Saucer The Conquest

CHAPTER 5

The private jet touched down at the Tonopah, Nevada, airport and taxied to the far end of a huge, crumbling concrete parking mat. Two four-wheel-drive vehicles drove up beside the airplane. Egg didn’t recognize the airport, but he was fairly certain they were someplace in Nevada. A few old hangars were visible. From the size of the parking mat, he concluded that this was an old military base.
He had little time to look around before he was hustled straight into one of the vehicles. His hands were bound in front of him with a plastic tie, not too tight; no one had put a blindfold on him. Obviously they weren’t worried about what he might tell law enforcement officials at some time in the future, if he had one.
The men who had kidnapped him had made several telephone calls while the jet was in flight, but they hadn’t spoken to him. There were two of them, both fit men of about thirty. When they had something to say to each other, they said it in French, a language that Egg didn’t speak. If they were grieving over their two colleagues who had died on the farm in Missouri, they hid it well. Occasionally they talked to the flight crew, but mainly they watched the news on a television monitor. They did share some food and offered Egg a glass of wine, which he accepted.
A few minutes after they snatched him, the kidnappers patted him down. They found his cell phone and threw it out a car window. Once they found it, they stopped searching. They apparently didn’t expect him to have a concealed weapon—and he didn’t. Each of them did, however. Not that Egg had much of a chance against two fit men twenty-five years younger and seventy-five pounds lighter than he was.
One of the men sat in the backseat with Egg and the other took the wheel of the SUV, which was, Egg thought, a Chevrolet Tahoe. In seconds the Tahoe was under way with the second vehicle following. As they drove away from the airport on the access road, Egg saw the jet taking off.
The Tahoe was soon on the hard road, cruising at least seventy-five miles per hour. Egg looked out the window a while at the empty desert landscape and the distant mountains. Finally he slumped over, exhausted, and fell asleep.
The bumping and bouncing of the Tahoe over a dirt road woke him. It was night. Egg announced he had to take a leak, and the SUV stopped immediately. The man in the backseat merely watched his back as Egg urinated beside the car.
He was somewhere in the desert, he thought. There was a decent breeze, and he could smell juniper, perhaps. Something with a dry, gentle scent. He glanced at the headlights of the vehicle sitting behind his, then zipped up and climbed back in the seat.
Thirty or so minutes later the Tahoe came to a gate in a fence. The driver used a handheld radio, and soon a vehicle approached the wire from the other side. The driver of Egg’s vehicle got out, went to the gate and talked. He came back as the person on the other side opened the gate. The Tahoe drove on through, then was again lost in the emptiness.
After another hour of this, a building loomed in the headlights. It was huge, with plain walls. An aircraft hangar. An old one, from what he could see of it, with only a little paint remaining on weathered boards.
The men got out of the car and gestured for Egg to do so too. One of them led the way through a personnel door at one end of the hangar that took them into an office of some sort. There was a man there, sitting behind a desk. He was in his forties, perhaps, with short red hair, faded freckles and a splotchy tan. He looked lean and ropy, as if he were too nervous to keep on weight or too busy to eat.
He stared at Egg Cantrell. “So you’re the man, eh?”
Egg merely looked around at the wooden hangar walls, which hadn’t seen paint since World War II. The desk was gray metal with a scarred top, the chairs metal and equally worn.
“Cut his hands loose,” the man said to one of the Frenchmen, who took out a knife and did so. Apparently they spoke English after all.
As Egg massaged his wrists, the man pointed to a chair. “No, thanks. I’ve been sitting for hours.”
“Yes. Well, I’ll get right to it. We need your help. Last year you flew the flying saucer with your nephew. You’ve made quite a name for yourself since as an expert in saucer technology. We’ve got a saucer, and we want you to fly it for us.”
Egg couldn’t believe his ears. “You have one?”
“That’s right.”
“And who are you?”
The man said nothing.
Egg looked around, scrutinized every face, then pulled one of the chairs around and lowered himself onto it. “Maybe I should sit, after all. Where, may I ask, is your saucer?”
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “In the hangar.”
“Why the kidnapping? I think two men may have been severely injured—” He made a gesture. “If you had just sent me an e-mail I would have come charging out here as fast as the horses would run to take a look.”
“There are a few complications,” the man said dryly, “which we’ll get into later, if you like. Suffice it to say that the need is urgent and there was no time to waste.”
“I see.”
“If you wish to look—” The man rose from his chair. He was tall, with large hands. He held one out to shake. “My name is Newton Chadwick.”
The overhead lights of the hangar were pinpoints in the accumulated dust on the saucer’s dark skin. The floor was naked, cracked concrete covered with caked dirt and ancient oil stains. The windows high up on both ends of the building were coated with black paint. A few of the windows were broken, with panes missing. The lighting system was probably as old as the hangar; the entire place was poorly lit.
Egg Cantrell stood for a while taking everything in, then walked over to the saucer. He ran a hand along the top of the leading edge, wiping off dust. The skin was cool and smooth underneath and appeared black as the desert night.
His first impression was size. This saucer was larger than the one Rip had found in the Sahara, yet in all other ways it seemed identical. Same style legs, three of them, same canopy, same shape. He walked around it, examined the four rocket exhausts, looked at the maneuvering jet ports, ran his fingers along the leading edge, searching for dents or cuts or imperfections. And found none.
When he had circled the entire machine, he turned to face Newton Chadwick. “Want to tell me about it?”
Chadwick crossed his arms on his chest, then reached a hand up to feel the stubble on his chin. Finally he said, “It was found in New Mexico in 1947. The army moved it here. It’s been sitting here ever since.”
“You work for the government?”
Chadwick put both hands on the saucer and stood staring at it.
Egg lost his temper. “Come on, Chadwick. You aren’t with the government—I know that. You had me kidnapped, two men are injured or dead, and you’ve had plenty of time to decide on your story. Get on with it or let me go. I’ve got better things to do than stand here in this filthy old hangar in the middle of the night surrounded by thugs.”
“I was here in 1947 when they brought it on a train. Was working for the government evaluating Nazi rocket research. I was young then, just a kid. They only let us in the saucer for a day, one lousy day, before the cowards in Washington ordered us back to Florida and the saucer sealed and stored. I stole a computer out of it.”
Egg laughed, a harsh bark. “You expect me to believe that? 1947 was fifty-seven years ago. Man, you are at least thirty years too young!”
Chadwick turned to face Egg and grinned wolfishly. “You’ve been looking at the database on that computer you took out of the Sahara saucer for at least a year. You know what’s on it. Don’t tell me I’m too young.”

