The Fracas Factor

by Mack Reynolds

  Through all this, they had been nibbling at their lunch. Neither had much appetite, although the food of the Swank Room was delicious. Spontaneously, both of them put down their utensils.

  “When was Holland due at your place?” Joe said.

  “This afternoon. Perhaps we should go.”

  Joe brought forth his universal credit card and put it in the table’s payment slot.

  He grinned at her. “That sounds good to me. Obviously, I’m anxious to get you alone.”

  She made a face at him. “Darling, you’re so ardent,” she said.

  They took a hovercab out to the Haer mansion on the outskirts of the city. On the way, Joe Mauser opaqued the windows and took her, unresistingly, into his arms.

  “Can’t you wait until we get home?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, kissing her.

  He was aware of the fullness of her breasts against his chest, doubly aware of the firmness of her thigh against him. He cupped one of her breasts in his hand and felt the nipple respond. Nadine Haer was all woman. They had kissed before, certainly, and often, but this was the first time he had intimately fondled her. She obviously didn’t mind. He suspected that she was as keen to sleep with him as he was with her.

  They pulled up before the palatial residence of the Haers. Before they could get to the door, it opened and the butler politely greeted them.

  “Good afternoon, Donald,” Nadine said. “I am expecting Mr. Holland. Show him in immediately.”

  “Yes, Doctor Haer.”

  Save for the usual batman during a fracas, Joe Mauser had never had a servant. It fact, he had never known of a servant in these days of automation, except in the homes of the Uppers. He didn’t know, but he suspected that there were at least a dozen of them in the Haer home.

  They strode toward the living room, Joe looking about him appreciatively. Admittedly, the place was furnished and decorated in the best of taste. The paintings were originals and some were obviously worth a fortune. He suspected that Nadine had done much of the decorating.

  He said to her, “What’s going to happen to the Uppers when this socioeconomic change of ours takes place?”

  “We’ll put them to work, like everybody else,” she said crisply.

  “And what’ll happen to houses like this?”

  “Why…I don’t know. We’ll change them to rest houses, nursing homes, something like that, I suppose.”

  They entered the spacious living room, Nadine saying over her shoulder, “Drink? Perhaps a cognac?”

  “Fine,” Joe said.

  Balt Haer got up from the sofa on which he had been seated, at first unseen by them.

  There was a strong family resemblance between him and Nadine. But there was something else about him. He had the aloof look of the aristocrat.

  “Well,” he said, “the ambitious ex-Major Joseph Mauser. The only man I have ever heard of to scheme his way up from the ranks of the Lowers to become an Upper. The Department of Categories must be out of their minds. If every Tom, Dick and… Joe can become a member of the Upper caste, why have castes at all?”

  “Oh, come off it, Balt,” Nadine said, heading for the bar. “Joe is my guest. He didn’t come here to be insulted.”

  Joe said evenly, “Good afternoon, Baron Haer.”

  Balt ignored him and said to Nadine, “What did he come here for? I’ve wondered about the truth behind’ his expedition to Budapest, which resulted in his being bounced two full castes.”

  “I’m afraid that’s a state secret, Baron,” Joe said. He had no intention of allowing the other to irritate him.

  “There’s something unusual about the whole thing,” the other said, his nostrils flaring. “With no background in diplomacy whatsoever, you are named a member of our embassy in Budapest, you go over there, and you kill a Hungarian officer in a duel, then come scurrying back after being declared! persona non grata.”

  “I was a military attaché,” Joe said mildly.

  The fact of the matter was, both Joe and Nadine knew, that he had been sent to the Sov-world by Hodgson and Holland to contact the Sov underground. They wanted to be sure of what might happen if the United States of the Americas was temporarily in a state of confusion during a change in socioeconomic systems To their relief, Joe had discovered that there was an equivalent organization in the Sov-world which wished to overthrow the Communist Party, which had become as hereditary and worthless as the Uppers in the West-world.

  Nadine came back with two cognacs and handed one of them to Joe. She said politely, “Drink, Balt?”

