The Sam Gunn Omnibus

by Ben Bova

  YONI’S OFFICE LOOKED to Jade like a millionaire’s living room. Bigger than any office she had ever seen; bigger than any apartment, for that matter. And there were doors leading to other rooms, as well. Oriental carpets on the floor. Video windows on every wall. The furniture alone must have cost millions to tote up from Earth: Chinese prayer tables of real wood, lacquered and glistening; long low settees covered in striped fabrics; even a hologram fireplace that actually threw off heat.

  Jade stood in the middle of the huge room, almost breathless with admiration, while Yoni went straight to a delicately small desk tucked into a corner and tapped on the keyboard cunningly built into its gleaming top.

  The silk painting of misty mountains above the desk turned into a small display screen.

  “Most johns don’t use their real names here,” Yoni muttered, mostly to herself, “but we can usually trace their credit accounts, even when they’ve established a temporary one to cover their identity.”

  Jade drifted toward the desk, resisting the urge to touch the vases, the real flowers, the ivory figurines resting on an end table.

  “You said he calls himself Rocky?”

  “Raki.”Jade spelled it.

  “H’m. Here he is, full name and everything. He’s not trying to hide from anybody.”

  “He’s married....”

  “Two wives,” Yoni said, as the data on the screen scrolled by. “One in Orlando and one in Istanbul. Plus a few girlfriends that he sees regularly, here and there.”

  Jade let herself drop into the little straight-backed chair beside the desk.

  “He doesn’t make any secret of it, so there’s no way to use this information as leverage on him.”

  “Does he have ... girlfriends ... here on the Moon?”

  Yoni gave her a sidelong look. “No, when he’s here he comes to us. To me.”

  Jade felt her face redden.

  Yoni smiled knowingly at her. “He’s never seen me, little one. Not in the flesh. It’s been years since I’ve done business with anyone flesh-to-flesh.” “Oh?”

  “The VR nets,” Yoni said, as if that explained everything. When she saw that Jade did not understand she went on, “Most of my customers come here for our simulations. They’re quite lifelike, with the virtual reality systems. We just zip them up into a cocoon so the sensory net’s in contact with every centimeter of their body, and then we play scenarios for them.”

  “They don’t want sex with real women?” Jade felt stupid asking it.

  “Some do, but what men want most is not sex so much as power. For most men, they feel powerful when they’re screwing a woman. It makes them feel strong, especially when the woman is doing exactly what they desire. That’s why the VR nets are so popular. A john can have any woman he wants, any number of women, for the asking.”

  “Really?”

  Yoni gave her a knowing smile. “We have vids of Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Catherine the Great. One john wants Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; nobody else, just her. Another has a fixation on Eleanor of Aquitaine. Thinks he’s Richard the Lionheart, I guess.”

  “And it’s all preprogrammed simulations?”

  “The basic scenario is preprogrammed. We always have a live operator in the loop to make sure everything’s going right and to take care of any special needs that come up.”

  Jade completely missed Yoni’s pun. But she caught the unspoken implication.

  “You keep disks of each session?”

  “No!” Yoni snapped, almost vehemently. Then, more gently, “Do you realize the kinds of corporate and government people we have as clientele here? One hint, even the slightest rumor, that we record their sessions and we would be out of business—or dead.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize ...”

  Yoni smiled mysteriously. “We don’t have to blackmail our guests, or even threaten to. These VR sessions can be very powerful; they have a strong impact on the mind. Almost like a posthypnotic suggestion, really.”

  “You can influence people?” Jade asked.

  “Not directly. But—no one actually understands what long-term effects these VR sessions have on a person’s mind. Especially a habitual user. I have commissioned a couple of psychologists to look into it, but so far their results have been too vague for any practical use.”

  “Could you—influence—Raki?”

  With a shrug, Yoni said, “I don’t know. He’s been here often, that’s true. But he’s not an addict, like some I could name.”

  Jade hesitated, feeling embarrassed, then asked, “What kind of sex does he go in for?”

