The Sam Gunn Omnibus

by Ben Bova

  As the plane slowed down for its vertical landing, I mentally checked out the possibilities. East and south for six hours or so could put us somewhere in the Mediterranean. Italy, Spain—or North Africa.

  “Where in the world have they taken us?” I half-whispered, more to myself than anyone who might answer me.

  “Transylvania,” Sam answered.

  I gave him a killer stare. “This is no time to be funny.”

  “Look at my wristwatch,” he whispered back at me, totally serious.

  Its face showed latitude and longitude coordinates in digital readout. Sam pressed one of the studs on the watch’s outer rim, and the readout spelled RUMANIA. Another touch of the stud: TRANSYLVANIA. Another: NEAREST MAJOR CITY, VARSAG.

  I showed him my wristwatch. “It’s got an ultrahigh-frequency transponder in it. The Peacekeepers have been tracking us ever since we left The Hague. I hope.”

  Sam nodded glumly. “These Mother-lovers aren’t afraid of the Peacekeepers as long as they’ve got you for a hostage.”

  “There’s going to be a showdown, sooner or later,” I said.

  Just then the plane touched down with a thump.

  “Welcome,” said Sam, in a Hollywood vampire accent, “to Castle Dracula.”

  It wasn’t a castle that they took us to. It was a mine shaft.

  Lord knows how long it had been abandoned. The elevator didn’t work; we had to climb down, single file, on rickety wooden steps that creaked and shook with every step we took. And it was dark down there. And cold, the kind of damp cold that chills you to the bone. I kept glancing up at the dwindling little slice of blue sky as the Daughters coaxed us with their gun muzzles down those groaning, shuddering stairs all the way to the very bottom.

  There were some dim lanterns hanging from the rough stone ceiling of the bottom gallery. We walked along in gloomy silence until we came to a steel door. It took two of the Daughters to swing it open.

  The bright light made my eyes water. They pushed us into a chamber that had been turned into a rough-hewn office of sorts. At least it was warm. A big, beefy redheaded woman sat scowling at us from behind a steel desk.

  “You can take their wristwatches from then now,” she said to the blonde. Then she smiled at the surprise on my face. “Yes, Justice Meyers, we know all about your transponders and positioning indicators. We’re not fools.”

  Sam stepped forward. “All right, you’re a bunch of geniuses. You’ve captured the most-wanted man on Earth—me. Now you can let the others go and the Peacekeepers won’t bother you.”

  “You think not?” the redhead asked, suspiciously.

  “Of course not!” Sam smiled his sincerest smile. “Their job is to protect Senator Meyers, who’s a judge on the World Court. They don’t give a damn about me.”

  “You’re the blasphemer, Sam Gunn?”

  “I’ve done a lot of things in a long and eventful life,” Sam said, still smiling, “but blasphemy isn’t one of them.”

  “You don’t think that what you’ve done is blasphemy?” The redhead’s voice rose ominously. I realized that her temper was just as fiery as her hair.

  “I’ve always treated God with respect,” Sam insisted. “I respect Her so much that I expect Her to honor her debts. Unfortunately, the man in the Vatican who claims to be Her special representative doesn’t think She has any sense of responsibility.”

  “The man in the Vatican.” The redhead’s lips curled into a sneer. “What does he know of the Mother?”

  “That’s what I say,” Sam agreed fervently. “That’s why I’m suing him, really.”

  For a moment the redhead almost bought it. She looked at Sam with eyes that were almost admiring. Then her expression hardened. “You are a conniving little sneak, aren’t you?”

  Sam frowned at her. “Little. Is everybody in the world worried about my height?”

  “And fast with your tongue, too,” the redhead went on. “I think that’s the first part of you that we’ll cut off.” Then she smiled viciously. “But only the first part.”

  Sam swallowed hard, but recovered his wits almost immediately. “Okay, okay. But let the others go. They can’t hurt you and if you let them go the Peacekeepers will get out of your hair.”

  “Liar.”

  “Me?” Sam protested.

  The redhead got to her feet. She was huge, built like a football player. She started to say something but the words froze in her throat. Her gaze shifted from Sam to the door behind us.

