The Sam Gunn Omnibus Page 37

  More than a hundred people were filing into the room in the big hotel where the stockholders’ meeting was being held. Employees and their spouses, all ages, all colors. Blacks and Hispanics and Asians, women and men, Sam had brought together every variety of the human species in his company. He hired for competence; VCI was truly a company without prejudice of any kind. Except that it helped if you were female and young and attractive. That was Sam’s one obvious weakness.

  Out of that throng Spence noticed me. He made his way through the crowd that was milling around the coffee and doughnuts and came to my side.

  “What’s the matter, Juanita?”

  I looked up into his clear blue eyes and saw that he too was sad-faced.

  “Family problems,” I muttered. “Back home.”

  He nodded grimly. “Me too.” “Oh?”

  Before he could say more, Sam’s voice cut through the hubbub of conversations. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Where’s our noble president? Hey, Spence, you silver-haired devil, come on up here and preside, for god’s sake, will ya?”

  Spence lifted my chin a centimeter and gave me a forced grin. “Time to go to work,” he said. Then he turned and almost sprinted up to the front of the room and jumped up onto the makeshift dais.

  Sam, Bonnie Jo, and two other men flanked Spence at the long table set up on the dais. The board of directors, I realized. Each of them had a microphone and a name card in front of them. I was fairly certain that the older of the two strangers—Eli G. Murtchison—was Bonnie Jo’s father.

  There were two mammoth television sets on either side of the dais as well. I wondered if the hotel kept them there all the time, or if they had been brought in for some specific reason.

  The rest of us took the folding plastic chairs that the hotel had set along the floor of the meeting room. They were hard and uncomfortable: a stimulus to keep the meeting short, I thought. The meeting began with formalities. Spence asked that the minutes of the last meeting be accepted. Bonnie Jo read her treasurer’s report so fast that I could not understand a word of it.

  Then Sam, as chairman of the board, began his review of the year’s business and plans for the coming year.

  I could feel the tension in the air. Even as Sam spoke glowingly to the stockholders about VCI’s new capabilities in remote satellite repair, even while they loudly applauded his announcement of a dividend, the room seemed to crackle with electricity.

  And all the while I wondered where my father was, what he was doing, what decisions he was making.

  A stockholder—Gene Redding, of all people—rose to ask a question. “Uh, Sam, uh, why isn’t our dividend bigger, if we’re, uh, making such good profits now?”

  I turned in my chair to see Gene better. He was standing: portly, bald, looking slightly flustered. I had never before seen him in a suit and tie; he had always worn jeans and sports shirts at the office. But his suit was rumpled and his tie hung loosely from his unbuttoned shirt. It seemed to me that he felt guilty about asking his question. He was on Bonnie Jo’s side, I realized.

  Sam said tightly, “We have always plowed our profits back into the company, to assure our growth. This year the profits have been big enough to allow a dividend. But we are still plowing some of the profits back into growth.”

  Gene got red in the face, but he found the strength to ask, “Back into the growth of VCI’s existing projects, or, uh, some other program?”

  Sam shot a glance along the head table toward Bonnie Jo. Then he grinned at Gene. “You can sit down, Gene. This is gonna take some time, I can see that.”

  Bonnie Jo said, “Sam wants to put our profits—your profits—into building an orbital tourist hotel.”

  “A honeymoon hotel,” Sam corrected.

  A few chuckles arose from the stockholders.

  “And we don’t have to build it,” Sam added. “We can lease space aboard Alpha from Rockledge International.”

  “Didn’t you try that once before, when Global Technology first built Space Station Alpha?” asked another stockholder, a woman I did not recognize.

  “And it didn’t work out?” asked another.

  “You went broke on that deal, didn’t you?” still another asked. I realized that Bonnie Jo had recruited her troops carefully.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sam answered impatiently. “That was years ago. Rockledge has taken over Alpha now and they’re looking for customers to lease space.”

  “Under what terms?” Bonnie Jo asked.

  “It’s a bargain,” said Sam enthusiastically. “A steal!”

