Ben Bova - Acts of God.pdf - Ben Bova - widez2

ACTS OF GOD

Ben Bova

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 Dae

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 sphinxlike 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.

I still had connections into the Senate Intelligence

Committee in those days, and I knew that at least three

southern hemisphere nations had put out contracts on

Sam's life. To say nothing of the big multinationals. It was

my warnings that saved his scrawny little neck.

Sam lost the fortune he made on asteroid mining, of

course. He'd made and lost fortunes before that, it was

nothing new to him. He just went into other business

lines; you couldn't keep him down for long.

He was running a space freight operation when he

sued the Pope. And the little sonofagun knew that I'd be

on the International Court of Justice panel that heard his

suit.

"Senator Meyers, may I have a word with you?" My

Swedish secretary looked very upset. He was always very

formal, always addressed me by my old honorific, the

way a governor of a state would be called “Governor''

even if he's long retired or in jail or whatever.

"What's the matter, Hendrick?" I asked him.

Hendrick was in his office in The Hague, where the

World Court is headquartered. I was alone in my house in

Nashua, sipping at a cup of hot chocolate and watching

the winter's first snow sifting through the big old maples

on my front lawn, thinking that we were going to have a

white Christmas despite the greenhouse warming. Until

Hendrick's call came through, that is. Then I had to look

at his distressed face on my wall display screen.

"We have a very unusual... situation here," said

Hendrick, struggling to keep himself calm. "The chief

magistrate has asked me to call you."

From the look on Hendrick's face, I thought

somebody must be threatening to unleash nuclear war, at

least.

"A certain .. . person," Hendrick said, with

conspicuous distaste, "has entered a suit against the

Vatican."

"The Vatican!" I nearly dropped my hot chocolate.

"What's the basis of the suit? Who's entering it?"

"The basis is apparently over some insurance claims.

The litigant is an American citizen acting on behalf of the

nation of Ecuador. His name is"—Hendrick looked down

to read from a document that I could not see on the

screen—"Samuel S. Gunn, Esquire."

"Sam Gunn?" I did drop the cup; hot chocolate all

over my white corduroy slacks and the hooked rug my

great-grandmother had made with her very own arthritic

fingers.

Sam was operating out of Ecuador in those days.

Had himself a handsome suite of offices in the

presidential palace, no less. I drove through the slippery

snow to Boston and took the first Clipper out; had to use

my ex-Senatorial and World Court leverage to get a seat

amidst all the jovial holiday travelers.

I arrived in Quito half an hour later. Getting through

customs with my one hastily packed travel bag took

longer than the flight. At least Boston and Quito are in

the same time zone; I didn't have to battle jet lag.

"Jill!" Sam smiled when I swept into his office, but

the smile looked artificial to me. “What brings you down

here?"

People say Sam and I look enough alike to be

siblings. Neither Sam nor I believe it. He's short, getting

pudgy, keeps his rusty red hair cropped short. Shifty eyes,

if you ask me. Mine are a steady brown. I'm just about his

height, and the shape of my face is sort of round, more or

less like his. We both have a sprinkle of freckles across

our noses. But there all resemblance—physical and

otherwise—definitely ends.

"You know damned well what brings me down

here," I snapped, tossing my travel bag on one chair and

plopping myself in the other, right in front of his desk.

Sam had gotten to his feet and started around the

desk, but one look at the blood in my eye and he

retreated back to his own swivel chair. He had built a

kind of platform behind the desk to make himself seem

taller than he really was.

He put on his innocent little boy face. "Honest, Jill,

I haven't the foggiest idea of why you're here. Christmas

vacation?''

"Don't be absurd."

"You didn't bring a justice of the peace with you, did

you?"

I had to laugh. Every time I asked myself why in the

ever-loving blue-eyed world I wanted to marry Sam

Gunn, the answer always came down to that. Sam made

me laugh. After a life of grueling work as an astronaut

and then the tensions and power trips of Washington

politics, Sam was the one man in the world who could

make me see the funny side of everything. Even when he

was driving me to distraction, we both had grins on our

faces.

"I should have brought a shotgun," I said, trying to

get serious.

"You wouldn't do that," he said, with that impish

grin of his. Then he added a worried, “Would you?''

“Where did you get the bright idea of suing the

Vatican?"

"Oh, that!" Sam visibly relaxed, eased back in his

chair and swiveled around from side to side a little.

"Yes, that," I snapped. "What kind of a brain-dead

nincompoop idea is that?"

Ben Bova - Acts of God.pdf

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