The Sam Gunn Omnibus

by Ben Bova

  Slightly wider than a thousand kilometers, Ceres was the largest of the asteroids. Still, its gravity was so minuscule that its underground caverns and tunnels were always thick with dust; the slightest movement stirred the choking black soot, and it hung in the air for hours before finally settling—only to be stirred up again by the next person’s movements.

  The rock rats who tried to live in that perpetual haze of lung-rotting dust eventually assembled this makeshift habitat out of abandoned or secondhand spacecraft linked end-to-end in a rough Tinker-toy circle.

  Chrysalis had a spin-induced gravity, just like the larger man-made habitats in the Earth-Moon system. But its induced gravity was very light, even lighter than the Moon’s. The hotel manager who had personally shown jade to her room had smilingly demonstrated that you could drop a fragile crystal vase from your hand, then go fill a glass of water and drink it, and still have time to retrieve the vase before it hit the carpeted floor.

  Twenty-one years old, Jade mused to herself as she stared out at the dark sky. Time to make something of yourself. Time to leave the past behind; there’s nothing you can do to change it. Only the future can be shaped, altered. Everything else is over and done with.

  She lost track of how long she stood at the window, sensing the cold of the airless eternity on the other side of the glassteel. Perhaps time passes differently here, with no worlds or moons in the sky. Nothing but stars endlessly spinning through the sky. Never any real daylight, always the darkness of infinity. This little habitat is like the ancient Greek idea of the afterlife: gray twilight, emptiness, a shadow existence.

  It took a real effort of will for Jade to pull herself from the window. You’ve got a job to do, she told herself sternly. You’ve got a life to lead. Then she added, Once you’ve figured out what you want to do with it.

  The message light on the phone was on. She walked past the bed carefully in the light gravity; everyone in the hotel wore Velcro slippers and walked across the carpeting in a hesitant low-g shuffle.

  Jade smiled when she saw Jim Gradowsky’s beefy face fill the phone screen. He was munching on something, as usual.

  “Just a note to tell you that Raki got promoted to vice president in charge of special projects. Thanks mostly to the Sam Gunn stuff you beamed us, and the interview with Rick Darling. You’re on full salary, kid. Plus expenses. Raki is very happy with you. Looks like he’ll be getting a seat on the board of directors next.”

  But Raki himself did not call, Jade said to herself. Then she thought, Perhaps it’s best that way.

  “Oh, yeah,” Gradowsky went on. “Monica says hello and happy birthday. From me, too. You’re doin’ great work, Jade. We’re proud of you.”

  The screen blanked but the message light stayed on. Jade touched it again.

  Spencer Johansen smiled at her. Jade’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Hey there, Jade. I’m sending this message to your office, ‘cause I haven’t a clue as to where in the solar system you might be. How about giving a fella a call now and then? I mean, I’d like to see you, talk to you. Maybe I could even come out to wherever you are and visit. You know, this old habitat feels kinda lonesome without you. Send me a message, will you? I’d like to see you again.”

  Jade sank down slowly onto the edge of the bed, surprised that her knees suddenly felt so weak. Would Spence come all the way out here just to see me? No, it wouldn’t be fair to ask him. I’ll be leaving as soon as my interview comes through, anyway. And then out to Titan. It could be another two years before I see him again.

  And why would he want to leave Jefferson and come out to see me? Jade asked herself. Is he a romantic fool or—suddenly she remembered Raki’s cruel words: “The thrill is in the chase. Now that I’ve bagged her, what is there to getting her again?”

  She shook her head. No, Spence isn’t like that. He’s not. I know he’s not. But what if he is? an inner voice demanded. What if he is? Good thing there’s several million kilometers between you.

  Still, that did not mean she could not send him the message he asked for. Jade leaned forward and touched the phone’s keyboard. She was stunned to find that two hours had elapsed before she ran out of things to say to Spence Johansen.

  Space University

  REGAL WAS THE ONLY POSSIBLE WORD FOR HER.

  Jade stared in unabashed awe. Elverda Apacheta was lean, long-legged, stately, splendid, dignified, intelligent—regal. The word kept bobbing to the surface of Jade’s mind.

