Then the boy said something that gave him greater depth than Joe had expected. “Yeah,” he said, “but maybe the torero was forced into becoming a bullfighter on account of how bad he needed the money.” In the heat of the discussion, he was emboldened to add, “And these new Rank Privates that go into a fracas, not knowing what it’s all about, just filled with all the stuff we see on Telly and all. How much of a chance does one of them have if he runs into an old-timer like Joe Mauser, out there in no-man’s-land?”
Touché, Joe thought.
* * * *
There was the action that sometimes came back to him in his dreams. He had been a sergeant then, but already the veteran of five years or more standing, and a double score of fracases. The force of which he was a member had been in full retreat, and Joe’s squad was part of the rear-guard. The terrain had been mountainous, the High Sierra Military Reservation. Four of his men had copped one, two so badly that they had to be left behind, incapable of being moved. Joe, under the pressure of long hours of retreat under fire, had finally sent the others on back, and found himself a crevice, near the top of a sierra, which was all but impregnable.
* * * *
His rifle had been a .45-70 Springfield, with its ultra-heavy slug, but slow muzzle velocity. And Joe had a telescope mounted upon it, an innovation that barely made the requirement of predating the year 1900 and thus subscribing to the Universal Disarmament Pact between the Sov-world and the West-world. It had taken the enemy forces a long time to even locate him, a long time and half a dozen casualties that Joe had coolly inflicted. The way to get to him, the only way, involved exposure. Joe could see the enemy officers, through his scope, at a distance just out of his range. They knew the situation, being old pros. He found considerable satisfaction in the rage he knew they were feeling. He was dominating a considerable section of the front, due to the terrain, and there was but one way to root him out, direct frontal attack.
They had sent in Rank Privates; Low-Lowers, most of them in their first fracas. Low-Lowers, the dregs of society, seldom employed and then at the rapidly disappearing, all but extinct, unskilled labor jobs. Low-Lowers, most of them probably in this fracas in hopes of the unlikelihood of so distinguishing themselves that they would be jumped a caste, or at least acquire an extra share or two of common stock to better the basic living guaranteed by the State. Rank Privates, most in their first fracas, unknowledgeable about taking cover and not even in the physical condition this sort of combat demanded.
They came in time and again, surprisingly courageous, Joe had to admit, and time and again he decimated them. One by one, coolly, seldom wasting a shot. Not that he had to watch his ammunition, he had the squad’s full supply. He estimated that before it was through he had inflicted approximately thirty casualties. Hits in the head, in the torso, the arms, legs. He had inflicted enough casualties to fill a field hospital. And it had all ended, finally, when a senior officer below had arrived on the scene, took in the irritating situation, and sent a dozen noncoms and junior officers, experienced men, to dig Joe out. Joe had remained only long enough for a few final shots, none of them effective, at long range, and had then hauled out and followed after his squad. He might possibly have got two or three more of his opponents, but only at his own risk. Besides, already the irritation and hate that he had built up while on the run, and while his squad mates were copping wounds, had left him and there was nausea in his belly at the slaughter he had perpetrated.
Or that time on the Louisiana Reservation in the fracas between Allied Petroleum and United Oil. Joe had been a lieutenant then and—
But he rejected this trend of thought and brought his attention back to Sam Soligen.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he admitted. “Some Low-Lower jerk, impressed by what he considers high pay and adventure, doesn’t stand much of a chance against an old pro.”
The gawky tee-ager broke into a toothy smile. “Gee, I wasn’t arguing with you, major. I don’t know anything about it. How about telling me about one of your fracases, eh? You know, some time you really got in the dill.”
Joe snorted. He seldom met someone not of Category Military who didn’t want a special detailed description of some gory action in which Joe had participated. And like all veterans of combat, there was nothing he liked less to do. Combat was something which, when done, you wished to leave behind you. Were brain washing really practicable, it was this you would wish to wash away.
