Ben Bova - The Sam Gunn Omnibus

“It is a matter duplicator, then?”

“It was intended to be a transmitter, but, yes sir, it has functioned as a duplicator. There are still some details that are not quite clear, but—”

The door behind the chairman slid open and Ingrid entered the conference room, wearing a gold-trimmed white uniform with a choker collar and full-length trousers.

“I’m sorry to be late,” she said, her face deadly serious. “I wasn’t informed of this hearing until a few minutes ago.”

Everyone stood up.

“Bishop MacTavish,” murmured the chairman, indicating an empty chair halfway down the table.

Once we seated ourselves again, the chairman explained, “Bishop MacTavish is here as a qualified ethicist.”

“And a representative of the New Lunar Church,” said the councilman on the chairman’s right.

The Sam on my left squawked, “What’s the New Lunar Church got to do with this?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman,” Ingrid said, “but I’m afraid you’re working under a misapprehension. I am here in my capacity as legal counsel.”

“For Rockledge Industries, et al,” muttered the Sam on my right.

“No,” Ingrid replied. “I am representing Dr. Townes.” And she smiled so sweetly at me that my heart nearly melted.

Both Sams leaned in to me and whispered, “Watch out. This could be a trap.”

Was Ingrid a Judas goat? I refused to believe it. But the possibility gnawed at me.

When the council members started asking me questions about my experiment Ingrid rose to her feet and said sternly, “This council has no legal right to question Dr. Townes, except as to how his work might affect the safety of Selene and its citizens.”

“But he’s duplicated a human being!” one of the councilwomen sputtered.

“Sam Gunn, no less,” grumbled the councilman beside her.

“I am morally opposed to such a duplication as much as any of you,” Ingrid said, still on her feet. “I regard it as little short of blasphemy. As a Believer and a Bishop of the New Lunar Church, I am appalled.”

Here it comes, I thought. She’ll recommend burning me at the stake.

But Ingrid went on, “Yet, as a woman who has lived in the freedom of a democratic civilization—and as an applicant for citizenship in your nation of Selene—I cannot support the imposition of limitations on Dr. Townes’s research, or on the intellectual freedom of any person.”

My eyebrows popped up almost to my scalp. Both Sams looked surprised; so did most of the council members. I saw Douglas Stavenger nodding his agreement, a slight smile of satisfaction on his face.

“The New Lunar Church has no objection to this work?” the council chairman asked.

“I shudder to think that a human being would aspire to usurping God’s creative powers,” Ingrid said. “But after having thought on the matter and prayed on it, I have concluded that Dr. Townes has not actually created a human being; he has merely duplicated one.”

“So the council has no moral right to object to his work?” asked the chairman.

“Not in my view, nor in the view of the New Lunar Church.”

“Very well,” said the chairman, a grin spreading across his face. “Now let’s get down to the real reason for this hearing. Dr. Townes, you caused a power outage through three-quarters of Selene. Is the university going to pay for that?”

“Power outage?” I gasped. “I thought it was only in my own lab.”

“Surely you noticed that the emergency lights were on throughout several levels for four hours after your experiment.”

“That contraption of yours drained the system,” grumped one of the councilmen, “knocked out two inverters, and overheated the coolant in the cryogenic transmission lines from our main solar panel farm, up on the surface.”

“It did?” Now that he mentioned it, I realized that after our little fracas in my lab the corridors had been lit by the emergency lamps. Even my quarters had been, when I got there after the police took Sam away.

“We can’t have that kind of drain on our power system,” said the chairman. “I think the council will agree that you must be prohibited from running your equipment again.”

“Until you can provide your own electrical power for it,” said the grumpy councilman.

Ingrid hadn’t sat down yet. Raising her voice over the murmurs of conversation buzzing around the table, she said, “If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to serve Mr. Gunn with the subpoenas I’ve been carrying.”

The chairman gestured grandly. “Go right ahead.”

“You can’t do that!” yelped one of the Sams.

The other, just as red-faced, added, “Selene’s constitution specifically states—”

“Our constitution,” said the chairman sternly, “allows specific exceptions to the extradition clause, Mr. Gunn.”

Both Sams snapped their jaws shut with audible clicks.

Turning to the Sams, Ingrid asked, “Which of you is the original?”

“He is,” said both Sams in unison, pointing at one another.

Ingrid frowned at them. “One of you is a copy. I have to serve these papers to the original.”

“That’s him,” they both said.

Ingrid looked from one of them to the other. Then she turned back to the chairman. “As you can see, although no one has the right to curtail Dr. Townes’s intellectual freedom, his experiment has created certain practical difficulties.”

I realized that I’d created a Pandora’s Box. So I compromised. Actually, I caved in. I promised the council that I’d dismantle my equipment and scrap it. I would not publish anything about my experiment. I would forget about entanglement and study other aspects of quantum physics.

Which meant I could kiss the Nobel Prize goodbye.

The council was very relieved. Ingrid, though, seemed strangely unhappy.

That evening in the cafeteria, as we nibbled at a dinner neither one of us had any appetite for, I said to her, “I thought you wanted me to scrap the duplicator.”

She gazed at me with those luminous azure eyes of hers. “I did, Daniel. But now I realize that I’ve ruined your life.”

“It’s not ruined, exactly.” “I’m dreadfully sorry.”

I tried to put a good face on the situation. “It’s a big universe, Ingrid. There are plenty of other questions for me to work on.”

“But you—”

A hubbub over by the doorway distracted us. Both Sams were scurrying through the cafeteria like a pair of spaniels hunting for a bone.

“Hey! There they are!” said Sam I to Sam II. Or vice versa.

They rushed to our table and pulled up chairs. “Gotta hurry Dan-o. My ship’s ready to leave.”

“Leave? For where?”

The other Sam replied, “Back to that black hole in the Kuiper Belt. Wanna come with me?”

Ingrid was immediately suspicious. “How did you get the money to—”

“Rockledge!” both Sams crowed. “And Masterson Aerospace and all those other big buffoons who were suing me.”

“They’re financing your mission to the Kuiper Belt?”

“Yeah.” The Sams’ grins were ear-to-ear. It was eerie: they were exactly alike. “They’re willing to pay mucho dinero to get rid of me.”

I got their meaning. “They’re hoping that this time you go away and stay away.”

Nodding and laughing, one of the Sams said, “Yeah. But what they don’t know is that only one of me is going.”

“And the other?”

They both shrugged.

“I don’t know,” said one. “Maybe I’ll go back into the zero-gee hotel business.”

“Or go back to the resort at Hell Crater,” said the other one.

“Or turn Selene into a tax shelter. How’s the Church of Rightful Investments sound to you?” They both winked at Ingrid simultaneously.