“Joe, listen. A year ago you were an individual, trying to fight your way up to Upper caste. You weren’t able to make it as an individual, Joe. But now you’re a member of an organization, pledged to a high ideal. Joe, the organization doesn’t need martyrs at this stage. It does need good, competent, highly trained members such as Joe Mauser.”
He said nothing.
Nadine stepped suddenly closer to him. Her perfume, he noted, vaguely, was new, some sweet scent found here in the Sov world, undoubtedly. It had a heady quality, or was that merely the close presence of Nadine herself?
She put her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to her level. He had never realized that Nadine Haer was this much shorter then he. She pressed the softness of her lips to his.
Then she held back a foot or two, and said into his face, desperately serious, “Does this make any difference, Joe?”
He licked the edges of his lips, carefully, “It makes a great deal of difference.” His voice was thick. His arms came up behind her.
“Then you’ll be on the plane?”
He shook his head.
She wrenched herself suddenly free and stood back from him, infuriated. He had never seen anyone so infuriated.
He said, “Look, darling. If I had backed out of this, the way you want, you think you’d be happy. But you wouldn’t. You want a man, not a coward.”
“I want a live man! Not a dead hero.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “You mentioned the organization. All right, they sent us to do a job here. They can’t move in the West-world until they know where the Sov-world stands. They can’t afford an attack, a sudden heating up of the Frigid Fracas, right in the middle of the confusion of a socio-economic change. They’ve got to know how the Sov-world stands, what it will do. They’ve got to know about this so-called underground, and the religious revival stuff out there in Siberia.”
“You’ve been discovered,” she said hotly. “They can send somebody else.”
He was still stubborn. “No. There’s a leak. If they send somebody else, the same thing will happen. And the next man might not be as much of a potential opponent to such as Sándor Rákóczi as even I am. If I run now, the West loses prestige, and the movement sponsored by Holland and Hodgson and the rest of us, loses prestige, too. Somewhere in Budapest, is some kind of a group that is watching us. We don’t know who, or where, or what they stand for, but we can’t afford to lose prestige with them.”
“We’re not exactly going to gain it, when and if this official assassin kills you.” She looked down at the wicked knife, and shuddered. “Oh, Joe, your mercenary career is over. Miraculously, you stayed alive for fifteen years through it all. From the Rank Private all the way up to Rank Major. Now at long last, you’re an Upper. You’re not going to throw it all away, now.”
He could say nothing.
She stamped a foot in uncharacteristic fury. “You silly clod. Suppose you do win? Don’t you see? They’ll simply send another killer after you. They’re out to get you, Joe Mauser. Don’t you see you can’t win against the whole Sov-world? Next time, possibly they won’t be quite so formal. Possibly a few footpads in the streets. Do you think they haven’t the resources to kill a single man?”
The side of his mouth twitched. “I’m sure they have. But it will give me a few days before they come up with something else. It’d be too conspicuous if I fought their top duelist one day, and then was cut down on the streets the next.”
She spun, in a fury, and all but ran from the room and from his apartment.
Joe looked after her ruefully. He growled in sour humor, “Every time matters pickle for me, my gal goes into a tissy and runs off.”
XX
As Max had said, as one of their alternatives to the fracas of the West-world, the Sovs put on Telly such duels as were fought amongst their supposedly honor-conscious officer caste. Evidently, the lower caste of the Proletarian Paradise was well on the way to its own version of bread and circuses. In fact, Joe had already wondered what their version of trank was.
But though the Telly cameramen were highly evident, and for this inordinary affair had six cameras in all, placed strategically so that every phase of the fight could be recorded, they were not allowed to be so close as by any chance to interfere with the duel itself. Spaced well back from the action, they must needs depend upon zoom lenses.
Joe Mauser and Sándor Rákóczi stood stripped to the waist, both in tight, non-restricting trousers, both wearing tennis shoes. General Armstrong and Lieutenant Andersen, on one side, and Lieutenant colonel Kossuth and Captain Petöfi, on the other, stood at the sides of their principals.