But Joe, like others before him, down through the ages, had found a way out. He had a store of a dozen or so humorous episodes with which he could regale listeners. That time his horse’s cinch had loosened when he was on a scouting mission and he had galloped around and around amidst a large company of enemy skirmishers, most of them running after him and trying to drag him from the horse’s back, while he hung on for dear life.
But it occurred to him that the boy might better appreciate a tale which involved his father, the Telly reporter, and some act of daring the small man had performed the better to serve his fracas-buff audience.
He was well launched into the tale, boosting Freddy Soligen’s part beyond reality, but not impossibly so, when that worthy entered the room, breaking it off.
While Freddy was shaking hands with his visitor, Sam said, “Hey, Papa, you never told me about that time you were surrounded by all the field artillery, and only you and Major Mauser and three other men got out.”
Freddy grinned fondly at the boy and then looked his reproach at Joe. “What’re you trying to do, make the life of a Telly reporter sound romantic to the kid? Stick to the priesthood, son, there’s more chicken dinners involved.” He saw Joe was impatient to talk to him. “How about leaving us alone for a while, Sam? We’ve got some business.”
“Sure, Papa. I’ve got to memorize some Greek chants, anyway. How come they don’t have all these rituals and all in some language everybody can understand?”
“Then everybody might understand them,” Freddy said sourly. “Then what’d happen?”
His son said, “Major, maybe you can finish that story some other time, huh?”
Joe said, “Sure, sure, sure. It winds up with your father the hero and they bump him up to Upper-Upper and make him head of Category Communications.”
“On the trank again,” Freddy grumbled, but Joe sensed he wasn’t particularly amused.
* * * *
When the boy was gone, Joe Mauser told the Telly reporter of his interview with Stonewall Cogswell.
Freddy shook his head. “He wants you to fly that sailplane thing of yours again, huh? No. That won’t do it. We need some gimmick, Joe. Something—”
Joe said impatiently, “You keep saying that. But, look, I’m a mercenary. A fighting man can’t drop out of participation in the fracases if he expects the buffs to continue interest in him.”
The little man tried to explain. “I’m not saying you’re going to drop out of the fracases. But we need something where we can make you shine. Somewhere where you can be on every lens for a mile around.”
Joe’s face was still impatient.
Freddy said sourly, “Listen, you tried to handle all this by yourself, last time. You dreamed up that fancy glider gimmick and sold it to old Baron Haer. But did you do yourself any good with the buffs? Like Zen you did. All you did was louse up a perfectly promising fracas so far as they were concerned. Hardly a drop of blood was shed. Stonewall Cogswell just resigned when he saw what he was up against. Oh, sure, you won the battle for Vacuum Tube Transport, practically all by yourself, but that’s not what the buff wants. He wants blood, he wants action, spectacular action. And you can’t give it to him way up there in the air. Hey—!”
Joe looked at him, scowling questioningly.
Freddy said, slowly, “Why not?”
Joe Mauser growled, “What’d you mean, why not?”
Freddy said slowly, “Why can’t you have some blood and guts combat, right up there in that glider?”
“Have you gone d
rivel-happy?”
But the little man was on his feet, pacing the floor quickly, irritably, but still happily. “A dogfight. A natural. Listen, you ever heard about dogfights, major?”
“You mean pitdogs, like in Wales, in the old days?”
“No, no. In the First War. All those early fighters. Baron Von Richthofen, the German, Albert Ball, the Englishman, René Fonck, the Frenchman. And all the rest. Werner Voss and Ernst Udet, and Rickenbacker and Luke Short.”
Joe nodded at last. “I remember now. They’d have a Vickers or Spandau mounted so as to fire between the propeller blades. As I recall, that German, Richthofen, had some eighty victories to his credit.”
“O.K. They called them dogfights. One aircraft against another. You’re going to reintroduce the whole thing.”
Joe was staring at him. Once again the Telly reporter sounded completely around the bend.
