“Rip,” Egg said, his voice cracking.
“This is completely out of control, Unc. There’s a mob out there. Someone may get hurt, and it isn’t going to be us.”
“You once told Charley that you didn’t want to shoot anyone over the saucer.”
“I don’t think I said that to you.”
“It’s on the computer.”
Rip took a deep breath. “The saucer isn’t the issue.” The rifle’s magazine was full. He worked the action, chambering a round, then lowered the hammer to half-cock. “Our safety is. I will shoot any of those people to protect you and Charley and Solo.”
Rip gestured toward the television. “Turn up the sound. We might as well listen and get the whole greasy enchilada.”
Egg did as requested, just in time to hear the reporter say, “Stay with us. We’ll be back after the break.” The television began running a Viagra commercial.
“Want some coffee?” Egg asked.
Rip sighed and laid the rifle on the table. “Sure.” He pocketed the remainder of the cartridges.
In a few minutes Charley and Solo joined Rip and Egg in the kitchen. Egg poured coffee while he briefed them. They stood at the unbroken window looking out.
The rising sun was lighting up the sky to the east.
“Maybe we’d better get some breakfast before the party begins,” Rip suggested. “When the day is completely here the TV people won’t need those lights and will be up on the porch pounding on the door and looking in the windows.”
Charley sipped her coffee and looked directly at Egg. “You are going to have to give them that computer you took from Rip’s saucer,” she said. “This is just too big.”
“No,” Rip shot back.
“What do you think?” Egg asked Solo.
Adam Solo took his time answering. “Sooner or later someone always wondered why I wasn’t aging like they were. The trick was to be moving along before that thought turned into action.”
“Little late for that now,” Rip said curtly.
“Apparently,” Solo agreed amiably.
“So?”
“I don’t know what is on your computer. And it’s your computer. You people will have to decide.”
“Everything that was on yours, less a hundred and forty thousand years of research.”
“Actually, it doesn’t work like that,” Solo said, glancing from face to face. “Space and time are warped by gravity. Your Albert Einstein explained it rather well, I thought. If you travel in space, you travel in time. They are essentially one and the same.”
“That explains the space maps in the computer,” Egg said thoughtfully. “You must chart your course to arrive at your destination at your chosen time.”
“That’s basically it,” Solo said. “The computer contains sailing directions.”
“So why didn’t your people return for you and your colleagues?” Charley asked.
“They tried, apparently, but going back in time is very difficult. Think of a ship’s course being dictated by the wind. In space we go where black holes and concentrations of matter let us go. Perhaps the Roswell saucer was on a rescue mission. Or perhaps not. Obviously I am still here.”
“Stay with us,” the television reporter intoned breathlessly. “We’ll be here at the Cantrell farm all day reporting events as they unfold. We hope to interview Egg Cantrell and Adam Solo, both of whom are believed to be still in the house.” This was followed by an appeal from a Houston law firm for clients who might have been injured by a bad drug. There was apparently lots of money in human suffering.
“Hell,” Rip said to Solo, “don’t despair. You have a great career ahead of you hawking antiaging pills.”
Solo smiled.
Rip glanced out the window. Dawn was well along.
“We may have to give them the computer,” Egg muttered. He got busy making breakfast.
Air Force One landed at Columbia, Missouri. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, the president and P. J. O’Reilly trotted across the mat to a waiting helicopter, which got airborne as soon as the door closed.
An air force major was waiting in the chopper to brief the president. He described the media siege of the Cantrell residence, the traffic jam on the local roads and the estimated four hundred gawkers who surrounded the house. The county sheriff was now on the scene and wringing his hands. “Most of the onlookers are local voters,” the major said to the president, quite superfluously.
“All this on television?” O’Reilly asked sharply.
“Every channel. All the broadcast and most of the major cable networks. Even the cooking channel. The producers go back to their studios occasionally to let the talking heads and hot babes have their moments, interview ‘experts,’ run commercials, that kind of thing. But you, Mr. President, will be on the air worldwide as soon as the helicopter comes into view of the cameras.”
“So what’s happening this morning?” the president asked.
“Nothing,” the major replied. “The Cantrells have stayed in the house. The reporters have knocked on the door, which didn’t open. One of the producers was talking to his boss in New York about cutting the electrical and telephone wires to force the Cantrells out. Egg Cantrell could sue them, but they would have their story.”
“Is Adam Solo there?”
“The networks believe he is. He was there yesterday and hasn’t been seen leaving. I doubt if a field mouse could have gotten out of the house during the last twenty-four hours without being seen.”
“The drug moguls, Douglas and Murkowsky?”
“Watching television somewhere, I imagine.”
The president looked out a window of the chopper at the rolling Missouri countryside sliding by beneath — at the patches of woodland, the fields that were harvested weeks ago and the neat little farms connected to the paved roads that snaked across the land.
As the major predicted, a live shot of the helo approaching the Cantrell farm hit every major network within seconds. Producers almost melted down in ecstasy when the president of the United States stepped out. Reporters tried to mob him, but the Secret Service agents kept them away, mainly through brute force.
The president pretended the press wasn’t there. He set his eyes on the front door of the Cantrell residence and marched up the path, trailed by P. J. O’Reilly and two agents openly carrying submachine guns and wearing headsets with boom mikes.
Rip was already at the door to open it for the president. He had wisely left his rifle in the kitchen, so there was no unpleasantness with the Secret Service agents, who followed O’Reilly, who followed the president.
After the president shook hands with Rip, saying, “Good to see you again,” he motioned the security detail to go into the empty living room and asked, “Where’s your uncle?”
“In the kitchen.” Rip led the way.
Someone had turned off the sound on the TV set, so there was only the video of a reporter gesturing wildly and pointing toward the house as his mouth worked rapidly.
Rip did the introductions. The president held on to Solo’s hands while he looked him in the eyes. “You and I need to have a long chat,” he said.
Solo nodded.
Charley Pine got a kiss on the cheek from the president — he liked to kiss beautiful women and made no secret of it — but Egg got the full treatment. He found his hand trapped by the president’s, and then the president put one arm around his shoulder and hugged him tight.
“Mr. Cantrell — I’ll call you Egg. I came from Washington to have a personal talk with you. Is there a place where we can have a private conversation?”
“Rip and Charley and Solo have a right to hear everything that is said. How about a cup of coffee?”