Now Sam’s smile returned like a cat slinking in through a door open merely the barest crack. I realized that he had known all along that Dabney would not give in unless he got something more out of the deal than merely the delivery of the worms he had already paid for. He wanted icing on his cake.
“Well now,” Sam said slowly, “how about an advertisement for the Moralist Sect that glows in the sky and can be seen from New England to the Mississippi valley?”
No! I screamed silently. Sam couldn’t help them do that! It would be sacrilegious.
But when the transmission finally reached Dabney, his shrewd eyes grew even craftier. “What are you talking about, Mr. Gunn?”
Sam described the concept of painting the ionosphere with electron guns. Dabney’s eyes grew wider and greedier with each word.
Finally his bearded face broke into a benign smile. “Mr. Gunn, you were right. The Bible describes our situation perfectly. ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall be returned unto you a thousand fold.’ ”
“Does that mean we’ve got a deal?” Sam asked flatly.
I pushed over toward him and banged the blank key hard enough to send me recoiling toward the overhead. Sam looked up at me. There was no surprise on his face. He looked as if he had expected me to fight him.
“You can’t do this!” I said. “You’re playing into his hands! You can’t…”
“You want to stay on the asteroid or not?”
I stopped in mid-sentence and stared at him. Sam’s eyes were flat gray, boring into me.
“This is the way business is done, kid,” he said. “You want the asteroid. They want the asteroid. I make a threat they know is phony, but they pretend to consider it—as long as they get something they don’t have now. What it boils down to is, you can stay on the asteroid if Holier-Than-Thou gets to paint his advertisements across the ionosphere. That’s the deal. Will you go for it or riot?”
I couldn’t speak. I was too furious, too confused, torn both ways and angry at Sam for putting me in this agony of indecision. I wanted to stay on the asteroid, yes, but not at the price of allowing the Moralists to deface the sky!
The message light on the screen began blinking. Sam touched the blank key again, and Dabney’s face filled the screen once more, smiling an oily smile, the kind of unctuous happiness that a salesman shows when he’s finally palmed off some shoddy goods at a shameful price.
“We have a deal, Mr. Gunn. We will rethink our options on acquiring that particular asteroid. Your, ah … friend,” he made a nasty smirk, “can stay and chip away at the rock to her heart’s content. In return, you will help us to produce our ads in the ionosphere.”
Sam glanced at me. I could negate the whole thing with merely a shake of my head. Instead, I nodded. And bit my lip so hard I tasted blood in my mouth.
Sam grinned at the display screen. “We’ve got a deal, Bishop.”
“Reverend,” corrected Dabney. Then he added, “And I presume our cargo of worms will arrive at Eden in a healthy condition?”
“That’s up to you,” said Sam, straight-faced. “And the power of prayer.”
They chatted amiably for a few minutes more, a pair of con men congratulating each other. Each of them had what he wanted. I began to realize that Sam would make a considerable amount of money from producing the Moralists’ ionospheric advertisements. My anger took a new turn. I could feel my face turning red, my cheeks burning with rage.
Sam finally ended his conversation with Rev. Dabney and turned off the comm console. It seemed to me that Dabney’s bearded image remained on the screen even after it went dark and dead. It burned in my vision like the afterimage of an explosion.
Sam turned to me with a wide grin splitting his face. “Congratulations! You can stay on the asteroid.”
“Congratulations yourself,” I said, my voice trembling, barely under control. “You have put yourself into the advertising business. You should make a great deal of profit out of defacing the sky. I hope that makes you happy.”
I stormed out of the bridge and headed for the locker where I had left my space suit. Yes, I could stay on my asteroid and finish my work. But my love affair with Sam Gunn was shattered completely.
He let the fat engineer fly me back to my quarters. Sam knew I was furious and it would be best for him to leave me alone.
But not for long. After four or five sleepless hours, bobbing around my darkened quarters like a cork tossed on a stormy sea, I saw the message light of my comm console flick bright red. I reached out and turned it on.
Sam’s face appeared on the screen, a half-guilty boyish grin on his face. “Still mad at me?”
“No, not really.” And I realized it was true even as I spoke the words. I was angry at Dabney and his smug Moralist power; angry at myself, mostly, for wanting to carve The Rememberer so much that I was willing to let them do whatever they wanted, so long as they left me alone.
“Good,” said Sam. “Want me to bring some breakfast over to you?”
I shook my head. “I think not.”
“Got to make a course change in another couple hours,” he said. “So I can bring this can of worms to Eden.”
“I know.” He would be leaving me, and I could not blame him if he never returned. Still, it was impossible for me to allow him to come close to me. Not now. Not this soon after the deal he had struck. I knew he had done it for me, although I also knew he had his own reasons, as well.
“Listen—I can get somebody else do design the pictures for the Moralists. You don’t have to do it.”
He was trying to be kind to me, I knew. But my anger did not abate. “Who draws the pictures doesn’t matter, Sam. It’s the fact that the advertisements will be spread across the sky. For them. That disgusts me.”
“I’m doing this for you, kid.”
“And for the profits,” I snapped. “Tell the whole truth.”
“Yep, there’s a pot full of money in it,” Sam admitted. “You wouldn’t have to depend on your university grant anymore.”
“Never!” I spat.
He grinned at me. “That’s my girl. I would’ve been disappointed if you agreed to it. But I had to ask, had to give you the first shot at the money.”
Money. Art and money are always bound together, no matter what you do. The artist must eat. Must breathe. And that requires money.
But I stubbornly refused to give in to the temptation. I would not help that slithering Dabney to spread his advertising filth across the world’s sky. Never.
Or so I thought.
Things happened so fast over the next few weeks that, to this day, I am not entirely certain how the chain of events began. Who did what to whom. I am only certain of one thing: Dabney had no intention of carrying out his part of the bargain he had struck with Sam, and he never did.
I was alone again, and missing Sam terribly. For three years I had lived in isolation without a tear or a regret. I had even relished the solitude, the freedom from the need to adjust my behavior to the expectations of others. Sam had burst into my life like a joyful energetic skyrocket, showering pretty sparks everywhere. And now that he was gone, I missed him. I feared I would never see him again, and I knew if he forgot me it would be my own fault.
Suddenly my sorrowing loneliness was shattered by the arrival of a team of two dozen propulsion engineers, with legal documents that stated they were empowered to move my asteroid to Eden, where it was to be broken up and used as structural material for the Moralists’ habitat.
Without thinking twice I put in a frantic call for Sam. It turned out he was halfway around the Earth’s orbit. He had delivered his worms to Eden and was now on his way back to the Moon to pick up electronics components for a new construction site at the L-4 libration point.