Kossuth was saying formally, “It has been agreed, then, that the gentlemen participants shall be restricted to this ring measuring twenty feet across. Seconds will remain withdrawn to twenty feet beyond it. The conflict shall begin upon General Armstrong calling commence, and shall end upon one or the other, or both, of the gentlemen participants falling to the ground. Minor wounds shall not halt the conflict. This is understood?”
“Yes,” Joe said. He had been sizing up his enemy. The man stripped well. He was almost a duplicate of Joe’s build, perhaps slightly lighter, slightly taller. Like Joe, he bore a dozen scars about his upper torso. Sándor Rákóczi hadn’t worked his way to the top in the dueling world without taking his share of punishment.
Rákóczi said something curtly, obviously affirmative, in Hungarian.
Lieutenant Andersen, his open face drawn worriedly, tendered Joe his Bowie knife. Captain Petöfi proffered Rákóczi his. The two men stepped into the arena, which had been floored with sand, its dimensions marked with blue chalk. Though nothing had been said, it was obvious that if a combatant stepped over this line he would have lost face.
They stood at opposite sides of the arena, both with arms loose at their sides, both holding their fighting knives in their right hands.
General Armstrong said, his voice tight and worried, “Ready, Captain Rákóczi?”
The Hungarian used his affirmative word again.
“Ready, Major Mauser?”
“Ready,” Joe said. He felt like adding, as ready as I’m ever going to be. He was feeling qualms now. He’d been too long in the game not to recognize a superlative opponent when he saw one.
The four seconds drew back their twenty feet and joined the two doctors and half dozen hospital assistants who were there. Further back still, Joe knew, were emergency facilities. Two men by contemporary usage were going to be allowed to butcher each other, but moments after, all the facilities of modern medical science were going to be at their disposal. Joe felt a wry twinge of humor at the incongruity of it.
General Armstrong called, “Commence!”
Joe spread his legs, grasped the knife so that his thumb was along the side of the blade and held approximately waist high. He shuffled forward, slowly, feeling the consistency of the sand. There must be no slipping.
The Sov officer had assumed the stance of a swordsman. His smile was foxlike. For the first time, Joe noticed the scar along the other’s cheek. It was white now, which brought it into prominence. Yes, Sándor Rákóczi, in his time, had copped one more than once. At least the man wasn’t infallible.
As they came cautiously toward each other, the Hungarian grinned, fox-fashion, and said in his heavily accented Anglo-American, “Ah, our bad man from the West, you thought to choose a weapon unknown to Rákóczi, eh? But perhaps you have never heard of the Italian short sword, eh? Do you think this clumsy weapon is so different from the Italian short sword, eh?”
Joe had never heard of the Italian short sword, though now it came back to him that some of the phony-fracas films he had seen back home had depicted medieval duelists fighting with two swords, one long, one short. Obviously, his Sov opponent was thoroughly familiar with the usage. Joe swore inwardly.
They circled, warily, watching for an opening, sizing up the other. Each knew that once action was joined, events would most li
kely progress quickly. The Bowie knife was not built for finesse.
Like a flash, Sándor Rákóczi darted in, his blade flicked, he leapt back, instantly on guard again. There was a streak of red down Joe’s arm.
Joe blinked. Somebody, General Armstrong, or was it Max? had said there was something freakish about this Hungarian. His reflexes were unbelievably fast. Now, Joe could believe it.
He attempted a slashing blow himself, and the other danced away so quickly that Joe had not come within feet of his opponent.
Rákóczi laughed insinuatingly. “Oaf,” he said. “Is that the word? Clumsy, awkward, stumbling…oaf. It is well to rid the world of such, eh?”
He was a talker. Joe had met the type before, especially in hand-to-hand combat. They talked, usually insultingly, sometimes bringing up such matters as your legitimacy, or the virtue of your wife or sister, or your own supposed perversions. They talked, and by so doing hoped to enrage you, provoke you into foolish attack. Joe was untouched by such tactics. He circled again, his mind moving quickly.
