Saucer: Savage Planet

14

After they refueled from Lake Powell, Charley Pine flew the saucer south through the deepening canyon of the Colorado River. It was a night full of stars, with the moon still down, so she hoped that no one along the canyon would see the black saucer ghosting along at about a hundred knots low above the river. She could see on the computer screen the canyon walls rising vertically on both sides above her vision, so she felt as if she were a little girl tiptoeing along a hallway.

She was perhaps thirty miles below the Glen Canyon Dam when she hit some power lines stretched across the river. She had about a second’s warning — they appeared as thin filaments across her screen — then she hit them. The saucer slipped between them effortlessly, forcing one line over the top and one underneath. A power surge shot through the saucer, and the instrument panel went black.

Charley Pine felt the adrenaline surge through her veins. The Roswell saucer crashed during a lightning storm. Then the computer screens came back to life and all again appeared normal. To her infinite relief, she saw that she was still in the center of the canyon, still level, still in control … Am I in control?

She flicked the stick automatically. The saucer responded, like an obedient dog. Five degrees left wing down, now five right, now level again.

“That was exciting,” Rip said. He was standing beside her.

“That was a lummer,” she told him nervously. “A shot of cold urine to the heart.”

“You live for those.”

“Right. How is Solo?”

I am okay, Charley. Now I need to explain what to do. There is a beach on the north side of the river, perhaps a hundred miles ahead. It is not sand, but erosional debris that washed down a canyon and accumulated for perhaps ten million years. The river won’t move it for a long time. We will land there, get out of the saucer, and get on top of it.

“On top?”

On top.

On they flew, deeper and deeper into the Grand Canyon, with Charley keeping the saucer about a hundred feet above the ribbon of water that stretched like a crooked road on the computer screen before her.

About an hour later she found the ledge. It slanted toward the river but looked okay. She gingerly lowered the legs of the saucer and set it down.

We will need all our supplies. We can remain here until they come.

They.

Until they come.

Charley Pine felt a shiver run down her spine.

Rip opened the hatch and began shoving sleeping bags and sacks through the opening. Egg helped Adam Solo walk over to the hole, sit on the edge and ease himself through; then Rip assisted him out from under the saucer.

“Next time, tell them to put the hatch on top,” Rip told Solo.

“The belly was the cheapest spot.”

When he had Solo out of earshot of Egg and Charley, he asked, “So how are you really doing?”

“I’m dying, I think. Bleeding internally. My body isn’t repairing itself quickly enough.”

Rip took that comment in silence.

“Don’t tell the others,” Solo said. “They have enough to worry about.”

“And I don’t? But I think they already know.”

“Perhaps,” Solo admitted. “When we have our gear unloaded and the hatch closed, have Charley lift the saucer and raise the gear, then lower the ship onto its belly so that we can climb on top. The place we want is a cliff dwelling in the side of a cliff about five hundred feet below the South Rim, about two miles west of here.”

“And when we’re there?”

“Program the saucer to go into a polar orbit that will bring it back over us on every pass.”

There were many things Rip wanted to ask Solo, who was the most unique human he had ever met. Twelve hundred, thirteen hundred years on earth, a youth from a planet in another star system, crossing the interstellar vastness … and yet Rip didn’t want to ask. Perhaps, as Solo remarked once in passing, he had lived too long, experienced too much, left too many loved ones behind.

As Rip watched the saucer descend onto its belly, held level by Charley, he helped Solo climb onto its dry, slick surface. He thought about the past, not about the immediate future.

Charley, on the other hand, was thinking hard about the task before her. Flying the saucer with its antigravity rings up the cliffs, finding the place Solo wanted in the starlight, keeping everyone from falling off the rounded top of the ship. My God, if they fell off …

Solo sensed her concern. If we fall, we fall.

She heard his voice in her head and sensed the wisdom, even if she didn’t like the message. Keeping this flying plate level was going to take all the flying skills she possessed. Sure, the computer would help, but she had to tell the computer what to do. If she screwed this up … well, the fall wouldn’t take so long. Then she and Rip and Egg and Solo would begin the next adventure, whatever that would be.

That’s right.

Your mind reading is very tiresome, she thought.

There was no reply.

Egg Cantrell was the most frightened. He glued himself to the saucer — he had Solo sprawled flat right on the crest — and held on for dear life. His rounded middle seemed to push him away from the saucer, making him feel like a basketball that was balanced just so and could at the slightest nudge begin to roll.

Charley sensed his fear. She was in front of him, sitting up, where she could see. “We’ll be okay, Uncle Egg. Hang on to Solo.”

