The Best of Bova Read online

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  THE ANGEL’S GIFT

  ISOLATION AREA

  THE LIEUTENANT AND THE FOLKSINGER

  THE NEXT LOGICAL STEP

  SWORD PLAY

  THE SHINING ONES

  THE SIGHTSEERS

  THE SUPERSONIC ZEPPELIN

  THE SECRET LIFE OF HENRY K.

  JOVIAN DREAMS

  BRILLO

  ANSWER, PLEASE ANSWER

  THE MAN WHO SAW GUNGA DIN THIRTY TIMES

  OUT OF TIME

  BÉISBOL

  RE-ENTRY SHOCK

  THE SYSTEM

  BATTLE STATION

  PRIMARY

  THOSE WHO CAN

  THE MASK OF THE RAD DEATH

  THY KINGDOM COME

  LOVE CALLS

  IN TRUST

  APPOINTMENT IN SINAI

  Volume #2 of 3 of the very best of Ben Bova, a grandmaster of science fiction storytelling. These stories span the five decades of Bova’s incandescent career.

  Here are tales of star-faring adventure, peril, and drama. Here are journeys into the mind-bending landscapes of virtual worlds and alternate realities. Here you’ll also find stories of humanity’s astounding future on Earth, on Mars and in the Solar System beyond—stories that always get the science right. And Bova’s gathering of deeply realized, totally human characters are the heroic, brave, tricky, sometimes dastardly engineers, astronauts, corporate magnates, politicians, and scientists who will make these futures possible—and those who often find that the problems of tomorrow are always linked to human values, and human failings, that are as timeless as the stars.

  Cover Art by Adam Burn

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  First printing, July 2016

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4767-8159-4

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-510-6

  Copyright 2016 by Ben Bova

  Introduction © 2016 by Ben Bova

  “The Angel’s Gift” first published in The First Omni Book of Science Fiction © January 1984

  “Isolation Area” first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction © October 1984

  “The Lieutenant and the Folksinger” first published in Maxwell’s Demons © September 1978

  “The Next Logical Step” first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact © May 1962

  “Sword Play” first published in Escape Plus © December 1984

  “The Shining Ones” first published in Notes to a Science Fiction Writer © September 1975

  “The Sightseers” first published in Future City © July 1973

  “The Supersonic Zeppelin” first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact © January 2005

  “The Secret Life of Henry K.” first published in Maxwell’s Demons © September 1978

  “Jovian Dreams” first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories–Summer 2007 © July 2007

  “Brillo” first published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact © August 1970

  “Answer, Please Answer” first published in Amazing Stories © October 1962

  “The Man Who Saw “Gunga Din” Thirty Times” first published in Showcase © June 1973

  “Out of Time” first published in Omni © November 1984

  “Béisbol” first published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact © November 1985

  “Re-entry Shock” first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction © January 1993

  “The System” first published in Analog Science Fiction–Science Fact © January 1968

  “Battle Station” first published in Battle Station © October 1987

  “Primary” first published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine © February 1985

  “Those Who Can” first published in Maxwell’s Demons © September 1978

  “The Mask of the Rad Death” first published in Challenges © July 1993

  “Thy Kingdom Come” first published in Science Fiction Age © March 1993

  “Love Calls” first published in The Best of Omni Science Fiction No. 4 © 1982

  “In Trust” first published in Tombs © June 1995

  “Appointment in Sinai” first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact © June 1996

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  http://www.baen.com

  Electronic version by Baen Books

  http://www.baen.com

  To Toni and Tony and the radiant,

  resplendent, romantic Rashida.

  And to Lloyd McDaniel,

  without whose unstinting help this book

  would never have seen the light of day.

  The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

  —George Bernard Shaw

  INTRODUCTION

  Here it is, a lifetime’s work in three volumes containing eighty stories published over fifty-four years, from 1960 to 2014. They range from the Baghdad of The Thousand Nights and a Night to the eventual end of the entire universe, from the green hills of Earth to the fiery surface of a dying star, from corporate board rooms to a baseball field in heaven. With plenty of stops in between.

  Re-reading these stories—some of them for the first time in decades—I am struck with a bitter-sweet sadness, recalling friends who have died along the way, passions and problems that drove the invention of the various tales. It’s as if I’m a ghost visiting departed scenes, people whom I have loved, all gone now.

  Yet they live on, in these stories, and perhaps that is the real reason why human beings create works of fiction: they are monuments to days gone by, memories of men and women who have been dear to us—or visions of what tomorrow may bring.

  Every human society has had its storytellers. There is a fundamental need in the human psyche to produce tales that try to show who we truly are, and why we do the things we do.