Egg stared at the man before him.
Chadwick took a step closer. “And don’t tell me you weren’t tempted. I know you were. How do you suppose people lived through a voyage across interstellar space?” He laughed long and loud with his head back as the French thugs stood and watched, then answered his own question. “They injected themselves with a drug that stopped the aging process, of course. It took years, but I finally got the manufacturing process right. I’ve been taking it for thirty years.” His voice rose in pitch and volume. “I’m seventy-nine years old,” he shouted, and slapped the saucer in glee.
“All these years I tried to sell technology from that computer. The American government listed me as an international fugitive—they even sent men to kill me. Don’t deny it, I know it’s true. So I couldn’t just walk into a drug company and say, ‘Hello, my name is Newton Chadwick and I have discovered a youth serum.’ Oh, no! I couldn’t walk into Boeing or Grumman or Aerospatiale and say, ‘I’m John Doe and I have discovered how to reverse the polarity of gravity.’ I couldn’t walk into the University of Heidelberg and say, ‘I’m Albert Einstein’s bastard son and I have discovered the Grand Unified Theory, the theory that combines relativity, quantum mechanics and gravity, the theory of everything, the theory that explains the entire physical world.’ Oh, nooooooo!”
His howl filled the hangar, startling a bird from its roost among the rafters.
Chadwick paused to breathe deeply and calm himself as the bird squawked and flapped its wings above their heads. Finally, in a normal, conversational voice, he leaned toward Egg Cantrell and said, “So I went to Pierre Artois, who was dreaming of building a base on the moon, and showed him what I knew. He believed me. He had faith. He understood! No one else ever had! But Pierre did.” He paused, nodding, and added, “Yes, he did.” He stared into Egg’s eyes. “You believe me too, don’t you?”
“If the government had this saucer squirreled away, how’d you get to it?”
“With money. Someone always wants money. The amazing thing is how little it takes to get what you want.”
Chadwick nodded, turned back to the saucer and put his hands upon it. “So,” he said. “So, that’s where we are.”
“And that is?” Egg asked.
“You have flown a saucer,” Newton Chadwick said as he caressed the saucer’s cold, black skin, smearing the dust. “I haven’t. You and I and several of these men are going to fly this saucer to the moon.”
“I don’t know where you got your information, Chadwick, but you are wrong. I haven’t flown a saucer—I’ve flown in one. I’ve flown in airliners too, but I never flew one. Surely even a man as full of it as you are can understand the distinction.”
Chadwick faced Egg again. “I sent these incompetents to get your nephew, Rip, but they brought you back instead. You’ll have to do. You and I are going to the moon in this saucer or you’re going to hell—real soon.”
Egg took a deep breath. “Sounds as if you want to go to hell with me.”
“The moon, Mr. Cantrell. We are going to the moon.”
? ? ?

It was the evening of the following day in Paris when Pierre Artois made his announcement. He broadcast it over an open frequency, where it was heard and recorded by the world’s news organizations and immediately rebroadcast worldwide on television and radio.
On the moon, Artois announced, he had the ultimate weapon, an antigravity beam generator, which he would use for the betterment of all mankind. World peace was not going to arrive someday; it was here now, and he intended to enforce it. Henceforth the governments of the world would serve only at his pleasure, following policies of which he approved. Weapons of war were obsolete and would be destroyed. All nations would live in peace, their differences arbitrated by a commission that he appointed. Criminals and enemies of mankind would be dealt with summarily.
As evidence of their good faith, all the governments of the world must, within forty-eight hours, renounce their sovereignty and swear allegiance to the new world order, which Artois and his lieutenants would enforce.
As his proclamation circled the globe electronically, governments around the world met to confer. In Paris the premier had some choice words for the minister of space, whose incompetence had allowed this Artois maniac to transport himself, his henchmen and his weapon to the moon at the expense, primarily, of French taxpayers. The minister submitted his immediate resignation and stalked out of the premier’s office. The premier found that the minister’s departure did not improve the situation a detectable amount, but it made the premier feel better.
After an emergency meeting of the House of Commons, the British prime minister stood resolutely in front of television cameras and defiantly told Pierre Artois to “bugger off.” Ten minutes later the Tower of London rose swiftly from its foundations in a cloud of stone and brick that was lifted almost a thousand feet in the air; then the fragments rained down on the city of London and the Thames. Fifteen minutes after that one wing of Buckingham Palace was destroyed in a similar manner.
While these spectacular feats of demolition were playing on television, the American president huddled in the Oval Office with O’Reilly, the secretary of state, the director of the CIA, the national security adviser, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“What can we do to thwart this maniac?” the president demanded. He looked at the uniformed generals, scanning each face.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, an army four-star, pulled at his tie. “Uh, in the short term, nothing, sir. Given enough time, we can mount a nuclear warhead on a rocket and shoot it at the lunar base. If Artois doesn’t destroy it with his beam weapon before it gets there, it should do the trick nicely.”
“How long would that take?”
The chairman’s eyebrows rose while he considered. “Oh, six months or so, I would imagine.”
“Six months?”
“Maybe more.”
In the disappointed silence that followed that comment, the secretary of state said, “Actually a world government isn’t such a bad idea.”
O’Reilly looked at her in stupified amazement.
She continued, “Someday we’ll have a world government, with or without Pierre Artois. Why not start now? Artois won’t last forever. In fact, one suspects he won’t last long.” She rubbed her hands and continued enthusiastically, “We can tackle global warming, third world starvation, universal medical care, the equitable redistribution of the world’s wealth—”
“Holy moly!” O’Reilly said, interrupting. “You’re suggesting we rescind the Declaration of Independence and tear up the United States Constitution. If I may indulge in understatement, I don’t think the electorate is quite ready for that bold step, Madam Secretary.”
“I don’t think that Artois intends to give the American electorate a choice in the matter,” the lady retorted tartly.
“And you want to take advantage of that happy fact. You remind me of a bystander watching a robbery who decides to help himself after the clerk is tied up.”
“That’s outrageous,” the secretary shot back.
While she and O’Reilly squabbled the telephone rang. The president picked it up, listened a moment, grunted, then put the instrument back on its cradle. After silencing the pugilists, he announced, “Artois has just zapped one of the space shuttles at Cape Canaveral. It rose five hundred feet in the air and fell back to earth. NASA thinks they may be able to salvage some of the smaller parts.”

