Free Saucer: Savage Planet by Stephen Coonts

remembered them. He was curious how Solo’s history differed.
    Solo was reluctant. “It was a long time ago, and I have only fleeting memories. My parents, my brother and sister, the friends I grew up with, my classmates, all gone now. Have been dead for thousands of your years.” He shook his head slowly. “For many years I tried to keep their memories fresh, to warm me as I tried to cope with life upon this savage planet. Then I let them go, let them dribble away like sand through my fingers.” He paused, cleared his throat, then started playing with the food on his plate. “It is better that way, I think.”
    The silence that followed was broken by Rip. “Tell us of your adventures here, on earth.”
    “We landed upon an island. We knew it was an island when we landed. We didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t explored much when my colleague stole the saucer, which still contained our portable comm gear, and flew away. We never saw him again.” Solo shrugged. “He wasn’t a pilot, but perhaps he knew enough to rendezvous with the starship. Probably he told them we were all dead.”
    “He never returned?”
    “Neither him nor anyone from the starship. One can only speculate, and of course we did. Whatever happened, the saucer never returned.”
    “So you were marooned?”
    “On an island on this green planet circling a modest star, on the edge of this humongous galaxy.”
    They finished dinner as he talked of the natives, the warlords and their armed men, the knights, and the Vikings who raided occasionally. The fire burned low, but no one was willing to break the spell to throw more wood on. Solo’s voice was mesmerizing; the adventure came alive in his listeners’ imagination.
    “It was a difficult time for everyone. The native people’s agriculture was barely adequate, they routinely starved in winter, the place was damp and rainy … My two companions and I were soon as cold, hungry and dirty as the people around us. To survive, we had to blend in, to become them. We quickly acquired the language while we waited for our saucer to return, or another from the starship. One of my colleagues was killed and the other died soon after.”
    At last, when the hour was late and the fire sputtered out, Egg announced, “It is time for bed. We will talk more tomorrow. Adam, you will have my guest room.”
    *   *   *
    When Charley and Rip were in bed, Charley whispered, because Solo was in the next room, “Did you believe him tonight?”
    “He told us nothing that proves he is what he says he is.”
    Charley thought about that. “He flew the Roswell saucer.”
    “ You flew the one we found in the Sahara, and you are not an alien. The fact is suggestive, but certainly not proof.”
    Charley persisted. “I thought he was telling the truth,” she said.
    “Or what he believes to be the truth. It will take more than stories to convince me.”
    “He didn’t look happy tonight as he talked,” Charley observed. “I was watching his eyes. He chose his words carefully.”
    “Liars often do,” Rip observed. “Or the mentally ill.”
    “Or a man trying to avoid painful memories,” Charley shot back. After a bit she mused, “What would it be like to live a thousand years? To stay healthy and active and busy with life?”
    “To outlive all the people you loved?” Rip continued the thought. “To watch everyone you care about age and die, one by one? He was never truly one of them. He was a stranger, different in a profound way. Ah, he avoided the disabilities and indignities of old age, so far, but at what cost?”
    “If he is telling the truth,” Charley said.
    “If,” Rip agreed.
    “Douglas and Murkowsky are greedy men, sociopaths incapable of shame or remorse. They’ll be back.”
    “Sleep, woman. We’ll need our strength tomorrow.”
    *   *   *
    Stretched out in Egg’s guest room, Solo could not sleep. He ran over the events of the day, his impressions of Egg, Rip and Charley, and