Eisenhower Tunnel and immediately saw the lights of Denver gleaming in the darkness sixty miles away. He eased the throttle out an inch, dialed the RPM back a hundred, and retrimmed for a gradual descent.
Safely in orbit, with the rocket engines shut down, Egg Cantrell sat strapped to the pilot's seat while he swabbed the perspiration from his face with his shirttail. Ohmigawd! He had done it! Flown a saucer into space. Actually, he had done nothing but talk to the computer via the headband, and the computer had flown the ship, but
Newton Chadwick floated near him, white as a sheet and unable to speak. Chadwick looked through the canopy at the earth, then turned his head to look into the infinite void of deep space. Egg could see that Chadwick's hands were still shaking.
'I have never—' Chadwick began, then gave up.
Egg put the headband back on and asked the computer for a flight path. He studied it. The computer had planned two orbits of the earth and, on the second one, a burn that would accelerate the saucer on a course that would loop it around the moon. On the back side another burn would decelerate the saucer, placing it in lunar orbit.
Regardless of how this adventure turned out, Egg felt as if he had reached the zenith of his life. Nothing he ever did in the past or would do in the future could compare with the rush he got flying this saucer into space. Now he knew how Charley Pine felt, and why she took the job Pierre Artois offered.
There was a television crew waiting at the Centen-nial Airport executive terminal when Rip taxied up. Charley had awakened on final approach. Now, seeing the cameraman and female reporter waiting with her microphone, she groaned. 'This isn't going to do your uncle any good,' she said over the intercom.
'Just don't say anything that will set Pierre off.'
The television crew charged the plane the instant the prop stopped.
'Mr. Cantrell, Mr. Cantrell,' the reporter called breathlessly, 'what can you tell us about Charley Pine? Why did she steal the spaceplane?'
Then the reporter saw Charley. She elbowed Rip out of the way and jabbed the microphone at her.
'Get that thing out of my face,' Charley snapped.
Rip hurried into the terminal and squared around in front of the desk person, another woman. 'I thought you people promised customers some privacy.'
'Oh, my heavens,' the woman said, fluttering her hands. As Rip well knew, celebrities and business bigwigs didn't want the press lurking when they departed or arrived in their bizjets. 'We didn't think you'd mind. The reporter is the spouse of one of our executives. He thought—'
'Get that camera crew out of here now or I'll make a formal complaint to the president of the company.'
The woman snapped her fingers at one of the line boys, and in less than a minute the camera crew was marching through the lobby toward the parking lot. The reporter scowled at Rip, who ignored her. Charley trailed the media into the building and followed the signs toward the women's room.
'Did you have a nice flight?' the woman at the desk asked Rip with a frozen smile.
'Great. Now we need to charter a jet to take us to Washington. We'll leave as soon as you can get a crew.' He tossed the keys to the rental Cessna on the counter.
It took the crew of the jet an hour to get to the airport and file a flight plan. Charley Pine took a shower and ate a sandwich from the vending machine while they waited. Rip watched a little television. European camera crews had man-
aged to capture an Italian cathedral in Rome being zapped by the antigravity beam from the moon. Joe Bob Hooker, home from the moon, was the hottest man on the planet. A battery of reporters were questioning him about the lunar base, his conversations with Pierre Artois, his thoughts on Pierre's demands.
Charley joined Rip in front of the television. After she had watched some of the interview, she said, 'I told him most of that stuff.'
'He referred to you as the most beautiful woman alive, and the finest pilot.'
'Joe Bob is a discerning individual,' Charley said, and squeezed Rip's hand.
'He's going to be in big trouble with his wife when he gets home,' Rip replied.
Then a newsflash.
'This network has just learned that a flying saucer went into orbit from an unknown site in Nevada several hours ago. It is now in orbit. Here is the announcement from the White House.'
Charley watched in frozen silence as Rip squeezed her hand.
'Oh, Rip. You know Egg was in it.'
'Flying it, probably.'
They talked in whispers. They were still head to head in one corner of the room when the desk lady came to tell them their jet was ready to depart.
An hour and fifteen minutes after they landed in Denver, Rip and Charley were on their way to Washington in a Citation V. The space suits and air compressor were stacked in the empty seats.
10
'Artois' antigravity strikes only occur during periods of good atmospheric visibility, usually during the sunlight hours,' the astronomer said. 'We believe he is using some type of optical instrument to aim the antigravity beam.'
'Why can't he use city lights to target his weapon?' the president asked.
'It's certainly possible,' the astronomer said, 'but probably technically difficult. Yet Artois has struck several times during the night hours. As you know, just now the earth is moving between the moon and the sun—' 'How do we know that?' O'Reilly demanded. The astronomer gaped, then said, 'Don't you look out the window occasionally? The moon is almost full. When the Irth is between the moon and the sun, as it is now, the sur-e of the earth facing the moon would appear very dark when viewed from 238,000 miles away, which is its average 'stance from the earth. The more magnification his optical Istrument has, the darker the surface would appear. And jehind the earth is that huge bright light, the sun.'
'Doesn't the relationship change daily?' someone else asked.
The astronomer couldn't believe her ears. 'The moon appears to move across our sky every day because the earth is spinning,' she explained. 'The moon actually takes twenty-nine days, twelve hours and forty-four minutes to complete one revolution around the earth, as measured against the sun. The moon also revolves on its axis, but at the same rate that it circles the earth, which is why we always see the same side of it.'
'And when will the moon be overhead today?' the president asked.
The astronomer almost shook her head in amazement. The weather had been fantastic in Washington this past week — as usual, this autumn had the best weather of the year — and the night of the full moon was three days away. The Hunter's Moon, for those with a romantic bent. 'At about thirty-eight minutes past ten p.m., sir.'
The president looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. He tossed his pencil on his pad with a sigh. 'So if Artois doesn't zap Washington tonight using the city lights, he can't do it until tomorrow night.'
The leaders of Congress were demanding that he publicly reject Artois' demands, the sooner the better, but he didn't want to trigger Artois' wrath — at least until all the space-planes had been permanently grounded. So he had a little breathing room. Just enough, perhaps.
The president was counting hours on the wall clock, figuring when the attack on France would happen, when a messenger scurried into the room with a piece of paper. He handed it to O'Reilly, who read it and passed it to the president. The president scanned it and tossed it on the table.
'Aha! An ultimatum from the moon. Surrender within forty-eight hours or Artois will flatten Washington.'
That remark set off the president's advisers. Everyone wanted to talk at once. The president used to insist