“We should probably evacuate the White House,” the national security adviser advised. “Artois will undoubtedly target it too.”
The president frowned. “Artois isn’t going to go after this government until he learns we have no intention of surrendering. We have a few hours yet.”
The secretary of state was plainly appalled. “You intend to let this maniac hurt innocent people?”
“I have no intention of surrendering the United States to anyone or anything, madam. Not now, not ever. At my inauguration I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and I intend to do just that. If Artois harms a single American, that is his choice, not mine.”
The president shifted his gaze to the Joint Chiefs and national security adviser. “Presumably Artois doesn’t intend to rule earth from the moon. As I recall, there are only four spaceplanes capable of making round trips. Charley Pine stole one from the lunar base, and the other three are in France. Target them. I want bombers aloft, over the Atlantic, twenty-four hours a day, ready to cross into French airspace and destroy those spaceplanes on ten minutes’ notice. Place submerged submarines off the western and southern coasts of France. Have them target the spaceplanes with cruise missiles. Those spaceplanes are not to leave the ground.”
“You’re going to attack France?” the secretary of state asked disbelievingly.
The president didn’t answer right away. He was apparently taking the time to choose his words carefully when the secretary of state, unable to wait for his answer, broke the silence.
“I strongly suggest consulting with Congress before we do anything rash.”
“We try to never do anything rash,” O’Reilly shot back, obviously miffed.
The president didn’t let those two get into another squabble. “Artois may be a tool of the French government,” he said. “He may actually be following orders.” The president toyed with a pen on his desk. “Even if he is a rogue, he must have many allies in the French space agency. In any event, it is plain that he thinks the French government will cave. I suspect he’s right.”
The president cast a cold eye on his audience. “Regardless of what happens anywhere else, the British will never surrender, and of course we won’t. Artois may cause a great deal of havoc, but he isn’t getting any supplies from earth or a ride home from the moon without my permission.”
The president smiled. The secretary of state had never liked his smile, and she didn’t like this one.
The president glanced at the Joint Chiefs. “Let’s not waste any more time, gentlemen. I want those bombers armed and airborne as soon as humanly possible. I want a plan on my desk within the next two hours that tells me precisely how many hours it will be before we have the bombers and subs in position to destroy those spaceplanes.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Madam Secretary, I suggest you pop over to the State Department and work the phones. Keep me advised.” He shooed her out.
When only the president and O’Reilly were left in the room, the president stood and stretched. “After the military destroys those spaceplanes, I’ll make a televised address to the American people. We’ll dither until then. In the meantime get the congressional leaders over here and consult with them. Have the speechwriters do a draft of the speech.”
He started for the door before adding as an afterthought, “After the speech Artois may zap the White House. Better get the staff and the valuable paintings out. Don’t let the television people see you doing it.”
“Yes, sir. What should the press secretary tell the press in the interim?”
“We’re consulting with allies, congressional leaders, talking to the UN, all that stuff.”
“In other words, nothing.”
“That’s usually best.”
“Where will you be if we need to find you?”
The president looked at his watch. “I think I’ll go to the gym and work out. Call me when you have a draft of that speech ready for me to look at.”
O’Reilly looked at his watch, then his notebook, which he carried everywhere. “You have an appointment in ten minutes with a Sports Illustrated reporter who wants to know if you think baseball should reinstate Pete Rose.”
“Ah, the burning question of our time. Tell him I’m meditating on the matter and reschedule.”
“May we say cogitating or ruminating?”
“Meditating. It makes me sound smarter.”
? ? ?

Newton Chadwick and the Frenchmen huddled around a radio in the dilapidated hangar in the Nevada desert, listening to the news of Pierre Artois’ announcement. They had rigged an antenna on top of the building and were tuned to a station in Reno.
Egg listened from his perch on a crate of canned food in the back of the room.
An antigravity beam weapon! On the moon. Egg scrutinized Newton Chadwick, who was hanging intently on every word from the radio. Yep, without a doubt, Chadwick gave or sold Artois the technology, which was right out of that saucer in the middle of the hangar—Egg would have bet every last dollar he ever hoped to get on that proposition.
And Artois intended to conquer the world. Egg knew he was the only person in the room to whom that was news. Chadwick and the Frenchmen were excited, intense. They looked like athletes on a team that was several touchdowns ahead.
So what else did Chadwick give Artois? The youth serum?
It wasn’t a serum, really, but a gene blocker. The chemical latched on to the aging gene that was present in every human cell and inhibited its functioning. When he had first discovered it in his saucer computer, Egg had been so excited he couldn’t sleep. Medical researchers were today attempting to find a formula that would affect the aging gene so that they could come up with some way to attack the diseases aging caused, diseases such as Alzheimer’s, senility, diabetes and Parkinson’s. Egg was ready to call them up, give them the formula.
Yet the more he thought about it, the less he liked the idea. Someone would undoubtedly realize the economic value of such a drug, and the vision of fantastic wealth would be irresistible. Listening to the announcer translate Artois’ demands and the reaction of governments around the world to them, Egg thought about the impact upon human life—upon all life on this planet—that the ready availability of such a drug would have. The demand for the drug would distort the world’s economy, the death rate would plummet, and the population would explode in a Malthusian nightmare that would crowd out other life forms and destroy civilization.
When Egg added it up, the human conquest of death didn’t seem like a red hot idea. So he had said nothing to anyone about it, not even Rip or Charley. Nor had he been tempted, like Chadwick, to make a small batch of the drug for himself. He had perhaps two or three decades of life left, and that was enough. When his time came, he would be ready for the next adventure.
So Chadwick wanted to go to the moon. That figured. Charley Pine had stolen the only spaceplane on the moon; the other three might be destroyed or damaged at any moment, leaving Artois and his crew marooned high and dry. Obviously Artois was betting that Chadwick could deliver, that he could get the saucer there.
Egg shook his head, trying to clear his mind of extraneous thoughts. If he didn’t take Chadwick where he wanted to go in the saucer in the hangar, this crowd would kill him and go after Rip. Artois had to have a ride home, and no doubt he would do whatever he could to get one.

