Ben Bova - The Sam Gunn Omnibus

Visions of the Nobel danced through my head.

But then I thought of Ingrid. What would her reaction be?

A little unsteadily, I headed for my desk and the phone. Both Sams trailed along behind me.

Time for the moment of truth.

I phoned Ingrid right then and there, and asked her to come to my lab. In the phone’s smallish screen, her exquisite face looked more curious than anything else.

“To your lab?” she asked. “Right now?”

I nodded. “Big news. I want you to see it before anyone else does.”

Her expression changed immediately. To dread. “I’ll be there in a few moments.”

I paced the lab from one end to the other while the Sams got themselves into an argument.

“First thing we do is set up the tax shelter.”

“Better secure the spacecraft first. That Bishop MacTavish is going to try to seize it.”

“Let her! Once the tax shelter’s in operation we’ll have money pouring in.”

“Never let the enemy cut off your line of retreat.”

“We don’t need the ship anymore! We can just about print money, for God’s sake.”

“Print money?” Whichever Sam it was suddenly got a thoughtful, crafty look on his snub-nosed face. “Print money.”

The other Sam grinned at his twin. “Duplicate financial instruments. Ought to be a pile of money there.”

“Duplicate women!”

“Wow! Twins!”

“Made to order.”

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “The duplicator is mine, not yours.”

They both turned to me, their faces identically disappointed, stunned with betrayal.

“You wouldn’t refuse me the use of your contraption, would you, Dan-o?”

“After all, I’m the one who got you started on this experiment. Without me, you’d still be doodling with theory and equations.”

Before I could reply the lab door swung open and Ingrid strode in, looking like an avenging angel in a gold sweater and hip-hugging jeans. I nearly fainted again.

She said not a word, but stared at the two Sams for what seemed like an hour and a half. Both Sams grinned impishly at her and then bowed, simultaneously.

“You did it,” she said to me in a near-whisper.

“It was sort of an accident,” I began. “I had no intention of duplicating Sam.”

Ingrid sank to the nearest stool. I thought I saw tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Daniel,” she said, in a sorrowful moan. “Now all hell is going to break loose over you.”

To say that all hell broke loose would be an exaggeration, but not much of one. News of my success spread throughout Selene in a microsecond, it seemed. My grad students must have shouted it out to everyone they passed in the corridors, like Paul Revere warning of the redcoats.

Ingrid looked truly heartbroken, but when the Sams told her about Woody her chin snapped up and her eyes suddenly turned fiery.

“The New Morality?” she asked. “He said he was sent here directly by the New Morality?”

“Straight from their headquarters,” Sam I replied. Or was he Sam II?

“In Atlanta,” the other Sam added.

“They bypassed me to plant a spy in your laboratory?” Ingrid asked.

“That’s what he told us,” I said.

“They never told me about it,” she murmured. “They knew I’d be opposed to such a low trick.”

“They didn’t trust you,” said a Sam.

“No, they didn’t, did they?” Ingrid looked crestfallen, heartbroken. “They merely used me as a distraction while their spy did his best to ruin your experiment.”

“But they failed,” I said. “And I succeeded.”

She nodded, her expression turning even bleaker. “And what happens now, Daniel? What happens to you, my love? What happens to us?”

Before I could even begin to think of an answer, a quartet of Selene security police strode into the lab.

“By order of the council,” their leader pronounced, “these premises are to be evacuated and sealed until further notice.”

The Sams started to object, but the officer went on, “And Sam Gunn is hereby placed under protective custody.”

“You mean I’m going to jail?” both Sams yelped.

All four policemen fixed the two Sams with beady gazes. “Which of you is Sam Gunn?” their leader asked.

“I am,” said both Sams in unison.

The officer looked from one Sam to the other, obviously trying to decide what to do. Then he turned to his cohorts and commanded, “Bring ’em both in.”

The following morning I was awakened by a phone message inviting me to a meeting of Selene’s governing council, which would convene at eleven AMprecisely. “Invite” is a relative term: when the governing council invites you, you show up, on time and ready to cooperate.

It wasn’t a trial, exactly. More of an executive hearing. It took place in a windowless conference room up in the executive office tower that rises from the middle of the Grand Plaza to the roof of the dome. The room’s walls were paneled with smart screens, much like the screens down at the Earthview restaurant, but when I entered, shortly before eleven, the walls were dead blank gray. Not a good sign, I thought.

The entire governing council of Selene was already seated at the oblong conference table, all six of them. Douglas Stavenger himself sat on one of the chairs lined along the wall. He hadn’t been on the council for years, but as the de facto leader of Selene, the man who had led the battle that resulted in Selene’s independence, he had obviously taken an interest in our case. He looked much younger than his calendar years: as everyone knew, Stavenger’s body was filled with nanomachines.

The council chairman was a prune-faced man with thinning gray hair. Obviously he didn’t take rejuvenation therapies, which led me to the conclusion that he was a religious Believer of one sort or another. He directed me to the empty chair at the foot of the table.

As I sat down I heard a raucous hullabaloo from the corridor outside. All heads turned toward the door, which burst open. Both Sams stalked in, escorted by a squad of uniformed security guards. Both Sams were yammering away like trip-hammers.

“What’s the idea of putting me in jail?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“What’s this bull droppings about protective custody?”

“I want a lawyer!”

“I want two lawyers!”

“You can’t do this to me!”

One Sam Gunn jabbering nonstop is bad enough; here were two of them.

Pruneface, up at the head of the table, raised both his clawlike hands over his gray head. “Mr. Gunn!” he shouted, in a much more powerful voice than I’d have thought him capable of, “please shut up and sit down! There!” And he pointed to the two empty chairs flanking me.

“Why am I here?”

“What’s going on?”

“This is an emergency meeting of the governing council,” the chairman explained, in a slightly lower tone. “An informal hearing, if you will.”

Both Sams trudged grudgingly to the foot of the table and sat on either side of me.

“Now then,” the chairman said, from the head of the table, “Dr. Townes, could you kindly explain how in the world you produced a duplicate of Sam Gunn?”

I blinked at him. “You want me to explain how entanglement works?”

“In layman’s language, if you please.”

I glanced around at the other council members. Three women, two men. In their forties or older, I guessed from their appearances. Probably at least two of them were scientists or engineers: Selene’s population leans toward the technical professions.

I took a deep breath and began, “Basically, my device assesses the quantum states of the atoms in the subject and reproduces those quantum states in the atoms at the receiving end of the equipment.”