Read The Sam Gunn Omnibus Online
Authors: Ben Bova
The Sam Gunn Omnibus
The
SAM
GUNN
Omnibus
TOR BOOKS BY BEN BOVA
As on a Darkling Plain
The Astral Mirror
Battle Station
The Best of the Nebulas
(editor)
Challenges
Colony
Cyberbooks
Escape Plus
Gremlins Go Home
(with
Gordon R. Dickson)
Jupiter
The Kinsman Saga
The Multiple Man Orion
Orion Among the Stars
Orion and the Conqueror
Orion in the Dying Time
Out of the Sun
Peacekeepers
The Precipice
Privateers
Prometheans
The Rock Rats
Saturn
Star Peace: Assured Survival
The Starcrossed
Test of Fire
To Fear the
Light
(with A. J. Austin)
To Save the Sun
(with A. J. Austin)
The Trikon Deception
(with Bill Pogue)
Triumph
Vengeance of Orion
Venus
Voyagers
Voyagers II: The Alien Within
Voyagers III: Star Brothers
The Winds of Altair
SAM
GUNN
Omnibus
Featuring every story
ever writte
n
about Sam Gunn, and then
some.
BEN BOVA
A Tom Doherty Associates Book New
York
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and
events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE SAM GUNN
OMNIBUS
Copyright © 2007 by Ben Bova All rights reserved. A Tor
Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue
New York,
NY 10010
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates,
LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bova, Ben, 1932The Sam Gunn omnibus / Ben Bova. p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.” ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1620-2
ISBN-10: 0-7653-1620-X I. Title.
PS3552.084S25 2007 813’.54—dc22
2006033982
First Hardcover Edition: February 2007 First Trade
Paperback Edition: April 2009
Printed in the United States of America
0987654321
an ebookman scan
Earlier versions of “The Supervisor’s Tale,” “Diamond Sam,”
“Isolation Area,” “Vacuum Cleaner,” and “Space University” appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,
copyright © 1983, 1984, 1988, 1989, and 1990 by Mercury Press, Inc.
An earlier version of “Einstein” appeared in
Omni
magazine, copyright © 1990 by Omni
Publications International, Inc.
“Sam’s War” and “Nursery Sam” originally appeared in
Analogy
copyright © 1994 and
1995 by D
Dell Magazines.
“The Prudent Jurist” (as “Sam and the Prudent Jurist”) and “Acts
of God” originally appeared in
Science Fiction Age,
copyright 1997 and 1995 by Sovereign Media.
These
tales are dedicated to the
entrepreneurs who are striving to open the space frontier for all humankind—
and make a few
bucks in the
process.
Statement of Clark Griffith IV
Statement of Juanita Carlotta Maria Rivera y Queveda
Solar News Offices, Selene City
Solar News Headquarters, Selene
A thing worth having
is a thing worth cheating for.
------------------------------------------
ATTRIBUTED TO W. C. FIELDS
uthor’s Preface
It isn’t easy to put all
the tales of Sam Gunn together in any sequence that even vaguely resembles
chronological order. Sam’s various tales are spread all over the solar system
(and even beyond) and span a lifetime filled with adventure, romance, and more
than a little trickery.
I’ve done my best.
I
’ve sifted through all the stories about Sam Gunn
and even added a couple of new ones. It’s been tricky, though. In the pages of
this book, Sam’s life story is told from its beginning to the present moment.
Please don’t expect exact chronological order or a well-defined sequence of
events. Sam is far too clever to be pinned down like an ordinary person.
All I can offer
, at this point, is a quotation from a much better
writer
than I, Mr
. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain:
Persons attempting to find a motive in this
narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be
banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
I
suggest you merely read the stories and enjoy them.
Trying to make order out of the chaotic events of Sam Gunn’s life can drive you
to drink. That’s one of the things that I
like about Sam.
Ben B
ov
a
Naples, Florida
January
2006
The
SAM
GUNN
Omnibus
THE STORY OF SAM GUNN IS INEXTRICABLY INTERWOVEN
with the story of a
beautiful, vulnerable, and determined young woman. Knowing Sam, you would
expect she was an object of his rabid testosterone-fed sex drive (or, as
Shakespeare put it, the bottomless cistern of his lust).
But you’d be wrong.
She likes to be called Jade, although her name is actually Jane. Jane
Avril Inconnu. Sometimes new acquaintances mistake that last name for Romanian,
although her flame-red hair and dazzling green eyes speak of more northern and
flamboyant lands. She will tolerate such misunderstandings— when there is some
advantage to being tolerant.
She received her name from the Quebecois surgeon who adopted her as a
foundling at the old original Moonbase, back when that precarious settlement
was civilization’s rugged frontier. There were no pediatricians on the Moon;
the surgeon happened to be on duty when the female infant, red-faced and
squalling, was discovered in the corridor just outside the base’s small
hospital. No more than a few days old, the infant had been placed in a plastic
shipping container, neatly bundled and warmly blanketed. And abandoned. Who the
baby’s mother might be remained a mystery, even though Moonbase hardly
supported more than two hundred men and women in those days, plus a handful of
visitors.