Saucer: Savage Planet

6

Adam Solo had finally gotten to sleep. He was dreaming. The green, brown and blue planet was below, partially covered with clouds. Clouds in rows, towering thunderstorms, rivers of clouds streaming from the ocean onto the land. The brown deserts were clear, with only wisps of high cirrus.

“Looks inviting,” the woman said. She was a biologist, on her first library mission to this galaxy. This was only the second planet they had visited.

“Not much here,” Adam Solo replied. “A few cities in the temperate zone, but they haven’t advanced to running water and indoor toilets.” He was flying the saucer.

The woman shivered. “Let’s avoid the natives,” she remarked.

“If possible,” her fellow scientist remarked. His specialty was paleontology. He was a nice enough guy, into his science.

The fourth team member, a medical doctor, was deeply depressed. The signs were unmistakable. He was on medication for it and had delusional moments. Solo had argued with the expedition commander that the man should not descend to the planet’s surface and had been overruled. The doctor’s specialty was airborne bacteria, which might have evolved into deadly strains since the librarians’ last visit.

Now he stared through the canopy at the planet, which was overhead since Solo was orbiting upside down. “Savages,” he whispered. “We’ll never get home.”

Solo glanced at the medical man and withheld comment. Every planet they visited was uncivilized, and only a few hosted intelligent life. This one, according to the computer, had been home to manlike hominids for over a million earth years, and to creatures like the saucer crew for a hundred and fifty thousand or so. There was even speculation that the planet’s people were descendants of stranded space travelers.

“When was the first mission to this planet?” the biologist asked.

“About then,” Solo said distractedly, for she was wearing a headband too and he sensed where she was in the saucer’s memory.

The problem of where to land had been addressed aboard the starship, in conjunction with the scientific staff. Prior missions’ landing locations were plotted, and natural species dispersion factored in. This mission was supposed to check to see that the introduced DNA data containers were being dispersed as the original plan predicted.

They were going to land on an island that was often under cloud decks that streamed in over a warm sea current that made it a wet, rainy place, and considering the latitude a warm one. Today the island was clear. Well, it was late summer there, so perhaps the weather would hold for a few days, allowing the saucer crew to land, take their samples, then depart.

In his dream Adam Solo relived it again; the landing, the check of airborne and waterborne bacteria and viruses, a quick survey of the area to ensure natives wouldn’t attack them while they worked, the erratic behavior of the medical man.

Solo could hear him arguing that they should not open the hatch even though the testing equipment showed the air and water were safe, because he was sure the gear was malfunctioning. Hear his voice, see his face, see the irrational fear. In his dream he reached for him, tried to grab his neck and strangle the fool … but the man was just out of reach, just beyond his grasp, moving, babbling and laughing and … It hadn’t really happened that way, of course, but in Solo’s dream the memories and his fears were all jumbled up.

God damn that man.

Then, while the team was outside working, the doctor stole the saucer.

In his dream Solo could see it rising into the night sky on a pillar of fire, hear the earsplitting exhaust roar, feel the helplessness.

He awoke. In a cold sweat.

This room … he ran his eyes over it, felt the tangible solidity of the bed, felt the air going in and out of his chest, felt his heart pounding.

He rolled over, put his feet on the floor and sat with his head in his hands while the dream faded.

A knock on the door. “Adam?” The woman’s voice. Charley. “If you are awake, you better come downstairs. The house is surrounded.”

When Rip arrived in the kitchen, he found his uncle standing at the window with binoculars, looking out. Egg tersely told him about the news crews and offered him the binoculars for a look. Rip didn’t bother with the glasses. He looked, ran to the living room, looked there, then checked the other side and back of the house.

When he returned, he said, “Lots of people out there in back and on the other side, carrying flashlights and lanterns. We’re completely surrounded. Call the law.”

“I tried. We’re on our own.”

Rip turned and raced up the stairs to his bedroom. In less than a minute he was back with his old Model 94 Winchester and a box of shells. He dumped the cartridges on the kitchen table and began feeding them into the loading gate of the rifle as he eyed the reporter broadcasting near the hangar. The saucer on the rock was immediately behind the reporter, probably being used as background.

“Rip,” Egg said, his voice cracking.

