'Do we really want the British to fire the first shot?' the national security adviser asked. He was thinking of the reaction of Joe Six-Pack out there in the American heartland. Joe would want America to lead the charge.
The secretary of state returned to the Oval Office in time to hear that exchange. 'This entire discussion is outrageous,' she declared heatedly. 'The French are our oldest allies. They have been forced to surrender to a terrorist; now you intend to stab them in the back. If you attack France, I must resign my office. I'll have no part in this.'
'We'll be sorry to see you go,' O'Reilly shot back. 'But before you leave, please tell us: Did you deliver the president's ultimatum to the French premier?'
'I did, and of course he refused to believe me.' She made a dismissive gesture. 'He said you would never destroy Paris, but Artois would.'
The president sighed. Unfortunately he had recently announced that he would run for reelection. He realized that he should probably reconsider. He flipped listlessly through a marked-up copy of his speech, which the leaders of Congress were demanding he deliver right now, if not sooner. His eyes went to a photo of a Montana trout stream that hung upon the wall. Sunlight glistened upon the water, and distant mountains wore a crown of snow. 'Why me, Lord?' he muttered.
'You've been studying this ship's computer for fifty-plus years,' Egg Cantrell said to Newton Chadwick. 'Why don't you fly it?' They were in the saucer's main machinery space checking the integrity of fittings.
'I'm not a pilot.'
'Nor am I.'
'Each of us has his gifts, Cantrell. Mine isn't — I couldn't do it. I know that. I don't have the disposition for it. I'm impulsive and tend to get excited about things.'
'I've noticed that.'
'You're going to do the flying. If you get there, we will too.'
'There's faith for you,' Egg muttered, then changed the subject. 'Do you really think enslaving the world's population is a good idea?'
'Most people are sheep,' Chadwick replied flippantly. 'They are better off if they do as they're told.'
'This freedom thing sorta passed you by, I see.'
'We don't need to waste time on philosophy, Cantrell. Starving people need food, sick people need medicine, everyone needs clean water and air. Freedom works great for the rich, not so good for everyone else.'
'The fervor of your humanitarianism surprises me. I thought the only person you cared about was Newton Chadwick.'
'I don't care what you think.'
'Nor what anyone else thinks, apparently.'
'Pierre Artois and I are going to give everyone a shot at a decent life.'
'Give?'
'We're going to rearrange the social order, Mr. Cantrell. Call it what you will. Everyone will be better off.'
'Including you.'
'Including me,' Newton Chadwick agreed. 'Now let's top off the water tank and fly to the moon.'
'I haven't finished preflighting. Crashing and dying in this big Frisbee would be a tragic waste of all that work you put into making youth serum.'
'You've got one hour,' Chadwick said. 'Not a minute more.' He crawled out of the space. Egg heard him drop through the main hatch to the hangar floor.
He looked though the open hatchway at the man sitting in the pilot's seat, who was looking back at Egg. He was one of the men who kidnapped him. Today he was wearing a pistol on his belt and had a short submachine gun draped over his shoulder. Terrific!
Egg moved out of the man's sight and sat contemplating his rounded middle.
It was late afternoon at the airport in Grand Junc-tion, Colorado, when Rip and Charley landed and taxied to a stop in front of the small general aviation terminal. He and Charley Pine stood under the awning near the building wrapped in a serious embrace, getting reacquainted, while the line boy fueled the Cessna 182 from a truck. Rip had wanted to do this ever since he saw her, but the little plane lacked an autopilot.
Charley had talked for the entire two hours of the flight to Grand Junction, telling Rip of her adventures on the moon. At one point, after describing Artois' antigravity beam generator, she said, 'I can't believe French scientists invented it. It's a derivation of the antigravity technology in the saucer you found, but they've been working on theirs for several years, at least.'
'There must be another saucer somewhere,' Rip said. 'One we don't know about.'
'That's the most likely explanation,' she agreed. 'But where?'
They left that subject and discussed her decision to escape. It seemed important to have Rip tell her she had done the right thing. He did that, but still, she thought, it wasn't enough. The people on the moon were stranded. It would cost a large fortune to fly
She had Rip, and he sure knew how to kiss, but boy oh boy.
They followed the line boy into the one-story building after he finished fueling the Cessna. Four men and a woman were huddled around a television in one corner of the room watching the news. The woman reluctantly left the set and came over to the counter to ring up the sale and process Rip's credit card. She was in her forties, wearing a no-nonsense sweater and jeans.
'Anything new?' Rip asked, referring to the international situation.
'The French have surrendered to Pierre Artois. He is the new emperor of France. Now they're trying to persuade the rest of Europe to also surrender.'
A beatific smile split Charley Pine's face. Suddenly the load felt a hundred pounds lighter. She wasn't going to have to prove to anyone that Artois was crazy; now everyone on earth knew it. The smile faded, though, when she realized that if he became emperor of the world, she might have to look for a way to get off. He hadn't impressed her as the forgive-and-forget type.
'And the Americans?' Rip asked.
'Nothing out of Washington. I think they're hunkered down, waiting to see which way the wind is blowing.' The desk person looked at the one-piece flight suit that Charley was wearing and said, 'Isn't that something like the French astronauts wear?'
'I think so,' Charley replied innocently. 'I ordered it over the Internet. They said it was very authentic.'
'Probably made in China,' the desk lady said languidly, and glanced at the name on Rip's credit card. 'Cantrell. Same name as the saucer guy. Don't you wish you were?'
'Oh, you bet,' Rip shot back. 'Money, hot women, fame— I don't know how he stands it.'
The woman waited until the credit card machine spit out the slip, then slapped it on the counter for Rip to sign. 'Too bad he gave that flying plate to the Air and Space Museum. If he had it now he could go after that clown on the moon.'
'Umm,' Rip Cantrell said, and signed the credit card slip.
When they were walking out to the plane, Charley said to Rip, 'How do you stand it?'
'My low IQ is the only thing that keeps me sane.'
She squeezed his hand.
'The whole world is going nuts,' Rip said, 'so it's up to us to rescue Egg.'
'I just hope he's okay,' Charley Pine replied. She was so tired, it was difficult to concentrate. She yawned. 'You fly this leg, Rip.' She crawled into the second set of seats and stretched out as Rip preflighted the plane, ensured the fuel caps were on tight and pulled chocks.
Egg Cantrell and Newton Chadwick studied a map of the moon that they had spread on the leading edge of the saucer. Egg noted that it was published by National Geographic. 'The lunar base is right there,' Chadwick said, marking the map with a pen. He put a dot on the base and drew a circle around it.
Then he brought out a Nevada highway map, one distributed free by the state. He studied it a bit and put an ink mark smack inside a federal prohibited area. 'We're right here.'
'Okay,' Egg said, folding the maps and placing them in his hip pocket. 'I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be. This is your last chance to back out and live to a ripe old age.'
