Saucer: Savage Planet

4

When Egg saw the story on Fox News about the Atlantic Queen’s stolen saucer being in orbit, he mentioned it to Rip and Charley, igniting a freewheeling discussion.

“In orbit?” Rip asked, incredulous.

“Since the day before yesterday. Apparently it’s still up there.”

“Could Solo be an alien,” Charley asked, “waiting for a mother ship?”

Egg shrugged. “Anything’s possible,” he murmured.

Rip said thoughtfully, “We know the saucer’s computer is also an autopilot. What if Solo programmed it to take the saucer into space so it wouldn’t be found or confiscated here on earth?”

“You mean he might not even be in it?” Charley suggested.

“I thought about sending the Sahara saucer into space,” Rip admitted, “to keep the feds and Roger Hedrick from laying hands upon it. Put it up there for a year or two, then have it programmed to come down in a secret place.”

“You have a devious streak I didn’t know about,” Egg said appreciatively. “Why didn’t you do it?”

“Because I didn’t know if the saucer could pick up my brain waves while in orbit, so I would have to meet it at the rendezvous point, or else.”

“Could Solo have done that?” Charley asked Egg.

“Of course.”

“Who is Adam Solo?” Charley asked rhetorically.

“Better question,” Rip responded, “what is Adam Solo?”

The news that the stolen saucer was probably in orbit caused a sensation in the media, but when there was no follow-up, the story went onto the back burner. The Roswell saucer, if that was what it was, was up there circling the earth, but until it came down, the media had column inches and broadcast minutes to fill. Try as they might, enterprising reporters and producers could find nothing on Adam Solo, so he became the Mystery Man. Yet even that angle soon lost its zip. Crime, earthquakes, terrorism, financial shenanigans, sports and politics resumed their normal place in the newspapers and airwaves of the planet.

The FBI report on the interview with Harrison Douglas caused the president more discomfort. World Pharmaceuticals salvaging a flying saucer from the floor of the Atlantic “on speculation”? Douglas used those words to the agents. Obviously, the company was after information that might be in the saucer’s computer database — information about drugs.

What secrets could there be? the president wondered, then forgot about the question as he went on dealing with the usual political theater, obstreperous congressmen and senators, and big meetings about serious hot important things that filled his waking moments, all day, every day.

Other people noted the presence of Harrison Douglas and World Pharmaceuticals in the latest saucer crisis and, adding them together, got the same answer that Johnny Murkowsky had. One of them was a fellow named Glenn Beck, a gadfly with a syndicated radio talk show.

“Drugs from an alien civilization, developed after hundreds of thousands of years of research and investment, could be a huge windfall for World Pharmaceuticals, if the company could get the drugs approved by the government,” Beck intoned. “Perhaps the drug information in the Roswell saucer’s computer could cure the common cold, cure cancer…” Here Beck paused dramatically — he was very good at dramatic pauses. “And,” he continued, “prevent or cure obesity, prevent aging … How about a skinny pill, or a pill to keep you young? Would you take such a drug? If so, how much would you pay to get it?”

After another little pause, because he was a trained broadcaster, Beck added, almost as an afterthought, “Of course, the government had the Roswell saucer under lock and key at Area Fifty-one, a top-secret base in Nevada, since 1947, and apparently did not investigate the database. Or did they? Would they tell us?”

So it was that Glenn Beck lit the fuse and tiptoed away, out of our story.

The stolen saucer went right back onto Page One.

The air force denied mining secrets from the Roswell saucer’s computer, but no one believed them. Members of Congress demanded an investigation. The AARP filed a Freedom of Information request. Packs of hungry trial lawyers began running ads on television and radio, searching for diseased plaintiffs for lawsuits against the government. The old and the fat also felt better now that they might be victims; class-action lawsuits were filed by the dozens all over the nation.

Watching the frenzy on television, the president asked, “Who is Adam Solo?”

The FBI soon found that nothing was happening on the Cantrell farm in Missouri, except the Cantrells went to the grocery store occasionally. Either Egg or Rip drove Egg’s old pickup and came with a list. Once Charley Pine went to the beauty shop for a haircut and ’do. Rip dropped her off, went to the grocery store, and picked her up after she was beautified.

The St. Louis FBI office was up to its eyeballs investigating the usual bank robberies and corrupt politicians, plus a local Yemeni illegal immigrant who wanted to commit an act of jihad that would earn him a ticket to paradise, and two financial advisers who had been running little Ponzi schemes, enriching themselves at the expense of dentists and car dealers who wanted at least a ten percent return on their investments. The special agent in charge of the FBI office was never told that the Cantrell farm surveillance had been ordered by the White House, but even if she had been, the Cantrell surveillance didn’t have a case number, and no Justice Department attorney was breathing down her neck about it. So, after reading reports about grocery store and beauty shop visits, she assigned her agents elsewhere.