  Most of the stories in this collection are science fiction: that is, the stories involve some aspect of future science or technology that is so basic to the tale that if that element were removed, the story would collapse.

  To me, science fiction is the literature of our modern society. Humankind depends on science and technology for its survival, and has been doing so since our earliest ancestors faced saber-toothed cats. We do not grow fangs or wings, we create tools. Tool-making—technology—is the way we deal with the often-hostile world in which we live.

  Over the past few centuries, scientific studies of our world have led to vastly improved technologies, better tools with which to make ourselves healthier, richer and more free. Science fiction is the literature that speaks to this.

  Every organism on Earth is struggling to stay alive, to have offspring, to enlarge its ecological niche as widely as possible. We humans have succeeded so well at that quest that there are more than seven billion of us on this planet, and we are driving many, many of our fellow creatures into extinction.

  The stories in this collection examine various aspects of humankind’s current and future predicaments. Some of the tales are somewhat dated: written half a century ago, they deal with problems that we have already solved, or bypassed. Many of the stories tell of the human race’s drive to expand its habitat—
its ecological niche—beyond the limits of planet Earth. Many deal with our interactions with our machines, which are becoming more intelligent with every generation.

  The people in these stories include heroes and heels, lovers and loners, visionaries and the smugly blind.

  I hope you enjoy their struggles.

  —Ben Bova

  Naples, Florida

  November 2014

  THE ANGEL’S GIFT

  Everybody from Goethe to the high school kid next door has written a story about a deal with the devil: you know, a tale in which a man sells his soul in exchange for worldy wealth and power. Sometimes the story ends happily, as in Stephen Vincent Benét’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” More often it’s a tragedy, such as “Faust.”

  Here’s a story about a man making a deal with an angel. He has to give up all his worldly wealth and power in order to save his soul. I believe that this story explains the seemingly inexplicable fall of a former President of the United States.

  Sort of.

  He stood at his bedroom window, gazing happily out at the well-kept grounds and manicured park beyond them. The evening was warm and lovely. Dinner with the guests from overseas had been perfect; the deal was going smoothly, and he would get all the credit for it. As well as the benefits.

  He was at the top of the world now, master of it all, king of the hill. The old dark days of fear and failure were behind him now. Everything was going his way at last. He loved it.

  His wife swept into the bedroom, just slightly tipsy from the champagne. Beaming at him, she said, “You were magnificent this evening, darling.”

  He turned from the window, surprised beyond words. Praise from her was so rare that he treasured it, savored it like expensive wine, just as he had always felt a special glow within his breast on those extraordinary occasions when his mother had vouchsafed him a kind word.

  “Uh. . .thank you,” he said.

  “Magnificent darling,” she repeated. “I am so proud of you!”

  His face went red with embarrassed happiness.

  “And these people are so much nicer than those Latin types,” she added.

  “You. . .you know, you were. . .you are. . .the most beautiful woman in this city,” he stammered. He meant it. In her gown of gold lamé and with her hair coiffed that way, she looked positively regal. His heart filled with joy.

  She kissed him lightly on the cheek, whispering into his ear, “I shall be waiting for you in my boudoir, my prince.”

  The breath gushed out of him. She pirouetted daintily, then waltzed to the door that connected to her own bedroom. Opening the door, she turned back toward him and blew him a kiss.

  As she closed the door behind her, he took a deep, sighing, shuddering breath. Brimming with excited expectation, he went directly to his closet, unbuttoning his tuxedo jacket as he strode purposefully across the thickly carpeted floor.

  He yanked open the closet door. A man was standing there, directly under the light set into the ceiling.

  Smiling, the man made a slight bow. “Please do not be alarmed, sir. And don’t bother to call your security guards. They won’t hear you.”

  Still fumbling with his jacket buttons, he stumbled back from the closet door, a thousand wild thoughts racing through his mind. An assassin. A kidnapper. A newspaper columnist!

  The stranger stepped as far as the closet door. “May I enter your room, sir? Am I to take your silence for assent? In that case, thank you very much.”

  The stranger was tall but quite slender. He was perfectly tailored in a sky-blue Brooks Brothers three-piece suit. He had the youthful, innocent, golden-curled look of a European terrorist. His smile revealed perfect, dazzling teeth. Yet his eyes seemed infinitely sad, as though filled with knowledge of all human failings. Those icy blue eyes pierced right through the man in the tuxedo.

  “Wh. . .what do you want? Who are you?”

  “I’m terribly sorry to intrude this way. I realize it must be a considerable shock to you. But you’re always so busy. It’s difficult to fit an appointment into your schedule.”

  His voice was a sweet, mild tenor, but the accent was strange. East coast, surely. Harvard, no doubt.

  “How did you get in here? My security . . .”

