The Sam Gunn Omnibus (105 page)

“Does
Rockledge have a tourist center on the Moon now?” Mrs. Haverstraw asked. “And
if we do, why hasn’t the board been informed of it?”

I
swallowed hard and asked her, in a very small voice,
“Um, may I see the invitation, please?”

“I
haven’t it with me. It came electronically, just this morning, as I was leaving
for this meeting.” She smiled toothily. “I remember the first line of it,
though. It said, ‘Go to Hell.’“

I
wanted to throw up.

If
Mrs. Haverstraw had received an invitation to visit Hell Crater, then every member
of the board must have as well. So that was Sam’s plan all along. He conned me
into this scheme to destroy me, to humiliate me in front of the board of
directors, to get me fired, ruined, disgraced. I could hear his mocking
laughter in my mind.

“I
say, Mr. D’Argent, are you quite all right?”

I
focused on Mrs. Haverstraw, who was staring at me
quizzically.

“I’m
... I’m a little surprised, that’s all,” I said, thinking faster than I ever
had before in my life. “We had ... planned to announce the, eh, tourist
facility at the meeting today. Under new business.”

“Oh, goodie,” said Mrs. Haverstraw,
suddenly almost girlish in her enthusiasm. “I love surprises.”

I
went back into
the conference room, my mind spinning. The meeting resumed, dragging along.
Next to me, the comptroller sat staring blankly into space, stupefied into
quiescence by the boring proceedings. On my other side, Sally continued to
sneak food into her mouth. Crumbs littered the carpeting around her. Ms.
Marlowe breathed deeply and continued to focus on the CEO.

At last, the CEO looked around the
long conference table and smiled handsomely. “That completes our agenda, ladies
and gentlemen. Except for one item of new business.”

Mrs. Haverstraw looked my way.

I
got to my feet,
brushed a few of Sally’s errant crumbs from my trousers, and cleared my throat
uneasily. If the board didn’t like the idea of Rockledge’s building a Sin City
on the Moon, my career was finished. Clever of the CEO to make me the messenger.

Half a dozen of the directors had
already pushed their chairs back from the table, ready to leave. They glared
and grumbled.

“As you know,” I began, trying to
put the best face on the situation, “the space operations division has always
been at the frontier of innovation and ...” I struggled for a word “... and,
uh, progress.”

Several gray heads nodded, although
I saw a few impatient stares as well.

“Today I’d like to announce that we
have nearly completed a tourist facility on the Moon, at Hell Crater.”

That stirred them. The CEO kept his
expression neutral, although I thought he snuck a quick glance in Ms. Marlowe’s
direction.

I
took a deep
breath and began to explain what we were building at Hell Crater, all the while
thinking of how Sam would have done it. I’m no spellbinder, but I managed to
spin out a vision of a tourist facility that would rival anything on Earth,
while skirting the matter of gambling and prostitution.

“And on the Moon,” I went on, “with
its one-sixth gravity, there’s no problem of people becoming space sick, yet
they still weigh only one-sixth of what they do on Earth.”

“What about our space sickness
cure?”

“We’ll still sell it to people
going into orbit. That’s a firm market. And tourists heading for the Moon will
be in weightlessness for a day or so. They’ll buy our pills too.”

“But
will people go all the way to the Moon for a vacation?”

“Of
course they will,” I enthused, crossing my fingers behind my back. “And they’ll
book their passages aboard Rockledge spacecraft.”

“This
is a
family
resort?” one of the
younger men asked. “Not for adults?”

“There
will be plenty of entertainment for adults as well as families,” I said.

They
grilled me for the better part of an hour. By the end of it, the board was
satisfied that the Hell Crater project would be a moneymaker. I even began to
believe it myself.

“That
explains the invitation I received this morning,” said the oldest member of the
board, a crooked smile snaking across his withered face. “I was going to ask
you about it, after the meeting.”

“ ‘Go
to Hell,’“ quoted a balding director seated halfway down the long table. “Catches
your attention, doesn’t it?”

Everyone
laughed, rather guardedly, I thought.

Swallowing
hard again, I apologized weakly. “Publicity people sometimes lack a sense of
decorum.”

“Well,
I’m ready to go,” said the younger director who had asked about adult
entertainment; “How about the rest of you?”

Thus
the entire Rockledge board of directors decided to attend the grand opening of
the Hell Crater resort.

You’ve
got to understand that up until this moment none of the directors knew that
Rockledge was in partnership with Sam Gunn. I wanted to keep it that way as I met
with the CEO after the board meeting, in the privacy of his airport-sized
office.

“Although
we’re a full partner with, um, the builders of the facility,” I said, “I thought
it best to keep Rockledge’s name out of the limelight on this. After all, we’re
not really in the resort business.”

He
pursed his sculpted lips. “Perhaps we should be, Pierre. There’s a lot of money
in entertainment.”

It
was the first time he’d ever called me by my first name! I didn’t even realize
that he knew my first name !

I m
anaged to hide my elation and
warn, “There is also a lot of risk in the entertainment business, sir. I believe
we should enter this area very carefully.”

“Good
thinking,” he said. Then, with a sly smile spreading across his sculptured
features he added, “I believe the comptroller should have a representative go
to Hell with the board and a few chosen members of senior management.”

“Yes,” I agreed immediately. “Of
course.”

