there, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, some of indeterminate race. All of them were listening intently to Professor Soldi.
'Civilizations don't just happen,' the professor explained. 'Hunter-gathering Stone Age societies are at one end of the continuum, we are somewhere closer to the other end. Each technological level, if you will, above Stone Age hunter gatherers requires a different level of social organization to support it. Increased specialization is the rule. The industrial age required millions of workers and consumers. The postindustrial age required even more specialization, a larger base of workers and consumers. We are now moving into the era of the global economy, in which the brains, talents, and skills of workers all over the planet will be melded together in gigantic enterprises to create further technical progress. Our destination is the technological future that created the saucer.'
'I think I understand,' the interviewer prompted.
'The properties of the technological continuum that we have just talked about are rigid; in effect, they are laws. Since each level of technological achievement requires more and more people, more and more social organization, it follows that without the specialized people, the technological level cannot be sustained.'
'Keep going,' the interviewer said.
'A society that can build a device like the saucer, put it in an interplanetary spaceship, and cross the vastness of interstellar space will not be able to replicate that society anywhere else
'You are saying that if the saucer brought colonists, they became hunter-gatherers to survive.'
'Precisely,' said Professor Soldi. 'Spaceships, computers, tools, weapons, lasers, advanced medical devices, books, learning — they lost everything. There weren't enough people to maintain or manufacture any of that. The abandoned saucer was finally covered with sand by the wind. The people lived in caves and learned to make tools with stone and ate their meat raw. The past was passed on as legends and myths. Eventually over the generations the legends and myths became unrecognizable, completely divorced from historical fact. The past was lost, just as the saucer had been.'
'So… the people who flew the saucer are… us?'
'I think the evidence of the saucer will ultimately prove that is the case.'
Nine FBI agents, seven men and two women, were waiting for Egg Cantrell when he drove into his driveway. They had driven there in three cars. Egg got out of his pickup and demanded of the closest agent, 'Did you pick the lock on my gate?'
'Uh, the gate was open, sir, when we arrived. I never saw a lock. We just drove on in.'
'Right! Well, what do you want?'
'We need to have a talk, Mr. Cantrell. We want to know what went on here today.'
Egg looked them over and came to a fast decision. If he told them what he knew, they would eventually leave. If he didn't, he was probably going to find himself held in protective custody until he did talk.
'Why don't you people come on inside. I'll make a pot of coffee.'
It was after midnight when the agents left. Egg went out on the porch and watched all nine agents get into the cars and drive away. The insects were chirping and fog drifted through the trees. A sliver of gauzy moon was just visible through the luminous fog.
When he could no longer hear the car engines, Egg went down the hill to the hangar and used his key on the padlock. Inside, he turned on the lights. An hour ago he had brought the agents here and they had casually inspected the place. The senior man asked for permission to search, which Egg had refused.
Now he went to a large, dusty cabinet sitting far back in one corner. The cabinet had wooden doors on the lower portion, glass doors on the upper. It had once graced a hardware store in a small town fifty miles from here. Egg bought it at auction when the hardware store went out of business after the Wal-Mart opened. Progress.
Egg opened the lower right door and removed several antique metal signs. Behind the signs was a padded laptop computer case. He took it out of the cabinet, replaced the signs, then carried the computer case out into the light. He laid it carefully on the floor and unzipped it.
The computer from the saucer was unharmed, exactly as he left it. Egg Cantrell zipped up the computer case, turned off the hangar lights, and locked the door behind him.
Chapter Thirteen
Charley Pine didn't get much sleep her first night in Australia. She didn't really expect to: she had been changing time zones so often that she felt tense and tired all the time. She took a long, hot shower, used the toilet articles the room contained, and tried to rest.
When sleep refused to come, she took a book from the bookshelf in her room while she waited for the world to turn. She sat with the book open on her lap, to no avail; her mind refused to release its grip on the present.
She had flown the saucer for Hedrick because she believed his threats. Standing in Egg's house, watching Hedrick as Rigby worked on Rip, she believed him capable of murder to get what he wanted.
However, if an opportunity presented itself, she intended to get in the saucer and fly away, leaving Hedrick and his thugs as a problem to be solved at another time and place. Of course, Hedrick would not knowingly give her an opportunity. Perhaps she could create one…
Slowly, slowly the night ebbed and the sky grew light in the east. Finally the sun crept over the earth's rim.
She was standing at the window, fully dressed, when a knock came at the door. She opened it to find Rigby there. He was a few inches over six feet, with wide shoulders and narrow hips and weight lifter's veins in his forearms. 'He wants to see you.' She closed the door behind her on the way out and walked ahead of Rigby. Instinctively she knew he wasn't ' the type ever to let anyone get behind him.
He followed her to an elevator, which lifted them to the top floor of the house, the fourth.
Hedrick's office was a large room, with huge windows on every wall. The windows were French doors, which opened onto a deck built above the roof of the rest of the house. The design reminded Charley of a New England widow's walk, only the room and deck were huge.
Roger Hedrick was seated behind his desk. He didn't rise. She sat in one of the chairs facing the desk.
'I'll see you at breakfast, Rigby,' Hedrick said, and Rigby left via the stairs, which were beside the elevator.
Hedrick had a presence. He seemed to electrify the air. Charley thought she could feel the tiny hairs on her arms prickle.
'As I told you yesterday,' Hedrick said conversationally, ' 'I will pay you for every day of your time, whether you fly or not.'
'If you pay me it won't be kidnapping, is that it?'
He seemed to be measuring her, sizing her up. Charley Pine wondered what he was thinking.
Now he said simply, 'I don't care how you label your situation, Ms. Pine. I am simply trying to make these few days as pleasant for you as possible. I want your cooperation, and I intend to have it.'
He seemed to be looking through her eyes into her soul.
'You will fly the saucer when I ask, where I ask, to demonstrate it for some people I have invited to see it. If you refuse, if you act like anything other than a loyal employee, I will apply pressure to your family in America. We can arrange for telephone calls from your mother or father while someone breaks their fingers, their arms, their legs, their backs… whatever you like, Ms. Pine. Whatever you want.'
'You're
'Perhaps you would like to listen while your sister is raped.'
'Sick scum,' she hissed and involuntarily lowered her gaze from his eyes.
