“Mercenary” by Mack Reynolds (1962)
Posted on January 27th, 2008
The old Baron wasn’t much happier about Joe Mauser’s secrets than was his son. It had only been the day before that he had taken Joe on, but already he had seemed to have aged in appearance. Evidently, each hour that went by made it increasingly clear just how perilous a position he had assumed. Vacuum Tube Transport had elbowed, buffaloed, bluffed and edged itself up to the outskirts of the really big time. The Baron’s ability, his aggressiveness, his flair, his political pull, had all helped, but now the chips were down. He was up against one of the biggies, and this particular biggy was tired of ambitious little Vacuum Tube Transport.
He listened to his son’s words, listened to Joe’s defense.
He said, looking at Joe, “If I understand this, you have some scheme which you think will bring victory in spite of what seems a disastrous situation.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two Haers looked at him, one impatiently, the other in weariness.
Joe said, “I’m gambling everything on this, sir. I’m no Rank Private in his first fracas. I deserve to be given some leeway.”
Balt Haer snorted. “Gambling everything! What in Zen would you have to gamble, captain? The whole Haer family fortunes are tied up. Hovercraft is out for blood. They won’t be satisfied with a token victory and a negotiated compromise. They’ll devastate us. Thousands of mercenaries killed, with all that means in indemnities; millions upon million in expensive military equipment, most of which we’ve had to hire and will have to recompensate for. Can you imagine the value of our stock after Stonewall Cogswell has finished with us? Why, every two by four trucking outfit in North America will be challenging us, and we won’t have the forces to meet a minor skirmish.”
Joe reached into an inner pocket and laid a sheaf of documents on the desk of Baron Malcolm Haer. The Baron scowled down at them.
Joe said simply, “I’ve been accumulating stock since before I was eighteen and I’ve taken good care of my portfolio in spite of taxes and the various other pitfalls which make the accumulation of capital practically impossible. Yesterday, I sold all of my portfolio I was legally allowed to sell and converted to Vacuum Tube Transport.” He added, dryly, “Getting it at an excellent rate, by the way.”
Balt Haer mulled through the papers, unbelievingly. “Zen!” he ejaculated. “The fool really did it. He’s sunk a small fortune into our stock.”
Baron Haer growled at his son, “You seem considerably more convinced of our defeat than the captain, here. Perhaps I should reverse your positions of command.”
His son grunted, but said nothing.
Old Malcolm Haer’s eyes came back to Joe. “Admittedly, I thought you on the romantic side yesterday, with your hints of some scheme which would lead us out of the wilderness, so to speak. Now I wonder if you might not really have something. Very well, I respect your claimed need for secrecy. Espionage is not exactly an antiquated military field.”
“Thank you, sir.”
But the Baron was still staring at him. “However, there’s more to it than that. Why not take this great scheme to Marshal Cogswell? And yesterday you mentioned that the Telly sets of the nation would be tuned in on this fracas, and obviously you are correct. The question becomes, what of it?”
The fat was in the fire now. Joe Mauser avoided the haughty stare of young Balt Haer and addressed himself to the older man. “You have political pull, sir. Oh, I know you don’t make and break presidents. You couldn’t even pull enough wires to keep Hovercraft from making this a divisional magnitude fracas—but you have pull enough for my needs.”
Baron Haer leaned back in his chair, his barrel-like body causing that article of furniture to creak. He crossed his hands over his stomach. “And what are your needs, Captain Mauser?”
Joe said evenly, “If I can bring this off, I’ll be a fracas buff celebrity. I don’t have any illusions about the fickleness of the Telly fans, but for a day or two I’ll be on top. If at the same time I had your all out support, pulling what strings you could reach—”
“Why then, you’d be promoted to Upper, wouldn’t you, captain?” Balt Haer finished for him, amusement in his voice.
“That’s what I’m gambling on,” Joe said evenly.
The younger Haer grinned at his father superciliously. “So our captain says he will defeat Stonewall Cogswell in return for you sponsoring his becoming a member of the nation’s elite.”
“Good Heavens, is the supposed cream of the nation now selected on no higher a level than this?” There was sarcasm in the words.
The three men turned. It was the girl Joe had bumped into the day before. The Haers didn’t seem surprised at her entrance.
“Nadine,” the older man growled. “Captain Joseph Mauser who has been given a commission in our forces.”
Joe went through the routine of a Middle of officer’s rank being introduced to a lady of Upper caste. She smiled at him, somewhat mockingly, and failed to make standard response.
Nadine Haer said, “I repeat, what is this service the captain can render the house of Haer so important that pressure should be brought to raise him to Upper caste? It would seem unlikely that he is a noted scientist, an outstanding artist, a great teacher—”
Joe said, uncomfortably, “They say the military is a science, too.”
Her expression was almost as haughty as that of her brother. “Do they? I have never thought so.”
“Really, Nadine,” her father grumbled. “This is hardly your affair.”
“No? In a few days I shall be repairing the damage you have allowed, indeed sponsored, to be committed upon the bodies of possibly thousands of now healthy human beings.”
Balt said nastily, “Nobody asked you to join the medical staff, Nadine. You could have stayed in your laboratory, figuring out new methods of preventing the human race from replenishing itself.”
The girl was obviously not the type to redden, but her anger was manifest. She spun on her brother. “If the race continues its present maniac course, possibly more effective methods of birth control are the most important development we could make. Even to the ultimate discovery of preventing all future conception.”
Joe caught himself in mid-chuckle.
But not in time. She spun on him in his turn. “Look at yourself in that silly skirt. A professional soldier! A killer! In my opinion the most useless occupation ever devised by man. Parasite on the best and useful members of society. Destroyer by trade!”