“I can’t hang on to anybody,” Egg informed her, trying to keep his voice calm. Even as he said the words, he felt the saucer lift off. Something like an elevator, yet smooth and effortless. He closed his eyes and tried to get a grip with his hands and feet, even though there was nothing but the glass-smooth surface of the saucer to hold on to.

“If it was raining, we’d be in big trouble,” Rip remarked. He was the eternal optimist, Egg thought, with the confidence of youth. Yeah, things could always be worse. That’s one of life’s profound lessons.

Egg could feel the cold air flowing over him. Charley was moving the saucer forward, but climbing. He could feel the saucer pressing against his body, lifting, rising, higher and higher. He risked a look around. The cliffs were visible in the starlight, which made the snow on the canyon rims glow. He couldn’t see much detail. He could see that the saucer was moving, however, and the aspect of the cliffs was changing. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to fight the cold.

The flight seemed to take hours. Charley kept the speed under control. Once the saucer flew over a ledge of a cliff — the sides of the canyon rose like a giant’s stairsteps — and the thing began to tilt. Egg felt the panic rising in his throat. He clung to the ship, which somehow came back level.

Well done, Charley. It was that damn Solo. The guy had steel balls. Egg pressed a cheek against the saucer’s skin and kept his eyes shut.

After a while Solo gave Charley directions. Left some. Higher. Along that ledge.

“Use your flashlight, Rip,” Charley ordered.

“Maybe the saucer’s landing light would be better.”

“Too bright. No use advertising. Just the flashlight.”

Finally Egg felt the saucer stop. A total lack of motion. Or so it seemed. He opened his eyes and looked in the direction his head was pointing. He was looking along the upper edge of the Grand Canyon. A sliver of moon was up now, and the entire sweep of the great tear in the earth was spread before him. Yet the saucer was stationary, solid as one of the canyon’s cliffs. He raised his head.

Ahead of the saucer was a ledge below the rim of a mesa. Upon it he could just make out what appeared to be a stone wall, built by human hands. With windows. Charley was standing, and so was Rip. They picked up Solo, one on each arm, and led him down toward the front of the machine. Then they stepped across the narrow gap onto the ledge.

Rip hopped back onto the saucer and began off-loading gear. He passed items to Charley, one by one, and she tossed them back away from the edge. A bag of food, sleeping bags, a few other odds and ends.

This took several minutes, with Rip skipping around fearlessly while Egg held tight to the ship.

“Come on, Uncle,” he said at last, standing on the apex of the saucer with his hand out. “It’s time to get off.”

Egg was frozen with fear. His muscles refused to work. Yet Rip’s outstretched hand was irresistible. He forced his cold muscles to obey. He tried to rise, stretched out his hand and slipped.

He felt himself sliding down the slope of the saucer toward the edge. He grabbed with both hands and kept sliding.

As Egg slid along, Rip ran after him. Egg went over the edge and Rip was right behind him, launching himself at his uncle.

Fly the saucer, Charley.

Falling into the dark abyss, Egg Cantrell felt his nephew Rip grab his hands. In a way, it was comforting. He knew then that they would die together.

Standing on the edge of the ledge, Charley Pine told the saucer what to do. Her commands reversed the antigravity field. Instead of repelling the earth, now it attracted it. It didn’t fall; it accelerated downward faster than the falling men. Three hundred feet below them, it arrested its fall at Charley’s command and slid under them, still going downward.

Egg and Rip landed on the top. Rip had both of Egg’s hands in his. The impact knocked the wind from both of them. The saucer slowed and stopped. The Gs mashed the two men into the surface of the ship, imprisoning them like bugs against a windshield. Then the saucer began to rise.

“Hold on, Uncle!”

“Holy pickles, Rip. I — my God, I thought we were dead!”

The saucer lifted them back to the ledge. Charley ran across and helped Rip drag Egg to the ledge and push him across.

Egg fell heavily to the ledge and held the rock with both hands. He was spent.

Nicely done, Ms. Pine.

Rip gathered Charley into his arms and kissed her.

Johnny Murkowsky was trying to seduce the flight attendant, a tall, leggy brunette with come-hither eyes and a nice figure, when he got the call from his Space Command spy on his satellite phone. The Boeing 747 was somewhere over the vast Pacific eastbound.

“The saucer came down and went into Lake Powell,” Johnny Murk’s spy reported. “The FAA’s radars reported that it then crossed over Glen Canyon Dam and headed down the Colorado River, apparently. Best guess is it’s somewhere in the Grand Canyon.”

“Has the White House been notified?” Johnny Murk queried.

“Sure. But there is a starship coming in from deep space. It’ll be here in a couple of days, and the head dogs are all worked up about that. They don’t give a hoot about the saucer.”

“Keep me advised.”

“Listen, Mr. Murkowsky. Just telling you all this could cost me my job. I want a job after I retire, and I want your promise.”

