Saucer: The Conquest

18

Rip leaned his head over the edge of the hole. The floor of the cavern was at least twenty feet below. Right in the middle was the beam generator. Wow, it was big.

He felt for the hand grenades. They were there. He pulled the Velcro loose that held the pocket closed and reached for one.

French exploded in his earphones. At first he thought someone below had seen him; then he realized that the people outside in space suits had probably seen Charley.

He raised his head, just in time to see the saucer settling below his horizon.

No grenade! Dropping one on the beam generator wouldn't get Egg back. Better stick with the plan.

He lowered his head, trying to see what was on the opposite side of the cavern. And did. It was rock.

More French assaulted his ears. They were certainly excited. They had to have the saucer if they ever expected to see trees and grass again in their lives. He had emphasized that point to Charley, who had merely nodded.

She had brains and guts — more than he did, he thought— so he let it go at that. She could handle it.

He backed up, stood carefully and hopped around the edge of the hole ninety degrees, then got down on his hands and knees and crawled in for another look.

This time he saw the glass panels and the control console beyond. And there was no one there!

Rip moved and took another look. Finally he was satisfied that he had seen the entire layout and the cavern and control room were indeed empty.

He went back and picked up the rifle, checking that the safety was on.

Hoo boy.

The gravity was only one-sixth as strong as earth's. Charley had told him that. So a twenty-foot fall would be equivalent to a three-and-a-half-foot drop. Heck, it'll be like jumping off a picnic table. Only he was wearing this zoot suit, and if it tore— Well, hell, nobody lives forever.

Standing erect, holding the rifle in both hands, Rip shuffled to the edge of the hole, took a deep breath and jumped.

Charley Pine brought the saucer into a hover fifty feet beyond the six people standing in front of the base air lock. She pointed the saucer right at the air lock door.

One of the figures was rotund, wearing a space suit that looked to be under severe stress around the middle. Egg! There was a person immediately beside him on the right and left. Both held what appeared to be pistols in their hands.

Charley reached up to her helmet and keyed the mike.

"Is that you, Uncle Egg?" she asked in English.

The heavyset figure reached for his helmet. "It's me, Charley."

"Ah, Mademoiselle Pine, welcome back to the moon." That was a feminine voice in French. Julie Artois.

"English, please," Charley said.

"We must talk, Ms. Pine," Julie said, shifting languages.

"You people stay right where you are. Don't move."

She looked at her watch. She wanted to give Rip at least fifteen minutes to get inside before she landed. She looked carefully around, at the parked forklift for off-loading space-planes, at the small lunar ATV, at the rocks behind, anywhere that might conceal a man. And saw no one.

Which didn't mean no one was there.

Rip fell when he hit the cavern floor. He had tried to catch himself by bending his knees, but he misjudged it and bounced in slow motion. Then he toppled sideways and was unable to right himself. He landed the second time on his shoulder, bounced again and this time used a hand to cushion the impact. He managed to hang on to the rifle. His motion was heavily restricted by the pressure the suit put on his limbs. He struggled to stand erect, then stood looking into the control room.

It was empty of people, thank heavens! Any semidanger-ous villain who witnessed his ignominious arrival would have died laughing.

The air lock to the control room was tempting, but he ignored it. He stepped over to the beam generator and inspected it carefully.

That was when he heard Charley and Egg speaking.

At least Egg wasn't dead or injured. That simplified the problem, he told himself. He wouldn't have to cram Egg into a space suit and carry him to the saucer.

Egg Cantrell thought the saucer looked ominous hovering stationary and motionless above the lava bed. The sun behind them gleamed off the dark surface and made it difficult to see through the canopy. Impossible, really.

Julie was on his right with her pistol in her hand, Fry Two on his left. These other people he didn't know. Pierre hadn't come out.

He felt terrible, hung over from the drugs they had given him to keep him sedated, and guilty because he had gotten Rip and Charley into this fix. Here they were, face-to-face with these murderous megalomaniacs.

