Saucer: Savage Planet (2 page)

“We’ll get ’er there, you can bet on that,” Johnson said confidently. “The company has big money ridin’ on it. They promised every man in the crew a bonus, including me. Gonna be nice money, and I’ll be damn glad to get it.”

It took twenty minutes for the deck crew to get the dark, ominous ovoid shape deposited onto the waiting timbers on
Atlantic Queen
’s deck and lashed down. The saucer was so large it filled the space between the bridge and the forward crane and protruded over both rails. It seemed to dwarf the ship on which it rode, pushing it deeper into the sea.

When the cables that had lifted the saucer from the sea floor had been released, the sea anchors were brought aboard and the ship got under way. Solo felt the ride improve immediately as the screws bit into the dark water. The other ship, which had helped raise the saucer, had already dissolved into the darkness.

“There you are,” Johnson said heartily to Douglas, who had his nose almost against the window, staring at the spaceship. “Your flyin’ saucer’s settin’ like a hen on her nest, safe and sound, and she ain’t goin’ noplace.”

Douglas flashed a grin and dashed for the ladder to the main deck.

Solo went back into the navigator’s shack. He emerged seconds later carrying a hard plastic case and descended the bridge wing ladder to the main deck, where the sailors were milling around, inspecting the saucer while they rigged ropes across it and chained the ropes to padeyes in the deck. Several of them were touching the machine … and marveling.

As Douglas watched, Solo opened his case, took out a wand and adjusted the switches and knobs within, then donned a headset. Carrying the instrument case, he began a careful inspection of the saucer, all of it that he could see from the deck. He even climbed the mast of the forward crane to get a look at the top of it, then returned to the deck. As he walked and climbed around he glanced occasionally at the gauges in his case, but mostly he concentrated on visually inspecting the surface of the ship. He could see no damage whatsoever.

Douglas asked him a couple of questions, but Solo didn’t answer, so eventually he stopped asking. One by one the tired sailors left the deck, heading for their berths. They had been hard at work for almost twenty hours and were exhausted.

Solo crawled under the saucer and lay there studying his instrument. Finally he took off his headset, stowed it back inside the case and closed it.

One of the officers squatted down a few feet away. This was the first mate. “No radiation?” he asked Solo. The sailor was in his early thirties, with unkempt wind-blown hair and acne scars on his face.

“Doesn’t seem to be.”

“Boy, that’s amazing.” The mate reached and placed his hand on the cold black surface immediately over his head. “So this is the one that went straight into the ocean like a bullet from over a hundred thousand feet up,” said the mate, whose name was DeVries. “Yeah, I heard all about it on TV. Saw all those reruns of the saucers chasin’ each other over Manhattan. Bet this thing made one hell of a splash when it hit! I didn’t figure we’d find it in one piece, I can tell you. An impact like that…”

Solo studied the belly of the saucer as the raw sea wind played with his hair. At least here, under the saucer, he was sheltered from the rain.

“Everything inside is probably torn loose, I figure,” DeVries continued, warming to his subject. “Scrambled up inside there like a dozen broken eggs. And that crazy Frenchman flying it must still be inside, squashed flat as a road-killed possum. Couldn’t nobody live through a smashup like that. He’s gotta be as dead as Napoleon Bonaparte and getting pretty ripe, I’ll bet. This thing’s been in the water a whole month.”

The first mate turned to Douglas and asked, “So, Doctor, how come you’re spending all this money raisin’ this flyin’ saucer off the ocean floor?”

Douglas said matter-of-factly, “Scientific curiosity.”

“Eight million bucks is a lot to pay to scratch that itch,” DeVries said thoughtfully, a remark Douglas let pass without comment. The salvage operation was going to cost Douglas at least that much.

As those two watched, Adam Solo had placed his hand on the hatch handle and held it there. Now, after ten seconds or so, he pulled down on one end of the handle and turned it sideways. The handle rotated and the hatch opened above his head. Water began dripping out.

Not much, but some. The saucer had been lying in 250 feet of water; if the integrity of the hull had been broken, seawater under pressure would have filled the interior. This might be leakage from the ship’s tank, or merely condensation. Solo wiped a drip off the hatch lip and tasted it. He was relieved—it wasn’t saltwater.

