“My binoculars!” Joe snapped urgently. “I want to see what’s going on below.”
“Oh,” Freddy said. “I threw them out. Along with all the rest of the equipment. Glasses, semaphore flags, that sun blinker you had. All of it went overboard with my extra lenses.”
The craft was so banked as almost to have the wings perpendicular to earth. Joe shot an agonized look at the smaller man, then back again at the earth below, trying desperately to narrow his eyes for keener vision.
Freddy said, “What in Zen’s the matter with you? What difference does it make what they’re doing down below? We’re all occupied up here, thanks.”
“This is a frame-up,” Joe growled. “Bob and that other pilot. They weren’t out on reconnaissance, this morning. They were laying for me. They’re out to keep me from seeing what’s going on down there. And I know what’s going on. Jack Altshuler’s pulling a fast one. Here we go, Freddy, hang on!”
He slapped his flap brake lever with his left hand, winged over and began dropping like a shot as his gliding angle fell off from twenty-five to one to ten to one. In seconds the other two gliders were after him, riding his tail.
Freddy Soligen, his eyes bugging, shot a look of fear at the two trailing craft, both of which, periodically, showed brilliant cherries at their prows. Maxim guns, emitting their blessings.
The Telly reporter turned desperately back to Joe Mauser, pounding him on the shoulder. His physical fear was secondary to another. “Joe! You’re on lens with every Telly team down there, and you’re running!”
“Cut that out,” Joe rapped. “Duck your head. Let me train this gun over you. I’ve got to keep those jokers from shooting off our tail before I can get to the marshal.”
“The marshal!” Freddy yelled. “You can’t get to him anyway. I told you I threw away your semaphore flags, your blinker—everything. This country’s hilly. You can’t get your message to him anyway. Listen, Joe, you’ve still got time. You can stunt these things better than those two can.”
“Duck!” Joe snarled. He let loose a burst at the pursuing gliders over the smaller man’s head, and just missing his own tail section.
They sped down almost to tree level at fantastic speed for a glider. The two enemy craft were hot after them, their guns flac, flac, flacing in continuous excitement, trying to catch Joe in sights, as he kicked rudder, right, left, right, in evasive maneuver.
He guess had been correct. The swashbuckling Jack Altshuler had know his many times commander even better than Cogswell had realized. Instead of three alternative maneuvers open to the wily cavalryman, he’d ferreted out a fourth and his full force, hauling mountain guns on mule back with them, were trailing over a supposedly impossible mountain path which originally could not have been more then a deer track.
Freddy Soligen, in back, was holding his head in his hands in surrender. He could have focused on the troops below, but the desire wasn’t in him. Not one fracas buff in a hundred could comprehend the complications of combat, the need for adequate reconnaissance—the need for Joe to get through.
He made one last plea. “Joe, we’ve put everything into this. Every share of stock you’ve accumulated. All I have, too. Don’t you realize what you’re doing, so far as the buffs are concerned? Those two half-trained pilots behind have you on the run.”
Joe growled, “And twenty thousands lads down below are depending on me to report on Altshuler’s horse.”
“But you can’t win, anyway. You can’t get your message to Cogswell!”
Joe shot him a wolfish grin. “Wanta bet? Ever heard of a crash landing, Freddy? Hang on!”
XI
Stretched out on the convalescent bed in the Category Military rest home, Joe grinned up at his visitor and said ruefully, “I’d salute, sir, but my arms seem to be out of commission. And, come to think of it, I’m out of uniform.”
Cogswell looked down at him, unamused. “You’ve heard the news?”
Joe caught the other’s tone and his face straightened. “You mean the Disarmament Commission?”
Cogswell said brittlely, “They found against the use of aircraft, other than free balloons, in any military action. They threw the book, Mauser. The court ruled that you, Robert Flaubert and James Hideka be stripped of rank and forbidden the Category Military. You have also been fined all stock shares in your possession other than those unalienably yours as a West-world citizen.”