  I looked at Spence, sitting between Sam and Bonnie Jo. His face was a mask, his usual smile gone, his features frozen as if he wished to betray not even the slightest sign of emotion or partisan bias.

  Gene Redding rose to his feet once again. I could see that his hands were trembling, he was so nervous.

  “I...” he cleared his throat, “I want to make a, uh, a motion.”

  Spence said grimly, “Go ahead.”

  “I move ... that the board of directors ...” he seemed to be reciting a memorized speech, “refuse to allocate, uh, any monies ... for any programs ... not directly associated with VCI’s existing lines of business.” Gene said the last words in a rush, then immediately sat down.

  “Second!” cried Bonnie Jo.

  Spence stared at the back wall of the meeting room as he said automatically, “Movement made and seconded. Discussion?”

  I had expected Sam to jump up on the table and do a war dance. Or at least to rant and scream and argue until we all dropped from exhaustion. Instead, he glanced at his wristwatch and said:

  “Let’s postpone the discussion for a bit. There’s a speech coming up at the UN that we should all take a look at.”

  Spence agreed to Sam’s suggestion so quickly that I knew the two of them had talked it over beforehand. Bonnie Jo looked surprised, nettled, but her father laid a hand on her arm and she refrained from objecting.

  The UN speech was by my father, of course, although no one in the room knew that I was the daughter of Ecuador’s presidente. I felt a surge of pride when his handsome face appeared on the giant TV screens. If only his new hair had matched his face better! He wore a civilian’s business suit of dark blue, with the red sash of his office slanting across his chest. He looked bigger than normal, his chest broader and deeper. I realized he must have been wearing a bulletproof vest. Was he worried that the rebels would try to assassinate him? Or merely wary of New York?

  My father’s speech was marvelous, although I had to listen to the English translation instead of hearing his dramatic, flowery Spanish. Still, it was dramatic enough. My father explained the legal origins of our claim to the equatorial orbit, the injustice of the rich corporations who refused to share their wealth with the orbit’s rightful owners, and the complicity of the United Nations for allowing this terrible situation to persist.

  I sat in my hard little folding chair and basked in the glow of my father’s unassailable logic and undeterrable drive.

  “Is there no one to help us?” he asked rhetorically, raising his hands in supplication. “Cannot all the apparatus of international law come to the aid of the Twelve nations who have seen their territory invaded and usurped? Will no one support the Declaration of Quito?”

  Suddenly his face hardened. His hands balled into fists. “Very well, then! The Twelve Equatorial Nations will defend their sacred territory by themselves, if necessary. I serve notice, on behalf of the Twelve Equatorial Nations, that the equatorial orbit belongs to us, and to no other nation, corporation, or entity. We are preparing to send an international team of astronauts to establish permanent residence in the equatorial orbit. Once there, they will dismantle or otherwise destroy the satellites that the invaders have placed in our territory.”

  The audience in the UN chamber gasped. So did we, in the hotel’s meeting room. I felt a thrill of hot blood race through me.

  “We will defend our territory against the aggre
ssors who have invaded it,” my father declared. “If this means war, then so be it. To do anything less would be to bow to the forces of imperialism!”

  The people around me stared at one another, stunned into silence.

  All except Sam, who yelled, “Jesus H. Christ on a motorcycle!”

  As the TV picture winked off, one of the stockholders shouted, “What the hell are we going to do about that?”

  All sense of order in our meeting room dissolved. Everyone seemed to talk at once. Spence rapped his knuckles on the table but no one paid any attention to him. The argument about Sam’s orbital hotel was forgotten. My father had turned our meeting into chaos.

  Until Sam jumped up on the table and waved his arms excitedly. “Shut the hell up and listen to me!” he bellowed.

  The room silenced. All eyes turned to the pudgy rust-haired elf standing on the head table.

  “We’re gonna get there before they do,” Sam told us. “We’re gonna put a person up there in GEO before they can and we’re gonna claim the orbit for ourselves. They wanna play legal games, .we can play ‘em too. Faster and better!”