“This is completely out of control, Unc. There’s a mob out there. Someone may get hurt, and it isn’t going to be us.”

“You once told Charley that you didn’t want to shoot anyone over the saucer.”

“I don’t think I said that to you.”

“It’s on the computer.”

Rip took a deep breath. “The saucer isn’t the issue.” The rifle’s magazine was full. He worked the action, chambering a round, then lowered the hammer to half-cock. “Our safety is. I will shoot any of those people to protect you and Charley and Solo.”

Rip gestured toward the television. “Turn up the sound. We might as well listen and get the whole greasy enchilada.”

Egg did as requested, just in time to hear the reporter say, “Stay with us. We’ll be back after the break.” The television began running a Viagra commercial.

“Want some coffee?” Egg asked.

Rip sighed and laid the rifle on the table. “Sure.” He pocketed the remainder of the cartridges.

In a few minutes Charley and Solo joined Rip and Egg in the kitchen. Egg poured coffee while he briefed them. They stood at the unbroken window looking out.

The rising sun was lighting up the sky to the east.

“Maybe we’d better get some breakfast before the party begins,” Rip suggested. “When the day is completely here the TV people won’t need those lights and will be up on the porch pounding on the door and looking in the windows.”

Charley sipped her coffee and looked directly at Egg. “You are going to have to give them that computer you took from Rip’s saucer,” she said. “This is just too big.”

“No,” Rip shot back.

“What do you think?” Egg asked Solo.

Adam Solo took his time answering. “Sooner or later someone always wondered why I wasn’t aging like they were. The trick was to be moving along before that thought turned into action.”

“Little late for that now,” Rip said curtly.

“Apparently,” Solo agreed amiably.

“So?”

“I don’t know what is on your computer. And it’s your computer. You people will have to decide.”

“Everything that was on yours, less a hundred and forty thousand years of research.”

“Actually, it doesn’t work like that,” Solo said, glancing from face to face. “Space and time are warped by gravity. Your Albert Einstein explained it rather well, I thought. If you travel in space, you travel in time. They are essentially one and the same.”

“That explains the space maps in the computer,” Egg said thoughtfully. “You must chart your course to arrive at your destination at your chosen time.”

“That’s basically it,” Solo said. “The computer contains sailing directions.”

“So why didn’t your people return for you and your colleagues?” Charley asked.

“They tried, apparently, but going back in time is very difficult. Think of a ship’s course being dictated by the wind. In space we go where black holes and concentrations of matter let us go. Perhaps the Roswell saucer was on a rescue mission. Or perhaps not. Obviously I am still here.”

“Stay with us,” the television reporter intoned breathlessly. “We’ll be here at the Cantrell farm all day reporting events as they unfold. We hope to interview Egg Cantrell and Adam Solo, both of whom are believed to be still in the house.” This was followed by an appeal from a Houston law firm for clients who might have been injured by a bad drug. There was apparently lots of money in human suffering.

“Hell,” Rip said to Solo, “don’t despair. You have a great career ahead of you hawking antiaging pills.”

Solo smiled.

Rip glanced out the window. Dawn was well along.

“We may have to give them the computer,” Egg muttered. He got busy making breakfast.

Air Force One landed at Columbia, Missouri. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, the president and P. J. O’Reilly trotted across the mat to a waiting helicopter, which got airborne as soon as the door closed.

An air force major was waiting in the chopper to brief the president. He described the media siege of the Cantrell residence, the traffic jam on the local roads and the estimated four hundred gawkers who surrounded the house. The county sheriff was now on the scene and wringing his hands. “Most of the onlookers are local voters,” the major said to the president, quite superfluously.

“All this on television?” O’Reilly asked sharply.

“Every channel. All the broadcast and most of the major cable networks. Even the cooking channel. The producers go back to their studios occasionally to let the talking heads and hot babes have their moments, interview ‘experts,’ run commercials, that kind of thing. But you, Mr. President, will be on the air worldwide as soon as the helicopter comes into view of the cameras.”

“So what’s happening this morning?” the president asked.

“Nothing,” the major replied. “The Cantrells have stayed in the house. The reporters have knocked on the door, which didn’t open. One of the producers was talking to his boss in New York about cutting the electrical and telephone wires to force the Cantrells out. Egg Cantrell could sue them, but they would have their story.”

