Ten minutes later Charley was talking to the president on the radio. She told him they were coming home in the saucer, just the three of them, and the antigravity generator on the moon was no longer operational.
'Can they fix it?' the president wanted to know.
'I doubt it,' Charley said.
'That's very good news, extremely good news. When you get back, land at Andrews Air Force Base. The White House is in rubble or I'd have you land on the south lawn. I want to have a press conference with you folks so everyone all around the world can stop worrying.'
Rip made a face. Charley frowned at him, then said, 'Yes, sir,' to the president. When she released the mike button, she said to Rip, 'We have to do it and you know it. A lot of people won't believe a government announcement. Would you?'
'Nope,' Rip admitted.
'See?'
'How many people are still alive on the moon?' the president asked.
Charley counted on her fingers. 'Six or seven.' She wasn't sure about the man she had blasted with the rocket exhaust.
'Was Artois one of them?'
'Pierre? When Rip last saw him, he was alive.'
'When we have a private moment, I'd like to hear all about it.'
'Roger that.'
'By the way,' the president added, 'you can tell Rip that he won't have to pay for the damage at the museum. I think we can probably get a special appropriation from Congress to cover it. They'll undoubtedly want to pass a resolution thanking you for all your efforts.'
The president said his good-byes, and the conversation was over. Charley turned off the radio.
'How badly did you damage the museum?' Egg asked his nephew.
'Ten million dollars' worth.'
'They should be at least that grateful,' Egg muttered.
Later, when Egg was asleep, Rip murmured to Charley, 'That other saucer is around someplace.'
'I've been thinking about that,' she admitted.
When the radio conversation was over, the presi-dent beamed at his advisers and cabinet officers, all of whom had listened to the conversation with Charley over loudspeakers. He aimed his smile at the secretary of state. 'We didn't have to declare war on France after all. I hope you're pleased.'
'A great many French people are very proud of Pierre Artois.'
The president waved a dismissive hand. 'That's the way it goes. Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. They'll just have to soldier on.'
'As a gesture of goodwill, I think we should offer to return the spaceplane to France. They may wish to use it again in their space program.'
'We'll address that request when they make it, if they do,' the president said. He changed the subject. It took the group twenty minutes to reach a consensus on the best way to break the good news to the public, in America and worldwide. In deference to the feelings of the French, the assembled savants thought that the president should avoid the appearance of gloating.
'I don't gloat,' he stated positively.
Still, he might smile or be erroneously perceived as gloating, which wouldn't do, they assured him. The group finally agreed that the White House press spokesperson should pass out a flyer to the press and take questions. On that note the meeting broke up.
When the president and P.J. O'Reilly were alone, the president's smile faded. 'What are the chances the French would launch a rescue mission to the moon if they got their hot hands on that spaceplane?' he asked O'Reilly.
'Pretty good. A lot of people in Europe and America will demand it, for very different reasons. Senator Blohardt is already talking about trying Pierre and his henchmen for a variety of felonies, including murder and extortion. If the French do indeed bring him back, things could get nasty.'
'We'll all be better off if Pierre stays up there. Have the air force destroy the spaceplane. Burn it up in an accident. We leave that thing sitting around, some fool may be tempted to steal it.'
'Yes, sir,' said P.J. O'Reilly.
'People can tell their kids that the man in the moon is
French.'
O'Reilly liked it when the president did sneaky things that nobody could pin on him. He planned on telling all the secrets someday in a book about his White House years, a book that would make him rich. The possibility that the president wouldn't care what he said in his book never once entered his head. He strolled from the room with his lips pursed, whistling silently.
It was a foggy, misty night in Missouri when Charley Pine set the saucer in the grass in front of Egg's hangar. For the last two hours she had been running on the antigravity rings, rushing along above the treetops. The three of them had been fighting earth's strong gravity and were very tired. As the saucer touched solid ground, Egg swayed on his feet.
The fog was so dense that it obscured the trees behind Egg's house. 'A hot shower would really be nice,' Charley said wistfully as she stared at the building. 'With clean sheets and a soft pillow afterward.'
'A home-cooked meal wouldn't be bad either,' Rip said, 'but I think we should stick with the plan.'
'Okay,' Charley said, and pushed the power button in to the first detent. Rip opened the hatch as Egg kissed Charley good-bye. Then all three of them stood around the open hatchway inhaling the wet, foggy earth smell.
'I'd forgotten how good that smells,' Egg said, and sucked in another lungful. He shook Rip's hand, then hugged him. 'You two be careful.'
'Sure, Unc. Sure.'
They watched him lower himself carefully through the hatch and waddle away. Rip closed the hatch. 'The pond,' he told Charley as she remounted the pilot's seat.
They flew away as Egg stood waving with his good arm. They didn't fly far, a mere three hundred yards to a clear pond that Egg had created years ago by damming a creek. Charley submerged the saucer in the pond, and they filled up the main tank. They didn't bother filling the empty bladders in the main cabin.
Charley set the saucer on the edge of the pond so that Rip could get out and check that the cap on the tank had closed automatically. It had.
As he scrambled back aboard he told Charley, 'Ooh, it smells so good, feels so good. The moon is cool, but there's no place like home.'
'And this isn't even Kansas,' Charley said as she lifted the saucer into the air.
Using a bit of rocket power, they headed east at ten thousand feet, well below the altitude at which the airliners flew. When they were cruising with the computer flying the ship, Charley announced, 'I'm whacked. I've got to sleep.'
Rip flew while she curled up with a blanket on the seats at the back of the compartment.
At this altitude the clouds were well below. The moon, in its last quarter, was resting right on the cloudtops. Rip turned the saucer so he could see it, then resumed course. As he watched, the moonlight on the clouds faded and the night grew very dark. Rip didn't notice; he was thinking about the other saucer.
Lalouette was a fighter pilot before he was recruited to fly spaceplanes. Sure, he had made a few foolish mistakes battling Charley on the moon, but if he was alive and wanted another go, the rematch could be vicious.
Surely he wouldn't be so foolish. If he had any sense,
Lalouette was probably lying on a beach in the South Sea islands, with the saucer hidden in the surf. As he flew eastward Rip fervently prayed that Jean-Paul did have some sense and had decided to become a survivor. Still, he scanned the sky ceaselessly, looking.
After the saucer disappeared silently into the fog, Egg Cantrell slowly climbed the hill to his house. He unlocked the door and began snapping on lights. In a night this dark there should be light.
He climbed the stairs to his room and took a long, hot shower. The days in low gravity and weightlessness had taken their toll. He was so tired. He was toweling off when he heard a faint, low rumble. Ah, the engines of the