Joe began to open his mouth, but she overrode him. “Yes, yes. I know. I’ve read all the nonsense that has accumulated down through the ages about the need for, the glory of, the sacrifice of the professional soldier. How they defend their country. How they give all for the common good. Zen! What nonsense.”
Balt Haer was smirking sourly at her. “The theory today is, Nadine, old thing, that professionals such as the captain are gathering experience in case a serious fracas with the Sovs ever develops. Meanwhile his training is kept at a fine edge fighting in our inter-corporation, inter-union, or union-corporation fracases that develop in our private enterprise society.”
She laughed her scorn. “And what a theory! Limited to the weapons which prevailed before 1900. If there was ever real conflict between the Sov-world and our own, does anyone really believe either would stick to such arms? Why, aircraft, armored vehicles, yes, and nuclear weapons and rockets, would be in overnight use.”
Joe was fascinated by her furious attack. He said, “Then, what would you say was the purpose of the fracases, Miss—”
“Circuses,” she snorted. “The old Roman games, all over again, and a hundred times worse. Blood and guts sadism. The quest of a frustrated person for satisfaction in another’s pain. Our Lowers of today are as useless and frustrated as the Roman proletariat and potentially they’re just as dangerous as the mob that once dominated Rome. Automation, the second industrial revolution, has eliminated for all practical purposes the need for their labor. So we give them bread and circuses. And every year that goes by the circuses must be increasingly sadistic, death on an increasing scale, or they aren’t satisfied. Once it was enough to have fictional mayhem, cowboys and Indians, gangsters, or G.I.s versus the Nazis, Japs or Commies, but that’s passed. Now we need real blood and guts.”
Baron Haer snapped finally, “All right, Nadine. We’ve heard this lecture before. I doubt if the captain is interested, particularly since you don’t seem to be able to get beyond the protesting stage and have yet to come up with an answer.”
“I have an answer!”
“Ah?” Balt Haer raised his eyebrows, mockingly.
“Yes! Overthrow this silly status society. Resume the road to progress. Put our people to useful endeavor, instead of sitting in front of their Telly sets, taking trank pills to put them in a happy daze and watching sadistic fracases to keep them in thrills, and their minds from their condition.”
Joe had figured on keeping out of the controversy with this firebrand, but now, really interested, he said, “Progress to where?”
She must have caught in his tone that he wasn’t needling. She frowned at him. “I don’t know man’s goal, if there is one. I’m not even sure it’s important. It’s the road that counts. The endeavor. The dream. The effort expended to make a world a better place than it was at the time of your birth.”
Balt Haer said mockingly, “That’s the trouble with you, Sis. Here we’ve reached Utopia and you don’t admit it.”
“Utopia!”
“Certainly. Take a poll. You’ll find nineteen people out of twenty happy with things just the way they are. They have full tummies and security, lots of leisure and trank pills to make matters seem even rosier than they are—and they’re rather rosy already.”
“Then what’s the necessity of this endless succession of bloody fracases, covered to the most minute bloody detail on the Telly?”
Baron Haer cut things short. “We’ve hashed and rehashed this before, Nadine and now we’re too busy to debate further.” He turned to Joe Mauser. “Very well, captain, you have my pledge. I wish I felt as optimistic as you seem to be about your prospects. That will be all for now, captain.”
Joe saluted and executed an about face.
In the outer offices, when he had closed the door behind him, he rolled his eyes upward in mute thanks to whatever powers might be. He had somehow gained the enmity of Balt, his immediate superior, but he’d also gained the support of Baron Haer himself, which counted considerably more.
He considered for a moment, Nadine Haer’s words. She was obviously a malcontent, but, on the other hand, her opinions of his chosen profession weren’t too different than his own. However, given this victory, this upgrading in caste, and Joe Mauser would be in a position to retire.
The door opened and shut behind him and he half turned.
Nadine Haer, evidently still caught up in the hot words between herself and her relatives, glared at him. All of which stressed the beauty he had noticed the day before. She was an almost unbelievably pretty girl, particularly when flushed with anger.
It occurred to him with a blowlike suddenness that, if his caste was raised to Upper, he would be in a position to woo such as Nadine Haer.
He looked into her furious face and said, “I was intrigued, Miss Haer, with what you had to say, and I’d like to discuss some of your points. I wonder if I could have the pleasure of your company at some nearby refreshment—”
“My, how formal an invitation, captain. I suppose you had in mind sitting and flipping back a few trank pills.”
Joe looked at her. “I don’t believe I’ve had a trank in the past twenty years, Miss Haer. Even as a boy, I didn’t particularly take to having my senses dulled with drug-induced pleasure.”
Some of her fury was abating, but she was still critical of the professional mercenary. Her eyes went up and down his uniform in scorn. “You seem to make pretenses of being cultivated, captain. Then why your chosen profession?”
He’d had the answer to that for long years. He said now, simply, “I told you I was born a Lower. Given that, little counts until I fight my way out of it. Had I been born in a feudalist society, I would have attempted to batter myself into the nobility. Under classical capitalism, I would have done my utmost to accumulate a fortune, enough to reach an effective position in society. Now, under People’s Capitalism …”
She snorted, “Industrial Feudalism would be the better term.”
“… I realize I can’t even start to fulfill myself until I am a member of the Upper caste.”
Her eyes had narrowed, and the anger was largely gone. “But you chose the military field in which to better yourself?”
“Government propaganda to the contrary, it is practically impossible to raise yourself in other fields. I didn’t build this world, possibly I don’t even approve of it, but since I’m in it I have no recourse but to follow its rules.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Why not try to change the rules?”
Joe blinked at her.
Nadine Haer said, “Let’s look up that refreshment you were talking about. In fact, there’s a small coffee bar around the corner where it’d be possible for one of Baron Haer’s brood to have a cup with one of her father’s officers of Middle caste.”
