by Ben Bova
It’s the sweetest deal I’ve ever put together, especially since the seven dwarfs will be getting their shares from the net profit we make, while I’ll be drawing my own off the top, from the gross.
But, lord! are those seven airheads a shipload of trouble. I may have to shove one of them out an airlock, just to impress the others that I mean business.
Imagine it! Me trying to enforce discipline on them.
I HATE THIS job.
Listen, this log is going to have to be confidential. I’m going to give the computer a security code word so nobody can break into it and hear what I’ve got to say.
Let’s see ... computer, this is a command. Code this log under, uh, umm—code word “supercalifragelistic-expialidotious.”
[Computer]: Code word accepted.
Okay, good. I hadn’t intended to get so paranoid, but I’m stuck here for the next twenty-three months with nobody I can trust. I’ve got to talk to somebody or I’ll go nuts. So I’ll talk to you, computer.
[Computer]: I contain artificial intelligence programs that can provide limited responses to your inputs.
When I want you to answer me, I’ll tell you! Otherwise, keep your voice synthesizer quiet. Understood?
[Computer]: Understood.
Part of the reason for locking up this log is that I’m going to start naming names and I don’t want anybody else to know what those names are. Christ knows I’ve done enough screwing around in my time, but I’ve always believed a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. Well, maybe I’m not a gentleman and I certainly ain’t talking about just kissing, but I’ve never gone around embarrassing anybody I was lucky enough to go to bed with.
But I can’t talk things out without naming names. It just won’t work. Am I making any sense?
[Pause]
Hey, computer, am I making any sense?
[Computer]: Your statements are internally consistent.
Great. How do I call up your psychotherapy program?
[Computer]: Ask for Guidance Counselor.
Jeez, just like in high school. Okay, gimme the Guidance Counselor.
[Computer, same voice]: How may I help you?
Just listen and then tell me what I should do after I finish, okay?
[Computer]: If that’s what you really want.
Oh brother!
[Computer]: Is that part of your problem, your brother? I have your biographical dossier in my files, but there is no mention of a brother.
No, no, no! I haven’t started yet!
[Computer]: I see.
I’m starting now. Got it?
[Computer]: Go on.
Let’s see ... I think it was Nelson Algren who said that three rules for a happy life are: One, never play cards with any man named ‘Doc.’ Two: never eat at any place called ‘Mom’s.’ And three: never, never go to bed with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.
[Computer]: Um-hmm.
I went to bed with Sheena Chang last night. Big mistake.
[Computer]: Sheena Chang, video actress. Proclaimed one of the ten most beautiful women in the world by 21st-century Fox/United Artists/MGM/Fujitsu Corporation. Latest starring role: Tondaleo, the sultry Eurasian prostitute with a heart of gold, in Invasion of the Barbarians from Outer Space. Age: twenty-seven. Height...
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s her. Sultry Eurasian, all right. I was really surprised when her agent told me she had agreed to come on this voyage. I had only called her on a lark; thought it’d be fun to be on a slow boat to China with her.
[Computer]: To China? Navigational data shows we are heading ...
Just a figure of speech, dammit! Stop interrupting!
Anyway, I never thought she’d give up two years in the middle of her career to come sailing out to the Asteroid Belt with me. But she did. Last night I found out why.
She was all hot breath and sizzle until I got her clothes off her and put her in my bed. We had made it before, in the threesome with Marj Dupray down in the zero-gee section. Sheena had been a wild woman then; Marj wasn’t so bad herself, for a skinny fashion designer. They were both tanked up on champagne and whatnot. After all, that was our first night out.
[Computer]: I see.
Well, anyway, last night Sheena and I have a private little supper in my quarters. She’s wearing a low-cut dress so slinky she must have sprayed it on. One thing leads to another and finally we’re both in the buff and on the bed.
I say to her, “I was really knocked out when you agreed to come on this trip.
That’s all it took. The floodgates opened.
[Computer]: Floodgates?
She started crying! At first I thought she had drunk too much wine with dinner, but then I remembered that she had downed a tub of champagne that first night without batting an eye. She just blubbered away and babbled for hours, right there in the bed. Naked. One of the ten most beautiful women in the world.
[Computer]: Why was she crying?
That’s what I asked her. And she told me. And told me. And told me! Her career is going down the tubes; her last three videos lost money; her implants are slumping; her husband is suing her for divorce; her boyfriend’s left her for a younger starlet; her agent’s making bad deals for her; her cat died.... Jeez, she just went on and on about how her life was ruined and she was going to kill herself.
[Computer]: Perhaps she should speak to me. I may be able to help her.
Yeah, maybe. Anyway, it turns out that her publicity agent convinced her that taking this voyage would be just the thing to give her career a boost. When she comes back she’ll be the first actress to have flown to the Asteroid Belt. They’ll make a docudrama out of it. They’ll get Michael J. Fox III to play my role. Ta-da, ta-dum, ta-dee—so off she goes on the good ship Argo.
[Computer]: Ta-da, ta-dum, ta-dee?
