so clearly that he was tempted to try to reach out and touch. The pathway was long and narrow, ribbon like, resting almost on the treetops. It ran for several hundred miles southwest, almost into Kansas, before it curled up away from the earth, high into the atmosphere.
Now Charley lifted the collective with her left hand, fed in gentle forward stick with her right. The saucer rose a few feet above the ground and drifted forward out of the hangar.
'You want me to close the door or — ' Rip began, but the saucer didn't stop. She was following that thin pathway up to the treetops and then with the contours of the land southwestward. The rocket engines remained silent. That, Rip reflected, had been the plan. Get well away from the farm before using the rockets, which could be heard for miles. The rain and clouds of this warm front should prevent most people from actually seeing the saucer.
Rip looked at Egg. 'Maybe we oughta sit down and strap in,' Rip said as the saucer accelerated to perhaps a hundred knots using only the antigravity rings.
When he was strapped in, Rip looked up at Charley. She had her hands in her lap and was intently watching the computer screen. The saucer dipped and danced as it followed the contours of the land.
She must have figured out the autopilot, Rip thought, then realized that the computer
A light spot remained on the bulkhead where he and Egg had removed the maintenance computer. The faint outline of it was just visible if you knew what you were looking for. He hadn't told Charley about that machine, and he felt vaguely guilty now. The truth of the matter was that he didn't trust her completely. She was Air Force, she might leave him stranded God knows where, she might steal the saucer…
Man, she could fly this thing; you had to admit that.
She could fly like a bird. Or an angel.
Rip was half asleep an hour later when he felt the rocket engines ignite. The G pressed gently at him, perhaps a quarter G of acceleration. Charley must be following that pathway into the sky. Egg was standing up there beside her, taking it all in.
Rip smiled and fell asleep listening to the moan of the rockets.
'Rip, wake up!'
Charley was calling his name, over and over. He unfastened his seat belt and pulled himself up by her chair.
She had the engines running at a low-power setting. The saucer seemed to be in level flight.
'We're about twenty-five miles high, I think,' she said and pointed behind them.
Rip looked. He could see something. Red and white lights very close together, coming closer. At this altitude? It couldn't be a plane. Or could it?
'What is it?'
'A hypersonic aircraft. Air Force.'
'A what?'
'A hypersonic spy plane. It's the replacement for the SR-71. Cruises at Mach five at these altitudes.'
The spy plane was closing quickly.
'Does he see us on radar?' Egg asked. He too was hanging onto the pilot's seat, looking aft.
'He must,' Charley said. 'Hang on.' She heeled the ship over in a turn, began pulling back stick, added a bit of juice to the rocket motors. The G shoved all of them toward the floor. Egg grabbed onto the pilot's seat and held on with all his strength.
The hypersonic aircraft tried to turn with the saucer but couldn't.
'How fast are we going?' Egg asked plaintively.
'About Mach five.'
'I never even heard of a hypersonic airplane,' Rip told her.
'It's highly classified.'
'So now you've got to kill us?'
'Don't tempt me, Rip.' Charley tightened the turn and twisted the throttle to the stop. The saucer leaped forward, the G increasing ferociously. Egg lost his grip and tumbled aft.
In seconds the lights of the spy plane faded behind them. After a minute or two Charley killed the rocket motors and let the nose drop toward thicker air.
The lower atmosphere was clear and the bright moon seemed to wash out the stars. All of Denver and the front range of the Rockies were spread beneath them as the saucer came thundering down from altitude. The visibility was unlimited, in excess of a hundred miles, so the lights of Colorado Springs, Denver, Boulder, Loveland, even Fort Collins, glittered in the darkness like jewels. The peaks of the Rockies formed a jagged backdrop to the scene. Some of the peaks still sported a bit of snow, which appeared luminescent in the moon's dim light.
'We're about fifty miles out,' Charley murmured. I'll have to make some turns to bleed off some of this airspeed.'
Uncle Egg muttered something that Rip didn't catch. He had managed to get his bulk erect and now was holding on tightly.
'What was that spy plane doing up there, anyway?' Rip asked Charley.
'Looking for us.'
'Well, now he's got something to tell the folks at Area Fifty-one, huh.'
'Yep.'
'Anything else you want to tell me about?' Rip demanded.
'What are you talking about?'
'I'm talking about spy planes looking for us, spy planes that you seem to know all about.'
'Oh, shut up,' Charley said.
'So what are we? Criminals?'
'They think so. Of course they are looking. They want this saucer.'
Rip wanted to enjoy this moment, not think about the future. Charley kept pushing the outside world at him, and he resented it.
'So what do you want to do, Rip?' Charley asked, nodding toward the city dead ahead. It was then that Rip realized that the saucer was on autopilot: Charley had her hands near the controls, not on them.
'I dunno exactly. Get down low, get ourselves seen, then boogie. What do you think?'
'As long as we stay away from the airport, I don't care.'
'Let's not cause any heart attacks,' Egg admonished.
'Oh, we won't,' Rip assured him. 'No one will feel threatened. This is just good clean fun.'
'Is that all the saucer is to you, Rip?' Charley Pine asked. 'Good clean fun?'
'It's not like we're married or something, Charley. I'm not even sure I like you that much.'
'Just asked,' Charley said, never taking her eyes off the scene before her. The pathway on the computer screen was a ribbon stretching forward and downward, leading her in.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Colorado Rockies were tied, 2–2, in the bottom of the eleventh inning at Coors Field on that pleasant August evening. Roughly thirty thousand people remained in the stands watching a Coors Field rarity, a pitching duel.
Wally Greenberg was in the upper deck behind third base with his wife and two teenage sons. The boys were tired and bored and whispering dirty comments to each other about a voluptuous girl three rows down and ten seats left. His wife had been ready to leave for three innings, but Wally wanted to see the 'whole game.' He didn't get to come see the Rockies very often — the family couldn't afford it — and he wanted his money's worth. He cuffed the boys, growled at them, and tried to ignore his wife's resigned torpor.
For some reason he looked away from the batter toward the Scoreboard behind center field. That was when he saw the saucer, a lenticular shape just a bit lighter than the dark beyond the bank of field lights. It was above the lights, moving slowly into view.
At first he thought it was a balloon, some kind of promotion. Probably the Elway dealerships, which were advertising heavily.
Then Wally realized the moving shape wasn't a balloon.
