to the surface of a planet, then back into orbit. Apparently it was abandoned where we found it, abandoned all those years ago.'

  'Who left it there?'

  'Ah,' the professor said, 'if only we knew. I think a careful study of the machine, and I mean a careful, thorough, analysis of every nut and bolt, every aspect of the device, would suggest some answers.'

  'Do you have a theory?'

  'Several. But explanations of each of them would take more time than we have.'

  'Please share with us the theory that you believe most likely.'

  'The saucer is man-made.'

  'You mean people like us?'

  'I mean our ancestors.'

  A murmur ran through the airport crowd that was watching this with Rip. He looked around at the people there, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, some of indeterminate race. All of them were listening intently to Professor Soldi.

  'Civilizations don't just happen,' the professor explained. 'Hunter-gathering Stone Age societies are at one end of the continuum, we are somewhere closer to the other end. Each technological level, if you will, above Stone Age hunter gatherers requires a different level of social organization to support it. Increased specialization is the rule. The industrial age required millions of workers and consumers. The postindustrial age required even more specialization, a larger base of workers and consumers. We are now moving into the era of the global economy, in which the brains, talents, and skills of workers all over the planet will be melded together in gigantic enterprises to create further technical progress. Our destination is the technological future that created the saucer.'

  'I think I understand,' the interviewer prompted.

  'The properties of the technological continuum that we have just talked about are rigid; in effect, they are laws. Since each level of technological achievement requires more and more people, more and more social organization, it follows that without the specialized people, the technological level cannot be sustained.'

  'Keep going,' the interviewer said.

  'A society that can build a device like the saucer, put it in an interplanetary spaceship, and cross the vastness of interstellar space will not be able to replicate that society anywhere else unless they bring their whole population, or most of it. Upon arrival at the planet they intended to colonize, the small number of people who could make that voyage would drop to a technological level that they could sustain.'

  'You are saying that if the saucer brought colonists, they became hunter-gatherers to survive.'

  'Precisely,' said Professor Soldi. 'Spaceships, computers, tools, weapons, lasers, advanced medical devices, books, learning — they lost everything. There weren't enough people to maintain or manufacture any of that. The abandoned saucer was finally covered with sand by the wind. The people lived in caves and learned to make tools with stone and ate their meat raw. The past was passed on as legends and myths. Eventually over the generations the legends and myths became unrecognizable, completely divorced from historical fact. The past was lost, just as the saucer had been.'

  'So… the people who flew the saucer are… us?'

  'I think the evidence of the saucer will ultimately prove that is the case.'

  Nine FBI agents, seven men and two women, were waiting for Egg Cantrell when he drove into his driveway. They had driven there in three cars. Egg got out of his pickup and demanded of the closest agent, 'Did you pick the lock on my gate?'

  'Uh, the gate was open, sir, when we arrived. I never saw a lock. We just drove on in.'

  'Right! Well, what do you want?'

  'We need to have a talk, Mr. Cantrell. We want to know what went on here today.'

  Egg looked them over and came to a fast decision. If he told them what he knew, they would eventually leave. If he didn't, he was probably going to find himself held in protective custody until he did talk.

  'Why don't you people come on inside. I'll make a pot of coffee.'

  It was after midnight when the agents left. Egg went out on the porch and watched all nine agents get into the cars and drive away. The insects were chirping and fog drifted through the trees. A sliver of gauzy moon was just visible through the luminous fog.

  When he could no longer hear the car engines, Egg went down the hill to the hangar and used his key on the padlock. Inside, he turned on the lights. An hour ago he had brought the agents here and they had casually inspected the place. The senior man asked for permission to search, which Egg had refused.

  Now he went to a large, dusty cabinet sitting far back in one corner. The cabinet had wooden doors on the lower portion, glass doors on the upper. It had once graced a hardware store in a small town fifty miles from here. Egg bought it at auction when the hardware store went out of business after the Wal-Mart opened. Progress.

  Egg opened the lower right door and removed several antique metal signs. Behind the signs was a padded laptop computer case. He took it out of the cabinet, replaced the signs, then carried the computer case out into the light. He laid it carefully on the floor and unzipped it.

  The computer from the saucer was unharmed, exactly as he left it. Egg Cantrell zipped up the computer case, turned off the hangar lights, and locked the door behind him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charley Pine didn't get much sleep her first night in Australia. She didn't really expect to: she had been changing time zones so often that she felt tense and tired all the time. She took a long, hot shower, used the toilet articles the room contained, and tried to rest.

  When sleep refused to come, she took a book from the bookshelf in her room while she waited for the world to turn. She sat with the book open on her lap, to no avail; her mind refused to release its grip on the present.