Someone, Egg well knew, was going to die soon. He closed his eyes and prayed that it wouldn't be Charley or his nephew Rip.

"What's going on?" O'Reilly asked impatiently. He found the radio silence difficult to endure. He directed the question to the translator, a young woman from an Ivy League university who didn't look the least impressed with her august company. She was chewing gum and occasionally running her fingers through her hair. She didn't answer O'Reilly's question, merely stared blankly at him. He resumed his nervous pacing.

The president sat behind his desk with his fingers laced across his tummy and his eyes closed. He couldn't fool O'Reilly — the chief of staff had seen him like this numerous times when he was digging deep for tact or patience. One of the drawbacks to public life, in O'Reilly's opinion, was the fact that politicians spent much of their time seeking votes from the ill-informed and the uninformed. Those unable to deal gracefully with fools never got into office or were soon voted out. In fact, the president had once confided to O'Reilly that he owed his political success to his ability to spend hours surrounded by idiots without biting one. O'Reilly was made of different stuff, a fact of which he was well aware. Still…

"It would be nice to know what was going on," the chief of staff remarked to a painting on the wall.

The painting didn't answer.

Rip Cantrell examined the beam generator closely. The panels on the base of the unit fastened with wing nuts; he quickly opened them and took a look. The major components he recognized. There was no doubt that this unit had been designed based on saucer technology.

The power cables that led into the unit were as thick as Rip's wrist and were clearly marked: positive and negative. They were attached with clamps, which were held on with nuts. He tried to turn one of the nuts with his fingers. Nope.

There must be a toolbox around here somewhere!

He scanned the cavern — and saw it, placed against the wall.

He had it open in seconds. Found a wrench that looked about the right size.

His earphones were silent. Ominously silent. As Rip worked on the nuts he nervously eyed the door to the control room, another air lock door.

The job took two minutes. It was simple, really. He undid both clamps and reversed the wires, then tightened the nuts and replaced the panel.

He replaced the wrench in the toolbox, closed it and went into the air lock.

"Mademoiselle Pine, we are tired of waiting," Julie Artois said firmly.

Charley estimated that she had been in position for about ten minutes. She had the antimatter reticle squarely on Julie's chest. She was tempted. If the clown on the other side of Egg hadn't had a gun, she would have zapped Julie then and there, splattered her all over, and told Egg to run for it.

She sighed. It wasn't going to be that easy. Yet it wouldn't hurt to make them sweat. She turned the saucer ever so slightly and let the reticle rest for fifteen seconds or so on the chest of each of the people with Egg. The maneuvering of the saucer was minute, but she thought they would see it.

Finally she stopped and lowered the saucer to the ground. Dust swirled up, almost obscuring her view of the people, but not quite. She waited until it settled, then opened the hatch and dropped through. She quickly scrambled out from under the saucer, then told it to lift off. It rose twenty feet in the air and stopped there.

She turned to face the reception committee.

The air lock admitted Rip to the control room. He wasted no time examining the control console but went straight to the air lock that led into the heart of the lunar base and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him, checked the pressure gauge on the bulkhead and carefully removed his gloves and helmet. He sniffed. The air smelled fine. With the gloves dangling from his wrists by straps and the helmet under his left arm, he checked the position of the safety, then pointed the rifle in front of him and pushed the button to open the inner door of the lock.

The opening door revealed an empty corridor with gray rock walls, one brilliantly lit by ceiling lights every few yards. He could hear the faint strains of an orchestra, classical music, coming over the loudspeaker system.

Charley Pine left her rifle in the saucer. It would have detracted from the aura of confidence she was trying to project. She took a deep breath, then marched forward to the little group. She glanced back at the hovering saucer. As she thought it would, the sun glinting off the canopy prevented anyone from seeing inside.

