Saucer: Savage Planet

16

Adam Solo was overwhelmed by the moment. All his long life had led to this: He was dying, and these three earth people were risking their lives for him anyway. The flat crack of Rip’s .25–35 Winchester had died away, as had the booming reports of whoever was shooting at him. The sound of the bullets smacking into the rock was quite audible here in this sanctuary.

“I’m dying,” he whispered to Egg Cantrell, who was checking his bandages.

“We all are,” Egg shot back. “Sooner or later.”

“I’m a sooner.”

“Charley,” Egg said. The female test pilot rose from her position at the window and came over to where Egg was tending to Solo. “How much longer until the saucer gets here?”

“Perhaps ten minutes. I don’t know exactly, Uncle Egg. It’s on its way, I think.”

“What are you going to do with it when it arrives?”

“I’m going to use the antimatter weapon on these poor, misguided fools. Introduce them to the wages of sin.”

“You are going to kill them,” Egg said flatly.

Charley’s head bobbed affirmatively. “They are going to find out rather quickly if there is life after death.”

“Charley, Charley, Charley…” Adam Solo whispered. “I’ve killed a lot of men. All were trying to kill me. But I’ve had to carry it for all these years. Sometimes at night I can see their faces, see their death agonies, hear their screams. After all these years.”

“I’m not going to live as long as you have,” Charley said, frowning. “What do you want us to do? Let them kill us? Take your body away and dissect it so those fools can get filthy rich making eternal-life pills? I don’t think so.”

Solo swallowed three or four times. His mouth seemed unnaturally dry. “I hope Rip understands the quality of his lady.”

“By God,” she said fiercely, “he’d better.”

After the three ropes came over the overhang, Rip waited expectantly. His hands were sweaty despite the cool temperature of the day. The sun shone brightly on the ropes, a nice contrast to the shadow under the overhanging cliff. Rip didn’t notice. Nor did he pay much attention to the spectacular view, the vastness of the canyon, the shadows and sunlight on the rocks, or the narrow gorge far away and below where the river ran hidden from sight. He waited for the ropes to twitch, to show that someone was hooking up to them.

They hung lifeless, stirred only by the gentle breeze.

A sound behind him — he turned and pointed the rifle all in one motion. A man was there on that narrow ledge, and Rip was just a split second faster. He merely pointed the rifle and pulled the trigger.

The impact of the bullet made a whacking sound as it hit the man chest-high. The man teetered for a second, trying to regain his balance as Rip worked the lever. He didn’t need another shot. The gunman toppled over the edge and fell, his submachine gun hammering. He was twenty or thirty feet down when Rip realized that the man must have been wearing a bulletproof vest. Still, the impact of the .25 caliber bullet had pushed him off the ledge to his death.

Rip didn’t watch the man hit hundreds of feet below. He was already concentrating on the ropes.

The far one. A pair of feet came into view. Rip aimed at a foot, snugged that front bead down into the notch and squeezed the trigger. A scream. Now the man’s crotch and torso fell into view. He was slipping on the rope, which apparently went through a carabiner ring. Didn’t have the strength to hold on. Down he came, his submachine gun dangling uselessly.

The man on the rope fought to regain control. Another bulletproof vest. No, he couldn’t hold on to the rope, which ran through the ring until the man hit the end of the rope and kept on going.

A bullet tagged Rip on his neck. He whirled and fell on his back. It stung like hell, and he couldn’t move his head. He reached and felt — couldn’t help himself. His hand came back bloody. Well, if the slug severed a vein he was going to pass out in seconds and bleed to death.

He didn’t. Gritted his teeth and said a few dirty words he knew while watching the ropes.

That damn sniper!

Maybe he thought he killed me. Or disabled me. I went down pretty quick.

Here they came, two more men down the ropes. He didn’t wait but shot them when their legs came into view. One man lost his grip and went zipping down the rope into space. The other hung on for dear life. When he got stabilized, he tried to get his submachine gun into action. Rip hesitated — if he wasn’t careful he was going to run out of bullets — and was rewarded with a shower of slugs that he miraculously avoided by rolling behind a rock.