  Glancing back at the computer screen, Yoni said, “I don’t think you understand, little one. The man doesn’t come here for sex. He gets his sexual needs fulfilled from flesh-and-blood creatures like yourself.”

  “Then what... ?”

  “For power, little one. Not sexual power. Corporate power.”

  Jade’s eyes went wide. She understood. And she knew what had to be done.

  ARAK AL KASHAN gazed through his office window at the Orlando skyline: tower after tower, marching well past the city limits, past the open acreage of Disney World, and on out to the horizon. There was power there, majesty and might in the modern sense. Beyond his line of sight, he knew, construction crews were hard at work turning swampland and citrus groves into more corporate temples of enduring concrete, stainless steel and gleaming glass.

  He leaned back in his plush leather chair and sighed deeply. The moment had come. His trip to the Moon had been relaxing, diverting. Now the moment of truth had arrived.

  Getting to his feet, Raki squared his shoulders as he inspected his image in the full-length mirror on the door to his private lavatory. The jacket fit perfectly, he saw. Its camel’s-hair tone brought out his tan. Good.

  He snapped his fingers once and the mirror turned opaque. Then he stepped around the desk and started toward the door and the meeting of the board of directors of Solar News Network, Inc. This was going to be the meeting. The one where he took charge of the entire corporation, where he seized the reins of power from the doddering old hands of the CEO and won the board’s approval as the new chief of Solar News.

  The day had come at last.

  But before he could take three steps across the precious Persian carpet, the door opened and a short, disheveled man rushed in.

  “You’re in trouble, pal. Deep shit, if you don’t mind the expression.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Raki demanded.

  “That’s not important. You’ve got a real problem and I’m here to help you.”

  Raki took a step backward, then another, and felt his desk against the back of his legs. The little man seemed terribly agitated, perhaps insane. His wiry rust-red hair was cropped short, yet it still looked tangled and dirty. He wore coveralls of faded olive green, stained here and there with what looked like grease or machine oil.

  Raki groped with one hand toward the intercom on his desk, still facing the strange intruder.

  “Never mind calling security,” the man said. “I’m on your side, pal. I can help you.”

  “Help me? I don’t need—”

  “The hell you don’t need help! They’re waiting for you upstairs,” he

  cast his eyes toward the ceiling, “with knives sharpened and a vat of boiling oil. All for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The man smiled, a lopsided sort of grin in his round, snub-nosed face.

  “You think you’re gonna waltz right in there and take control of the corporation, huh? You think the CEO’s just gonna bend over and let you boot him in the butt?”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Plenty, pal,” said the little man. “I was never the guy for corporate politics. Had no time for boards of directors and all the crap that goes with a big bureaucracy. But lemme tell you, they’re out to get you. They’re gonna pin your balls to the conference table, Raki, old pal.”

  Raki felt his knees giving way. He sank to a
half-sitting position on the edge of his desk.

  His visitor strutted across the carpet, looked out the window. “Nice view. Not as good as the view from Titan, but what the hell, this is the best you can do in Florida, I guess.”

  “What did you mean?” Raki asked.

  “About the view from Titan?”

  “About the board of directors. They’re waiting for me upstairs—”

  “You bet your busy little ass they’re waiting. With assorted cutlery and boiling oil, like I said.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Mad?” The little man screwed up his face and crossed his eyes. “Hannibal was mad. Caesar was mad. And surely Napoleon was the maddest of them all.”

  “Talk sense, dammit!”

  The man chuckled tolerantly. “Look. You’re going up to the board of directors to tell them that the corporation would be better off with you as CEO instead of the old fart that’s running the network now. Right?”

  “Right,” said Raki.

  “Well, what’s your plan?”

  “My plan?”

  “Yeah. You need a plan to lay out on the table, a blueprint to show them what changes you’re gonna make, how you’re gonna do bigger and better things for dear ol’ Solar News.”

