Saucer: The Conquest

bottle in midair, strapped himself into the copilot's seat so he would stay put, then rescued the bottle.

'Sleep okay?' he asked.

'No. You?'

'No. So what do you think we should do?'

'Can't decide.'

'Me either.'

They sat looking at the earth.

'I never met anyone like you,' Joe Bob said.

Charley eyed him suspiciously. 'Oh?'

'Yeah. You're a smart, take-charge, capable lady who isn't afraid to do what you think right. Aren't many of those around. Not where I've been hanging out, anyway.'

'Don't get any big ideas.'

'Heck, I'm a married man. You realize, though, that down in Texas there's folks who would say that we're shacked up.'

Charley Pine couldn't help herself. She laughed. 'Hoo boy.'

'Honestly,' he said. 'Man and woman, all alone for three days. Long enough to fall in love or raise the dead.'

'There went my reputation.'

'So, you married?'

'No.'

'Fool around?'

'Listen, Mr. Hooker. Joe Bob. I have a boyfriend. I think it might really lead to something. I want it to lead to something. You're a nice guy, but let's leave it there, shall we? Stifle yourself until you get home to your Junior Leaguer.'

'We could be the first couple to do it in space.'

'Wow, we'd be a footnote in the history books. It's tempting, but no thanks.'

'Fair enough,' he said. 'Had to ask. You're mighty nice, and I wouldn't want to go on down the road not knowing. Owed it to myself.'

'I understand. No hard feelings.'

'So who we gonna call?'

'Damn if I know.'

The news that Charley Pine had stolen Jeanne d'Arcwas a bombshell worldwide. Within ten minutes of the announcement by the French ministry, she was one of the most famous women on the planet, right up there in the pantheon with Britney Spears and Madonna.

The premier of France watched the media circus on television sets in his office with great misgivings. The accusation that Pine was mentally ill was met with media skepticism. Two hours after the announcement, CNBC had a clinical psychologist on camera pointing out that if she were really bonkers, she probably couldn't fly Jeanne d'Arc.

Of course, no one knew the spaceplane's exact location, so the talking heads had a lot of fun with the possibility that a crazy woman pilot and a Dallas car dealer were on a doomed voyage into the sun, or out of the solar system. Or perhaps they were going to immolate themselves in a spectacular fiery reentry to the earth's atmosphere.

It was great television, the biggest thing to hit the tube since the great saucer scare last year. And Charlotte Pine had been involved in that! What was Artois thinking?

The premier had never really trusted Artois, but had hitched his wagon to Pierre's lunar base scheme anyway. The spending had kick-started the French economy and made France the acknowledged leader of Europe. With 350 million people and the world's largest economy, the European Union was a superpower, and the premier was in the driver's seat.

That is, he was until Charley stole Jeanne d'Arc. The television announcers' uninformed speculation gave the premier a queasy feeling. In truth, the minister had known next to nothing when he briefed the premier via telephone before he announced the theft. The minister had grabbed at the straw profferred by Artois: Charley Pine was a deluded paranoid who had snapped.

Watching the story unfold on television, the premier felt like a man on a runaway train. He had no control, no way to stop the thing, no idea where it was going or what was going to happen when it got there. Except that the wreck was going to be bad. After an adult life spent in politics, he had a sixth sense about unexpected events. Artois could have gotten a German test pilot, or an Italian, but no, Pierre had to assert his independence, not to mention thumbing his nose at the premier, and bring in the American woman who flew the saucer last year.

The premier didn't think Charlotte Pine had gone crazy. He had met her once, and he came away thinking her a competent professional. If she hadn't gone crazy, Artois was lying.

By craning his neck, the premier could see the moon in the evening sky over Paris through his office window.

* * *

In Washington, the American president was also watching television, and he was in a fine mood. It was nice to watch a crisis unfold that would not cause him grief regardless of how it ended. No one was going to snipe at him. No one was going to demand legislation to right a wrong, an investigation to fix blame, new statutes to ensure it didn't happen again or a cabinet officer's head on a platter.

The president poured himself a diet soft drink and put his feet up on his desk. Aaah!

Amazingly, the woman involved was Charlotte Pine, who had caused him so much angst with the flying saucer scare a year ago. Thank heavens, this time she was picking on someone else.

She had had a boyfriend, he recalled, the saucer guy, ol' what's-his-name. Rip. Rip Something. That's the kid who found a flying saucer in a sandstone ledge in the Sahara and scared everyone on the planet. What a piece of work he was!

At least Rip was out of it. Now, if Pine would just keep that spaceplane out of the U.S. Let the French sweat for a change.

The president belted down a big swing of Diet Coke and belched loudly.

'You go, girl!' he said to Charley Pine, wherever she might be.

Charley slept in the pilot's seat of Jeanne d'Arc on the trip back to earth. She tried sleeping in the hammock she had occupied on the flight out and found that with no one in the cockpit monitoring the ship's systems and the navigation computers, sleep was impossible. So she went back to the flight deck, strapped herself into the seat and promptly dozed off. Every few hours she awakened and checked every system. Satisfied, she would allow herself to drift off again.

When she was fully awake, she thought about the situation. She discussed it with Joe Bob Hooker, who had no strong opinions. After all, she realized, he had only her word that Pierre Artois was a maniac. Anyone she talked to would have only her word, until such time as Artois and Claudine Courbet began zapping the earth with an antigravity beam.

In fact, she even doubted herself. What if Courbet had pulled a grotesque practical joke on her? If that thing wasn't an antigravity beam generator, then what was it? Why the reactor? And where, pray tell, had Artois and his minions learned how to build an antigravity beam generator? If Artois didn't need the reactor to power the beam generator, what did he need it for?

Try as she might, she could come up with no other explanation for the use of the reactor. The lunar base didn't need the kind of electrical power that reactor was capable of generating unless they really did have an antigravity beam.

She had been convinced then and she still believed. Pierre Artois, Henri Salmon and Claudine Courbet were rats. Even if she could feel a little worm of doubt gnawing at her.

From time to time she fingered the radio controls. No. The French wouldn't believe her. They would declare her insane before they admitted that Artois was a venal traitor who had duped the government and all the scientists associated with the lunar base project. After all, if they stood by him and he changed his mind and didn't use the beam generator, they would be vindicated. The presence of the reactor and generator on the moon could be hushed up, with no one able to prove anything.