  Not that the sculptress was magnificently clad: she wore only a frayed jumpsuit of faded gray. It was her bearing, her demeanor, and above all her face that proclaimed her nobility. It was an aristocratic face, the face of an Incan queen, copper red, a study in sculptured planes of cheek and brow and strong Andean nose. Her almond-shaped deeply dark eyes missed nothing. They seemed to penetrate to the soul even while they sparkled with what appeared to be a delight in the world. The sculptress’ thick black hair was speckled with gray, as much the result of exposure to cosmic radiation as age, thought Jade. It was tied back and neatly bound in a silver mesh. Her only other adornment was a heavy silver bracelet that probably concealed a communicator.

  “Yes, I knew Sam well,” she replied to Jade’s lame opening question, in a throaty low voice. She spoke English, in deference to Jade, but there was the unmistakable memory of the high Andes in her accent. “Very well indeed.”

  Jade was wearing coral-colored parasilk coveralls with the stylized sunburst of the Solar Network logo emblazoned above her left breast pocket and the miniature recorder on her belt. She was surprised at her worshipful reaction to Elverda Apacheta. The woman was renowned as not only the first space sculptress, but the best. Yet Jade had interviewed other personalities who were very famous, or powerful, or notorious, or talented. None of them had been this breathtaking. Did this Incan queen affect everyone this way? Had she affected Sam Gunn this way?

  The two women were sitting in the faculty lounge of the minuscule Ceres branch of the Interplanetary Space University. Little more than an extended suite of rooms in one of the interlinked spacecraft that made up the orbiting habitat Chrysalis, the university was mainly a communications center where Cerean workers and their children could attend classes through interactive computer programs.

  The lounge itself was a small, windowless, quiet room tastefully decorated with carpeting of warm earth colors that covered not only the floor but the walls as well. The ideal place for recording an interview. Must have cost a moderate-sized fortune to bring this stuff all the way out here, Jade thought.

  The sculptress reclined regally on a high-backed armchair of soft nubby pseudo-wool, looking every inch a monarch who could dispense justice or mercy with the slightest arch of an eyebrow. Jade felt drab sitting on the sofa at her right, despite the fact that her coveralls were crisply new while Apacheta’s were worn almost to holes.

  “I appreciate your agreeing to let me interview you,” Jade said.

  Elverda Apacheta made a small nod of acknowledgement.

  “Many other of Sam’s ... associates, well, they either tried to avoid me or they refused to talk at all.”

  “Why should I refuse? I have nothing to hide.”

  No, you didn’t have an illicit pregnancy, Jade thought. You didn’t abandon your infant daughter.

  Forcing herself to focus on the task at hand, Jade said, “There are rumors that you and Sam were ...” she hesitated half a heartbeat,”... well, lovers.”

  The sculptress smiled sadly. “I loved Sam madly. For a while I thought perhaps he loved me too. But now, after all these years,” strangely, the smile grew more tender, “I am not so sure.”

  A Can of Worms

  WE WERE ALL MUCH YOUNGER THEN-SAID ELVERDA Apacheta—and our passions were much closer to the surface. I could become enraged at the slightest excuse; the smallest problem could infuriate me.

  You must remember, of course, that I had packed off to the asteroid where I had been living alone for a
lmost three years. Even my supply shipments came in unmanned spacecraft. So it was a big surprise when a transfer ship showed up and settled into a rendezvous orbit a few hundred meters off my asteroid.

  I thought of it as my asteroid. Nobody could own it, according to international law. But there were no restrictions against carving on it. Aten 2004 EA was the name the astronomers had given it, which meant that it was the one hundred and thirty-first asteroid discovered in the year 2004 among the Aten group. The astronomers are very efficient in their naming, of course, but not romantic at all.

