Saucer

Chapter Thirteen

Charley Pine didn't get much sleep her first night in Australia. She didn't really expect to: she had been changing time zones so often that she felt tense and tired all the time. She took a long, hot shower, used the toilet articles the room contained, and tried to rest.

When sleep refused to come, she took a book from the bookshelf in her room while she waited for the world to turn. She sat with the book open on her lap, to no avail; her mind refused to release its grip on the present.

She had flown the saucer for Hedrick because she believed his threats. Standing in Egg's house, watching Hedrick as Rigby worked on Rip, she believed him capable of murder to get what he wanted.

However, if an opportunity presented itself, she intended to get in the saucer and fly away, leaving Hedrick and his thugs as a problem to be solved at another time and place. Of course, Hedrick would not knowingly give her an opportunity. Perhaps she could create one…

Slowly, slowly the night ebbed and the sky grew light in the east. Finally the sun crept over the earth's rim.

She was standing at the window, fully dressed, when a knock came at the door. She opened it to find Rigby there. He was a few inches over six feet, with wide shoulders and narrow hips and weight lifter's veins in his forearms. 'He wants to see you.' She closed the door behind her on the way out and walked ahead of Rigby. Instinctively she knew he wasn't ' the type ever to let anyone get behind him.

He followed her to an elevator, which lifted them to the top floor of the house, the fourth.

Hedrick's office was a large room, with huge windows on every wall. The windows were French doors, which opened onto a deck built above the roof of the rest of the house. The design reminded Charley of a New England widow's walk, only the room and deck were huge.

Roger Hedrick was seated behind his desk. He didn't rise. She sat in one of the chairs facing the desk.

'I'll see you at breakfast, Rigby,' Hedrick said, and Rigby left via the stairs, which were beside the elevator.

Hedrick had a presence. He seemed to electrify the air. Charley thought she could feel the tiny hairs on her arms prickle.

'As I told you yesterday,' Hedrick said conversationally, ' 'I will pay you for every day of your time, whether you fly or not.'

'If you pay me it won't be kidnapping, is that it?'

He seemed to be measuring her, sizing her up. Charley Pine wondered what he was thinking.

Now he said simply, 'I don't care how you label your situation, Ms. Pine. I am simply trying to make these few days as pleasant for you as possible. I want your cooperation, and I intend to have it.'

He seemed to be looking through her eyes into her soul.

'You will fly the saucer when I ask, where I ask, to demonstrate it for some people I have invited to see it. If you refuse, if you act like anything other than a loyal employee, I will apply pressure to your family in America. We can arrange for telephone calls from your mother or father while someone breaks their fingers, their arms, their legs, their backs… whatever you like, Ms. Pine. Whatever you want.'

'You're sick!'s

'Perhaps you would like to listen while your sister is raped.'

'Sick scum,' she hissed and involuntarily lowered her gaze from his eyes.

When she raised her eyes, Roger Hedrick grinned. He had a wicked, malevolent grin. Then the grin faded.

'Nothing personal, Ms. Pine,' he said crisply. 'This is business. It's trite but true. A great deal of money is at stake. A young woman reluctant to listen to reason is not going to be allowed to impede progress. The wheels are going to turn. Do you understand?'

She forced herself to meet his gaze.

'I do hope you understand, Ms. Pine. For your sake.'

Hedrick rose from his chair, came around the desk. She rose from her chair to stay away from him.

'Let's go have breakfast.'

He reached for her arm. She fought back the instinctive urge to jerk away.

'After breakfast, perhaps you would care to go for a ride around the station. On the ground, of course.'

He smoothly guided her to the elevator. They rode it down in silence, his face perfectly calm, as if the conversation of a moment ago didn't happen.

'I'll find someone to accompany you,' Hedrick said easily. 'I think you will like Australia. Most people do.'

The dining room was on the ground floor, a rather large room with ten tables, each capable of seating four people. Three of the tables were occupied. Hedrick steered Charley to a table where a stunningly beautiful young woman with blond hair was sitting with Rigby. Charley had to force herself not to stare at the girl.