“You got it. If I get to that saucer before the damned Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. If I don’t…”

“Did anybody ever tell you you’re an asshole?”

“Three or four people a day. And they are right. But, asshole or not, I pay my debts. Now if you want that job, keep telling me what is going down. I want to know where that saucer is every damn minute. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

The connection broke.

Johnny Murk and Harrison Douglas put their heads together; then Murk went forward and told the chief pilot to land at Grand Canyon Airport, on the South Rim. The captain protested. He had enough fuel to get there, just, if the winds held, but there were customs and immigration laws and all that. Johnny Murk made some large monetary promises. Those didn’t impress the pilots, who had licenses to worry about.

Johnny Murk whipped out his checkbook and wrote checks for a million dollars each for every person in the crew, all five. The pilots examined their checks, looked at each other, folded the checks and pocketed them, then reprogrammed their flight computers and pushed the appropriate buttons. Grand Canyon Airport, here we come!

Johnny Murk went back to the flight attendant. He was desperate, and she loved her million-dollar check. Lust and money had cemented many a romance since the earth began to spin. She poured two glasses of champagne, opened a can of caviar and got out some gourmet crackers. She and Johnny snuggled up on a couch in the First Class lounge.

The president’s granddaughter, Amanda, answered the telephone when the president called. “Oh, Grandpa,” she burbled, “is it true? Aliens are coming to the White House?”

“Appears so, kiddo. I was wondering if you’d like to be here, go out with me to meet them? Kinda say hi and inspect their spaceship and see what’s what and stuff?”

“Holy Bananas! Of course! I was about to call you. Mom is being such a drag, but I know you can persuade her. Is Charley Pine going to be there? When I grow up, I’m going to be just like her. She is so wonderful, so true blue, so real. So everything!”

“Well, I don’t know about Charley Pine. Haven’t heard from her in a while.” The president fervently wished he had his hands around Charley’s throat right then, but he had the tact not to say that to Amanda. “Never can tell,” he added.

“Will they have their kids with them?”

“Well, heck, I don’t know. We’ll have to meet them and see.”

“Oh, golly, you are the world’s greatest grandpa. I’ll put Mom on.”

So he had to talk to his daughter after all. She had informed him after the last election that she voted for the other guy. Every politician should have a daughter like this, he thought gloomily.

“Do you think it’s safe?” she asked. “Aliens?”

“Of course it’s safe! I wouldn’t be inviting Amanda if there were the slightest iota of danger. After all, Amanda flew with me in a saucer just last month.”

“Well…” One thing about his daughter, she was easily persuaded. Which was probably why she voted for that other bastard.

“I’m going to be right there holding her hand. She’ll love it! It’ll be historic as hell. She’ll be in every history book written for the next thousand years. People will name their kids after her.”

“Well…”

He could hear Amanda, demanding to go. She was wailing, “Oooh, Mommmm…”

His daughter caved.

“I’ll send a helicopter. Have her pack her nightie and toothbrush.”

He hung up, then called O’Reilly and told him to send a helo after Amanda. And to have the press mouthpiece announce that the president and First Granddaughter Amanda would greet the aliens when they arrived.

When he completed that conversation and had the telephone back on its cradle, he smiled benignly at Petty Officer Third Class Hennessey. Truly, the darn sailor was a genius.

“Want another drink?” he asked Hennessey.

“This is mighty fine bourbon, Mr. President,” the sailor from Oklahoma said, nodding. They taught you how to drink in the navy.

“Let’s hope the aliens don’t eat us all,” he said to Hennessey, raising his glass.

“Amen to that,” the sailor replied.

The four travelers stood on the ledge watching as the saucer ghosted away across the canyon. Black as it was, it soon disappeared into the gloom. Charley had programmed it to fly several hundred miles north into Utah on the antigravity rings before using the rockets to climb into orbit.

When the saucer disappeared, the cold seemed to seep ever deeper into their clothes. Adam Solo sagged. Egg and Charley helped him into the cliff house.

The first thing we need, Rip thought, is a fire. Searching the old Anasazi ruin, he found three pack-rat nests, which would make nice kindling. He still needed wood to burn. Part of the ancient cliff dwelling had collapsed, and the round poles that had held up floors were still there.

He dragged two inside and arranged them so the ends would catch in the fire, which was soon burning fairly well and giving off warmth. The room they were in had obviously been used for fires in times long past; the ceiling was blackened. A hole high in the wall acted as a chimney.

Rip found four cans of soup in the food bag, cut the tops open with his knife and put them beside the fire to heat up.

They arranged Solo on a sleeping bag by the fire. Egg used a spoon to feed him soup. With it down, he went to sleep.