He had, he realized, no advantages on his side. He was neither stronger nor faster than the other, and he had no reason to believe that he had greater stamina. If anything, it might be the other way.
* * * *
Rákóczi was in again, through Joe’s guard, darting his blade as though it were a foil. A cut opening magically on Joe’s chest from the left nipple to navel, and bled profusely.
The Sov duelist was back a good six feet, and laughing openly. Joe had had insufficient time even to move one foot in retreat at the other’s offensive.
Joe Mauser wet his lips. The tic at the side of his mouth was in full evidence.
Rákóczi jeered, “Ah, my bad man from the West who throws wine in the face of gentlemen. You grow afraid, eh? Your mouth twitches. You feel in your stomach the fear of death, eh? No longer do you worry about locating the Sov-world underground and helping to overthrow the Party, eh? Now you worry about death.”
Joe tried rushing him, plowing through the sand. But the Hungarian danced back, still jeering. He obviously knew the feel of sand beneath foot, as Joe did not. Joe had no time to wonder over Armstrong and Andersen agreeing to a sand deep arena. They had messed up on that one. For Joe, it was like trying to operate on a sandy beach, but Rákóczi seemed in his element.
Even as Joe’s attack slowed in frustration, the other darted in, slashed once, twice, scoring on Joe’s left arm, once, twice.
He has beginning to resemble a bloody mess. None of the wounds were overly deep, but combined they were costing him blood. He got the feeling that the Hungarian could finish him off at will. That Rákóczi had his number. That it was no longer a matter of the other being careful not to underestimate the foe. Joe had been correctly estimated and found wanting. He realized that only by sinking to the sand could he throw the fight. The duel ended upon one combatant or the other falling to the sand.
And then he could see the other’s expression. There was to be no throwing in of the towel for Joe Mauser. At the first sign of such a move, the other would dart in, cobra-quick, and deal the finishing blow. The death blow. Rákóczi was fully capable of such speed. The man was a phenomenon, metabolically speaking.
Joe, his heels almost to the chalk line of the arena boundary, dashing suddenly forward again. His opponent, jeering, as before, darted backward with such speed, even through the sand, as to be unbelievable.
Joe Mauser grinned wolfishly. He tossed the Bowie knife suddenly into the air. It turned in a spin to come down blade in his hand.
He stepped forward with his left foot, threw with full might. The Bowie knife, balanced to turn once completely in thirty feet, blurred through the air and buried itself in the Hungarian’s abdomen, up to the hilt.
The Sov officer grunted in agony, stared down at the protruding hilt unbelievingly. His eyes come up in hate, glaring at Joe who stood there across from him, hands now extended forward in the stance of a karate fighter.
Joe could follow the other’s agonized thoughts in his expression. There were medics available and though the wound was a decisive one, it need not be fatal, not in this day of surgery and antibiotics. No, not fatal, the Sov Officer decided. He glared at Joe again, his teeth grinding in his pain and shock. To move across the ring at the American would be disastrous, stirring the heavy Bowie knife in his intestines.
Rákóczi knew he had only split seconds, then he must sink to the sand so that aid might come. But perhaps split seconds were sufficient. He reversed his own knife in hand, preparatory to throwing.
Joe watched him. The other’s face was a mask of pure agony, but he was no quitter. He was going to make his own throw.
It came, blurringly fast, too fast to avoid. The heavy frontier knife turned over half in the air and struck Joe along the side, glancing off, ineffectively. Sándor Rákóczi fell to the sand and the medics came on the run, both toward him and to Joe.
And then the fog began to roll in on Joe Mauser, and he noted, as though distantly, that the medical assistance that General Armstrong had provided from the West-world Embassy was headed by Dr. Nadine Haer, who seemed to be crying, which was uncalled for in a doctor with a patient, after all.
XXI
His wounds were clean, straight slashes not overly deep and which should heal readily enough. In his time, Joe Mauser had copped many a more serious one. However, after bandaging, Nadine relegated him to the small embassy hospital. The West-world diplomats would not even trust the Sov-world medical care, preferring to import their own Category Medicine personnel.
