The Sam Gunn Omnibus

by Ben Bova

  “What’s wrong with a gambling casino?” asked Pete Nostrum, sitting next to Cole. “We don’t have one yet, do we?”

  Cole gave him a look that would shrivel Mount Everest, but it just bounced off Nostrum’s silly face.

  Nostrum couldn’t get respect if he paid for it. God knows he’d tried that route. Nostrum was a mental lightweight who’d won a seat on the Zoning Board by spending enough money to buy a majority of the community council that appointed the Board. He wanted any public office he could find, so he could have a platform to push his one, single-minded passion: holiday bonfires. No matter how many times the safety people nixed the idea, no matter how many times the New Chicago council of directors pushed his nose into the habitat’s book of regulations, Nostrum still pushed for bonfires in the big central park to celebrate every holiday from Christmas to Bastille Day to the return of Halley’s Comet.

  “Surely this board won’t permit a gambling casino to be erected in New Chicago!” Hornsby protested in a high, almost girlish voice, raising a chubby hand over his head as he spoke. He was badly overweight, a fact that his coral pink micromesh suit emphasized; he had piggy little eyes set deep in a puffy-cheeked pink face and tight little ears plastered flat against the sides of his head.

  “It’s not a gambling casino,” Sam corrected.

  “Mr. Hornsby, you are out of order,” said Chairperson McDougal, but so sweetly that Hornsby just sort of grinned foolishly and muttered an apology.

  Turning to Sam, she said, “Your application is very vague as to just what this ‘amusement center’ is to be, Mr. Gunn.”

  Sam got his feet, all five-four or thereabouts of him, and announced grandly, “Because, oh most gracious of chairpersons, I want to leave it to the good citizens of New Chicago to decide for themselves what kind of entertainments they would like to have.”

  John Morris, the crafty-eyed board member at the end of the table, steepled his fingers in front of his face as he asked, “And just what do you mean by that, Mr. Gunn?”

  Morris had recently been accused of accepting bribes in return for his vote. He’d denied the charge, claiming that the sudden spurts in his bank account had been all pure luck in the stock market.

  “I mean, sir,” Sam replied, “that I intend to furnish a fifty-storey building in which each floor consists of an open area in which all four walls are covered with hologrammic smart screens. The floors and ceilings, too. The citizens of New Chicago will be able to program their amusement center for whatever kinds of recreation they seek....”

  Sam strode out from behind the applicants’ table as he talked, his voice rising in fervor as he extolled the wonders of his idea: “Think of it! The finest symphony orchestras of Earth can perform here. The greatest sports teams! Pop singers! Ballet! Great dramas, dance, athletic competitions, virtually anything at all! In the amusement complex.”

  “We can get all that in our own homes,” Arrant groused, “through virtual reality.”

  “Without having to buy a ticket from you, or anyone else,” Cole added.

  “Yes, that’s true,” Sam replied, sweetly reasonable. “But home entertainment doesn’t provide the thrill of the crowd, the amplified excitement of being together with thousands of other people, the sheer exhilaration of interacting with other people.”

  Sam spread his stubby arms as wide as they would go. “Study after study has shown that home entertainment doesn’t compare in emotional impact with theater performances. Let me show...”

  And on he talked, on and on and on. He gave a one-man performance that I’ve never seen equaled in its sheer bravado, vigor, and elan. The board members sat mesmerized by Sam’s leather-lunged presentation. He didn’t use slides or videos or VR simulations. He just talked. And talked. Even grouchy old Arrant had stars in his eyes before long. Hell, Sam pretty nearly had me convinced.

  Bonnie McDougal brought us all down to earth. “So the essence of your proposal, Mr. Gunn, is to establish a hologrammic facility with full VR capability?”

  Sam teetered for a moment like a man who’d just stopped himself from falling over a cliff. “Yes, Madam Chairperson,” he said at last. “That’s putting it very succinctly.”

  McDougal smiled brightly at him. “Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Gunn. And it’s Miss Chairperson.”

  Sam’s face lit up.

