The Sam Gunn Omnibus (99 page)

It would’ve been better if I could’ve
just pumped some sedatives through the IV in my arm and slept my way to
Jupiter. But I had to build up the heat shield or I’d be fricasseed when I hit
Jupiter’s atmosphere. I tapped into the best reentry programs on Earth as I put
together those chunks of metal. They had to be close enough to one another so
that the shock waves from the heated gases would cancel one another out before
they got through the spaces between chunks and heated up
Joker.

“YOU DID THIS
while on the way to Jupiter?”
asked the other woman judge. “While accelerating at three gravities?”

Sam put his right hand over his
heart. “I did indeed,” he said.

The woman shook her head, whether
in admiration or disbelief I couldn’t figure out.

“A question, please?” asked the
Beryllium Blonde from her seat at the prosecution table.

For the first time, the chief judge
looked just a trifle annoyed. “There will be ample time for cross-examination, counselor.”

“I merely wanted to ask if Mr. Gunn
was aware of the embargo on unauthorized flights into the Jovian system imposed
by the Interplanetary Astronautical Authority.”

AWARE OF IT?
—Sam replied—
I
sure was.
I
sent out a message to the research station on Europa
to tell ‘em I was entering the Jupiter system on a mission of mercy. I set my
comm unit to continue sending the message until it was acknowledged. They
ignored it for a day and a half, and then finally sent a shi—an excrement-load
of legalese garbage that took my computer twenty minutes to translate into
understandable English.

(“And what was the message from
Europa?” the chief judge asked.)

Boiled down to, “Keep out! We don’t
care who you are or why you’re heading this way; just turn around and go back
to where you came from.”

I
got on the horn
and tried to explain to them that I was trying to save the lives of two women
and I wouldn’t disturb them on Europa, but they just kept beaming their legal
kaka. Either they didn’t believe me or they didn’t give a hoot about human
lives.

Well, I couldn’t turn around even
if I’d wanted to. My flight profile depended on using Jupiter’s atmosphere to
aerobrake
Joker,
swing around the
planet, and make a slowed approach to Ganymede. So I programmed my comm unit to
keep repeating my message to Europa. It was really pretty: we’re both hollering
at each other and paying no attention to what the other guy’s hollering back.
Like two drivers in Boston yelling at each other over a fender-bender.

But while I’m roaring down toward
Jupiter I start wondering: why does DULL need the whole Jupiter system roped
off, when all they’re supposed to be studying is Europa? I mean, they looked at
Jupiter’s other Galilean moons and didn’t find diddly-poo. And if there’s any life
on Jupiter it’s buried so deep inside those clouds that we haven’t been able to
find it.

Why embargo the whole Jupiter
system when all they’re supposed to be studying is Europa?

The question nagged at me like a
toothache. Even while I was putting my makeshift heat shield together, I kept
wondering about it in the back of my mind. I kept mulling it over, using the
question to keep me from thinking about how much my chest hurt and wondering
about how many breaths I had left before my ribs collapsed.

Once the heat shield was in
place—or as good as a ramshackle collection of rocks can be—I could devote my
full attention to the question. Mine, and the computer’s.

One thing I’ve learned over the
years of being in business: when you’re trying to scope out another company’s moves,
follow the money trail. So I started sniffing out the financial details of
Diversified Universities & Laboratories, Ltd. It wasn’t all that easy; DULL
is a tax-exempt, nonprof
i
t
organization; it isn’t publicly owned and its finances are not on public
record.

But even scientists like to see
their names in the media, and corporate bigwigs like it even more. So I started
scrolling through the media stories about the discovery of life-forms on Europa
and DULL’s organization of a research station on the Jovian moon.

I
learned two very
interesting things.

The cost of setting up the research
operation on Europa was funded by Wankle Enterprises, Incorporated, of New
York, London and Shanghai.

It was Wankle’s lawyers—including a
certain gorgeous blonde—who talked the IAA into placing the whole Jupiter
system, planet, moons, all of it, under embargo. No commercial development
allowed. No unauthorized missions permitted.

Make that three things that I learned:
The IAA’s embargo order has some fine print in it. DULL is allowed to permit “limited
resource extraction” from the Jupiter system as a means of funding its ongoing
research activities on Europa. And guess who got permission from DULL to start “limited
resource extraction” from Jupiter and its moons? Wankle Enterprises, Inc.

Who else?

THE SPECTATORS STIRRED
and muttered. The
judges were staring at Sam with real interest now, as if he’d suddenly turned
into a different species of witness. All five of the prosecution
attorneys—including the Beryllium Blonde—were on their feet, making objections.

“Irrelevant and immaterial,” said
the first attorney.

“Rumor and hearsay,” said number
two.

“Wankle Enterprises is not on trial
here,” said number three, “Sam Gunn is.”

“He’s trying to smear Diversified
Universities and Laboratories, Limited,” number four bleated.

The Blonde said, “I object, your
honors.”

The chief judge raised an eyebrow
half a millimeter. “On what grounds, counselor?”

“Mr. Gunn’s statements are
irrelevant, immaterial, based on rumor and hearsay, an attempt to shift the
focus of this trial away from himself and onto Wankle Enterprises, and a
despicable attempt to smear the good name of an organization dedicated to the
finest and noblest scientific research.”