Ignore it. Two days out, Sheena starts thinking that maybe she made a mistake. Two weeks out she’s certain of it. Her publicity guy and her agent have connived behind her back to get her out of the way so that the new starlet her boyfriend’s shacked up with can take her place. Her career is ruined. Her body’s falling apart and she can’t sue the plastic surgeons because the publicity would ruin her even more. She’ll be out of the limelight for two whole years. By the time she gets back everybody’ll have forgotten who the hell she is, and she’ll be an old woman by then anyway, past thirty.
[Computer]: According to her dossier she will be only twenty-nine when this mission ends.
So she lied about her age! Anyway, Sheena doesn’t want to make love, she wants to kill herself. It took me all goddamned night to calm her down, cheer her up, and convince her that when we get back from the asteroids she’ll be rich enough to buy 21st-century, et al.
[Computer]: According to the prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission—
I know, I know! So I exaggerated a little. She needed cheering up.
By the time I got her to stop talking about killing herself, it was damned near morning. I had to get dressed and go to the bridge for the first-shift systems review. She wriggled back into that slinky dress of hers, still sniffling a little. Then she dropped the bombshell.
[Computer]: Should I activate the damage-control program?
No, stupid. But gimme the logistics program.
[Computer]: Logistics.
Sheena Chang is not to receive any drugs, medications or pharmaceuticals of any kind. Understand? In fact, all requests for medication, stimulants or relaxers from any of the partners is to be reported to me immediately. Understood?
[Computer]: Understood.
Okay. Get the guidance counselor back.
[Computer]: Guidance counselor.
The bombshell Sheena handed me was metaphorical. You understand what metaphorical means?
[Computer]: I have a thorough command of twenty languages, including English.
Wonderful. She told me that one of the partners is an agent for Rockledge International, the multinational megacorpora
tion, the soulless bloodsucking vampires of the corporate world, the gutless sneaking bastards who’d steal your cojones and sell them to the highest bidder if you gave them the chance. I’ve tangled with them before; they’re always trying to grab everything for themselves, the two-bit sonsofbitches.
[Computer]: You disapprove of them.
Only as much as I disapprove of cannibalism, genocide, and selling your mother to a Cairo brothel.
[Computer]: I see.
So there’s Sheena sniffling and squeezing her boobs into her dress, and she tells me I’ve been so nice and kind and patient that she’s going to warn me that one of the partners is secretly working for Rockledge.
“Which one?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” she says.
“Then how do you know that one of them is on Rockledge’s payroll?”
She finally gets her bosom adjusted—believe me, it took all my powers of concentration not to go over to her and give her a hand. Anyway, she says:
“A couple of nights ago, it was kind of late and we were in the lounge having a nightcap or two....”
“We? Who?”
She shrugged. I was still in the buff and immediately came to attention. Sheena paid no attention and I thought she’d probably seen bigger. But not better.
I asked her again, “Who was in the lounge with you?”
“Oh, golly, we had been drinking for a while. And Rick had handed out some really weird candy; he’s got a whole trunkful of shit, you know....”
“I know.” I was starting to get exasperated with her birdbrain act. “So Darling was there. Who else?”
“Oh, Marjorie, and Dr. Hubble. Grace Harcourt, she was sitting with me. I don’t remember if Bo Williams was there or not. And I’m sure Jean Margaux wasn’t. She wouldn’t be, the snob.”
“So who said what? What’d you hear?”
“It was just a snatch of conversation, a man’s voice, I’m pretty sure. Somebody said something about money piling up at a bank in Liechtenstein....”
“Liechtenstein?”
“That’s right. He’s getting a monthly stipend from Rockledge International and it’s gathering compound interest all the time we’re away on this trip!”
She looked pleased that she remembered that much. But that was all she could remember. Or so she said. Somebody was on Rockledge’s payroll, in secret. And it was probably a man.
[Computer]: Why does that bother you so?
Why? Why? Because Rockledge’ll try to steal the profits of this mission out from under me, that’s why! It’s just like those sleazy bastards—let the little guy do all the work and then they come in and snatch the money. Rape and pillage, that’s the way they work.
[Computer]: I assume those are metaphors again.
Listen, you stupid hunk of germanium, I want you to get me a Dunn & Bradstreet on each one of my partners. One of them’s a—
[Computer]: You will have to call up the financial program.
Okay! Gimme the financial program!
[Computer]: Financial.
I want a complete rundown on each one of my partners.
[Computer]: Displaying.
No, no, no! Not the data already in your memory! That’s months old, for chrissakes. I want the up-to-the-minute stuff. And check the banks in Liechtenstein.
[Computer]: That will take several hours. Transmission time to Earth is currently—
Just do it! Fast as you can. Do it.
Jeez, I feel like a kid in a confessional booth. It’s been three months since my last entry in this log. A pretty quiet three months.
Things have gone along okay, really smoother than I expected. One of the plasma thrusters crapped out last week, but Will Bassinio and I went EVA and replaced it with a spare. Will’s my electronics specialist; a real whiz at chips and circuits and stuff like that. Lonz—Alonzo Ali, my first mate—monitored us from the command center while Erik did what he does best: charmed the passengers.