The fool used his entire magazine, spraying slugs without a target. Rip risked a peek. The guy was dangling there and trying to change magazines with one hand. He was only perhaps fifty feet from Rip now.

“You have a choice,” Rip called. “You can tell them to haul you up or I’ll shoot you again. Which will it be?”

The guy dropped the submachine gun and it dangled on a strap. His leg was turning red. Maybe an artery severed. He spoke into a mike arranged on some sort of helmet, and the people on top began hauling up the rope.

If the guy doesn’t pass out before they pull him up, maybe he’ll live, Rip thought. He did pass out, though. Lots of blood on the injured leg. He lost his grip and began sliding down the rope, faster and faster. He was in free fall when he ran out of rope.

He hit about two hundred feet below on the scree fan and began rolling. Rip closed his eyes and felt his neck. Ai yi yi.

Johnny Murk’s satellite telephone rang. He looked at the number. The Space Command spy.

“Yeah.”

“Mr. Murkowsky, that saucer is coming back. It’s reentering the atmosphere, and from its trajectory, it looks like it’s headed right for the Grand Canyon.”

“When?”

“Eight minutes or so.”

Murkowsky broke the connection without saying another word. He kicked the sniper. “Their saucer is eight minutes away and coming fast. Better start shooting or we’re all going to end up poor.”

The sniper opened fire, sending a fusillade toward the old Anasazi ruin even though he had no targets.

“This is Petty Officer Hennessey,” the president said, introducing the sailor, who was in his blue uniform with his red chevron on his left sleeve.

“Are you a Boy Scout?” Amanda asked.

“No,” Hennessey replied with a smile. “I’m in the navy.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I used to be in the Boy Scouts, though.”

Amanda, the First Granddaughter, was comfortably ensconced in the Oval Office with a plate containing a half-dozen Fig Newtons, her favorite cookies, and a glass of milk.

She turned her attention to her grandfather. “I am so excited. This is so cool! People from outer space. Coming here. When will they arrive?”

“In a day or two,” the president replied evasively. The truth was, he had no idea. The starship was in orbit, NASA said, but if the intergalactic voyagers were trying to communicate, no one had told him about it. Nor had he any idea what they were doing up there circling the earth, or indeed, what their plans were. Maybe they would go to Paris to eat snails after all.

“I’ll bet they get here tomorrow in time for lunch,” Amanda said and picked up another Fig Newton. She dipped it in her milk and began nibbling. “Is that their saucer parked out there?”

“I don’t know that either,” the president admitted. He thought it probable the aliens were saucer people, but who knew? Maybe there were dozens of civilizations all over the universe sending starships out to explore willy-nilly.

The president certainly hoped they were saucer people. When he and Amanda took their saucer ride with Charley Pine last month, she told him the computer interface was designed for human brains. Or humanlike brains. The archaeologist, Professor Hans Soldi, became famous when Rip Cantrell discovered his saucer in the Sahara by arguing with force that the saucer people might well be ancestors of the people here on earth today. That had caused a sensation, of course, and to date, as far as the president knew, no one had successfully refuted Soldi’s idea. Still, although plausible, Soldi’s theory remained just that, a theory.

Nevertheless, in the presidential mind Soldi’s theory and the fact that Rip and Charley and even Egg Cantrell had all successfully flown not only Rip’s saucer but the one recovered in Roswell, New Mexico, and secretly stored in Area 51, seemed to make it probable, indeed, likely, that the saucer pilots were people, more or less like us.

More or less. Ye Gods …

“Can I go aboard the spaceship when it comes and see what’s what?” Amanda asked. “Oh, I do hope they bring kids about my age. It’ll be such fun showing them around.”

The president looked beseechingly at Petty Officer Hennessey. Do something, his look said. Hennessey obliged. He began asking Amanda about her school and her friends.

Hennessey was still at it when P. J. O’Reilly rushed in with some eight-by-ten photos in his hands. “Mr. President, here are some photos of that starship in orbit that were taken with very-long-lens cameras.”

Everyone gathered around the president’s desk to look. The starship resembled a giant doughnut. It had a central core and spokes that led out to the ring. Six spokes. Above the central core some sort of thing was attached that looked a bit like a blimp.

