Saucer: Savage Planet (25 page)

He heard Charley calling his name.

“Yeah.” The word came out hoarse. His throat hurt fiercely.

“Look at the sniper’s location. Just look at it, think about it.”

Rip rolled over and crawled to the slit in the rock pile that he had used to shoot at the sniper’s group. No one standing there erect now, of course.

The sniper had to be there, though. Or close by. Rip stared.
There,
he thought.
There.

His peripheral vision caught the saucer turning and moving, going right for the spot where he was looking. A beam much like a child’s sparkler, only straight and fierce, illuminated the place. That was the saucer’s antimatter weapon, which spewed forth antimatter particles that obliterated atoms of normal matter when they encountered them. Yet for every one that self-destructed, a million continued on … Rip saw sparks—little flashes that looked like sparks—around the area where he thought the sniper was concealed.

He took that opportunity to haul himself erect. Bracing himself on the wall of the old stone house, moving carefully toward the door, he tried to keep his eyes on the sniper’s position. He gave up when he reached the door. He fell through the opening, landing right at Charley’s feet. She didn’t look at him. She was staring through the door at an oblique angle at the impact point of the antimatter weapon.

*   *   *

The antimatter particles that smashed into the area around the cliff’s edge penetrated everything until they hit a regular particle and exploded in a small burst of pure energy.
E
=
MC
²
. They buzz-sawed through trees and rocks and dirt; bits of wood and rock and dirt flew everywhere. They also went through the sniper—an antimatter particle met its opposite number in his brain. The explosion killed him instantly.

Dr. Harrison Douglas was lying behind a rock trying to tie a piece of his shirt around his wounded arm. The antimatter particles penetrated the rock, and he died after explosions in his lungs, kidneys and heart.

Johnny Murkowsky avoided being wounded by the shower of antimatter particles. Dozens went through him without obliterating themselves. It was just the sheer dumb luck that sometimes protects fools and morons.

He gripped his submachine gun tightly and waited for the assault to stop. It did, finally, and he eased his head out from behind a stone where he was cowering in time to observe the saucer turning and climbing, heading for the top of the mesa where the Philly boys were hunkered down and shooting assault rifles at the saucer.

Oh, too bad, too bad! They were so close.

Damn that Charley Pine. Damn Rip Cantrell. And damn Adam Solo. Just a lock of hair was all we needed. Just a lock of hair.

*   *   *

As Uncle Egg slapped a rag on Rip’s neck and examined the bullet wound, Rip heard some kind of rocket exhaust amid the staccato hammering of assault rifles firing bursts.

Charley Pine saw something strike the saucer and explode. It had no visible effect on the ship. She also saw sparks all over it—no doubt bullets from the top-of-the-mesa crowd.

She ordered the ship to turn and use the antimatter beam on the people and machines on top of the mesa. Climbing and turning, the saucer soared back toward the mesa above the ledge where the cliff house stood. Now she saw the flashes along the leading edge where the antimatter was pouring from the weapon, then saw the beam of smoke and flashes reach toward the top of the mesa. The particles traveled at the speed of light, so the river of them resembled a searchlight. On, then off, then on again. Finally off.

Charley heard an explosion that sounded as if it came from atop the mesa. A helicopter blowing up, perhaps? Or one of its weapons detonating?

“Charley, did you get the sniper?” Rip asked.

For the first time Charley glanced down and saw that Rip was bleeding on the right side of his neck. Egg’s rag was becoming sodden with blood.

“What—?”

“Bullet grazed him,” Egg said. “Not hurt badly, I think. But boy, Ripper, when we get the bleeding stopped, your neck is going to be stiff and sore.”

Egg tore up the last T-shirt and used it as a bandage.

“Did you get the sniper?” Rip asked again.

“I don’t know.”

Finished with Rip, Egg checked on Adam Solo’s condition. He looked haggard, and his face had lines. The entry and exit bullet wounds were still leaking.

“Solo needs a doctor, and he needs one now,” Egg stated. “Let’s get aboard the saucer and go find one.”

“Okay,” Charley said, turning back to the window.

“How are we going to do this?”

“Same way we got here. We’re going to ride on top. Let’s get ready. I’m bringing it around.”

