The Sam Gunn Omnibus (64 page)

Let’s see ... computer, this is a
command. Code this log under, uh, umm—code word “supercalifragelistic-expialidotious.”

[Computer]: Code word accepted.

Okay, good. I hadn’t intended to
get so paranoid, but I’m stuck here for the next twenty-three months with
nobody
I
can
trust.
I
’ve
got to talk to
somebody
or I’ll go nuts. So I’ll
talk to you, computer.

[Computer]: I contain artificial
intelligence programs that can provide limited responses to your inputs.

When I want you to answer me, I’ll
tell you! Otherwise, keep your voice synthesizer quiet. Understood?

[Computer]: Understood.

Part of the reason for locking up
this log is that I’m going to start naming names and I don’t want anybody else
to know what those names are. Christ knows I’ve done enough screwing around in
my time, but I’ve always believed a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. Well, maybe
I’m not a gentleman and I certainly ain’t talking about just kissing, but I’ve
never gone around embarrassing anybody I was lucky enough to go to bed with.

But I can’t talk things out without
naming names. It just won’t work. Am I making any sense?

[Pause]

Hey, computer, am I making any
sense?

[Computer]: Your statements are
internally consistent.

Great. How do I call up your
psychotherapy program?

[Computer]: Ask for Guidance
Counselor.

Jeez, just like in high school.
Okay, gimme the Guidance Counselor.

[Computer, same voice]: How may I help
you?

Just listen and then tell me what I
should do after I finish, okay?

[Computer]: If that’s what you
really want.

Oh brother!

[Computer]: Is that part of your
problem, your brother? I have your biographical dossier in my files, but there
is no mention of a brother.

No, no, no! I haven’t started yet!

[Computer]: I see.

I’m starting now. Got it?

[Computer]: Go on.

Let’s see ... I think it was Nelson
Algren who said that three rules for a happy life are: One, never play cards
with any man named ‘Doc.’ Two: never eat at any place called ‘Mom’s.’ And
three: never, never go to bed with a woman whose troubles are worse than your
own.

[Computer]: Um-hmm.

I
went to bed with
Sheena Chang last night. Big mistake.

[Computer]: Sheena Chang, video
actress. Proclaimed one of the ten most beautiful women in the world by
21st-century Fox/United Artists/MGM/Fujitsu Corporation. Latest starring role:
Tondaleo, the sultry Eurasian prostitute with a heart of gold, in
Invasion of
the Barbarians from Outer Space.
Age: twenty-seven.
Height...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s her.
Sultry Eurasian, all right. I was really surprised when her agent told me she
had agreed to come on this voyage. I had only called her on a lark; thought it’d
be fun to be on a slow boat to China with her.

[Computer]: To China? Navigational
data shows we are heading ...

Just a figure of speech, dammit!
Stop interrupting!

Anyway, I never thought she’d give
up two years in the middle of her career to come sailing out to the Asteroid
Belt with me. But she did. Last night I found out why.

She was all hot breath and sizzle
until I got her clothes off her and put her in my bed. We had made it before,
in the threesome with Marj Dupray down in the zero-gee section. Sheena had been
a wild woman then; Marj wasn’t so bad herself, for a skinny fashion designer.
They were both tanked up on champagne and whatnot. After all, that was our
first night out.

[Computer]: I see.

Well, anyway, last night Sheena and
I have a private little supper in my quarters. She’s wearing a low-cut dress so
slinky she must have sprayed it on. One thing leads to another and finally we’re
both in the buff and on the bed.

I
say to her, “I was
really knocked out when you agreed to come on this trip.

That’s all it took. The floodgates opened.

[Computer]: Floodgates?

She started crying! At first I thought
she had drunk too much wine with dinner, but then I remembered that she had
downed a tub of champagne that first night without batting an eye. She just
blubbered away and babbled for hours, right there in the bed. Naked. One of the
ten most beautiful women in the world.

[Computer]: Why was she crying?

That’s what I asked her. And she
told me. And told me. And told me! Her career is going down the tubes; her last
three videos lost money; her implants are slumping; her husband is suing her
for divorce; her boyfriend’s left her for a younger starlet; her agent’s making
bad deals for her; her cat died.... Jeez, she just went on and on about how her
life was ruined and she was going to kill herself.

[Computer]: Perhaps she should
speak to me. I may be able to help her.

Yeah, maybe. Anyway, it turns out
that her publicity agent convinced her that taking this voyage would be just
the thing to give her career a boost. When she comes back she’ll be the first
actress to have flown to the Asteroid Belt. They’ll make a docudrama out of it.
They’ll get Michael J. Fox III to play my role. Ta-da, ta-dum, ta-dee—so off
she goes on the good ship
Argo.

[Computer]: Ta-da, ta-dum, ta-dee?

Ignore it. Two days out, Sheena
starts thinking that maybe she made a mistake. Two weeks out she’s certain of
it. Her publicity guy and her agent have connived behind her back to get her
out of the way so that the new starlet her boyfriend’s shacked up with can take
her place. Her career is ruined. Her body’s falling apart and she can’t sue the
plastic surgeons because the publicity would ruin her even more. She’ll be out
of the limelight for two whole years. By the time she gets back everybody’ll
have forgotten who the hell she is, and she’ll be an old woman by then anyway,
past thirty.