Joe’s face went empty. It was only then that he realized that the other was attired in the uniform of a brigadier general. The direction of his eyes was obvious.
Cogswell shrugged bitterly. “My Upper caste status helped me. I could pull just enough strings that the Category Military Department, in conjunction with the rulings of the International Disarmament Commission merely reduced me in rank and belted me with a stiff fine. Your friend—your former friend, I should say, Freddy Soligen, testified in my behalf. Testified that I had no knowledge of your mounting a gun.”
The former marshal cleared his throat. “His testimony was correct. I had no such knowledge and would have issued orders against it, had I known. The fact that you enabled me to rescue the situation into which I’d been sucked, helps somewhat my feelings toward you, Mauser. But only somewhat.”
Joe could imagine the other’s bitterness. He had fought his way up the hard way to that marshal’s baton. At his age, he wasn’t going to regain it.
Brigadier general Stonewall Cogswell hesitated for a moment, then said, “One other thing. United Miners has repudiated your actions even to the point of refusing the cost of your hospitalization. I told the Category Medicine authorities to put your bill on my account.”
Joe said quite stiffly, “That won’t be necessary, sir.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find it is, Mauser.” The former marshal allowed himself a grimace. “Besides, I owe you something for that spectacular scene when you came skimming over the treetops, the two enemy gliders right behind you, then stalling your craft and crashing into that tree not thirty feet from my open air headquarters. Admittedly, in forty years of fracases, I’ve never seen anything so confoundedly dramatic.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The old soldier grunted, turned and marched from the room.
XII
Freddy Soligen had been miraculously saved from the physical beating taken by Joe Mauser in the crash. The pilot, sitting so close before him, cushioned with his own body that of the Telly reporter.
For that matter, he had been saved the financial disaster as well, save for that amount he had contributed to the campaign to increase Mauser’s stature in the eyes of the buffs. His Category Communications superiors had not even charged him for the cost of the equipment he had jettisoned from the glider during the flight, nor that which had been destroyed in the crash. If anything, his reputation with his higher-ups was probably better than ever. He’d been in there pitching, as a Telly reporter, right up until the end when the situation had completely pickled.
All that he had lost was his dream. It had been so close to the grasping. He could almost have tasted the sweetness of victory. Joe Mauser, at the ultimate top of the hero-heap. Joe Mauser accepting bounces in both rank and caste. And then, Joe Mauser being properly thankful and helpful to Freddy and Sam Soligen, in their turn. So near the realization of the dream.
He entered his house wearily, finally free of all the ridiculous questioning of the commission and the courts martial of Mauser and Cogswell, and Flaubert, Hideka and their commander, General McCord. All had been found guilty, though in different degrees. Using weapons of warfare which post-dated 1900. Than which there was no greater crime between nations.
He tossed the brief case he had carried to a table, and made his way to the living room, heading for the auto-bar and some straight spirits.
A voice said, “Hi, Papa.”
He looked up, not immediately recognizing the Category Military, Rank Private, before him.
Then he said weakly, “Sam!” His legs
gave way, and he sat down abruptly on the couch which faced the wall which was the Telly screen.
The boy said, awkwardly, “Surprise, Papa!”
His father said, very slowly, “What…in…Zen…are…you…doing…in…that…outfit?”
Sam grinned ruefully, albeit proudly. “Aw, it would’ve taken a century for me to make full priest, Papa. The only way to do is like Major Mauser. You didn’t know this, but, I’ve been following the fracases all along. Especially when you were the reporter. I’ve watched every fracas you’ve covered for years. I guess you know I’m pretty proud of you.”
“Sam! What are you doing in that uniform! Answer me!”
The boy flushed. “I’m old enough, Papa. I switched categories. I’ve signed up with Chrysler-Ford in their fracas with Hovercar Sports. They’re taking me on as infantryman.”
