argued. 'The Air Force has been investigating sightings for fifty years and has come up with exactly nothing.'
'They found what they were ordered to find, buster,' Charley Pine growled and flipped the channel again.
More talking heads, offering opinions about what this 'rash' of saucer sightings might mean. One woman was plainly nervous. 'Aliens' might already be here, she explained.
Another scoffed, insisted that what was being reported were top-secret Air Force test vehicles. 'The government never tells us the truth,' she said. '
Charley flipped off the television finally and laid her head back on the pillow. She was tired but not yet sleepy. What had she gotten herself into? Would the Air Force demand that Lockheed Martin fire her? For flying the saucer? For not calling to tell them where she was? Would the publicity ultimately make it impossible for her to get a test- flying job anywhere?
She thought about Rip, who was down at the hangar with his Uncle Egg, two boys playing with a new and exotic toy. Rip hadn't a clue about the extent of the stir the saucer had caused… would cause.
Perhaps Rip was taking all this the right way. He didn't really care what other people thought. He didn't care about the talking heads on television or their carefully crafted opinions. Nor did he care a fig about the Air Force.
How did Australians get involved?
Maybe she should take a tip from Rip, ignore all of this.
She unfolded the diner place mat and read her notes.
The saucer flew very, very well across an amazing variety of flight regimes. That had been no accident, she well knew. The designers of that ship knew precisely what they were doing.
Staring at the notes, Charley Pine could once again feel the ship in her hands, feel the rudder pedals under her feet, feel the power of the rocket engines. She looked out the window with blind eyes, thinking about how it had been. With a blanket wrapped around her, she went looking for paper. In Egg's little office she found a notebook.
Back in bed she wrote quickly, with a sense of deep purpose, trying to capture all of it. Never in her life would she get another chance to fly such a unique machine. No two ways about that!
Finally her eyelids became heavy. She lay back on the pillow and slept.
'Oh, wow, Rip! This thing is something else!' Egg Cantrell marveled at the extraordinary engineering manifest in the saucer, the way things fit together, the tidy, neat solutions to problems.
Egg was wedged into the engineering spaces. When they had first come aboard, Rip had pulled the power knob out to the first notch, firing off the reactor. Amid the computer displays and cabin lights, Egg stood in awe. Rip secured the reactor before the men entered the engineering compartment.
Now, wedged between machines, Egg tapped on the walls, looked at each component, examining everything with his flashlight. He did so with a sense of curiosity and wonder.
'You say you put some muddy water in this thing?' Egg asked after a bit.
'Yeah. It was all we had.'
'Gotta be mud in this separator. Gotta be. Go get my little toolbox on my workbench, please.'
Rip did as requested.
Egg soon found that the wrenches didn't quite fit. Neither metric nor American wrenches worked. Worried that he might ruin a nut or two, he had to use adjustable wrenches and pliers.
'It's good to see you again, Rip. Missed you this summer.'
'Yeah,' said Rip. 'This old farm… ' Rip had been spending his summers with his Uncle Egg since he was twelve. Ever since his father died. 'The desert was a new adventure,' he told his uncle now as a partial apology.
'A man needs new adventures,' Egg admitted as he worked on the separator. 'Yes he does. Expands his horizons, lets him learn new things. I still missed you.'
Rip didn't reply, and Egg didn't expect him to. He knew Rip pretty well.
'What's the story on the woman?' 'No story. She was the test pilot the Air Force UFO team brought to the desert to look at this thing. She's a civilian, got off active duty two weeks ago. She crawled into the saucer when I was getting ready to fly outta there. People were shooting; I couldn't leave her.' 'Lucky for you she happened by.' 'I could fly this thing, Uncle Egg. Honest.' 'Be sorta messy if you happened to be wrong.' 'Flying's an instinct thing.' 'We have birds in our family tree?' 'I flew your Aeronca. Remember? You taught me how to fly. This saucer is sorta like the Aeronca, I think. Course it's a little faster and has some other complications, but I could figure it out. It'd come to me.'
Egg changed the subject. 'When I got out of bed this morning I never expected anything like this. A flying saucer! What a day this is! And the gal is something else. Everyone needs a nephew like you, Rip, who just might drop by. Every morning for a lot of years I'll wonder if you're coming by today.'
'Well, owning this saucer, I just might.' A warm glow suffused Rip as he contemplated the prospect of flying around the country in his own saucer, able to go when and where he chose, anywhere he chose… He rubbed the metal of the bulkhead beside him.
When he realized Egg was looking at him, Rip grinned.
'Come any time,' Egg said. 'And bring the woman. I like her.'
Rip flipped a hand. 'Charley will be gone soon. She isn't a girlfriend or anything like that, Egg.'
Egg got back to the separator. 'She sure looks healthy,' he said. 'Brainy, cute… '
'She's pushing thirty. She's too old for me.'
'She's not too old; you're too young.'
'Yeah. I really missed you this summer, Egg. All the romantic advice and opinions and trips to town for pizza.'
'How's your mom?'
'Oh, so-so, I guess. Haven't had a letter in a while. Maybe I ought to call her while I'm here.'
'Maybe you should.'
Egg finished taking the separator apart. He had a knack for things mechanical.
There was mud in the separator all right. 'There should be a plastic bag and some paper towels on the workbench.'
When they had the separator as clean as they could get it, Egg muttered, 'Didn't anybody on this planet make this thing.'
'You sure about that?'
'Yeah. I've never seen anything like it, and I keep up with all the latest. This thing is built with technology that's so damn up-to-date it hasn't been invented yet.'
'Who built the saucer, Egg?'
'People! Obviously. Take a look. This thing is sized for people our size, maybe a few inches smaller. Look at this twist grip I'm holding.' Rip eased into position to see. 'See this? It's designed to be twisted with a human hand. I'd bet money on it.'
'Tell you what, Egg. You get that separator back together and let me turn on the garden hose, fill this thing with water. We may have to get out of here in a hurry, if Charley is right.'
'I sorta think she is, Rip-boy. This is some piece of machinery — the Air Force is gonna be looking hard for it.' 'It's mine, Egg. Not theirs.'
'You told me that before. Go hook up the hose and turn on the water.'
When Rip got back, Egg was examining the computer that the Australian mechanic had partially disassembled. 'You didn't do this, did you?' Egg grunted. 'Heck no.'
Egg looked it over. After a few seconds, he whipped out a magnifying glass. 'I think I can get it back together,' he said after a bit. 'The fool was trying to get to the chip, but he didn't know what it looked like. This whole case is the chip.' He picked up the three pieces that formed the case. They were dangling, held only by some wires. 'That's the chip?'
'Yeah. Probably has billions and billions of transistors. If they are transistors, which I doubt.' Egg scrutinized the inside surface of the case with the glass.
'Are they even talking about stuff like this at your school?' Egg wanted to know. 'Uh-huh.'
