Saucer: The Conquest

She had it bad. Damn!

The heck of it was that the kid hadn't really grown up yet. He was willing to lie around doing nothing — well, doing nothing but having sex five times a day and eating three meals — while the days slid past one by one, turning into weeks, then months.

She couldn't live like that.

Oh, well. She would have to make a decision about Rip after she returned from the moon. She had agreed with Artois to work for the French lunar project for at least one year, making at least three lunar flights. When she returned from the moon in three weeks, she would have a week off. She decided to call Rip and invite him to France.

That decision made, she was still too keyed up to sleep.

She unzipped the hammock, got out of it and stowed the thing, then checked her reflection in a mirror. She had two hours before she had to be back in the cockpit. She decided to explore, maybe visit with some of the other people on board and share the adventure.

Charley Pine opened the door of the compartment and launched herself slowly through it, careful not to carom off the bulkhead. She closed the door behind her.

Charley Pine found Pierre Artois and Jean-Paul Lalouette filming a cell phone commercial on the flight deck. Artois had a small phone in hand and was placing a call to someone while the cameras rolled. Perhaps, Charley thought, Claudine was right about Pierre's financial situation.

Charley watched a few moments, then drifted back along the passageway. The chef was preparing a meal. No freeze-dried grub on this French space freighter — the crew ate French cuisine and drank small portions of wine with every meal. Preparing real food and serving it in a weightless environment was a serious challenge, but the French were up to it.

The chef offered Charley a sample of several of his creations. She used an eating utensil that totally enclosed the morsel while it was under way from a covered dish to the mouth. The food was delicious and the covered spoon ingenious, and Charley said as much to the chef, who beamed.

The cargo bay was the heart of the ship, its raison d'etre. One of its doors was ajar — it was usually locked — so Charlie opened it. Containers and large assemblies took up most of the sizable compartment. Every container or assembly had to be carefully suspended and braced so that it would not move when the rocket engines were running nor drift in weightlessness. There was little room in the cargo bay for people; the passageways through the cargo reminded Charlie of the passageways in submarines — except you floated effortlessly along this one, propelling yourself with an occasional gentle push, now and then touching something to prevent impacting the sides.

She saw people near the rear of the compartment, where the heaviest items were placed. One of them was Claudine Courbet. With a flick of her wrist Charley started that way. As she neared the container Claudine and a man were working on, she saw that they had taken one of the container's panels off to expose the contents. Both had their heads inside as Charley approached.

There wasn't much room, so Charley waited until someone noticed her. Claudine and the man were conversing, in muffled French that Charley couldn't understand.

Claudine finally backed out into the passage and saw the pilot. A look of surprise crossed her face. 'What are you doing here?'

'Visiting. And you?'

The man also backed out and turned his back to the container, almost as if he didn't want Charley to see inside.

'I thought you were asleep,' Claudine said.

'I was. Obviously now I am awake.'

Claudine nodded her head at her coworker, then started toward Charley. 'Come, let's go to the salon where we can talk. Dinner will be ready soon.'

'Fine,' said Charley Pine, and did a somersault to get her head pointed in the right direction. A pull with both hands sent her shooting along the passageway. Claudine followed her.

From her seat in the cockpit of Jeanne d 'Arc, Charley Pine faced a sky full of stars. The moon was off to the right about fifty degrees. The spaceplane wasn't heading for it, but for a point in space where the moon would be when the spaceplane arrived.

She was alone in the cockpit, which was a very pleasant feeling. By regulation, one of the pilots had to be in the cockpit at all times. She and Lalouette took turns, four hours on, four hours off.

She felt as if she had lived her entire life to get to this moment, flying through space with the earth at her back and the universe ahead. It was heady stuff. Cool, she thought. Super cool. A smile lingered on her lips.

Once again her eye swept over the computer readouts presented on the cockpit multifunction displays (MFDs).

Yes, the star locators were locked on their guide stars, the radar was indicating the precise distance to the moon, and the computers had solved the navigation problem and were continuously updating it. They presented the solution in the form of a crosshairs on the heads-up display (HUD), plotting velocity through space against time to go to the initial point, which was the point at which Jeanne d 'Arc would begin its maneuvers to enter lunar orbit. Best of all, all three flight computers were in complete and total agreement.

Absolute agreement among three individuals was only possible if those three were machines, she thought. 'Not any three people alive,' she muttered.

She checked ship's systems, flicking through presentations on another MFD. Hull integrity, air pressure, atmospheric gas levels, fuel remaining on board, water pressure in the lines, temps in the galley, internal and external hull temps — yes, all were as they should be, well within normal parameters. It made her feel a bit superfluous sitting here monitoring all of this, and yet the spaceplane's systems were not monitored continuously from Earth. To save money and weight, the French made their ships more self-sufficient than the old American space shuttles or Apollo spacecraft. Mission Control was always there, a valuable asset in case things went wrong, only a push of a button away on the radio, but truly, the pilots were in charge.

Charley was wearing a headset so that she could hear any transmissions from Mission Control. There had been none since she checked in twenty minutes ago. She had to check in every hour on the hour.

She pulled the earpiece from her left ear and placed it against her head so that she could listen to the sounds of the ship.

One would think that every click and clang inside the ship would carry throughout the structure, and it did, but not as audible noise. The ship was too well insulated for that. If one put a hand on the outside hull, the random tapping and rapping could be felt. One could almost imagine the ship was alive. She rested her right hand on the frame of the side window to enjoy the tiny tremors.

She was gradually coming down from the adrenaline high that had kept her wired for the last twenty-four hours. Maybe after this watch she could sleep.

She yawned. Actually, she was getting sleepy now.

Okay, Charlotte, old girl, stay awake!

The good news was that if she drifted off, any ship's system that failed or exceeded normal operational parameters would illuminate a yellow caution light and sound an audible warning. It sounded like a siren and would wake the nearly dead. A different tone would sound if one of the flight computers disagreed with the other two.

If she slept, the ship would continue on course, precisely as if she were awake, and Mission Control would give her a blast if she missed her hourly call-in. And yet, she was a professional. 'I am not going to sleep in the cockpit,' she declared out loud.

'I certainly hope not,' said a male voice behind her, startling her. She had heard nothing as he came in.

She glanced over her shoulder. Pierre Artois.

'Bonjour' she said, successfully hiding her irritation at being surprised.

'Bonjour, mademoiselle. How do we progress?'

In answer, she punched up the navigation display on the MFD and pointed to the readouts. 'Zipping right along, as you can see.'

'So how does Jeanne d'Arc compare to your flying saucer?' Artois asked as he