The Sam Gunn Omnibus (128 page)

“And me?” Jill Meyers
asked.

“This armchair, on the
other side of the sofa.”

Once they were seated,
Sam looked up Jade with a pleasant smile. “Okay, we’re all in our places with
bright shining faces. Now what?”

Jade replied, “Sam, you
promised me that you’d tell me why you’re so interested in the Selene
Philharmonic.”

“I never promised.”

“Yes you did.”

“Did not.”

Jade began to fire
another retort, then she realized, No, the little scamp never did promise. He
implied that he’d tell me, but he never promised.

“You’re right, Sam. You
didn’t promise. I apologize.”

“But he promised to marry
me,” Marlowe said, as firmly as a judge pronouncing sentence on a doomed
prisoner.

“Okay,” Sam said
lightly. “I’ll marry you.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Jill
Meyers snapped. “If you marry anybody, Sam Gunn, it’s going to be me. I’ve
waited too long and been left at the altar too many times to let you go off
with ...
with
this ...
with anybody else.”

Smiling as benignly as a
saint painted by Raphael, Sam said, “Don’t worry, Jill, I’ll marry you. Honest.”
“You
can’t
marry both of us!” Marlowe said.

Sam raised two fingers. “You
forget, people, that there are two of me. My duplicate is out at the black hole
in the Kuiper Belt, but I can call him back. He’ll be overjoyed to make you his
wife, Jennifer. I know, believe me.”

“Your duplicate! I don’t
want a duplicate. I want the original Sam Gunn.”

Spreading his arms in a
gesture that might, in another man, have indicated helplessness, Sam said, “But
which of us is the original? We have the same physical makeup, down to the
quantum vibrations of our atoms. We have the same memories, the same
personality. Take your pick. For crying out loud, neither one of us knows who’s
the original and who’s the copy.”

Marlowe gaped at him,
her startling blue eyes wide.

Jill laughed. “I’ll take
either one. Whichever I can get.”

Laughing back at her,
Sam said, “Atta girl! That’s my Jill.”

Marlowe sank back in her
armchair, silent, looking confused.

“What’s the matter, Jen?”
Sam asked. “You can have your dream come true. You can marry me. We’ll live
happily ever after, more or less.”

The Beryllium Blonde
slowly shook her head. “I don’t want either one of you!” She rose to her feet,
her face a mask of frustrated anger.

“All right, Sam. You
win. I’ll drop the suit; fat lot of good it would do me if one of you is
willing to go through with a wedding.”

She turned and headed
for the front door.

“Ms. Marlowe!” Jill
called to her.

The Blonde stopped, but
didn’t turn around.

To her back, Jill Meyers
said, “Ten million is way too much. But I’ll send you one million. You’ve
earned that much in aggravation, I imagine.”

The Blonde turned and
said, “Thank you,” through gritted teeth. Then she marched to the door and
left.

Once the door slid shut,
Jill broke into delighted laughter. “Talk about chutzpa! Your twin would marry
her! How could you say that, Sam?”

“Because he’s exactly
like me. He’d marry her and they’d have a terrific honeymoon. I wouldn’t give
you much of a chance for afterward, though.”

Jade sank into the
armchair that the Blonde had vacated.

Sam turned to her. “Okay.
La Marlowe has left the field of battle and I’ve surrendered to my beloved
Jill. Is there
any
other business?”

“Beloved Jill?” Meyers murmured,
delighted.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “After
all these years, you still want me?”

Jade was surprised to
see tears in Jill Meyers’s eyes.

“Yes, I still want you,
Sam. I love you.”

“I can’t imagine why,”
he bantered. “But, for what it’s worth, I love you too, Jill.”

She leaped out of her
chair and onto Sam’s lap. Jade felt her cheeks flush as they kissed
passionately.

Sam at last came up for
air. His face looked red, too. “Okay, kid,” he said to Jade. “I guess that
wraps up everything with a nice blue ribbon.”

“Um, not quite,” Jade
said, almost in a whisper.

“What? You want to know
about the orchestra?”

“That, and—”

Sam didn’t give her a
chance to finish. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But it’s strictly between us, right?”

Among us, Jade corrected
silently.

With Jill still on his
lap, Sam explained, “If that committee of bluenoses lets me take control of the
orchestra, I’ll appoint Satay as its musical director. Then he can apply for
citizenship in Selene and get it.”

“He wants citizenship
here?” Jade asked.

“And Selene won’t allow
him in?” asked Jill Meyers.

“Selene’s very strict
about awarding citizenship,” Sam answered. “Otherwise they’d have a horde of
refugees streaming here.”

“But Satay’s a famous musician,”
said Jade.

“And you’re a judge of
the International Court,” Sam countered. “Have you applied for citizenship?”

“No,” Jill admitted.

“If you did, you’d find
out how tough they can be.” Stroking her back gently, Sam went on, “Fortunately,
you’re going to marry a Selenite. That’ll make you a citizen automatically.”

Jill kissed him on the
cheek.

Sam cocked a brow at
her. “Say, is that why you want to marry me? To get citizenship here?”

Before Jade could blink,
Jill pulled both Sam’s ears hard enough to make him yowl.

“Okay, okay,” he yelped.
“I was only kidding!”

“Wait a minute!” Jade
interrupted. “Back up! Why is it important to you to appoint Satay the leader
of the Philharmonic?”

“Like you said, kid, he’s
a famous musician.”

“There’s got to be more
to it than that.”

“He wants to get away
from the Indonesian government,” Sam said, “and their taxes.”

Jade considered that for
a moment, then asked, “And what do you get out of
it,
Sam?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. There’s
something in this for you, isn’t there?”

“Child, you cut me to
the quick.”