She stopped a few feet in front of them, keyed the mike button on the side of her helmet and said in English, "I assume that none of you people are interesting in living out the remainder of your lives on this round rock pile. Correct me if I'm wrong."

Julie had no intention of letting Charley take charge of the conversation. "Permit me to clarify the situation, mademoiselle. Monsieur Cantrell is our hostage. We will kill him where he stands if you give us any trouble."

"Then you'll never leave the moon. Your choice."

"After we kill him, we will kill you."

"And Rip will splatter you all over this lava bed with the antimatter beam, then fly on home."

The other people in the group stirred uneasily, glancing at each other. The ones on the edge took a step away from the group, Charley noted with satisfaction.

"Alright, Julie," Charley continued. "Enough threats and bullshit. I have come to the moon with authorization from the president of the United States to make a deal."

When he heard that statement, P.J. O'Reilly grunted, then turned to the president. 'You didn't—"

"Sssh!" the president hissed, holding up his hand.

O'Reilly glanced at the interpreter, who was checking her nail polish and looking bored, and held his tongue.

The lights in the corridor were very bright. It took several seconds for Rip's eyes to adjust. He walked carefully down the corridor, pausing in front of each door to look into the rooms. He saw no one.

Well, where are they? It's a cinch they all aren 't standing outside.

He eased along with the weapon at the ready. The com center — there was someone in there. Seated with his back to the door.

Rip walked in, making as little noise as possible, yet making some. The man didn't turn around. He jabbed the rifle barrel in the man's back. Still he didn't turn around.

Rip moved off to the side. It was Pierre Artois — he recognized him from his pictures. The man had even been on the cover of Time a. month or so ago.

Pierre ignored Rip. He seemed… detached… disconnected somehow.

He was unarmed, apparently. No weapons that Rip could see. He left him seated there in front of the radios and television cameras.

The entrance to the mess hall was only a few steps farther along the corridor. Rip looked in the door. The place was full of bodies!

No!

The corpses lay contorted, frozen in death, under that brilliant white light. Blood was spattered everywhere; pools of it stained the floor. Amid the gore were glittering, empty brass cartridges. Rip went from body to body, looking. Not a one of them had a weapon.

At least two dozen people had been murdered here. Men and women.

Rip felt the vomit coming up his throat and managed to choke it back. He walked on, making sure that they were indeed all dead. Not that there was much he could do if he found anyone alive.

And he did. Find one alive.

Above the classical music background he heard a man groaning. He was lying behind the food service counter and wearing a white apron stained with blood. Rip bent and turned him over. The man was hugging his stomach, and blood was oozing around his fingers.

His eyes opened, focused on Rip.

"Easy there, fella. Who shot you?"

The man took a few seconds to process it. "Who you?" he asked in heavily accented English.

"Name's Rip."

"Reep?"

'Yeah. Now tell me, who shot you?"

"Salmon. Henri Salmon. He got all in here, then bang bang bang… He shot me in the stomach, and laughed."

Rip grasped the rifle and looked around the room again, checking the two open doors. "Where is he now?"

"I saw him go by… in suit. Space suit."

"He went outside?"

"Yes."

"Didn't come back in?"

"Not that I see. But I passed out. My stomach… the pain."

"There's nothing I can do for you."

The chef thought about that as he hugged his middle. He looked down at the blood.

"Bad way to die," the Frenchman said.

"Yes."

'You… have a pistol?"

"No. And I'm not going to shoot you either."

"Not for me. For him. If he comes back."

Rip looked the dying man in the eyes and made a decision. He reached into the belly pocket of his suit and pulled out a grenade. He held it so the chef could see it. 'You know what this is?"

"Oui"

'You pull the pin. It is perfectly safe as long as you hold the lever on. After you release the lever, you have eight seconds."

The man held out a bloody hand. Rip placed the grenade in it. He tried to think of something to say, couldn't, rose too fast from his kneeling position and almost fell, then hopped carefully from the room, avoiding the bodies.