“Hmm,” said the president. “How big is it?”

P. J. O’Reilly rubbed his hands. “The thing is over a mile in diameter, Mr. President. According to the people at NASA. It should be visible as a bright star right after dark and before dawn.”

“A mile?” the president muttered skeptically.

“It’s big, bigger than any transportation vehicle ever designed or built on this planet. NASA thinks it could hold something like ten thousand people.”

“Wow!” Amanda said. “We are gonna have a party!”

“Of course,” O’Reilly continued, enjoying the look of distress on the president’s face, “it could be full of troops. They may have come here to conquer the world.”

“By God,” the president said heavily, “if they can balance the federal budget they can have this piece of it.”

Petty Officer Hennessey snorted. “More than likely,” he said, “that thing is full of scientists and college professors dying to find something super to spin theories about.”

The president eyed Hennessey and smiled his gratitude.

“Should we release copies of these photos to the press?” O’Reilly asked.

The president hesitated, eying Hennessey, who nodded.

“Go ahead,” the president said, “and get the staff on the phones. We need some scientists of our own to welcome these folks. Or things. Or whatever. Get Professor Soldi and ask him for recommendations. Biologists, anthropologists, linguists, astronomers, a delegation of NASA engineers, anyone you can think of.”

“Some congressmen and senators want to attend,” O’Reilly pointed out.

“No damn politicians,” the president said and smacked the table.

“How about some teachers?” Amanda piped up. She wasn’t the least bit frightened of her grandfather.

“Certainly, teachers. O’Reilly, invite a bunch from around Washington and the suburbs. Elementary, middle school and high school.” The Grand Poobah made a gesture, and O’Reilly shot out of the room. He left the photos.

“Boy, oh boy, oh,” Amanda enthused as she examined each picture. “The kids in my class are going to be sooo jealous.”

Hennessey looked at the president and the president looked at him. They nodded.

Hennessey left the room to find someone who would make the calls to invite Amanda’s entire fourth-grade class to Washington.

Rip Cantrell heard the muted roar of the rocket engines before he saw the saucer. It was high, perhaps ten degrees above the far canyon rim, coming quickly, now without power. Silent and coasting. It looked as if it were headed straight for the cliff house. In fact, he wondered if it might not be able to stop before crashing into it, but indeed it did stop. Maybe a hundred feet away.

He heard Charley calling his name.

“Yeah.” The word came out hoarse. His throat hurt fiercely.

“Look at the sniper’s location. Just look at it, think about it.”

Rip rolled over and crawled to the slit in the rock pile that he had used to shoot at the sniper’s group. No one standing there erect now, of course.

The sniper had to be there, though. Or close by. Rip stared. There, he thought. There.

His peripheral vision caught the saucer turning and moving, going right for the spot where he was looking. A beam much like a child’s sparkler, only straight and fierce, illuminated the place. That was the saucer’s antimatter weapon, which spewed forth antimatter particles that obliterated atoms of normal matter when they encountered them. Yet for every one that self-destructed, a million continued on … Rip saw sparks — little flashes that looked like sparks — around the area where he thought the sniper was concealed.

He took that opportunity to haul himself erect. Bracing himself on the wall of the old stone house, moving carefully toward the door, he tried to keep his eyes on the sniper’s position. He gave up when he reached the door. He fell through the opening, landing right at Charley’s feet. She didn’t look at him. She was staring through the door at an oblique angle at the impact point of the antimatter weapon.

The antimatter particles that smashed into the area around the cliff’s edge penetrated everything until they hit a regular particle and exploded in a small burst of pure energy. E = MC². They buzz-sawed through trees and rocks and dirt; bits of wood and rock and dirt flew everywhere. They also went through the sniper — an antimatter particle met its opposite number in his brain. The explosion killed him instantly.

Dr. Harrison Douglas was lying behind a rock trying to tie a piece of his shirt around his wounded arm. The antimatter particles penetrated the rock, and he died after explosions in his lungs, kidneys and heart.