  Spence objected, “Sam, nobody can stay in GEO for long. It’s in the middle of the outer Van Allen belt, for gosh sakes.”

  “Pull a couple of OTVs together, fill the extra propellant tanks with water. That’ll provide enough shielding for a week or so.”

  “How do you know? We’ve got to do some calculations, check with the experts—”

  “No time for that,” Sam snapped. “We’re in a race, a land rush, we gotta go now. Do the calculations afterward. Right now the vital thing is to get somebody parked up there in GEO before those greedy sonsofbitches get there!”

  “But who would be nuts enough to—”

  “I’ll do it,” Sam said, as if he had made up his mind even before Spence asked the question. “Let’s get busy!”

  That broke up our meeting, of course. Spence officially called for an adjournment until a time to be decided. Everyone raced for their cars and drove pell-mell back to the office. Except for Sam and Spence, who jumped into Spence’s convertible Mustang and headed off toward Cape Canaveral.

  DESPITE MY FEELINGS of patriotism and love of my father, I felt thrilled. It was tremendously exciting to dash into the mission control center and begin preparations for launching Sam to GEO. Spence went with him as far as Space Station Alpha. Together they hopped up to the station where our OTVs were garaged on the next available Delta Clipper, scarcely thirty-six hours after my father’s speech.

  Even Bonnie Jo caught the wave of enthusiasm. She came into the control center as Sam and Spence were preparing the two OTVs for Sam’s mission. It was night; I was running the board, giving Gene a rest after he had put in twelve hours straight. Bonnie Jo slid into the chair beside me and asked me to connect her with Sam up at Alpha.

  “We’ve been monitoring the Brazilian launch facility,” she said, once Sam’s round, freckled face appeared on the screen. “They’re counting down a manned launch. They claim it’s just a scientific research team going up to the Novo Brasil space station. But get this Sam: the Brazilians are also counting down an unmanned launch.”

  “With what payload?”

  “An old storm cellar that the U.S. government auctioned off five years ago.”

  “A what?”

  “A shielded habitat module, like the ones the scientists used on their first Mars missions to protect themselves from solar flare radiation,” Bonnie Jo said.

  Sam looked tired and grim. “They ain’t going to Mars.”

  “According to the flight plan they filed, they’re merely going to the Brazilian space station.”

  “My ass. They’re heading for GEO.”

  “Can you get there first?” Bonnie Jo asked.

  He nodded. “Got the second OTV’s tanks filled with water. Rockledge bastards charged us two arms and a leg for it, but the tanks are filled. Spence is out on EVA now, rigging an extra propulsion unit to the tanker.”

  “Where did you get an extra propulsion unit?”

  “Cannibalized from a third OTV.”

  Bonnie Jo tried not to, but she frowned. “That’s three OTVs used for this mission. We only have two left for our regular work.”

  “There won’t be any regular work if we don’t get to GEO and establish our claim.”

  Her frown melted into a tight little smile. “I think I can help you there.”

  “How?”

  “The Brazilians haven’t filed an official flight plan with the LAA safety board.”

  The International Astronautical Administration had legal authority over all flights in space.

  “Hell, neither have we,” said Sam.

  “Yes, but you didn’t have that fatheaded Ecuadorian spouting off about sending a team to occupy GEO.”

  Fatheaded Ecuadorian! I almost slapped her. But I held on to my soaring temper. There was much to be learned from her, and I was a spy, after all.

  Sam was muttering, “I don’t see what—”

  With a smug, self-satisfied smile, Bonnie Jo explained, “I just asked my uncle, the Senator from Utah, to request that our space agency people ask the IAA if they’ve inspected the Brazilian spacecraft to see if it’s properly fitted out for long-term exposure to high radiation levels.”

  Sam grinned back at her. “You’re setting the lawyers on them!”

  “The safety experts,” corrected Bonnie Jo.

  “Son of a bitch. That’s great!”

  Bonnie Jo’s smile shrank. “But you’d better get your butt off the space station and on your way to GEO before the IAA figures out what you’re up to.”