“Is Adam Solo there?”

“The networks believe he is. He was there yesterday and hasn’t been seen leaving. I doubt if a field mouse could have gotten out of the house during the last twenty-four hours without being seen.”

“The drug moguls, Douglas and Murkowsky?”

“Watching television somewhere, I imagine.”

The president looked out a window of the chopper at the rolling Missouri countryside sliding by beneath — at the patches of woodland, the fields that were harvested weeks ago and the neat little farms connected to the paved roads that snaked across the land.

As the major predicted, a live shot of the helo approaching the Cantrell farm hit every major network within seconds. Producers almost melted down in ecstasy when the president of the United States stepped out. Reporters tried to mob him, but the Secret Service agents kept them away, mainly through brute force.

The president pretended the press wasn’t there. He set his eyes on the front door of the Cantrell residence and marched up the path, trailed by P. J. O’Reilly and two agents openly carrying submachine guns and wearing headsets with boom mikes.

Rip was already at the door to open it for the president. He had wisely left his rifle in the kitchen, so there was no unpleasantness with the Secret Service agents, who followed O’Reilly, who followed the president.

After the president shook hands with Rip, saying, “Good to see you again,” he motioned the security detail to go into the empty living room and asked, “Where’s your uncle?”

“In the kitchen.” Rip led the way.

Someone had turned off the sound on the TV set, so there was only the video of a reporter gesturing wildly and pointing toward the house as his mouth worked rapidly.

Rip did the introductions. The president held on to Solo’s hands while he looked him in the eyes. “You and I need to have a long chat,” he said.

Solo nodded.

Charley Pine got a kiss on the cheek from the president — he liked to kiss beautiful women and made no secret of it — but Egg got the full treatment. He found his hand trapped by the president’s, and then the president put one arm around his shoulder and hugged him tight.

“Mr. Cantrell — I’ll call you Egg. I came from Washington to have a personal talk with you. Is there a place where we can have a private conversation?”

“Rip and Charley and Solo have a right to hear everything that is said. How about a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

The president started to sit at the kitchen table and found himself staring at Rip’s Winchester. “This thing loaded?”

“Yep,” Rip said flatly.

The president gingerly eased it to one side of the table and dropped into a chair. O’Reilly remained standing in the doorway. From time to time the chief of staff glanced at the television.

“Folks, we have ourselves a real mess here,” the president declared. “The press and the public are convinced that you have a bunch of formulas for some real high-tech drugs on that computer you took out of Rip’s saucer.”

Egg started to speak, but the president stopped him with an upraised palm.

“We know you have it. Everyone on the planet knows you have it. And the public won’t take no for an answer.”

“It’s private property,” Egg pointed out as he handed the president a cup of black coffee. “I have the law on my side and I have possession. I’m keeping it.”

“Is there a formula for an antiaging drug on that thing?”

Egg knew this question was coming, and he still didn’t know exactly how to answer it. He stood there blinking while he made up his mind. After a moment he nodded, once. Yes.

“I want the formula.”

“No,” Egg said forcefully. “You don’t.” He repeated his arguments about the drug distorting the economy by artificially extending human life, talked about the ecological damage that would result from an ever-increasing human population and explained that the species would become extinct as all those people gobbled up the earth’s resources. He finished with the remark, “You and Congress can’t even balance the government’s budget, and now you want to repeal the law of evolution? The expanding population of hungry people will result in anarchy, here and abroad. The future will become a horrible nightmare for everyone on the planet. Do you want our species to become extinct? Giving mankind this drug will accomplish just that, and in the not too distant future. This drug is the purple Kool-Aid.” He took a deep breath. “Maybe the beetles will win after all.”

The president let Egg have his say. When Egg fell silent, he said, “I’m inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, America is a democracy. If a significant majority of the voters want this drug, they are going to find a way to get it. Hell, we can’t even stop people from using marijuana, heroin and cocaine.”

“No,” Egg said.

“How about you, Solo? You know the formula for this drug?”

