Saucer: The Conquest

exactly one ride.

Hoo boy!

Charley Pine cracked her knuckles after she fin-ished programming and checking the navigational computer. She ran through the program twice to make sure she had it right, went over the checklist one more time, then stowed the checklist, sighed and cracked her knuckles.

'You'll give yourself arthritis doing that,' Joe Bob Hooker said. He was sitting in the right seat, watching.

'Doing what?'

'Cracking your knuckles.'

'Oh,' she said, vaguely surprised. 'I've been trying to stop that. Bad habit.'

Jeanne d'Arc was in low earth orbit, and had been for two days. The television monitor behind the pilots' seats picked up broadcasts as the spaceplane came over the horizon and lost them about ten minutes later when the stations sank behind the orbiting ship. Sometimes the signal faded just as the commercials came on, but it seemed that most of the time Charley and Joe Bob got all the commercials and lost the signal in the middle of some significant pronouncement by a political leader.

The snatches of news were clear enough; Pierre was causing havoc with the antigravity beam and making demands. France was in meltdown, it seemed. A great many Frenchmen were ready to march behind the Artois banner; they were loudly demanding the government accede to Pierre's demands. The small nations of Europe, with token military forces without any real combat power, were making noises, but not threats. Charley Pine got the impression that a lot of the elected persons were merely wringing their hands,

waiting.

Everyone was waiting on the United States, which so far had taken no official position. The press secretary said the government was 'studying' the matter. Indeed, the press reported that everyone who was anyone in official Washington had trotted over to the White House for consultations, but no one was saying anything for the record to the press. Oh, sure, there were the usual leaks and rumors, but nothing official.

'Where is the president?' one commentator asked rhetorically.

Joe Bob Hooker thought the political theater very entertaining, and watched by the hour as, Jeanne d'Arc circled the earth and Charley Pine catnapped in the pilot's seat. But now the waiting was over. Charley had programmed the navigation computer for reentry and made a last inspection tour through the ship ensuring all gear was properly stowed, and now the minutes were ticking down.

The autopilot turned the ship, lining it up so that it was flying backward with its rocket engines pointing dead ahead. Charley wondered about the main engine. If it wouldn't start, the computer would automatically fire the other engines longer and adjust the reentry flight path accordingly. As long as the other four rocket engines worked!

'I want to thank you,'Joe Bob said, 'for the adventure of a lifetime.'

Charley smiled. 'I had nothing to do with it. Write a letter to Pierre Artois.'

'Seriously, flying with you is the adventure of a lifetime. Selling cars will never be the same.'

All four of the smaller engines ignited on cue, to

Charley's intense relief, and the deceleration Gs mashed her back into her seat. Joe Bob Hooker abandoned his attempts at conversation.

When the burn was over, the autopilot gently turned the free-falling spaceplane 180 degrees, until she was pointed along her trajectory like a large arrowhead. As Charley and Joe Bob sat watching, Jeanne d'Arc plunged silently downward toward the Earth's atmosphere.

The fixed-gear, high-winged Cessna 182 buzzed low over the tops of the mountain ridges. In the pilot's seat Rip Cantrell scanned the sky, and occasionally glanced at the instruments to ascertain the health of the single piston engine. High clouds obscured the sky to the west, the precursors of a front that was moving eastward, yet the sky overhead was clear except for a high, thin, gauzy layer of cirrus.

Rip glanced at his watch again and checked the fuel. He had been airborne for an hour and had plenty remaining, yet—

He had been cruising north along the ridge; now he turned south. He throttled back even more and leaned the mixture a tad, trying to save another gallon.

There, in the sky to the west, under the clouds a speck. He watched it intently. He had already been fooled twice, once by an airliner and once by a jet fighter.

The speck was high and descending.

Rip turned eastward, toward the stupendous expanse of salt flats that lay west of the Great Salt Lake, and rapped the mixture and throttle controls forward.

The spaceplane was ten or fifteen thousand feet above him when it passed overhead, descending steeply in a powerless glide. He had the nose down, the throttle and prop controls full forward as Jeanne dArc broke her long glide ten miles ahead of him and, with the nose well down, turned 180 degrees and lined up for a landing to the west, into the wind. The spaceplane leveled its wings, descended steadily and flared just before the wheels touched the salt. A plume of dust rose behind it and tailed away to the east — Charley Pine had guessed right on the wind. Jeanne dArc rolled and rolled until she came to a complete stop.

Inside the spaceplane's cockpit, Charley Pine looked at Joe Bob Hooker and said, 'Welcome back to earth.'

Joe Bob threw back his head and laughed. 'Oh, man, have I got a tale for the grandkids! If you ever get to Dallas…'

Charley was the first out of her seat. She almost fell on her face after the days of weightlessness, broken only by the weak gravity of the moon and occasional bursts of rocket power. Hanging on to whatever she could reach, she carefully made her way aft. The door that she had entered on the moon was the one she wanted, so she set to work releasing the pressure on the seals and opening it. It opened with a hiss.

The cool autumn air enveloped her. It smelled of salty earth and cooked brake pads — well, she did push vigorously on the brakes after she touched down. Wispy contrails floating in that high autumn sky made streaks in the gauzy cirrus. She filled her lungs and exhaled slowly. This certainly wasn't Kansas, but Dorothy Gale was right: There is no place like home.

By leaning out slightly and bending down she could see one of the right main landing gear's wheels. It hadn't sunk more than an inch or two into the salt. She had been worried about the salt's consistency — if it had been too soft, it could have torn the landing gear right off Jeanne dArc, which would have skidded to a quick stop on her belly, shattered beyond repair. She knew it was hard enough the instant she touched down, yet visual confirmation of her pilot's sense was nice.

Satisfied, she didn't waste any more time. She went to the locker room where the space suits were kept and brought hers back to the door. She tossed it out. There were three extra suits stored in the ship, just in case one of the fitted suits sprang a leak or was damaged during use. She threw them out the door onto the growing pile.

Joe Bob Hooker was there at the door when she made her last trip. 'Why the suits?' he asked.

'You never know when you'll need a space suit,' she replied, and tossed the air compressor and suit-testing equipment on top of the pile.

He went back for his and threw it out too. 'Paid for it,' he explained. 'I'll strut around in it at Lions Club.'

She had to help him down, then tossed his small bag of personal items to him. Then she jumped. She fell heavily and bruised herself.

She arose, dizzy and hurting, and brushed the salt from her sleeves and rump as the wind from distant mountains played with her hair. Eight days away from the earth's gravity and she was weak, as if she were recovering from a long illness.

Charley heard the Cessna before she saw it. It came out from behind the wing, already on the salt, and taxied up. Rip grinned and waved.

'Here's my ride,' she said to Joe Bob. 'You're going to have to wait for a while, but someone will be along pretty soon.'

'I reckon somebody saw us land,' Joe Bob said, scanning the seemingly endless expanse of empty, flat salt.

Rip killed the engine of the little plane and jumped out. He rushed over to Charley and enveloped her in his arms. When he came up for air, he whispered, 'Missed you, lady.'