  I turned my head and saw half a dozen men in khaki uniforms, laser rifles in their hands. The Peacekeepers, I thought, then instantly realized that their uniforms weren’t right.

  “Thank you so much for bringing this devil’s spawn to our hands,” said one of the men. He was tall and slim, with a trim mustache and an olive complexion.

  “Who in hell are you?” the redhead demanded.

  “We are the Warriors of the Faith, and we have come to take this son of a dog to his just reward.”

  “Gee, I’m so popular,” Sam said.

  “He’s ours!” bellowed the redhead. “We snatched him from The Hague.”

  “And we are taking him from you. It is our holy mission to attend to this pig.”

  “You can’t!” the redhead insisted. “I won’t let you!”

  “We’ll send you a videotape of his execution,” said the leader of the Warriors.

  “No, no! We’ve got to kill him!”

  “I am so sorry to disagree, but it is our sacred duty to execute him. If we must kill you also, that is the will of God.”

  They argued for half an hour or more, but the Warriors outnumbered and outgunned the Daughters. So we were marched out of that underground office, down the mine gallery and through another set of steel doors that looked an awful lot like the hatches of airlocks.

  The underground corridors we walked through didn’t look like parts of a mine anymore. The walls were smoothly finished and lined with modern doors that had numbers on them, like a hotel’s rooms.

  Sam nodded knowingly as we tramped along under the watchful eyes of the six Warriors.

  “This is the old shelter complex for the top Rumanian government officials,” he told me as we walked. “From back in the Cold War days, when they were afraid of nuclear attack.”

  “But that was almost a century ago,” Josella said.

  Sam answered, “Yeah, but the president of Rumania and his cronies kept the complex going for years afterward. Sort of an underground pleasure dome for the big shots in the government. Wasn’t discovered by their taxpayers until one of the bureaucrats fell in love with one of the call girls and spilled the beans to the media so he could run off with her.”

  “How do you know?” I asked him.

  “The happy couple works for me up in Selene City. He’s my chief bookkeeper now and she supervises guest services at the hotel.”

  “What kind of hotel are you running up there in Selene?” Greg asked.

  Sam answered his question with a grin. Then he turned back to me and said, “This complex has several exits, all connected to old mine shafts.”

  Lowering my voice, I asked, “Can we get away from these Warriors and get out of here?”

  Sam made a small shrug. “There’s six of them and they’ve all got guns. All we’ve got is trickery and deceit.”

  “So what—”

  “When I say ‘beans,’“ Sam whispered, “shut your eyes tight, stop walking, and count to ten slowly.”

  “Why...?”

  “Tell Greg,” he said. Then he edged away from me to whisper in Josella’s ear. I felt my face burning.

  “What are you saying?” one of the Warriors demanded.

  Sam put on a leering grin. “I’m asking her if she’s willing to grant the condemned man his last request.”

  The Warrior laughed. “We have requests to make also.”

  “Fool!” their leader snapped. “We are consecrated to the Faith. We have foresworn the comforts of women.”r />
  “Only until we have executed the dog.”

  “Yes,” chimed another Warrior. “Once the pig is slain, we are free of our vows.”

  A third added, “Then we can have the prisoners.” He smiled at Greg.

  “Now wait,” Sam said. He stopped walking. “Let me get one thing straight. Am I supposed to be a pig or a dog?”

  The leader stepped up to him. “You are a pig, a dog, and a piece of camel shit.”

  The man loomed a good foot over Sam’s stubby form. Sam shrugged good-naturedly and said, “I guess you’re entitled to your opinion.”

  “Now walk,” said the leader.

  “Why should I?” Sam stuffed his hands into the pockets of his slacks.

  A slow smile wormed across the leader’s lean face. “Because if you don’t walk I will break every bone in your face.”

  They were all gathered around us now, all grinning, all waiting for the chance to start beating up on Sam. I realized we were only a few feet away from another airlock hatch.

  “You just don’t know beans about me, do you?” Sam asked sweetly.

  I squeezed my eyes shut but the glare still burned through my closed lids so brightly that I thought I’d go blind. I remembered to count... six, seven. . .

