kept the door cracked while he did his business, watched the two Aussies with guns across their laps sitting outside the tent. They weren't looking in this direction.
When he got his pants up, Rip eased the door open and slipped away into the darkness.
He made his way to the Jeep. The glove compartment contained a roll of duct tape, which Rip pocketed.
Two five-gallon plastic cans full of water were attached to the rear of the Jeep. Out here in this desert, water was life. Rip checked these cans every day, and both Dutch and Bill did too.
He unfastened them both, lifted them down into the sand. They weighed about forty pounds apiece.
After a last check around, he hefted both cans, one in each hand, and set off in the direction of the saucer, which was still illuminated by two spotlights. The other spotlights, at least six, had been turned off.
Rip could hear Sharkey's two experts talking inside the saucer. He made sure the water cans were out of sight, then stuck his head up into the thing. The two Aussie technicians had a battery-operated lantern going and were disassembling one of the computer displays. Maybe the whole computer.
'Hey,' Rip said.
'Yeah,' one of the men said, not looking around.
'Sharkey said to tell you guys to go get some dinner.'
'He did?' Now the man looked around.
'Yep.'
One of the men straightened up. 'I could use something to eat. Come on, Harry.'
'I'm not hungry,' Harry said. 'You go. Bring me back a bite.'
'Okay, mate.'
As the first man climbed down off the ledge, Rip crawled up into the ship. Harry didn't turn around.
'What are you working on?'
'A computer. Really extraordinary. Never saw anything like it.'
'Did you guys take anything else apart?'
'Not yet.' Harry sat back on his heels. 'We really should disassemble that electrolysis unit.' He pointed with a thumb. 'I think that thing separates water into hydrogen and oxygen. Ol man Hedrick could make a mint with a thing like that, believe me, mate. Put every oil company on earth out of business. The possibilities are mind- blowing. still, he said to examine the computers first.'
Hedrick could only be Australian billionaire Roger Hedrick, the second richest man on earth. 'Hedrick's rich enough, don't you think?' Rip asked lightly. 'He's worth what? Fifty billion?'
'More like eighty,' Harry replied. 'He owns half of Australia now. But a man can never be too rich. At least Hedrick doesn't think so.'
Rip tapped Harry on the shoulder. As he turned his head, Rip delivered a haymaker on the point of his chin. Harry went down hard.
Rip got busy with the duct tape. By the time he had Harry's mouth, hands, and ankles taped, the man was moaning. At least he wasn't dead.
'Sorry, buddy,' Rip told the half-conscious man and grabbed his ankles. He pulled the man over to the hatch and dropped him through it. There was a satellite phone on the floor near where Harry had been working, and Rip pitched that through the hatch too, along with Harry's tool kit.
He didn't have much time. He pulled the man as far from the ship as he could, hoisted him, and set him up on the ledge. That would have to do.
Working fast, he opened the fueling hatch between the exhaust nozzles and got the lid off the first water can. He lifted it into position and poured.
He was halfway through the first can when a voice behind him said, 'You didn't kill that man, did you?'
It was Charley Pine.
'What are you doing here?'
'I wondered where you went when you didn't come back.'
'Anyone see you leave?'
'I don't think so. Now tell me, how bad did you hurt that man?'
'Just slugged him with my fist, taped his mouth shut. He'll be okay.'
'What is that you're putting in there?'
'Water.'
'After one hundred and forty thousand years? Rip, don't be silly.'
'We'll find out in about three minutes.'
'Are you kidding me?'
The words were just out of her mouth when two helicopters sporting floodlights flew over. Low.
'Now what?' Rip demanded.
He could see two more choppers settling onto the sand near Sharkey's two machines.
'Pine, are these more Air Force?'
'I don't think so.'
Someone in the door of the chopper just landing started shooting. Muzzle flashes.
One of the choppers overhead came into a hover and someone spoke over a loud-hailer. In Arabic.
'Uh-oh,' Rip said through clenched teeth. He finished the first can of water and reached for the second.
The floodlight hit the tarp over the saucer.
'Get down quick,' he shouted at Charley. 'Get in the saucer.'
She leaped off the ledge, crawled under the saucer toward the hatch.
'Raise your hands. Drop your weapons. Surrender and you will not be harmed.' The voice over the loud-hailer was using English now.
'In the name of the Islamic Republic of Libya, surrender or be shot down.'
'Boy, it's in the fan now,' Rip muttered to himself as the water gurgled out of the second can. The can was still draining. It seemed to take forever.
'Come on, come on… '
Then the can went dry. He made sure the saucer's refueling cap was firmly in place. Ingenious how they did that.
He tossed both cans into the ship, then crawled in himself and pulled the hatch shut behind him.
Charley Pine was standing beside the pilot's seat on a step that jutted out from the pedestal, trying to see out the canopy.
'One of us is going to have to fly this thing,' Rip said. 'I flew my Uncle's Aeronca Champ three or four times. I'll give it a go if you want to wait to read the manual.'
She got into the pilot's seat, reached for the seat belt and fastened it.
'That was the easy part,' she said. 'Got any bright ideas on how to get this thing started?'
'As a matter of fact… ' Rip muttered and reached across for the power knob. He pulled it all the way out. The instrument lights illuminated, the dials and gauges came alive, the computer screens came on, and from the equipment bay behind them they heard a welcome hum.
'My God!' The exclamation just popped out of Charley Pine. 'I thought you were kidding.'
'This is the third time I've fired it off. The other night I had it running for over an hour while the other guys were asleep.'
She merely stared, her mouth agape.
'The neat thing is the computers,' Rip told her with a grin. 'Everything's done symbolically. I'm not sure I understand all the symbols yet, but I think I can figure them out in flight.'
She turned to examine his face. 'Who
'Name's Rip Cantrell, lady. Now, can you fly this thing or can't you?'
She looked at the panel and controls, trying to take it all in. 'This lever here,' Rip reached and touched, 'has got to be the control stick. I think this will fly like a helicopter. You see the pedals? They function like a rudder, I think, activating the maneuvering jets.'
'You've flown a helicopter?'
'I rode in one. Watched the pilots fly it.' He grinned at her to allay her fears. He was feeling none too confident himself, but he didn't want her to know that.
'That thing in your left hand is the collective, which controls the antigravity field, I think. If you'll lift it the