The others ate their soup, sharing the spoon, and crawled into sleeping bags around the fire. All were asleep within minutes, except for Egg, who lay there in the firelight listening to the others’ deep-sleep breathing, thinking about falling toward certain death with Rip holding his hand. He was still coming down from the adrenaline high.

He had never before been so close to death. The fear washed over him again and again … and yet, thinking about it now, he had been ready.

I’ve had a good life, he told himself. To have a nephew like Rip, to have shared the saucer adventure, to have met all these extraordinary people, well, I’m truly blessed.

With that thought in his mind, he dropped off to sleep.

An exploration of the ledge in the early dawn the next morning showed how isolated the old cliff dwelling was. The Grand Canyon was spread out before them. The ledge they were on was perhaps fifty feet long and twenty feet deep at the widest point. Soot from ancient fires blackened the sloping stone over their heads and the walls of the stone house.

Rip found a water source, a place where water trickled from a soft formation. This morning the little stream was frozen due to the overnight temperatures, but later this morning it should flow again. So they had water. A dab of food to eat, water to drink and wood to burn. They could last a few days here. Until Solo’s people arrived, anyway. No doubt the National Park Service would get peeved if they ever figured out he had burned these old logs from the Anasazi ruin, but that was a problem for another day.

Looking to the right and left along the ledge, it was obvious there was no easy way to access the cliff dwelling. Rip estimated they were perhaps fifty feet below the top of this mesa, which Solo said was an island, separated from the South Rim by a thousand-foot-deep chasm. No doubt there were handholds in the cliff that would allow you access to the top, if you knew where they were and had absolutely no fear of heights.

The ancients had climbed here from below, along a trail now completely overgrown except for the last forty feet or so. Rip looked it over in the early morning light and thought he could descend it if he had to. Had to real bad. He figured Charley could too, but not Uncle Egg. Nor Solo in the condition he was in. So they had to stay put.

He rebuilt the fire with another pack rat’s nest and shoved the old logs deeper into the blaze. Soon the warmth filled the main room.

They would be safe enough here, for a little while, Rip reassured himself. However, Adam Solo had taken a turn for the worse.

He looked physically older, and his color wasn’t good. The bullet holes were still leaking. His wound would have killed any normal man; of course, Solo wasn’t normal. Still, this one might have been one too many. His pulse was steady yet weak. His breathing was okay, between fits of coughing, which brought up blood.

“You’ve been here before?” Egg asked after taking Solo’s pulse.

“In the thirteen hundreds. A family still lived here. I was starving. They took me in.”

“Starving?”

“War between the tribes. Apaches were tough, fierce warriors.”

Solo fell silent, his eyes examining the stone room they had laid him in.

“I thought your body could repair itself,” Rip whispered.

“Nothing lasts forever, Rip.” After a bit, the voyager between the stars added, “Pretty proud of you last night, son. I’ve seen a great many men in serious straits; you are right up there with the best. I’m proud to have known you.”

Rip was embarrassed. “Is there anything we can do for you?”

“Leave me alone with my memories.”

So they did. Rip, Charley and Uncle Egg sat on the ledge and watched the sun rise.

“I was pretty scared when I fell off the saucer,” Egg admitted to Rip and Charley.

“Me too,” Rip said.

“But you jumped after me.”

“I figured Charley would save us. And she did.”

“What if she couldn’t have?”

“Unc,” Rip said with a big grin, “you and I would now be going over our accounts with St. Peter. Gonna have to do that sooner or later anyway.”

Just thinking about the fall made Egg’s heart thud powerfully. Another dose of adrenaline. He had looked death in the face, yet lived to tell the tale. This morning that seemed a good thing. There was more life to be lived.

The three of them watched the sunlight chase the shadows from the great canyon, watched the colors change, watched the extraordinary eternal panorama as the earth spun on its axis, just as it had done since the dawn of time. Snow on the rims … an early winter morning in the greatest canyon on earth.

Meanwhile, inside the stone room by the fire, Adam Solo had a conversation with the captain of the starship. He told him who he was, when he was marooned on this planet, who he was with; he informed the captain of his many adventures as fast as he thought them and told him the starship exploration landing team should go to Washington, the White House. Washington is the capital of the United States, the largest, most advanced economy on the planet, and a democracy. That is the best place for diplomacy with the people of this planet, who live in over one hundred eighty nations in every stage of economic and moral development.

Solo also informed the captain that Egg Cantrell, Rip and Charley had a saucer and access to another, which was now parked above the lawn of the White House.

I may not be alive when you arrive, Solo added. Rip and Egg Cantrell and Charley Pine are people you need to talk to. They are brave, wise and compassionate. In my thirteen centuries on this planet, I have met few who are their equals.