Saucer: Savage Planet

by Stephen Coonts

  The president scowled. “If we can keep the people in the Washington area and out in Peoria calmed down, that will be a feat. What on earth could I possibly say that will oil the waters in Paris and Rome and Beijing?”

  Petty Officer Hennessey cleared his throat. The president looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “Perhaps, sir, you could say that you are actually looking forward to the aliens’ visit. That you plan to bring your granddaughter along. I’ll bet she’d get a real charge out of meeting the alien captain.”

  The president’s first reaction was that his daughter would never, ever let her daughter within ten miles of an alien. Then again, maybe she could be finagled. His daughter was a nervous Nellie, but his granddaughter, Amanda, who just had her tenth birthday, certainly wasn’t. Heck, she had even ridden with him in a saucer flown by Charley Pine six weeks or so ago, when Charley and Rip were preparing to zip off to the moon to fight it out with the Frenchies and save the world. He would ask Amanda and let her handle her mother. Yeah.

  “That,” he told Petty Officer Hennessey, “is a darn good idea. When we get back upstairs, I’ll call Amanda to see if she is up for the adventure.” He skewered O’Reilly with his eyes. “Wish we had some other folks around here doing some serious thinking.”

  That comment merely bounced off O’Reilly. He had spent too many years with the president to let the old fart’s jibes bother him. “About the saucer just now reentering the atmosphere after launching from Australia … perhaps an announcement by the press secretary? He’s feeling a bit left out of the excitement.”

  “No announcement. Tell that moron if he opens his mouth I’ll throttle him. Tell Space Command to keep the lid on too.”

  People nowadays get too much information, the president told himself, and they don’t know what to do with it. He often found himself in precisely that situation.

  Just for the heck of it, he flipped a television to CNBC, the business channel. Another rough day on Wall Street. Would the impending alien visit be good or bad for business? Apparently the day traders, speculators, mutual fund managers and mom-and-pop investors couldn’t decide, so the market was going up and down like a pump handle. The richest old crock in America, multibillionaire publicity hound Warren Buffett, gave a two-minute interview. He was buying on the dips, he said. “The world is not coming to an end. People will still need food, clothes, housing and wheels. Plus cell phones, liquor, diapers, pills and all the rest of it.”

  The president glanced at Hennessey, who met his gaze and nodded. Yep, more common sense.

  Reassured, the president began to feel better. His stomach stopped aching, at least for a moment.

  “Mr. President,” P. J. O’Reilly said, in his take-charge persona, “I want to have the photographer take some shots of you at your desk in the Oval Office looking pensive and serious. Somber, but in charge. Thinking deep, complex thoughts, conscious of your moral responsibility for the fate of the world, which you are holding in your two mortal hands. Maybe we could get a couple of shots of you actually looking at your hands. I’ll release the photos immediately. The world will see that you are on the job, managing the alien crisis, like JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

  The president’s eyes rolled back into his head. He fought to refocus on his chief of staff, who looked particularly loathsome today. Perhaps he could offer him to the aliens as a protein snack.

  “Okay. Hennessey, come with me. O’Reilly, have someone bring us dinner.”

  14

  After they refueled from Lake Powell, Charley Pine flew the saucer south through the deepening canyon of the Colorado River. It was a night full of stars, with the moon still down, so she hoped that no one along the canyon would see the black saucer ghosting along at about a hundred knots low above the river. She could see on the computer screen the canyon walls rising vertically on both sides above her vision, so she felt as if she were a little girl tiptoeing along a hallway.

  She was perhaps thirty miles below the Glen Canyon Dam when she hit some power lines stretched across the river. She had about a second’s warning—they appeared as thin filaments across her screen—then she hit them. The saucer slipped between them effortlessly, forcing one line over the top and one underneath. A power surge shot through the saucer, and the instrument panel went black.

  Charley Pine felt the adrenaline surge through her veins. The Roswell saucer crashed during a lightning storm. Then the computer screens came back to life and all again appeared normal. To her infinite relief, she saw that she was still in the center of the canyon, still level, still in control … Am I in control?