He had inspected the saucer carefully. It looked intact, as well preserved as the one Rip had found in the Sahara. Larger than Rip’s saucer, it had more capacity to carry water. Of course, it also weighed more. Still, rough calculations indicated that it should be able to reach the moon and land there. Once there, however, it would have to be refueled with water to make the return trip to earth. Was there enough water on the moon?
Egg had asked Chadwick that question and had received a curt nod. Yes.
Well, Chadwick had better be right or there were going to be more people stranded up there, Egg included.
The reactor seemed intact; it wasn’t leaking radiation. Egg had checked with a Geiger counter. The main flight computer was installed, the headbands were there, the hatch seals seemed intact—he had checked everything that he could. As far as he could determine, the saucer was ready to fly.
He hadn’t told Chadwick that, though. He had more things to check, he had said, which gave him more time to think, to come up with the right course of action.
Could he fly the saucer?
He knew how Charley and Rip had done it, but Charley was a highly skilled test pilot, and Rip was—well, he was fearless and a quick thinker, and he had flown repeatedly with Charley before he gave it a try. Egg had had exactly one ride.
Hoo boy!
? ? ?

Charley Pine cracked her knuckles after she finished programming and checking the navigational computer. She ran through the program twice to make sure she had it right, went over the checklist one more time, then stowed the checklist, sighed and cracked her knuckles.
“You’ll give yourself arthritis doing that,” Joe Bob Hooker said. He was sitting in the right seat, watching.
“Doing what?”
“Cracking your knuckles.”
“Oh,” she said, vaguely surprised. “I’ve been trying to stop that. Bad habit.”
Jeanne d’Arc was in low earth orbit, and had been for two days. The television monitor behind the pilots’ seats picked up broadcasts as the spaceplane came over the horizon and lost them about ten minutes later when the stations sank behind the orbiting ship. Sometimes the signal faded just as the commercials came on, but it seemed that most of the time Charley and Joe Bob got all the commercials and lost the signal in the middle of some significant pronouncement by a political leader.
The snatches of news were clear enough; Pierre was causing havoc with the antigravity beam and making demands. France was in meltdown, it seemed. A great many Frenchmen were ready to march behind the Artois banner; they were loudly demanding the government accede to Pierre’s demands. The small nations of Europe, with token military forces without any real combat power, were making noises, but not threats. Charley Pine got the impression that a lot of the elected persons were merely wringing their hands, waiting.
Everyone was waiting on the United States, which so far had taken no official position. The press secretary said the government was “studying” the matter. Indeed, the press reported that everyone who was anyone in official Washington had trotted over to the White House for consultations, but no one was saying anything for the record to the press. Oh, sure, there were the usual leaks and rumors, but nothing official.
“Where is the president?” one commentator asked rhetorically.
Joe Bob Hooker thought the political theater very entertaining, and watched by the hour as Jeanne d’Arc circled the earth and Charley Pine catnapped in the pilot’s seat. But now the waiting was over. Charley had programmed the navigation computer for reentry and made a last inspection tour through the ship ensuring all gear was properly stowed, and now the minutes were ticking down.
The autopilot turned the ship, lining it up so that it was flying backward with its rocket engines pointing dead ahead. Charley wondered about the main engine. If it wouldn’t start, the computer would automatically fire the other engines longer and adjust the reentry flight path accordingly. As long as the other four rocket engines worked!
“I want to thank you,”Joe Bob said, “for the adventure of a lifetime.”
Charley smiled. “I had nothing to do with it. Write a letter to Pierre Artois.”
“Seriously, flying with you is the adventure of a lifetime. Selling cars will never be the same.”
All four of the smaller engines ignited on cue, to Charley’s intense relief, and the deceleration Gs mashed her back into her seat. Joe Bob Hooker abandoned his attempts at conversation.
When the burn was over, the autopilot gently turned the free-falling spaceplane 180 degrees, until she was pointed along her trajectory like a large arrowhead. As Charley and Joe Bob sat watching, Jeanne d’Arc plunged silently downward toward the Earth’s atmosphere.
? ? ?

The fixed-gear, high-winged Cessna 182 buzzed low over the tops of the mountain ridges. In the pilot’s seat Rip Cantrell scanned the sky, and occasionally glanced at the instruments to ascertain the health of the single piston engine. High clouds obscured the sky to the west, the precursors of a front that was moving eastward, yet the sky overhead was clear except for a high, thin, gauzy layer of cirrus.
Rip glanced at his watch again and checked the fuel. He had been airborne for an hour and had plenty remaining, yet—
He had been cruising north along the ridge; now he turned south. He throttled back even more and leaned the mixture a tad, trying to save another gallon.
There, in the sky to the west, under the clouds a speck. He watched it intently. He had already been fooled twice, once by an airliner and once by a jet fighter.
The speck was high and descending.
Rip turned eastward, toward the stupendous expanse of salt flats that lay west of the Great Salt Lake, and rapped the mixture and throttle controls forward.
The spaceplane was ten or fifteen thousand feet above him when it passed overhead, descending steeply in a powerless glide. He had the nose down, the throttle and prop controls full forward as Jeanne d’Arc broke her long glide ten miles ahead of him and, with the nose well down, turned 180 degrees and lined up for a landing to the west, into the wind. The spaceplane leveled its wings, descended steadily and flared just before the wheels touched the salt. A plume of dust rose behind it and tailed away to the east—Charley Pine had guessed right on the wind. Jeanne d’Arc rolled and rolled until she came to a complete stop.
Inside the spaceplane’s cockpit, Charley Pine looked at Joe Bob Hooker and said, “Welcome back to earth.”
Joe Bob threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, man, have I got a tale for the grandkids! If you ever get to Dallas…”
Charley was the first out of her seat. She almost fell on her face after the days of weightlessness, broken only by the weak gravity of the moon and occasional bursts of rocket power. Hanging on to whatever she could reach, she carefully made her way aft. The door that she had entered on the moon was the one she wanted, so she set to work releasing the pressure on the seals and opening it. It opened with a hiss.
The cool autumn air enveloped her. It smelled of salty earth and cooked brake pads—well, she did push vigorously on the brakes after she touched down. Wispy contrails floating in that high autumn sky made streaks in the gauzy cirrus. She filled her lungs and exhaled slowly. This certainly wasn’t Kansas, but Dorothy Gale was right: There is no place like home.
By leaning out slightly and bending down she could see one of the right main landing gear’s wheels. It hadn’t sunk more than an inch or two into the salt. She had been worried about the salt’s consistency—if it had been too soft, it could have torn the landing gear right off Jeanne d’Arc, which would have skidded to a quick stop on her belly, shattered beyond repair. She knew it was hard enough the instant she touched down, yet visual confirmation of her pilot’s sense was nice.