Consequently, two weeks after the Roswell saucer was stolen from the deck of Atlantic Queen, no one was watching when Adam Solo walked up to the gate of the Cantrell farm, climbed over and, with his backpack slung over one shoulder, continued on along the well-worn gravel road toward the house. He was wearing jeans and a set of leather hiking boots, a sweater and, atop the sweater, a jacket.

Solo swung along with a steady, miles-eating gait, one that had carried him along the roads of the earth for a long, long time. Today the earth smelled rich and pungent. The trees still had a few brown leaves remaining on their stark, dark limbs. Squirrels fought for territory amid the fallen leaves on the ground. A high, thin cirrus layer diffusing the sunlight promised a change in the weather.

There had been other trails through the forest, and he and his companions had run along them, free as only wild creatures can be.

One such day he recalled vividly, because it had also been in autumn, after the leaves had fallen and before the snows came. They were after elk, big animals with lots of meat that would keep them through the long, vicious winter when the rivers and streams froze and the forests were choked with snow.

The sky promised snow then too, so they were in a hurry to reach the elk meadows. Consequently they ran into an ambush; two men were dead in as many seconds as arrows filled the air, and war cries, unexpected howls of glee that froze the blood and paralyzed the nervous system for a crucial few seconds. Ah yes, he remembered all of it. The twanging of bows, the sigh arrows made as they flew through the air, the thud of arrowheads striking flesh, the thundering war cries and the whispered death songs …

Through the trees, today Solo saw the hangar by the grass runway and walked in that direction. Then he saw the small saucer resting on the stone. It was roughly three feet in diameter, sitting atop the stone on its three landing gear.

He approached it, examined it from a distance of six feet, then got closer. He could even see through the canopy into the miniature cockpit. He found himself staring at the pilot’s seat, the controls, the blank instrument panel … and he knew.

Here it was! The saucer from the Sahara, the one Rip Cantrell had found. They had discovered how to shrink it.

It was beyond his reach. He had never worn the headband, never communicated with the computers inside this ship, so it would not recognize his brain waves. It would not obey his orders.

He ran his fingers over the surface, feeling the coolness and smoothness.

With his hand on the saucer, he stood looking at the hangar and the house on the hill and the trees. The autumn wind was gentle on his cheek.

He heard voices … coming from the hangar. Solo reluctantly abandoned the saucer and walked toward the large wooden building.

The main door was open. He stood in the entrance and found himself looking at an airplane. Two people were working on one of the main wheels, a man and a woman. He recognized them from their published descriptions: Charley Pine and Rip Cantrell.

“Hello,” he said.

Rip and Charley both turned to look at him.

“Who are you?” Rip asked.

“Just a traveler.”

“This is private property. You’re trespassing.”

“I suppose so. I climbed over the gate. Hope you don’t mind.”

Rip looked Solo over carefully. Middle-aged, a small, trim man, clean-shaven. “What did you say your name was?”

“Traveler. Adam Traveler.”

Rip went back to greasing the bearings of the wheel that lay on the dirt floor of the hangar and asked, “Know anything about airplanes?”

“A little, yes,” the man who called himself Traveler said.

Charley smiled. “I saw a photo of you on television. You’re Adam Solo, the man who stole the Roswell saucer from the Atlantic Queen.”

Solo grinned ruefully. “And you must be Charley Pine.”

Charley gestured toward Rip and pronounced his name.

“Pleased to meet you both,” Solo said, and strolled into the hangar.

“The networks are convinced you are in orbit, waiting for a mother ship to pick you up,” Rip said wryly.

“Ah, the networks…”

“So, do you really know anything about airplanes?”

“As a matter of fact, I once flew them for the British. That was a while back, and the machines were not quite as sophisticated as this, but I am sure the general principles haven’t changed.”

“Aerodynamics being what it is,” Charley suggested.

“Quite.”

“And when did you get all this experience?”

Solo eyed her and decided that, for once, perhaps the truth might be best. “During World War I. I flew Camels.”

“Indeed,” Charley said, intent on Solo’s face.

Rip eyed Solo askance, trying to decide if he was lying — and why. “You are the only World War I vet I’ve ever met,” he said. “All the others are dead. Have been for a good long time.”

“Good genes,” Solo responded.

“Apparently so,” Charley said with her eyes narrowed.

“Well, come help us with this wheel,” Rip said finally, waving a greasy hand. “Maybe you can help us figure out how to get it back on correctly.”

