“When?”
“Eight minutes or so.”
Murkowsky broke the connection without saying another word. He kicked the sniper. “Their saucer is eight minutes away and coming fast. Better start shooting or we’re all going to end up poor.”
The sniper opened fire, sending a fusillade toward the old Anasazi ruin even though he had no targets.
“This is Petty Officer Hennessey,” the president said, introducing the sailor, who was in his blue uniform with his red chevron on his left sleeve.
“Are you a Boy Scout?” Amanda asked.
“No,” Hennessey replied with a smile. “I’m in the navy.”
“Oh,” she said.
“I used to be in the Boy Scouts, though.”
Amanda, the First Granddaughter, was comfortably ensconced in the Oval Office with a plate containing a half-dozen Fig Newtons, her favorite cookies, and a glass of milk.
She turned her attention to her grandfather. “I am so excited. This is so cool! People from outer space. Coming here. When will they arrive?”
“In a day or two,” the president replied evasively. The truth was, he had no idea. The starship was in orbit, NASA said, but if the intergalactic voyagers were trying to communicate, no one had told him about it. Nor had he any idea what they were doing up there circling the earth, or indeed, what their plans were. Maybe they would go to Paris to eat snails after all.
“I’ll bet they get here tomorrow in time for lunch,” Amanda said and picked up another Fig Newton. She dipped it in her milk and began nibbling. “Is that their saucer parked out there?”
“I don’t know that either,” the president admitted. He thought it probable the aliens were saucer people, but who knew? Maybe there were dozens of civilizations all over the universe sending starships out to explore willy-nilly.
The president certainly hoped they were saucer people. When he and Amanda took their saucer ride with Charley Pine last month, she told him the computer interface was designed for human brains. Or humanlike brains. The archaeologist, Professor Hans Soldi, became famous when Rip Cantrell discovered his saucer in the Sahara by arguing with force that the saucer people might well be ancestors of the people here on earth today. That had caused a sensation, of course, and to date, as far as the president knew, no one had successfully refuted Soldi’s idea. Still, although plausible, Soldi’s theory remained just that, a theory.
Nevertheless, in the presidential mind Soldi’s theory and the fact that Rip and Charley and even Egg Cantrell had all successfully flown not only Rip’s saucer but the one recovered in Roswell, New Mexico, and secretly stored in Area 51, seemed to make it probable, indeed, likely, that the saucer pilots were people, more or less like us.
More or less. Ye Gods …
“Can I go aboard the spaceship when it comes and see what’s what?” Amanda asked. “Oh, I do hope they bring kids about my age. It’ll be such fun showing them around.”
The president looked beseechingly at Petty Officer Hennessey. Do something, his look said. Hennessey obliged. He began asking Amanda about her school and her friends.
Hennessey was still at it when P. J. O’Reilly rushed in with some eight-by-ten photos in his hands. “Mr. President, here are some photos of that starship in orbit that were taken with very-long-lens cameras.”
Everyone gathered around the president’s desk to look. The starship resembled a giant doughnut. It had a central core and spokes that led out to the ring. Six spokes. Above the central core some sort of thing was attached that looked a bit like a blimp.
“Hmm,” said the president. “How big is it?”
P. J. O’Reilly rubbed his hands. “The thing is over a mile in diameter, Mr. President. According to the people at NASA. It should be visible as a bright star right after dark and before dawn.”
“A mile?” the president muttered skeptically.
“It’s big, bigger than any transportation vehicle ever designed or built on this planet. NASA thinks it could hold something like ten thousand people.”
“Wow!” Amanda said. “We are gonna have a party!”
“Of course,” O’Reilly continued, enjoying the look of distress on the president’s face, “it could be full of troops. They may have come here to conquer the world.”
“By God,” the president said heavily, “if they can balance the federal budget they can have this piece of it.”
Petty Officer Hennessey snorted. “More than likely,” he said, “that thing is full of scientists and college professors dying to find something super to spin theories about.”
The president eyed Hennessey and smiled his gratitude.
“Should we release copies of these photos to the press?” O’Reilly asked.
The president hesitated, eying Hennessey, who nodded.
“Go ahead,” the president said, “and get the staff on the phones. We need some scientists of our own to welcome these folks. Or things. Or whatever. Get Professor Soldi and ask him for recommendations. Biologists, anthropologists, linguists, astronomers, a delegation of NASA engineers, anyone you can think of.”
“Some congressmen and senators want to attend,” O’Reilly pointed out.
“No damn politicians,” the president said and smacked the table.
“How about some teachers?” Amanda piped up. She wasn’t the least bit frightened of her grandfather.
“Certainly, teachers. O’Reilly, invite a bunch from around Washington and the suburbs. Elementary, middle school and high school.” The Grand Poobah made a gesture, and O’Reilly shot out of the room. He left the photos.
“Boy, oh boy, oh,” Amanda enthused as she examined each picture. “The kids in my class are going to be sooo jealous.”
Hennessey looked at the president and the president looked at him. They nodded.
Hennessey left the room to find someone who would make the calls to invite Amanda’s entire fourth-grade class to Washington.
Rip Cantrell heard the muted roar of the rocket engines before he saw the saucer. It was high, perhaps ten degrees above the far canyon rim, coming quickly, now without power. Silent and coasting. It looked as if it were headed straight for the cliff house. In fact, he wondered if it might not be able to stop before crashing into it, but indeed it did stop. Maybe a hundred feet away.
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 = MC2. 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.