Saucer: The Conquest

5

Charley walked to the control console and examined the presentations. Computer screens, track balls for maneuvering cursors, LED readouts, a few analog gauges for voltages…

What is the purpose of this room? What is that large piece of equipment under the plastic cover? Claudine knows, and she expects me to know. An optical telescope, a reactor to generate large amounts of electricity, a giant capacitor, and … ? Is this an observatory? Or a weapons platform in high earth orbit?

"How long will it take to get the system operational?" Charley asked Claudine, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as possible.

"A week or so, I imagine. If we don't have any unforeseen problems."

"Aren't there always unforeseen problems?" Charley turned so that she could see Courbet's face.

"Let's hope not. We tested the entire system extensively in the laboratory, worked out the bugs, then brought the components here one by one. The testing phase took three months." Claudine smiled confidently. "It'll function properly."

Looking through the glass, Charley carefully examined the metal plates and hydraulic rams that formed the ceiling above the machinery. Then she glanced again at the space suits arranged on hangers against one wall. When the roof opened, this window would be the pressure barrier — hence the space suits. If the glass cracked or air leaked past it, the people in this compartment would need space suits to survive. The air lock in the passageway was designed to prevent a sudden depressurization of the entire lunar base.

Claudine bit her lip, then went over to supervise the technicians unpacking the reactor, which was easy to manhandle in the weak lunar gravity.

A laser? Could it be?

Charley tried desperately to remember everything she knew about lasers. The light beams were most effective at short distances. They were degraded by moisture in the atmosphere. Firing a beam through a cloud was impractical. The earth, at which this device seemed to be aimed, was swaddled in a heavy atmosphere laden with moisture; clouds obscured huge portions of the earth on a regular basis.

Claudine was glancing at her from time to time. Charley studied the control console, looking for any clue. And failed to find any.

The pressure door to the equipment bay was standing open, so she went through it, out under the dome.

The telescope was mounted on a conventional stand. The larger device was mounted on a massive support structure that sat atop a round titanium base at least twelve feet in diameter, which looked as if it could support a tremendous weight. But why? Even if the device were made of pure steel, it couldn't weigh over a few hundred pounds here on the moon.

Obviously the engineer who designed it thought it would thrust downward against the lunar rock, and the base was designed to transfer the load, much like a bridge support.

A gun? To shoot a projectile at targets on earth?

She glanced around, looking for anything that might be ammo for such a gun — and saw Courbet walking toward her. The technicians who had unloaded the reactor were leaving. They disappeared through the air lock, taking the dolly with them.

"Is this base really strong enough?" Charley asked.

Faced with a technical question, Claudine found her confidence. "Oh, yes. Actually it is twice as strong as it needs to be. And the base is twice as large — the underlying rock may have a hidden fault."

"Of course," Charley said carelessly. Then it hit her. For every reaction there is an equal but opposite reaction. This thing was going to push hard against the rock that supported it. If it wasn't a gun, it was something that affected the lunar gravitational field.

She reached for the plastic cover, which was merely draped over the device, and jerked it off. A system of gears sat above the base, apparently to aim the device. Above the gears were metal rings arranged around a cone, the largest at the base and the smallest at the tip. Heavy cables led to them.

It was an antigravity beam generator!

Egg Cantrell had publicized the antigravity technology from the saucer just two months ago, with misgivings. The weapons potential of the technology was obvious. Egg knew that every advance in human knowledge could be misused, yet he believed the possible benefits outweighed the risk. Risk-benefit decisions are part of life; they have been routinely made by man ever since cavemen weighed the benefits of eating cooked meat against the risk of getting burned.

Were French scientists this far ahead of everyone else?

"Where did this technology come from?" Charley barked at the French engineer. "Where did you people get it?"

A look of surprise froze Claudine's face. 'You… you…" she stammered, "you didn't know! You're not authorized to be in here."

"Has the French government gone off its nut?"

Fear registered on Claudine's face.

"So you're going to plug in the reactor, charge the capacitor, roll back the roof and zap the evil bastards for the greater glory of France."

"Nations are obsolete," Claudine explained with all the fervor of a true believer. "Pierre is going to combine the nations of the world into one kingdom. He is going to end war, starvation, epidemics, hatred and fear. He is going to feed the hungry, heal the sick, lead the peoples of the world into a glorious future."

"By threatening to kill them with that?" Charley gestured toward the beam generator.

"Few revolutions are bloodless. The greater good will require some sacrifices."

Charley Pine whistled silently, then said, "If he could manage to raise a few people from the dead, he could get himself elected messiah."

"I'm going to get Monsieur Artois," Claudine cried, then whirled and started for the door. She didn't get far. Charley grabbed her arm and jerked. As Claudine spun back around, Charley flattened her with a right to the chin.