VI
The following morning, hands on the pillow beneath his head, Joe Mauser stared up at the ceiling of his room and rehashed his session with Nadine Haer. It hadn’t taken him five minutes to come to the conclusion that he was in love with the girl, but it had taken him the rest of the evening to keep himself under rein and not let the fact get through to her.
He wanted to talk about the way her mouth tucked in at the corners, but she was hot on the evolution of society. He would have liked to have kissed that impossibly perfectly shaped ear of hers, but she was all for exploring the reasons why man had reached his present impasse. Joe was for holding hands, and staring into each other’s eyes, she was for delving into the differences between the West-world and the Sov-world and the possibility of resolving them.
Of course, to keep her company at all it had been necessary to suppress his own desires and to go along. It obviously had never occurred to her that a Middle might have romantic ideas involving Nadine Haer. It had simply not occurred to her, no matter the radical teachings she advocated.
Most of their world was predictable from what had gone before. In spite of popular fable to the contrary, the division between classes had become increasingly clear. Among other things, tax systems were such that it became all but impossible for a citizen born poor to accumulate a fortune. Through ability he might rise to the point of earning fabulous sums—and wind up in debt to the tax collector. A great inventor, a great artist, had little chance of breaking into the domain of what finally became the small percentage of the population now known as Uppers. Then, too, the rising cost of a really good education became such that few other than those born into the Middle or Upper castes could afford the best of schools. Castes tended to perpetuate themselves.
Politically, the nation had fallen increasingly deeper into the two-party system, both parties of which were tightly controlled by the same group of Uppers. Elections had become a farce, a great national holiday in which stereotyped patriotic speeches, pretenses of unity between all castes, picnics, beer busts and trank binges predominated for one day.
Economically, too, the augurs had been there. Production of the basics had become so profuse that poverty in the old sense of the word had become nonsensical. There was an abundance of the necessities of life for all. Social security, socialized medicine, unending unemployment insurance, old age pensions, pensions for veterans, for widows and children, for the unfit, pensions and doles for this, that and the other, had doubled, and doubled again, until everyone had security for life. The Uppers, true enough, had opulence far beyond that known by the Middles and lived like Gods compared to the Lowers. But all had security. They had agreed, thus far, Joe and Nadine. But then had come debate.
“Then why,” Joe had asked her, “haven’t we achieved what your brother called it? Why isn’t this Utopia? Isn’t it what man has been yearning for, down through the ages? Where did the wheel come off? What happened to the dream?”
Nadine had frowned at him—beautifully, he thought. “It’s not the first time man has found abundance in a society, though never to this degree. The Incas had it, for instance.”
“I don’t know much about them,” Joe admitted. “An early form of communism with a sort of military-priesthood at the top.”
She had nodded, her face serious, as always. “And for themselves, the Romans more or less had it—at the expense of the nations they conquered, of course.”
“And—” Joe prodded.
“And in these examples the same thing developed. Society ossified. Joe,” she said, using his first name for the first time, and in a manner that set off a new count down in his blood, “a ruling caste and a socio-economic system perpetuates itself, just so long as it ever can. No matter what damage it may do to society as a whole, it perpetuates itself even to the point of complete destruction of everything.
“Remember Hitler? Adolf the Aryan and his Thousand Year Reich? When it became obvious he had failed, and the only thing that could result from continued resistance would be destruction of Germany’s cities and millions of her people, did he and his clique resign or surrender? Certainly not. They attempted to bring down the whole German structure in a Götterdammerung.”
Nadine Haer was deep into her theme, her eyes flashing her conviction. “A socio-economic system reacts like a living organism. It attempts to live on, indefinitely, agonizingly, no matter how antiquated it might have become. The Roman politico-economic system continued for centuries after it should have been replaced. Such reformers as the Gracchus brothers were assassinated or thrust aside so that the entrenched elements could perpetuate themselves, and when Rome finally fell, darkness descended for a thousand years on Western progress.”
Joe had never gone this far in his thoughts. He said now, somewhat uncomfortably, “Well, what would replace what we have now? If you took power from you Uppers, who could direct the country? The Lowers? That’s not even funny. Take away their fracases and their trank pills and they’d go berserk. They don’t want anything else.”
Her mouth worked. “Admittedly, we’ve already allowed things to deteriorate much too far. We should have done something long ago. I’m not sure I know the answer. All I know is that in order to maintain the status quo, we’re not utilizing the efforts of more than a fraction of our people. Nine out of ten of us spend our lives sitting before the Telly, sucking tranks. Meanwhile, the motivation for continued progress seems to have withered away. Our Upper political circles are afraid some seemingly minor change might avalanche, so more and more we lean upon the old way of doing things.”
Joe had put up mild argument. “I’ve heard the case made that the Lowers are fools and the reason our present socio-economic system makes it so difficult to rise from Lower to Upper is that you cannot make a fool understand he is one. You can only make him angry. If some, who are not fools, are allowed to advance from Lower to Upper, the vast mass who are fools will be angry because they are not allowed to. That’s why the Military Category is made a channel of advance. To take that road, a man gives up his security and he’ll die if he’s a fool.”
Nadine had been scornful. “That reminds me of the old contention by racial segregationalists that the Negroes smelled bad. First they put them in a position where they had insufficient bathing facilities, their diet inadequate, and their teeth uncared for, and then protested that they couldn’t be associated with because of their odor. Today, we are born within our castes. If an Upper is inadequate, he nevertheless remains an Upper. An accident of birth makes him an aristocrat; environment, family, training, education, friends, traditions and laws maintain him in that position. But a Lower who potentially has the greatest of value to society, is born handicapped and he’s hard put not to wind up before a Telly, in a mental daze from trank. Sure he’s a fool, he’s never been allowed to develop himself.”