[Computer]: According to her
dossier she will be only twenty-nine when this mission ends.

So she lied about her age! Anyway,
Sheena doesn’t want to make love, she wants to kill herself. It took me all
goddamned night to calm her down, cheer her up, and convince her that when we
get back from the asteroids she’ll be rich enough to
buy
21st-century, et al.

[Computer]: According to the
prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission—

I
know, I know! So
I exaggerated a little. She needed cheering up.

By the time I got her to stop
talking about killing herself, it was damned near morning. I had to get dressed
and go to the bridge for the first-shift systems review. She wriggled back into
that slinky dress of hers, still sniffling a little. Then she dropped the
bombshell.

[Computer]: Should I activate the
damage-control program?

No, stupid. But gimme the logistics
program.

[Computer]: Logistics.

Sheena Chang is not to receive any
drugs, medications or pharmaceuticals of any kind. Understand? In fact, all
requests for medication, stimulants or relaxers from any of the partners is to
be reported to me immediately. Understood?

[Computer]: Understood.

Okay. Get the guidance counselor
back.

[Computer]: Guidance counselor.

The bombshell Sheena handed me was
metaphorical. You understand what metaphorical means?

[Computer]: I have a thorough
command of twenty languages, including English.

Wonderful. She told me that one of
the partners is an agent for Rockledge International, the multinational megacorporation,
the soulless bloodsucking vampires of the corporate world, the gutless sneaking
bastards who’d steal your
cojones
and sell them to the highest bidder if you gave them the chance. I’ve tangled
with them before
;
they’re always trying
to grab everything for themselves, the two-bit sonsofbitches.

[Computer]: You disapprove of them.

Only as much as I disapprove of
cannibalism, genocide, and selling your mother to a Cairo brothel.

[Computer]: I see.

So there’s Sheena sniffling and
squeezing her boobs into her dress, and she tells me I’ve been so nice and kind
and patient that she’s going to warn me that one of the partners is secretly
working for Rockledge.

“Which one?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Then how do you know that one of
them is on Rockledge’s payroll?”

She finally gets her bosom
adjusted—believe me, it took all my powers of concentration not to go over to
her and give her a hand. Anyway, she says:

“A couple of nights ago, it was kind
of late and we were in the lounge having a nightcap or two....”

“We? Who?”

She shrugged. I was still in the
buff and immediately came to attention. Sheena paid no attention and I thought
she’d probably seen bigger. But not better.

I
asked her again, “Who
was in the lounge with you?”

“Oh, golly, we had been drinking
for a while. And Rick had handed out some really weird candy; he’s got a whole
trunkful of shit, you know....”

“I know.” I was starting to get
exasperated with her birdbrain act. “So Darling was there. Who else?”

“Oh, Marjorie, and Dr. Hubble.
Grace Harcourt, she was sitting with me. I don’t remember if Bo Williams was
there or not. And I’m sure Jean Margaux wasn’t. She wouldn’t be, the snob.”

“So who said what? What’d you hear?”

“It
was just a snatch of conversation, a man’s voice, I’m pretty sure. Somebody
said something about money piling up at a bank in Liechtenstein....”

“Liechtenstein?”

“That’s
right. He’s getting a monthly stipend from Rockledge International and it’s
gathering compound interest all the time we’re away on this trip!”

She
looked pleased that she remembered that much. But that was all she could
remember. Or so she said. Somebody was on Rockledge’s payroll, in secret. And
it was probably a man.

[Computer]:
Why does that bother you so?

Why?
Why? Because Rockledge’ll try to steal the profits of this mission out from
under me, that’s why! It’s just like those sleazy bastards—let the little guy
do all the work and then they come in and snatch the money. Rape and pillage,
that’s the way they work.

[Computer]:
I assume those are metaphors again.

Listen,
you stupid hunk of germanium, I want you to get me a Dunn & Bradstreet on
each one of my partners. One of them’s a—

[Computer]:
You will have to call up the financial program.

Okay!
Gimme the financial program!

[Computer]:
Financial.

I
want a complete rundown on each one of my partners.

[Computer]:
Displaying.

No,
no, no! Not the data already in your memory! That’s months old, for chrissakes.
I want the up-to-the-minute stuff. And check the banks in Liechtenstein.

[Computer]:
That will take several hours. Transmission time to Earth is currently—

Just
do it! Fast as you can. Do it.

Jeez,
I feel like a kid in a confessional booth. It’s been three months since my last
entry in this log. A pretty quiet three months.

Things
have gone along okay, really smoother than I expected. One of the plasma
thrusters crapped out last week, but Will Bassinio and I went EVA and replaced
it with a spare. Will’s my electronics specialist; a real whiz at chips and
circuits and stuff like that. Lonz—Alonzo Ali, my first mate—monitored us from
the command center while Erik did what he does best: charmed the passengers.