open. The forklift came buzzing out, accelerating, heading straight toward the spaceplane. The two empty spears were at the top of their rails. She could see the helmeted figure hunched over the controls.
'That fool may try to ram us, damage the ship.' Charley didn't wait. She reclined her seat and punched the ignition button.
Hooker hurriedly reclined his as the rockets ignited. From the corner of her eye Charley saw a blast of dust. The Gs hit her in the back.
Charley Pine made one last radio transmission.
Hooker barely got his words out against the accelerating G.
6
Pierre Artois and Henri Salmon found Claudine Courbet stretched out on the floor beside the beam generator. A half-full bottle of water sat on top of the control console. Artois squirted some in Claudine's face. Her eyes opened.
Salmon lifted Claudine to a sitting position. Artois squatted and examined the engineer's face. Her jaw was severely swollen. He was still looking her over when his wife, Julie Artois, came in.
She knelt beside Pierre, who tersely filled her in on the situation.
'What did you tell Pine?' she snarled at Claudine.
Courbet's eyes swam. Julie Artois slapped her. That focused her eyes.
'What did you tell Pine?' she repeated.
Claudine took a few seconds to collect herself before she spoke. 'She knew about the reactor. Came in here to see what it was going to be used for.'
'How did she get in?'
'Followed the men who wheeled the reactor in on a dolly, I suppose. I thought she knew. I thought she was one of us.'
'You were told that she wasn't.'
'But she was here, and she knew so much.' Claudine really believed this.
'You know my rules.'
'She jerked the covering off the beam generator,' Claudine explained. 'Recognized it for what it was.'
Pierre rose and walked around aimlessly.
'Hiring her was really stupid,' Claudine continued. She struggled to her feet. Once erect, she glared at Julie. 'She flew in a saucer, knows what's in the computers. And she can add two and two. Of all the pilots on the planet you people could have hired—'
'Enough!' Julie commanded with a chopping gesture. 'What's done is done. How long before you can get the generator operational?'
'We'll have to hook up the reactor and test the system. Can't run it to full power without serious testing, not unless you want this cave to glow in the dark for the next ten thousand years.'
'How long?'
'A week. Perhaps a day or two less.'
'You have three days,' Julie said, staring at Claudine. 'And if you don't make it work, I have people who can. We'll put you in the air lock without a space suit and watch you die. Do you understand?'
Claudine Courbet appealed to Pierre, who turned his face away. She turned back to Julie. 'You are really sick, madame.'
'The future of mankind is at stake,' Julie Artois said. 'I'm not going to let you or anyone else stand in our way.'
Julie looked at Salmon. 'Have someone with her every moment. Don't leave her alone,' she said coldly.
Then she walked out. Pierre followed.
They went to their private suite and made sure the door was locked behind them before they spoke.
'Years of work, a decade of planning, billions of euros invested, the future of mankind at stake, and one foolish woman allows another to sabotage everything!' Pierre stormed.
His wife took a deep breath, closed her eyes momentarily, then opened them again.
Pierre rubbed his eyes, tried to steady his breathing.
Illogical, stupid, venal, selfish people he understood. He had certainly met enough of them through the years. Those people he could handle. On the other hand, the Charlotte Pines of the world were a different breed.
He had counted on the spaceplane, which was a guaranteed ride back to earth when the time came. Without it, he and everyone else on this rock were marooned until another spaceplane made the trip.
'Can we force the French to send a spaceplane?' he asked Julie.
'Nothing important has changed,' his wife said curtly. 'Key people in the government are with us, as they have always been. Under our leadership France will assume its rightful place in the world. Our friends want us to succeed— they will bring Europe with them. France, Europe and the world. The glory of France will shine as it never has before.'
The pitch and timbre of her voice rose as she spoke, mesmerizing Pierre. She had always had the ability to show him the grandeur that lay just beyond the shadows. He believed, and he knew others would too.
Still… 'What of the British, the Americans?' he asked now.
'Their day is done. The world will speak French. If they refuse to see reason, we will bring them to their knees.' She made a fist. 'And destroy them.'
After rocket engine shutdown, when the three flight computers all agreed that the spaceplane was established on course to an earth orbit rendezvous with the refueling tank, Charley checked the ship's habitability systems one more time, leaned back and sighed.
Without the background chatter from Mission Control and people in the ship talking on the intercom, the cockpit was unusually quiet. The only sounds that could be heard were ship's noises, the hum of air circulation fans and an occasional thumping from a pump that kicked in for a few seconds.
She yawned. 'What say we see if there's anything aboard this garbage scow to eat, then grab a few winks.'
'Maybe you had better tell me why we did an unscheduled boogie without people or cargo,' Joe Bob Hooker said. 'Sorta curious, I guess.'
'Over food. I haven't eaten' — she looked at her watch— 'in fifteen hours.'
She unstrapped and headed for the locker where the space suits were kept. After she had properly stored hers, she went to the kitchen, where she found Joe Bob floating around.
'There isn't much,' he said. 'Gonna lose a few pounds on this flying fat farm.'
He extracted some tubes of pureed goo from a refrigerator and tried to read the French labels aloud. 'What's
'Horse, I think.'
'I forgot that we're dealing with gourmets. Here's something green.'
'I'll take it. Nuke it to warm it up.'
'This red stuff looks good to me. I'm a real sucker for red goo; can't get enough of it.'
There was wine. With a squeeze bottle of vino each and their goo, they headed back for the flight deck.
The earth was visible through the windscreen, off to the right. They were on course for the point in space where the planet would be in three days. Behind the left wing, a sliver of the sunlit surface of the moon was visible. On the right, the surface of the moon was still in shadow, a dark presence.
As they squeezed and squirted, Charley told Joe Bob about finding the reactor on the outbound voyage, her inspection of the observatory and her conversation with Claudine Courbet.
When she ran down, Joe Bob said, 'Pierre Artois, ruler of the universe. Not very catchy.'
'Yeah. He's not a corporal with a cool name, like Hitler.'
'I see your point. So what do you want to do?'
'I'm inclined to do nothing for a while. We have about seventy hours before we rendezvous with the fuel