Yes, Joe reflected now, it had been quite an evening. In a life of more than thirty years devoted to rebellion, he had never met anyone so outspoken as Nadine Haer, nor one who had thought it through as far as she had.
He grunted. His own revolt was against the level at which he had found himself in society, not the structure of society itself. His whole raison d’être was to lift himself to Upper status. It came as a shock to him to find a person he admired who had been born into Upper caste, desirous of tearing the whole system down.
His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening and the face of Max Mainz grinning in at him. Joe was mildly surprised at his orderly not knocking before opening the door. Max evidently had a lot to learn.
The little man blurted, “Come on, Joe. Let’s go out on the town!”
“Joe?” Joe Mauser raised himself to one elbow and stared at the other. “Leaving aside the merits of your suggestion for the moment, do you think you should address an officer by his first name?”
Max Mainz came fully into the bedroom, his grin still wider. “You forgot! It’s election day!”
“Oh.” Joe Mauser relaxed into his pillow. “So it is. No duty for today, eh?”
“No duty for anybody,” Max crowed. “What’d you say we go into town and have a few drinks in one of the Upper bars?”
Joe grunted, but began to arise. “What’ll that accomplish? On election day, most of the Uppers get done up in their oldest clothes and go slumming down in the Lower quarters.”
Max wasn’t to be put off so easily. “Well, wherever we go, let’s get going. Zen! I’ll bet this town is full of fracas buffs from as far as Philly. And on election day, to boot. Wouldn’t it be something if I found me a real fracas fan, some Upper-Upper dame?”
Joe laughed at him, even as he headed for the bathroom. As a matter of fact, he rather liked the idea of going into town for the show. “Max,” he said over his shoulder, “you’re in for a big disappointment. They’re all the same. Upper, Lower, or Middle.”
“Yeah?” Max grinned back at him. “Well, I’d like the pleasure of finding out if that’s true by personal experience.”
VII
In a far away past, Kingston had once been the capital of the United States. For a short time, when Washington’s men were in flight after the debacle of their defeat in New York City, the government of the United Colonies had held session in this Hudson River town. It had been its one moment of historic glory, and afterward Kingston had slipped back into being a minor city on the edge of the Catskills, approximately halfway between New York and Albany.
Of most recent years, it had become one of the two recruiting centers which bordered the Catskill Military Reservation, which in turn was one of the score or so population cleared areas throughout the continent where rival corporations or unions could meet and settle their differences in combat—given permission of the Military Category Department of the government. And permission was becoming ever easier to acquire.
It had slowly evolved, the resorting to trial by combat to settle disputes between competing corporations, disputes between corporations and unions, disputes between unions over jurisdiction. Slowly, but predictably. Since the earliest days of the first industrial revolution, conflict between these elements had often broken into violence, sometimes on a scale comparable to minor warfare. An early example was the union organizing in Colorado when armed elements of the Western Federation of Miners shot it out with similarly armed “detectives” hired by the mine owners, and later with the troops of an unsympathetic State government.
By the middle of the Twentieth-Century, unions had become one of the biggest businesses in the country, and by this time a considerable amount of the industrial conflict had shifted to fights between them for jurisdiction over dues-paying members. Battles on the waterfront, assassination and counter-assassination by gun-toting goon squads dominated by gangsters, industrial sabotage, frays between pickets and scabs—all were common occurrences.
But it was the coming of Telly which increasingly brought such conflicts literally before the public eye. Zealous reporters made ever greater effort to bring the actual mayhem before the eyes of their viewers, and never were their efforts more highly rewarded.
A society based upon private endeavor is as jealous of a vacuum as is Mother Nature. Give a desire that can be filled profitably, and the means can somehow be found to realize it.
At one point in the nation’s history, the railroad lords had dominated the economy, later it became the petroleum princes of Texas and elsewhere, but toward the end of the Twentieth Century the communications industries slowly gained prominence. Nothing was more greatly in demand than feeding the insatiable maw of the Telly fan, nothing, ultimately, became more profitable.
And increasingly, the Telly buff endorsed the more sadistic of the fictional and nonfictional programs presented him. Even in the earliest years of the industry, producers had found that murder and mayhem, war and frontier gunfights, took precedence over less gruesome subjects. Music was drowned out by gunfire, the dance replaced by the shuffle of cowboy and rustler advancing down a dusty street toward each other, their fingertips brushing the grips of their six-shooters, the comedian’s banter fell away before the chatter of the gangster’s tommy gun.
And increasing realism was demanded. The Telly reporter on the scene of a police arrest, preferably a murder, a rumble between rival gangs of juvenile delinquents, a longshoreman’s fray in which scores of workers were hospitalized. When attempts were made to suppress such broadcasts, the howl of freedom of speech and the press went up, financed by tycoons clever enough to realize the value of the subjects they covered so adequately.
The vacuum was there, the desire, the need. Bread the populace had. Trank was available to all. But the need was for the circus, the vicious, sadistic circus, and bit by bit, over the years and decades, the way was found to circumvent the country’s laws and traditions to supply the need.
Aye, a way is always found. The final Universal Disarmament Pact which had totally banned all weapons invented since the year 1900 and provided for complete inspection, had not ended the fear of war. And thus there was excuse to give the would-be soldier, the potential defender of the country in some future inter-nation conflict, practical experience.
Slowly tolerance grew to allow union and corporation to fight it out, hiring the services of mercenaries. Slowly rules grew up to govern such fracases. Slowly a department of government evolved. The Military Category became as acceptable as the next, and the mercenary a valued, even idolized, member of society. And the field became practically the only one in which a status quo orientated socio-economic system allowed for advancement in caste.