“Infantryman?” Freddy winced, and closed his eyes. “Listen, boy, where’d you get the idea that—” He started over again. “But all your life I’ve given you the inside on the Category Military, Sam. All your life. No trank in our home. No watching the Telly day in and out. You’ve gone to school. More than I ever did. You were going to be a Temple priest—”
Sam sat down too, vaguely surprised at this father’s reaction. “Aw, Papa, everybody’s a fracas buff now. Everybody. You can’t get away from it. I…well, I want to be like Major Mauser. Get so all the fans know me, want my autograph, all that. And all the excitement of being in a fracas, getting in the dill, and all. I just want to be like the other fellas, Papa.”
Freddy could only stare at him.
Sam tried to explain. “Shucks, it was really you that made me want to become a mercenary. You’re the best Telly reporter of them all. When you cover a fracas, Papa, you really do it. You can see everything.” He shook his head in admiration. “Gosh, you really feel the emotion. It’s the most exciting thing in the world.”
“Yeah, son,” Freddy Soligen said emptily. “I suppose it is.”
XIII
Joe was able to get around on auto-crutches by the time she finally arrived—a stereotype visitor. Done up brightly, a box of candy in one hand, flowers in the other. He could see her coming across the lawn, from the visitor’s offices. He wished that he had worn his other suit. His clothing was on the skimpy side when uniforms were subtracted.
She came up to him. “Well, Joe.”
He looked at the flowers and attempted a grin. “Lilies would have been more appropriate, considering the shape I’m in.”
Nadine said, “I’ve just been talking to the staff doctors. You’re not in as bad shape as all that. Some bone mending, is all.”
The grin turned wry. “I wasn’t just thinking of the physical shape.” He settled to the stone bench which stood to one side of the walk he had been exercising upon before her arrival. For a moment, she remained standing.
He looked up at her. “Well,” he said. “I didn’t break your condition,” he said. “Am I still receivable?”
She frowned.
Joe said, bitterly, “You told me that you were going to take the fracas in and if my actions resulted in any casualties, you never wanted to see me again.”
She took the place beside him. “I did watch. For a time, the rest of the battle going on below was ignored and you were full on lens for at least twenty minutes. I was never so frightened in my life.”
Joe said, “The first step toward becoming a buff. First you’re scared. Vicariously. But it’s fun to become scared, when nothing can really happen to you. It becomes increasingly exciting to see others threatened with death—and then actually to die before you. After a while, you’re hooked.”
She looked carefully at the flowers. “That’s not exactly what I meant. I was frightened for you, Joe. Not thrilled.”
He looked at her for a long moment. Finally he breathed deeply and said, “Well, you’ll never have to go through that again. I’m no longer in the Category Military, I suppose you know.”
“It was on the news, Joe.” She laughed without amusement. “In fact, I knew even before. Balt was tried, too.”
“Balt? Your brother?”
She nodded. “You first used your glider in that fracas for father and Vacuum Tube Transport. Now that the commission has ruled against gliders, Balt, now head of the family, has been both fined and expelled from Category Military for life. It hasn’t exactly improved his liking for you.”
Joe hadn’t heard of it, however, he had little sympathy for Balt Haer, nor interest in him. He said, “Why did you take so long to come?”
“I was thinking, Joe.”
“And then you finally came.”
“Yes.”
He looked away and into unseen distances. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Nadine, the first time I ever talked to you to any extent, I mentioned that I wanted to achieve the top in this status world of ours. I mentioned that I hadn’t built this world, and possibly didn’t even approve of it, but since I’m in it and have no other recourse, I must follow its rules.”
She nodded. “I remember. And I said, why not try and change the rules?”
Joe nodded. He moistened his lips carefully. “O.K. Now I’m willing to listen. How do we go about changing the rules?”
XIV
r. Nadine Haer, Category Medicine, Mid-Upper caste, was driving and with considerable enjoyment resultant not only from her destination, long desired, now to be realized, but also from the sheer exuberance of handling the vehicle. Since pre-history, man’s pleasure in the physical control of a speedy vehicle has been superlative, particularly when that vehicle is known by the driver to be unique in its class. The Hittite charioteer, bowling across the landscape of Anatolia, a Sterling Moss carefully tooling his automobile around the multi-curves of the Upper Cornice on the Riviera, or a Nadine Haer delicately trimming the controls of a sports model Hovercar.