  “I... I...” Raki suddenly realized he did not have a plan. Not an idea in his head. He could feel cold sweat breaking out all over his body.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” the little man demanded, “the board’s waiting. What’s your plan?”

  “I don’t have one!” Raki wailed.

  His visitor shook his head. “Just as I thought. No plan.”

  “What can I do?” Raki was trembling now. He saw his dream of conquest crumbling. They’ll fire me! I’ll lose everything!

  “Not to worry, pal. That’s why I’m here. To help you.” The little man pulled a computer disk from his grubby coverall pocket. It was smaller than the palm of his hand, even though his hand was tiny.

  He handed the disk to Raki. It felt warm and solid in his fingers.

  “Show ‘em that, pal. It’ll knock ‘em on their asses.”

  Before Raki could think of anything to say, he was standing at the foot of the long, long conference table. The entire board of directors was staring at him from their massive chairs. The old CEO and his henchmen sat up near the head of the table, flanking the chairman of the board, a woman upon whom Raki had lavished every possible attention. She was smiling at him, faintly, but the rest of the board looked grim.

  “Well,” snapped the CEO, “what do you have there in your hand, young man?”

  Raki took a deep breath. “I hold here in my hand,” he heard his own voice saying, smoothly, without a tremor, “the salvation of Solar News.”

  A stir went around the conference table.

  Holding up the tiny disk, Raki went on, “This is a documented, dramatized biography of one of the solar system’s most colorful personalities—the late Sam Gunn.”

  The board erupted into an uproar.

  “Sam Gunn!”

  “No!”

  “It couldn’t be!”

  “How did you manage it?”

  One of the truly elderly members of the board, frail and pasty-faced, waved his skeletal hands excitedly. “I have it on very good authority that BBC was planning to do a biography of Sam Gunn. You’ve beaten them to the punch, young man! Bravo.”

  The chairman turned a stern eye on her CEO. “How come you didn’t do this yourself?” she demanded of the cowering executive. “Why did Raki have to do this all on his own?” And she gave Raki a wink full of promise.

  The entire board of directors got to their feet and applauded. Walter

  Cronkite appeared, in a white linen double-breasted suit, to join the acclamation. The old CEO faded, ghostlike, until he disappeared altogether.

  Raki smiled and made a little bow. When he turned, he saw that Yoni was waiting for him, reclining on a bank of satin pillows beside a tinkling fountain in a moonlit garden scented by warm blossoms.

  His strange little visitor stepped out from behind an azalea bush, grinning. “Way to go, pal. Give her everything you’ve got.”

  JADE KNEW THAT her ploy had failed. Raki had returned to Orlando two weeks ago, and there was no word from him at all. Nothing.

  She went through her assignments perfunctorily, interviewing a development tycoon who wanted to build retirement villages on the Moon, a visiting ecologist from Massachusetts who wanted a moratorium declared on all further lunar developments, an astrobiologist who was trying to raise funds for an expedition to the south lunar pole to search for fossilized bacteria: “I know there’s got to be evidence of life down there someplace; I just know it.”

  All the help that Yoni had given her, all the support that Monica gave, had been for nothing. Jade saw herself trapped in a cell of lunar stone, blank and unyielding no matter which way she turned.

  Gradowsky warned her. “You’re sleepwalking, kid. Snap out of it and get me stories I can send to Orlando, not this high-school junk you’ve been turning in.”

  Another week went by, and Jade began to wonder if she really wanted to stay on as a reporter. Maybe she could go back to running a truck up on the surface. Or ship out to Mars: they needed construction workers there for the new base the scientists were building.

  When Gradowsky called her in to his office she knew he was going to fire her.

  Jumbo Jim had a strange, uncomfortable expression on his face as he pushed aside a half-eaten hero sandwich and a mug of some foaming liquid while gesturing Jade to the chair in front of his desk.

  Swallowing visibly, Gradowsky said, “Well, you did it.”

  Jade nodded glumly. Her last assignment had been a real dud: the corporate board of Selene City never gave out any news other than their official media release.