Joe Mauser and Max Mainz strolled the streets of Kingston in an extreme of atmosphere seldom to be enjoyed. Not only was the advent of a divisional magnitude fracas only a short period away, but the freedom of an election day as well. The carnival, the Mardi Gras, the fete, the fiesta, of an election. Election Day, when each aristocrat became only a man, and each man an aristocrat, free of all society’s artificially conceived, caste-perpetuating rituals and taboos.
Carnival! The day was young, but already the streets were thick with revelers, with dancers, with drunks. A score of bands played, youngsters in particular ran about attired in costume, there were barbeques and flowing beer kegs. On the outskirts of town were roller coasters and ferris wheels, fun houses and drive-it-yourself miniature cars. Carnival!
Max said happily, “You drink, Joe? Or maybe you like trank, better.” Obviously, he loved to roll the other’s first name over his tongue.
Joe wondered in amusement how often the little man had found occasion to call a Mid-Middle by his first name. “No trank,” he said. “Alcohol for me. Mankind’s old faithful.”
“Well,” Max debated, “get high on alcohol and bingo, a hangover in the morning. But trank? You wake up with a smile.”
“And a desire for more trank to keep the mood going,” Joe said wryly. “Get smashed on alcohol and you suffer for it eventually.”
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” Max argued happily. “So let’s start off with a couple of quick ones in this here Upper joint.”
Joe looked the place over. He didn’t know Kingston overly well, but by the appearance of the building and by the entry, it was probably the swankiest hotel in town. He shrugged. So far as he was concerned, he appreciated the greater comfort and the better service of his Middle caste bars, restaurants and hotels over the ones he had patronized when a Lower. However, his wasn’t an immediate desire to push into the preserves of the Uppers; not until he had won rightfully to their status.
But on this occasion the little fellow wanted to drink at an Upper bar. Very well, it was election day. “Let’s go,” he said to Max.
In the uniform of a Rank Captain of the Military Category, there was little to indicate caste level, and ordinarily given the correct air of nonchalance, Joe Mauser, in uniform, would have been able to go anywhere, without so much as a raised eyebrow—until he had presented his credit card, which indicated his caste. But Max was another thing. He was obviously a Lower, and probably a Low-Lower at that.
But space was made for them at a bar packed with election day celebrants, politicians involved in the day’s speeches and voting, higher ranking officers of the Haer forces, having a day off, and various Uppers of both sexes in town for the excitement of the fracas to come.
“Beer,” Joe said to the bartender.
“Not me,” Max crowed. “Champagne. Only the best for Max Mainz. Give me some of that champagne liquor I always been hearing about.”
Joe had the bill credited to his card, and they took their bottles and glasses to a newly abandoned table. The place was too packed to have awaited the services of a waiter, although poor Max probably would have loved such attention. Lower, and even Middle bars and restaurants were universally automated, and the waiter or waitress a thing of yesteryear.
Max looked about the room in awe. “This is living,” he announced. “I wonder what they’d say if I went to the desk and ordered a room.”
Joe Mauser wasn’t as highly impressed as his batman. In fact, he’d often stayed in the larger cities, in hostelries as sumptuous as this, though only of Middle status. Kingston’s best was on the mediocre side. He said, “They’d probably tell you they were filled up.”
Max was indignant. “Because I’m a Lower? It’s election day.”
Joe said mildly, “Because they probably are filled up. But for that matter, they might brush you off. It’s not as though an Upper went to a Middle or Lower hotel and asked for accommodations. But what do you want, justice?”
Max dropped it. He looked down into his glass. “Hey,” he complained, “what’d they give me? This stuff tastes like weak hard cider.”
Joe laughed. “What did you think it was going to taste like?”
Max took another unhappy sip. “I thought it was supposed to be the best drink you could buy. You know, really strong. It’s just bubbly wine.”
A voice said, dryly, “Your companion doesn’t seem to be a connoisseur of the French vintages, captain.”
Joe turned. Balt Haer and two others occupied the table next to them.
Joe chuckled amiably and said, “Truthfully, it was my own reaction, the first time I drank sparkling wine, sir.”
“Indeed,” Haer said. “I can imagine.” He fluttered a hand. “Lieutenant Colonel Paul Warren of Marshal Cogswell’s staff, and Colonel Lajos Arpàd, of Budapest—Captain Joseph Mauser.”
Joe Mauser came to his feet and clicked his heels, bowing from the waist in approved military protocol. The other two didn’t bother to come to their feet, but did condescend to shake hands.
The Sov officer said, disinterestedly, “Ah yes, this is one of your fabulous customs, isn’t it? On an election day, everyone is quite entitled to go anywhere. Anywhere at all. And, ah”—he made a sound somewhat like a giggle—”associate with anyone at all.”
Joe Mauser resumed his seat then looked at him. “That is correct. A custom going back to the early history of the country when all men were considered equal in such matters as law and civil rights. Gentlemen, may I present Rank Private Max Mainz, my orderly.”
Balt Haer, who had obviously already had a few, looked at him dourly. “You can carry these things to the point of the ludicrous, captain. For a man with your ambitions, I’m surprised.”
The infantry officer the younger Haer had introduced as Lieutenant Colonel Warren, of Stonewall Cogswell’s staff, said idly, “Ambitions? Does the captain have ambitions? How in Zen can a Middle have ambitions, Balt?” He stared at Joe Mauser superciliously, but then scowled. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
Joe said evenly, “Yes, sir. Five years ago we were both with the marshal in a fracas on the Little Big Horn reservation. Your company was pinned down on a knoll by a battery of field artillery. The Marshal sent me to your relief. We sneaked in, up an arroyo, and were able to get most of you out.”
“I was wounded,” the colonel said, the superciliousness gone and a strange element in his voice above the alcohol there earlier.
Joe Mauser said nothing to that. Max Mainz was stirring unhappily now. These officers were talking above his head, even as they ignored him. He had a vague feeling that he was being defended by Captain Mauser, but he didn’t know how, or why.
