Saucer: Savage Planet by Stephen Coonts Page B

from Douglas still up there?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, Solo isn’t in it. He was sitting in Egg’s kitchen telling lies. Have the FBI find out if anyone is still at the Cantrell farm. For all we know, there is no one in either saucer.”
    “That’s impossible!”
    “And find a tame judge somewhere that will issue arrest warrants for all that bunch: Solo, Egg Cantrell, Rip Cantrell and Charley Pine.”
    “What’s the charge?”
    “Hell, I don’t care. Make something up. Income tax evasion, bank robbery, treason, sex with farm animals, whatever. Go, O’Reilly. Make the calls.”
    After his chief of staff closed the door and the president was alone, he began scooping shards of computer back into the case that had held it. He wondered, Was Solo lying?
    A thousand years!
    Oh, my God!
    *   *   *
    Rip, Egg and Charley floated near the saucer’s pilot seat while Adam Solo busied himself with the comm gear. If anyone was out there listening, he didn’t say. The three floaters balanced themselves in the weightless environment by using a finger on the back of the pilot’s seat or a touch of the overhead or floor or bulkhead. Didn’t take much, they discovered.
    They watched fascinated by the planet they were spinning around, although it appeared that the planet hanging there in the black void was revolving slowly under them. Above it all, in the inky blackness a billion galaxies wheeled in the eternal sky.
    “We are going to need a plan,” Egg said. “We can’t really stay up here in this saucer very long, not without toilet facilities and more food and water.”
    “Amen to that,” Charley said. She was regretting not making a pit stop before they left.
    *   *   *
    “What are they going to do now?” The president asked the air force chief of staff when his plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base. The general was there to meet him and walked with him to the helo, Marine One, that would take the commander in chief back to the White House. The general had so much chest cabbage that it was difficult to see that the front of his suit was blue. The four large silver stars on each shoulder were pretty gaudy too.
    “Ah, I dunno, sir,” the chief of staff said.
    The helicopter pilot was a marine major. The president stuck his head into the cockpit and asked him, “What are Rip and Charley going to do with that saucer?”
    “I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” the major said, so the president took his seat and strapped in.
    When the chopper landed on the White House lawn, the president went down the stairs and returned the salute of the enlisted honor guard. The first guy in line was a navy petty officer third class. The president paused and asked, “What do you think the Cantrells are going to do with that saucer?”
    “They can’t stay up there very long, sir,” the petty officer said. “Ain’t got a head in that thing, I heard. I kinda figure they’ll find a place to hide it and wait.”
    The president took a good look at the sailor’s face. He looked maybe twenty years old and shaved perhaps twice a week. “What do you think they’re waiting for?”
    “Aliens, sir. A starship.”
    P. J. O’Reilly nudged the president’s elbow, trying to get him to move along. The old man wasn’t moving. He looked at the sailor’s name tag. Hennessey.
    “Thanks, Hennessey. Glad to know that someone around here is thinking about possibilities. Keep it up.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The president walked on into the White House.
    *   *   *
    The new partners, Harrison Douglas and Johnny Murkowski, were wondering too. What would Egg, Rip, Charley and Adam Solo do next? Presumably they were in the Sahara saucer orbiting the earth.
    “Are they really?” Murkowsky asked. He was in the left seat of his Citation V, and Douglas was flying copilot. They were in the flight levels, on their way back to Connecticut, where they kept wives, mistresses, extra clothes and Christmas decorations. Their companies were also