Saucer: Savage Planet

21

The next few days were hectic. DNA samples were taken from volunteer couples, an undertaking that fascinated the press and resulted in worldwide publicity.

Several of the starship crew toured the zoo and oohed and aahed at the extraordinary diversity they saw. Others toured the arboretum, where they took samples and recorded images of plants they found interesting.

The shuttle was loaded with tanks of water, over a ton, and a thousand pounds of carefully selected living plants, including wheat, rice, soybeans and corn, a flock of chickens and two pigs, a male and a pregnant female. Charley Pine wanted to take Amanda to the starship for a look, but with all the supplies, it wasn’t to be. NASA wanted to send two senior engineers to explore, and that plus the first officer, who was flying the shuttle, took all the room in the cabin there was.

Amanda and Charley toured the shuttle when it returned that evening. The first officer answered every question that was asked. Amanda had a wonderful time. Hennessey took her to the White House Press Room, where she answered reporters’ questions.

Through the good offices of Petty Officer Hennessey, who was here, there and everywhere, Rip and Charley got in to see the president.

“We’re going with the aliens on their starship,” they told him. “They said they have the room.”

The president felt a great warmth come over him, much like that produced by a shot of really good bourbon. The saucer aces, Rip Cantrell and Charley Pine, were going to be out of his hair permanently. He beamed benignly. “Godspeed, children.”

“Before we go, however,” Rip said, “we’d like to ask a favor of you.”

The president’s grin vanished. This was too good to be true, he thought.

“We want to get married,” Charley explained, “and were hoping you could marry us. Like tomorrow.”

Relief flooded the Grand Poobah. “I never married anybody before. I don’t know anything about District of Columbia marriage laws. For all I know, I don’t have the authority. We can probably find you a judge or preacher, if you want.”

“Oh, we don’t care about the D.C. laws,” Rip said, making a gesture that swept away all little difficulties. “We aren’t going to get a license. It’s the ceremony we want. We’ll invite the family and the aliens and tie the knot.”

“Oh,” the president said blandly. He was not surprised. In his experience Rip and Charley pretty much ignored other people’s rules and made their own. “In that case, why not? When?”

“Would tomorrow evening work?”

“Sure.”

“Great. We’ll go buy some rings.” They scampered away holding hands.

“I hope my presiding over a marriage doesn’t set a precedent,” the president growled at Hennessey.

“Don’t sweat it, sir. You might tell the press you’ll marry anyone leaving the planet without dying first.”

Charley called her mom and dad and sister, and Rip telephoned his mother in Minnesota. The next evening, as the families and aliens watched, the president read a ceremony Rip and Charley had found on the Internet. Amanda was maid of honor. Everyone wanted to kiss the bride, including the president, who laid one on her cheek.

Uncle Egg snapped a couple of photos of Rip, Charley and the president with Rip’s camera; then the president snapped a few of Uncle Egg and the newlyweds.

The president gave Egg his camera back, then whispered to the White House photographer, “Get some of Rip, Charley and Egg. I want an eight-by-ten of the best one framed for my desk.”

P. J. O’Reilly knew good PR when he saw it, so he had photos of the wedding and watching aliens on the street within an hour.

The next day Rip and Charley fueled the saucers with water from a hose.

While they were at it, Uncle Egg climbed into the Roswell saucer and donned the headset. He knew what he wanted, and he spent over an hour communing with the computer trying to get it. He made notes on a small pad. He wasn’t a physicist, but he was a very competent engineer. Finally, satisfied he had all he could get, he turned off the power and closed the hatch behind him. The closest marine saluted him, and he smiled in reply.

When the saucer he had discovered in the Sahara was completely full of water, Rip sat in the pilot’s seat and told the computer what he wanted. Then he reviewed the graphics to ensure the computer had it right.

Charley Pine did the same for the Roswell saucer. She found John-Paul Lalouette’s bloodstains still on the floor and said a little prayer for him.

Then the saucers launched from the White House lawn. Rip’s went out over the Potomac gaining height and airspeed; then the rocket engines ignited and the nose rose to the vertical. It soared away on a pillar of fire as the world watched on television.

Charley’s Roswell saucer was next.

When the two were gone the starship crew and Rip and Charley said their good-byes. Rip cried, Uncle Egg cried, Charley’s parents and sister cried, and Rip’s mom cried. Even the president’s eyes grew a little moist.

“Thanks for everything, Uncle Egg. You were like a father to me.”

“And you were a son to me. I love you, Ripper.”

Amanda clung to Charley and wouldn’t let go. “I want to go with you,” she said.

“You need to stay here with your family, grow up, get an education, fall in love,” Charley whispered. “Have your own adventures. Live your life, savor it, live it to the hilt.”

“I will, Charley! Oh, I will!”

The president gathered Amanda into his arms.

