Free Saucer: Savage Planet by Stephen Coonts Page A

then his mind began to replay memories of the old days, when he and his colleagues were first marooned. There was much he hadn’t told his listeners this evening. He didn’t tell them of the battles and the blood, the battle axes and swords, nor of his Viking days. Nor of the cold winters, the miserable little huts, the fleas and lice. People dying of wounds and disease. The struggles, the hopelessness.
    Nor did he mention the woman.
    He finally fell asleep and dreamed of her.
    *   *   *
    Egg Cantrell couldn’t sleep either. He sat on the edge of his bed with the light on, looking at the dark windows and thinking about Douglas and Murkowsky and all those people watching on television, all those people out there in the night who thought a Fountain of Youth pill would be a wonderful thing to have, or who would like to profit from it. He thought those two categories included just about everyone. Maybe he was the only exception alive on this small planet. What was Solo’s phrase? “This savage planet.”
    The computer he had taken from Rip’s saucer was in its case beside his bed. The formula was in its memory. No one would believe him if he said it wasn’t.
    Perhaps he should hide the darn thing.
    Yet when Douglas or some other thug put a pistol to Rip or Charley’s head, he would tell them where it was. He knew that. They knew that.
    He sighed and slowly put his clothes back on, then worked on getting his shoes laced. His ample middle always made shoes a chore.
    Dressed, he stood and picked up the computer case. He tiptoed along the hallway and down the stairs. Eased open the front door and closed it softly behind him.
    *   *   *
    The president wasn’t having a quiet evening in the White House; far from it. A delegation from Congress arrived at midnight, threading their way through a mob that had gathered in Lafayette Square, across the street. The mob was unruly, waving signs and chanting about government perfidy.
    When P. J. O’Reilly relayed the information about the mob, the president sighed. Life in a free society is often messy.
    Yet when O’Reilly told him the congressional delegation was on the way over to see him, the president’s mood deteriorated dramatically. “What do those bastards want?”
    “Three guesses,” O’Reilly answered blithely. Like the president, he too had been watching the media meltdown on every channel on television. People were sure the government knew about the Fountain of Youth drug; the elderly and sick were demanding answers. Politicians were spewing sound bites right and left, promising that they would get to the bottom of the government’s cover-up and that if the drugs could be manufactured commercially, they would be. And would be made available to every man and woman on the planet at reasonable prices subsidized by the government and private insurance companies. Eternal life, or its earthly equivalent, was just around the corner.
    Consequently, when the two dozen legislators filed into the White House’s East Room at midnight, the president was in a foul mood. The congresspeople didn’t care. They started talking immediately.
    Senator Blohardt spoke louder than the others. “We are getting enormous pressure from our constituents. They want those drugs and they want ’em now.”
    “What drugs?”
    “Antiaging, for sure,” the senator said as his colleagues nodded their concurrence, “and cures for cancer and diabetes, a slimming pill, and a real honest-to-God cure for limp dick. In other words, a cure for every human malady. All of them.”
    “All.”
    “Anything and everything anybody ever heard of, including the common cold. Our switchboards are jammed, e-mails have crashed the servers, and the telephones have melted down. Everyone wants some magic drug, and they want the government to stop lying and dithering and get it for them.”
    “I see,” the president said, and indeed, being a career politician, he certainly did see. The elected