“Oh, damn,” Egg Cantrell said flatly.
The man in the right front seat of the third limo now hopped out and opened the rear door. As Egg suspected, the president of the United States climbed out of the back of the third limo, followed by another man Egg didn’t recognize. The two of them crossed the lawn on the sidewalk and stopped on the porch steps.
“Mr. Cantrell?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry to barge in on you like this, but I need to have a little talk with Ms. Pine and young Mr. Cantrell. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Please, come up and be seated. Would you like some coffee?”
“That would be very nice, thank you. I like mine with a spot of milk, and Mr. O’Reilly takes his black. Folks, this is P.J. O’Reilly, my chief of staff.”
The president dropped beside Rip on the porch swing and O’Reilly pulled a chair around while Egg went to make another pot of java.
“Good to see you folks again,” the president began.
“Likewise,” Rip replied. He could bullshit with the best of them.
“Now, I know you folks are probably a little put out that the military tried to shoot you down, but things got mighty confusing and mistakes were made. These things happen, yet no harm was done.”
“Umm,” Rip said.
“Uh-huh,” Charley agreed.
“So, anyway, figuring there could be some hard feelings, I thought maybe I should jump on a plane and zip out here to see you. The FBI checked and said you were here.”
“You could have determined that with a telephone call,” Charley said.
“God bless the FBI,” Rip muttered.
The president ignored them both. “One of the reasons I came is the saucer. We want it back.”
“We?”
“The government. Your government.”
“You made a long trip for nothing,” Rip said smoothly, without inflection.
“Now, son, you signed that flying saucer-thing over to the Air and Space Museum. You swiped it without permission, and they could sue you to get it back. Those facts are indisputable. Unless you turn it over PDQ with a smile on your face, I can pretty much guarantee you that they will sue.”
Rip kept his cool. “One of the conditions of the gift was that the museum folks had to remove the reactor from the saucer, which they failed to do. Arguably they forfeited the gift by failing to abide by one of the essential conditions. I’m keeping it.”
The president smiled the smile that the secretary of state found so loathsome. “Where is it?”
“I’ve heard about this Fifth Amendment thing,” Rip said with his face deadpan, “and thought I’d give it a whirl and try to ride it. Seems like everyone ought to give that one a short ride every once in a while, don’t you think?”
The president’s grin faded. “Apparently they can’t take the reactor out of the saucer and transport or store it because the design is unapproved. The regs are quite specific.”
“Sorta seems like the prez oughta be able to cut through that kind of knot.”
“Seems like, but he can’t. Some federal judge would drop an injunction on me and that would be that. But we can’t let that saucer just sit around. You stole it from the museum; anyone could. Surely you see the problem?”
“I’ll hang on to it.” Rip thought about that statement, and added, “If I have it.”
Egg brought out a tray with five cups of coffee, sugar in a little bowl and milk in a small pitcher. The cups weren’t china, but mugs bearing logos from the state university, the St. Louis arch and numerous other public attractions. Egg handed the president one from Dollywood.
The president slurped coffee without glancing at the mug, then addressed himself to Egg. “Mr. Cantrell, your nephew is refusing to return the saucer to the government. What do you think of that?”
“His mom told me he was difficult to potty train.”
“Ms. Pine?”
“It’s not my saucer,” Charley said curtly.
After spending most of his adult life in politics, the president knew when to drop a subject and go on to something else. From a pocket he produced an envelope. He extracted three sheets of paper from it and handed one each to Egg, Rip and Charley. As they read he took three medals from another pocket. He handed them each one in turn. “From a grateful nation. Little bits of enameled metal and ribbon aren’t much, I know, but you people saved a lot of lives and property. On behalf of the nation, I thank you.”
Charley recognized the medal. “The Distinguished Flying Cross,” she told Rip and Egg.
“Coolidge gave one to Lindbergh after he flew the Atlantic,” the president told them. “You three deserve them.”
On that note the president leaned back, crossed his legs and asked about the battle on the moon and the saucer battle over Washington and New York. After an hour of conversation, he rose to go.
“Sure you don’t know where that saucer is?” he asked Rip.
“Pretty sure that if I knew I wouldn’t tell” was the reply.
“Well, if you find it and change your mind, give us a call.”
Egg accompanied the president and O’Reilly toward the cars. The president was about to get into his limo when he saw the small saucer on the rock. He walked over to it for a look while Egg and O’Reilly trailed along. Once there, he even put on his glasses to examine the detail.
“Nice,” he said finally. “Thing’ll turn green out here in the sun and rain. Maybe you should put it inside.”
“Outside seemed best,” Egg said.
“By the way, the folks in western Missouri, Kansas and half of Arkansas and Oklahoma lost their electrical power for a couple of hours the other night. You know anything about that?”
“Read about it. We didn’t lose power here.”
“Heard about Chadwick passing away. The newspaper said he died an old man, of natural causes, right here on your property.”
“That he did. Lalouette dropped him here. He died peacefully.”
“Any connection between his death and the loss of electrical power?”
“Not that I know of,” Egg said truthfully.
“Umm.” The president leaned on the saucer, tried to push it. “Heavy thing,” he muttered.