Rip hoisted himself erect and gripped his rifle fiercely. He paused and ensured he had a live shell in the chamber and shoved two more shells into the magazine. He only had a few cartridges left in his pocket.

Egg helped Solo, who could scarcely stand. Rip draped the other arm over his shoulder, and the two men moved Solo to the door.

Thank you.
Egg, Rip and Charley heard the unspoken words in their head.

Charley brought the saucer close to the edge of the cliff, turned it around and backed it up until the rocket nozzles were resting right against the stone.

They charged out, Charley in the lead. She climbed onto the saucer’s back and helped Uncle Egg and Rip get Solo aboard. “Don’t look down, people,” she warned.

Once again, Egg was struck with how precarious their position was on top of the mounded-up saucer shape, with nothing to hang on to except the now-dry, smooth, warm, dark surface of the spaceship. In other words, nothing at all. As they lay down and spread themselves, the saucer began to move, gently, almost imperceptibly.

As they moved away from the cliff, Egg scrunched his eyes tightly shut.

He opened them again when he heard the thumps of bullets hitting the ship and the zings of bullets flying off. Then the reports. Someone was shooting an automatic weapon at the saucer.

“Assault rifle,” Rip shouted and raised his head to see where the fire was coming from.
Whump, whump, whump,
and howling whines as the bullets ricocheted away. “Climb, Charley! Show them the belly.”

“I can’t. We can’t climb any higher without the rockets. We’ll fall off.”

Rip scanned the top of the mesa. Saw no one. Then he looked toward the place the sniper had been on the rim. Saw a man standing there … muzzle flashes.

The guy was no marksman. He squirted another magazine full of bullets at the saucer, and maybe half of them struck.

When the guy emptied his weapon, Rip got to his knees and cut loose with the Winchester as fast as he could work the lever.

“Go at him, Charley,” he shouted. “Fast as you can.”

Adam Solo writhed uncontrollably.

A feeling of intense pain shot through Rip, Charley and Uncle Egg. Horrible pain. Egg almost lost his grip on the saucer as he groaned.

Adam Solo began to slip. Slowly he went down the side of the saucer toward the edge. The pain paralyzed Rip. He could do nothing but watch helplessly as Solo slid to the edge and went over without even trying to arrest his descent.

Someday I’ll see you on the other side.

Then the pain stopped.

Shaken, without thinking, Rip pulled two more shells from his pocket, stuffed them into the rifle, worked the lever and took careful aim as the saucer closed the distance to the rim of the canyon. A hundred yards now, then seventy, then fifty. The guy showed himself and Rip fired. Knocked him off his feet.

Charley had the saucer moving at perhaps twenty knots. The cold wind was in their faces.

The saucer crossed the rim and bore down on the shooter, who was struggling to scuttle away.

Rip recognized the man. Johnny Murkowsky.

Johnny Murk screamed as the saucer approached. He disappeared under the nose and the scream stopped abruptly.

Now Charley brought the saucer to a stop and lowered the landing pads.

It sank to the ground. “Come on, Uncle Egg,” she said. “Let’s get inside. Rip, watch for anyone who wants another shot at us.”

They scrambled down, and Charley went under the saucer to open the hatch.

Rip saw what was left of Johnny Murkowsky, squashed like a road-killed squirrel. As he scanned about, he saw Harrison Douglas’ corpse and the body of a man in a camo outfit lying in blood-spattered snow. A bolt-action rifle with a scope lay beside him. That was probably the sniper. They were obviously dead, no doubt victims of the antimatter weapon. He saw no one else.

Rip was the last to crawl through the hatch. He pulled it shut and latched it.

Charley adjusted the headband in the pilot’s seat.

“They killed Solo,” Rip said. “Why did he have to die like that?”

“He was dying anyway, and he knew it,” Egg said flatly. “I think he intentionally let go up there. Did you feel that pain?”

“Yes,” Rip said, trying to hold back his tears.

Charley sat for a long moment with her head in her hands.

After a bit she felt Rip’s hands on her shoulder. She looked up and saw that he had tears streaking his face.

“We can’t leave his body in that canyon,” Egg said.

Charley Pine nodded and the saucer lifted off.