Solo dropped his backpack and waded in.

When the wheel was back on the landing gear and the jack was removed, so that the plane again sat on its own wheels, Rip said to Solo, “Come on up to the house. I’d like you to meet my Uncle Egg.”

“Yes,” Solo said thoughtfully and finished wiping the grease from his hands on a red mechanic’s rag. Then he picked up his backpack and shouldered it.

They were about to start climbing the hill toward the house when a large SUV raced along the driveway and slid to a stop in the gravel parking area, right beside the rock with the small saucer on top of it. Another SUV was right behind and parked beside the first. Television cameramen and sound techs piled out, complete with cameras and lights and satellite transmission equipment. A sign on the side of one SUV said FOX NEWS.

“Uh-oh,” Rip muttered. He raised his voice and shouted, “This is private property. You people must leave. You don’t have permission…”

His voice trailed off because no one was listening. The cameramen scattered like quail, carrying their equipment. A reporter with a microphone braced Rip and Charley. Behind her stood the last cameraman, looking through his eyepiece.

“This is Rip Cantrell,” the reporter said breathlessly into her microphone, “the man who found a flying saucer in the Sahara and flew it to America last year. Mr. Cantrell, what can you tell us about the drug formulas in your saucer’s computer?”

“Not a damned thing,” Rip snarled into her microphone, which she had thrust toward his face. “Now you people get off this farm, which is private property.”

Whether the reporter and cameraman would have left under their own steam will never be known — this was, after all, award-winning television journalism. What happened next was totally unexpected and gave great joy to the producer of this television news show.

Two more SUVs came roaring into the parking lot.

Four men climbed out of each vehicle. Rip recognized the man who climbed from the passenger’s seat of the first SUV. Dr. Harrison Douglas of World Pharmaceuticals.

“Well, well, well,” Douglas said nastily. Ignoring the television reporter and cameraman, he produced a pistol from his coat pocket. “I thought we would merely have a quiet chat with the Cantrells and Charley Pine, and instead we hit the jackpot and found you here, Solo. You thief! Where in hell is my saucer?”

Solo said nothing. The television cameraman moved so he had a nicely framed face shot of Solo, whom he had ignored up to now.

The men from the SUVs surrounded Rip, Charley and Solo as Douglas waved his shooter around.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time, Solo. Where is my saucer?”

Solo ignored everyone except Douglas, whom he regarded calmly.

“Better tell him,” Rip whispered. “I think he’s a few cards short of a complete deck.”

“Up there,” Solo said, jerking a thumb skyward. “Don’t you watch television?”

“Who is flying it?” Douglas demanded. His face was red; his hand holding the pistol, a semiautomatic, was shaking. The reporter was waving the microphone around, trying to catch every word.

“A friend of mine,” Solo replied slowly.

Douglas lowered the pistol and looked at the three of them. Then he put the gun in his pocket. “Let’s go up to the house. We’ll have a little talk.”

Before they could take five steps, another vehicle roared into the parking area and stopped beside the first. A tall man got out, followed by two musclemen and a woman, a brunette with short hair.

“Johnny Murkowsky, you bastard,” Douglas exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see what it is you are trying to steal, Douglas.”

“I’m not—” Douglas roared but was cut off by Rip.

“Murkowsky? Haven’t I heard that name before?” he asked the newcomer.

“Of course you have,” Douglas thundered. “Murk Drugs. That’s the bastard, right there, along with his masseuse. Never goes anywhere without her. Hey, Heidi, still giving ol’ Johnny the happy endings?”

“Let’s go up to the house, get acquainted and have a pleasant conversation,” Johnny Murkowsky said and began shooing the others up the path. The female reporter for Fox News and her cameraman followed faithfully.

Egg Cantrell was on the telephone with Dr. Deborah Deehring discussing the latest media speculations on what the government might know about the information on the Roswell saucer’s computer. He liked the sound of her voice and the speed with which her mind worked. Although he hadn’t said so to anyone and probably never would, Egg thought smart women very attractive. He was thinking about that as he listened to her talk when he glimpsed through a window Rip and Charley and a bunch of other people climbing the hill path toward the house.

“Uh-oh,” he told Deborah. “Gotta go. Looks as if the crisis has found us.” Even as the words were leaving his mouth, he saw a person at the window aiming a television camera at him. “Turn on your television. I’ll try to call you later.” He hung up.

He glanced across the hallway at the kitchen. Someone was at the window there too, with a cameraman and microphone.

Before he could sort it out, Rip and Charley came blasting into the house trailed by a small army. “Uncle Egg,” Rip began, then saw the cameras and faces in the windows.

