Disappearing Act

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT WHEN THE MAITRE D’ FINISHED his tale.

“So Lars Fuchs never knew that Amanda’s baby was his own son?” Jade asked, her voice slightly hollow with thoughts of her own birth, her own parents.

“Neither did Martin Humphries,” the maitre d’ replied somberly.

Spence asked, “Fuchs died on that Venus expedition, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Jade. “And Amanda died in childbirth, according to the nets. But Humphries is still alive.”

“He hasn’t been seen in public in years,” the maitre d’ pointed out. “The rumor is that he had some sort of mental breakdown.”

“Still, I don’t know if we can use your story. I’ll have to check with our legal department.”

The maitre d’ nodded. “I understand. Frankly, I wouldn’t want Martin Humphries’s people coming after me.”

“Then why’d you tell us?” Spence asked.

The portly man shrugged. “It seemed like the thing to do. For Sam, I guess. To set the record straight. He wasn’t the bastard everybody thinks he was.”

Jade smiled at him, but then she said, “I can’t pay you for the story unless our lawyers say we can use it.”

The maitre d’ smiled back. “That’s okay. I’m doing well enough here. When we get back to Selene I’ll have enough to open my own business.”

“Oh?”

“Selling Martian artifacts.”

“You can’t do that! It’s forbidden by the IAA!”

The maitre d’ s smile widened, showed teeth. “I’ve hired a squad of students who spend their summers with the Mars exploration teams. They make cups and bowls and stuff out of native Martian rock. Voila! Martian artifacts.”

Spence gaped at him. “That... that’s fraud.”

“No, it clearly states on every bill of sale that the artifact was made on Mars. I give no guarantee of age, or of—”

The ship’s captain came bustling into the salon, looking tense, upset. He hurried straight to the table where Jade, Spence and the maitre d’ were sitting.

Spence got to his feet.

To Jade, the captain said, “We just received a message.” “Oh?”

“From Sam Gunn.”

“From Sam?” all three of them asked in unison.

“The little scoundrel is flying back to Earth! He’s popped out of that black hole and he’s heading Earthward at a full g acceleration!”

“That’s impossible!” Spence snapped.

Instead of replying the captain aimed a palm-sized remote at the smart wall.

Sam Gunn’s round, freckled face appeared on the screen. “To whom it may concern,” he said cheerfully. “I’m back from the mini-black hole and on my way toward Earth. See ya there!”

The image winked off.

“That’s all?” Spence demanded.

“We tracked the source of the message. It’s a torch ship heading inbound at one full g.”

“Where’d he get a torch ship?”

“Sacre dieu,” said Jade. “Every lawyer in the solar system’s going to be waiting for Sam when he gets to Earth.”

“Including the Beryllium Blonde,” Spence muttered.

“Have you told Senator Meyers?”

The captain nodded. “Before anyone else.”

“She must be furious,” said the maitre d’.

A puzzled, disbelieving expression on his face, the captain replied, “She laughed! She laughed out loud. I thought she’d snapped.”

“Not Jill Meyers,” Jade said.

“She’s given orders to turn around and get back to Earth,” the captain said. “As fast as we can.”

TORCH SHIP HERMES orbited the Moon exactly once, just long enough for Jade and Spence to be picked up by a shuttle from Selene. Then the ship—with Jill Meyers and her entourage still aboard— returned to Earth.

But Sam Gunn was nowhere to be found. His ship had arrived in Earth orbit, but when customs inspectors boarded it the ship was empty. They impounded it, sealed it, and told the authorities—and the news media— that Sam Gunn had disappeared.

That started a feeding frenzy in the media. Jumbo Jim Gradowsky conferred with Solar News’s corporate bigwigs and released Jade’s hurriedly edited follow-on series about Sam. It was a smash hit, top of the audience ratings. Solar rereleased Jade’s original biography, then packaged the two shows together and scored still another smashing success.

Yet there was no sign of Sam Gunn. He had disappeared. There were rumors that he was in Selene, but no one admitted to seeing him. Then, after weeks of such rumors, the news flashed through Selene that Sam Gunn had been working with a professor at the university. And he’d been arrested by Selene’s security police.

Jade looked up the professor, Daniel C. Townes IV. A physicist. She called him several times, but always got his answering machine.

Then he walked into her office, tall, lanky, looking slightly bemused.

“I understand you’re looking for me,” he said, folding his long-legged figure into the little plastic chair in front of Jade’s desk.

She almost leaped across the desk. “Do you know where Sam Gunn is?”

He frowned slightly. “I know where one of them is,” said Townes.