The Sam Gunn Omnibus (12 page)

The days flew by with each man counting the hours until Sam showed up with
another few videos. We stopped eating ice cream so that we would have plenty to
give him in return.

Then Sam sprang his trap on us. On me.

“Listen,” he said as he was suiting up in the docking chamber, preparing
to leave, “next time, how about sticking a couple of those diamonds you’re making
into the ice cream.”

I flinched with surprise and automatically looked over my shoulder at the
technician standing by to operate the airlock. He was busy admiring the four
new videocassettes Sam had brought, wondering what was in them as he studied
their labels.

“What are you talking about?” I meant to say it out loud but it came out
as a whispered croak.

Sam flashed a cocky grin at me. “Come on, everybody knows you guys are making
gem-quality diamonds out of methane gas in your zero-gee facility. Pump a
little extra methane in and make me a couple to sell Earthside. I’ll split the
profits with you fifty-fifty.”

“Impossible,” I snapped. Softly.

His smile became shrewd. “Look, Greg old pal, I’m not asking for any military
secrets. Just a couple of stones I can peddle back on Earth. We can both make a
nice wad of money.”

“The diamonds we manufacture are not of gemstone quality,” I lied.

“Let my friends on Forty-seventh Street decide what quality they are,” Sam
whispered.

“No.”

He puffed out a sad sigh. “This has nothing to do with politics, Greg. It’s
business. Capitalism.”

I shook my head hard enough to sway my entire body.

Sam seemed to accept defeat. “Okay. It’s a shame, though. Hell, even your
leaders in the Kremlin are making money selling their biographies to western
publishers. Capitalism is swooping in on you.”

I said nothing.

He pulled the helmet over his head, fastened the neck seal. But before
sliding down his visor he asked, quite casually, “What happens if Zworkin finds
out what’s on the videos you guys have been watching?”

My face went red. I could feel the heat flaming my cheeks.

“Just a couple of little diamonds, pal. A couple of carats. That’s not so
much to ask for, is it?”

He went through the airlock and jetted back to his own craft. I would have
gladly throttled him at that moment.

Now I had a
real
dilemma on my hands.
Give in to Sam’s blackmail or face Zworkin and the authorities back on the
ground. It would not only be me who would be in trouble, but my entire crew.
They did not deserve to suffer because of my bad decisions, but they would. We
would all spend the rest of our lives shoveling cow manure in Siberia or
running mining machines on the Moon.

I had been corrupted and I knew it. Oh, I had the best of motives, the
loftiest of intentions. But how would they appear next to the fact that I had
allowed my crew to watch disgusting pornographic films provided by a capitalist
agent of the CIA? Corruption, pure and simple. I would be lucky to be sentenced
to Siberia.

I gave in to Sam’s demands. I told myself it was for the sake of my crew,
but it was to save my own neck, and to save my dear family from disgrace. I had
the technicians make three extra small diamonds and embedded them in the ice
cream when Sam made his next visit.

That was the exact week, naturally, when the Russian Federation and the
western powers were meeting in Geneva to decide on deployment of space weapons.
Our own Red Shield system and the American Star Wars system were well into the
testing phase. We had conducted a good many of the tests ourselves aboard Mir
5. Now the question was, should each side begin to deploy its own system or
should we hammer out some method of working cooperatively?

Sam returned a few days later. I did not want to see him, but was afraid
not to. He seemed happy and cheerful, as usual, and carried no less than six
new videos with him. I spoke to him very briefly, very coldly. He seemed not to
be bothered at all. He laughed and joked. And passed me a note on a tiny scrap
of paper as he handed me the new videos.

I read the note in the privacy of my cubicle, after he left. “Good stuff.
Worth a small fortune. How many can you provide each week?”

I was accustomed to the weightlessness of zero gravity, but at that
instant I felt as if I were falling into a deep, dark pit, falling and falling
down into an utterly black well that had no bottom.

To make matters worse, after a few days of progress the conference at
Geneva seemed to hit a snag for some unfathomable reason. The negotiations
stopped dead and the diplomats began to snarl at each other in the old Cold War
fashion. The world was shocked. We received orders to accelerate our tests of
the Red Shield laser that had been installed in the laboratory module at the
aft end of our station.

We watched the TV news broadcasts from every part of the world (without
letting Zworkin or ground control know about it, of course.) Everyone was
frightened at the sudden intransigence in Geneva.

Zworkin summed up our fears. “The imperialists want an excuse to strike us
with their nuclear missiles before our Red Shield defense is deployed.”

I had to admit that he was probably right. What scared me was the thought
that
we
might strike at
them
before their Star Wars defense was deployed.
Either way it meant the same thing: nuclear holocaust.

Even thickheaded Korolev seemed worried. “Will we go to war?” he kept
asking. “Will we go to war?” No one knew.

Needless to say, it was clear that if we did go to war Mir 5 would be a
sitting duck for Yankee anti-satellite weapons. As everyone knew, the war on
the ground would begin with strikes against space stations and satellites.

To make matters even worse, in the midst of our laser test preparations
Sam sent a radio message that he was on his way and would rendezvous with our
station in three hours. He said he had “something special” for us.

The crisis in Geneva meant nothing to him, it seemed. He was coming for “business
as usual.” Zworkin had been right all along about him. Sam was a spy. I was
certain of it now.

A vision formed in my mind. I would personally direct the test of the Red
Shield laser. Its high-energy beam would happen to strike the incoming American
spacecraft. Sam Gunn would be fried like a scrawny chicken in a hot oven. A
regrettable accident. Yes. It would solve my problem.

Except—it would create such a furor on Earth that the conference in

Geneva would break up
altogether. It could be the spark that would lead to war, nuclear war.

