“Want a drink?” he asked Hennessey.
“One surely wouldn’t hurt,” Hennessey said with a smile.
The president got his bourbon bottle from his desk drawer and poured into two glasses. He didn’t have any ice. Hennessey didn’t seem to care.
When the phone rang, the operator told him she had Charlotte Pine on the line.
“Ms. Pine, this is the president. How are you?”
“Fine, sir.”
“Mr. Egg around?”
“No. He went to town for a television interview and hasn’t yet returned.”
“Yes, I watched that interview. Too bad about Dr. Douglas and Johnny Murkowsky.”
“And Adam Solo.”
“Indeed. A tragedy.”
“Those cretins attacked us and we defended ourselves. Are we going to get any flak about that?”
“Not from the federal government, Ms. Pine. I can’t speak for the Arizona authorities, but I imagine they have better things to do than hassle you folks about dead pill pushers and Mafia soldiers.”
“Let’s hope,” she said coolly.
“The reason I called,” the president said smoothly, for he was a smooth man, “is to invite you, Rip and Arthur Cantrell to fly your saucer to Washington tomorrow. You can land it right here on the lawn. It would be terrific if you could get here about eleven so we can have time to chat before the aliens arrive. They said they’d show up about noon, in time for lunch.”
“How did you hear from them?”
“Well, it’s sort of weird. Actually, very weird. I just heard this voice in my head. I said ‘Hello’ out loud and we talked. So either I’m going crazy, which my wife and the pundits have predicted for years, or that was a real communication.”
“It was real communication, all right. They read your thoughts. Did you say lunch? Uncle Egg would like that. We’ve been on a very low-cal diet this past week.”
“Indeed. Lunch it is,” the president said. “See you tomorrow.”
When the president hung up, Hennessey flashed him a thumbs-up.
The president also jabbed a thumb at the sky.
Yeah! Gonna get rid of all these saucers. Yeah!
As the president sat in the Oval Office with his drink, he tried to digest Charley Pine’s statement that the aliens read thoughts. His thoughts. Holy smokes! If he looked at an alien female with lust in his heart, like Jimmy Carter, she would know it. The polite lie would go the way of the Model T. How would politicians function? Lawyers? Marriage counselors? Priests? Lovers? Adulterers?
The people of earth, he decided, probably weren’t ready for that method of communication, which would bankrupt Apple and all the other cell phone manufacturers, plus the telephone companies and the spavined postal service, already on its last legs. The postal and communications workers unions would go nuts.
The future was arriving way too fast.
“Here’s to mendacity,” he said to Petty Officer Hennessey, then raised his glass and drank.
“So do we sally forth to Washington in the morning?” Uncle Egg asked Rip and Charley. He had stopped at the supermarket in town for a load of fresh groceries and was now grilling three steaks. They were sizzling nicely, which reminding him of the fresh fish they and Adam Solo had roasted on sticks in the old Viking hideaway beside Hudson’s Bay. Of course, Charley had complimented him on his television interview and told him and Rip about her telephone conversation with the president and his invitation.
Rip was drinking a beer. “Why not?” he asked. “Gotta confess, I’m curious about Solo’s people. Would be fun to meet them up close and personal. Just to say we did.”
“My concern is,” said Charley Pine, “what are we going to do afterward?” She was having a glass of white wine.
“Do you mean immediately, or in the larger sense?” Rip asked, scrutinizing her face.
“Good question, Charley,” Egg said, and turned over the steaks as he talked. “After you’ve had the world’s greatest adventure, indeed, where do you go from here?”
“Precisely,” Charley agreed.
Rip shook his head as he eyed his lady. “Did you see the size of those royalty checks that came in the mail from the computer people? We can ski down an Alp, canoe down the Amazon, camp out under a bridge in Paris, stalk man-eating lions in darkest Africa, or sail the Pacific in our own yacht. Or all of the above.”
Charley Pine gave Rip the Look. “Maybe I’ll just go get a real flying job,” she said and strode away toward the kitchen to refill her glass.
“Guess we do have a problem, Uncle,” Rip said thoughtfully.
“Looks like it.”
“One we aren’t going to be able to solve today. So tomorrow morning let’s pack clean underwear and toothbrushes and saucer off to Washington to watch our representative democratic government in action. The day after tomorrow is going to have to take care of itself.”
“If you still like your steaks medium rare, yours is ready,” Egg said.
“I still do,” Rip replied. “I’ll get a plate.” He rushed off for the kitchen.
Egg Cantrell shook his head. Well, Rip and Charley had their own lives to lead — and they were going to have to figure out how to do it. Just like the rest of us.
Rip came back with his plate and a telephone, which he offered to his uncle. “It’s your girlfriend,” he said with a smile. “Professor Deehring. She saw your interview. Poor woman thought you looked handsome.”
18
The following morning, the most historic day in the history of the world according to a talking head on a network morning show, Charley Pine busied herself filing a flight plan for the saucer while Uncle Egg fixed pancakes and sausage. She hadn’t been filing flight plans for saucer flights and had found a nasty letter in the mail from the FAA threatening to revoke her pilot’s license. In her reply last night she had pointed out that flying saucers were not aircraft, which might stump the bureaucrats. For a little while, anyway.
Just to be on the safe side, this morning she called Flight Service and filed an instrument flight plan. Missouri direct to the White House. By presidential invitation. They could check.
Flight Service gave her some radio frequencies so she could talk to Air Traffic Control. Charley told the Flight Service dude when she was leaving and roughly how high she would fly: well above controlled airspace. The guy got rather hostile over the fact her craft didn’t have a radar transponder. She replied haughtily that transponders were not required equipment in flying saucers, then hung up before the conversation could deteriorate further.
After breakfast the trio took their small overnight bags, locked the house and trooped down the long hill to the hangar. Rip opened the door. The rising sun spotlighted the saucer, which didn’t look as ominous as it usually did. Rather benign in appearance, Egg thought.
Rip produced his little camera from his pocket — the one he had forgotten to take when they skedaddled with Solo — and snapped a shot of Egg and Charley in front of the thing. Egg snapped one of Rip and Charley. They were smiling, and Rip had his arms around her shoulders. Egg scrutinized the photo on the little screen, turned off the camera and pocketed it. Rip didn’t seem to notice.
Then, with nothing else to do, Egg and Charley got aboard, fired up the reactor and inched the saucer out of the hangar. Rip closed the hangar door, took one look around, then climbed aboard and closed the hatch. Charley was in the pilot’s seat, looking very comfortable.
She needed flying, Rip acknowledged to himself. Flying was who she was, all she had ever wanted to be. “On to Washington, Ms. Pine,” he said imperiously.