The aliens climbed aboard the shuttle first. Charley reluctantly released Uncle Egg’s hand and followed her new husband up the little stairway. The door closed with a tiny hiss, and the crowd drew back behind the velvet ropes.

The shuttle flew away effortlessly, without the sound and fury and visual power of the saucers, almost as if it were a dream departing. The antigravity system repelled the earth and slingshotted it into orbit, where it rendezvoused with the starship. A few hours later the starship left orbit on another voyage across the universe.

Life in the White House soon returned to “normal.” Congress resumed the eternal argument about the budget and addressed tax and immigration reform. The fall football wars once again became of serious interest to millions of Americans. Kids returned to classes all over the nation, and people began to think about the Thanksgiving holidays and fall hunting seasons.

A week after the shuttle left, the president called Petty Officer Third Class Hennessey into his office and poured him a drink from his private bourbon bottle.

“What are you going to do with your life, son?” he asked.

“Well, sir, I have only two years of college. I thought when my hitch is up in May I’d go back to school, work part-time and try to qualify for naval aviation.”

“You want to fly, do you?”

“Yes, sir. The F-35 is an awesome airplane. Maybe that will work out for me, maybe it won’t, but I want to try.”

The president took a sheet of paper from his desk and passed it over. “I thought it might be something like that,” he said. “Here’s a commission as an ensign in the United States Navy.”

Hennessey looked at the document in surprise. There was his name. Orvul Allen Hennessey. At least they got that right.

The president kept talking. “I spoke to the CNO. He said the navy can send you to college to get your degree while you draw full pay and allowances, and from the looks of your last physical, you qualify for flight training. Congratulations.”

Hennessey didn’t know what to say. Finally he managed, “Thank you, sir.”

“You have good sense,” the president said, “which is a rare commodity. Your country needs you. Thank you for your help these last few weeks.”

After Hennessey left, the president looked at the photo of Uncle Egg, Rip Cantrell and Charley Pine that sat framed on his desk. Looked, and smiled.

Back in Missouri, Professor Deborah Deehring and Uncle Egg let the dust settle while they really got to know each other. Uncle Egg downloaded the photos from Rip’s camera onto his computer and spent a few minutes a day looking at them.

Professor Hans Soldi called Deborah and asked for her help. He had a hair from an alien, he said, and was awaiting a complete DNA analysis. He thought it might prove that she was related to the people on earth. Maybe. To a statistical probability. He wanted Deborah to help him explore the relationship.

Deborah Deehring objected. Biology was not her field.

“Nor mine,” Soldi admitted, “but together we can learn it.”

She talked it over with Egg, who urged her to go with it. They liked each other a lot and decided to see each other every weekend, when she wasn’t tied up at the university or with Soldi.

“Are you going to look for more saucers?” she asked. “It seems impossible that the two that were found are the only ones on the planet.”

Uncle Egg wasn’t so sure. “The Roswell saucer crashed in an electrical storm. The crew of the Sahara saucer Rip found was unable to return to it for unknown reasons, but the saucer that delivered Solo to earth was flown away by a madman. Even if saucers came and went on some kind of regular basis, there are probably few that crashed or were abandoned that remain undiscovered.”

“But in one hundred forty thousand years, there might be.”

Uncle Egg begged off. “If I found one, without Rip and Charley to fly it, it wouldn’t be the same.”

“So what are you going to do, Arthur?”

“I’m going to live out the days God gives me and find interesting things to think about.”

She seemed pleased with that answer.

“And maybe,” Egg added, “in a year or two, if you are willing, we’ll get married.”

“Oh, Arthur! You are such a romantic!”

They left it there.

Still, about a week later, an Arizona sheriff’s deputy showed up with a summons for Rip and Charley. “We want to question them about some bodies that were found in the Grand Canyon,” he said.

“Don’t you people read newspapers or watch television?” Egg asked. “They aren’t here.”

“This is a serious matter, Mr. Cantrell. Where are they?”

Egg jammed a thumb toward the sky. “Up there. They left with the aliens on their starship.”

The deputy tore the summons in half, gave it to Egg and left.

Uncle Egg went inside and made himself a pot of coffee. As it dripped through, he found himself thinking about the antigravity devices on the saucer and on the alien starship, which had used a more advanced version of the gravity attraction and repulsion technology to propel itself around the universe.

How had that worked, anyway? What did they know about gravity that we don’t? Rip had built an antigravity device for an airplane, but he never understood the physics. The aliens had indeed discovered the Grand Unified Theory, the holy grail of physics, the theory that combined all the known forces of the universe. Egg had actually seen the symbols and had written them in his notebook. He hadn’t understood them when he wrote them. Perhaps with some research he could make sense of it.

When Uncle Egg had a hot cup of java in his hand, he turned on his computer and began researching the physics of gravity on the Internet. He read his notes again and began to think.