“Mr. President,” said Adam Solo, “the networks are turning over every rock, questioning people all over this planet about me. No doubt your FBI and police agencies can and will join the investigation. Sooner or later your investigators will learn enough of the truth to guess at the rest. I was a pilot of a saucer that landed some years ago. I have not aged since then. The conclusion will be inescapable: I know the formula and how to manufacture the drug, and I have extended my life by using it. So I admit it to you, here and now.”

“Well,” the president said after examining Solo’s face and scrutinizing the faces of Rip, Charley and Egg. “Well, well, well.” He looked again at Solo. “When did you arrive on earth?”

“About a thousand years ago.”

The president’s mouth fell open and he stared at Solo.

“Mr. Cantrell is right, and you know it,” Solo said forcefully. “The existence of this drug commercially will doom the human species. The desire to acquire and use it, at whatever price, will be irresistible for a great many people. Too many. The economy will crash, the planet will be raped, and humanity will become extinct.”

The president took his time answering. When he spoke, he said, “In a democracy the people get to make their own mistakes.”

Rip snorted. “When this cat gets out of the bag, no one will ever be able to put it back in. The damage will have been done.”

The president smashed his fist on the kitchen table, making his coffee cup and the rifle jump. “You think I am the dictator of the world? I’m just an elected public official, and there’s another election coming along — there always is. People are putting excruciating pressure on their senators and congressmen. They are elected officials too.”

He waved his arm at the window. “You know what’s out there. Four hundred people and television cameras piping signals all over the globe. That’s the world we live in. They want it and they’re going to get it, one way or the other. Now, your choice, quite simply, is whether you are going to give up the formula willingly or wait a short while to get run over by the train.”

Solo looked from face to face, then turned to the president. “I’ll write it out for you.”

“The hell you will. I take a piece of paper home and give it to the FDA and meanwhile you people boogie. Then the formula turns out to be fiction. You’ll make me look like a goddamn fool.”

“Which you are,” Charley Pine said to his face.

The president ignored her. “I want Egg’s computer,” he said. “The wizards can get the formula off of that thing, and whatever happens, I won’t get covered with crap.”

They argued for several more minutes. P. J. O’Reilly weighed in when the president ran out of words, issuing threats. Egg ignored him, helped himself to more coffee and sipped it.

Finally even O’Reilly ran down.

Reluctantly Egg opened the kitchen cupboard and took a computer case from the top shelf.

“No, Uncle,” Rip said. “Screw ’em all. Don’t give them that thing.”

“You shouldn’t,” Charley said, grasping Egg’s arm.

“We don’t have a choice,” Egg said, resigned. “This fool wants to give the human race a suicide pill, and we don’t have any way of preventing it.” He stepped toward the president and started to hand him the case, then drew it back.

“You must get all those people the hell off my farm. Go outside, hold a press conference, then have the Secret Service run everyone off. I can’t live like this. And I won’t.”

“They’ll be gone before the helicopter is out of sight,” the president promised and took the case from Egg’s hands.

The president was almost right. He held his press conference, gave the cameras a good look at the case in his arms, then boarded the chopper. The helicopter was over the horizon when the television crews began breaking down their equipment and loading it in their trucks.

“What do you think will happen when the president finds out the computer is smashed?” Rip asked Egg.

“Won’t be pretty,” Egg said.

Rip went to the back of the house and watched Secret Service agents there herd the crowd away. The men with the submachine guns weren’t tolerating lollygagging. The sheriff and his fat deputies got busy directing traffic.

Grabbing a garbage bag from Egg’s kitchen stash, Rip tossed in a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, some cold cuts from the refrigerator, two six-packs of bottled water and all the canned soup the bag would hold.

Fifteen minutes after the helicopter departed, the last of the television trucks and vans headed off up the road to the gate. The Secret Service agents rode along with them. The sheriff was the last man to drive away.

“Well, folks, let’s get out of Dodge while we still can,” Egg said. Solo hoisted his backpack, and Rip, Egg and Charley picked up pillowcases containing clothes. Rip grabbed the black garbage bag full of food and water, then had another thought. He handed his bag to Solo and went back to the kitchen for his rifle.

They gathered on the front porch.

Solo said, “I hope the comm gear in your saucer works and I can send my messages. Then all I must do is wait. Are you sure you want to leave here?”