  “Certainly not” he snapped. “I don’t drink with my inferiors. I came here to discuss some legal matters with you, Nadine.”

  She said coldly, “Who are your inferiors, Balt? Take up the legal problems with my lawyers. I know what you are trying to do and will fight you all the way down the line. You threw away your own inheritance, and now you want to get your hands on mine.”

  He was infuriated and glared from her to Joe. Joe calmly sipped at the brandy.

  Balt Haer said, “I refuse to discuss this in front of a stranger.” He headed for the door.

  When he was gone, Joe said, “I thought your brother lived here.”

  “No longer,” Nadine said. “He’s moved to one of his clubs. I got the feeling that he didn’t want me around to overhear some of his Nathan Hale Society meetings. He knows very well that I’m connected with what he calls a subversive organization.”

  She sat down with her drink, and he took a chair across from her. He looked down into his snifter glass.

  “You know,” he said thoughtfully, slowly. “I’m beginning to wonder about that attack on me in Mexico.

  “How do you mean, darling?”

  “What rank does your brother hold in it?”

  “Why, he’s the head man in Greater Washington, the National Headquarters, and a member of the National Committee.”

  “And he knows that you belong to a radical organization? Even if he didn’t hate my guts, he’d probably suspect that I, too, belong. That outfit maintains a squad of goons, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said in undisguised disgust. “They’re terrible. If someone makes a public statement even mildly opposed to some aspect of People’s Capitalism, they’ll go around and beat him up. It’s suspect that they have actually assassinated some of the more vocal opponents of the Ultra-Welfare State.”

  “So one of Balt’s goons might have planted a directional bug in my car, and several of them might have followed me down to Mexico and waited for me to get off the beaten trail, where they could finish me off.”

  She pressed her elbows tightly against her sides in a gesture of feminine rejection. She said in protest, “But he’s my brother, darling.”

  “And one of the most reactionary funkers I’ve ever met.”

  “But surely he must realize that I love you,” she said. “Surely it shows.”

  “And he’d rather you be married to a pig, I’m an Upper now, but he doesn’t really consider anyone an Upper unless he was born into the caste. For him, I’m still a Lower and a born slob.”

  A voice from the door said, “Am I interrupting anything?”

  It was Philip Holland, Category Government, Rank Secretary, Middle-Middle. But he was much more than that. He was the secretary of Harlow Mannerheim, Minister of Foreign Affairs, alcoholic extraordinary. Philip Holland was the brains behind the throne. He did the actual work. Mannerheim, an Upper-Upper, often didn’t even bother to come to his offices for weeks on end. When he did, he didn’t have the vaguest idea of what was going on.

  Philip Holland was about forty, physically on the slight side. He had a way of cocking his head and chuckling when he made a point, and seemed just slightly stuffy. Joe had long suspected that he had a thing going for Nadine and wasn’t happy about Joe Mauser moving in. However, with Frank Hodgson, he was top man in the organization and was dedicated enough to know that Joe Mauser was a valuable ally Nadine said, “Phil! How ar
e you?”

  “Wizard, my dear. And you look well.” He looked over at Joe. “You’re back awfully soon. We expected your expedition to take a week or so.”

  Nadine stood and went over to the bar. “Martini?” she said, obviously knowing the other’s preference.

  Joe felt a twinge. Nadine had said that she wasn’t a virgin. Had Phil Holland been one of her lovers? And then he felt like a cloddy. Jealousy at his age? The most sterile of all emotions.

  “It’s a little early, but yes,” the bureaucrat said to Nadine. And then to Joe, “How did it come off?”

  Joe finished his brandy and put down the snifter glass and told him in detail.

  “Two hundred new members!” Holland marvelled. “And largely Middles. We need more Middles. Things are beginning to move, perhaps. However, I don’t like that attack upon you.”

  “Neither did I,” Joe said dryly. “In spite of my former profession, I loath being shot at.”

  Nadine had brought Holland’s drink to him and sat down.