“It’s welded to steel rods in the rock,” Egg said.
The president glanced sharply at Egg, then said, “Just as long as it doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Yes, sir,” Egg replied.
The president got into his limo and the Secret Service agents boarded theirs.
Egg waved as the entourage rolled off toward his gate, took a last look at the saucer, then walked up the hill to the porch where Charley and Rip were waiting.
EGG HAD JUST SETTLED INTO HIS CHAIR ON THE PORCH when the telephone in the kitchen rang. He rushed away to answer it.
“So what are we going to do now?” Rip asked Charley.
“You mean this morning?”
“In this lifetime.”
“Oh,” she said casually, as if the question were no big deal. “I’ve got an offer I’m weighing. Found it as an e-mail on the computer this morning.”
She passed Rip a folded sheet of paper. He opened it and read: “Am divorcing the Junior League babe. If you’re looking for someone to go flying with, I’m available. Joe Bob Hooker.”
“Very funny,” Rip said sourly. He folded the sheet of paper into an airplane and tossed it back.
Charley winked at him, but Rip noticed that she refolded the paper and put it in her pocket.
Egg came to the screen door. “You two won’t believe this, but the Australians have found a piece of what they think is an ancient mother ship buried in the Great Barrier Reef. They’ve invited us down for a look. They’re still on the phone.”
“Mother ship? You mean an interstellar spaceship?”
“Precisely. Like the one that brought the saucer to this solar system. You two want to go?”
Rip and Charley glanced at each other; then Charley said, “Of course
. We could catch a plane tomorrow morning in St. Louis for L.A. and cross the pond from there. You’re coming, aren’t you?”
“I’ll come to Australia next week to see what they have. I have a date this weekend.” Egg flushed and hurried away along the hallway.
Rip winked solemnly at Charley Pine, who threw back her head and laughed.
Read on for an excerpt from the third and final book in the series
Saucer: Savage Planet
And don’t miss the rest of the series!
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Coonts.com
Copyright © 2014 by Stephen Coonts
1
ADAM SOLO WEDGED HIMSELF INTO THE CHAIR AT THE navigator’s table in the small compartment behind the bridge and braced himself against the motion of the ship. Rain beat a tattoo on the roof over his head, and wind moaned around the portholes. Although the seas weren’t heavy, the ship rolled, pitched and corkscrewed viciously because she was not under way; she was riding sea anchors, being held in one place, at the mercy of the swells.
Through the rain-smeared porthole windows Solo could see the flood and spotlights of another ship several hundred feet to port. She was also small, only 350 feet long, roughly the size of the ship Solo was aboard, Atlantic Queen. She also carried massive cranes fore and aft, was festooned with floodlights that lit the deck and the water between the ships and was bobbing like a cork in a maelstrom.
Through the open door to the bridge Solo occasionally heard the ringing of the telegraph as the captain signaled the engine room for power to help hold his ship where he wanted her. Johnson was the captain, an overweight, overbearing slob with a sneer engraved on his face and a curse on his lips. He was cursing tonight as he wrestled the helm; Solo ignored the burst of mindless obscenities that reached him during lulls in the wind’s song and concentrated on the newspaper before him.
“Possible Alien Starship Found in Australia,” the headline screamed. Beneath that headline, in slightly smaller type, the subhead read, “Wreckage buried in coral reef moved ashore for study.”
Beside the story was a photo of two men and two women posed in front of a massive pile of unidentifiable junk. Solo studied the wreckage. It was not possible to even determine what the original color might have been. The two men were identified in the caption of the photo as Mr. Rip Cantrell, a young man in his early twenties, and Mr. Arthur “Egg” Cantrell, a rotund, balding man in his fifties. The woman, lean and athletic with her hair in a ponytail, was identified as Charlotte Pine, a former U.S. Air Force test pilot. Beside her stood an Australian archaeologist. Solo studied their faces in the photo, then read the article as rain pounded on the windows and the ship rode the back of the living sea.
The article mentioned that this was not the first spacecraft Rip Cantrell had discovered. About a year before, as a young engineering student on an expedition to the Sahara, Cantrell had uncovered a perfectly preserved saucer in a sandstone ledge and had even figured out how to make it fly. He almost lost his life when greedy thugs tried to steal the saucer and its valuable technology. Only with the help of former test pilot Charley Pine had he managed to save that saucer and keep it safe. Soon after, a Frenchman named after the Artois, an evil genius bent on world conquest had even managed to steal the famous Roswell saucer the air force had kept hidden for decades at Area 51. Once again, Charley Pine had saved the day when she chased the Roswell saucer and it crashed into the ocean as millions watched on TV. Since then, saucer technology had been revolutionizing the world economy. Great leaps forward in alternative fuels, antigravity computer technology, solar power, metal fabrication—all these advances in man’s knowledge were leading to new products and improvements in old ones.
Solo was a trim man with short black hair, even features and skin that appeared deeply tanned. He was below average in height, just five and a half feet tall, and weighed about 140 pounds. Tonight he was dressed in jeans, work boots and a dark green Gore-Tex jacket.
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, savoring the movement of the ship.