  The stranger gave a slightly guilty grin and hiked one thumb ceilingward. “You might say I came in through the roof.”

  “The roof? Impossible!”

  “Not for me. You see, I am an angel.”

  “An. . .angel?”

  With a self-assured nod, the stranger replied, “Yes. One of the Heavenly Host. Your very own guardian angel, to he precise.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t believe in angels?” The stranger cocked a golden eyebrow at him. “Come now. I can see into your soul. You do believe.”

  “My church doesn’t go in for that sort of thing,” he said, trying to pull himself together.

  “No matter. You do believe. And you do well to believe, because it is all true. Angels, devils, the entire system. It is as real and true as this fine house you live in.” The angel heaved a small sigh. “You know, back in medieval times people had a much firmer grasp on the realities of life. Today . . .” He shook his head.

  Eyes narrowing craftily, the man asked, “If you’re an angel, where are your wings? Your halo? You don’t look anything like a real angel.”

  “Oh.” The angel seemed genuinely alarmed. “Does that bother you? I thought it would be easier on your nervous system to see me in a form that you’re accustomed to dealing with every day. But if you want . . .”

  The room was flooded with a blinding golden light. Heavenly voices sang. The stranger stood before the man robed in radiance, huge white wings outspread, filling the room.

  The man sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Have mercy on me! Have mercy on me!”

  He felt strong yet gentle hands pull him tenderly to his feet. The angel was back in his Brooks Brothers suit. The searing light and ethereal chorus were gone.

  “It is not in my power to show you either mercy or justice,” he said, his sweetly youthful face utterly grave. “Only the Creator can dispense such things.”

  “But why. . .how . . .” He babbled.

  Calming him, the angel explained, “My duty as your guardian angel is to protect your soul from damnation. But you must cooperate, you know. I cannot force you to be saved.”

  “My soul is in danger?”

  “In danger?” The angel rolled his eyes heavenward. “You’ve just about handed it over to the enemy, gift-wrapped. Most of the millionaires you dined with tonight have a better chance to attain salvation than you have, at the moment. And you know how difficult it is for a rich man.”

  The man tottered to the wingback chair next to his king-sized bed and sank into it. He pulled the handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his sweaty face.

  The angel knelt beside him and looked up into his face pleadingly. “I don’t want to frighten you into a premature heart seizure, but your soul really is in great peril.”

  “But I haven’t done anything wrong! I’m not a crook. I haven’t killed anyone or stolen anything. I’ve been faithful to my wife.”

  The angel gave him a skeptical smile.

  “Well . . .” He wiped perspiration from his upper lip. “Nothing serious. I’ve always honored my mother and father.”

  Gently, the angel asked, “You’ve never told a lie?”

  “Uh, well. . .nothing big enough to . . .”

  “You’ve never cheated anyone?”

  “Um.”

  “What about that actor’s wife in California? And the money you accepted to swing certain deals. And all the promises you’ve broken?”

  “You mean things like that—they count?”

  “Everything counts,” the angel said firmly. “Don’t you realize that the enemy has your soul almost in his very hands?”

  “No. I never thought—”

  “Al
l those deals you’ve made. All the corners you’ve cut.” The angel suddenly shot him a piercing glance. “You haven’t signed any documents in blood, have you?”

  “No!” His heart twitched. “Certainly not!”

  “Well, that’s something, at least.”

  “I’ll behave,” he promised. “I’ll he good. I’ll be a model of virtue.”

  “Not enough,” the angel said, shaking his golden locks. “Not nearly enough. Things have gone much too far.”

  His eyes widened with fear. He wanted to argue, to refute, to debate the point with his guardian angel, but the words simply would not force their way through his constricted throat.

  “No, it is not enough merely to promise to reform,” the angel repeated. “Much stronger action is needed.”

  “Such as. . .what?”

  The angel got to his feet, paced across the room a few steps, then turned back to face him. His youthful visage brightened. “Why not? If they can make a deal for a soul, why can’t we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hush!” The angel seemed to be listening to another voice, one that the man could not hear. Finally the angel nodded and smiled. “Yes. I see. Thank you.”

  “What?”

  Turning back to the man, the angel said, “I’ve just been empowered to make you an offer for your soul. If you accept the terms, your salvation is assured.”

  The man instantly grew wary. “Oh no you don’t. I’ve heard about deals for souls. Some of my best friends—”

  “But this is a deal to save your soul!”

  “How do I know that?” the man demanded. “How do I know you’re really what you say you are? The devil has power to assume pleasing shapes, doesn’t he?”

  The angel smiled joyfully. “Good for you! You remember some of your childhood teachings.”

  “Don’t try to put me off. I’ve negotiated a few tricky deals in my day. How do I know you’re really are an angel, and you want to save my soul?”