He was, so Max informed him, the lion of the West-world colony in Budapest. And the Neut-world too, for that matter. It was quite a scandal that a diplomatic representative had been challenged to a duel by a known killer of Rákóczi’s reputation. Informal protests were lodged. Joe, cynically, could imagine just how effective they would be, particularly at this late date.
A lion he might be, but Nadine was not allowing him visitors this first day of his recuperation. Max, to attend him, but no others. At least, so it was throughout the morning and early afternoon. Then, so obvious was it that his hurts were not of paramount importance, she relented to the extent of allowing General Armstrong to enter.
The general scowled down at him, as though to read just how badly Joe was feeling. He grumbled, finally, “Dash it, you looked nothing so much as an overgrown hamburger steak there for a while, Mauser.”
Joe grinned wryly, “It’s how I felt,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.”
Armstrong said curiously, “If you wanted to use throwing knives, why didn’t you challenge him to a duel with throwing knives?”
Joe shifted his shoulders. “I figured my only chance with him was to use a weapon with which he wasn’t familiar. The Bowie knife was it. It didn’t occur to him that a knife build in that shape and as big as that, was a precisely constructed throwing knife as well as one to use hand to hand.” Joe twisted his mouth. “Besides, if the Sovs think all the Machiavellians are on their side, they’re wrong. Poor Captain Rákóczi got sucked in. I had a throwing knife, but he didn’t.”
Armstrong looked at him blankly.
Joe explained. “The knife designed by Jim Bowie was made by a smith named James Black, of Washington, Arkansas. Bowie made himself so notorious with it that the blade became world famous and Black made quite a few exact copies. Various other outfits tried to duplicate his work, but actually none succeeded in producing the perfect balance in such a large knife that made it practical for throwing. It turns over once in thirty feet, exactly. All I had to do was to get Rákóczi fifteen feet away from me, and he’d had it. And his own knife, when he tried to reciprocate, was off balance.”
Armstrong said, “Zen!”
“By the way, how is he?” Joe said.
Armstrong said, soberly, “He’s dead, Mauser.”
“Dead! With all those doctors standing around?”
The general’s face assumed its habitually wo
rried expression “I rather doubt he died of your knife. The highest echelons of the Party do not approve of failures. You were correct when you said you would have lost prestige had you fled Rákóczi’s challenge or even insisted upon your diplomatic immunity rights. As it is, the prestige has been lost on the other side. By the way, it occurs to me that no further effort will be made to eliminate you physically. It would be too blatant.”
Joe said, “One of the things I wanted to talk to you about, general. While we were in there together, Rákóczi was sounding off in an effort to crack my nerve. Called me a lot of names, that sort of thing. But he also said, I’ll try to repeat this exactly, No longer do you worry about locating the Sov-world underground and helping overthrow the Party, eh?”
Armstrong slumped down into the bedside chair. “Dash it! That makes it definite. They’re fully aware of your mission, though they haven’t got it exactly right. Your purpose isn’t to aid the local underground but merely to size it up, get the overall picture.” He snorted his disgust. “I’ll have to get in touch with our organization in Greater Washington. One thing certain, we’re not going to be able to let you go into the field in your status as military attaché and observer.”
Joe had been scheduled to observe some of the combat taking place in Chinese Turkestan with nomad rebels. He had looked forward to the experience, in view of his own background, wondering in what manners the Sov forces of the Pink Army differed from the mercenary armies of the West-world. He said now, “Why not?”
Armstrong snorted. “You’d never come out alive. There’s be an accident, and the nomads would be given the dubious credit for having killed you.” He came to his feet again. “I’ve got to think about this. I’ll drop in later, Mauser.”
Joe thought about it too, after the other had left. Obviously, the restrictions on his movements were a growing handicap on his abilities to serve the organization headed by Holland Hodgson. He wondered if he was becoming useless.
* * * *
Max stuck his head in the door and said, “Major, sir, one of these here Hungarians wants to see you.”
The Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 96