Yet—Sam had no business flying a Yankee spacecraft so close to a Soviet
station. Both the U.S. and the Russian Federation had clearly proclaimed that
the regions around their stations were sovereign territory, not to be violated
by the other side’s craft. Sam’s visits to Mir 5 were strictly illegal, secret,
clandestine, except for his first “emergency” visit. If we fried him we would be
within out legal rights.

On the other hand—could the entire crew remain silent about Sam’s many
visits? Would Zworkin stay silent or would he denounce me once we had returned
to Mother Russia?

On the
other
hand—what difference would
any of that make if we triggered nuclear war?

That is why I found myself sweating in the laser laboratory, a few hours
after Sam’s call. He knew that we were going to test the laser, he had to know.
That was why he was cheerfully heading our way at this precise point in time.

The laboratory was chilly. The three technicians operating the giant laser
wore bulky sweaters over their coveralls and gloves with the fingers cut so
they could manipulate their sensitive equipment properly.

This section of the station was a complete module in itself; it could be
detached and de-orbited, if necessary, and a new section put in its place. The
huge laser filled the laboratory almost completely. If we had not been in zero
gravity it would have been impossible for the technicians to climb into the
nooks and crannies necessary to service all the hardware.

One wide optical-quality window gave me a view of the black depths of
space. But no window could withstand the incredible intensity of the laser’s
high-power beam. The beam was instead directed through a polished copper pipe
to the outside of the station’s hull, which is why the laboratory was always so
cold. It was impossible to keep the module decently warm; the heat leaked out
through the laser beam channel. On the outer end of that channel was the aiming
mirror (also highly polished copper) that directed the beam toward its
target—hypothetical or actual.

One day we would have mirrors and a laser output window of pure diamond,
once we had learned how to fabricate large sheets of the stuff in zero gravity.
That day had not yet come. It seemed that ground control was more interested in
growing gem-quality diamonds than large sheets.

I had calculated Sam’s approach trajectory back at the control center and
pecked the numbers into my hand computer. Now, as the technicians labored and
grumbled over their big laser I fed those coordinates into the laser aiming
system. As far as the technicians knew, they were firing their multi-megawatt
beam into empty space, as usual. Only I knew that when they fired the laser its
beam would destroy the approaching Yankee spacecraft and kill Sam Gunn.

The moments ticked by as I sweated coldly, miserable with apprehension
and—yes, I admit it freely—with guilt. I had set the target for the laser’s
aiming mirror. The big slab of polished copper hanging outside the station’s
hull was already tracking Sam’s trajectory, turning ever so slightly each
second. The relays directing its motion clicked inside the laboratory like the
clicks of a quartz clock, like the tapping of a Chinese water torture.

Then I heard the sighing sound that happens when an airtight hatch between
two modules of the station is opened. Turning, I saw the hatch swinging open,
its heavy hinges groaning slightly. Zworkin pushed through and floated over the
bulky master control console to my side.

“You show an unusual interest in this test,” he said softly.

My insides blazed as if I had stuck my hand into the power outlet. “There
is the crisis in Geneva,” I replied. “Ground control wants this test to proceed
flawlessly.”

“Will it?”

I did not trust myself to say anything more. I merely nodded.

Zworkin watched the muttering technicians for a few endless moments, then
asked, “Do you find it odd that the American is approaching us
exactly
at the time our test is scheduled?”

I nodded once again, keeping my eyes fixed on the empty point in space
where I imagined the beam and Sam’s spacecraft would meet.

“I received an interesting message from Moscow, less than an hour ago,”
Zworkin said. I dared not look into his face, but his voice sounded tense,
brittle. “The rumor is that the Geneva conference has struck a reef made of
pure diamond.”

“What?” That spun me around. He was not gloating. In fact he looked just
as worried as I felt. No, not even worried. Frightened. The tone of voice that
I had assumed was sarcasm was actually the tight dry voice of fear.

“This is unconfirmed rumor, mind you,” Zworkin said, “but what they are
saying is that the NATO intelligence service has learned we are manufacturing
pure diamond crystals in zero gravity, diamond crystals that can be made large
enough to be used as mirrors and windows for extremely high-power lasers. They
are concerned that we have moved far ahead of them in this key area of
technology.”

Just at that instant Sam’s cocky voice chirped over the station’s intercom
speakers. “Hey there friends and neighbors, here’s your Hollywood delivery
service comin’ atcha.”

The laser mirror clicked again. And again. One of the technicians floated
back to the console at my side and pressed the three big red rocker switches
that turn on the electrical power, one after the other. The action made his
body rise up to the low ceiling of the laboratory each time. He rose and
descended slowly, up and down, like a bubble trapped in a sealed glass.

A low whine came from the massive power generators. Even though they were
off in a separate module of the station I felt their vibration.

In my mind’s eye I could see a thin yellow line that represented Sam’s
trajectory approaching us. And a heavier red line, the fierce beam of our
laser, reaching out to meet it.

“Got something more than videos, this trip,” Sam was chattering. “Managed
to lay my hands on some really neat electronic toys, interactive games. You’ll
love ‘em. Got the latest sports videos, too, and a bucketful of real-beef
hamburgers. All you do is pop ‘em in your microwave. Brought mustard and
ketchup too. Better’n that soy stuff you guys been eating....”

He was talking his usual blue streak. I was glad that the communications
technicians knew to scrub his transmissions from the tapes that ground control
monitored. Dealing with Zworkin was bad enough.

Through his inane gabbling I could hear the mirror relays clicking like
the rifles of a firing squad being cocked, one by one. Sam approached us
blithely unaware of what awaited him. I pictured his spacecraft being hit by
the laser beam, exploding, Sam and his videos and hamburgers all transformed
instantly into an expanding red-hot ball of bloody vapor.