  She flicked the stick automatically. The saucer responded, like an obedient dog. Five degrees left wing down, now five right, now level again.

  “That was exciting,” Rip said. He was standing beside her.

  “That was a lummer,” she told him nervously. “A shot of cold urine to the heart.”

  “You live for those.”

  “Right. How is Solo?”

  I am okay, Charley. Now I need to explain what to do. There is a beach on the north side of the river, perhaps a hundred miles ahead. It is not sand, but erosional debris that washed down a canyon and accumulated for perhaps ten million years. The river won’t move it for a long time. We will land there, get out of the saucer, and get on top of it.

  “On top?”

  On top.

  On they flew, deeper and deeper into the Grand Canyon, with Charley keeping the saucer about a hundred feet above the ribbon of water that stretched like a crooked road on the computer screen before her.

  About an hour later she found the ledge. It slanted toward the river but looked okay. She gingerly lowered the legs of the saucer and set it down.

  We will need all our supplies. We can remain here until they come.

  They.

  Until they come.

  Charley Pine felt a shiver run down her spine.

  Rip opened the hatch and began shoving sleeping bags and sacks through the opening. Egg helped Adam Solo walk over to the hole, sit on the edge and ease himself through; then Rip assisted him out from under the saucer.

  “Next time, tell them to put the hatch on top,” Rip told Solo.

  “The belly was the cheapest spot.”

  When he had Solo out of earshot of Egg and Charley, he asked, “So how are you really doing?”

  “I’m dying, I think. Bleeding internally. My body isn’t repairing itself quickly enough.”

  Rip took that comment in silence.

  “Don’t tell the others,” Solo said. “They have enough to worry about.”

  “And I don’t? But I think they already know.”

  “Perhaps,” Solo admitted. “When we have our gear unloaded and the hatch closed, have Charley lift the saucer and raise the gear, then lower the ship onto its belly so that we can climb on top. The place we want is a cliff dwelling in the side of a cliff about five hundred feet below the South Rim, about two miles west of here.”

  “And when we’re there?”

  “Program the saucer to go into a polar orbit that will bring it back over us on every pass.”

  There were many things Rip wanted to ask Solo, who was the most unique human he had ever met. Twelve hundred, thirteen hundred years on earth, a youth from a planet in another star system, crossing the interstellar vastness … and yet Rip didn’t want to ask. Perhaps, as Solo remarked once in passing, he had lived too long, experienced too much, left too many loved ones behind.

  As Rip watched the saucer descend onto its belly, held level by Charley, he helped Solo climb onto its dry, slick surface. He thought about the past, not about the immediate future.

  Charley, on the other hand, was thinking hard about the task before her. Flying the saucer with its antigravity rings up the cliffs, finding the place Solo wanted in the starlight, keeping everyone from falling off the rounded top of the ship. My God, if they fell off …

  Solo sensed her concern. If we fall, we fall.


  She heard his voice in her head and sensed the wisdom, even if she didn’t like the message. Keeping this flying plate level was going to take all the flying skills she possessed. Sure, the computer would help, but she had to tell the computer what to do. If she screwed this up … well, the fall wouldn’t take so long. Then she and Rip and Egg and Solo would begin the next adventure, whatever that would be.

  That’s right.

  Your mind reading is very tiresome, she thought.

  There was no reply.

  * * *

  Egg Cantrell was the most frightened. He glued himself to the saucer—he had Solo sprawled flat right on the crest—and held on for dear life. His rounded middle seemed to push him away from the saucer, making him feel like a basketball that was balanced just so and could at the slightest nudge begin to roll.

  Charley sensed his fear. She was in front of him, sitting up, where she could see. “We’ll be okay, Uncle Egg. Hang on to Solo.”

  “I can’t hang on to anybody,” Egg informed her, trying to keep his voice calm. Even as he said the words, he felt the saucer lift off. Something like an elevator, yet smooth and effortless. He closed his eyes and tried to get a grip with his hands and feet, even though there was nothing but the glass-smooth surface of the saucer to hold on to.

