Saucer: The Conquest

It was drizzling rain when the saucer came over the treetops at four in the morning at Egg Cantrell's Missouri farm and landed softly in front of the hangar.

Rip pushed the power knob in to the first detent and climbed from the pilot's seat. He was whipped. Charley was asleep on the couch with a blanket over her. He kissed her and held her hand until she awakened.

'We're home,' he said.

'Oh, Rip,' she said, and hugged him.

'It's over, Charley.'

'I hope.' She kissed him one more time, then tossed the blanket aside and pulled on her boots. Her French space boots, she noted wryly. Maybe someday I'll sell them on eBay.

Rip opened the hatch, and Charley went through first. Rip followed. The gentle rain felt good on his skin. He closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky. After a long moment he followed Charley toward the hangar.

Egg was sitting on a folding chair to one side of the open hangar doorway.

'I've been worried about you two,' he said, after the hugs.

'The news said that the military was ordered to shoot down all the saucers.'

'I figured it was something like that,' Rip said. 'Lalouette crashed into the ocean, then we were attacked by two fighters, F-16s I think. They shot missiles at us. We put 'er in the water and stayed under until dark.'

'Lalouette's dead?'

'Yes.'

'And the Roswell saucer is destroyed?'

'Nothing could survive a plunge like that. It's history.'

'We've got to do something to hide this one,' Charley said. 'They'll be after it.'

'Maybe put it in a pond or something,' Rip said.

'That trick has been used too often,' Egg told them. 'The government will look in every lake, fishpond and swimming pool in America. I've got a better idea. Been sitting here thinking about it.'

'I don't want it destroyed, and I don't want the government to have it,' Rip said heatedly.

'You two go up to the house, get baths and something to eat. I'll take care of it.'

Charley reached for Rip's hand, looking into his face.

'Okay,' Rip said slowly, and nodded.

He and Charley took one last look at the dark shape of the saucer, then walked around the corner of the hangar and took the path for the house.

Egg Cantrell crawled under the saucer and climbed up through the open hatchway. Inside he found blankets, food, a makeshift zero-gravity potty, rifles, ammo and the inflatable water tanks that had been installed at Andrews. He carried armload after armload to the hatch and dropped it through. There was still a half case of bottled water — that went too. When the interior of the saucer was free of foreign objects, he got out and began transferring the pile to a spot near the hangar. His sore arm was almost well now and didn't bother him much. Still, the task took a while and about wore him out. Finally he climbed back into the saucer, pulled the hatch shut and latched it.

The pilot's seat felt familiar, like an old friend. He donned the headband and said hello to the computer. First he asked for a fuel check. The ship was nearly empty of water — apparently Rip and Charley had burned it all getting here — but the saucer automatically captured enough hydrogen to power the control jets, even after it refused to give the pilot additional hydrogen for the rocket engines. There was a store of oxygen aboard, and Egg had the computer vent it to the atmosphere. The vent, he knew, was through one of the rocket engine nozzles.

Satisfied, Egg pulled the power knob completely out and waited for the reactor to come up to operating temperature.

Only then did he ask the computer to lift the saucer from the ground. He didn't touch the controls, merely asked the computer to maneuver the ship.

Staying below the trees, he took the tractor path toward his south forty. The trees were merely dark shapes under a layer of clouds in this rain, seen through a wet canopy. Fortunately he knew the ground perfectly, knew every tree and stone and bush.

Finally Egg set the saucer down. He pushed the power knob in to the first detent to ensure the antigravity rings were off. He climbed from the pilot's seat, took a last look around, touched this and that, then opened the hatch and lowered himself carefully through the opening. After closing the hatch, he crawled from under the ship on his hands and knees, soaking his trousers.

When he was standing in front of the ship, he looked around carefully. On the other side of his line fence was a huge high-tension tower, one that carried at least 150,000 volts. He found the tower, looked up and tried to see the wires. No. Well, they were up there and they were wet.

Egg turned to the saucer. The rain seemed to be falling harder now. He could feel rivulets coursing down his neck, feel the dampness in his shirt and jacket.

Power up!

He waited for ten seconds, then told the computer, Lift off.

The ancient saucer rose slowly and majestically into the air.

He flew it up above the wires, then brought it in over them. A little lower. A little more.

A continuous bolt of energy arced from one wire to the saucer, ran through it and went back into the adjoining wire. The arc was brilliant, like a huge floodlight. Egg squinted so that he could see.

After a few seconds there was a giant flash. The saucer seemed to shrink instantly to half its former size. Still the electricity arced from the wires and ran through it.

Three seconds, four — Egg was counting — and there was another huge flash. The saucer instantly shrank again.

After two more quantum jolts, Egg lifted the saucer off the wires. The juice stopped flowing. He flew the saucer over to the field and let it touch down on its extended landing gear.

It was now just less than four feet in diameter. In the dim light, after the brilliance of the electrical arc, he had difficulty discerning details. The ship was small — that was enough.

He ordered the ship to lift off, then turned and began walking along the tractor path, headed for the hangar. He looked back and ensured the saucer was following. It floated along like a metal cloud, six feet in the air.

The darkness was beginning to dissolve into dawn when Egg reached the hangar. He walked over to the old stone outcropping between the hangar and the control tower. Yes, it was solid enough. So solid that the Army Air Corps didn't bother blasting it out when they built this old base during World War II.

Egg set the saucer on the stone. He didn't like its first location, so he moved it to another. Then he decided to turn it slightly so that the rocket exhaust nozzles faced the forest.

Finally satisfied, he secured all power to the saucer.

Egg Cantrell's clothes were about drenched from the rain, but he didn't notice. The saucer looks pretty neat sitting there, he thought. He reached for it, pushed against it, tried to move it. Nothing doing. Its mass was still precisely the same as it was before he shrank it; the electrons in the atoms were simply running closer together.

Egg patted the saucer, then went into the hangar for several garbage bags so he could clean up the mess of items from the saucer. The day had completely arrived, a soggy rainy day, when he finished. He walked past the hangar and took the path to the house.

Three days later, on a sunny fall morning as the frost burned off the grass, Rip, Charley and Egg, bundled up in coats and blankets, sat on the porch sipping steaming hot coffee. Since they had arrived Charley and Rip had avoided talking about their adventures. The television was still chewing on the Artois story and replaying video clips of the great saucer battle over Washington and New York. Egg watched in the privacy of his bedroom, yet when Rip and Charley turned the television on, they immediately turned it off again as soon as the commercial was over and the talking hosts resumed chewing the rag. They didn't want to think about it.

But now, out on the porch, Charley tentatively broached the subject. 'I can't get Jean-Paul Lalouette out of my mind,' she said. 'I want him to go away but he won't.'

'You just gotta let it go,' Rip advised.