"So here's the deal, Julie. A French crew will be admitted to the United States, and they will fly the space-

plane to France. It can take a fuel tank into orbit, refuel on earth, then launch for the moon. They can take you guys back to earth."

"That's it?"

'Yeah. We take Egg and leave, you get a ride home. They want you bad back there. Over two hundred people are dead in the States alone from your antigravity attacks. There are warrants in the U.S., Britain, Germany—"

"That was Pierre. He tried to minimize the loss of life."

"Good ol' Pierre, always thinking of others. I've heard that France and Germany are full of progressive thinkers who have abolished the death penalty. We're a little more backward in the States. Still, maybe the jury will give you folks life in the can instead of frying you. Get the best lawyers money can buy, cry for the cameras, and hope for the best."

"You certainly sugarcoat it, Pine."

"Or you can stay up here enjoying the scenic view until the air or food runs out, the machinery breaks down, whatever. Stay forever or wait for your ride, your choice. But Egg is going with us."

"What if we say no?"

"Then you die where you stand."

The president grinned at P.J. O'Reilly, the same grin the secretary of state found so offensive. "That woman has style! We gotta appoint her ambassador to something." "If she lives," O'Reilly said thoughtfully.

Rip Cantrell hurried through the rooms of the base looking for people while Charley laid out the options for Julie Artois. Didn't find anyone. The two grenades that remained in his pocket were on his mind. Perhaps he could booby-trap a couple pieces of equipment. Naw.

Satisfied that the dying chef and Pierre Artois were the only living folks in the base — he looked in again at Pierre to make sure he was behaving — he went to the main air lock and stepped inside.

"You don't seem to understand the situation," Julie told Charley Pine. "My friends and I are leaving in the saucer. You, your friend and Monsieur Cantrell can accompany us. But we are all leaving together."

"You don't even have a pair of deuces, lady."

Julie didn't understand the poker analogy, but she correctly surmised that Charley was commenting on the weakness of her negotiating position. "I have Monsieur Cantrell," she said confidently, "and I have you. One bullet for him, one for you. Your friend in the saucer may make it back to earth, but I promise you that you won't. Are you ready to die, Charley Pine?"

Charley glanced upward, at a spot on the rock above the air lock door. Aim and fire, she ordered.

The place that she was staring at began to sparkle and pop. Pieces of stone flew off. Some of the chips struck the man beside Egg, and he looked around.

Smoke and dust and rock fragments poured from the stone.

Ceasefire!

It took several seconds for the dust to slowly settle, revealing a hole the size of a bushel basket in the cliff.

Keeping her pistol jammed in Egg's ribs, Julie glanced over her shoulder as the last of the rock fragments fell like snowflakes around the little party.

When she turned back to Charley, the American pilot asked, "Are you ready, Julie?"

The man on the other side of Egg tossed his pistol away. It flew for ten feet, a long, lazy arc, before it hit the lunar surface and skittered along.

"Waiting for the spaceplane sounds like a good deal to me," he said on his helmet radio.

Julie stiffened. She looked around once, then looked at the saucer, the nose of which was tilted down and seemed to be pointing directly at her. 'You win," she said, and dropped her pistol. It fell at her feet.

"Come on, Uncle Egg."

He walked forward toward Charley. She hooked her arm in his and walked toward the saucer. It descended slowly until the landing gear touched the ground. The hatch under it was still hanging open. Charley glanced back to ensure the Frenchmen hadn't moved, then bent to go under the saucer to the hatch. That's when she saw a space-suited figure with an assault rifle leveled at her approaching from behind the saucer. Where has he been hiding?

"Not so fast, Charley Pine," Julie said gleefully. "Stop right where you are or Henri Salmon will shoot you dead."

Charley glanced over her shoulder. Neither Julie nor her pals had yet retrieved their pistols.