Satisfied, she didn’t waste any more time. She went to the locker room where the space suits were kept and brought hers back to the door. She tossed it out. There were three extra suits stored in the ship, just in case one of the fitted suits sprang a leak or was damaged during use. She threw them out the door onto the growing pile.
Joe Bob Hooker was there at the door when she made her last trip. “Why the suits?” he asked.
“You never know when you’ll need a space suit,” she replied, and tossed the air compressor and suit-testing equipment on top of the pile.
He went back for his and threw it out too. “Paid for it,” he explained. “I’ll strut around in it at Lions Club.”
She had to help him down, then tossed his small bag of personal items to him. Then she jumped. She fell heavily and bruised herself.
She arose, dizzy and hurting, and brushed the salt from her sleeves and rump as the wind from distant mountains played with her hair. Eight days away from the earth’s gravity and she was weak, as if she were recovering from a long illness.
Charley heard the Cessna before she saw it. It came out from behind the wing, already on the salt, and taxied up. Rip grinned and waved.
“Here’s my ride,” she said to Joe Bob. “You’re going to have to wait for a while, but someone will be along pretty soon.”
“I reckon somebody saw us land,” Joe Bob said, scanning the seemingly endless expanse of empty, flat salt.
Rip killed the engine of the little plane and jumped out. He rushed over to Charley and enveloped her in his arms. When he came up for air, he whispered, “Missed you, lady.”
“Oh, Rip—“
“Here comes someone now,” Joe Bob said, pointing. A plume of dust was rising from the vast dirty-white expanse, still miles away. It looked as if it might be a car, or perhaps an SUV.
“Let’s load the suits and get out of Dodge,” Charley said to Rip.
They were in the Cessna taxiing when a police car rolled to a stop beside the spaceplane. Charley waved at the officer, a woman, while Rip reset the trim and eased the throttle in. The plane gathered speed and lifted off. Rip turned to the southeast.
Charley sat looking at Jeanne d’Arc as long as she was visible. As they flew away, the ship seemed to shrink on the endless expanse of salt, under the huge, high autumn sky. She looked small, almost toylike. Hard to believe she had flown to the moon and back.
The Cessna hummed loudly and bumped along in light turbulence. It was certainly real enough. Charley reached for Rip’s arm, felt the firmness of his muscles. Rip grinned at her. “Welcome home,” he said over the song of the engine.
She kissed him again.
? ? ?

Jeanne d’Arc’s fiery plunge into the earth’s atmo-sphere was monitored by Space Command, which projected that the ship’s flight path would impact at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The news was flashed to the Pentagon and the White House while the spaceplane was still miles high, descending. The news should have made a huge splash at the White House, but today, of all days, the government of France was in chaos. The news of the spaceplane’s return didn’t even reach the brain trust that surrounded the president.
In Paris the cabinet ministers were in conference behind closed doors. The networks had live feeds featuring reporters in front of the doors with nothing to report but speculation and the hourly communique from Pierre Artois, demanding responses to his nonnegotiable demands. The CIA had no idea what was going on in Paris. If the British knew, they weren’t telling.
The U.S. ambassador to France was huddled with his mistress, who had a brother who worked as a janitor in the French parliament building. Every now and then one of the politicians visited the men’s room where the brother was pretending to work and commented on this or that. The brother telephoned his sister, who told it to the ambassador, who flashed the comment to the State Department in Washington, where it was passed to the White House for the president and his advisers to ponder.
Periodically news of another French municipal or national monument rising abruptly into the sky, only to return to earth in ruins, was announced on television by breathless reporters. Enterprising producers ordered camera crews to set up in front of likely monuments in the hope that they could broadcast an attack from the moon as it happened. Pictures of rubble after the event had less dramatic impact.
In various places around the world the crisis was denounced as a hoax. The ayatollahs in Iran refused to discuss Artois’ demands or allow news about them to be aired on television. Much of the Islamic world followed suit and buried their heads in the sand. On the moon, Pierre didn’t have time just now to whip the little countries into line. He would get to them later. His priorities were France, then Europe, the United States, Japan and China. If he could get the big nations to fall into line, the rest, he thought, would have to follow.
Pierre had done his homework. He began making promises. Universal health care, universal employment, free care for the sick and elderly, free drugs (the medicinal kind), and free food for everyone on the planet were some of the major benefits that would accrue to all who followed his banner. “Together,” he said, “free from the petty squabbles that have embroiled mankind since the dawn of recorded history, we can solve the world’s problems and build a better life for people all over the globe.” Needless to say, Pierre didn’t talk about the messy details that he would have to handle to deliver his Utopia, nor where the assets would come from to fund the free goodies.
Public debate broke out all over the English-speaking world. In Great Britain and across America political outcasts, conspiracy theorists, religious zealots and crackpots of every stripe accused the government—always their own government—of manufacturing a crisis to cover up something. The political opposition in every democracy on the planet was having a field day. Every spy agency in the world had overlooked a virulent, malignant conspiracy embedded in the French space agency. Even worse was the possibility that the spymasters had detected it and the governments involved failed to act, or were now reacting inappropriately. Political rivals postured, investigations were called for, resignations demanded, jail terms threatened.
All this was marvelous public theater and played out against a backdrop of antigravity beam strikes from the moon, with which Pierre Artois tried to silence the critics and extort capitulations from the various governments.
The French government decided to surrender when the first cathedral went up in a beam and came back to earth in a rain of stone and rubble.
The secretary of state rushed into the Oval Office to deliver the news to the president and the assembled national security types. “The premier says he has no choice,” she reported. “Artois is threatening to destroy Paris.”
“Buildings and monuments are just stone and mortar,” the president replied, “even cathedrals. They can be rebuilt.”
“Paris is the soul of France, its legacy to all the generations to come,” the secretary of state explained. Talking to the president was always difficult, she knew all too well, because he was so obtuse. The voters had a lot to answer for.
She forced herself to say calmly, “France is not like other countries. France is… inhabited by the French. Don’t you understand? Innocent people might be killed, Paris—the most beautiful city on earth—destroyed, laid waste. The French government has no choice, none at all.”