Johnny Murkowsky avoided being wounded by the shower of antimatter particles. Dozens went through him without obliterating themselves. It was just the sheer dumb luck that sometimes protects fools and morons.

He gripped his submachine gun tightly and waited for the assault to stop. It did, finally, and he eased his head out from behind a stone where he was cowering in time to observe the saucer turning and climbing, heading for the top of the mesa where the Philly boys were hunkered down and shooting assault rifles at the saucer.

Oh, too bad, too bad! They were so close.

Damn that Charley Pine. Damn Rip Cantrell. And damn Adam Solo. Just a lock of hair was all we needed. Just a lock of hair.

As Uncle Egg slapped a rag on Rip’s neck and examined the bullet wound, Rip heard some kind of rocket exhaust amid the staccato hammering of assault rifles firing bursts.

Charley Pine saw something strike the saucer and explode. It had no visible effect on the ship. She also saw sparks all over it — no doubt bullets from the top-of-the-mesa crowd.

She ordered the ship to turn and use the antimatter beam on the people and machines on top of the mesa. Climbing and turning, the saucer soared back toward the mesa above the ledge where the cliff house stood. Now she saw the flashes along the leading edge where the antimatter was pouring from the weapon, then saw the beam of smoke and flashes reach toward the top of the mesa. The particles traveled at the speed of light, so the river of them resembled a searchlight. On, then off, then on again. Finally off.

Charley heard an explosion that sounded as if it came from atop the mesa. A helicopter blowing up, perhaps? Or one of its weapons detonating?

“Charley, did you get the sniper?” Rip asked.

For the first time Charley glanced down and saw that Rip was bleeding on the right side of his neck. Egg’s rag was becoming sodden with blood.

“What—?”

“Bullet grazed him,” Egg said. “Not hurt badly, I think. But boy, Ripper, when we get the bleeding stopped, your neck is going to be stiff and sore.”

Egg tore up the last T-shirt and used it as a bandage.

“Did you get the sniper?” Rip asked again.

“I don’t know.”

Finished with Rip, Egg checked on Adam Solo’s condition. He looked haggard, and his face had lines. The entry and exit bullet wounds were still leaking.

“Solo needs a doctor, and he needs one now,” Egg stated. “Let’s get aboard the saucer and go find one.”

“Okay,” Charley said, turning back to the window.

“How are we going to do this?”

“Same way we got here. We’re going to ride on top. Let’s get ready. I’m bringing it around.”

Rip hoisted himself erect and gripped his rifle fiercely. He paused and ensured he had a live shell in the chamber and shoved two more shells into the magazine. He only had a few cartridges left in his pocket.

Egg helped Solo, who could scarcely stand. Rip draped the other arm over his shoulder, and the two men moved Solo to the door.

Thank you. Egg, Rip and Charley heard the unspoken words in their head.

Charley brought the saucer close to the edge of the cliff, turned it around and backed it up until the rocket nozzles were resting right against the stone.

They charged out, Charley in the lead. She climbed onto the saucer’s back and helped Uncle Egg and Rip get Solo aboard. “Don’t look down, people,” she warned.

Once again, Egg was struck with how precarious their position was on top of the mounded-up saucer shape, with nothing to hang on to except the now-dry, smooth, warm, dark surface of the spaceship. In other words, nothing at all. As they lay down and spread themselves, the saucer began to move, gently, almost imperceptibly.

As they moved away from the cliff, Egg scrunched his eyes tightly shut.

He opened them again when he heard the thumps of bullets hitting the ship and the zings of bullets flying off. Then the reports. Someone was shooting an automatic weapon at the saucer.

“Assault rifle,” Rip shouted and raised his head to see where the fire was coming from. Whump, whump, whump, and howling whines as the bullets ricocheted away. “Climb, Charley! Show them the belly.”

“I can’t. We can’t climb any higher without the rockets. We’ll fall off.”

Rip scanned the top of the mesa. Saw no one. Then he looked toward the place the sniper had been on the rim. Saw a man standing there … muzzle flashes.

The guy was no marksman. He squirted another magazine full of bullets at the saucer, and maybe half of them struck.

