As she squeezed herself into the equipment locker, Jill said, “It’s simple, Sam. You were walking with the baby when Pete here accidentally set off the pod.”
Pete turned in his pilot’s chair and grinned at me.
“And then you got into your suit, with little T.J., and rescued Pierre D’Argent’s only son. You’re going to be a hero.”
“Pete is D’Argent’s son?” I must have hit high C.
“In return for your bravery in this thrilling rescue, D’Argent will let you have the space-sickness cure. So everything works out fine.”
Like I said, I was just the tool of a superior brain.
“Now,” said Jill, “you’d better help Pete to make rendezvous with the station and re-berth this pod.” And with that she blew me a kiss, then slid the hatch of the equipment locker shut.
It didn’t work out exactly as Jill had it figured. I mean, D’Argent was furious, at first, that I’d let his kid into one of the pods and then left him alone. But his wife was enormously grateful, and Pete played his role to a T. He lied with a straight face to his own father and everybody else. I figured that one day, when D’Argent realized how his son had bamboozled him, he’d be truly proud of the lad. Probably send him to law school.
In the meantime, D’Argent did indeed let me have the space-sickness cure. Grudgingly. “Only for a limited period of testing,” he growled. Mrs. D’Argent had prodded him into it, in return for my heroic rescue of their only son. She got a considerable amount of help from Jill—who sneaked off the pod after all the commotion had died down.
Larry and Melinda didn’t know whether they should be sore at me or not. They had been scared stiff when T.J. turned up missing, and then enormously relieved when I handed them their little bundle of joy, safe and sound, gurgling happily. I knew Larry had forgiven me when he reminded me, almost sheepishly, about changing the name of the magnetic bumpers to Karsh Shields.
So we all got what we wanted. Or part of it, at least.
The space-sickness cure helped Heaven a lot. The hotel staggered into the black, not because honeymooners took a sudden fancy to it, but because the word started to spread that it was an ideal spot for children! It still cost more than your average luxury vacation, but wealthy families started coming up to Heaven. My zero-gee sex palace eventually became a weightless nursery. And—many years later—a retirement home. But that’s another story.
I licensed the Karsh Shields to Rockledge. A promise is a promise, and the money was good because Rockledge had the manufacturing capacity to make three times as many of the shields as I could. And, once the hotel started showing a profit, I let D’Argent buy it from me. He’s the one who turned it into a nursery. I was long gone by then.
With Jill’s help I raised enough capital to start a shoestring operation in lunar mining. It was touch-and-go for a while, but the boom in space manufacturing that I had prophesied actually did come about and I got filthy rich.
Of course, I more or less had to marry Jill. I owed her that, she had been so helpful. Why she wanted to marry me was a mystery to me, but she was damned determined to do it.
Of course, I was just as damned determined not to get married. So I—but that’s another story.
Selene City
Jim Gradowsky guffawed and leaned back in his swivel chair so far that Jade feared he would topple over.
“That’s terrific, kid! Great story.” Wiping his eyes, he smiled at Jade as he asked, “What’s next?”
Jade had dreaded this moment. “I don’t really know,” she replied. “I’ve run out of people to interview.”
Gradowsky’s happy face turned to gloom. “Come on, Jade, there must be half a zillion people who’ve known Sam over all those years.”
“They’re all back on Earth,” she said, her voice low.
“Oh. And you can’t go to Earth, is that it?”
“That’s it, Jim.”
He took in a deep breath and reached into his desk drawer for a cookie. “You’ll have to do it by videophone, then.”
Nodding, grateful that her boss understood, she said, “There’s this one woman I’ve got a lead on, in Ecuador. She’s the daughter of their former president and the wife of their current president.”
“Go get her!”
“It won’t be easy,” Jade said. “She says she’s busy with their space tower project and—”
Gradowsky puffed out an exasperated sigh. “Jade, honey, if it was easy anybody could do it. You get to her. One way or another.”
Jade nodded. “I’ll try.”
“We all try, kid. You’ve got to succeed.”
Statement of Juanita Carlotta Maria Rivera y Queveda
(Recorded at Mt. Esperanza, Ecuador)
“I have no time to speak to you about Sam Gunn. That phase of my life ended long ago. Believe me, directing the construction of the first space elevator on the Earth keeps me quite busy, thank you.”
Even in the small screen in Jade’s office the space elevator was impressive: a massive tower that rose from the mountaintop and disappeared into the clouds high above.
Juanita Rivera y Queveda looked impressive, too. Her face was round, the skin golden brown, her hair thick and midnight dark. Jade couldn’t see much of her outfit, but it seemed to be more like a general’s braid-heavy uniform than the simple coveralls of an engineer.
“Look at it!” she said, gesturing toward the elevator off in the hazy distance. “Even in its half-finished condition, is it not magnificent? A tower to the heavens, an elevator that rises from this mountaintop all the way up to the geosynchronous orbit, nearly forty thousand kilometers high! Ah, these are wonderful times to be alive.”
Jade started to ask a question, then realized it would take nearly three seconds before the woman’s answer could cover the round-trip distance between Earth and the Moon.
“As you undoubtedly know,” the Ecuadorian went on, “my husband is the former president of Ecuador, as was my father. But I have never been involved in politics, except for that brief time when Sam Gunn intruded into my life. In fact the first time I heard of the idea of a space elevator, it was Sam who told me about it. He called it a ‘skyhook.’ I thought it was foolishness then, but now I know better.
“What can I tell you that you do not already know? Sam was a whirlwind, a force of nature. He was constantly in motion, always tumbling and jumbling everything and everyone around him. It was like living in a perpetual hurricane, being near Sam.
“I understand that he died out in deep space somewhere. Too bad. I am not interested in him, whether he is dead or alive. My interest is in this space elevator, which you in the media call the Skyhook Project. When it is finished, people will be able to ride from our site in my native Ecuador all the way up to the geostationary orbit for pennies! Merely the price of electricity to operate the elevator, plus a modest profit for our company.
“Yes, it is costing billions to build the elevator, but we have had no trouble in finding investors.
“Of course, if Sam were here among us he would be one of our biggest investors, certainly. But what chaos he would cause! We are much better off without him.
“Oh, I suppose I really do hope he is not dead. I miss him, to tell the truth. But I’m glad he is not here! This project is too important to have him involved in it.”
The woman stopped speaking. Her eyes seemed to focus dreamily on something in the past.
Jade took the opportunity. “Couldn’t you tell me just a little about Sam? Your impression of him? How he affected your life?”
Juanita Rivera y Queverda smiled, a little sadly, Jade thought.