The chief judge nodded, then
glanced briefly at her colleagues on either side of her. They both nodded, much
more vigorously.

“Very well,” she said. “Objection
sustained. Mr. Gunn’s last statement will be stricken from the record.”

Sam shrugged philosophically. “None
of those three facts can stay on the record?”

“None.”

“I found out something else, too,”
Sam said to the judges. “A fourth fact about DULL.”

“Unless it is strictly and
necessarily relevant to this case,” said the chief judge sternly, “it will not
be allowed as testimony.”

Sam thought it over for a moment,
an enigmatic smile on his Jack-o’-lantern face. Then, with a shake of his head
that seemed to indicate disappointment but not defeat, Sam returned to his
testimony.

0 KAY, I’LL SAVE
the fourth fact for a while and
then we’ll see if it’s relevant or not.

Where was I—oh, yeah, I’m dropping
into Jupiter’s gas clouds at a little under three g’s, the insides of my chest
feeling like somebody’s been sandpapering them for the past few days.

I
put in a call to.
the Twins, telling them to hang in there, I’d be back with all the oxygen they
needed in less than a week. I didn’t tell them how awful I felt, but they must
have seen it in my face.

It took about eleven minutes for my
comm signal to reach them, and another eleven for their answer to get back to me.
So I gave them a brave “Don’t give up the ship” spiel and then went about my
business checking out my heat shield—and DULL’s finances.

Cindy and Mindy both appeared on my
comm screen, wearing less than Samoan nudists at the springtime fertility
rites. If my eyeballs hadn’t weighed a little
more
than three times normal they would’ve popped right out of their sockets.

“We truly appreciate what you’re
doing for us, Sam,” they said in unison, as if they’d rehearsed it. “And we
want you to know that we’ll be
especially
appreciative when you come back to us.”

“Extremely appreciative,” breathed
Cindy. Mindy?

“Extraordinarily appreciative,” the
other one added, batting her long lashes at me.

I
was ready to jump
off my couch and fly to them like Superman. Except that the damned gee-load
kept me pinned flat. All of me.

Everything would’ve worked out
fine—or at least okay—if my swing through Jupiter’s upper atmosphere had gone
as planned. But it didn’t.

Ever see an egg dropped from the
top of a ninety-storey tower hit the pavement? That’s what
Joker
was doing, just about: dropping into Jupiter’s atmosphere like a kamikaze
bullet. I had to use the planet’s atmosphere to slow down my ship while at the
same time I scooped enough Jovian hydrogen and helium isotopes to fill my
propellant tanks. With that makeshift heat shield of rocks flying formation in
front of
Joker
all the while.

Things started going wrong right
away. The heat shield heated up too much and too soon.
Jokers
skin temperature started rising really fast. One by one my outside cameras
started to conk out; their circuitry was being fricasseed by white-hot
shock-heated gases. Felt like I was melting, too, inside the ship despite the
bridge’s absolutely first-rate climate control system.

The damned heat shield started
breaking up, which was something my hotshot computer programs didn’t foresee. I
should’ve thought of it myself, I guess. Stands to reason. Each individual rock
in that jury-rigged wall in front of me was blazing like a meteor, ablating
away, melting like the Wicked Witch of the West when you throw water on her.

(The chief judge frowned, puzzled,
at Sam’s reference but Weatherwax gave a toad-like smile and even nodded.)

I
would’ve peeled
down to my skivvies if I’d been able to, but I was still plastered into my
reclined command chair like a prisoner chained to a torture rack. Must’ve lost
twenty pounds sweating. Came as close to praying as I ever did, right there, zooming
through Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.

The camera on
Jokers
ass end was still working, and while I sweated and almost prayed I watched
Jupiter’s swirling clouds whizzing by, far, far below me. Beautiful, really,
all those bands of colors and the way they curled and eddied along their edges,
kinda like the way—

(“Spare us the travelogue,” said
the Toad, his bulging eyes blinking with displeasure. The chief judge added, “Yes,
Mr. Gunn. Get on with it.”)

Well, okay. So I finally pull out
of Jupiter’s atmosphere with my propellant tanks full and
Jokers
skin still intact—barely. But the aerobraking hadn’t followed the computer’s
predicted flight path as closely as I’d thought it would. Wasn’t off by much,
but as I checked out my velocity and position I saw pretty damned quickly that
I wasn’t going to be able to reach Ganymede.

Joker
had slowed to less than
one g, all right, and other than the failed cameras and a few strained seams in
the skin the ship was okay. I could sit up and even walk around the bridge, if
I wanted to. I even disconnected all the tubing that was hooked into me. Felt
great to be free and able to take a leak on my own again.

But Ganymede was out of reach.

Now the whole reason for this crazy
excursion was to grab oxygen to replenish the Porno Twins’ evaporating supply.
I checked through the computer and saw that the only ice-bearing body I could
reasonably get to was—you guessed it—good ol’ Europa.

“MR. GUNN,” THE
Toad interrupted, his voice a melancholy
croak, “do you honestly expect this court to believe that after all your
derring-do, Europa was the only possible body that you could reach?”