Egg spoke first. “You’ve been waiting a thousand years, you said.”

“Believe me, I had given up hope of ever living until this day,” Solo replied. “A few more weeks or months or even years won’t matter much.”

Solo seemed reluctant to say more. In the silence that followed, Charley Pine put the question, “So what do we do now?”

“Canada,” Solo said. “There is a place on the southwest shore of Hudson’s Bay, with a cave that was used by ancient people. We can put the saucer in the bay.”

“If it isn’t covered with ice.”

“If there is an ice sheet, it will be thin. We’ll put the saucer in, then let the ice freeze on top of it.”

“We aren’t really dressed for the Canadian winter,” Egg pointed out.

“Get coats and winter gear. Boots. Sleeping bags if you have them. Blankets. Everything you can carry. And matches. We’ll make do.” He scrutinized their faces. “I’ve had some experience with that.”

Ten minutes later they gathered again on the porch. Everyone had bundles. Egg locked the door behind them.

They trooped down the hill to the saucer resting on the stone outcropping. As they approached, it lifted off the rock into a hover.

The saucer set out at a walking pace toward the two-acre farm pond on the other side of Egg’s runway. The people trailed along toting their bundles.

Egg flew the saucer into the middle of the pond, dipped it once in the water to get it wet and raised it about four inches above the surface.

“Better cover your eyes,” he said.

All of them turned their backs and put their hands over their eyes. Still, the flash that followed was so bright they could see it through their eyelids. In seconds the first flash was followed by another as millions of volts coursed from the saucer into the water of the pond, then into the earth. The electrons in the atoms of the saucer were making quantum leaps in their orbits, releasing extraordinary amounts of energy.

Three more flashes followed, then Egg’s voice. “That’s it, I think.”

They turned and looked. The saucer was back to its normal size, about seventy feet in diameter. It looked black and ominous in the diffused morning sunlight.

Egg opened the refueling cap on top of the saucer and submerged it into the pond. The water level rose a few feet, then seemed to subside somewhat as water rushed into the saucer’s tank.

When the gurgling stopped and the surface of the pond was once again placid, he lifted the saucer from the water. It looked majestic rising slowly, dark and wet. When it was free of the water, Egg brought it over to the shore and sat it down on the ground a few feet from them. The hatch opened slowly. They all began shoving bundles in.

“Mr. Solo, do you want to fly it?”

“Why not?” Solo said and led the way into the ship. As Egg and Charley stowed their gear, Rip ran into the hangar to grab his fishing rod and tackle. When he returned, he threw it up into the saucer and clambered aboard. Solo was already in the pilot’s seat, and the reactor was on, the computer displays dancing vividly across the screens. Rip closed the hatch. Everyone took a seat and strapped in.

The presentations continued to dance across the screens in front of Solo, as fast as thought as he ran the built-in tests of every system in the ship. Two minutes passed as Rip and Charley and Uncle Egg sat silently, alone with their thoughts.

“Is everyone ready?” Solo asked. He already had the saucer off the ground and the landing gear retracting. He moved out over Egg’s runway, accelerating.

The passengers said “Yes” simultaneously. The saucer continued to accelerate on the antigravity system. Then the rocket engines ignited, giving just minimum boost. The acceleration continued, pressing everyone back into their seats.

The nose rose into the sky as the flame from the rockets increased steadily.

Soon the saucer was standing on its tail, pointing straight up, rising atop a pillar of fire.

As the saucer climbed, it shot by two news helicopters. The cameramen beamed their pictures to the satellite. As they received the video feed, television networks broadcast it all over the globe. People in New York and Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston, Minot and Wheeling saw the rising saucer on their television screens. They saw it in London, Paris, Berlin, Cairo, Moscow, Istanbul, Baghdad, Mumbai, Tokyo, Cape Town and Sydney. And everywhere in between.

The saucer rose though the clouds and began tilting toward the northeast. Up, up, up, until it was just a star in the noonday sky and the roar of its rocket engines faded to a whisper.

Then it disappeared from sight. The sound level dropped to a kiss by the breeze; then it too was gone.

Little puffy clouds continued to drift across the Missouri countryside, under that milky sky, just as they had since the world was born, but there was no one at Egg’s farm to look at them.