  “Now then,” McDougal said, glancing at the display screen built into the tabletop before her, “it’s your turn, Mr. Hornsby.”

  Hornsby had slides and videos aplenty. The developers he represented, Woodruff and Dorril, wanted to build a three-hundred-unit condo complex on the ground in question, complete with three swimming pools, tennis courts, and a running track for joggers. There were no structures higher than four storeys in the entire New Chicago habitat, but Hornsby extolled the high-rise approach as being environmentally friendly.

  “If you put three hundred condo units into four-storey buildings, it would cover the entire parcel and even spill over into the adjacent properties.”

  Pete Nostrum found this amusing. Looking down the table to fellow board member Morris, Nostrum said loudly, “Hey, you own property abutting this parcel, don’t you Johnny? What’s this gonna do to your property’s value?”

  Morris curled his lip at the laughing Nostrum.

  McDougal said softly, “Mr. Hornsby, the issue here is not how we house three hundred additional families. New Chicago is not actively seeking more population.”

  “But you should, Madam Chairperson,” Hornsby said earnestly, sweat trickling down his fat cheeks. “You must! A community must grow or wither! There’s no third choice.”

  McDougal sighed. Cole snapped, “That’s flatland thinking, Mr. Hornsby. We’re quite content with a stable population here.”

  “Maybe you are,” said Morris, “but I tend to agree with Mr. Hornsby. A little growth would be beneficial.”

  “A little growth? Three hundred new families?”

  “A drop in the bucket.”

  Arrant spoke up. “A foot in the door, you mean. If we let this outfit build new housing, how can we deny the same opportunity to other builders?”

  “I don’t see it as a precedent,” said Morris.

  “Of course you don’t....”

  “Gentlemen,” said McDougal, “Mr. Christopher is waiting to make his proposal.”

  “Why don’t we break for lunch first?” Arrant suggested.

  “Let’s hear out Mr. Christopher before lunch,” McDougal said, pleasant but firm.

  I got to my feet, feeling nervous. “Uh ... this won’t take long. What I’d like to do with the parcel is ... well, leave it alone. In perpetuity.”

  “Leave it alone?” Morris was shocked.

  “Undeveloped?” Arrant asked.

  “Forever?” Barney Wilhelm, sitting at the other end of the table, stared at me in disbelief.

  “Yessir.... uh, sirs. And lady. Leave it alone forever. Zone it as a public playground in perpetuity.”

  “We have plenty of public parks in New Chicago.”

  “Lots of green space.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted, “but there’s no open place where kids can play—”

  “What do you mean?” Cole snapped. “There’s the Little League baseball field, the Hallas football field—”

  “Olympic Stadium,” Nostrum jumped in, “the soccer field, tennis courts, four golf courses. And not one of them permits bonfires!”

  “I know all that,” I said. “But all those fields are for organized sports. You have to be a member of a team. They all have strict rules about who can play on them, and at what time.”

  “So what do you want?” Wilhelm asked.

  “Just a playground. No regulations. Open all the time to any kids who want to have a catch, or play a pickup game, or just run around and have fun.”

  “No regulations?”

  “No set hours of operation?”

  “Just anybody could come in and play, whenever they felt like it?
”

  I nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m asking for.”

  I could tell from their faces that they thought I was crazy. As I sat down, Hornsby smirked at me, looking superior. But Sam looked thoughtful.

  He leaned toward me and whispered, “They’d never pick me for a team when I was a kid. I always had to be the batboy.”

  Bonnie McDougal looked up and down the table at her fellow Zoning Board members and said, “Shall we vote on the three proposals now, gentlemen? That would finish today’s agenda and we could take the rest of the day off.”

  They voted, using the keyboards built into the table before each seat. The tally came up on McDougal’s screen, flush with the tabletop.

  I knew my proposal didn’t have a chance. It was between Sam and Hornsby, and with Sam s reputation, I figured Hornsby’s high-rise condo complex was a shoo-in.

  I was wrong.

  McDougal blinked several times at her screen, then looked up at us and announced, “We have a tie. Two votes for each applicant. We’ll have to reconvene after lunch and work this out.”

