“So what would have been the purpose of the second mission?”

“They went down and sprayed some kind of paint on the descent stages, made them the same color as the ground, and hoped they wouldn’t be found. And they were right.”

“So why did the Russians join in?”

“Damned if I know. They had nothing to lose. So they probably extracted some sort of deal. My guess is that when Nixon’s lockbox gets here, we’ll find out.” He was surprised to discover he’d eaten the donut. He sipped the coffee, put it down, changed channels.

HBO had The Greta Lee Show. Greta, lovely dark eyes, black hair, enticing smile, looked directly out of the TV. “Well,” she said, “so we got two missions to the back side of the Moon, which is nothing but a big parking lot. And I guess you heard that we’ve also developed artificial semen. And we wonder where the money goes.”

Cunningham growled something and went to one of the movie channels. He selected Casablanca, probably his all-time favorite film. “Okay?” he asked.

“Sure, babe.”

“I wonder how Bogie would have handled this?”

Lyra raised her cup. “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

He kissed her. Started to unbutton her blouse. And, in his best Bogart imitation: “You too, sweetheart.”

The racetrack sounded again. “George, they’ll be on the ground in twenty minutes. Should be here in less than an hour.”

37

“Canaveral has offered us its landing facility if we want it,” announced Gaines, listening to the transmission from Earth. He turned to Bucky. “We might consider it. It’s a hell of a lot better than Flat Plains in every respect.”

“With one exception,” replied Bucky. “We own Flat Plains. I won’t be beholden to the government or to NASA.”

“Are you sure? I mean, if we need medical care . . .”

“Do your job right, and we won’t,” said Bucky, ending the conversation.

“Bucky, you should be the happiest man alive,” said Neimark. “Why are you so grumpy?”

“In a couple of hours, I’m going to face the cameras and tell the nation that my president is a liar or a fool. And while we’ve had our differences, I’m just enough of a patriot not to be looking forward to it.”

“So let Jerry Culpepper do it,” said Bassinger. “That’s why you hired him, isn’t it?”

“This is my operation,” said Bucky firmly. “I’ll make the report to the public. Which brings up another matter.”

“Oh?” said Neimark suspiciously.

“Yeah. I don’t want anyone making any public guesses about what this . . . this thing is. Or was. We’ll wait until our experts have examined it six ways to Sunday, and we’re sure.”

“Oh, come on, Bucky,” said Bassinger. “It’s an alien artifact. There’s no keeping it secret, and I can’t imagine why you’d want to.”

“I’m not that sure, Phil,” said Neimark. “We’ve got to run it through half a dozen tests at our lab first.”

“What else could it be?” demanded Bassinger.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s always possible it was brought to the Moon not by aliens but by Sidney Myshko.”

Bassinger gave her a look that implied he thought she might start foaming at the mouth at any second, then shook his head, folded his arms, and shut his mouth.

“What do you think it is, Boss?” asked Gaines.

“I don’t know,” admitted Bucky. “I’m no scientist, or metallurgist, or whatever the hell’s required to tell us. But I know what I hope it is.”

“Proof that we’re not alone?” suggested Gaines with a smile.

Bucky nodded. “Got it in one.”

“We’re not alone,” said Neimark.

“You saw aliens?” asked Bucky disbelievingly.

“No, of course not,” she replied. “But do the math. There are one hundred billion G-type stars in the galaxy. At least ten billion are G-type stars like our sun. We’re finding that just about every kind of star we’ve been able to observe through the Hubble or one of the other telescopes has one or more planets. Now, what are the odds that there are from one to maybe three billion planets circling G-type stars and not a single one of them has developed life?”

“Astronomical,” admitted Bucky. Suddenly he smiled. “Maybe that’s why they call it astronomy.”

His three cabin mates groaned.

“Nobody laughed,” he observed.

“Would you?” said Bassinger, making a face.

“You’re all fired.”

“Okay, give us our pay.”

“I left it in my other pair of pants. I guess you’ll have to stay.”

“Just as well,” said Gaines. “It’s raining out.”

“Raining?”

“Meteors.”

Bucky looked out the window and watched a cloud of rocks sweep past. He kept his eyes on them until the storm dissipated a few minutes later.

“Well, now you can say you’ve been in one,” said Gaines.

“And I’m not even wet.”

“Or crushed, or shipwrecked, or . . .”

“Are these things common, these meteor storms?” asked Bucky.

“Not very,” said Gaines. “You’re as likely to get hit by garbage from the Apollo flights that’s been in orbit for fifty years.”

“Really?”

“Well, in theory. In practice, someone had enough brains to figure out what might happen, so they carried all their garbage back to Earth.” Suddenly Gaines smiled. “But it’s a pretty interesting notion, isn’t it? I’ll bet you could make a hell of a science-fiction story out of it.” Suddenly, he tensed. “Oops. New transmission coming in.” He concentrated on the message, then looked up. “The University of Nebraska is sending a team from their medical school, just in case. That’s more generous than you might think. We won’t touch down until close to eleven local time.”

“The Cornhuskers must have had a good year,” said Bucky with a smile.

“Cornhuskers?” repeated Neimark.

“Their football team.”

Gaines thanked them and turned to Bucky. “We’ll be entering the atmosphere in another twenty minutes. Anything you want me to say to Jerry?”

“Yeah. Have an armored truck on the premises, as well as our best security team.”

“You expecting trouble?”

“I don’t expect anyone to try to steal these pieces if that’s what you mean,” replied Bucky. “But I don’t want the press touching them or photographing them until we’re done with them.” He paused. “There’s only going to be one first photo and one first video of whatever the hell this is, and I want to make sure that the four of us are standing next to it and not some moron from CBS or NBC.”

“Okay, makes sense,” agreed Gaines.

“Also, nobody hitches a ride and sneaks into whatever lab we’re using. We don’t want anybody reporting our findings to the public before we do.”

“You’re the boss.”

Bucky smiled. “That’s the first time you’ve acknowledged it since we took off.”

“Spend a week in space, and it makes you crazy.” Gaines matched his smile.

Then they were in the atmosphere. The ride got choppy, and Gaines had to concentrate on his piloting. Bucky traded seats with Neimark, who was able to double as copilot, and before too long, they were on the ground and being towed to the hangar at Flat Plains with numerous spotlights and floodlights illuminating the darkened field.

“What the hell’s that?” demanded Bucky as he saw perhaps three dozen trucks and vans forming an aisle for the ship to be pulled into the hangar.

“The press, of course,” said Neimark. “You didn’t really think they wouldn’t be here to interview the first people to walk on the Moon in most of their lifetimes, did you?”

“No, of course not.” Bucky frowned. “But I don’t want them inside the hangar until we’re out of the ship, and I’ve talked to Jerry Culpepper.”