The president’s tone never changed. “If the premier surrenders France to that madman, we’ll nuke Paris. For the next thousand years the only living things in the rubble will be radioactive beetles. Tell him that.”
All conversation in the room came to a dead stop.
The secretary was horrified. “My God! I can’t believe you said that! Surely you wouldn’t!” She stared at the president, who returned her scrutiny without expression.
“Get on the phone,” he urged, finally, to get her moving. “Tell the premier what I said.”
She dashed from the room. Conversation slowly began again.
“Uh-oh,” O’Reilly whispered to the president. “We’re in real trouble now. She thinks you would really do it. She’ll repeat that comment to every reporter she knows. It’ll be the headline in the Washington Post tomorrow.”
“Explain to me again why she is the secretary of state.”
“You wanted a bipartisan cabinet, and State was the only office she would accept.”
“In a country infested with politicians, I picked that one. Sometimes I dazzle myself with my own stupidity.”
Twenty minutes later the television had a live feed from Paris of the premier surrendering to Artois.
“That tears it,” the president said to O’Reilly. He wadded up the latest communique from the men’s room of the French capital and threw it into the wastebasket beside his desk. “How much longer until we can whack those spaceplanes?”
“It will be at least another twenty-four hours, sir. We don’t have any carriers in position, and the submarines are still well out of range.”
“How about a B-2 strike?”
“It’s already dark in France,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs replied. “We can’t get B-2s there until tomorrow night unless you want to send them in daylight, in which case the French may shoot down one or two.”
The darn B-2s cost over a billion bucks apiece, the president knew, but were defenseless against enemy fighters and vulnerable to them during the day. Taking a chance that the French air force might drop a few into the French countryside didn’t seem wise. “Tomorrow night,” the president agreed reluctantly, “unless the Brits can do it sooner. Ask them.”
“Do we really want the British to fire the first shot?” the national security adviser asked. He was thinking of the reaction of Joe Six-Pack out there in the American heartland. Joe would want America to lead the charge.
The secretary of state returned to the Oval Office in time to hear that exchange. “This entire discussion is outrageous,” she declared heatedly. “The French are our oldest allies. They have been forced to surrender to a terrorist; now you intend to stab them in the back. If you attack France, I must resign my office. I’ll have no part in this.”
“We’ll be sorry to see you go,” O’Reilly shot back. “But before you leave, please tell us: Did you deliver the president’s ultimatum to the French premier?”
“I did, and of course he refused to believe me.” She made a dismissive gesture. “He said you would never destroy Paris, but Artois would.”
The president sighed. Unfortunately he had recently announced that he would run for reelection. He realized that he should probably reconsider. He flipped listlessly through a marked-up copy of his speech, which the leaders of Congress were demanding he deliver right now, if not sooner. His eyes went to a photo of a Montana trout stream that hung upon the wall. Sunlight glistened upon the water, and distant mountains wore a crown of snow. “Why me, Lord?” he muttered.
? ? ?

“You’ve been studying this ship’s computer for fifty-plus years,” Egg Cantrell said to Newton Chadwick. “Why don’t you fly it?” They were in the saucer’s main machinery space checking the integrity of fittings.
“I’m not a pilot.”
“Nor am I.”
“Each of us has his gifts, Cantrell. Mine isn’t—I couldn’t do it. I know that. I don’t have the disposition for it. I’m impulsive and tend to get excited about things.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
“You’re going to do the flying. If you get there, we will too.”
“There’s faith for you,” Egg muttered, then changed the subject. “Do you really think enslaving the world’s population is a good idea?”
“Most people are sheep,” Chadwick replied flippantly. “They are better off if they do as they’re told.”
“This freedom thing sorta passed you by, I see.”
“We don’t need to waste time on philosophy, Cantrell. Starving people need food, sick people need medicine, everyone needs clean water and air. Freedom works great for the rich, not so good for everyone else.”
“The fervor of your humanitarianism surprises me. I thought the only person you cared about was Newton Chadwick.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
“Nor what anyone else thinks, apparently.”
“Pierre Artois and I are going to give everyone a shot at a decent life.”
“Give?”
“We’re going to rearrange the social order, Mr. Cantrell. Call it what you will. Everyone will be better off.”
“Including you.”
“Including me,” Newton Chadwick agreed. “Now let’s top off the water tank and fly to the moon.”
“I haven’t finished preflighting. Crashing and dying in this big Frisbee would be a tragic waste of all that work you put into making youth serum.”
“You’ve got one hour,” Chadwick said. “Not a minute more.” He crawled out of the space. Egg heard him drop through the main hatch to the hangar floor.
He looked though the open hatchway at the man sitting in the pilot’s seat, who was looking back at Egg. He was one of the men who kidnapped him. Today he was wearing a pistol on his belt and had a short submachine gun draped over his shoulder. Terrific!
Egg moved out of the man’s sight and sat contemplating his rounded middle.
? ? ?

It was late afternoon at the airport in Grand Junction, Colorado, when Rip and Charley landed and taxied to a stop in front of the small general aviation terminal. He and Charley Pine stood under the awning near the building wrapped in a serious embrace, getting reacquainted, while the line boy fueled the Cessna 182 from a truck. Rip had wanted to do this ever since he saw her, but the little plane lacked an autopilot.
Charley had talked for the entire two hours of the flight to Grand Junction, telling Rip of her adventures on the moon. At one point, after describing Artois’ antigravity beam generator, she said, “I can’t believe French scientists invented it. It’s a derivation of the antigravity technology in the saucer you found, but they’ve been working on theirs for several years, at least.”
“There must be another saucer somewhere,” Rip said. “One we don’t know about.”
“That’s the most likely explanation,” she agreed. “But where?”
They left that subject and discussed her decision to escape. It seemed important to have Rip tell her she had done the right thing. He did that, but still, she thought, it wasn’t enough. The people on the moon were stranded. It would cost a large fortune to fly Jeanne d’Arc to France, then back to the moon, and the French space ministry would probably sue her for every dime. The world had only her word for it that Pierre was a megalomaniac—and guess who the reporters would believe.