  Phil Holland sipped at his Martini, then said to Joe, “Do you have any idea of who might have taken that crack at you?”

  “I suspect Balt’s Nathan Hale Society. He’s fanatical about subversives and he accuses Nadine of being one. And, of course, I see a great deal of Nadine. He probably adds two and two together adequately, though otherwise he doesn’t seem to be very astute.”

  “Oh, wizard!” Holland looked over at Nadine. “What do you think he thinks about our relationship?” he asked cynically.

  “He thinks you’re courting me. He’s made snide remarks to that effect from time to time.”

  “But I’m a Middle.”

  “Yes, but he realizes perfectly well that if you went to the trouble of pulling a few strings, you could bounce yourself up as high as you wanted to go, even to Upper-Upper. I suspect he’s mystified that you haven’t.”

  “Couldn’t be bothered,” Holland chuckled.

  Joe leaned forward. “Just one thing about that Mexican romp. I’ve reported my car stolen. They’ve found it bombed and with five dead men in the vicinity. It won’t be long before somebody comes around to question me.”

  The other nodded. “Frank Hodgson, in his position in the Bureau of Investigation, can handle it. It’s not a local matter and comes under his jurisdiction.”

  Joe said, “Wizard. One other thing. Jesus Zavala pointed out something that was interesting. His own outfit had come to the same conclusions as we have. He claims that the closer we come to our socioeconomic change the more groups will spontaneously evolve in the same direction. Some smalls, some large. They’ll mushroom up all over the place.”

  Phil Holland thought about it. “He’s probably right. And it’s an idea. We’re going to have to start looking for such groups. We’ve got to increase our speed of recruitment.”

  Nadine said, “The Sons of Liberty.”

  The two men looked at her.

  She said, “I’ve heard of them several times. An organization that wants to make basic changes.”

  He looked over at the younger man and wound it up. “So that’s how we got into the current rut, Max. We’ve become a nation of cloddies.”

  Max, looking very unhappy, got up and went over to the autobar for another beer. “What another one?” he said.

  “No. I’ve got to keep a clear head.”

  Max came back, still disgruntled. He said, “Well, maybe most of us are in a rut, but what can you do? With, like you said, all this here automation, there just aren’t no jobs.”

  Joe explained to him that work connected with production and distribution of necessities wasn’t the only kinq. There was education and the sciences, such things as the space program, ecology and the environment, and the arts. How much of it Max assimilated, Joe didn’t know.

  The identity screen on the door buzzed. He looked over and it was Nadine, as expected. Joe got up and hurried over.

  Nadine smiled brightly as she entered, “Hello, Max,” she said. “Hello darling.”

  Max shot to his feet. “Hi, Doctor Haer,” he said. “Gosh, you look all shiny.”

  “Thanks, Max,” she said. She looked at Joe in amusement from the side of her eyes. “I feel all shiny.”

  “So do I,” Joe said, “but I didn’t know it showed. How about a drink, darling?”

  “I’ll have a Cooler,” she said.

  Max excused himself and went on into his own room, probably thinking that they wanted to be alone. He knew that they were engaged, but thus far Joe hadn’t told him the wedding had been put off indefinitely. Max would have welcomed the news. He didn’t like the idea of giving up his shared apartment with his friend.

  Joe brought her the drink and one for himself and sat on the couch next to her.

  He shook his head in despair and said, “I’ve just been talking to Max about the organization. Frank Hodgson is of the opinion that we’re going to have to start recruiting Lowers. They number some ninety percent of the population. It’s hard for them to identify with even a Middle, not to speak of an Upper. Max was born a Low-Lower and he’s now a Middle-Lower, so he’s right on their level.”

  “Frank is undoubtedly right,” Nadine said. “How did Max respond?”

  “I’m not really sure, but I got the feeling that he was shocked to find that I was speaking against the government.”

  “Zen!” she said. “Do you mean to tell me that after all this time, after our trip to Budapest, after your expedition down into Mexico, Max didn’t even know about our organization and what it stands for?”