Ah, once, long ago, he had been out on this ocean in winter, in a vessel much smaller than this one. How the wind had howled in the rigging; spindrift showered the men and women huddled under blankets and skins, trying to stay warm, as cold rain stung and soaked them. Occasionally the rain turned to sleet, and the ship and people were soon covered with a layer of ice.
The motion of this ship brought the memory flooding back. Most of those nights he spent at the steering oar, because he was the best helmsman aboard and he was the captain. In that roaring, wet, absolute darkness the trick was to keep the wind in the same quadrant, keep the unseen sail drawing evenly, feel the way the ship rode the sea, actually become one with the ship. If he held the wind just so and the motion of the ship remained the same, he was steering a straight course. If the sail lufted or tore away, or the motion of the ship changed, he would hear and feel it.
Without a compass, without the moon or stars, raw seamanship was the only way a course could be sailed. Adam Solo had been good at it then, and after a week of storms and clouds and wind brought them all safely to land.
Solo’s chin was on his chest when the door opened and a heavyset man wearing a suit and tie came in. He tossed a foul-weather coat on the desk.
“Doctor,” Solo said in greeting.
Dr. Harrison Douglas, the chairman and CEO of World Pharmaceuticals, was so nervous he couldn’t hold still. “This is it, Solo,” he said as he smacked one fist into a palm. “This flying saucer we are bringing up is the key to wealth and power beyond the wildest dreams of anyone alive.” Douglas added, almost as an aside to himself, “If it’s still reasonably intact …”
“You’re sure?”
“If it holds the secrets I think it does, then yes.” Douglas braced himself and glanced out the porthole at the heaving sea between the ships. “You still think you can make the computers talk to you?”
Solo nodded. “Yes, but you’ve never told me what you want from them.”
“That’s right. I’ve kept my mouth firmly shut.” Douglas took a deep breath, looked around the little room, then fastened his gaze on Solo. “This saucer crashed into the ocean. May be torn all to hell, smashed into bits, but there’s a sliver of a chance …”
Douglas turned to the porthole and rubbed the moisture from the glass with his sleeve. “… A sliver of a chance that one or more of the computers are intact. And if one is, I want you to find the formulas for any drugs that are in the memories.”
“Are there formulas for drugs?”
All the experts agreed that interstellar distances were so vast that a starship crew would die before they got to their destination unless their lives were artificially extended. Somehow.
“Yes, there are drugs,” said Douglas. “Enough said. You know our deal. I’ll pay you ten million cash.”
“And make billions.”
“I sincerely hope so,” Harrison Douglas said. He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared out the porthole into the night with unseeing eyes.
Yes, he did hope to make billions, and if ever there was a drug to generate that kind of money, a drug that prevented aging was undoubtedly it. Well, Douglas was in the Big Pharma business. If arresting aging involved drugs, by God, World Pharmaceuticals could figure out how to make them. Every man and woman on the planet would like to stop the aging process, or if that proved impossible, at least slow it down, preserve quality of life and extend it free from the diseases that aging causes or enables. An extra ten good years—how much would that be worth to the average Joe? Or twenty? Or thirty? America, Europe, Arabia, India, Japan, China … the possibilities were awe-inspiring.
Harrison Douglas twitched with excitement.
Douglas smacked a fist into the palm of his other hand. Yes, the people of the saucers must have possessed an antiaging drug.
Douglas was musing on how much money such a drug would make World, and himself, of course,
the CEO who made it happen, when he heard Captain Johnson give a shout.
Douglas glanced through the porthole. He saw waves washing over a shape even darker than the night sea.
“It’s up!” he said excitedly. With that he grabbed the foul-weather coat and dashed through the door onto the bridge. He went straight through, right by the captain, onto the open wing of the bridge and charged down a ladder to the main deck.
Adam Solo slowly folded the page of the newspaper that contained the story of the Australian artifact and placed it in his shirt pocket. He pulled on a cap and stepped onto the bridge. Ignoring the captain at the helm, Solo walked to the unprotected wing of the bridge and gazed down into the heaving dark sea as the wind and rain tore at him. The wind threatened to tear his cap from his head, so he removed it. Dr. Douglas was there on the main deck at the rail, holding on with both hands.
Floodlights from both ships lit the area between the ships and the heavy cables that disappeared into the water. From the angle of the cables, it was obvious that what they held was just beneath the surface. Snatches of the commands the chief on deck shouted to the winch operators reached Solo. Gazing intently at the scene before him, he ignored them.
As Solo watched, swells separated the ships slightly, tightening the cables, and something again broke the surface. It was a mound, dark as the black water; swells broke over it.
As quickly as it came into view, the shape disappeared again as the ships rolled toward each other.
Over the next five minutes the deck crews aboard both ships tightened their cables inch by inch, lifting the black shape to the surface again, then higher and higher until finally it was free of the water and hung suspended between the ships. The spotlights played upon it, a black, saucer-shaped object, perfectly round and thickest in the middle. It was not small—the diameter was about ninety feet—and it was heavy; the cables that held it were taut as violin strings, and the ships listed toward it a noticeable amount.
Saucer: The Conquest Page 30