Produced by neophyte Jane Inconnu, of Selene, the biography is told through the voices of men and women who knew Sam Gunn over the many years of his exploits on Earth and in space.
Widely regarded as an adventurer who operated on the ragged edge of the law, Sam Gunn …
THE LITTLE GIANT: THE SAM GUNN SAGA
The public loves success stories, and none more than the saga of an ordinary person who struggles against giant corporations and government bureaucracies—and wins. This accounts, no doubt, for the wild success of Solar News’s biographical series on space entrepreneur Sam Gunn.
Widely reviled during his lifetime as a con man, a womanizer, and an out-and-out crook, the Sam Gunn depicted in Solar’s biopic series comes across as daring, sharp-witted and, yes, lovable. His adventures span the solar system, from Earth out beyond Pluto.
SAM GUNN SERIES “A FRAUD” SAYS CORPORATE MAGNATE
“Sam Gunn was not the daring Robin Hood he’s depicted to be on Solar News’s series,” claims Pierre D’Argent, CEO of Rockledge Industries, Inc.
“He was a conniving little schemer who wouldn’t stop at anything, including blackmail, to get what he wanted.”
Mr. D’Argent, who had tangled with Mr. Gunn several times in the past, hinted that Rockledge may take legal action against Solar News for defamation, libel and fraud.
Asked what he thought of the rumors that Mr. Gunn is returning to Earth, Mr. D’Argent said only, “God help us!”
NOVICE PRODUCER WINS EMMY
Jane Avril Inconnu, producer of the smash-hit series Sam Gunn, won the Emmy Award for Best Producer of a Nonfiction Series at last night’s awards ceremony in Beijing.
Wearing a cermet exoskeleton because she is unaccustomed to the full gravity of Earth, Ms. Inconnu, who recently married former astronaut Spencer Johansen, was overcome with emotion as she accepted the award….
IS SAM GUNN DEAD?
WAS HE EVER?
With all the hype raised by the Solar News biography of Sam Gunn, the question of his alleged death has come to the forefront of the public’s attention.
According to reports, Gunn was sucked into a mini-black hole in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Pluto. It was widely regarded as a oneway journey: either Gunn was crushed by the immense gravitational tidal forces of the black hole, or he was propelled into a different space-time dimension, forever separated from our own continuum.
But rumors are flying that Gunn is on his way back! Either he has found a way to return through the black hole, or he never fell into it in the first place. Physicists, astronomers—and lawyers—are debating the possibilities hotly.
Former U.S. Senator and Associate Justice of the International Court Jill Meyers, who was once an astronaut and worked with Gunn, has outfitted a fusion torch ship to go to the Kuiper Belt and meet Sam as he returns.
Torch Ship Hermes
The two women were sitting alone in the comfortable lounge aboard the fusion torch ship as it accelerated at a half-g toward the outer reaches of the solar system.
Jade felt mildly uncomfortable at the gravity load, three times what she was accustomed to on the Moon, but the medics had assured her that her bones could stand the strain—although not much more.
Jill Meyers looked startlingly like Sam Gunn, Jade thought: short, almost elfin in stature, with a plain round face and a snub nose sprinkled with freckles. But her eyes were a clear and steady tawny gold, and she wore her straight mousy-brown hair shoulder length.
“I really appreciate your inviting me to make this trip with you,” Jade began.
Meyers shrugged lightly. “You’ve earned it. I watched your entire series, beginning to end. I don’t remember when I’ve laughed so much—and cried, too.”
“I’m glad you liked it.”
“You really captured Sam, Ms. Inconnu.”
“Please call me Jade.”
“Good. And I’m Jill.”
Jade had been stunned by Meyers’s invitation to accompany her on this flight to the Kuiper Belt. It had come as she was leaving the Emmy ceremonies in Beijing and starting back to Selene. Does she know that Sam might be my father? Jade asked herself immediately. She reasoned that Jill Meyers didn’t know, couldn’t know. Sam himself didn’t know it. Still, she wondered.
“Your quarters are satisfactory?” Meyers asked her.
“Completely! Spence says it’s the best honeymoon suite he’s ever seen.”
Meyers laughed graciously and Jade figured she had no idea how many honeymoon suites Spence had actually used.
“So what can I tell you about Sam that you don’t already know?”
Jade clicked her belt recorder and pretended to think about the question for a few moments. Then she answered, “You were involved when Sam tried to sue the Pope, weren’t you?”
“More than that, Jade. Much more than that. After all, I knew Sam back in the days when we were both astronauts working for the old NASA.”
“Just how old is Sam?”
“His age? Well, Sam must be just about my own age. Never mind what that is. Suffice to say we’ve both been around a long time. And neither of us is anywhere near finished yet. I never did believe that he died out at that mini-black hole beyond Pluto’s orbit. Not Sam.
“That’s why I’m riding out there. He promised to marry me, even though I haven’t seen the little sonofagun in almost twenty years.”
Jade looked down at her wrist computer.
“What’re you doing, trying to calculate his age? Or my age? If you want me to tell you about Sam you’d better pay attention and stop the figuring. All right, Sam must be nearly a hundred, maybe more. It’s hard to tell. He acts like he’s twelve or thirteen, most of the time. I’m younger, of course.
“Yes, he’s a womanizer. And yes, he’s made and lost more fortunes than I’ve got freckles on my nose. So what? He’s Sam Gunn, the one and only.
“You want to know about the time he tried to sue the Vatican?”
Jade nodded vigorously.
“All right. But stop trying to calculate my age!”
Acts of God
Who else but Sam Gunn would sue the Pope?
I’d known Sam since we were both astronauts with NASA, riding the old shuttle to the original Mac Dac Shack—but sue the Pope? That’s Sam.
At first I thought it was a joke, or at least a grandstand stunt. Then I began to figure that it was just the latest of Sam’s ploys to avoid marrying me. I’d been chasing him for years, subtly at first but once I’d retired from the Senate, quite openly.
It got to be a game that we both enjoyed. At least, I did. It was fun to see the panicky look on Sam’s Huck Finn face when I would bring up the subject of marriage.
“Aw, come on, Jill,” he would say. “I’d make a lousy husband. I like women too much to marry one of ’em.”
I would smile my most Sphinx-like smile and softly reply, “You’re not getting any younger, Sam. You need a good woman to look after you.”
And he’d arrange to disappear. I swear, his first expedition out to the Asteroid Belt was as much to get away from me as to find asteroids for mining. He came close to getting himself killed then, but he created the new industry of asteroid mining—and just about wiped out the metals and minerals markets in most of the resource-exporting nations on Earth. That didn’t win him any friends, especially among the governments of those nations and the multinational corporations that fed off them.