Harsek said sharply, "This is all very interesting, girl, but we have an aircraft sitting on a public highway. We can question them later. Get them aboard."
I'm as brave as the next man, I hope, but no matter how much I ride in them, airplanes always scare me a little. Perhaps this is because I don't know anything about flying them except what little I've absorbed by watching other guys do it.
I can drive a car pretty well, and I've been checked out on horses, bicycles, motorcycles, skis, skates, and snowshoes; I can handle a boat in an amateurish fashion and I once managed to ride a surfboard without falling off; but the air is not my element. One of these days I'm going to take a few flying lessons so I'll at least know if the guy up front is doing the right thing or the wrong one.
In the meantime, crowded into the back seat of the little plane beside Carol, I didn't immediately do a lot of constructive thinking about our situation, although there was obviously a lot to be done. As far as I was concerned, the intensive cerebral effort could wait until Harsek got us the hell off that dark desert highway and up into the sky where we couldn't hit anything, at least not until it was time to come down again.
It took him a while. I've called it a little plane, and you could have checked it aboard a commercial jet and had baggage allowance left over, but it still had two engines and carried four people, which is a lot of plane for a private job. With a full load of passengers, it didn't really leap off the ground; and as we roared along the shadowy blacktop fighting for takeoff speed, I expected at any moment to see a car or truck appear ahead to contest our right to the road.
There was nothing to indicate the exact moment we stopped rolling and started flying. Harsek just reached out and hit a switch and I heard the wheels come up, so it seemed reasonable to assume that we were airborne. When we'd achieved a safe margin of altitude, I cleared my throat.
I said, "You drive this thing better than you did that taxi in Mazatlбn."
He was busy getting things trimmed and organized for level flight. He said without turning his head, "It wasn't much of a taxi. This is a good airplane. It is too bad that we must lose it."
"Lose it how?" I asked.
"Never mind. You will see." He glanced towards Priscilla, who sat half-turned in the right front seat so that her revolver could cover us in back, particularly me. Harsek said, "Give me a report, girl. You used the emergency code. What went wrong?"
She said defensively, "I don't have to report to you, Harsek. You are here to assist us, not to give orders or conduct interrogations. I will make my report to Command, when the assignment is finished."
"For a chicken that has just missed being plucked, if my guess is correct, you talk very bravely. But of course you are right." His voice was dry. "Harsek does not give orders here; he merely lends his well-known face and name to the operation. He also flies airplanes and drives taxis, and shoots guns if necessary. But the bright young children get the credit-and the blame, don't forget, if things go wrong."
"Nothing's gone wrong!" Priscilla said sharply. "Anyway, nothing serious."
"To be sure. Allow me to amend my request. Do not make a report. Merely bring me up to date, as one colleague to another. What situation did you leave behind in Puerto Peasуo? Since you did not bring him along,. I assume you silenced that young man, the handsome, shifty-eyed one who wanted to kill his middle-aged wife for her money. It is really remarkable how many people can be found, if one looks hard enough, who are eager to commit a murder if only the blame can be placed somewhere else, even on beings from other worlds. Or did the man escape you? Is he now in the hands of the police, telling them about our project, as much as he knows? Which is not much, but enough to be damaging."
Priscilla hesitated. "He didn't escape; he's dead. However, there's a Mexican policeman or government agent, the man with whom I rode down there, who seems to have made some good guesses. I tried to have him killed-" She threw me an angry look. "-but I was not successful. But it does not really matter. No one will believe him. No one of consequence. Besides, he'll be unconscious for – several hours, and his ingenious tracking device is lying back there in the cactus."
"So a policeman knows," Harsek said grimly.
Priscilla said, "I tell you, it doesn't matter! If we were dealing with military secrets, or technical data, it would be different, but we are dealing with flying saucers. It is a subject upon which people are not rational!" Either her vehemence, or the fact that she was talking to Harsek, who did not have to be deceived, had brought a faint accent to her speech. She went on quickly, "Let one Mexican government employee scream to heave4hat these recently 'sighted' Mexican saucers are a hoax and do not exist, that all the latest reports from this area are total fabrications: no one will listen. No one, I tell you. The skeptics will remain skeptical and the believers will continue to believe."
"If you say so, girl." Harsek sounded unconvinced.
"I say so. That was the beauty of the scheme from the beginning. We are not dealing with scientific facts, we are dealing with a variety of religious fanaticism. Indeed, that is one of our problems. Even when we have demonstrated that all these individual deaths, and the final mass catastrophe, can be blamed on callous aeronautical experiments-perhaps even hostile military demonstrations-carried out by the United States over Mexican territory, some people will remain firmly persuaded that the real responsibility rests on creatures from Jupiter or Polaris, and that somebody is covering up the truth for reasons of policy."
Harsek shrugged his massive shoulders. "It is an interesting theory. Personally, I have the old-fashioned notion that secrets should remain secret, particularly from the local authorities, but as you have pointed out, this is not my mission. For your sake, I hope you are right."
There was silence in the plane for a while, as far as conversation went. The motors out on the wings were far from silent, however, and there were a number of small, constant, unidentifiable-at least by me-vibration noises. Presently I felt Carol grope for my right hand and grip it tightly. I glanced at her. Her white sweater and pale face were dim blurs in the darkness of the cabin.
"They're going to kill us, aren't they, Matt?" she breathed. "And Ramуn can't help us now."
"They probably intend to. But let's not confuse intention with execution, doll. Can you fly one of these things?"
"What?"
"Can you handle a plane?"
She shook her head quickly. "Heavens, no! The few other times I've been up in little private jobs like this, I was scared half to death." She laughed wryly. "And people weren't even thinking about murdering me, those other times."
Priscilla, in front of us, shifted position irritably. "Be quiet. We have a long way to go, too long for listening to a lot of chatter."
The plane flew steadily on through the night in a southerly direction, judging by the compass I could see past Harsek's head. Priscilla kept the muzzle of the.38 aimed at me over the back of her seat. It could not have been a comfortable position, but her attention did not waver as the hours passed. At last Harsek glanced at his watch, studied a map or chart briefly, and looked down through the darkness that was no longer quite as dark as it had been.
"The life preservers are in the rear," he said. "Get them out and put them on. We are about twenty minutes from our ditching point. Remember, do not inflate the preservers in the cabin or you will have difficulty getting through the door."
Carol found my hand again. I felt her fingers tighten fearfully. "You mean -. – you mean we're going to crash?"