Ben Bova - The Sam Gunn Omnibus

Prokov seemed impervious to the cold. Or perhaps, rather, he was so accustomed to it that he never noticed it anymore. He was very old, his face sunken in like a rotting Jack-o’-lantern, wrinkled even across his utterly bald pate. The salmon-pink coveralls he wore seemed brand new, as if he had put them on just for this visit from a stranger. Or had the managers of the Center insisted that he wear new clothes whenever a visitor called? Whichever, she saw that the outfit was at least a full size too big for the man. He seemed to be shrinking, withering away before her eyes.

But his eyes glittered at her balefully. “Why do you ask about Sam Gunn? I was given to understand that you were only a student doing a thesis on the history of early space flight.”

“That was a bit of a white lie,” Jade said, trying to keep the tremble of fear out of her voice. “I—I’m actually trying to do a biography of Sam Gunn.”

“That despicable money-grubber,” Prokov muttered.

“Would you help me? Please?”

“Why should I?” the old man snapped.

Jade made a little shrug.

“I have never spoken to anyone about Sam Gunn. Not in more than thirty years.”

“I know,” Jade said.

Frowning, Prokov examined her intently. A little elf, he thought. A child-woman in a pale green jumpsuit. How frightened she looks! Such beautiful red hair. Such entrancing green eyes.

“Ah,” he sighed. “If I were a younger man …”

Jade smiled kindly at him. “You were a hero then, weren’t you? A cosmonaut and a Hero of the Russian Federation.”

His eyes glimmered with distant memories.

“Sam Gunn,” he repeated. “Thief. Liar. Warmonger. He almost caused World War III, did you know that?”

“No!” said Jade, truly surprised. She checked the recorder in her belt buckle and slid a few centimeters closer to the old man, to make certain that the miniaturized device did not miss any of his words.

There was hardly any other noise in the big, dark, gloomy dome. Far off in the shadows sat a couple of other old people, as still as mummies, as if frozen by time and the indifference that comes from having oudived everyone you loved.

“A nuclear holocaust, that’s what your Sam Gunn would have started. If not for me” Prokov tapped the folds of cloth that covered his sunken chest, “the whole world might have gone up in radioactive smoke thirty years ago.”

“I never knew,” said Jade.

Without any further encouragement Prokov began to speak in his whispery trembling voice.

You must realize that we were then in the grip of what the media journalists now call the Neo-Cold War. When the old Soviet Union broke up, back in the last century, Russia nearly disappeared in chaos and anarchy. But new leaders arose, strong and determined to bring Russia back to its rightful position as one of the world’s leading powers. We were proud to be part of that rebirth of Russian strength and courage. I was proud to be part of it myself.

I was commander of Mir 5, the largest Russian space station ever. Not like that political compromise, the International Space Station. Mir 5 was Russian, entirely Russian.

My rank was full colonel. My crew had been in space for 638 days and it was my goal to make it two full years—730 days. It would be a new record, fourteen men in orbit for two full years. I would be picked to command the Mars mission if I could get my men to the two-year mark. A big if.

Sam Gunn, as you know, was an American astronaut at that time. Officially he was a crew member of the NASA space station Freedom. Secretly he worked for the CIA, I am certain. No other explanation fits the facts.

You must understand that despite all the comforts that Russian technology could provide, life aboard Mir 5 was—well, spartan. We worked in shifts and slept in hot beds. You know, when one man finished his sleep shift he got out of his zipper bag and a man who had just finished his work shift would get into the bag to sleep. Sixteen hours of work, eight of sleep. Four bunks for twelve crewmen. It was all strictly controlled by ground command.

Naturally, as colonel in command I had my own bunk and my own private cubicle. This was not a deviation from comradely equality; it was necessary and all the crew recognized that fact. My political officer had his own private cubicle as well.

Believe me, after the first eighteen months of living under such stringencies life became very tense inside Mir 5. Fourteen men cooped up inside a set of aluminum cans with nothing but work, no way to relieve their tedium, forced to exercise when there were no other tasks to do—the tension was becoming dangerously high. Sam must have known that. I was told that the CIA employed thousands of psychologists in those days.

His first visit to our station was made to look like an accident. He waited until I was asleep to call us.

My second-in-command, a thickheaded technician from Omsk named Korolev, shook me awake none too gently.

“Sir!” he said, pummeling my zippered bag. “There’s an American asking us for help!”

It was like being the toothpaste in a tube while some big oaf tries to squeeze you out.

“An Ameri—Stop that! I’m awake! Get your hands off me!”

Fortunately, I slept in my coveralls. I simply unzippered the bag and followed Korolev toward the command center. He was a bulky fellow, a wrestler back at home and a decent electronics technician up here. But he had been made second-in-command by seniority only. His brain was not swift enough for such responsibilities.

The station was composed of nine modules—nine aluminum cylinders joined together by airlocks. It was all under zero gravity. The Americans had not even started to build their fancy rotating stations yet.

We floated through the hatch of the command center, where four more of my men were hovering by the communications console. It was cramped and hot; six men in the center were at least two too many.

I immediately heard why they had awakened me.

“Hey, are you guys gonna help me out or let me die?” a sharp-edged voice was rasping on our radio receiver. “I got a dead friggin’ OTV here and I’m gonna drift right past you and out into the Van Allen Belt and fry my cojones if you don’t come and get me.”

That was my introduction to Sam Gunn.

Zworkin, my political officer, was already in contact with ground control, reporting on the incident. On my own authority—and citing the reciprocal rescue treaty that had been in effect for many decades—I sent one of our orbital transfer vehicles with two of my best men to rescue the American.

His vehicle’s rocket propellant line had ruptured, with the same effect as if your automobile fuel line had split apart. His rocket engine died and he was drifting without propulsion power.

“Goddamn cheap Hong Kong parts.” Sam kept up a running monologue all through our rescue flight. “Bad enough we gotta fly birds built by the lowest goddamn bidders, but now they’re buying parts from friggin’ toy manufacturers! Whole goddamn vehicle works like something put together from a Mattel kit by a brain-damaged chimpanzee. Those mother-humpers in Washington don’t give a shit whose neck they put on the mother-humpin’ line as long as it ain’t theirs.”

And so on, through the entire three hours it took for us to send out our transfer vehicle, take him aboard it, and bring him safely to the station.

Once he came through the airlock and actually set foot inside Mir 5 his tone changed. I should say that “set foot” is a euphemism. We were all weightless, and Sam floated into the docking chamber, turned himself a full three-hundred-sixty degrees around, and grinned at us.

All fourteen of us had crowded into the docking chamber to see him. This was the most excitement we had had since Boris Malenovsky’s diarrhea, six months earlier.