  I called my asteroid “Quipu-Camayoc,” which means “The Rememberer.” And I was determined to carve the history of my people upon it. The idea was not merely romantic, it was absolutely poetic. After all, we have lived in the mountains since before time was reckoned. Even the name of my people, my very own name—Apacheta—means a group of magical stones. Now my people were leaving their ancient mountain villages, scattering down to the cities, losing their tribal identities in the new world of factory jobs and electronic pleasures. Someone had to mark their story in a way that could be remembered forever.

  When I first heard of the asteroid, back at the university at La Paz, I knew it was my destiny. The very name the astronomers had given it signified my own name: Aten 2004 EA—Elverda Apacheta. It was a sign. I am not superstitious, of course, and ordinarily I do not believe in signs and omens. But I knew I was destined to carve the history of my people on Aten 2004 EA and turn it into the memory of a vanishing race.

  Quipu-Camayoc was a large stone streaked with metals, a mountain floating in space, nearly one full kilometer long. It was not in the Belt, of course; in those days no one had gone as far as the Belt. Its orbit was slightly closer to the Sun than Earth’s orbit, so nearly once a year it came near enough to Earth for a reasonably easy flight to reach it in something like a week; that is when I usually got my supplies. This was many years ago, of course, before the first bridge ships were even started. The frontier had not expanded much beyond the Earth-Moon system; the first human expedition to Mars had barely gotten under way.

  As I said, I was surprised when a transfer ship came into view instead of the usual unmanned spacecraft. I was even more surprised when someone jetted over to my quarters without even asking permission to come aboard.

  I lived in my workshop, a small pod that contained all my sculpting equipment and the life support systems, as well as my personal gear— clothing, sleeping hammock, things like that.

  “Who is approaching?” I called on the communicator. In its screen I centered a magnified picture of the approaching stranger. I could see nothing, of course, except a white space suit topped with a bubble helmet. The figure was enwrapped by the jet unit, somewhat like a man sitting in a chair that had no legs.

  “Sam Gunn is my name. I’ve got your supplies aboard my ship.”

  Suddenly I realized I was naked. Living alone, I seldom bothered with clothing. My first reaction was anger.

  “Then send the supplies across and go on your way. I have no time for visitors.”

  He laughed. That surprised me. He said, “This isn’t just a social call, lady. I’m supposed to hand you a legal document. It’s got to be done in person. You know how lawyers are.”

  “No, I don’t know. And I don’t want to.” But I hurriedly pushed over to my clothes locker and rummaged in it for a decent set of coveralls.

  I realize now that what I should have done was to lock the access hatch and not allow him to enter. That would have delayed the legal action against me. But it would only have delayed it, not prevented it altogether. Perhaps allowing Sam to enter my quarters, to enter my life, was the best course after all.

  By the time I heard the pumps cycling in the airlock I was pulling a pair of old blue denim coveralls over my shoulders. The inner hatch cracked open as I zippered them up to the collar.

  Sam coasted through the hatch, his helmet already removed and floating inside the airlock. He was small, not much more than 160 centimeters, although to his last breath he claimed to be 165. Which is nonsense. I myself was a good ten or twelve centimeters taller than he.

  It would be difficult to capture his face in a sculpture. His features were too mobile for stone or even clay to do him justice. There was something slightly irregular about Sam’s face: one side did not quite match the other. It made him look just the tiniest bit off-center, askew. It fitted his personality very well.

  His eyes could be blue or gray or even green, depending on the lighting. His mouth was extremely mobile: he had a thousand different smiles, and he was almost always talking, never silent. Short-cropped light brown hair, with a tinge of red in it. A round face, a touch unbalanced toward the left. A slightly crooked snub nose; it looked as if it had been broken, perhaps more than once. A sprinkling of freckles. I thought of the Norte Americano character from literature, Huckleberry Finn, grown into boyish manhood.

  He hung there, framed in the open hatch, his booted feet dangling several centimeters from the grillwork of the floor. He was staring at me.

  Suddenly I felt enormously embarrassed. My quarters were a shambles. Nothing but a cramped compartment filled with junk. Equipment and computer consoles scattered everywhere, connecting wires looping in the microgravity like jungle vines. My hammock was a twisted disaster area; the entire little cabin was filled with the flotsam of a hermit who had not seen another human being in three years. I was bone-thin, I knew. Like a skeleton. I could not even begin to remember where I had left my last lipstick. And my hair must have looked wild, floating uncombed.