Now Solo inspected the yawning hole. He stuck the wand inside and studied the panel on his Geiger counter. “Background radiation,” he told Douglas, who smiled in a self-satisfied way and rubbed his hands together, a gesture that Solo had noticed he used often.

Solo turned off the Geiger counter. He carefully wrapped the cord around the wand and stowed it in the plastic case, then shoved the case up into the dark belly of the saucer.

DeVries craned his neck, trying to see inside. “Like, when you going to climb into this thing?”

A smile crossed the face of Adam Solo. “Now,” he said. He raised himself through the hatchway into the belly of the ship.

Harrison Douglas bent down and crawled under the ship, then squirmed up through the hatch. Then the hatch closed.

The first mate slowly shook his head. “Glad it was them two and not me,” he said conversationally, although there was no one there to hear him. “My momma didn’t raise no fools. I wouldn’t have crawled into that thing for all the money on Wall Street.”

*   *   *

The first mate made his way to the bridge
.
Captain Johnson was still at the helm. “Well, did you ask him?” the captain demanded.

“Scientific curiosity, Douglas said.”

“My ass,” the captain said sourly. “Oh, well. As long as we get paid…” After a moment the captain continued, “Solo’s weird. That accent of his—it isn’t much, but it’s there. I can’t place it. Sometimes I think it’s Eastern European of one kind or another, then I think it isn’t.”

“All I know,” DeVries said, “is he ain’t from Brooklyn.”

The captain didn’t respond to that inanity. He said aloud, musing, “He’s kinda freaky, but nothin’ you can put your finger on. Still, bein’ around him gives me goosebumps.”

“They got money,” DeVries said simply. In his mind, money excused all peculiarities, an ingrained attitude he had acquired long ago because he didn’t have any.

“World Pharmaceuticals is gonna have to push a lotta pills to earn back eight million smackers for deep-sea salvage.”

“I say it’s a good thing,” the mate said lightly. “Some of this saucer money is finally trickling all the way down to us.”

“Amen,” the captain said, and both men laughed.

Then Johnson’s mood changed. “Solo is gonna try to fix that thing up and they’re gonna fly it,” Johnson said darkly. “That’s gotta be it.”

“You gonna call somebody?”

“After Douglas gets his saucer safely ashore, I don’t think he gives a rat’s patootie who we tell.”

“It’ll never fly again,” DeVries said with finality. “Bet it’s nothing but wreckage inside. Maybe if somebody like Boeing worked on it for a year or two they could get it in shape to fly again, but one guy ain’t gonna do it with hand tools.”

The captain lit a cigarette one-handed. “Tell you what,” he said after his first full puff. “I don’t care a whit if it flies or not, or what Douglas hopes to do with it. Guy’s got a screw loose.”

The mate couldn’t take his eyes off the saucer. “Thing’s heavy as hell. Like to never got it up. We almost lost it a dozen times.”

“Notice how the
Queen
’s ridin? Lot of weight up high. Hope we make harbor before the sea kicks up.”

DeVries grunted. After a moment he said with a touch of wonder in his voice, “A real, honest-to-God flying saucer … Never believed in ’em, y’know?”

“Yeah,” the captain agreed. “Thought it was all bull puckey. Even standing here looking at one of the darn things, I have my doubts.”

*   *   *

The only light inside the saucer came through the canopy, a dim glow from the salvage vessel’s masthead lights. It took several seconds for Solo’s eyes to adjust.

As the first mate predicted, the corpse of Jean-Paul Lalouette was there. The force of the impact had caused the seat belt and shoulder harness of the pilot’s seat to tear though his body, the major pieces of which were lying on the floor under the instrument panel. There was blood everywhere, but it had congealed and now had the consistency of dry paint.

After a glance, Solo ignored the corpse.

Harrison Douglas thought he ought to do something, so he clasped his hands in front of his ample middle and stood for a moment with head bowed and eyes closed. He stood like that for at least ten seconds. Then he opened his eyes and looked around again like a lucky Kmart shopper. The compartment was round, with a pilot’s seat on a pedestal and other seats arranged at floor level along the rear wall. The canopy gave the pilot a view forward and a bit of a look to both sides.