  “Come on!” Sam grabbed at my arm. “Let’s get going!”

  I opened my eyes and still saw a burning afterimage, as if I had stared

  directly into the sun. The six Warriors were down on their knees, whimpering, pawing madly at their eyes, their rifles strewn across the floor.

  Sam had Josella by the wrist with one hand. With the other he was pulling me along.

  “Let’s move!” he commanded. “They won’t be down for more than a few minutes.”

  Greg stooped down and took one of the laser rifles.

  “Do you know how to use that?” Sam asked.

  Greg shook his head. “I feel better with it, though.”

  We raced to the hatch, pushed it open, squeezed through it, and then swung it shut again. Sam spun the control wheel as tightly as he could.

  “That won’t hold them for more than a minute,” he muttered.

  We ran. Of the four of us I was the slowest. Josella sprinted ahead on her long legs, with Greg not far behind. Sam stayed back with me, puffing almost as badly as I was.

  “We’re both out of shape,” he panted.

  “We’re both too old for this kind of thing,” I said.

  He looked surprised, as if the idea of getting old had never occurred to him.

  “What did you do back there?” I asked, as we staggered down the corridor.

  “Miniaturized high-intensity flash lamp,” Sam said, puffing. “For priming mini-lasers.”

  “You just happened ...” I was gasping.”... to have one ... on you?”

  “Been carrying a few,” he wheezed, “ever since the fanatics started making threats.”

  “Good thinking.”

  We found a shaft and climbed up into the sweet clean air of a pine forest. It was cold; there was a dusting of snow on the ground. Our feet got thoroughly soaked and we were shivering as Sam pushed us through the woods.

  “Clearing,” he kept telling us. “We gotta get to a clearing.”

  We found a clearing at last, and the thin sunshine filtering through the gray clouds felt good after the chill shadows of the forest. Sam made us close our eyes again and he set off another of his flash bulbs.

  “Surveillance satellites oughtta see that,” he said. “Now it’s just a matter of time to see who gets us first, the Peacekeepers or the dog-pig guys.”

  It was the Peacekeepers, thank goodness. Two of their helicopters came clattering and whooshing down on that little clearing while a pair of

  jump-jets flew cover high overhead. I was never so happy to see that big blue and white symbol in my life.

  The Peacekeepers had mounted a full search-and-rescue operation. Their helicopter was spacious, comfortable, and even soundproofed a little. They thought of everything. While Sam filled in one of their officers on the layout of the Rumanian shelter complex, two enlisted personnel brought us steaming hot coffee and sandwiches. It made me realize that we hadn’t eaten or slept in close to twenty-four hours.

  I was starting to drowse when I heard Sam ask, over the muted roar of the ‘coptor’s turbines, “Who were those guys?”

  The Peacekeeper officer, in her sky-blue uniform, shook her head. “Neither the Daughters of the Mother nor the Warriors of God are listed in our computer files.”

  “Terrorists,” Greg Molina said. “Religious fanatics.”

  “Amateurs,” said Josella Ecks, with a disdainful curl of her lip.

  That startled me. The way she said it. But the need for sleep was overpowering my critical faculties. I cranked my seat back and closed my eyes. The last thing I saw was Sam holding Josella’s hand and staring longingly into her deep, dark, beautifully lashed eyes.

  I wanted to murder her but I was too tired.

  SAM WENT TO Selene the next day and, sure enough, Josella went with him. Greg Molina returned to Quito, dropping in to my office just before he left.

  “Will the trial be held in The Hague or at Selene?” he asked.

  “Wherever,” I groused, seething at the thought of Sam and Josella together a quarter-million miles away.

  “I assume there will be a trial, since there was no agreement at the pretrial hearing,” he said.

  Grimly, I answered, “It certainly looks that way.”

  Looking slightly worried, “If it’s on the Moon, will I have to go there? Or can I participate electronically?”

  “It would be better if you were there in person.”

  “I’ve never been in space,” he admitted.

  “There’s nothing to it,” I said. “It’s like flying in an airplane.”

  “But the lack of gravity...”