She had Rip, and he sure knew how to kiss, but boy oh boy.
They followed the line boy into the one-story building after he finished fueling the Cessna. Four men and a woman were huddled around a television in one corner of the room watching the news. The woman reluctantly left the set and came over to the counter to ring up the sale and process Rip’s credit card. She was in her forties, wearing a no-nonsense sweater and jeans.
“Anything new?” Rip asked, referring to the international situation.
“The French have surrendered to Pierre Artois. He is the new emperor of France. Now they’re trying to persuade the rest of Europe to also surrender.”
A beatific smile split Charley Pine’s face. Suddenly the load felt a hundred pounds lighter. She wasn’t going to have to prove to anyone that Artois was crazy; now everyone on earth knew it. The smile faded, though, when she realized that if he became emperor of the world, she might have to look for a way to get off. He hadn’t impressed her as the forgive-and-forget type.
“And the Americans?” Rip asked.
“Nothing out of Washington. I think they’re hunkered down, waiting to see which way the wind is blowing.” The desk person looked at the one-piece flight suit that Charley was wearing and said, “Isn’t that something like the French astronauts wear?”
“I think so,” Charley replied innocently. “I ordered it over the Internet. They said it was very authentic.”
“Probably made in China,” the desk lady said languidly, and glanced at the name on Rip’s credit card. “Cantrell. Same name as the saucer guy. Don’t you wish you were?”
“Oh, you bet,” Rip shot back. “Money, hot women, fame— I don’t know how he stands it.”
The woman waited until the credit card machine spit out the slip, then slapped it on the counter for Rip to sign. “Too bad he gave that flying plate to the Air and Space Museum. If he had it now he could go after that clown on the moon.”
“Umm,” Rip Cantrell said, and signed the credit card slip.
When they were walking out to the plane, Charley said to Rip, “How do you stand it?”
“My low IQ is the only thing that keeps me sane.”
She squeezed his hand.
“The whole world is going nuts,” Rip said, “so it’s up to us to rescue Egg.”
“I just hope he’s okay,” Charley Pine replied. She was so tired, it was difficult to concentrate. She yawned. “You fly this leg, Rip.” She crawled into the second set of seats and stretched out as Rip preflighted the plane, ensured the fuel caps were on tight and pulled chocks.
? ? ?

Egg Cantrell and Newton Chadwick studied a map of the moon that they had spread on the leading edge of the saucer. Egg noted that it was published by National Geographic. “The lunar base is right there,” Chadwick said, marking the map with a pen. He put a dot on the base and drew a circle around it.
Then he brought out a Nevada highway map, one distributed free by the state. He studied it a bit and put an ink mark smack inside a federal prohibited area. “We’re right here.”
“Okay,” Egg said, folding the maps and placing them in his hip pocket. “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. This is your last chance to back out and live to a ripe old age.”
Chadwick ignored that last comment. “Open the hangar door,” he told one of the flunkies, then repeated the order in French. The two men who had kidnapped Egg were already in the saucer.
Egg got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the saucer to the personnel hatch. A less bulky man could just bend over and walk there, as Chadwick did behind him. Once everyone was inside, Egg closed the hatch and ensured it was latched, then checked that the food cartons the Frenchies had loaded were properly stowed against the rear bulkhead of the passenger compartment and secured with bungee cords. Cartons of full water bottles, squirt lids, plastic baby bottles full of pureed goo. Bet the Frenchmen had fun shopping for this stuff! There were even four space suits, flown in from France. Egg had tried on the largest—it was a tight squeeze, but he got in it.
Fortunately this large saucer contained a head, one designed to be used in zero gravity. And there was plenty of room in the passenger compartment—although if all the people on the moon tried to return in this ship it was going to be impossibly crowded. The moon! Here we go!
Egg climbed into the pilot’s seat, which was on a pedestal in front of the instrument panel. Chadwick stood beside him, watching the men struggling with the hangar doors, which consisted of a half dozen very large panels on rollers.
“They haven’t been opened in many years,” he muttered.
While the men were struggling with the doors, Egg pulled the red knob on the panel to the first detent. The computer displays in front of him came to life, just as the displays had in Rip’s saucer. He studied them. The displays looked as he remembered them, but it had been what, thirteen or fourteen months?
He picked up the computer headband and placed it on his head, adjusting the strap so that it would stay there.
He said Hello to the computer, and asked for the launch display.
This part, at least, was familiar. He had spent much of the past year talking to a computer just like this one.
Relieved, he wiped the perspiration from his brow with his hands, then wiped his hands on his trousers.
“They can’t get the door open,” Chadwick said. Egg looked. The two men working the door had the first large panel open about ten feet, but the wheels were rusty. The door panels seemed to be stuck.
Do we have enough fuel? Egg asked the computer.
The display appeared before him. Yes.
Hull integrity, reactor temp, hydrogen pressure, oxygen?
The displays flashed before him as quickly as the thought passed through his mind.
He glanced outside. The men were hooking up one of the vehicles to the door with a towing chain. They were going to drag it open.
Egg waited more or less patiently, concentrating on the computer displays. He touched the rotating earth on the navigation display, putting his finger on Nevada. The view zoomed in on the selected area. Cities and highways weren’t in the computer’s memory—oh, my! Yes, they were. This saucer must have flown after the cities and highways were built! Perhaps 1947, as Chadwick suggested.
The display of Nevada grew and grew, but it was post-World War II Nevada, the West as it had been in 1947. Highways but not superhighways, small airports. After consulting the map again, Egg put his finger on the place on the computer display that corresponded to Chadwick’s mark. The airport should be there. This is where we are, he told the computer.
Just by thinking about it, he brought up a display of the face of the moon and went through the exercise again. He designated the location of the lunar base with the touch of a finger. This is where we wish to go.
The SUVs managed to drag open the panels of the hangar door, one by one. They were struggling with the last one when a helicopter crossed the visible swatch of sky.
Chadwick was beside himself. “I told them to cut the door alarms,” he roared. “They must have forgotten to cut the ones on the hangar doors.”
“Guess that bribe wasn’t big enough,” Egg remarked to no one in particular.
The last door seemed to be out of the way.
“Let’s go, right now,” Chadwick said, slapping Egg on the back.
Up about a foot, Egg told the computer. The ship rocked once, then rose slightly and stopped.
Gear up!
He heard the whine of the landing gear coming in, felt it thump home. Three green lights on the instrument panel disappeared.

Forward, slowly.
The saucer crept toward the open hangar door. Egg looked right and left. The opening seemed to be wide enough.
Safely outside, he looked around for the chopper.
There it was, some kind of gunship, in a hover on his left, facing the saucer. The nose turret gun was tracking.
Dear Lord…
Go, Egg urged the computer. Full power.
The rocket engines lit with a roar and the G came on instanteously. Newton Chadwick, who had been standing beside Egg, tumbled aft. Out of the corner of his eye, Egg saw muzzle flashes from the helo’s machine gun, but only for an instant.
The ship accelerated in a gentle climb, faster and faster, gathering speed as at least four Gs pushed Egg aft into the seat. When it was several thousand feet above the desert, traveling at least five hundred knots, the nose of the saucer began to rise.
On the computer presentation before Egg a pathway appeared, one that led up, up, up from the earth in a long, gently curving path off to the east.
Go, go, go, Egg told the computer as the exhilaration of flight filled him with laughter. Oh, yessss.
? ? ?