“Knock it off, Sam,”
Jill Meyers said. “What’s cooking in that twisted mind of yours?”

“Gosh, you people are so
suspicious!”

Jade suddenly
understood. “Satay has a considerable fortune, doesn’t he? Family money that he’ll
bring to Selene with him.”

“I suppose,” Sam
replied, trying to look innocent.

“And if you help him
gain citizenship, he’ll be grateful to you, won’t he?”

Sam nodded, then
admitted, “He’ll also be grateful to Jill.”

“To me?”

“For marrying me. Then I
won’t be a danger to his daughter anymore.”

“Ah-ha,” Jill said.

“How will his daughter
feel about that?” Jade asked.

Sam shrugged, not an
easy thing to do with Jill still on his lap. “She’s young. She’ll find
somebody. Besides, she doesn’t have control of the money.”

“And just what do you
intend to do with Satay’s money?” Jade demanded.

“The matter duplicator,”
said Jill. “I should have thought of it before this.”

“Matter transmitter,”
Sam corrected. “I’ve sworn off duplicating things. Or people.”

“Two Sam Gunns are
enough to make an honest man of you?”

Sam waggled his free
hand. “More or less.”

“Matter transmitter,”
Jade murmured.

“You bet. If the
Indonesian government tries to keep Satay’s money in Indonesia,” Sam explained,
“I’ll be able to zap most of it here to Selene.”

“Once you get a matter
transmitter working,” said Jade.

“I
f
you get a matter
transmitter working,” Jill corrected.

“It’ll work,” Sam
assured them.

“But Professor Townes is
out in the Kuiper Belt with the other Sam, isn’t he?” Jade said.

“So what? He proved that
a matter transmitter can work. Now any bright team of kids can duplicate his
results.”

“If they’re real,” Jill
muttered.

Sam gave her a hurt
look. “They’re real, Oh love of my life. We’ll produce a matter transmitter and
turn Selene into the greatest tax haven in the solar system.”

“Is that all you can imagine doing with a matter transmitter?” Jade asked.

His expression turned crafty. “Well, I’ve gotta admit that another thing
or two has crossed my mind.”

Jill giggled. “I’ll bet.”

“It ought to make transportation through the solar system a lot easier,”
Sam mused.

“And cheaper?” asked Jill.

Sam pursed his lips, then answered, “You’ve got to pay for the energy,
honey. It takes a lot of energy to zap a mass even my size across a laboratory.”

“You blacked out half of Selene doing it.”

“So we’ll build big fusion power plants,” Jill said. “You could get rich,
Sam.”

“With my looks and your brains,” he said to Jill, “the whole solar system
is our oyster!”

Jill laughed and kissed him lightly.

“Okay,” Sam said, turning to Jade. “Does that clear up everything for you?”

Suddenly Jade’s throat felt dry, so tight she could hardly speak. “Almost,”
she choked out.

“What else?” Sam asked.

Jade had to swallow hard before she could
say, “I...
Sam, I think you’re my
father.”

For long moments the room was absolutely silent. Jill, sitting on Sam’s
lap, stared at Jade. Sam, for once in his life, seemed dumbfounded. His hazel
eyes were wide, his mouth hung open.

Jade stared at him. She couldn’t speak. She could hardly breathe.

“Your ...”
Sam gulped before he
could say, “Your father?”

Jade nodded.

“Jean Margaux,” Sam said in a whisper. “That’s who your face reminded me
of.”

Jill slid off Sam’s lap. “Maybe you two ought to talk this through by
yourselves.”

Sam clutched at her. “No. Don’t go.”

Jade couldn’t fathom the expression on Sam’s face: Anger? Guilt? Fear?

“Jean and I had an affair after we came back from the Belt,” Sam muttered,
remembering.

Jade found her voice at last, although it was barely above a whisper. “Rick
Darling told me.”

“She tried to contact me after I left Selene,” Sam went on. “I never
called her back.”

“She was my mother,” said Jade.

The beginnings of a crooked little smile snaked across Sam’s face. “You’ve
got my red hair, all right.”

Jill spoke up. “We could do a DNA comparison. That’d prove it, one way or
the other.”

Sam shook his head. “We don’t need that.” He slowly got to his feet. “Jade,
I’m sorry it’s taken all these years for us to meet each other. I’m sorry that
I haven’t been a real father to you.”

Jade rushed to him and, as Sam folded his arms around her, she felt for
the first time in her life that she’d found her place in the universe. Tears
filled her eyes, and she heard Sam snuffling, as well.

“By God,” Jill Meyers said, “you’ve got me crying, too.”

THUS IT WAS
that Sam Gunn and Senator/Justice Jill Meyers were married
in Selene’s nondenominational chapel. It was not a grand wedding, not the
enormous bash that Jill had once planned, so long ago. A simple, brief
ceremony.

But Douglas Stavenger, Selene’s power behind the throne, gave the bride
away. Spencer Johansen served as Best Man. Frederick Mohammed Malone came from
his space habitat and stood beside Sam on legs newly made strong by stem cell
therapy to serve as an usher. As did Larry Karsh, who flew to Selene from his mansion
in Utah
with
his wife
and
son. Jane Avril Inconnu Johansen was Matron of Honor.

The small group gathered in the chapel’s pews included gangling Russell
Christopher from New Chicago, Zoilo Hashimoto, and a pair of elderly women, twins,
who smiled and cried at the same time through the entire ceremony.

The reception, back at the Selenite Hotel, was hosted by Garrett G.
Garrison III. Jim Gradowski ate almost all the roast beef, while Monica Bianco
nibbled daintily on caviar canapes. Champagne flowed. A good time was had by
all.

When the moment came for the bridegroom to offer a toast, Sam stood on a
chair and raised his champagne flute.