She shoved Egg forward into the dirt and dove down herself. At the same instant the rocket engines of the saucer spurted out a blast of flame, several seconds' worth.

The saucer hopped forward a few feet. One of the landing gear pads struck Egg a glancing blow on the arm, but fortunately he rolled away from it and it didn't crush him.

Charley Pine lifted her eyes, looking for the man. He was flying above the surface away from the saucer, tumbling end over end, being carried along by the hot exhaust gases. He didn't have his rifle.

Charley scrambled up, dragging Egg. She grabbed an arm and jerked him off the surface, half lifted him into the yawning hole in the saucer's belly. He began scrambling too, and she pushed against his leg. He tumbled in and she leaped upward with so much vigor she struck the ceiling of the craft and almost fell back through the hatch opening. As she reached for the hatch a bullet spanged off it, making a spark. She grabbed the handle and pulled it closed.

Whew!

Charley Pine stood and looked through the canopy. The little knot of world conquerers in front of the air lock were milling around, collecting their guns, touching helmets together and probably asking each other, What now?

She climbed into the pilot's seat. Lifted the saucer a few feet and aimed the reticle at Julie.

"Where are you, Rip?"

"In the lock."

"Come on out."

Julie Artois heard the transmission, of course, and spun around. She was facing the lock as it opened. Rip stepped out with his rifle leveled and moved slightly to his left to go around the group.

"Drop the pistols!" Charley ordered over the helmet radio.

Julie turned her head to look at the saucer, then turned back to face Rip. She lifted the pistol ever so slightly, aiming, probably.

Fire!

The antimatter particles caught her in the right side. Most of them passed harmlessly through her suit and her body and exited out the other side, where they penetrated the cliff and annihilated themselves in the rock. One of them didn't, however. It exploded an atom in her lung. The pain was intense and sudden. She released the pistol as a second antipositron met its opposite number in her liver.

Ceasefire!

Julie staggered. Blood flowed from her nostrils in a stream. She tried breathing though her mouth, and with every breath she gushed blood. Suddenly she was too weak to stand. She slowly toppled over.

Charley set the saucer down and rushed to the hatch. When it opened, Rip came scrambling in. He slammed the hatch shut and latched it, slapped her on the arm and whacked his helmet into hers. "You did great. Let's repres-surize and get the hell outta Dodge."

"What about the antigravity beam generator?"

"I took care of it. Everyone in there is dead except for Pierre." He didn't take the time to tell her about the chef. "Salmon shot them all."

Charley climbed into the pilot's seat and began the pres-surization process. The people milling around outside couldn't hurt them now. One of them was bent over, looking into Julie's faceplate.

Still, Charley had had enough of this place. She lifted the saucer on the antigravity rings, turned it and began moving across the lava plain to the southeast.

"What's happening?" RJ. O'Reilly roared at the speakerphone. The president, the translator and O'Reilly were staring at it. The president was holding on to the desk so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.

"There was some kind of shootout," the president muttered.

"God in heaven," O'Reilly said, and mopped his brow with his handkerchief.

When the radio remained silent, he pleaded at it, "Tell us something, please!"

Henri Salmon came running in huge leaping bounds toward the open air lock. He didn't even glance at Julie Artois, who was still lying on the lunar surface, unable to breathe, drowning in her own blood. He was the first into the air lock, and the others crowded in right behind him.

When the pressure was safe inside the lock, he jerked off his helmet and glared at the others. "Fools. Idiots! Our only hope of getting off this damn rock alive was that saucer, and you let it get away!"

"We still have the antigravity generator," Claudine Corbet said calmly. "We can force the Americans to send the space-plane back. Or the saucer. We aren't beaten yet."

As the air lock door opened into the interior of the base, Salmon nodded, staring at her. "You are right. First, however, I suggest we destroy the saucer. We must prove to those people we mean business or they will ignore us."

