spotlight. Each of the men joined him there, looking at the seat and controls, the blank dark panels. The cockpit looked like nothing they had ever seen, and yet it was familiar in a way that was hard to describe.
'It's human-size,' Rip remarked.
'Isn't that extraordinary?' Soldi muttered.
Most of the afternoon Soldi spent sitting in the shade tapping on his computer, with long pauses to stare at the ship.
They had found no blemish on the upper skin of the ship and no way in. The skin was seamless.
'The hatch must be underneath,' Rip told Dutch and kept working with the jackhammer. He seemed almost immune to the heat and dust.
Twice the jackhammer slipped when Rip was working close to the ship's skin. The hard steel bit whacked the ship several smart raps. Soldi examined the spots with his magnifying glass and said nothing.
Finally, with the evening sun fully illuminating the ship, Soldi shot two more rolls of 35mm film.
The rock under the ship was difficult to remove. After it was broken up, the shards and remnants had to be shoveled away.
Just before dusk, they managed to clear the first landing gear. It was a simple skid protruding from the bottom of the saucer, held down by what appeared to be a hydraulic ram.
'No wheels,' Soldi muttered and resumed chewing on his lower lip.
'It must land vertically,' Rip Cantrell said.
'So it would seem,'
'That means it must have some other mode of thrust besides the rocket engines to hold it up.'
'One would think so, yes.'
'What kind of thrust?'
'I dig up ancient villages,' Soldi said irritably. 'How would I know?'
'Well, Professor, I never saw an airplane like this. No, sir-ree. Did you?'
Soldi pointed at the stone. 'Hammer some more rock out. There's another fifteen minutes of daylight left.'
Just before he quit for the evening, Rip uncovered the first landing light. The material that covered it seemed as hard and impervious as the canopy. Still, through the covering he could see the bulb of a powerful spotlight.
That night they ate dinner sitting on folding camp stools in the circle of light cast by a propane lantern mounted on a pole. 'We have a supply plane from Cairo scheduled in tomorrow afternoon,' the professor told his hosts. The transport landed on unprepared flat, sandy places as if they were a huge paved airfield.
'It would be best if the crew of the plane didn't see the saucer,' Dutch Haagen remarked.
'I think that's wise,' the professor said. 'We have several large tents at my dig. I suggest that after dinner we drive over and get one. We can erect it over the saucer tomorrow morning.'
'Okay,' Dutch agreed. 'And I was thinking that perhaps we should move our camp closer to the saucer.'
They talked about the day's events, about what the ship looked like. They were winding down, watching Rip eat the last of the cooked vegetables as they sipped their coffee, when Rip asked, 'What have we really got here, Doc? Give us your off-the-record opinion.'
Soldi puffed on his pipe as he scrutinized each face. 'It's very, very old. Ancient man didn't make it. That much I am reasonably sure of.'
'Is it a spaceship?' Dutch asked.
'You see, that's the danger of loose language. The thing may fly, probably does — the shape is a symmetrical, saucer-shaped lifting body — but whether it is capable of flying above the atmosphere… ' He shrugged. 'Later, if we can get inside, we'll get a better idea.'
'So who brought it here?'
Soldi puffed slowly on his pipe and said nothing.
'Why did they leave it?'
'I have seen no exterior damage.'
'Where are the people who flew it?'
'People?'
'Whatever.'
Soldi waggled a finger. 'The answers to those questions, if we can find answers, are going to rock civilization.' He nodded in the direction of the saucer, several miles away in the night. 'That thing is going to revolutionize the way we think about the universe, about ourselves. We must be very careful about the words we use because they have enormous implications.' He smoked some more, then repeated the phrase, 'Enormous implications.'
Bill Taggart ran his fingers through his hair. 'Maybe we should have left it in the rock.'
Rip Cantrell looked up at the sea of stars almost within arm's reach. 'We couldn't, Bill,' he said softly. 'We had to dig it out because it's our nature to wonder, to explore.'
'Maybe that's why
Soldi, Rip, and Dutch were deep in a discussion of the physics of atmospheric entry when Bill Taggart wandered off into the darkness. When he was well away from the light of the camp lanterns, he walked quickly to the supply tent. By the light of a pencil-thin flash, he found the satellite telephone. He opened the dish antenna and turned the thing on.
Bill removed a small book from his hip pocket and consulted it by the light of the pencil flash. He dialed in the frequency he wanted, picked up the telephone like handset, and waited for the phone to lock onto the satellite.
He punched a long series of numbers into the keyboard, waited some more. He looked again at the numbers. That country code, that was Australia, wasn't it?
He heard the number ringing. A sleepy voice answered.
'This is Bill Taggart. Is Neville there?'
'Neville who?'
'Just Neville.'
I'll see. Say your name again, mate.'
'Bill Taggart.'
'Wait.'
Time passed. A minute, then two. Taggart glanced through the tent flap at the three figures sitting in the light near the camp stove. They hadn't moved.
Finally the voice came back on. 'Neville isn't here. Why don't you tell me what you want, mate.'
'I met Neville about eighteen months ago. In Singapore. He mentioned that he would be interested in buying certain kinds of information.'
'That Neville… ' the male voice said noncommittally.
'I have some information to sell. It's very valuable.'
'All information has value. The question is, is it valuable to us? We will discuss price with you after we have evaluated what you have. Sorry about that, but it's the only way we can do business. You have to trust us.'
'How do I know you will play fair?'
'As I said, you have to trust us. Do you?'
'No.'
'Well, you have our number. If you — '
'Wait a minute! Okay? I have to think about this for a minute.'
'We're on your dime, mate.'
Soldi was standing, looking into the darkness toward the ship. Rip lay in the sand, looking skyward at the stars. Dutch was sipping coffee.
'I work for an oil company,' Bill Taggart said to the man on the other end of the satellite phone. 'I'm on a seismic survey crew working in the Sahara Desert. I'll give you the coordinates in a minute. We've found something, something extraordinary that I think would be of interest to Neville and his associates.'
'I'm listening, Bill. Talk away.'
'I want two million dollars.'
'I'd like ten my own self.'