  “You’ll get used to it in a day or so. You’ll enjoy it,” I assured him.

  He looked unconvinced.

  It took me a whole day of fussing and fuming before I bit the bullet and rocketed to the Moon after Sam. And Josella. Pride is one thing, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of Sam chasing that willowy young thing—and catching her. Josella Ecks might think she was smart and cool enough to avoid Sam’s clutches, but she didn’t know our sawed-off Lothario as well as I did.

  And it would be just like Sam to try to get the other side’s lawyer to fall for him. Even if he wasn’t bonkers about Josella, he’d want to sabotage her ability to represent his adversary in court.

  So I told myself I was doing my job as a judge of the International Court of Justice as I flew to Selene.

  I hadn’t been to the Moon in nearly five years, and I was impressed with how much bigger and more luxurious the underground city had grown. Selene’s main plaza had been mostly empty the last time I’d seen it, an immense domed structure of bare lunar concrete rumbling with the echoes of bulldozers and construction crews. Now the plaza—big enough to hold half a dozen football fields—was filled with green trees and flowering shrubbery. On one side stood the gracefully curved acoustical shell of an open-air theater. Small shops and restaurants were spotted along the pleasant winding walk that led through the plaza, all of them decked out with Christmas ornaments. The trees along the walk twinkled with lights.

  There were hundreds of people strolling about, tourists walking awkwardly, carefully, in their weighted boots to keep them from stumbling in the one-sixth gravity. A handful of fliers soared high up near the curving dome, using colorful rented plastic wings and their own muscle power to fly like birds. For years Sam had said that tourism would become a major industry in space and at last his prediction was coming true. Christmas on the Moon: the ultimate holiday trip.

  The lobby of the Selene Hotel was marvelous, floored with basalt from Mare Nubium polished to a mirror finish. The living quarters were deeper underground than the lobby level, of course. There were no stairs, though; too easy for newcomers unaccusto
med to the low gravity to trip and fall. I walked down a wide rampway, admiring the sheets of water cascading noiselessly down tilted panes of lunar glass on either side of the central rampway into spacious fish ponds at the bottom level. Freely flowing water was still a rare sight on the Moon, even though aquaculture provided more of the protein for lunar meals than agriculture did.

  Soft music wafted through hidden speakers, and tourists tossed chunks of bread to the fish in the pools, not realizing that sooner or later the fish would be feeding them. I saw that others had thrown coins into the water and laughed to myself, picturing Sam wading in there every night to collect the loose change.

  I hadn’t told Sam I was coming, but he must have found out when I booked a suite at the hotel. There were real flowers and Swiss chocolates waiting for me when I checked in. I admired the flowers and gave the chocolates to the concierge to distribute to the hotel’s staff. Let them have the calories.

  Even before I unpacked my meager travel bag I put in a call to Sam’s office. Surprisingly, he answered it himself.

  “Hi, there!” Sam said brightly, his larger-than-life face grinning at me from the electronic window that covered one whole wall of my sitting room. “What brings you to Selene?”

  I smiled for him. “I got lonesome, Sam.”

  “Really?”

  “And I thought that I’d better make certain you’re not suborning an officer of the court.”

  “Oh, you mean Josella?”

  “Don’t put on your innocent face for me, Sam Gunn,” I said. “You know damned well I mean Josella.”

  His expression went serious. “You don’t have to worry about her. She’s got more defenses than a porcupine. Her arms are a lot longer than mine, I found out.”

  He actually looked sad. I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t want him to know it. Not yet. Sam had a way of using your emotions to get what he wanted.

  So I said, “I presume you’re free for dinner.”

  He sighed. “Dinner, lunch, breakfast, you call it.”

  “Dinner. Seven o’clock in the hotel’s restaurant.” All the lunar facilities kept Greenwich Mean Time, which was only an hour off from The Hague.

  I had expected Sam to be downcast. I’d seen him that way before, moping like a teenaged Romeo when the object of his desire wouldn’t go along with him. Usually his pining and sighing only lasted until he found a new object of desire; I think twenty-four hours was the longest he’d ever gone in the past. Like a minor viral infection.