They swung around over the mesa and examined the carnage. Indeed, one helicopter had blown up. Bodies lay scattered about in the thin snow. Charley eased the saucer over every body she saw, squashing them in the saucer’s antigravity field, just in case someone was playing possum. She was feeling rather vengeful just then.

In the first shelf, a thousand feet below the rim, they found Adam Solo’s body. Charley had to proceed for several hundred yards before she found a flat place to park the saucer. All three of them hiked back to the body. Solo’s head was smashed, and shards of bone protruded from his clothing. He had obviously hit the scree fan and rolled for hundreds of yards.

The cliff above them seemed to rise into infinity. Behind them was the mesa with the small shelf that contained the old Anasazi cliff house. They could just see the front of it from here. The canyon was silent except for the whisper of the wind. The rock faces and flats were broken by stark sunlight and shadows; sunlight glistened on the snow on the rims. Above them in the cerulean blue two hawks soared.

Without a word, the three of them picked up Adam Solo and carried him in stages to the saucer. They shoved the body up through the hatch as gently as possible, then climbed aboard themselves.

“Do you want to give his body to the aliens?” Charley asked the two men.

“No,” Rip said. “A volcano, I think.”

“That’s right,” Egg muttered. “This planet was his adopted home. We’ll keep him here.”

They fueled the saucer in Lake Mead. An hour after the battle in the canyon, the saucer rose on a column of white-hot fire and the roar of the rocket engines washed over Las Vegas and the revelers who packed it. The exhaust plume gradually faded to a burning speck in the sky, then to a star, then winked out altogether. The echo of its engines also faded, more slowly, until finally the murmur was also gone.

In Las Vegas, the party resumed.

17

The flight back from the volcano on the island of Hawaii gave Charley Pine plenty of time to think. She again tapped into Solo’s memories that were embedded in the saucer’s computer. She saw Solo as an Indian, killing enemy wounded and the wounded of his own tribe who were too grievously hurt to travel. Too grievously hurt to survive. She saw him gun German airplanes in World War I, saw them fall in flames, and felt his emotions. She forgave him. Forgave him everything.

It was after midnight when she landed the saucer in front of Egg’s hangar in Missouri and Rip dropped through the hatch to open the hangar door. Inside, she set the saucer down and secured the power. She and Egg eased themselves through the hatch.

Rip closed the door, and the trio climbed the hill to Egg’s house. Turned on lights. Egg busied himself in the kitchen making a meal. Rip went upstairs, found another box of cartridges, filled the Winchester’s magazine and his pockets, grabbed an empty grocery bag and trekked off to Egg’s mailbox by the front gate. It was full. In the darkness of a Missouri night, listening to the night sounds, alert for anything, Rip emptied the mailbox into the sack and walked along the road through the woods back to the house.

In addition to all the usual mail, there were dozens of letters from children addressed to Adam Solo, in care of Arthur Cantrell. Rip and Charley read a few of them, then had to quit. Their emotions were too raw.

After a quiet, subdued meal, the three of them went to bed. Charley found she wanted and needed Rip badly. With his rifle propped against the dresser, they made love and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

*   *   *

P. J. O’Reilly briefed the president about the saucer going into orbit from Lake Mead. The National Guard in Phoenix had had two helicopters stolen the day before, and they were seen on the ramp of the Grand Canyon Airport when a chartered 747 dropped the pharmaceutical titans. The president told him to have the National Park Service look around the canyon when the sun came up.

Just before he went to bed, the president was told about the saucer arriving in Hawaii and soon departing. An aide woke him up later to inform him the saucer was back in Missouri at Egg Cantrell’s farm.

The president lay in the darkness thinking about things. He suspected the pharma moguls had been outmaneuvered and perhaps outfought by Rip Cantrell and Charley Pine. Now there was a pair to draw to. It seemed logical to the president that those two thought Douglas and Murkowsky were no longer threats or they wouldn’t be hiding in plain sight at the Cantrell farm. Along with Adam Solo. The self-proclaimed alien. The guy who stole the Roswell saucer after it was raised from the Atlantic, stole it right from under Harrison Douglas’ nose.

He reviewed the few moments he had spent with Adam Solo … what, ten days ago? It seemed like ten years. Yet he remembered that humorless face, the eyes that bored right into you, almost as if the guy were reading your thoughts. Solo … the guy who got the whole world fired up.