  She had flown the saucer for Hedrick because she believed his threats. Standing in Egg's house, watching Hedrick as Rigby worked on Rip, she believed him capable of murder to get what he wanted.

  However, if an opportunity presented itself, she intended to get in the saucer and fly away, leaving Hedrick and his thugs as a problem to be solved at another time and place. Of course, Hedrick would not knowingly give her an opportunity. Perhaps she could create one…

  Slowly, slowly the night ebbed and the sky grew light in the east. Finally the sun crept over the earth's rim.

  She was standing at the window, fully dressed, when a knock came at the door. She opened it to find Rigby there. He was a few inches over six feet, with wide shoulders and narrow hips and weight lifter's veins in his forearms. 'He wants to see you.' She closed the door behind her on the way out and walked ahead of Rigby. Instinctively she knew he wasn't ' the type ever to let any
one get behind him.

  He followed her to an elevator, which lifted them to the top floor of the house, the fourth.

  Hedrick's office was a large room, with huge windows on every wall. The windows were French doors, which opened onto a deck built above the roof of the rest of the house. The design reminded Charley of a New England widow's walk, only the room and deck were huge.

  Roger Hedrick was seated behind his desk. He didn't rise. She sat in one of the chairs facing the desk.

  'I'll see you at breakfast, Rigby,' Hedrick said, and Rigby left via the stairs, which were beside the elevator.

  Hedrick had a presence. He seemed to electrify the air. Charley thought she could feel the tiny hairs on her arms prickle.

  'As I told you yesterday,' Hedrick said conversationally, ' 'I will pay you for every day of your time, whether you fly or not.'

  'If you pay me it won't be kidnapping, is that it?'

  He seemed to be measuring her, sizing her up. Charley Pine wondered what he was thinking.

  Now he said simply, 'I don't care how you label your situation, Ms. Pine. I am simply trying to make these few days as pleasant for you as possible. I want your cooperation, and I intend to have it.'

  He seemed to be looking through her eyes into her soul.

  'You will fly the saucer when I ask, where I ask, to demonstrate it for some people I have invited to see it. If you refuse, if you act like anything other than a loyal employee, I will apply pressure to your family in America. We can arrange for telephone calls from your mother or father while someone breaks their fingers, their arms, their legs, their backs… whatever you like, Ms. Pine. Whatever you want.'

  'You're sick!'s

  'Perhaps you would like to listen while your sister is raped.'

  'Sick scum,' she hissed and involuntarily lowered her gaze from his eyes.

  When she raised her eyes, Roger Hedrick grinned. He had a wicked, malevolent grin. Then the grin faded.

  'Nothing personal, Ms. Pine,' he said crisply. 'This is business. It's trite but true. A great deal of money is at stake. A young woman reluctant to listen to reason is not going to be allowed to impede progress. The wheels are going to turn. Do you understand?'

  She forced herself to meet his gaze.

  'I do hope you understand, Ms. Pine. For your sake.'

  Hedrick rose from his chair, came around the desk. She rose from her chair to stay away from him.

  'Let's go have breakfast.'

  He reached for her arm. She fought back the instinctive urge to jerk away.

  'After breakfast, perhaps you would care to go for a ride around the station. On the ground, of course.'

  He smoothly guided her to the elevator. They rode it down in silence, his face perfectly calm, as if the conversation of a moment ago didn't happen.

  'I'll find someone to accompany you,' Hedrick said easily. 'I think you will like Australia. Most people do.'

  The dining room was on the ground floor, a rather large room with ten tables, each capable of seating four people. Three of the tables were occupied. Hedrick steered Charley to a table where a stunningly beautiful young woman with blond hair was sitting with Rigby. Charley had to force herself not to stare at the girl.

  'Ah, Bernice,' Hedrick said, 'I wish to introduce you to Charley Pine, our American pilot. She flies the saucer.'

  Bernice gave Charley a dazzling grin. Then she pecked Hedrick's cheek and he patted her. Charley seated herself beside Bernice.

  'You know Rigby, of course.'

  'I've met the bastard,' Charley said.

  Bernice didn't turn a hair. She's that kind of broad, Charley thought, dismissing her. Rigby sipped his coffee as if Charley wasn't there.

  Hedrick didn't raise or lower his voice, but continued in a conversational tone: 'Life is much easier for everyone if the amenities are observed, Ms. Pine. That includes you.' Obviously her status here was no secret.

  A waiter came to take their order. After he left, Hedrick said to Bernice, 'I thought you and Rigby might give, Ms. Pine a tour of the station this morning. She said she would enjoy that.'

  Bernice put her hand on Hedrick's arm. 'I'd be delighted,' she said and smiled, displaying perfect teeth.

  'Interesting weather we're having, isn't it?' Hedrick said and led the conversation to benign topics.