Rip was about to get in the Cessna when he heard the deep, low rumble of rocket engines at very high altitude. He looked up into the evening sky—and saw the twinkle of rocket exhaust. The dot of fire was well to the east when the sound arrived, and it disappeared eastward into the night sky more quickly than any jet as the rumble from the heavens washed over Rip. The sound was lower in pitch than jet noise, and stronger. It seemed to engulf him. Charley heard it too, and got out of the little airplane to listen.
Rip knew what it was. A saucer, going into space. Perhaps the one he and Charley had speculated about just two hours ago. Or a spaceplane, like Jeanne d’Arc. Where it had come from he didn’t know, but he knew as well as he knew his own name who was in it. Egg Cantrell. That was why the frogs had kidnapped him.
Holding hands, he and Charley stood listening to the low rumble until it had faded completely. It was one of those sounds that you think you still hear long after it has gone, so even after it faded he stood frozen, straining for the last whisper.
Rip shook himself, finally, then leaned against the side of the plane for support and thought about what they should do. He and Charley discussed their options.
They got into the Cessna and Rip started the engine. Charley was exhausted, feeling the effects of eight days in zero or low gravity. She lay down again on the rear seat and immediately drifted off to sleep.
It was a clear, windless evening over the Rockies. The sun set as Rip flew eastward up the valley of the Colorado River. The moon was well above the horizon and about three-quarters full. Its light illuminated the ridges and peaks. Rip left the Colorado River at Eagle and made for Vail Pass. Safely through, he flew over Dillon Reservoir while climbing to fourteen thousand feet.
He was aware of the magic of this moment—the hum of the engine, the mountains at night, the stars and moon above, and Charley asleep in the backseat. He turned and looked. She was sacked out with her flight jacket around her shoulders.
If only those bastards hadn’t kidnapped Uncle Egg…
The interstate was illuminated by a steady stream of headlights. Flying above it, he crossed the Divide over Eisenhower Tunnel and immediately saw the lights of Denver gleaming in the darkness sixty miles away. He eased the throttle out an inch, dialed the RPM back a hundred, and retrimmed for a gradual descent.
? ? ?

Safely in orbit, with the rocket engines shut down, Egg Cantrell sat strapped to the pilot’s seat while he swabbed the perspiration from his face with his shirttail. Ohmigawd! He had done it! Flown a saucer into space. Actually, he had done nothing but talk to the computer via the headband, and the computer had flown the ship, but wow!
Newton Chadwick floated near him, white as a sheet and unable to speak. Chadwick looked through the canopy at the earth, then turned his head to look into the infinite void of deep space. Egg could see that Chadwick’s hands were still shaking.
“I have never—” Chadwick began, then gave up.
Egg put the headband back on and asked the computer for a flight path. He studied it. The computer had planned two orbits of the earth and, on the second one, a burn that would accelerate the saucer on a course that would loop it around the moon. On the back side another burn would decelerate the saucer, placing it in lunar orbit.
Fine, Egg told the computer. That’s the way we’ll do it.
Regardless of how this adventure turned out, Egg felt as if he had reached the zenith of his life. Nothing he ever did in the past or would do in the future could compare with the rush he got flying this saucer into space. Now he knew how Charley Pine felt, and why she took the job Pierre Artois offered.
If NASA ever calls me, I’m signing up, Egg told himself, and laughed.
? ? ?

There was a television crew waiting at the Centennial Airport executive terminal when Rip taxied up. Charley had awakened on final approach. Now, seeing the cameraman and female reporter waiting with her microphone, she groaned. “This isn’t going to do your uncle any good,” she said over the intercom.
“Just don’t say anything that will set Pierre off.”
The television crew charged the plane the instant the prop stopped.
“Mr. Cantrell, Mr. Cantrell,” the reporter called breathlessly, “what can you tell us about Charley Pine? Why did she steal the spaceplane?”
Then the reporter saw Charley. She elbowed Rip out of the way and jabbed the microphone at her.
“Get that thing out of my face,” Charley snapped.
Rip hurried into the terminal and squared around in front of the desk person, another woman. “I thought you people promised customers some privacy.”
“Oh, my heavens,” the woman said, fluttering her hands. As Rip well knew, celebrities and business bigwigs didn’t want the press lurking when they departed or arrived in their bizjets. “We didn’t think you’d mind. The reporter is the spouse of one of our executives. He thought—”
“Get that camera crew out of here now or I’ll make a formal complaint to the president of the company.”
The woman snapped her fingers at one of the line boys, and in less than a minute the camera crew was marching through the lobby toward the parking lot. The reporter scowled at Rip, who ignored her. Charley trailed the media into the building and followed the signs toward the women’s room.
“Did you have a nice flight?” the woman at the desk asked Rip with a frozen smile.
“Great. Now we need to charter a jet to take us to Washington. We’ll leave as soon as you can get a crew.” He tossed the keys to the rental Cessna on the counter.
It took the crew of the jet an hour to get to the airport and file a flight plan. Charley Pine took a shower and ate a sandwich from the vending machine while they waited. Rip watched a little television. European camera crews had managed to capture an Italian cathedral in Rome being zapped by the antigravity beam from the moon. Joe Bob Hooker, home from the moon, was the hottest man on the planet. A battery of reporters were questioning him about the lunar base, his conversations with Pierre Artois, his thoughts on Pierre’s demands.
Charley joined Rip in front of the television. After she had watched some of the interview, she said, “I told him most of that stuff.”
“He referred to you as the most beautiful woman alive, and the finest pilot.”
“Joe Bob is a discerning individual,” Charley said, and squeezed Rip’s hand.
“He’s going to be in big trouble with his wife when he gets home,” Rip replied.

Then a newsflash.
“This network has just learned that a flying saucer went into orbit from an unknown site in Nevada several hours ago. It is now in orbit. Here is the announcement from the White House.”
Charley watched in frozen silence as Rip squeezed her hand.
“Oh, Rip. You know Egg was in it.”
“Flying it, probably.”
They talked in whispers. They were still head to head in one corner of the room when the desk lady came to tell them their jet was ready to depart.
An hour and fifteen minutes after they landed in Denver, Rip and Charley were on their way to Washington in a Citation V. The space suits and air compressor were stacked in the empty seats.