“And the biggest investors will get their own suites, all for themselves,” Sam promised, “complete with every luxury—every service that the well-trained staff can provide.” He would wink hard enough to dislocate an eyeball at that point, to make certain the prospective investor knew what he meant.
I met some pretty interesting people that way: Texas millionaires, Wall Street financiers, Hollywood sharks, a couple of bull-necked types I thought might be Mafia but turned out to be in the book and magazine distribution business, even a few very nice middle-aged ladies who were looking for “good causes” in which to invest. Sam did not spare them his “every service that the staff can provide” line, together with the wink. They giggled and blushed.
“It’s gonna happen!” Sam kept saying. Each time we met a prospective backer his enthusiasm rose to a new pitch. No matter how many times a prospect eventually turned sour, no matter how often we were disappointed, Sam never lost his faith in the idea or the inevitability of its fruition.
“It’s gonna happen, Omar. We’re going to create the first tourist hotel in orbit. And you’re going to have a share of it, pal. Mark my words.”
When we finally got a tentative approval from a consortium of Greek and Italian shipping magnates Sam nearly rocked the old Shack out of orbit. He whooped and hollered and zoomed around the place like a crazy billiard ball. He threw a monumental party for everybody in the Shack, doctors, nurses, patients, technicians, administrative staff, security guards, visitors, even the one consultant who lived there—me. Where he got the caviar and fresh brie and other stuff I still don’t know. But it was a party none of us will ever forget. The Shack damned near exploded with merriment. It started Saturday at five PM, the close of the official work week. It ended, officially, Monday at eight AM. There are those who believe, though, that it’s still going on over there at the Shack.
Several couples sort of disappeared during the party. The Shack wasn’t so big that people could get lost in it, but they just seemed to vanish. Most of them showed up by Monday morning, looking tired and sheepish. Three of the couples eventually got married. One pair of them was stopped by a technician when they tried to go out an airlock while stark naked.
Sam himself engaged in a bit of EVA with one of the nurses, a tiny little elf of fragile beauty and uncommon bravery. She snuggled into a pressure suit with Sam and the two of them made several orbits around the Shack, outside, propelled by nothing more than their own frenetic pulsations and Newton’s Third Law of Motion.
Two days after the party the Beryllium Blonde showed up.
Her real name was Jennifer Marlow, and she was as splendidly beautiful as a woman can be. A figure right out of a high school boy’s wettest dreams. A perfect face, with eyes of china blue and thickly glorious hair like a crown of shining gold. She staggered every male who saw her, she stunned even me, and she sent Sam into a complete tailspin. She was Rockledge Industries’s ace troubleshooter. Her official title was Administrative Assistant (Special Projects) to the. President. The word we got from Earthside was that she had a mind like a steel trap, and a vagina to match.
The official excuse for her visit was to discuss Sam’s letter of resignation with him.
“You stay right beside me,” Sam insisted as we drifted down the Shack’s central corridor toward the old conference room. “I won’t be able to control myself if I’m in there alone with her.”
His face was as white as the Moon’s. He looked like a man in shock.
“Will you be able to control yourself with me in there?” I wondered.
“If I can’t, rap me on the head. Knock me out. Give me a Vulcan nerve pinch. Anything! Just don’t let me go zonkers over her.”
I smiled.
“I’m not kidding, Omar!” Sam insisted. “Why do you think they sent her up here instead of some flunky? They know I’m susceptible. God knows how many scalps she’s got nailed to her teepee.”
I grabbed his shoulder and dug my Velcroed slippers into the floor carpeting. We skidded to a stop.
“Look,” I said. “Maybe you want to avoid meeting with her altogether. I can represent you. I’m not… uh, susceptible.”
His eyes went so wide I could see white all around the pupils. “Are you nuts? Miss a chance to be in the same room with her? I want to be protected, Omar, but not that much!”
What could I do with him? Sam was torn in half. He knew the Beryllium Blonde was here to talk him out of resigning but he couldn’t resist the opportunity of letting her try her wiles on him any more than Odysseus could resist listening to the Sirens.
Like a couple of schoolboys dragging ourselves down to the principal’s office, we made our way slowly along the corridor and pushed through the door to the conference room. She was already standing at the head of the table, wearing a Chinese red jumpsuit that fit her like skin. I gulped down a lump in my throat at the sight of her. I mean, she was something. She smiled a dazzling smile and Sam gave a weak little moan and rose right up off the floor.
He would have launched himself at her like a missile if I hadn’t grabbed his belt and yanked him down to the table level. Being in zero-gee, there was no need for chairs around the table. But I sure wished I had one then; I would have tied Sam into it. As it was, I hovered right next to him and kept the full length of the polished imitation wood table between us and the Blonde.
“I think you know why I’m here,” she said. Her voice was music.
Sam nodded dumbly, his jaw hanging open. I thought I saw a bit of saliva foaming at the corner of his mouth.
“Why do you want to leave us, Sam? Don’t you like us anymore?”
It took three tries before he could make his voice work. “It’s … not that. I… I… I want to go into … uh, into business … for myself.”
“But your employment contract has almost two full years more to run.”
“I can’t wait two years,” he said, in a tiny voice. “This opportunity won’t keep….”
“Sam, you’re a very valued employee of Rockledge Industries, Incorporated. We want you to stay with us. I want you to stay with us.”
“I… can’t.”
“But you signed a contract with us, Sam. You gave us your word.”
I stuck in my dime’s worth. “The contract doesn’t prohibit Sam from quitting. He can leave wherever he wants to.” At least, that’s what the lawyers Sam had hired had told us.
“But he’ll lose-all his pension benefits and health care provisions.”
“He knows that.”
She turned those heartbreakingly blue eyes on Sam again. “It will be a big disappointment to us if you leave, Sam. It will be a personal disappointment to me.”
To his credit, Sam found the strength within himself to hold his ground. “I’m awfully sorry… but I’ve worked very hard to create this opportunity and I can’t let it slip past me now.”
She nodded once, as if she understood. Then she asked, “This opportunity you’re speaking about: does it have anything to do with the prospect of opening a tourist hotel on Space Station Alpha?”
“That’s right! But not just a hotel, a complete tourist facility. Sports complex, entertainment center, zero-gravity honeymoon suites…” He stopped abruptly and his face turned red. Sam blushed! He actually blushed.
Miss Beryllium smiled her dazzling smile at him. “But Sam dear, that idea is the proprietary intellectual property of Rockledge Industries, Incorporated. Rockledge owns the idea, not you.”