Erik’s a good kid. Not a deep thinker, but he smiles pretty and the passengers seem to like him, especially the female passengers. On the official manifest he’s my logistics specialist. Not much of a technician, but he does his job okay.
I think of them as passengers now, rather than partners. In this phase of the flight we’re running sorta like a cruise liner. There won’t be any real work to do until we get past the orbit of Mars and start actively prospecting for an asteroid to mine. In the meantime it’s six meals a day and all the entertainment I can dream up for my magnificent seven.
They’re not as much trouble right now as I thought they’d be. Darling’s happy as a mugger in an old lady’s home. He’s always in the galley or the dining salon, stuffing himself on all the gourmet food I stored aboard. He’s gaining weight fast; his clothes look like they’re gonna start popping seams any minute.
Sheena has calmed down a lot. Maybe what I told her about being a celebrity when she comes back to Earth has helped. But I think it’s Lowell Hubble who’s made the real difference. He’s the oldest man on board, lean gray-haired fatherly type. Neat little mustache that’s still almost dark. Dresses in rumpled slacks and baggy cardigan sweaters. Even smokes a pipe. Sheena’s taken up with him and they both seem delighted about it. He’s even teaching her astronomy.
Is Hubble the Rockledge agent? I’ve been wondering about that. He’s an astronomer, for chrissake. They don’t make much money. There’s no Dunn & Bradstreet report on him, although he comes from a pretty wealthy family. But was the ten million he ponied up his own money, or Rockledge’s?
I asked Grace Harcourt to snoop around for me and see what she could find out.
“Me? Spy for you?” She laughed out loud.
I had invited her up to the command center, what would be called the bridge on a ship at sea, I guess. I like Grace. She’s tough and feisty; has to be, to make it as an entertainment industry gossip columnist. There’s a lot of competition in that business. And a lot of lawsuits.
I had met her years ago, when I was a NASA astronaut-in-training and she was still a local TV news reporter in Houston. We had gotten along really well right from the start, but my so-called career took me to Florida and she aimed for Hollywood. And hit it big.
Grace is tiny, a good two inches shorter than me. But she’s smart, sharp. Not bad looking, either. A little more on her hips than there ought to be, but otherwise she’s got a nicely curved figure that looks good in frilly blouses and pleated skirts. She also has a pleasant, heart-shaped face that knows how to smile.
But now she was laughing. “I’m a gossip columnist, Sam,” she said, “not a secret agent.”
“Snooping is snooping,” I told her. “Just keep your pretty eyes and ears open for me, will you?”
She gave me a funny look. “How do you know I’m not working for Rockledge?”
That made me grin. “You’re a gossip columnist, right? You never kept a secret in your life.”
She laughed and admitted I was right. I’ve got no worries about Grace. She records her column every day and we transmit it to Earth. She bases her stuff on the same reports from her spies and finks that she’d be getting if she was at home in Beverly Hills. She also throws in a couple tidbits about our voyage now and then and shows her viewers some of the ship. No other daily column has ever been recorded from deep space before.
Then I had the run-in with Marjorie Dupray. She had been my zerogee companion, along with Sheena, that first night. A very successful fashion designer, Marj had started out as a model and she’s kept that lean, long-legged, model’s figure. But she’s got a mean look to her, if you ask me. Maybe it’s that buzz cut of hers, with her hair dyed like a neon flamingo. Or the biker’s leathers she likes to wear. She doesn’t give off much of a female aura.
Why would a fashion designer agree to come on this voyage? And put up ten mil, to boot? I decided to question her, subtly, so she wouldn’t know I was suspicious.
I invited her up to the command center one evening whe
n I had the watch alone. She seemed moderately bored as I showed her the navigational computer and the Christmas Tree lights of the life support systems monitor board. But she perked up a bit when we got to the comm console.
“How long does it take a message to get back to Earth now?” she asked.
“Nearly half an hour,” I said. “And longer every day. We are going where no man has gone before, you know.”
“And no woman.”
I made a little bow to acknowledge her feminist point of view, which surprised me. Then I asked:
“Are you getting any work done? Is our voyage into deep space inspiring you to create new clothing designs?”
She shook her head. It was a finely sculptured head, with a haughty nose and strong chin, high cheekbones that threw shifting shadows across her face. Marj is damned near a foot taller than me. I have nothing against tall women; in fact, I consider them a challenge. But that butch haircut of hers bothered me. And now the color was burnt orange.
But I was after information, not challenges.
“Don’t you have contracts to fulfill? I thought this voyage was going to be a working session for you. How can you afford to take two years off?”
She gave me a pitying look. “I don’t have to push it, Sam. When I get back from this trip I’ll be the first and only designer to have been in deep space. I’ll be able to throw rags together and the fashion industry will gobble them up and call them works of inspired genius.”
“Oh.” Maybe she was telling the truth. The fashion industry has always seemed kind of weird to me. “I thought maybe you were independently wealthy. Or you had another source of income.”
“I have a few investments here and there,” she said, with a slight smile.
“Like in Liechtenstein?” I blurted.
Her sculptured face turned cold as ice. “Is that what this is all about, Sam? You think I’m spying on you?”