  We got up and left the meeting room. I was surprised, but not very hopeful. After all, I only got two votes out of six. I had nothing to offer that would sway the other four. They’d ditch me after lunch, when they got down to the serious wheeling and dealing.

  Sam was at my elbow as we walked out into the sunlight. “Sonofabitch,” he muttered. “I expected better.”

  “Did you?” I said, heading for the sandwich joint on the corner of the courthouse square.

  Sam kept stride with me, despite my longer legs. “Yeah. I bought Arrant and Cole. I know Hornsby’s bought Morris and Wilhelm.”

  “Bought?” I was aghast. “You mean bribed?”

  Sam grinned up at me, a freckled and crafty Huck Finn. “Don’t look so shocked, Straight Arrow. Happens all the time.”

  “But.. . bribery? In New Chicago?”

  With a laugh, Sam told me, “You’re missing the point. McDougal and Nostrum voted for you. Why? What’re they after?”

  “Maybe they’re honest,” I said.

  “McDougal, maybe,” Sam replied. “Now, if I could figure out a way to turn Nostrum around...” Sam snapped his fingers. “Virtual bonfires! That’d get him!”

  I strode away from him and had my lunch alone.

  It only took five minutes to gobble down a sandwich. The Zoning Board wasn’t set to reconvene for another hour and a half. Inevitably, I drifted over to the open lot that we were debating over. A gaggle of teenagers were playing baseball on the threadbare grass. Younger kids were flying kites over in what passed for center field. They were laughing, running, calling back and forth to one another. Having a good time, relaxed, with no regimentation, no pressure to win or set a new record.

  “They sure seem to be having fun, don’t they?”

  It was Sam. He had come up behind me.

  I sighed. “They won’t, once your amusement center gets built. Or Hornsby’s condo complex.”

  Sam squinted up at the kites. Beyond them I could see the curve of the habitat: the long solar window running the length of the structure, the landscaped hills and winding bicycle paths. What had originally been neat little villages was already growing into sprawling towns. There was still a good deal of green space, but it was dwindling. And you had to belong to an official team to use any of it; you had to show up at a specific time and compete in organized leagues where parents screamed in vicarious belligerence, teaching their kids that winning is more important than playing, outdoing the other guy more important than having fun.

  “I used to play a pretty good third base.”

  We both turned, and there was Bonnie McDougal. She was nearly my height; much taller than Sam. But he grinned up at her, his eyes alight with what I thought was obvious lust.

  “Instead of reconvening the meeting,” Sam said, “why don’t we settle this business with a baseball game!”

  McDougal and I both said, “A baseball game?”

  “Sure, why not? Isn’t it better out here in the sunshine than in that dusty old meeting room?”

  “It’s not a dusty old room,” McDougal protested.

  “Sam,” I pointed out, “how can we settle a three-way tie with a ball game?”

  He looked at me as though I had missed the point entirely. “Because, oh noble sportsman, I’ve decided to withdraw my application. It’s you against Hornsby now.”

  “Withdraw... ?” I turned to McDougal. “Can he do that?”

  She nodded at me and smiled at Sam, all at the same time. “He certainly can. But it will call for a new vote of the board.”

  “Vote, schmote,” Sam said. “Let’s play ball!”

  So that’s how we got to the bottom of the ninth, the White Sox ahead of us, 14-13, two out, and Sam coming up to bat.

  I was standing on first, trying to get my breathing back to normal after running out my infield hit. Funny how quickly the body falls out of condition. I’d been an athlete all my life, and now I was puffing after digging hard for ninety lousy feet.

  All my life. I’d been one of those kids: Little League, high school football, basketball and baseball in college, all the while my father hounding me, pushing me, trying to make me into the star he’d never been. I’d almost made it, too; had a tryout with the real Chicago White Sox, back in Old Chicago, before Lake Michigan drowned ancient old Comiskey Park in the greenhouse floods.

  My dad was dead by then, killed in an auto wreck, driving to see me play against Notre Dame. Still I pursued his dream. And I’d almost been good enough to make it. Almost. Instead, after half a lifetime batting around the minor leagues, I finally came up to New Chicago to take up a career counseling kids who were having trouble adjusting to living off-Earth.