The instrument panel, if that was what it was, consisted of white panels. There were a few knobs. Five of them. There was a control stick for the pilot—at least it looked like a stick—and a lever of some sort on the left side of the pilot’s seat. Two pedals where the pilot’s feet could reach them. Rudder pedals, maybe.

How it all worked Douglas couldn’t imagine. Nor did he care. “Where are the computers?” he asked Solo.

Adam Solo nodded toward the instrument panel.

“Can you get at ’em?”

“I’ll try.”

“Amazing,” Douglas said under his breath, then said it again, louder. Trying not to step in the dry bloodstains, he reached out to touch things.

Solo removed a flashlight from his pocket and snapped it on. He began moving the beam around the interior of the ship, inspecting for damage. There was some. The glass in one of the multifunction displays in front of the pilot was broken.

“Dr. Douglas, I know you’ve had a long day and have much to think about. My examination of the ship will go much faster if you leave me to work in solitude.”

Douglas beamed at Solo. “I didn’t think it could be done,” he admitted. “When you told me this ship could be salvaged and you could wring out its secrets, I thought you were lying. I want you to know I was wrong. I admit it, here and now.”

Solo smiled.

“So this is the saucer they found in Roswell, New Mexico, back in 1947,” Douglas said, shaking his head. “And the air force kept it hidden for all these years in Area Fifty-one.” He looked at Solo. “Is it what you expected?”

Solo looked around thoughtfully. “Pretty much. I studied everything I could from one of the other saucer’s computers. Mr. Cantrell was very generous with access.”

This was a lie, but Harrison Douglas swallowed it right down. Egg Cantrell had allowed academics from all over the world access to the contents of the computer removed from the saucer his nephew Rip found in the Sahara. That saucer was a smaller version of this one, everyone said. They were indeed alike in many ways, Solo knew, but there were significant differences. This one was more technologically advanced. He didn’t bother to explain these messy facts to his patron, however.

“I leave you to it,” Douglas said. “If you will just open that hatch to let me out.” He took a last glance at the remains of the French pilot. “He doesn’t stink as much as I thought he would,” he muttered.

Solo opened the hatch and Douglas carefully climbed through; then Solo closed it again. He stood inside running the beam of his flashlight back and forth, looking carefully at everything. It had been many years since he was inside a saucer; the memories came flooding back. Good memories and bad. He tried to clear his head, to concentrate on his inspection, to look critically at what he saw.

After a moment, Solo opened the access door to the engineering compartment and disappeared inside. He was inside for an hour before he came out. With his flashlight he again inspected every square inch of the cockpit’s interior, opened access doors and looked inside, and when he had examined everything he could access, he took stock.

Charley Pine had apparently used the antiproton weapon in the other saucer on this one, attempting to shoot it down. The one-armed corpse on the floor had bled profusely from a cavernous wound in his leg. Solo found the hole in the water tank and repaired it with duct tape.

Fortunately the water tank could function at a very low pressure. If he ensured the pressure stayed low, maybe he would be okay. The reactor provided power to several generators, and they seemed intact. The electrical power was used to separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen—these tanks were highly pressurized and intact—and mixed the gases in the rocket propulsion system. The generators also provided power for the antigravity system. A display on the panel was wrecked, but there were three more, which should be enough. Apparently none of the antiprotons had met a proton in the reactor. If it had, there should be a detectable radiation leak.

Of course, if he powered up the reactor and there was actually was internal damage from antiprotons or the crash into the ocean, Adam Solo and everyone else on this salvage ship would soon be dead.

Solo rubbed his chin as he glanced around one more time.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Solo retrieved the headband that was still wrapped around the dead Frenchman’s head. He wiped it off without emotion and put it on his own head.

“Hello,
Eternal Wanderer.
Let us examine the health of your systems.” Before him, the instrument panel exploded into life.

*   *   *

The first mate, DeVries, strolled the bridge with the helm on autopilot. The rest of the small crew of
Atlantic Queen,
including the captain, were in their bunks asleep. The rain had stopped, and a sliver of moon was peeping through the clouds overhead. The mate had always enjoyed the ethereal beauty of the night and the way the ship rode the restless, living sea. He was soaking in the sensations, occasionally strolling across the bridge from one wing to the other and periodically checking the radar display and compass, when he noticed the glow from the saucer’s cockpit.