  “The word just came in from Orlando. You leave for Alpha tomorrow.”

  It took Jade a moment to realize what Jumbo Jim was telling her. She felt her breath catch.

  “Raki must have fought all the way up to the board of directors,” Gradowsky was saying. “It must’ve been some battle.”

  Instead of elation, instead of excitement, Jade felt numb, smothered, encased in a block of ice. I’ve got to make it work, she told herself. I’ve got to get to every person who knew Sam and make them tell me everything. I owe it to Monica and Yoni. I owe it to Raki.

  She looked past Gradowsky’s fleshy, flabby face, still mouthing words she did not hear, and realized that Raki had put his career on the line. And so had she.

  Space Station Alpha

  THEY FACED EACH OTHER SUSPICIOUSLY, FLOATING WEIGHTLESSLY in emptiness.

  The black man was tall, long-limbed, loose, gangling; on Earth he might have made a pro basketball player. His utilitarian coveralls were standard issue, frayed at the cuffs and so worn that whatever color they had been originally had long since faded into a dull gray. They were clean and pressed to a razor sharpness, though. The insignia patch on his left shoulder said ADMINISTRATION. A strictly nonregulation belt of royal blue, studded with rough lumps of meteoric gold and clamped by a heavy gold buckle, cinched his pencil-thin waist and made him look even taller and leaner.

  He eyed the reporter warily. She was young, and the slightly greenish cast to her pretty features told him that she had never been in zero gravity before. Her flame-red hair was shoulder length, he judged, but she had followed the instructions given to groundlings and tied it up in a zero-gee snood. Terrific big emerald eyes, even if they did look kind of scared.

  Her coveralls were spanking new white. She filled them nicely enough, a trim, coltish figure that he almost admired. She looked like a forlorn little waif floating weightlessly, obviously fighting down the nausea that was surging through her.

  Frederick Mohammed Malone was skeptical to the point of being hostile toward this female interloper. Jade could see the resentment smoldering in the black man’s red-rimmed eyes. Malone’s face was narrow, almost gaunt, with a trim
little Vandyke jutting out from his chin. His forehead was high, receding; his hair was cropped close to the skull. His skin was very black. She guessed Malone’s age at somewhere in his early sixties, although she knew that living in zero gravity could make a person look much younger than his or her calendar age.

  She tried to restart their stalled conversation. “I understand that you and Sam Gunn were, uh, friends.”

  “Why’re you doing a story on Sam?” Malone asked, his voice low and loaded with distrust.

  The two of them were in Malone’s “office.” Actually it was an observation blister in the central hub of space station Alpha. Oldest and still biggest of the Earth-orbiting commercial stations, Alpha was built on the old wheels-within-wheels scheme. The outermost rim, where most of the staff lived and worked, spun at a rate that gave it almost a full Earth gravity, out-of-bounds for Jade. Two-thirds of the way toward the hub there was a wheel that spun at the Moon’s one-sixth g. That was where she was quartered for her visit. The hub itself, of course, was for all practical purposes at zero-gee, weightless.

  Malone’s aerie consisted of one wall on which were located a semicircular sort of desk and communications center, a bank of display screens that were all blankly gray at the moment, and an airtight hatch that led to the spokes that radiated out to the various wheels. The rest of the chamber was a transparent glassteel bubble from which Malone could watch the station’s loading dock—and the overwhelming majesty of the huge, curved, incredibly blue and white-flecked Earth as it slid past endlessly, massive, brilliant, ever-changing, ever-beautiful.

  To Jade, though, it seemed as if they were hanging in empty space itself, unprotected by anything at all, and falling, falling, falling toward the ponderous world that filled her peripheral vision. The background rumble of the bearings that bore the massive station’s rotation while the hub remained static sounded to her like the insistent bass growl of a giant grinding wheel that was pressing the breath out of her.

  She swallowed bile, felt it burn in her throat, and tried to concentrate on the job at hand.