  When breakfast was finished, Bernice said to Charley, 'Let's walk down to the garage for a vehicle.'

  Before Charley could reply, Hedrick froze her with his eyes. 'You have a choice. You can give me your word you won't try to escape, or we can lock you back in your room. Which will it be?'

  Charley Pine stared into his eyes. The man would send hired thugs to murder her family to make her fly the saucer, but not to salve his injured ego. There was no profit in it, and profit was what Roger Hedrick was all about.

  The station was certainly guarded. Even if she stole a vehicle and managed to get to a town, what good would it do her? Hedrick's billions undoubtedly bought a lot of cooperation from the local police and politicians.

  Finally, there was the saucer. If she left without it, he would find a way to make a profit from it. The cold certainty that she didn't want Hedrick to have the saucer congealed in her heart.

  'I'm not going anywhere,' she said as evenly as she could.

  'If she tries to escape, Rigby, she's all yours. Just don't kill her.'

  Rigby grinned.

  Roger Hedrick threw his napkin on his plate and rose abruptly. As he walked away he pulled a cell phone from a pocket and punched buttons.

  Bernice drove the Land Rover and Charley Pine sat beside her, on the left, in the passenger's seat. Rigby was still at the breakfast table when the women left the room, and if he followed, Charley didn't see him. She didn't even look for him.

  She forced herself to look at her surroundings, to see, to observe. When the time for action came, she wanted to be ready. She wanted to know where the enemy was and how he would have to be fought.

  Bernice said little until they were bumping along in a Land Rover, then she began explaining about the station, the thousands of cattle, the jackeroos — which were cowboys — airplanes, buildings, etc. Charley soaked it up without asking questions. When a response seemed to be required, she grunted.

  Finally Bernice began talking about herself. She was British, she said. A model. She ran into 'Roger' several years ago in London at a fashion show. She talked about jetting around with Roger — Paris, Monte Carlo, Rome, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, wherever business or pleasure took them. skiing at St. Moritz one weekend, lying on the beach at Ipanema the next, it was all so magical.

  After fifteen minutes of this Charley had had enough. 'Sounds like you're bought and paid for,' she remarked.

  Bernice didn't take offense, didn't argue, didn't pretend the remark hadn't happened. Roger had told her to drive this American pilot around, so she would, regardless. She took a deep breath, then said, 'Must be quite the adventure sporting about in a flying saucer, I imagine.'

  This sally brought forth another Charley Pine grunt.

  Bernice clucked her tongue. 'We must try to get along,' she said.

  'Why?'

  'Because Roger said so,' Bernice said, slightly appalled that Charley couldn't see something so plain. 'Roger is Roger. He's extraordinarily smart, has made mountains of money. He puts himself under extreme pressure. Deep down he's a generous, warm person. Everyone just loves him.'

  'You're really not a bad person yourself, are you?' Charley said and patted Bernice on the arm.

  Aboard a packed Boeing 747 crossing a great ocean, Rip Cantrell was ready to conclude that Wilbur and Orville should have concentrated on the bicycle business. Nearly five hundred wriggling, sleeping, farting, snoring humans were jammed into the small seats.

  Rip managed to cross three sets of knees to get to an aisle, then went back to a tiny open area around an emergency exit. He stood there stretching and looking out the small porthole at the darkness and listeni
ng to the hum of the engines. The plane was six hours west of Los Angeles. The sun had set, finally, after a long sunset. A meal had been served to everyone on board, a movie had played, now people slept.

  He bent down to see out the window beside the emergency door. Dark out there, nothing to see. An overcast, apparently, obscured the sky.

  He couldn't stop thinking about the saucer or Charley Pine. Somehow the two were bound so tightly together that to think of one was to think about the other.

  He pulled the magazine from his hip pocket and read the story on Roger Hedrick one more time, looked carefully at the photos.

  Finally he folded the magazine and returned it to the hip pocket of his jeans.

  He looked in the window glass at his own reflection. That was the face Charley had seen when she kissed him.

  When he straightened up, he was wearing a smile.

  The news that a Missouri National Guard F16 had fired two Sidewinders at a flying saucer the previous day made headlines around the world. Although the Pentagon classified the report, someone in Missouri called a local newspaper. The rest, as they say, was history.

  Pharmacist Raymond Stockert was hounded by a mob of reporters at his home and in the supermarket where he worked. The supermarket manager sent Stockert home for the day to clear the aisles for real shoppers.

  Inevitably the White House was forced to admit that the president had ordered the military to patrol the nation's skies and shoot down any saucers encountered. This revelation sparked a debate on Capitol Hill. Once again the White House was under siege.

  The president was unapologetic. Safely away from the press, he roared at his aides, 'Of course I gave the shoot-down order! I would give it again! The American people elected me to protect the American way of life, and by God I am going to.'