  “Evidently not. He finds the words and the concepts a little hard. After about the third sentence that he can’t understand, he turns off listening.”

  She stared at him, frustration in her face.

  “Max is above average as Low-Lowers go. But he probably had no more school than the minimum to teach him how to read and write a little, and how to add and subtract. I don’t know. Possibly he can even divide—at least short division. As a kid he undoubtedly cut school as often as possible to watch the fracases on telly. And from what he’s said about his home life, his parents couldn’t have cared less. I doubt if he’s ever read a book in his life.”

  She took a sip of her Cooler. “And it’s your belief that he’s more than average?” she asked.

  Joe shook his head. “I’m in a better position than you are to know the workings of the Lower mind. I was born a Lower myself. I’m one of the few I’ve ever heard about that had any push, any ambition. On top of that, as a member of the Category Military, I had Lowers under me, after I’d achieved noncom and then officer rank. In short, I’ve associated with Lowers all of my adult life. I know them.”

  “Ninety percent of our population,” she said in continued despair.

  “Yes.”

  Nadine took a deep breath and finished her drink. “How did your morning’s work turn out otherwise?”

  “I think I’ve made a good contact. I don’t know if you’ve met Freddy Soligen. I guess not. He was the telly reporter who tried to build up my image in the eyes of the fracas buffs. At any rate, he’s had the dream of bettering his condition under People’s Capitalism as long as I have. And he’s a fighter. Ambitious. He’s also one of the most experienced reporters in the Category Communications. He wants to get out of reporting the fracases. I suggested to him that possibly we could swing him into a job as a Rank Commentator, if he joined our team.”

  Nadine considered it, and said finally, “I don’t see why not. Both Frank Hodgson and Phil Holland have close personal friends, school chums and that sort of thing, in Communications.”

  “Organization members?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Just friends, but the kind of friends you can twist an arm on, when it comes to a favor.”

  Joe grimaced and said, “You know, it occurs to me that in all of these months the only members of the organization I’ve ever met were you, Frank Hodgson, Phil Holland and General George Armstrong in Budapest, and you’r
e all in the upper echelons of the organization. I haven’t met a single other member, except those new two hundred headed by Zavala down in Mexico.”

  She shook her head, laughed, and said, “Haven’t you figured that out, Joe? We don’t want anybody else to know about you. You’ve become our ace trouble-shooter. If you’re not known, you can’t be betrayed. And any subversive organization is rotten ripe for betrayal. If any Category Security or Nathan Hale Society members have infiltrated our ranks at a lower level, our plans will be ruined.”

  “I suppose so,” he said and switching subjects. “How’d you make out today?”

  “As I told you, we have an appointment with Doctor Lawrence Mitfield, the head of the Sons of Liberty. Happily, he’s right here in the area. Over in the Richmond section of Greater Washington.”

  “I’ve just vaguely heard of this Sons of Liberty group. What do they stand for?”

  “I don’t really know. I understand that they’ve put out various pamphlets and that they have an underground newspaper. They’re on the Category Security list as a subversive organization. But that doesn’t mean much. You can be listed as a subversive if you prefer vanilla ice cream instead of the chocolate that Wallace Pepper, the head of the North American Bureau of Investigation, likes.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said in resignation. “When do we go see this Doctor Mitfield?”

  “Now.”

  Phil Holland nodded and said, “It seems to me I’ve heard of them myself. Have you any idea at all of how to make contact?”

  She said, “As I recall, A Doctor Lawrence Mitfield is the Greater Washington head. They have various branches throughout the country.”

  Holland stood, having finished his drink. “All right. You two look him up and sound him out. Meanwhile, my dear, I think that I should refrain from seeing too much of you, much though I hate to say it. Your brother may get ideas as a result of our association, much as he has seemingly done with Joe, here.” He looked at Joe. “As I said, we’ve got to speed up our recruiting, especially among those who have connections with publicity, news reporting, that sort of thing. When our day of action comes, we’ve got to be able to contact people wholesale. If you have any ideas, utilize them.”