It was Harrison Douglas who first lost his grip on the situation. He pulled his pistol from his pocket, aimed at the nearest window and pulled the trigger.

The report nearly deafened the people in the house. The window exploded outward; cameramen and reporters and sound engineers ran for their lives.

Douglas was so bucked up by the sight of people running that he pointed the pistol at another window and put a bullet through it.

“Stop!” Egg roared. He was an outraged pillar of quivering flesh, such a large amount of quivering flesh that Douglas had second thoughts about the wisdom of shooting at television people through windows. Douglas engaged the safety on his shooter and put the thing away.

“If you want to shoot at them,” Egg told Douglas, “go outside and do it.”

“Maybe later.”

Adam Solo grinned at Charley and went into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, snagged a soft drink from the interior, popped the top and took a swig.

The president was summoned from an Important Meeting by P. J. O’Reilly to watch the unfolding drama on Fox News.

“These TV people invaded the Cantrell farm, apparently, just before the drug company moguls arrived. Adam Solo was already there.”

The president watched the chaos in silence. He saw Harrison Douglas wave his pistol around, and he heard Solo tell Douglas the saucer was in orbit. Up there.

Inside the Cantrell farmhouse, Douglas and Johnny Murkowsky cornered Egg Cantrell and bombarded him with questions about an antiaging drug.

“Isn’t it true that Newton Chadwick found the formula for a Fountain of Youth drug on the Roswell saucer computer,” Douglas demanded savagely, “the same saucer that I salvaged from the Atlantic and this son of a bitch, Adam Solo, stole?”

A television camera was back at the window again, the broken one. You must have large gonads to operate one of those.

“You aren’t going to give the formula to this bastard Douglas, are you?” Murkowsky demanded of Egg. “Deprive mankind of the benefits of the most important pharmaceutical advance since the invention of antibiotics?”

“I don’t have a formula, so I can’t give it to anybody,” Egg replied, trying to keep his temper.

“What kind of man are you, to make a moral judgment that the American people — hell, everyone on earth — should be deprived of the benefits of antiaging technology?” Murkowsky was belligerent. “Tell us, how is this drug administered? A pill, a cream, an injection?”

“It’s a suppository,” Egg shot back.

“Then you admit it? The drug does exist?”

“You people get the hell out of my house! Out! Now! Rip, call the sheriff! I want all these people out of here or I will prefer charges and the whole damned lot of them can go to jail.”

“Well, that’s plain enough,” the president muttered. He liked plain talk, probably because he heard so little of it.

The television picture went blank; the network turned the show over to the hot babes in the studio. The president hit the mute button on his remote.

“What do you think?” he asked P. J. O’Reilly.

The chief of staff rubbed his hands together. “Can you imagine the political windfall that will settle on the party that can deliver a Fountain of Youth drug to the American people? Such a drug might even lead to the demise of the two-party system.”

A vision of his political enemies being swept from office passed before the president’s eyes. The moment was almost orgasmic. Then reality reared its ugly head.

“Medicare and Social Security will bankrupt the nation,” he said bitterly.

“We can raise the retirement age to a hundred,” O’Reilly shot back. “Or two hundred.”

The president regarded his chief of staff with a jaundiced eye. The man was a fool, no question, but most politicians were. The president wished he had had the good sense all those years ago to join his father in the hardware business.

When the drug czars and television people had at last disappeared up the driveway, Egg went after Adam Solo, who was still in the kitchen seated on a stool at the counter.

“Who,” he asked deliberately, “are you?”

“I’m a saucer pilot,” Solo answered.

“That phrase has a certain cachet, I must admit,” Egg acknowledged. “When did you arrive?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Solo replied, the amusement evident in his voice.

“When?” This time it was Rip who asked the question.

“Just a few minutes before I saw you in the hangar.”

“No. When did you arrive on earth? The first time.”

Solo finished his soft drink, got off the stool and took the can over to the trash bag under the sink.

When he had disposed of the can, Solo turned his back to the kitchen counter and leaned against it. Rip, Charley and Egg were giving him their full attention.

“I am marooned here on this planet, and I need your help.”

“No doubt,” Rip shot back, “but first you must answer our questions. When did you arrive here on earth?”

Solo took a very deep breath, then exhaled slowly. When the air was gone, he said, “A long time ago.”

“So where is your ship?” Charley asked.

Solo shrugged. “Destroyed, probably. One of my colleagues went mad on the voyage here. After he dropped the team, he stole our saucer and took off. We watched him until he was out of sight. I assume that he flew it into the sun. Or tried to fly home, which would have been a physical impossibility in that ship. In any event, he has been gone for a thousand years. He has never returned. I doubt if he ever will.”