  Well, anyway, there I was at first base, with Sam coming up to bat. Bonnie McDougal was creeping in from third, expecting another bunt, wearing a tattered old glove she’d borrowed from one of the kids. Nostrum was grinning hugely; he was enjoying himself so much I thought maybe he’d forget about bonfires. The rest of the Zoning Board was waiting for Sam to step up to the plate.

  “What’re you waiting for?” yelled grouchy old Arrant. He was playing first base for the Sox; didn’t have to move much, and the throws he missed were our best offensive weapon, so far.

  “Just what are you doing?” Hornsby demanded. He was the catcher for the Sox, looking even more ridiculous than before in a borrowed chest protector that barely covered his big belly and a mask that scrunched his face into a mass of wrinkles.

  Sam was standing off to the side of home plate (my old cap), the game’s one and only carbon-fiber bat leaning against his hip, tapping away at his pocket computer, oblivious to their complaints.

  “Play ball!” McDougal yelled in from third.

  “Play ball!” the other White Sox began to holler. Even the crowd started chanting, “Play ball! Play ball!”

  I was wondering what the devil Sam was doing with that computer of his. Checking the stock market? Making reservations for his flight back to Selene City? What?

  At last he tucked the tiny machine back into his pants pocket and stepped up to the plate, gripping the bat right down at the end, ready to swing for the fences. Except that we didn’t have any fences, just a few kids way out in center field flying kites and playing tag.

  Nostrum looked down at Hornsby behind the plate. They didn’t have any signals. Nostrum couldn’t throw anything except a medium-fast straight pitch. No curve, no change-up. I’d walloped two of them for home runs; he’d been lucky to get me to chop a grounder to short here in the bottom of the ninth.

  Nostrum kicked his foot high and threw. I lit out for second base. Sam swung mightily and missed by a foot. I didn’t even have to slide into second; there was no way Hornsby could get a throw down there ahead of me.

  “Hey, that’s not fair!” Nostrum yelled. “Stealing bases isn’t fair.”

  “It’s part of the game,” I said, standing on second, pu
ffing.

  “Not this game,” Nostrum hollered, stamping around, red in the face.

  If Sam was right, Nostrum had been one of my two votes. I didn’t want to antagonize him. Still, this game was supposed to decide whether I won the zoning decision or Hornsby did. So I stood on second base (Sam’s expensive coat) and folded my arms across my chest.

  “We’re playing baseball,” I said. “Nobody said stealing bases was a no-no.”

  “Nobody stole a base until now!” Nostrum shouted.

  I could see he was getting really sore. Bonnie McDougal trotted over from third base to him. Hornsby came up from home. Even crabby old Arrant creaked over toward the mound from first base.

  “Why don’t we make a rule that stealing bases is prohibited from now on,” McDougal said gently, “but since Mr. Christopher stole second before the rule went into effect, he can stay on second base.”

  Arrant shrugged. Hornsby nodded. Nostrum glared at me for a moment, but then broke into a sheepish grin.

  “Aw, all right,” he said.

  “Is that all right with you, Mr. Christopher?” McDougal asked me.

  I saw Sam, back near home plate, nodding so hard I thought his eyeballs would fall out.

  “Okay,” I said, still standing on Sam’s coat.

  Hornsby squeezed his face back into the catcher’s mask, but not before saying, “Okay, now can we get this game over with?”

  But Sam was playing with his pocket computer again. The crowd began to chant “Play ball!” again, and Sam put the thing away and stepped up to the plate with a sly smile on his face.

  Nostrum threw. I stayed on second. Sam swung mightily and missed again.

  “Strike two!” Hornsby crowed. One more strike and we were dead.

  Sam seemed unconcerned. I realized that both his swings had been terrible uppercuts, as if he was trying to blast the ball out of sight.

  “Never mind the home run, Sam!” I yelled to him. “Just make contact with the ball!”

  Nostrum cackled at that. He cranked up and threw his hardest. Sam swung, another big uppercut.