And felt ashamed of herself. Violence is so tacky.

Claudine did a slow, languid backflip and slid to a stop in a crumpled heap. Her pulse was steady, and all her head bones seemed intact. Charley decided Claudine was just out cold.

Pierre was going to be peeved when Claudine recovered enough to give him the bad news. Any way you cut it, Charley had worn out her welcome on the moon.

She took a last long look at the beam generator and waiting power cables. "Been nice knowing you, lady," Charley said to the comatose Claudine. "See you around."

Then she strode out, trying not to bounce off the ceiling in her haste, went through the open air lock to the personnel door and opened it a crack. No one was in the hallway. She made sure the door latched behind her.

She found Joe Bob Hooker sitting by himself in the cafeteria nursing a cup of coffee. Florentin and two technicians were eating breakfast three tables away. Florentin saw Charley and nodded. She smiled at him, then dropped into a seat beside Hooker.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Huh-uh. You?"

"Nope."

"How's the Java?"

"Strong enough to stick a fork in. The frogs can't make decent coffee. Here or in Paris."

"How about showing me how to hit a golf ball?"

"Outside?"

"Yep."

He was surprised. "Now?"

"Why not? You got something better to do?"

"In this hole in the ground? You gotta be kiddin'!"

"Well, let's go." She stood.

He eyed her. "Okay. I'll swing by my room and get my sticks. Got about a dozen balls left." He dumped the coffee in the food bin to be recycled, left the cup in the dirty dishes rack and followed her out into the corridor.

In a few minutes he joined her in the locker room. As they suited up, he said, "You ever play golf?"

"Never had time."

"Worst game known to man. Gotta do it in Dallas with the bankers and dealership managers, you know. Need to know who's who; which ones are screwing me and which ones want to. I watch 'em play for three hours and I get a pretty good idea what's in their heads."

"That the way you run your business? Figure out who's honest and who isn't?"

"That's the only way."

When they were completely suited up, they checked each other's suit, made sure the oxygen systems were charged and functioning properly, then headed for the air lock. Joe Bob carried the clubs. In the air lock both of them dropped their sun visors.

The instant the air lock opened, Charley checked the spaceplane. Jeanne d'Arc was standing on her tail with the sun gleaming on her. The gantry was still in place.

Joe Bob showed her how to hit a ball. Although their helmets contained radios, they talked back and forth by touching their helmets, freeing up their hands. Natural movement was impossible in a space suit. Still, with practice, one could approach some degree of dexterity.

Hooker was critiquing Charley's swing ten minutes later when the gantry elevator came down with a container on it. One man rode it down. The other operated the lift from the ground.

Once the elevator was down, the man on the ground crossed the surface to a modified forklift. Together he and the other man drove it toward the air lock.

The instant the door closed, Charley put her helmet against Hooker's and said, "Come with me. Into the space-plane."

She didn't wait for his response. He might have thought she wanted to fool around — she didn't care.

They rode the gantry elevator up to the open cargo bay. It was empty. That container the men had just off-loaded was the last one, Charley thought. She lowered the elevator to the personnel air lock. The door stood open.

She banged her helmet against Hooker's. "Get in," she said. "Go up to the cockpit and strap yourself into the copilot's seat. Don't use the radios."

"Want to tell me what's going on?"

"You and I are outta here."

He looked around, then looked into her visor, trying to see her face. She saw his shoulders rise in a shrug. He gave her a thumbs-up and walked into the lock.

Down she went on the elevator as the air lock door closed.

The gantry was battery operated, of course. There were feet to stabilize it, and they were extended. She retracted them, put the transmission in reverse and released the parking brake. Nothing happened.

She looked around for another control. There was a pedal on the floor. She pushed on it with a foot. The gantry began creeping away from Jeanne d'Arc.

She had to get it far enough away that it could not fall against the tail fins when hit by rocket exhaust. She jammed the pedal in as far as it would go, and the speed did not increase. This was all there was.

She had no idea how long Claudine Courbet was going to stay unconscious. She was sure, however, she didn't want to be on the moon when Pierre Artois and his disciple, Henri Salmon, found out that she knew about the reactor and anti-gravity beam generator. She was very certain of that.

Finally the gantry seemed far enough away from the ship. The thing stopped when she stepped off the pedal.

Charley bounded toward the ship, stopped under it and looked up at the open cargo bay. She was going to have to leap up to it. If she blew this and tore her space suit, she was dead.

She coiled herself and leaped. She soared up at least ten feet but was a foot or more short of grasping the lower lip with her hands — then fell slowly back to the lunar surface. She cushioned her fall with her legs, and bounced.

Okay, she needed a running start.

Thank God she had played basketball in high school and at the academy.