Balt Haer had been occupied in shouting fresh drinks. Now he turned back to the table. “Well, colonel, it’s all very secret, these ambitions of Captain Mauser. I understand he’s been an aide de camp to Marshal Cogswell in the past, but the marshal will be distressed to learn that on this occasion Captain Mauser has a secret by which he expects to rout your forces. Indeed, yes, the captain is quite the strategist.” Balt Haer laughed abruptly. “And what good will this do the captain? Why on my father’s word, if he succeeds, all efforts will be made to make the captain a caste equal of ours. Not just on election day, mind you, but all three hundred sixty-five days of the year.”
Joe Mauser was on his feet, his face expressionless. He said, “Shall we go, Max? Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure. Colonel Arpàd, a privilege to meet you. Colonel Warren, a pleasure to renew acquaintance.” Joe Mauser turned and, trailed by his orderly, left.
Lieutenant Colonel Warren, pale, was on his feet too.
Balt Haer was chuckling. “Sit down, Paul. Sit down. Not important enough to be angry about. The man’s a clod.”
Warren looked at him bleakly. “I wasn’t angry, Balt. The last time I saw Captain Mauser I was slung over his shoulder. He carried, tugged and dragged me some two miles through enemy fire.”
Balt Haer carried it off with a shrug. “Well, that’s his profession. Category Military. A mercenary for hire. I assume he received his pay.”
“He could have left me. Common sense dictated that he leave me.”
Balt Haer was annoyed. “Well, then we see what I’ve contended all along. The ambitious captain doesn’t have common sense.”
Colonel Paul Warren shook his head. “You’re wrong there. Common sense Joseph Mauser has. Considerable ability, he has. He’s one of the best combat men in the field. But I’d hate to serve under him.”
The Hungarian was interested. “But why?”
“Because he doesn’t have luck, and in the dill you need luck.” Warren grunted in sour memory. “Had the Telly cameras been focused on Joe Mauser, there at the Little Big Horn, he would have been a month long sensation to the Telly buffs, with all that means.” He grunted again. “There wasn’t a Telly team within a mile.”
“The captain probably didn’t realize that,” Balt Haer snorted. “Otherwise his heroics would have been modified.”
Warren flushed his displeasure and sat down. He said, “Possibly we should discuss the business before us. If your father is in agreement, the fracas can begin in three days.” He turned to the representative of the Sov-world. “You have satisfied yourselves that neither force is violating the Disarmament Pact?”
Lajos Arpàd nodded. “We will wish to have observers on the field, itself, of course. But preliminary observation has been satisfactory.” He had been interested in the play between these two and the lower caste officer. He said now, “Pardon me. As you know, this is my first visit to the, uh West. I am fascinated. If I understand what just transpired, our Captain Mauser is a capable junior officer ambitious to rise in rank and status in your society.” He looked at Balt Haer. “Why are you opposed to his so rising?”
Young Haer was testy about the whole matter. “Of what purpose is an Upper caste if every Tom, Dick and Harry enters it at will?”
Warren looked at the door through which Joe and Max had exited from the cocktail lounge. He opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, and held his peace.
The Hungarian said, looking from one of them to the other, “In the Sov-world we seek out such ambitious persons and utilize their abilities.”
Lieutenant Colonel Warren laughed abruptly. “So do we here theoretically. We are free, whatever that means. However,” he added sarcastically, “it does help to have good schooling, good connections, relatives in positions of prominence, abundant shares of good stocks, that sort of thing. And these one is born with, in this free world of ours, Colonel Arpàd.”
The Sov military observer clucked his tongue. “An indication of a declining society.”
Balt Haer turned on him. “And is it any different in your world?” he said sneeringly. “Is it merely coincidence that the best positions in the Sov-world are held by Party members, and that it is all but impossible for anyone not born of Party member parents to become one? Are not the best schools filled with the children of Party members? Are not only Party members allowed to keep servants? And isn’t it so that—”
Lieutenant Colonel Warren said, “Gentlemen, let us not start World War Three at this spot, at this late occasion.”
VIII
Baron Malcolm Haer’s field headquarters were in the ruins of a farm house in a town once known as Bearsville. His forces, and those of Marshal Stonewall Cogswell, were on the march but as yet their main bodies had not come in contact. Save for skirmishes between cavalry units, there had been no action. The ruined farm house had been a victim of an earlier fracas in this reservation which had seen in its comparatively brief time more combat than Belgium, that cockpit of Europe.
There was a sheen of oily moisture on the Baron’s bulletlike head and his officers weren’t particularly happy about it. Malcolm Haer characteristically went into a fracas with confidence, an aggressive confidence so strong that it often carried the day. In battles past, it had become a tradition that Haer’s morale was worth a thousand men; the energy he expended was the despair of his doctors who had been warning him for a decade. But now, something was missing.
A forefinger traced over the military chart before them. “So far as we know, Marshal Cogswell has established his command here in Saugerties. Anybody have any suggestions as to why?”
A major grumbled, “It doesn’t make much sense, sir. You know the marshal. It’s probably a fake. If we have any superiority at all, it’s our artillery.”
“And the old fox wouldn’t want to join the issue on the plains, down near the river,” a colonel added. “It’s his game to keep up into the mountains with his cavalry and light infantry. He’s got Jack Alshuler’s cavalry. Most experienced veterans in the field.”
“I know who he’s got,” Haer growled in irritation. “Stop reminding me. Where in the devil is Balt?”
“Coming up, sir,” Balt Haer said. He had entered only moments ago, a sheaf of signals in his hand. “Why didn’t they make that date 1910, instead of 1900? With radio, we could speed up communications—”
His father interrupted testily. “Better still, why not make it 1945? Then we could speed up to the point where we could polish ourselves off. What have you got?”
