The Sam Gunn Omnibus (60 page)

Sam kept stride with me, despite my
longer legs. “Yeah. I bought Arrant and Cole. I know Hornsby’s bought Morris
and Wilhelm.”

“Bought?” I was aghast. “You mean
bribed?”

Sam grinned up at me, a freckled
and crafty Huck Finn. “Don’t look so shocked, Straight Arrow. Happens all the
time.”

“But.. . bribery? In New Chicago?”

With a laugh, Sam told me, “You’re
missing the point. McDougal and Nostrum voted for you. Why? What’re they after?”

“Maybe they’re honest,” I said.

“McDougal, maybe,” Sam replied. “Now,
if I could figure out a way to turn Nostrum around...” Sam snapped his fingers.
“Virtual bonfires! That’d get him!”

I
strode away from
him and had my lunch alone.

It only took five minutes to gobble
down a sandwich. The Zoning Board wasn’t set to reconvene for another hour and
a half. Inevitably, I drifted over to the open lot that we were debating over.
A gaggle of teenagers were playing baseball on the threadbare grass. Younger
kids were flying kites over in what passed for center field. They were
laughing, running, calling back and forth to one another. Having a good time,
relaxed, with no regimentation, no pressure to win or set a new record.

“They sure seem to be having fun,
don’t they?”

It was Sam. He had come up behind me.

I
sighed. “They won’t,
once your amusement center gets built. Or Hornsby’s condo complex.”

Sam squinted up at the kites.
Beyond them I could see the curve of the habitat: the long solar window running
the length of the structure, the landscaped hills and winding bicycle paths.
What had originally been neat little villages was already growing into
sprawling towns. There was still a good deal of green space, but it was
dwindling. And you had to belong to an official team to use any of it; you had
to show up at a specific time and compete in organized leagues where parents
screamed in vicarious belligerence, teaching their kids that winning is more
important than playing, outdoing the other guy more important than having fun.

“I used to play a pretty good third
base.”

We both turned, and there was
Bonnie McDougal. She was nearly my height; much taller than Sam. But he grinned
up at her, his eyes alight with what I thought was obvious lust.

“Instead of reconvening the meeting,”
Sam said, “why don
’
t we settle this
business with a baseball game!”

McDougal and I both said, “A
baseball game?”

“Sure, why not? Isn’t it better out
here in the sunshine than in that dusty old meeting room?”

“It’s not a dusty old room,”
McDougal protested.

“Sam,” I pointed out, “how can we
settle a three-way tie with a ball game?”

He looked at me as though I had missed
the point entirely. “Because, oh noble sportsman, I’ve decided to withdraw my
application. It’s you against Hornsby now.”

“Withdraw... ?” I turned to
McDougal. “Can he do that?”

She nodded at me and smiled at Sam,
all at the same time. “He certainly can. But it will call for a new vote of the
board.”

“Vote, schmote,” Sam said. “Let’s
play ball!”

So that’s how we got to the bottom
of the ninth, the White Sox ahead of us, 14-13, two out, and Sam coming up to
bat.

I
was standing on
first, trying to get my breathing back to normal after running out my infield
hit. Funny how quickly the body falls out of condition. I’d been an athlete all
my life, and now I was puffing after digging hard for ninety lousy feet.

All my life. I’d been one of those
kids: Little League, high school football, basketball and baseball in college,
all the while my father hounding me, pushing me, trying to make me into the
star he’d never been. I’d almost made it, too; had a tryout with the real
Chicago White Sox, back in Old Chicago, before Lake Michigan drowned ancient
old Comiskey Park in the greenhouse floods.

My dad was dead by then, killed in
an auto wreck, driving to see me play against Notre Dame. Still I pursued his
dream. And I’d almost been good enough to make it. Almost. Instead, after half
a lifetime batting around the minor leagues, I finally came up to New Chicago
to take up a career counseling kids who were having trouble adjusting to living
off-Earth.

Well, anyway, there I was at first
base, with Sam coming up to bat. Bonnie McDougal was creeping in from third,
expecting another bunt, wearing a tattered old glove she’d borrowed from one of
the kids. Nostrum was grinning hugely; he was enjoying himself so much I thought
maybe he’d forget about bonfires. The rest of the Zoning Board was waiting for
Sam to step up to the plate.

“
What’re
you waiting for?” yelled grouchy old Arrant. He was playing first base for the
Sox; didn’t have to move much, and the throws he missed were our best offensive
weapon, so far.

“Just what are you doing?” Hornsby
demanded. He was the catcher for the Sox, looking even more ridiculous than
before in a borrowed chest protector that barely covered his big belly and a mask
that scrunched his face into a mass of wrinkles.

Sam was standing off to the side of
home plate (my old cap), the game’s one and only carbon-fiber bat leaning
against his hip, tapping away at his pocket computer, oblivious to their
complaints.

“Play ball!” McDougal yelled in
from third.

“Play ball!” the other White Sox
began to holler. Even the crowd started chanting, “Play ball! Play ball!”

I
was wondering
what the devil Sam was doing with that computer of his. Checking the stock market?
Making reservations for his flight back to Selene City? What?

At last he tucked the tiny machine
back into his pants pocket and stepped up to the plate, gripping the bat right
down at the end, ready to swing for the fences. Except that we didn’t have any
fences, just a few kids way out in center field flying kites and playing tag.