  “We’ll be ready to go in two shakes of a sperm cell’s tail,” Sam replied happily.

  If Bonnie Jo was worried about Sam’s safety up there in the Van Allen radiation, she gave no indication of it. I must confess that I felt a twinge of relief that it was Sam who was risking himself, not Spence. But still I smoldered at Bonnie Jo’s insulting words about my father.

  And suddenly I realized that I had to tell Papa about her scheme to delay the Brazilian mission. But how? I was stuck here in the mission control center until eight AM.

  I could risk a telephone call, I thought. Later, in the dead of night, when there was little chance of anyone else hanging around.

  The hours dragged by slowly. At midnight Queveda and another technician were in the center with me, helping Sam and Spence to check out their jury-rigged OTV prior to launch. By one-thirty they were almost ready to start the countdown.

  I found myself holding my breath as I watched Sam and Spence go through the final inspection of the OTV, both of them encased in bulky space suits as they floated around the ungainly spacecraft, checking every strut and tank and electrical connection. Their suits had once been white, I suppose, but long use had turned them both dingy gray. Over his years in space Sam had brightened his with decorative patches and pins, but they too were frayed and faded. I could barely read the patch just above his name stencil. It said, The meek shall inherit the Earth. The rest of us are going to the stars.

  “Hey Esmeralda,” Sam called to me, “why don’t you come up here with me? It’s gonna be awful lonesome up there all by myself.”

  “Pay attention to your inspection,” I told him.

  But Sam was undeterred, of course. “We could practice different positions for my zero-gee hotel.”

  “Never in a million years,” I said.

  He grinned and said, “I’ll wait.”

  At last the inspection was finished and we began the final countdown. I cleared my display screen of the TV transmission from Alpha and set up the OTV’s interior readouts. For the next half-hour I concentrated every molecule of my attention on the countdown. A man could be killed by the slightest mistake now.

  A part of my mind was saying, so what if Sam is killed? That would stop his mission to GEO and give your father the chance he needs to triumph. But I told myself that my father would not condone murder or even
a political assassination. He would triumph and keep his hands clean. And mine. It was one thing to tinker with a computer program so that an unmanned spacecraft would be destroyed. I was not a murderer and neither was my father. Or so I told myself.

  “Thirty seconds,” said Ricardo Queveda, sitting on my left.

  Sam had become very quiet. Was he nervous? I wondered. I certainly was. My hands were sweaty as I stared at the readouts on my display screen.

  “Fifteen seconds.”

  Everything seemed right. All systems functioning normally. All the readouts on my screen in the green.

  “Separation,” the tech announced.

  The launch was not dramatic. I cleared my display screen for a moment and switched to a view from one of the space stations outside cameras and saw Sam’s ungainly conglomeration move away, without so much as a puff of smoke, and dwindle into the star-filled darkness.

  I felt inexpressibly sad. He was my enemy, the sworn foe of my people. I should have hated Sam Gunn. Yet, as he flew off into the unknown dangers of living in the radiation belt for who knew how long, I did not feel hatred for him. Admiration, perhaps. Respect for his courage, certainly.

  Suddenly I blew him a kiss. To my shock, I found that I actually liked Sam Gunn.

  “It’s a good thing he couldn’t see that,” Ricardo growled at me. “He would turn the OTV around and come to carry you off with him.”

  I leaned back in my chair, my head throbbing from the tension, glad that this Queveda person was there to remind me of my true responsibilities.

  “Sam is a rogue,” I said loftily. “One can admire a rogue without being captivated by him.”

  Ricardo snorted his disdain and got up from his chair, leaving me alone in the control center.

  I waited until almost dawn before daring to phone my father. The mission was going as planned: Sam was coasting out to GEO, all systems were within nominal parameters, there was nothing for anyone to do. We had not even chatted back and forth since the launch; there was no need to, although I found myself wondering if Sam was so worried about his brash jaunt into the radiation dangers of GEO that he had finally lost the glibness of his tongue.