'Ah, Bernice,' Hedrick said, 'I wish to introduce you to Charley Pine, our American pilot. She flies the saucer.'

Bernice gave Charley a dazzling grin. Then she pecked Hedrick's cheek and he patted her. Charley seated herself beside Bernice.

'You know Rigby, of course.'

'I've met the bastard,' Charley said.

Bernice didn't turn a hair. She's that kind of broad, Charley thought, dismissing her. Rigby sipped his coffee as if Charley wasn't there.

Hedrick didn't raise or lower his voice, but continued in a conversational tone: 'Life is much easier for everyone if the amenities are observed, Ms. Pine. That includes you.' Obviously her status here was no secret.

A waiter came to take their order. After he left, Hedrick said to Bernice, 'I thought you and Rigby might give, Ms. Pine a tour of the station this morning. She said she would enjoy that.'

Bernice put her hand on Hedrick's arm. 'I'd be delighted,' she said and smiled, displaying perfect teeth.

'Interesting weather we're having, isn't it?' Hedrick said and led the conversation to benign topics.

When breakfast was finished, Bernice said to Charley, 'Let's walk down to the garage for a vehicle.'

Before Charley could reply, Hedrick froze her with his eyes. 'You have a choice. You can give me your word you won't try to escape, or we can lock you back in your room. Which will it be?'

Charley Pine stared into his eyes. The man would send hired thugs to murder her family to make her fly the saucer, but not to salve his injured ego. There was no profit in it, and profit was what Roger Hedrick was all about.

The station was certainly guarded. Even if she stole a vehicle and managed to get to a town, what good would it do her? Hedrick's billions undoubtedly bought a lot of cooperation from the local police and politicians.

Finally, there was the saucer. If she left without it, he would find a way to make a profit from it. The cold certainty that she didn't want Hedrick to have the saucer congealed in her heart.

'I'm not going anywhere,' she said as evenly as she could.

'If she tries to escape, Rigby, she's all yours. Just don't kill her.'

Rigby grinned.

Roger Hedrick threw his napkin on his plate and rose abruptly. As he walked away he pulled a cell phone from a pocket and punched buttons.

Bernice drove the Land Rover and Charley Pine sat beside her, on the left, in the passenger's seat. Rigby was still at the breakfast table when the women left the room, and if he followed, Charley didn't see him. She didn't even look for him.

She forced herself to look at her surroundings, to see, to observe. When the time for action came, she wanted to be ready. She wanted to know where the enemy was and how he would have to be fought.

Bernice said little until they were bumping along in a Land Rover, then she began explaining about the station, the thousands of cattle, the jackeroos — which were cowboys — airplanes, buildings, etc. Charley soaked it up without asking questions. When a response seemed to be required, she grunted.

Finally Bernice began talking about herself. She was British, she said. A model. She ran into 'Roger' several years ago in London at a fashion show. She talked about jetting around with Roger — Paris, Monte Carlo, Rome, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, wherever business or pleasure took them. skiing at St. Moritz one weekend, lying on the beach at Ipanema the next, it was all so magical.

After fifteen minutes of this Charley had had enough. 'Sounds like you're bought and paid for,' she remarked.

Bernice didn't take offense, didn't argue, didn't pretend the remark hadn't happened. Roger had told her to drive this American pilot around, so she would, regardless. She took a deep breath, then said, 'Must be quite the adventure sporting about in a flying saucer, I imagine.'

This sally brought forth another Charley Pine grunt.

Bernice clucked her tongue. 'We must try to get along,' she said.

'Why?'

'Because Roger said so,' Bernice said, slightly appalled that Charley couldn't see something so plain. 'Roger is Roger. He's extraordinarily smart, has made mountains of money. He puts himself under extreme pressure. Deep down he's a generous, warm person. Everyone just loves him.'

'You're really not a bad person yourself, are you?' Charley said and patted Bernice on the arm.