As she went away from the ship, she saw the base air lock door opening. Two men came running out. They must have seen her on the television monitors moving the gantry.

One, two, three mighty leaps toward the gleaming white ship, then she launched herself upward. This time she grasped the edge of the bay.

Dangling there with her weight on her hands took little effort. She summoned her strength, then pulled hard. Up she went into the bay.

The lights in the cargo bay were lit. The ship's batteries were still supplying power to essential systems.

Once inside she went immediately to the door controls. Silently, majestically, the doors moved. The electro-hydraulic servos could move them in earth's gravity, so they had no trouble here. The doors snapped shut with authority. She inspected them to ensure the latches had engaged. Yes. She pushed the toggle to pressurize the cargo bay and waited. The gauge on the wall began to register air pressure.

She watched it until it equalized with the normal pressure inside the ship, then turned and climbed to the pressure door. It was difficult to open. She pried with all her strength on the bar. It refused to yield.

Godzilla must have cranked this puppy shut.

Urgency washed over her. The adrenaline magnified her strength. With one mighty heave the door opened and swung inward with a bang.

Too much pressure in the bay. That was the trouble.

She closed the door behind her and, using the bulkhead handholds, hurriedly climbed up the corridor to the cockpit.

Hooker was strapped into the copilot's seat, just as she had requested. She glanced outside as she unfastened the latches on her helmet and removed it. The two men who had rushed outside were standing there looking up.

She could hear their voices coming over the radio, which was set to the base circuit. They were talking to Artois.

Hooker already had his helmet off.

"Want to tell me what's going on?"

"I'm leaving. Might be quite a while before another ship shows up. Didn't want to leave you stranded."

"That's mighty sweet of you. Only had a dozen balls left, and I can't stand French television. Want to tell me why the rush?"

"Later."

'You've seen one lunar base, you've seen them all," he said philosophically.

"Maybe you can get a partial refund on your money."

Charley dropped into the pilot's seat and brought up more power. She began running through the lunar launch checklist on the small computer as Artois squawked on the radio. Systems looked okay — no time to run the built-in tests—

Charley flipped the switch to turn on the intercom and donned the headset.

"II anyone is aboard this ship, better sing out."

There was no reply.

She began selecting options on the main flight computer. Fortunately it knew the exact Greenwich time, where the spaceship was on the moon, the location of the earth— directly overhead — and the location of the guide stars. It took three minutes for the star finders to lock on and the flight computer to recommend a trajectory that would take them toward earth.

Joe Bob watched in silence.

"Pierre's getting pissed," he said, jerking his thumb at the lunar base.

"Everyone has those days."

She began working through the start checklist. Electrical power on, power levels set, fuel, temps at the fuel controllers, pressures in the fuel tanks — everything was within normal limits.

She reached behind her and pulled out the circuit breaker for the radio telemetry data. Screw Mission Control.

"Mademoiselle Pine," Artois pleaded on the radio. "What are you doing? Please talk to me."

She motioned for Joe Bob to put on the copilot headset.

"We're leaving, Pierre," she said in English. "You better tell these two dudes standing out here to take cover or they're going to get fried."

Thirty seconds of silence passed while she checked systems; then the two men outside turned and began clumsily running toward the air lock.

"If you fly that ship without authorization, it will be theft," Artois said. 'You will jeopardize the lives of everyone at this base. I will have no choice but to report this mutiny."

"Do what you gotta do."

"Will you tell me why?" Artois was persistent, you had to admit.

She was ready to start engines. She checked that the power level was set at the recommended value, fifty percent. That should be sufficient. All that remained was pushing the ignition button.

"I had a little chat with Claudine Courbet," she said.

Silence.

"She showed me your antigravity beam generator, Pierre.

Either you have been lying to the French government, or they have been lying to everyone." "Mademoiselle—"

"Ruler of the universe. Should I call you Your Majesty? Or perhaps Your Supreme Gloriousness? Better get that figured out. Pick something that sounds really cool in French. Claudine is a couple of cards short of a full deck, but you're one crazy son of a bitch, Pierre."

Hooker touched her arm to get her attention. He pointed toward the door lock. The door was almost fully open. The forklift came buzzing out, accelerating, heading straight toward the spaceplane. The two empty spears were at the top of their rails. She could see the helmeted figure hunched over the controls.

"That fool may try to ram us, damage the ship." Charley didn't wait. She reclined her seat and punched the ignition button.

Hooker hurriedly reclined his as the rockets ignited. From the corner of her eye Charley saw a blast of dust. The Gs hit her in the back.

Charley Pine made one last radio transmission. "Adios—" Over the intercom, she asked Hooker, "What's Spanish for 'asshole'?"

Hooker barely got his words out against the accelerating G. "Grinqo, I think."