Balt Haer said, his face in sulk, “Some of my lads based in West Hurley report concentrations of Cogswell’s infantry and artillery near Ashokan reservoir.”
“Nonsense,” somebody snapped. “We’d have him.”
The younger Haer slapped his swagger stick against his bare leg and kilt. “Possibly it’s a feint,” he admitted.
“How much were they able to observe?” his father demanded.
“Not much. They were driven off by a superior squadron. The Hovercraft forces are screening everything they do with heavy cavalry units. I told you we needed more—”
“I don’t need your advice at this point,” his father snapped. The older Haer went back to the map, scowling still. “I don’t see what he expects to do, working out of Saugerties.”
A voice behind them said, “Sir, may I have your permission—”
Half of the assembled officers turned to look at the newcomer.
Balt Haer snapped, “Captain Mauser. Why aren’t you with your lads?”
“Turned them over to my second in command, sir,” Joe Mauser said. He was standing to attention, looking at Baron Haer.
The Baron glowered at him. “What is the meaning of this cavalier intrusion, captain? Certainly, you must have your orders. Are you under the illusion that you are part of my staff?”
“No, sir,” Joe Mauser clipped. “I came to report that I am ready to put into execution—”
“The great plan!” Balt Haer ejaculated. He laughed brittlely. “The second day of the fracas, and nobody really knows where old Cogswell is, or what he plans to do. And here comes the captain with his secret plan.”
Joe looked at him. He said, evenly, “Yes, sir.”
The Baron’s face had gone dark, as much in anger at his son, as with the upstart cavalry captain. He began to growl ominously, “Captain Mauser, rejoin your command and obey your orders.”
Joe Mauser’s facial expression indicated that he had expected this. He kept his voice level however, even under the chuckling scorn of his immediate superior, Balt Haer.
He said, “Sir, I will be able to tell you where Marshal Cogswell is, and every troop at his command.”
For a moment there was silence, all but a stunned silence. Then the major who had suggested the Saugerties field command headquarters were a fake, blurted a curt laugh.
“This is no time for levity, captain,” Balt Haer clipped. “Get to your command.”
A colonel said, “Just a moment, sir. I’ve fought with Joe Mauser before. He’s a good man.”
“Not that good,” someone else huffed. “Does he claim to be clairvoyant?”
Joe Mauser said flatly. “Have a semaphore man posted here this afternoon. I’ll be back at that time.” He spun on his heel and left them.
Balt Haer rushed to the door after him, shouting, “Captain! That’s an order! Return—”
But the other was obviously gone. Enraged, the younger Haer began to shrill commands to a noncom in the way of organizing a pursuit.
His father called wearily, “That’s enough, Balt. Mauser has evidently taken leave of his senses. We made the initial mistake of encouraging this idea he had, or thought he had.”
“We?” his son snapped in return. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“All right, all right. Let’s tighten up, here. Now, what other information have your scouts come up with?”
IX
At the Kingston airport, Joe Mauser rejoined Max Mainz, his face drawn now.
“Everything go all right?” the little man said anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “I still couldn’t tell them the story. Old Cogswell is as quick as a coyote. We pull this little caper today, and he’ll be ready to meet it tomorrow.”
He looked at the two-place sailplane which sat on the tarmac. “Everything all set?”
“Far as I know,” Max said. He looked at the motorless aircraft. “You sure you been checked out on these things, captain?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “I bought this particular soaring glider more than a year ago, and I’ve put almost a thousand hours in it. Now, where’s the pilot of that light plane?”
A single-engined sports plane was attached to the glider by a fifty-foot nylon rope. Even as Joe spoke, a youngster poked his head from the plane’s window and grinned back at them. “Ready?” he yelled.
“Come on, Max,” Joe said. “Let’s pull the canopy off this thing. We don’t want it in the way while you’re semaphoring.”
A figure was approaching them from the Administration Building. A uniformed man, and somehow familiar.
“A moment, Captain Mauser!”
Joe placed him now. The Sov-world representative he’d met at Balt Haer’s table in the Upper bar a couple of days ago. What was his name? Colonel Arpàd. Lajos Arpàd.
The Hungarian approached and looked at the sailplane in interest. “As a representative of my government, a military attache checking upon possible violations of the Universal Disarmament Pact, may I request what you are about to do, captain?”
Joe Mauser looked at him emptily. “How did you know I was here and what I was doing?”
The Sov colonel smiled gently. “It was by suggestion of Marshal Cogswell. He is a great man for detail. It disturbed him that an … what did he call it? … an old pro like yourself should join with Vacuum Tube Transport, rather than Continental Hovercraft. He didn’t think it made sense and suggested that possibly you had in mind some scheme that would utilize weapons of a post 1900 period in your efforts to bring success to Baron Haer’s forces. So I have investigated, Captain Mauser.”
“And the marshal knows about this sail plane?” Joe Mauser’s face was blank.
“I didn’t say that. So far as I know, he doesn’t.”
“Then, Colonel Arpàd, with your permission, I’ll be taking off.”
The Hungarian said, “With what end in mind, captain?”
“Using this glider as a reconnaissance aircraft.”
“Captain, I warn you! Aircraft were not in use in warfare until—”
But Joe Mauser cut him off, equally briskly. “Aircraft were first used in combat by Pancho Villa’s forces a few years previous to World War I. They were also used in the Balkan Wars of about the same period. But those were powered craft. This is a glider, invented and in use before the year 1900 and hence open to utilization.”
The Hungarian clipped, “But the Wright Brothers didn’t fly even gliders until—”
Joe looked him full in the face. “But you of the Sov-world do not admit that the Wrights were the first to fly, do you?”
The Hungarian closed his mouth, abruptly.
