“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 spaceplane.”
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 antigravity 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.
“If 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. “Gringo, I think.”
6
PIERRE ARTOIS AND HENRI SALMON FOUND CLAUDINE Courbet stretched out on the floor beside the beam generator. A half-full bottle of water sat on top of the control console. Artois squirted some in Claudine’s face. Her eyes opened.
Salmon lifted Claudine to a sitting position. Artois squatted and examined the engineer’s face. Her jaw was severely swollen. He was still looking her over when his wife, Julie Artois, came in.
She knelt beside Pierre, who tersely filled her in on the situation.
“What did you tell Pine?” she snarled at Claudine.
Courbet’s eyes swam. Julie Artois slapped her. That focused her eyes.
“What did you tell Pine?” she repeated.
Claudine took a few seconds to collect herself before she spoke. “She knew about the reactor. Came in here to see what it was going to be used for.”
“How did she get in?”
“Followed the men who wheeled the reactor in on a dolly, I suppose. I thought she knew. I thought she was one of us.”
“You were told that she wasn’t.”
“But she was here, and she knew so much.” Claudine really believed this.
“You know my rules.”
“She jerked the covering off the beam generator,” Claudine explained. “Recognized it for what it was.”
Pierre rose and walked around aimlessly.
“Hiring her was really stupid,” Claudine continued. She struggled to her feet. Once erect, she glared at Julie. “She flew in a saucer, knows what’s in the computers. And she can add two and two. Of all the pilots on the planet you people could have hired—”
“Enough!” Julie commanded with a chopping gesture. “What’s done is done. How long before you can get the generator operational?”
“We’ll have to hook up the reactor and test the system. Can’t run it to full power without serious testing, not unless you want this cave to glow in the dark for the next ten thousand years.”
“How long?”
“A week. Perhaps a day or two less.”
“You have three days,” Julie said, staring at Claudine. “And if you don’t make it work, I have people who can. We’ll put you in the air lock without a space suit and watch you die. Do you understand?”
Claudine Courbet appealed to Pierre, who turned his face away. She turned back to Julie. “You are really sick, madame.”
“The future of mankind is at stake,” Julie Artois said. “I’m not going to let you or anyone else stand in our way.”
Julie looked at Salmon. “Have someone with her every moment. Don’t leave her alone,” she said coldly.
Then she walked out. Pierre followed.
They went to their private suite and made sure the door was locked behind them before they spoke.
“Years of work, a decade of planning, billions of euros invested, the future of mankind at stake, and one foolish woman allows another to sabotage everything!” Pierre stormed.
His wife took a deep breath, closed her eyes momentarily, then opened them again.
Pierre rubbed his eyes, tried to steady his breathing.
Illogical, stupid, venal, selfish people he understood. He had certainly met enough of them through the years. Those people he could handle. On the other hand, the Charlotte Pines of the world were a different breed.
He had counted on the spaceplane, which was a guaranteed ride back to earth when the time came. Without it, he and everyone else on this rock were marooned until another spaceplane made the trip.
“Can we force the French to send a spaceplane?” he asked Julie.
“Nothing important has changed,” his wife said curtly. “Key people in the government are with us, as they have always been. Under our leadership France will assume its rightful place in the world. Our friends want us to succeed—they will bring Europe with them. France, Europe and the world. The glory of France will shine as it never has before.”
The pitch and timbre of her voice rose as she spoke, mesmerizing Pierre. She had always had the ability to show him the grandeur that lay just beyond the shadows. He believed, and he knew others would too.
Still … “What of the British, the Americans?” he asked now.
“Their day is done. The world will speak French. If they refuse to see reason, we will bring them to their knees.” She made a fist. “And destroy them.”
AFTER ROCKET ENGINE SHUTDOWN, WHEN THE THREE flight computers all agreed that the spaceplane was established on course to an earth orbit rendezvous with the refueling tank, Charley checked the ship’s habitability systems one more time, leaned back and sighed.
Without the background chatter from Mission Control and people in the ship talking on the intercom, the cockpit was unusually quiet. The only sounds that could be heard were ship’s noises, the hum of air circulation fans and an occasional thumping from a pump that kicked in for a few seconds.
She yawned. “What say we see if there’s anything aboard this garbage scow to eat, then grab a few winks.”
“Maybe you had better tell me why we did an unscheduled boogie without people or cargo,” Joe Bob Hooker said. “Sorta curious, I guess.”
“Over food. I haven’t eaten”—she looked at her watch—“in fifteen hours.”
She unstrapped and headed for the locker where the space suits were kept. After she had properly stored hers, she went to the kitchen, where she found Joe Bob floating around.
“There isn’t much,” he said. “Gonna lose a few pounds on this flying fat farm.”
He extracted some tubes of pureed goo from a refrigerator and tried to read the French labels aloud. “What’s cheval?”
“Horse, I think.”
“I forgot that we’re dealing with gourmets. Here’s something green.”
“I’ll take it. Nuke it to warm it up.”
“This red stuff looks good to me. I’m a real sucker for red goo; can’t get enough of it.”
There was wine. With a squeeze bottle of vino each and their goo, they headed back for the flight deck.
The earth was visible through the windscreen, off to the right. They were on course for the point in space where the planet would be in three days. Behind the left wing, a sliver of the su
nlit surface of the moon was visible. On the right, the surface of the moon was still in shadow, a dark presence.
As they squeezed and squirted, Charley told Joe Bob about finding the reactor on the outbound voyage, her inspection of the observatory and her conversation with Claudine Courbet.
When she ran down, Joe Bob said, “Pierre Artois, ruler of the universe. Not very catchy.”
“Yeah. He’s not a corporal with a cool name, like Hitler.”
“I see your point. So what do you want to do?”
“I’m inclined to do nothing for a while. We have about seventy hours before we rendezvous with the fuel tank.”
“Is the French government behind Artois?”
“Beats me. The politicians put up a huge chunk of the cost of the lunar project. Either he’s betraying them or he’s acting on their behalf. But that’s neither here nor there. I get on the radio with this tale and no one will believe me. You can bet Pierre is telling as big a lie as he thinks he can get away with right now.”
“We could listen in. Don’t the radios pick up the base frequencies?”
“We could listen,” she acknowledged. “But I don’t want to. He’ll think I’m listening and threaten me. I don’t need the aggravation. I want to sleep and think.”
“So what happens when he starts firing this antigravity beam at the earth?”
“Assuming the reactor generates sufficient power, the polarity of the earth’s gravitational field will be reversed in the area of the beam, so objects on the surface will be repelled by the planet.”
“You mean … ?”
“Stuff will fly off into space,” Charley Pine said, and squirted the last of her wine into her mouth. “Buildings, ships, people, cities, everything.”
“You can bet someone will launch a rocket with a nuclear warhead at the moon. Squash the lunar base.”
“Not if Pierre zaps the rocket before it’s ready to fly.”
Joe Bob thought that over before he said, “Do you really think he’d kill people?”
“I think Pierre Artois is a Looney Tune. If Henri Salmon and Claudine Courbet are fair samples, he has surrounded himself with people just as crazy as he is. There is no way to predict what crazy people will do.”
Saucer: The Conquest Page 9