So the entire board of directors,
their spouses or significant others, and a select few employees (including Ms.
Marlowe) packed into a Rockledge rocket vehicle that took us to the Moon. The
CEO ordained a high-thrust flight, so we were in zero gravity for only twenty
hours, enough to prove the efficacy of the corporation’s space sickness pills.

Despite her nervousness at flying
into space, my wife thoroughly enjoyed our first day at Hell Crater. Sam was
nowhere in sight, of course, one of the few times he displayed enough common
sense to remain behind the scene. Not a mention of his name anywhere in the
complex.

The complex was built inside a huge
dome of lunar concrete that was covered with rubble from the Moon’s dusty
surface soil for protection against radiation and the day/night temperature
swings. From outside it looked like a large perfectly symmetrical hill. Inside,
the dome was studded with amusement arcades; fine restaurants and fast-food
cafeterias; Dante’s Inferno Casino; an office where you could rent wings and
fly on your own muscle power through the dome; The Imaginarium, which featured
the very latest in virtual reality simulations (including sex fantasies); and a
garishly lit “entertainment center” blatantly named Hell’s Belles.

There were lights and raucous music
everywhere, and plenty of smiling attendants in colorful uniforms to guide us
and answer our questions. The Rockledge contingent were the only guests in the
complex, a total of about fifty of us. The resort wasn’t open to the general
public yet, so we had the run of the place, no waiting in lines, no being told,
“I’m sorry, we’re fully booked.” And no news media to snoop on us.

Burrowed belowground there was a
five-star hotel, a medical complex that specialized in cosmetic and
rejuvenation therapies, a tastefully decorated mall of boutique shoppes, and
living quarters for the surprisingly large staff.

We wandered from one spectacular
site to another, goggle-eyed. I was shocked to see that my wife was passionate
about gambling; I couldn’t tear her away from the slot machines. We were each
given a thousand credits on the house, and she was running it up into a
respectable fortune. I realized that Sam was letting her win; it would simply
be added to Rock-ledge’s payments to S. Gunn Enterprises, sooner or later. It
was just as well that she was so fascinated with the slots, I told myself. Let
her stay in the casino; then she won’t get curious about Hell’s Belles or the
sex simulations at the virtual reality center.

Even the CEO seemed to enjoy
himself immensely. I’d never before seen him smile so broadly, nor heard him
laugh out loud.

“This place is going to be a great
success,” he said to me, actually clapping me on the back as we stood at the
blackjack table. “Congratulations, Pierre.”

His wife was nowhere in sight, even
though she herself was a member of the board of directors. Ms. Marlowe was
standing close to the CEO, in a spectacularly low cut sequined gown.

Then he leaned closer and whispered
in my ear, “Now to pry it away from Sam Gunn.”

The hotel suite my wife and I shared
was sumptuous, to say the least. But as I lay in the darkness of our bedroom
that first night, an uneasiness began to assail me. I wasn’t worried about
booting Sam out of Hell; the little sneak would do the same to me if he could.
No, what worried me was the splendor of it all. This is all too good, I thought.
Sam must have spent huge amounts of money to build this complex, far more than
the Rockledge funding I had funneled to him.

We were scheduled for an excursion
to Selene the next morning, although about half the board members said they
wanted to remain in Hell; lunar scenery and a tour of the oldest human
settlement on the Moon didn’t interest them as much as the attractions of the
resort complex. A few of the younger men wanted to try their hands at flying
like birds (and then, once their wives were gone, enjoying either virtual or
actual sex). I told the CEO I wasn’t going to Selene either because I had to
stay and confer with Sam. He nodded understanding and gave me a knowing wink.
My wife was less sympathetic. She absolutely refused to go outside the complex’s
dome without me.

“But I have business to conduct,
darling,” I told her.

She arched an eyebrow at me. “At
that virtual reality place, no doubt. I understand you can program sexual
fantasies there.”

I
was aghast that
she could think that of me. “Heavens no!” I said. “I have to meet with Sam
Gunn.”

“Sam Gunn? That reprehensible little
brat? I’d rather you visited Hell’s Belles.”

I
assured her that
I was meeting with Sam, and she finally decided to believe me. “I believe I’ll
take a look at the cosmetic clinics down on the lower level. They have some
lovely shops down there, too,” she said.

I
knew she intended
to spend every credit she’d made at the slot machines the night before, and
then some. Ah well, I thought. Peace at any price. Then I remembered an old bit
of wisdom from Monte Carlo: money won by a gambler is merely loaned.

Sam’s private office was rather modest,
compared to the ego palaces of men like my CEO. It was part of a small suite
nestled into the office complex between Dante’s Inferno and The Imaginarium.
His private office held a small desk and a couple of chairs, nothing more,
although the walls were smart screens. When I walked in, one wall displayed a
view of Mare Nubium: empty, desolate, yet strangely beautiful, especially with
a nearly full Earth hanging in the black sky.

Sam was leaning back in his swivel
chair and grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. The wall behind his desk
was a collage of photos of Sam with the movers and shakers of the world, as
well as Sam with various scantily clad women, each one a knockout.

“So how do you like the place, Oh
Silver-Haired Partner of Mine?”

I
felt a frown knit
my face. Sam was being altogether too familiar, just like the irreverent rogue.
I said nothing as I sat in front of his desk, but my frown turned to surprise.
The chair was much lower than I had expected; even in the soft lunar gravity I thumped
onto its seat. Sam was actually sitting higher than I was.