Claudine grasped at this straw. She didn't want to spend any more time on the moon than necessary, yet she certainly didn't want to die here. She rushed off along the corridor toward the cavern while she unfastened her helmet and pulled it off.

Salmon was right behind her. They charged into the control cavern, fired off the reactor and computers and were soon charging the antigravity capacitor. While the charge was coming up they heard the rumble of the saucer's rocket engines — except they didn't really hear it, since there was no air; what they heard and felt was the concussion of the rocket exhaust traveling through the rocks.

"The saucer will rise toward the earth," Salmon said. "We'll pick it up on the telescope and fire the antigravity beam at it. That will ruin their day. We can't let the Americans win a triumph."

An hour passed before they caught the glint of the sun reflecting off the saucer. The engines were secured, and it was coasting toward earth with sufficient velocity to escape the moon's gravitational field.

Holding it in the telescope was tricky. The telescope's drive mechanism wasn't designed to track a moving target, so the controls had to be adjusted manually. Courbet lost the saucer several times before she figured out the proper rate of traverse.

At her nod, Salmon fired the beam generator.

Since Rip had reversed the power cables, the generator no longer pushed against the moon; it repelled it. The generator shot away from the floor of the cavern, accelerating on its way into space. When it had risen to the length of the power cables, they tore out of their clamps, killing the power to the generator. Still, the velocity the unit had already attained was enough to carry it several hundred feet above the surface of the moon before it coasted to a stop and began to fall. When it arrived back in the cavern thirty seconds later it smashed itself to pieces on the floor. Flying metal cracked and crazed the bulletproof glass window, but didn't break it.

An amazed Henri Salmon and Claudine Courbet watched the entire debacle, including the crash at the end.

"Mon Dieu.^r she whispered. "We are dead."

With shoulders sagging, she turned and walked slowly through the open air lock.

Henri Salmon kicked at the console in frustration. He shouted, he raged, but it did no good.

Finally, when the bitterness had ebbed to the point that he could again think, he sat on the stool in front of the controller trying to think of a way to save this situation. There was none. After an hour or so, even he had to admit it. He wandered through the open air lock doors into the interior of the base.

He looked into the com center at Pierre, who hadn't moved from his chair.

The bastard isn 't worth killing, Henri thought. The damned fool sitting here out of his mind, his bitch wife outside in the dirt, everyone inside dead or going to die, all of this madness to the strains of classical music. Henri Salmon tried to laugh, but it rang hollow and died in his throat.

Out in the corridor he met a figure fully clad in a space suit, walking toward the air lock. Claudine Courbet.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

She ignored him, went to the main air lock and opened the inner door. It closed behind her. Salmon shrugged.

Two of the people who had been with him outside scampered from the mess hall when he went in. He glanced at the bodies as he walked toward the refrigerators — and felt nothing. Not remorse, not sorrow, not anything.

Salmon was looking into a refrigerator when he heard something solid hit the door. He half closed the door and scanned the floor.

A grenade! It had no pin, no safety lever. He glanced up. The chef was lying there looking at him, his face and stomach a bloody mess.

Then the grenade exploded.

Courbet found Julie Artois lying where she had last seen her. Her helmet faceplate was covered with blood. She didn't seem to be breathing.

Claudine looked around, at the stark lunar mountains, the setting sun, the rubble of the radio tower, the earth hanging above her in the sky like a giant half-moon. Even at this distance she could see the riot of colors in the area still lit by the sun.

She lowered her gaze to the ground before her and began walking southeast, out into the vast lava sea that stretched away to the horizon.

Ten hours later the last three people alive who had been outside with Julie Artois walked by the com center.

Pierre was still there, rocking slowly back and forth, muttering to himself. Dressed only in their base jumpsuits, they opened the inner air lock door and stepped inside. When the green light came on that showed that the door seals were properly inflated, one of them reached up and pushed the button that would evacuate the air from the chamber.