The Sam Gunn Omnibus (98 page)

“That wouldn’t be right,” said
Cindy. Or maybe it was Mindy.

“We’ve never let anyone into our
ship,” said the other one.

“If we let you, then all the other
miners would want to visit us, too.”

“In person!”

“In the flesh.”

“But this would be a mission of mercy,”
I pleaded.

They
blushed and lowered their eyes. Beautiful long silky lashes, I noticed.

“Mr.
Gunn,” said Mindy. Or maybe Cindy. “How would you feel if we allowed one of
your miners to board our vessel?”

“You’d want the same privilege,
wouldn’t you?” the other one asked.

“I sure would,” I admitted, feeling
deflated and erect at the same time.

“For
your information,” said Cindy (Mindy?), “we’ve received calls from seventeen
other mining ships, responding to our distress message.”

“They’re all on their way to us.”

“And they all will want to come
aboard once they reach us.”

“Which we won’t allow, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, downcast. “How
soon can they reach you?”

“Not for several weeks, at least.”

“We’ve
informed them all that there’s no sense in their coming to us, since they can’t
reach us in time.”

“But
they’ve all replied that they’ll come anyway.”

I
wondered who the hell was doing any mining. The
Twins could cause a financial collapse of the metals and minerals market at
this rate.

“MR. GUNN,” SAID
the chief judge sharply, “will you
please stick to the facts pertaining to this case? We have no prurient interest
in your sexual fantasies.”

“Or
your financial problems,” added the Toad.

“But
you’ve gotta understand the situation,” Sam insisted. “Unless you can see how
the distances and timing were, you won’t be able to grasp the reasons for my
actions.”

The
chief judge heaved a long, impatient sigh. “Get on with
it,
Mr. Gunn,” she groused.

OKAY, OKAY. WHERE
was
I...
oh, yeah.

I
didn’t believe the computer analyses when I first
saw them. But each system came up with the same set of alternatives and the
only one that had any chance of helping the Twins was the one I took.

It
looked crazy to me, at first. But the computers had taken into account
Jokers
high-thrust capability; that was they key to their solution.

All
I had to do was zip out to Jupiter at three g’s acceleration, grab some oxygen
from one of the
_k
ice-covered Galilean moons, refuel
Jokers
fusion
generator by scooping hydrogen and helium isotopes from Jupiter’s upper
atmosphere, and then roar back to the belt at another three g’s and deliver the
oxygen to the Twins.

Simple.

Also
impossible.

So
that’s what I did.

“MAY I INTERRUPT?”
asked the Beryllium Blonde, rising
to her feet behind the prosecution’s table.

All
three judges looked happy to accommodate her. Or maybe they were just getting
tired of listening to Sam. His voice had a kind of nervous edge to it; after a
while it was like listening to a mosquito whining in your ear.

“Mr.
Gunn,” she said, smiling ingenuously at Sam, in the witness box, “you told this
court that you consulted several computer analyses before deciding on your
course of action?”

“That’s right,” Sam replied,
grinning goofily at her. He seemed overjoyed that she was talking to him.

“And did each of these computer
analyses specifically direct you to the Jovian moon Europa?”

Sam shifted a little on the chair. “No,
they didn’t. They all showed that Ganymede would be my best bet.”

“Then why did you go to Europa?”

“I was coming to that when you
interrupted me.”

“Isn’t it true, Mr. Gunn, that your
entire so-called ‘mission of mercy’ was actually a clever plot to break the
embargo on commercial exploitation of the Jupiter system?”

That’s where Sam should have said a
simple and emphatic
no!
and let it go at that.
But not Sam.

Apparently some things were more
important to Sam even than women. He lost his goofy expression and stared
straight into her china-blue eyes.

“The IAA’s embargo on the
commercial development of the Jupiter system is a shuck,” Sam said evenly.

A general gasp arose. Even the
judges—especially the judges— seemed shocked. For the first time since the
trial had begun, the Toad looked angry.

Undeterred, Sam went on, “Why
embargo commercial enterprises from the entire Jupiter system? What’s the sense
of it? Even if you want to protect those little green things on Europa, just
putting Europa off-limits would be good enough. Why close off the whole system?”

“Why indeed,” the Blonde countered,
“now that you’ve killed off those poor little green creatures.”

“Would you rather let two human
women die?” Sam demanded.

“Two prostitutes?”

“Look who’s talking.”

The chief judge whacked her gavel
so hard its head flew off, nearly beaning the clerk sitting at the foot of the
banc.

But before the judge could say
anything, Sam exclaimed, “One of the issues at stake here is the moral question
of human life versus animal rights.”

A rail-thin, bald and bleary-eyed man
shot to his feet from the middle of the spectators. “Animals have legal rights!
A dog or a cat has just as much right to life and dignity as a human being!”

“Yeah,” Sam retorted, “unless the
human being’s life is in danger. If I’m a fireman rushing into a burning
building, who am I gonna grab first, a human baby or a puppy dog?”