Aboard a packed Boeing 747 crossing a great ocean, Rip Cantrell was ready to conclude that Wilbur and Orville should have concentrated on the bicycle business. Nearly five hundred wriggling, sleeping, farting, snoring humans were jammed into the small seats.

Rip managed to cross three sets of knees to get to an aisle, then went back to a tiny open area around an emergency exit. He stood there stretching and looking out the small porthole at the darkness and listening to the hum of the engines. The plane was six hours west of Los Angeles. The sun had set, finally, after a long sunset. A meal had been served to everyone on board, a movie had played, now people slept.

He bent down to see out the window beside the emergency door. Dark out there, nothing to see. An overcast, apparently, obscured the sky.

He couldn't stop thinking about the saucer or Charley Pine. Somehow the two were bound so tightly together that to think of one was to think about the other.

He pulled the magazine from his hip pocket and read the story on Roger Hedrick one more time, looked carefully at the photos.

Finally he folded the magazine and returned it to the hip pocket of his jeans.

He looked in the window glass at his own reflection. That was the face Charley had seen when she kissed him.

When he straightened up, he was wearing a smile.

The news that a Missouri National Guard F16 had fired two Sidewinders at a flying saucer the previous day made headlines around the world. Although the Pentagon classified the report, someone in Missouri called a local newspaper. The rest, as they say, was history.

Pharmacist Raymond Stockert was hounded by a mob of reporters at his home and in the supermarket where he worked. The supermarket manager sent Stockert home for the day to clear the aisles for real shoppers.

Inevitably the White House was forced to admit that the president had ordered the military to patrol the nation's skies and shoot down any saucers encountered. This revelation sparked a debate on Capitol Hill. Once again the White House was under siege.

The president was unapologetic. Safely away from the press, he roared at his aides, 'Of course I gave the shoot-down order! I would give it again! The American people elected me to protect the American way of life, and by God I am going to.'

'But, Mr. President, there's only one saucer, flown by two American citizens. Surely they — '

'I don't believe a word of that crap. One saucer? Seen in dozens of places? The damn aliens are conducting a disinformation campaign, but they can't fool me!'

'Sir, as a hypothetical, perhaps we should at least consider the possibility that no aliens.'

'If there are no damned aliens, then this saucer thing is a right-wing conspiracy. Either way, the nation must be protected. Now get the reporters in here. I want the public to know that this administration stands ready to defend the American way of life.'

Somehow the fact that the military was no longer flying armed patrols got lost in the hullabaloo. For this, Bombing Joe De Laurio was thankful. He sat in his Pentagon office with the television on wondering why everyone else in Washington had gone off their nut.

That evening he attended a special intelligence briefing for the Joint Chiefs before he went home to dinner. The CIA man was adamant: There was only one saucer, and it was in Australia.

'Roger Hedrick has it,' the Joint Chiefs were told. 'He forced the test pilot to fly it from Missouri to Australia. He was actually in the thing when that National Guard F-16 pilot fired missiles at it.'

'Has the president received this briefing?' Bombing Joe asked.

'He will get it as soon as he finds the time, sir. Right now he is meeting with leaders of Congress.'

'Umm,' said Bombing Joe.

'To continue, gentlemen, Roger Hedrick has the saucer at his cattle ranch — or station — in Australia. He is currently inviting the governments of China, Russia, and Japan to send representatives to his station to inspect the saucer and bid on it. He intends to sell it to the highest bidder.'

'Why would anyone want one saucer?' someone asked.

'Technology, sir. Our scientists say that the technology contained in the saucer will drive worldwide technological development in the twenty-first century.'

'Why wasn't the United States invited?'

'We are not privy to Mr. Hedrick's thinking,' the briefer replied as respectfully as he could, 'but we suspect he is inviting only governments that would not enmesh him in litigation over the ownership of the saucer.'

'How much does Hedrick think the saucer will bring?' the chairman asked.

'Our source tells us he mentioned a figure to one of his aides: Fifty billion dollars.'

When Charley got back to the main house from her ride, Hedrick was waiting. He had with him two academics, graying, distracted men in cheap clothes. Charley and the professors followed Hedrick the hundred yards to the aircraft hangar where the saucer was parked. Rigby appeared from nowhere and joined the little party.