Freddy was impatiently patient. “We’ll mount a gun on your sailplane and you’ll attack those two gliders Cogswell says General McCord has.”
Joe said, “The Sov-world observers would never stand still for it. In fact, there’s a good chance that using gliders at all will be forbidden when the International Disarmament Commission convenes next month. If the Sov-world delegates vote against use of gliders as reconnaissance craft, the Neut-world will vote with them. Those Neut-world delegates vote against everything.” Joe grunted. “It’s true enough gliders were flown before the year 1900, but not the kind of advanced sailplanes you have to utilize for them to be practical. Certainly there were no gliders in use capable of carrying a machine gun.”
Freddy demanded, “Look, what was the smallest machine gun in use in 1900?”
Joe considered. “Probably the little French Chaut-Chaut gun. It was portable by one man, the rounds were carried in a flat, circular pan. I think it goes back that far. They used them in the First War.”
“Right! O.K., you had gliders. You had eight portable machine guns. All we’re doing is combining them. It’ll be spectacular. You’ll be the most famous mercenary in Category Military and it’ll be impossible for the Department not to bounce you to colonel and Low-Upper. Especially with me and every Telly reporter and fracas-buff magazine we’ve bribed yelling for it.”
Joe’s mouth manifested its tic, but he was shaking his head. “It wouldn’t go, anyway. Suppose I caught one, or both, of those other gliders, busy at their reconnaissance and shot their tails off. So what? The fans still wouldn’t have their blood and gore. We’d be so high they couldn’t see the action. All they would be able to see would be the other glider falling.”
Freddy stopped dramatically and pointed a finger at him in triumph. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ll be in the back seat of your sailplane with a portable camera. Get it! And every reporter on the ground will have the word, and his most powerful telescopic lens at the ready. Man, it’ll be the most televized bit of fracas of this half of the century!”
VIII
When Major Joe Mauser entered the swank Agora Bar, the little afternoon dance band broke into a few bars of that tune which was beginning to pall on him.
“…I knew her heart was breaking,
And to my heart in anguish pressed,
The girl I left behind me.”
Nadine looked up from the little table she occupied and caught the wry expression on his face and laughed.
“What price glory?” she said.
He took the chair across from her and chuckled ruefully. “All right,” he said, “I surrender. However, if you think a theme song is bad, you’ll be relieved at some of the other ideas my, ah, publicity agent had which I turned down.”
She said, “Oh, did he want you to dash into some burning building and save some old lady’s canary, or something?”
“Not exactly. However, he had a nightclub singer with a list of nine or ten victories behind her—”
“Victories?”
“Husbands. And I was to be seen escorting the singer around the nightclub circuit.”
“A fate worse than death? But, truly, why did you turn him down?”
“I wanted to spend the time with you.”
She made a moue. “So as to carry on our never-ending argument over the value of status?”
“No.”
Her eyes dropped and there was a slight frown on her forehead. Joe interpreted it to mean that she took exception to one of Mid-Middle caste speaking to her in this wise. He said, flatly, “At least the tune is somewhat applicable tonight.”
She looked up quickly, having immediately caught the meaning of his words. “Oh, Joe, you haven’t taken another commission?”
“Why not? I’m a mercenary by trade, Nadine.” He was vaguely irritated by her tone.
“But you admittedly made a small fortune on the last fracas. You were one of the very few investors in the whole country who expected Vacuum Tube Transport to boom, rather than go bankrupt. You simply don’t need to risk your life further, Joe!”
He didn’t bother to tell her that already the greater part of his small fortune had been siphoned off in Freddy Soligen’s campaign to make him a celebrity. He said, instead, “The stock shares I’ll make aren’t particularly important, Nadine. But Stonewall Cogswell has pledged that if I’ll fly for him in the Carbonaceous Fuel-United Miners fracas, he’ll press my ambitions for promotion.”
She said, her voice low, “Promotion in rank, or caste, Joe?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“But, Joe, to risk your life, your life, Joe, for such a silly thing—”
He said softly, “Such a silly thing as attaining to a position which will enable me to court openly the girl I love?”