Nostrum looked down at Hornsby
behind the plate. They didn’t have any signals. Nostrum couldn’t throw anything
except a medium-fast straight pitch. No curve, no change-up. I’d walloped two
of them for home runs; he’d been lucky to get me to chop a grounder to short
here in the bottom of the ninth.

Nostrum kicked his foot high and
threw. I lit out for second base. Sam swung mightily and missed by a foot. I didn’t
even have to slide into second; there was no way Hornsby could get a throw down
there ahead of me.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” Nostrum
yelled. “Stealing bases isn’t fair.”

“It’s part of the game,” I said,
standing on second, puffing.

“Not this game,” Nostrum hollered,
stamping around, red in the face.

If Sam was right, Nostrum had been
one of my two votes. I didn’t want to antagonize him. Still, this game was
supposed to decide whether I won the zoning decision or Hornsby did. So I stood
on second base (Sam’s expensive coat) and folded my arms across my chest.

“We’re playing baseball,” I said. “Nobody
said stealing bases was a no-no.”

“Nobody stole a base until now!”
Nostrum shouted.

I
could see he was
getting really sore. Bonnie McDougal trotted over from third base to him.
Hornsby came up from home. Even crabby old Arrant creaked over toward the mound
from first base.

“Why don’t we make a rule that
stealing bases is prohibited from now on,” McDougal said gently, “but since Mr.
Christopher stole second before the rule went into effect, he can stay on
second base.”

Arrant shrugged. Hornsby nodded.
Nostrum glared at me for a moment, but then broke into a sheepish grin.

“Aw, all right,” he said.

“Is that all right with you, Mr.
Christopher?” McDougal asked me.

I
saw Sam, back
near home plate, nodding so hard I thought his eyeballs would fall out.

“Okay,” I said, still standing on
Sam’s coat.

Hornsby squeezed his face back into
the catcher’s mask, but not before saying, “Okay, now can we get this game over
with?”

But Sam was playing with his pocket
computer again. The crowd began to chant “Play ball!” again, and Sam put the
thing away and stepped up to the plate with a sly smile on his face.

Nostrum threw. I stayed on second.
Sam swung mightily and missed again.

“Strike two!” Hornsby crowed. One more
strike and we were dead.

Sam seemed unconcerned. I realized
that both his swings had been terrible uppercuts, as if he was trying to blast
the ball out of sight.

“Never mind the home run, Sam!” I yelled
to him. “Just make contact with the ball!”

Nostrum cackled at that. He cranked
up and threw his hardest. Sam swung, another big uppercut.

And popped the ball up into a monumental
infield fly. I took off from second: with two outs, you run like hell no matter
where the ball’s hit. But while I was heading for third I craned my neck to see
where the ball was going.

Up and up, higher and higher. It
seemed to hang up there, floating like a little round cloud. As I raced around
third I saw Hornsby throw off his mask and stagger toward Nostrum. McDougal was
coming in from third base, also staring up into the cloud-free sky. Even Arrant
and the wild-armed kid shortstop were converging toward the pitcher.

“Mine!” McDougal called out.

“I got it!”

“All mine!”

I
was around third
by now. Sam was trotting around first, heading for second base. Suddenly Hornsby
and all the others seemed to freeze in their tracks. McDougal threw her arms
over her head. Arrant stumbled and fell to his knees. Nostrum yelped so loud I thought
someone had put a match to his backside.

The sun, the blazing, dazzling,
glorious sun was shining through the habitat window like a zillion-megawatt
spotlight. The whole White Sox infield was blinded by the glare. Sam’s pop-up
was coming down now, just short of second base. The kid in center field made a
belated dash in for it, but the ball hit the grass after I had crossed the
plate with the tying run.

And Sam was racing madly for third,
his little arms pumping, stumpy legs churning, his mouth wide open sucking air,
his eyes even wider.

The whole Sox infield was still
staggering around, seeing sunspots in their eyes. The center fielder had the
ball in his hands, but nobody to throw it to. His face flashed surprise, then
consternation. Then he did the only thing he could—he started running toward
home.

It was a foot race. The youngster
was faster than Sam, but Sam was already around third and roaring home. The kid
cut across the infield and dived at Sam just as Sam launched himself into a
hook slide while the Sox infield stood around blinking and groping.

It was close, but Sam’s left foot
neatly hooked my cap and carried it along for several feet while the teenager
flopped on his belly so hard that the ball bounced out of his outstretched
hand.

We won, 15-14. The crowd went, as
they say, wild. There weren’t that many of them, but they whooped and yelled
and danced little jigs and jags all across the field. I rushed over and picked
Sam up off the grass. The leg of his slacks was ripped from the knee down and
green with grass stain, but he was grinning like a gap-toothed Jack-o’-lantern.

“We won! We won!” Sam danced up and
down.

I
went over to the
kid center fielder and helped him to his feet. “Great play, kid,” I told him. “Terrific
hustle.”

He grinned, too, a little weakly.

Hours later, Sam and I were having
a drink at the patio of Pete’s Tavern, just off the courthouse square. We had
both cleaned up after the game and the perfunctory Zoning Board meeting—held
right there at the open lot—that approved my proposal.

“You must be the luckiest guy in
the solar system,” I said to him, between sips on my cranberry juice.

Sam was sipping something more
potent. He gave me a sly look. “Chance favors the prepared mind, Chris, old
pal.”

“Sure,” I said.