She shot a quick glance at Joe Mauser, formerly of Category Military, formerly Rank Major, now an unemployed Mid-Middle who slouched in the bucketseat next to her. He noticed neither speed nor direction.
Nadine called, above the wind, “Zen, Joe! Where did you ever acquire such a car? It must have been built entirely by hand, and by Swiss watchmakers.”
Joe stirred and shrugged. Newly from the hospital, he was still deep in the gloom of his recent loss of the dream, the defeat of his life-long ambitions. He said, “A buff gave it to me.”
She slowed down, the better to frown at him in amazement. “Gave it to you? Why the thing is priceless.”
Joe sighed and told her the salient details. “Quite a few mercenaries manage to acquire a private fracas-buff.” He defined the term for her. “He makes a hobby of your career. Winds up knowing more about it than you, yourself can possibly remember. He follows every fracas you get into. Knows every time you cop one, how serious it was, how long you were in hospital. He glories each time you get a promotion, is in gloom each time your side loses a fracas. He’s got pictures of you in various poses taken from the fracas-buff magazines, and files away all articles in which your name appears.”
“Zen!” Nadine laughed in deprecation.
“That’s just the beginning. After a while he starts writing you fan letters, wanting autographed portraits, wanting a souvenir—sometimes nothing more exciting than a button off your uniform. More often they want a gun, sword or combat knife, particularly one they saw you using in some fracas or other. They usually offer to pay for such, sometimes quite fabulous amounts. Other times they want a bit of bloody uniform, your own true blood from a time when you were in the dill and managed to cop one.”
Nadine was astonished. Antagonistic as she was, herself, to the fracases, she wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about all their ramifications. She said, repelled, “But doesn’t such morbidity disgust you? This fawning, this slobbering—”
Joe grunted. “All part of the game. A mercenary without buffs to boost him, to form fracas-buff clubs and such, hasn’t much chance of promotion. So far as disgust
is concerned, you’d have to see one of the really far-out ones. The gleam in an ordinarily fishlike eye when he recounts the time you killed three men in hand-to-hand combat, equipped only with an entrenching tool, when they came at you with bayonets. The trace of spittle, running down from the side of his mouth.”
“And this buff of yours. Why did he give you this perfectly marvelous car?”
“It was a she, not a he,” Joe said.
Nadine’s voice changed infinitesimally. “You mean you accepted a gift of this value from a…woman?”
Joe looked at her and grinned sourly. “I wasn’t in much of a position to refuse. The gift was in her will. She was well into her nineties when she died. She was an Upper-Upper, by the way, and the most knowledgeable fracas buff I ever met. She knew the intimate details of every fracas since Tiglath-Pileser and his Assyrians captured Babylon. She could argue for an hour on whether Parmenion or Alexander the Great should have been given the credit for the victory over the Persians at Issus.” Joe grunted. “I suppose there should be a moral somewhere about this kindly old lady who was the outstanding fracas buff of them all.”
* * * *
Nadine Haer was in the process of hitting the drop lever with her left hand as they slowed and headed for the entrance to a parking area. She said brittlely, “The moral is that you can have slobs at any level in society. Being an Upper doesn’t guarantee anything.”
Joe sighed, “Here we go again.” He looked about him, scowling. “Which brings to mind. Where are we going? These are governmental buildings, aren’t they?”
They were sinking quickly, below street level, now in the power of the auto-parker. Nadine turned off the engine and released the controls. She said, cryptogrammicly, “We are going to see about doing something with your abilities other than shooting at people, or being shot at.”
When the car was parked, she led the way to an elevator.
Joe said wryly, “Oh, great. I love mysteries. When do we find out who killed the victim?”
Nadine looked at him from the side of her eyes. “I killed the victim,” she said. “Major Mauser, mercenary by trade, is now no more.”
The Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 92