The machine was right where Charley had left it. She explained the basic functioning of the propulsion system to the professors and Hedrick, then opened the hatch and let them go inside.

They inspected the flight deck, then entered the machinery bay. One of the scientists had a radiation detector with him, a device about the size of a laptop computer, which he used to check the reactor and water separator.

'Extraordinary,' one of them muttered, but mostly they kept their comments to.themselves.

Rigby ensconced himself in the pilot seat. For a moment or two Charley thought he might be a pilot himself, then she decided he wasn't.

Hedrick stayed with the scientists.

'We could learn a lot more,' one of them said, 'if you let us take things apart.'

'Can you guarantee that you could properly reassemble everything?'

'No, sir. There may be seals and whatnot that would have to be replaced.'

Charley got tired of watching Rigby preen, so she let herself down through the hatch and sat beside one of the landing gear pads.

The guards — there were eight of them, all armed — paid little attention to her.

After about an hour, Hedrick lowered himself to the hangar floor. 'Ms. Pine, we would appreciate a short demo flight.'

'Have you fueled the saucer?'

'Uh… no. We haven't touched it.'

'We will need some water, the purer the better.'

'The well water is quite free of minerals and impurities. I have it checked monthly.'

'Get your thugs to rig a hose.'

When the tank was topped off, Charley ordered the hangar doors opened.

Only then did she climb back into the saucer and close the hatch behind her.

'Seats, please, and strap yourselves in.'

Hedrick stepped up beside the pilot seat as she strapped in. 'Ah, Ms. Pine. I know you're the world's hottest jet jock and you could win the world acrobatic competition with this thing, but I want you to take it easy.' He looked at her with eyebrows raised. 'Stay near the farm when you are below a hundred thousand feet. Don't cross over any cities or towns at low altitude. Got it?'

'We're on your nickel, Mr. Hedrick.'

Charley Pine lifted the ship gently off the concrete, snapped up the gear, and drifted it out of the hangar. The professors were staring. Whatever they expected, this wasn't it. The only sound was a subdued hum from the machinery spaces. Flight was smooth, effortless, even when Charley lit the rocket engines and added power in a seamless rush.

This, she thought as she put the saucer through a gentle three-hundred-sixty-degree, two-G barrel roll, is the essence of freedom.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hedrick whispering with the scientists, which shattered her reverie. She leveled the saucer, flew it in a straight line for several minutes, then made a wide, sweeping turn to head back to Hedrick's station.

When the saucer was back in the hangar, the scientists wanted to see the computers in operation. Charley fired off the main flight computer, but she didn't don the headband, preferring to punch the buttons beside the screen to bring up various displays. Hedrick didn't object; he merely watched.

When she had the reactor secured, Hedrick asked Rigby to escort Charley to her room.

She went willingly, leaving the scientists to confer with Hedrick. Rigby trailed "along three paces behind her like a well-trained dog.

After his session with the leaders of Congress, the American president was a subdued, thoughtful man. His orders to shoot at saucers had panicked the electorate, the senior legislators said. They demanded that he call off the military and that he publicly reassure the country that under no circumstances would he order or allow rash military action against possible alien ships with unknown military capabilities.

The president caved in to congressional demands. Outraged voters he understood. He had made a mistake, he acknowledged.

Huddled now with his national security team, the president seemed distracted as the CIA briefer went through his presentation. The president's face was gray and sweaty, his shirt a sodden rag. The saucer was for sale, the briefer said, to the highest bidder. If the president thought that fact significant, he gave no sign.

At one point he muttered, 'We must be bold,' but he didn't explain the relevancy of that observation.

Finally O'Reilly said, 'Roger Hedrick seems bent on setting the world economy on its ear, as long as he makes a profit.'

That remark seemed to get through to the president. He jerked, then looked around wide-eyed.

'Is the saucer valuable?' he wanted to know.