“Stop this!” the chief judge
bellowed, slapping the top of the banc with the flat of her hand. “I will have
order in this courtroom or I’ll clear the chamber!”

The gaunt animal-rights man sat
down, muttering to himself.

“And you, Mr. Gunn,” said the chief
judge, scowling down at Sam, “will not turn this trial into a circus. Stick to
the facts of the case!”

“One of the ‘facts’ of this case,”
Sam replied evenly, “is the accusation that I wiped out an entire alien
life-form. Even if that’s true—and I’m not admitting it is—I did what I did to
save the lives of two human woman.”

He turned back to the Blonde. “And
they’re not prostitutes; they’re producers of virtual reality simulations. Which
is more than I can say for some of the broads in this courtroom!”

“Your honors!” the Blonde cried,
her hands flying to her face. But I was close enough to see that her cheeks
weren’t blushing and there was pure murder in those deep blue eyes.

The chief judge threw her hands in
the air. “Mr. Gunn, if you cannot or will not restrict your testimony to the
facts of this case, we will hold you in contempt of court.”

For just an instant the expression
on Sam’s face told me that he was considering a term in the penal colony as
better than certain bankruptcy. But the moment passed.

“Okay,” he said, putting on his most
contrite little-boy face. “I’ll stick to the facts—if I’m not interrupted.”

The Blonde huffed and stamped back
to the prosecution table.

AS I SAID,
the computer analyses showed that
I had to zoom out to the Jupiter system at three g’s, grab some oxygen from
Ganymede, restock my fusion fuel and reaction mass by scooping Jupiter’s
atmosphere, and then race back to the Twins—again at three g’s. Three point oh
two, to be exact.

It was trickier than walking a
tightrope over Niagara Falls on your hands, blindfolded; more convoluted than a
team of Chinese acrobats auditioning for the Beijing Follies; as dangerous as—

(“Mr. Gunn, please!” wailed the
chief judge.)

Well, anyway, it was going to be a
female dog and a half. Riding for several days at a time in three g’s is no
fun; you can’t really move when every part of your body weighs three times
normal. A hiccup can give you a hernia. If you’re not
extremely
careful you could end up with your scrotum hanging down to your ankles. I always
wear a lead jockstrap, of course, but even
so ...

(I thought the judges were about to
have apoplexy, but Sam kept going without even taking a breath, so by the time
they were ready to yell at him he was already miles away, subject-wise.)

I
cranked my
reclining command chair all the way down so it could work as an acceleration
couch. I couldn’t take the chance of trying to raise my head and chew solid
food and swallow while under three gee’s, so while the acceleration was
building up I set up an intravenous feeding system for myself from
Jokers
medical systems. The ship has the best medical
equipment this side of Lunar University, by the way. That was pretty easy. The
tough part was sticking the needle into my own arm and inserting the
intravenous feed.

(Half the courtroom groaned at the
thought.)

And then there was the waste
elimination tubing, but I won’t go into that.

(More groans and a couple of
gargling, retching sounds.)

I
welded the
computer keyboard to the end of my command chair’s right armrest even though
the computer was fully equipped with voice recognition circuitry. Didn’t want
to take any chances on the system—as ultra-sophisticated as it is—failing to
recognize my voice because I was strangling in three gee’s.

By the time
Jokers
acceleration passed two gee’s I was flat on my back in the couch, all the
necessary tubes in place, display screens showing me the ongoing analyses of
this crazy mission. I had to get everything right, down to the last detail, or
end up burning myself to a crisp in Jupiter’s atmosphere or nose-diving into
Ganymede and making a new crater in the ice.

“YOU KEEP SAYING
Ganymede,” the Toad demanded. “How
did you end up at Europa?”

“I’m coming to that, oh saintly
one,” Sam replied.

I
HAD TO
drag
Clementine
along with me, because
I
was
going to need the ores she’d managed to store in her holds before her
super-duper computer fritzed. Those chunks of metal were going to be my heat
shield when I skimmed Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. I just hoped there was enough
of ‘em to make a workable heat shield.

The way the numbers worked out, I would
accelerate almost all the way to the Jupiter system, then flip around and start
decelerating. I’d still be doing better than two gee’s when I hit Jupiter’s
upper atmosphere. Even though the gases are pretty thin at that high altitude,
I needed a heat shield if I didn’t want
Joker
to get barbecued, with me inside her.

So even though I was flat on my
back and not able to move much more than my fingers and toes, I had plenty of
work to do. I couldn’t trust
Clementine’s
smartass computer to handle the heat shield job; her computer was too
glottle-stop sophisticated for such a menial job. I had to manually direct the manipulators
to pull chunks of ore from her holds and place them up ahead of
Joker
by a few meters, all the time lying on the flat of my back, spending most of my
energy just trying to breath.

Believe me, breathing in three gee’s
is not fun, even when you’re on a padded couch. The g force is running from
your breastbone to your spine, so every time you try to expand your lungs to
take in some air, you’ve got to push your ribs against three times their normal
weight. It’s like having an asthma attack that never goes away. I was exhausted
before the first day was over.