  “If it was raining, we’d be in big trouble,” Rip remarked. He was the eternal optimist, Egg thought, with the confidence of youth. Yeah, things could always be worse. That’s one of life’s profound lessons.

  Egg could feel the cold air flowing over him. Charley was moving the saucer forward, but climbing. He could feel the saucer pressing against his body, lifting, rising, higher and higher. He risked a look around. The cliffs were visible in the starlight, which made the snow on the canyon rims glow. He couldn’t see much detail. He could see that the saucer was moving, however, and the aspect of the cliffs was changing. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to fight the cold.

  The flight seemed to take hours. Charley kept the speed under control. Once the saucer flew over a ledge of a cliff—the sides of the canyon rose like a giant’s stairsteps—and the thing began to tilt. Egg felt the panic rising in his throat. He clung to the ship, which somehow came back level.

  Well done, Charley. It was that damn Solo. The guy had steel balls. Egg pressed a cheek against the saucer’s skin and kept his eyes shut.

  After a while Solo gave Charley directions. Left some. Higher. Along that ledge.

  “Use your flashlight, Rip,” Charley ordered.

  “Maybe the saucer’s landing light would be better.”

  “Too bright. No use advertising. Just the flashlight.”

  Finally Egg felt the saucer stop. A total lack of motion. Or so it seemed. He opened his eyes and looked in the direction his head was pointing. He was looking along the upper edge of the Grand Canyon. A sliver of moon was up now, and the entire sweep of the great tear in the earth was spread before him. Yet the saucer was stationary, solid as one of the canyon’s cliffs. He raised his head.

  Ahead of the saucer was a ledge below the rim of a mesa. Upon it he could just make out what appeared to be a stone wall, built by human hands. With windows. Charley was standing, and so was Rip. They picked up Solo, one on each arm, and led him down toward the front of the machine. Then they stepped across the narrow gap onto the ledge.

  Rip hopped back onto the saucer and began off-loading gear. He passed items to Charley, one by one, and she tossed them back away from the edge. A bag of food, sleeping bags, a few other odds and ends.

  This took several minutes, with Rip skipping around fearlessly while Egg held tight to the ship.

  “Come on, Uncle,” he said at last, standing on the apex of the saucer with his hand out. “It’s time to get off.”

  Egg was frozen with fear. His muscles refused to work. Yet Rip’s outstretched hand was irresistible. He forced his cold muscles to obey. He tried to rise, stretched out his hand and slipped.

  He felt himself sliding down the slope of the saucer toward the edge. He grabbed with both hands and kept sliding.

  As Egg slid along, Rip ran after him. Egg went over the edge and Rip was right behind him, launching himself at his uncle.

  Fly the saucer, Charley.

  Falling into the dark abyss, Egg Cantrell felt his nephew Rip grab his hands. In a way, it was comforting. He knew then that they would die together.

  Standing on the edge of the ledge, Charley Pine told the saucer what to do. Her commands reversed the antigravity field. Instead of repelling the earth, now it attracted it. It didn’t fall; it accelerated downward faster than the falling men. Three hundred feet below them, it arrested its fall at Charley’s command and slid under them, still going downward.

  Egg and Rip landed on the top. Rip had both of Egg’s hands in his. The impact knocked the wind from both of them. The saucer slowed and stopped. The Gs mashed the two men into the surface of the ship, imprisoning them like bugs against a windshield. Then the saucer began to rise.

  “Hold on, Uncle!”

  “Holy pickles, Rip. I—my God, I thought we were dead!”

  The saucer lifted them back to the ledge. Charley ran across and helped Rip drag Egg to the ledge and push him across.

  Egg fell heavily to the ledge and held the rock with both hands. He was spent.

  Nicely done, Ms. Pine.

  Rip gathered Charley into his arms and kissed her.