  “God, you’re beautiful!” said Sam, in an awed whisper. “A goddess made of copper.”

  Immediately I distrusted him.

  “You have a legal paper for me?” I asked, as coldly as I could. I had no idea of what it was; perhaps something from the university in La Paz about the new grant I had applied for.

  “Uh, yeah ...” Sam seemed to be half dazed, unfocused. “I, uh, didn’t bring it with me. It’s back aboard my ship.”

  “You told me you had it with you.”

  “No,” he said, recovering slightly. “I said I was supposed to hand it to you personally. It’s back on the ship.”

  I glared at him. How dare he invade my privacy like this? Interrupt my work? My art?

  He did not wilt. In fact, Sam brightened. “Why don’t you come over and have a meal with me? With us, I mean. Me and my crew.”

  I absolutely refused. Yet somehow, several hours later, I was on my way to his transfer ship, riding on the rear saddle of a two-person jet scooter. I had bathed and dressed while Sam had returned to his ship for the scooter. I had even found a bright golden yellow scarf to tie around the waist of my best green coveralls, and a matching scarf to tie down my hair. Inside my space suit I could smell the perfume I had doused myself with. It is surprising how you can find things you thought you had lost, when the motivation is right.

  What was my motivation? Not to accept some legal document, certainly. Sam’s sudden presence made it painfully clear to me that I had been terribly alone for such a long time. I had not minded the loneliness at all—not until he punctuated it as he did. My first reaction had been anger, of course. But how could I remain angry with a man who was so obviously taken with my so-called beauty?

  My asteroid was in shadow as we sailed toward his ship, so we could not see the figures I had already carved upon it. It bulked over us, blotting out the Sun, like some huge black pitted mountain, looming dark and somehow menacing. Sam kept up a steady chatter on the suit-to-suit radio. He was asking me questions about what I was doing and how my work was going, but somehow he did all the talking.

  His ship was called Adam Smith, a name that meant nothing to me. It looked like an ordinary transfer vehicle, squat and ungainly, with spidery legs sticking out and bulbous glassy projections that housed the command and living modules. But as we approached it I saw that Sam’s ship was large. Very large. I had never seen one so big.

 
“The only one like it in the solar system, so far,” he acknowledged cheerfully. “I’m having three more built. Gonna corner the cargo business.”

  He rattled on, casually informing me that he was the major owner of the orbital tourist facility, the Earth View Hotel.

  “Every room has a view of Earth. It’s gorgeous.”

  “Yes, I imagine it is.”

  “Great place for a honeymoon,” Sam proclaimed. “Or even just a weekend. You haven’t lived until you’ve made love in zero-gee.”

  I went silent and remained so the rest of the short journey to his ship. I had no intention of responding to sexual overtures, no matter how subtle. Or blatant.

  Dinner was rather pleasant. Five of us crowded into the narrow wardroom that doubled as the mess. Cooking in zero gravity is no great trick, but presenting the food in a way that is appetizing to the eye without running the risk of its floating off the plate at the first touch of a fork—that calls for art. Sam managed the trick by using plates with clear plastic covers that hinged back neatly. Veal piccata with spaghetti, no less. The wine, of course, was served in squeeze bulbs.

  There were three crew persons on Adam Smith. The only woman, the communications engineer, was married to the propulsion engineer. She was a heavyset blonde of about thirty who had allowed herself to gain much too much weight. Michelangelo would have loved her, with her thick torso and powerful limbs, but by present standards she was no great beauty. But then her husband, equally fair-haired, was also of ponderous dimensions.

  It is a proven fact that people who spend a great deal of time in low gravity either allow themselves to become tremendously fat, or thin down to little more than skin and bones, as I had. The physiologists have scientific terms for this: I am an agravitic ectomorph, so I am told. The two oversized engineers were agravitic endomorphs. Sam, of course, was neither. He was Sam—irrepressibly unique.