'Oh, yes, sir. Hedrick seems to think it will bring at least fifty billion in cash. If he sells it to Russia and allows them to pay for it over time, it is possible he might get two or three times that amount.'

'Perhaps more,' Bombing Joe said. This afternoon he had a long talk with the colonel who headed the UFO team, now just back from Libya. Colonel West thought the saucer worth whatever it took to get it.

'The saucer is everything from computers to metallurgy,' Bombing Joe explained to the serious people, 'from computers to propulsion. It's a ship that flies into space and returns, a ship that can do it again and again and again. We are still many years away from that capability.'

The secretary of state said slowly, 'Imagine the competitive advantage we would gain in every technical field if we had that capability now.'

'So what is your recommendation?' the president asked State.

'Mr. President, we cannot sit idly by and watch Hedrick sell that technology to a rival nation,' the secretary said. 'He stole the saucer from us. He kidnapped the pilot and forced her to fly it to Australia.'

The national security adviser chimed in. 'That technology should benefit American industry. If the Chinese or Japanese get it, our economy in the years ahead will be at a serious competitive disadvantage.'

'American industry?' Bombing Joe was appalled. 'That saucer is a national security treasure. It should be classified, taken to Area Fifty-one. We can use it as the basis for a generation of fighter planes that will be so technologically superior that war will be impossible. Imagine fighter planes that could fly into orbit, then descend and fight anywhere on earth they were needed. Mr. President, war is the oldest scourge of all; we can inoculate ourselves. Surely the American people deserve the greatest gift of all — freedom from war.'

'What about Russia?' someone asked. 'What if they get the saucer?'

'They don't have a chance if Hedrick wants cash, but if he is willing to take something the Russians are willing to trade, then… '

'Don't underestimate the Russians,' Bombing Joe remarked. 'When you factor in the technology they had to work with, they built the best planes on earth. Russian engineers can work miracles, especially in metallurgy.'

'All of you people have overlooked one basic fact,' said the chief of staff, O'Reilly. 'The human race is not ready to face up to the reality of other life in the universe. Western civilization is built on the premise that mankind is unique, that we are made in God's image, that somewhere up there is a kindly old man with a white beard who cares about each and every one of us, cares about our little triumphs and disasters, about our cuts and bee stings, and listens to every child's prayers every night. Our uniqueness is the bedrock for religion, philosophy, ethics, morals, for our sense of self-worth.'

O'Reilly looked around the room at each of his listeners. 'Don't you see? We humans were doing fine without the saucer. We are trapped on this little rock orbiting this modest star on the fringe of a vast galaxy. You' — he pointed at the secretary of state — 'want to rip the curtains off the windows, show everyone how insignificant human life is in the grand scheme of things. After you destroy the very foundation of human relationships, with what will you replace it?'

The secretary of state picked up the remote and turned on the television in the corner. In seconds a talking head appeared. The subject was the saucer. She changed channels and got the footage of the saucer over Coors Field. Professor Soldi was on the third channel she tried, showing still photos of the interior of the saucer that he had taken in the desert.

The secretary of state pointed at the television. 'You can't unspill the beans,' she told O'Reilly.

'We can do the next best thing,' Bombing Joe said. 'We can clean up the mess. We could mine the saucer for its technology yet deny it even exists. Soldi will go away after a while. Without new revelations, the media will move on to something else. In a year the saucer will be forgotten.'

They argued some more, until everyone had their say. The long silence that followed was broken when the president asked, 'So what is the consensus?' He was mopping his face with his handkerchief, wiping off swatches of wet makeup.

No one spoke.

'Can we at least agree that we should try to get possession of the saucer… before the new owner can fly it out of Australia?'

Everyone tried to talk at once. When the president finally motioned for order, the secretary of state managed to make herself heard: 'The Australians will regard a military adventure as an act of war.'

'Everything has a price,' the national security adviser said. 'The saucer will go to whoever wants it the most. We have to decide if that is us.'

Bombing Joe shook his leonine head. 'You are all wrong. We have only one option. If we can't get the saucer into a hangar in Area Fifty-one, we should destroy it.'