  * * *

  Johnny Murkowsky was trying to seduce the flight attendant, a tall, leggy brunette with come-hither eyes and a nice figure, when he got the call from his Space Command spy on his satellite phone. The Boeing 747 was somewhere over the vast Pacific eastbound.

  “The saucer came down and went into Lake Powell,” Johnny Murk’s spy reported. “The FAA’s radars reported that it then crossed over Glen Canyon Dam and headed down the Colorado River, apparently. Best guess is it’s somewhere in the Grand Canyon.”

  “Has the White House been notified?” Johnny Murk queried.

  “Sure. But there is a starship coming in from deep space. It’ll be here in a couple of days, and the head dogs are all worked up about that. They don’t give a hoot about the saucer.”

  “Keep me advised.”

  “Listen, Mr. Murkowsky. Just telling you all this could cost me my job. I want a job after I retire, and I want your promise.”

  “You got it. If I get to that saucer before the damned Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. If I don’t…”

  “Did anybody ever tell you you’re an asshole?”

  “Three or four people a day. And they are right. But, asshole or not, I pay my debts. Now if you want that job, keep telling me what is going down. I want to know where that saucer is every damn minute. Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  The connection broke.

  Johnny Murk and Harrison Douglas put their heads together; then Murk went forward and told the chief pilot to land at Grand Canyon Airport, on the South Rim. The captain protested. He had enough fuel to get there, just, if the winds held, but there were customs and immigration laws and all that. Johnny Murk made some large monetary promises. Those didn’t impress the pilots, who had licenses to worry about.

  Johnny Murk whipped out his checkbook and wrote checks for a million dollars each for every person in the crew, all five. The pilots examined their checks, looked at each other, folded the checks and pocketed them, then reprogrammed their flight computers and pushed the appropriate buttons. Grand Canyon Airport, here we come!

  Johnny Murk went back to the flight attendant. He was desperate, and she loved her million-dollar check. Lust and money had cemented many a romance since the earth began to spin. She poured two glasses of champagne, opened a can of caviar and got out some gourmet crackers. She and Johnny snuggled up on a couch in the First Class lounge.

  * * *

  The president’s granddaughter, Amanda, answered the telephone when the president called. “Oh, Grandpa,” she burbled, “is it true? Aliens are coming
to the White House?”

  “Appears so, kiddo. I was wondering if you’d like to be here, go out with me to meet them? Kinda say hi and inspect their spaceship and see what’s what and stuff?”

  “Holy Bananas! Of course! I was about to call you. Mom is being such a drag, but I know you can persuade her. Is Charley Pine going to be there? When I grow up, I’m going to be just like her. She is so wonderful, so true blue, so real. So everything!”

  “Well, I don’t know about Charley Pine. Haven’t heard from her in a while.” The president fervently wished he had his hands around Charley’s throat right then, but he had the tact not to say that to Amanda. “Never can tell,” he added.

  “Will they have their kids with them?”

  “Well, heck, I don’t know. We’ll have to meet them and see.”

  “Oh, golly, you are the world’s greatest grandpa. I’ll put Mom on.”

  So he had to talk to his daughter after all. She had informed him after the last election that she voted for the other guy. Every politician should have a daughter like this, he thought gloomily.

  “Do you think it’s safe?” she asked. “Aliens?”

  “Of course it’s safe! I wouldn’t be inviting Amanda if there were the slightest iota of danger. After all, Amanda flew with me in a saucer just last month.”

  “Well…” One thing about his daughter, she was easily persuaded. Which was probably why she voted for that other bastard.

  “I’m going to be right there holding her hand. She’ll love it! It’ll be historic as hell. She’ll be in every history book written for the next thousand years. People will name their kids after her.”

  “Well…”

  He could hear Amanda, demanding to go. She was wailing, “Oooh, Mommmm…”

  His daughter caved.

  “I’ll send a helicopter. Have her pack her nightie and toothbrush.”

  He hung up, then called O’Reilly and told him to send a helo after Amanda. And to have the press mouthpiece announce that the president and First Granddaughter Amanda would greet the aliens when they arrived.