She flushed, looked into his face quickly. Her flush deepened and her eyes went to her folded hands, on the table.
He said nothing.
Nadine said finally, her voice so low as almost not to be heard, “Perhaps I would be willing to marry a man of Middle caste.”
He was taken with surprise, but even in thrilling to the meaning of her words, his head was shaking in negation. “Nadine Haer, Category Medicine, Rank Doctor, Mid-Upper, married to Major Joseph Mauser, Category Military, Mid-Middle. Don’t be ridiculous, Nadine. It would be as though back in the Twentieth Century you would have married a Negro or Oriental.”
She was stirred with anger. “There is no law preventing marriage between castes!”
“Nor was there law, in most States, against marrying between races. But there were few who dared, and, of those, few who were allowed to be happy. It’s no go, Nadine. Remember in the Exclusive Room the other night when the waiter questioned my presence in an Upper establishment and you had to tell him I was your guest? I don’t desire to be your guest the rest of my life, Nadine.”
The anger welled higher in her. “And do you think that in the remote case you do jump your caste to Upper, that I would marry you and then realize the rest of my life that our marriage was only possible due to your participation in mass slaughter for the sake of the slobbering multitudes of Telly fans?”
Joe said, “I wasn’t going to bring the matter up until I had made Low-Upper caste.”
“Well, sir, the matter is up. And I reject you in advance. Oh, Joe, if you have to persist in this status-hungry ambition of yours, drop the Category Military and get into something else. You have enough of a fortune to branch into various fields where your abilities would lead to advancement.”
Again he didn’t tell her that his fortune was all but dissipated. Instead, he said bitterly, “Those who have, get. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Things are rigged, these days, so that it’s impossible to work your way to the top except in Military and Religion. The Uppers take care of their own, and at the same time make every effort to keep us of the lower orders from joining their sacred circle. I might make it in the Military, Nadine, but my chances in another field are so remote as to be laughable.”
She stood and looked down at him emptily. “No,” she said,
“don’t get up. I’m leaving, Major Mauser.” He began to rise, to protest, but she said, her voice curt, “I have seen only one fracas on Telly in my entire life, and was so repelled that I vowed never to watch again. However, I am going to make an exception. I am going to follow this one, and if, as a result of your actions, even a single person meets death, I wish never to see you again. Do I make myself completely clear, Major Mauser?”
IX
Marshal Stonewall Cogswell looked impudently around at this staff officers gathered about the chart table. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I assume you are all familiar with the battle of Chancellorsville?”
No one bothered to answer and he chuckled. “I know what you are thinking, that had any of you refrained from a thorough study of the campaigns of Lee and Jackson, he would not be a member of my staff.”
The craggy marshal traced with his finger on the great military chart before them. “Then you will have noticed the similarity of today’s dispensation of forces to that of Joseph Hooker’s Army of the Potomac and Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, on May 2, 1863.” He pointed with his baton. “Our stream, here, would be the Rappahannock, this woods, the Wilderness. Here would be Fredericksburg and here Chancellorsville.”
One of his colonels nodded. “My regiment occupies a position similar to that of Jubal Early.”
“Absolutely correct,” the marshal said crisply. “Gentlemen, I repeat, our troop dispensations, those of Lieutenant General McCord and myself, are practically identical. Now then, if McCord continues to move his forces here, across our modern day Rappahannock, he makes the initial mistake that finally led to the opening which allowed Jackson’s brilliant fifteen-mile flanking march. Any questions, thus far?”
There were some murmurs, no questions. The accumulated years of military service of this group of veterans would have totaled into the hundreds.
“Very interesting, eh?” the marshal pursued. “Jed, your artillery is massed here. It’s a shame that General Jack Altshuler has taken a commission with Carbonaceous Fuel. We could use his cavalry. He would be our J.E.B. Stuart, eh?”
The Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 90