When the guy emptied his weapon, Rip got to his knees and cut loose with the Winchester as fast as he could work the lever.

“Go at him, Charley,” he shouted. “Fast as you can.”

Adam Solo writhed uncontrollably.

A feeling of intense pain shot through Rip, Charley and Uncle Egg. Horrible pain. Egg almost lost his grip on the saucer as he groaned.

Adam Solo began to slip. Slowly he went down the side of the saucer toward the edge. The pain paralyzed Rip. He could do nothing but watch helplessly as Solo slid to the edge and went over without even trying to arrest his descent.

Someday I’ll see you on the other side.

Then the pain stopped.

Shaken, without thinking, Rip pulled two more shells from his pocket, stuffed them into the rifle, worked the lever and took careful aim as the saucer closed the distance to the rim of the canyon. A hundred yards now, then seventy, then fifty. The guy showed himself and Rip fired. Knocked him off his feet.

Charley had the saucer moving at perhaps twenty knots. The cold wind was in their faces.

The saucer crossed the rim and bore down on the shooter, who was struggling to scuttle away.

Rip recognized the man. Johnny Murkowsky.

Johnny Murk screamed as the saucer approached. He disappeared under the nose and the scream stopped abruptly.

Now Charley brought the saucer to a stop and lowered the landing pads.

It sank to the ground. “Come on, Uncle Egg,” she said. “Let’s get inside. Rip, watch for anyone who wants another shot at us.”

They scrambled down, and Charley went under the saucer to open the hatch.

Rip saw what was left of Johnny Murkowsky, squashed like a road-killed squirrel. As he scanned about, he saw Harrison Douglas’ corpse and the body of a man in a camo outfit lying in blood-spattered snow. A bolt-action rifle with a scope lay beside him. That was probably the sniper. They were obviously dead, no doubt victims of the antimatter weapon. He saw no one else.

Rip was the last to crawl through the hatch. He pulled it shut and latched it.

Charley adjusted the headband in the pilot’s seat.

“They killed Solo,” Rip said. “Why did he have to die like that?”

“He was dying anyway, and he knew it,” Egg said flatly. “I think he intentionally let go up there. Did you feel that pain?”

“Yes,” Rip said, trying to hold back his tears.

Charley sat for a long moment with her head in her hands.

After a bit she felt Rip’s hands on her shoulder. She looked up and saw that he had tears streaking his face.

“We can’t leave his body in that canyon,” Egg said.

Charley Pine nodded and the saucer lifted off.

They swung around over the mesa and examined the carnage. Indeed, one helicopter had blown up. Bodies lay scattered about in the thin snow. Charley eased the saucer over every body she saw, squashing them in the saucer’s antigravity field, just in case someone was playing possum. She was feeling rather vengeful just then.

In the first shelf, a thousand feet below the rim, they found Adam Solo’s body. Charley had to proceed for several hundred yards before she found a flat place to park the saucer. All three of them hiked back to the body. Solo’s head was smashed, and shards of bone protruded from his clothing. He had obviously hit the scree fan and rolled for hundreds of yards.

The cliff above them seemed to rise into infinity. Behind them was the mesa with the small shelf that contained the old Anasazi cliff house. They could just see the front of it from here. The canyon was silent except for the whisper of the wind. The rock faces and flats were broken by stark sunlight and shadows; sunlight glistened on the snow on the rims. Above them in the cerulean blue two hawks soared.

Without a word, the three of them picked up Adam Solo and carried him in stages to the saucer. They shoved the body up through the hatch as gently as possible, then climbed aboard themselves.

“Do you want to give his body to the aliens?” Charley asked the two men.

“No,” Rip said. “A volcano, I think.”

“That’s right,” Egg muttered. “This planet was his adopted home. We’ll keep him here.”

They fueled the saucer in Lake Mead. An hour after the battle in the canyon, the saucer rose on a column of white-hot fire and the roar of the rocket engines washed over Las Vegas and the revelers who packed it. The exhaust plume gradually faded to a burning speck in the sky, then to a star, then winked out altogether. The echo of its engines also faded, more slowly, until finally the murmur was also gone.

In Las Vegas, the party resumed.