Saucer

Professor Soldi crawled toward the open hatch and sniffed the escaping air. 'It is air, all right,' he said, 'but the aroma is a little strange… '

'That hatch has been closed for a very long time,' Dutch Haagen remarked, more to himself than the others.

The professor stuck his head into the open hatchway and inhaled a lungful through his nose. Then he sagged back onto the sandy rock. 'Stale. Very stale.'

Rip Cantrell snorted. 'I like your scientific method,' he said and laughed.

Soldi didn't even bother to glare at him.

The open hatch beckoned.

'Rip, you found this ship,' Dutch said. 'Would you like to go first?'

Rip didn't have to be asked twice. He scooted over to the hatch and positioned himself immediately under it as Bill Taggart told Dutch, 'Thanks for not asking me.'

Rip got his knees under him and eased his head higher in the hole. His eyes adjusted to the dim light.

His stomach felt like it was full of butterflies.

He inched his head up.

His eyes cleared the rim of the hatchway, and he could see into the ship.

The only light came into the ship through the canopy over the pilot's seat, which was on a pedestal of some kind.

No doubt the pedestal kept the pilot high, so he could see out.

Maybe seven feet of headroom in the center of the ship around the pedestal, less as the distance from the pedestal increased. The compartment was only about ten or twelve feet in diameter. There were six seats with seat belts lying beside them, but no bunks. All the seats faced forward. One seat on each side of the pedestal faced a blank white panel. On each panel were some switches and knobs, but no instruments were in sight — none.

After he had surveyed the entire compartment and his eyes were completely adjusted, Rip stood up in the hatch. His head just cleared the hatchway. The air in the ship was cool. That was unexpected. A metal ship, sitting in the sun. It must be well insulated.

He climbed in. Now he realized that there was a handhold and cutout for his foot, so that he could climb in easier. He hadn't seen that before.

Standing inside the ship, he breathed deeply. Was there a faint odor of salt? Of perspiration? Or was it just his imagination?

Rip Cantrell took a careful look around, then climbed up into the pilot's seat and seated himself. The canopy was deeply tinted and offered the pilot a good view in all directions.

He was examining the knobs and levers and switches on the control panel in front of him when he realized that Professor Soldi was standing on one side and Dutch on the other.

'Can you believe this?' Rip asked. 'Look at this! I've never seen anything like it.'

'It's a shuttle ship,' Dutch decided, 'for taking people and supplies from a spaceship in orbit down to the surface.'

'There's not much room for supplies in here. Maybe they used it for exploration. Or emergencies. Maybe it was a lifeboat.'

'There's a thought.'

'What are all these controls?'

There was a small stick on the right arm of the pilot's seat, which Rip suspected was the control stick. Another lever was mounted on the left side of the seat, but it ran forward at a forty-five-degree angle from a pivot point at the rear of the seat. Rip tugged on it experimentally. This lever moved only up and down. Both of the controls had several knobs and switches near the handgrips.

Where the pilot's feet would rest were pedals. Rudder pedals, Rip thought, then remembered that the saucer had no rudder. Some of its maneuvering jets were mounted beside the rocket exhaust nozzles, he recalled, pointed away from the axis of the saucer at a forty-five-degree angle. No doubt these pedals activated those jets, simulating a rudder.

'The insulation sure keeps the heat down in here,' Rip remarked when he had finished examining the major controls. 'I guess if this thing goes in and out of the atmosphere, it has to be well insulated.'

'These panels have to be computer screens,' Dutch said and pointed to the black panel areas directly in front of each control station. 'Wouldn't Bill Gates like to see these? Then he could get all the money.'

'Wonder why they left this ship here,' Bill Taggart muttered. He was standing behind Haagen, looking over his shoulder.

Rip picked a switch and flipped it. Nothing happened, of course.

'No electrical power,' Dutch murmured.

'But there is,' Rip said. I'll bet the skin is absorbing energy from the sun. We just don't know how to turn on the power.'

'Man, don't go touching stuff, flipping those switches,' Bill pleaded from behind him. 'Makes me nervous as a naked cat.'

'This joystick must control the ship somehow,' Rip said, wrapping his right hand around the handgrip projecting from the right arm of the pilot's seat.

'Man, we don't even know what makes this thing work,' Bill explained. 'Let's not take foolish chances.'

Dutch Haagen chimed in. 'I think that — '

He stopped there, because Rip had reached for a reddish knob protruding from the instrument panel at a sixty-degree angle, near one of the computer screens. He tried to turn it, and when that didn't work, pulled it out. The knob came. As it did, the computer screens burst into life, red and yellow lights appeared all over the panels, and a low rumbling noise came from behind the passenger compartment.

Startled, Rip pushed the knob back in. The lights died, the computer screens went blank, the noise stopped.

'Oh, sweet Jesus!' Bill exclaimed, then turned and clambered quickly out the hatch.

'It's got to be nuclear-powered,' Dutch said, looking over the blank, dark panels. 'That noise must have been the reactor.'

'Must be.'

'Professor, if this thing has sat here for eons, how could a reactor have any juice left? Wouldn't it go dead, like a battery?'

'Over a terrific span of time, yes. The half-life of plutonium is a quarter million years. After five hundred thousand years, a reactor would still have twenty-five percent of its energy remaining.'

Rip reached for the knob again. Dutch's hand shot out.

'Not just now, son. Bill had a valid point. I know you're a tiger, but let's think this over very carefully.'

'This ship may have been abandoned because it was no longer in operational condition,' Dr. Soldi suggested.

'Yeah,' Bill said from the hatch. Only his head was visible. 'You go turning stuff on willy-nilly and we all may wind up knocking on the pearly gates sooner than we figured, Rip.'

'We've got to figure out what makes this thing go,' Rip argued.

'Let's study up a bit more,' Dutch insisted and put his hand on Rip's shoulder.

Rip got out of the seat and Taggart climbed back into the ship. The four men began poking and prodding. The low panels between the seats were on hinges. The latches were pushbuttons.

Behind the panels was the machinery. Pipes, pumps — well… they looked like pumps — lines for carrying fluid, insulated wires.

'This insulation must be rotten,' Dutch muttered and laid a rough hand on the nearest wire. He flexed it, twisted it, and still it remained intact.

'What is this stuff?'

'Somebody built this thing to last.'

'Over here is the reactor.'