Joe said evenly, “But even if Ivan Ivanovitch, or whatever you claim his name was, didn’t invent flight of heavier than air craft, the glider was flown variously before 1900, including Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s, and was designed as far back as Leonardo da Vinci.”
The Sov-world colonel stared at him for a long moment, then gave an inane giggle. He stepped back and flicked Joe Mauser a salute. “Very well, captain. As a matter of routine, I shall report this use of an aircraft for reconnaissance purposes, and undoubtedly a commission will meet to investigate the propriety of the departure. Meanwhile, good luck!”
Joe returned the salute and swung a leg over the cockpit’s side. Max was already in the front seat, his semaphore flags, maps and binoculars on his lap. He had been staring in dismay at the Sov officer, now was relieved that Joe had evidently pulled it off.
Joe waved to the plane ahead. Two mechanics had come up to steady the wings for the initial ten or fifteen feet of the motorless craft’s passage over the ground behind the towing craft.
Joe said to Max, “did you explain to the pilot that under no circumstances was he to pass over the line of the military reservation, that we’d cut before we reached that point?”
“Yes, sir,” Max said nervously. He’d flown before, on the commercial lines, but he’d never been in a glider.
They began lurching across the field, slowly, then gathering speed. And as the sailplane took speed, it took grace. After it had been pulled a hundred feet or so, Joe eased back the stick and it slipped gently into the air, four or five feet off the ground. The towing airplane was still taxiing, but with its tow airborne it picked up speed quickly. Another two hundred feet and it, too, was in the air and beginning to climb. The glider behind held it to a speed of sixty miles or so.
At ten thousand feet, the plane leveled off and the pilot’s head swiveled to look back at them. Joe Mauser waved to him and dropped the release lever which ejected the nylon rope from the glider’s nose. The plane dove away, trailing the rope behind it. Joe knew that the plane pilot would later drop it over the airport where it could easily be retrieved.
In the direction of Mount Overlook he could see cumulus clouds and the dark turbulence which meant strong updraft. He headed in that direction.
Except for the whistling of wind, there is complete silence in a soaring glider. Max Mainz began to call back to his superior, was taken back by the volume, and dropped his voice. He said, “Look, captain. What keeps it up?”
Joe grinned. He liked the buoyance of glider flying, the nearest approach of man to the bird, and thus far everything was going well. He told Max, “An airplane plows through the air currents, a glider rides on top of them.”
“Yeah, but suppose the current is going down?”
“Then we avoid it. This sailplane only has a gliding angle ratio of one to twenty-five, but it’s a workhorse with a payload of some four hundred pounds. A really high performance glider can have a ratio of as much as one to forty.”
Joe had found a strong updraft where a wind ran up the side of a mountain. He banked, went into a circling turn. The gauge indicated they were climbing at the rate of eight meters per second, nearly fifteen hundred feet a minute.
Max hadn’t got the rundown on the theory of the glider. That was obvious in his expression.
Joe Mauser, even while searching the ground below keenly, went into it further. “A wind up against a mountain will give an updraft, storm clouds will, even a newly plowed field in a bright sun. So you go from one of these to the next.”
“Yeah, great, but when you’re between,” Max protested.
“Then, when you have a one to twenty-five ratio, you go twenty-five feet forward for each one you drop. If you started a mile high, you could go twenty-five miles before you touched ground.” He cut himself off quickly. “Look, what’s that, down there? Get your glasses on it.”
Max caught his excitement. His binoculars were tight to his eyes. “Sojers. Cavalry. They sure ain’t ours. They must be Hovercraft lads. And look, field artillery.”
Joe Mauser was piloting with his left hand, his right smoothing out a chart on his lap. He growled, “What are they doing there? That’s at least a full brigade of cavalry. Here, let me have those glasses.”
With his knees gripping the stick, he went into a slow circle, as he stared down at the column of men. “Jack Alshuler,” he whistled in surprise. “The marshal’s crack heavy cavalry. And several batteries of artillery.” He swung the glasses in a wider scope and the whistle turned into a hiss of comprehension. “They’re doing a complete circle of the reservation. They’re going to hit the Baron from the direction of Phoenicia.”
X
Marshal Stonewall Cogswell directed his old fashioned telescope in the direction his chief of staff indicated.
“What is it?” he grunted.
“It’s an airplane, sir.”
“Over a military reservation with a fracas in progress?”
“Yes, sir.” The other put his glasses back on the circling object. “Then what is it, sir? Certainly not a free balloon.”
“Balloons,” the marshal snorted, as though to himself. “Legal to use. The Union forces had them toward the end of the Civil War. But practically useless in a fracas of movement.”
They were standing before the former resort hotel which housed the marshal’s headquarters. Other staff members were streaming from the building, and one of the ever-present Telly reporting crews were hurriedly setting up cameras.
The marshal turned and barked, “Does anybody know what in Zen that confounded thing, circling up there, is?”
Baron Zwerdling, the aging Category Transport magnate, head of Continental Hovercraft, hobbled onto the wooden veranda and stared with the others. “An airplane,” he croaked. “Haer’s gone too far this time. Too far, too far. This will strip him. Strip him, understand.” Then he added, “Why doesn’t it make any noise?”
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Warren stood next to his commanding officer. “It looks like a glider, sir.”
Cogswell glowered at him. “A what?”
“A glider, sir. It’s a sport not particularly popular these days.”
“What keeps it up, confound it?”
Paul Warren looked at him. “The same thing that keeps a hawk up, an albatross, a gull—”
“A vulture, you mean,” Cogswell snarled. He watched it for another long moment, his face working. He whirled on his chief of artillery. “Jed, can you bring that thing down?”
The other had been viewing the craft through field binoculars, his face as shocked as the rest of them. Now he faced his chief, and lowered the glasses, shaking his head. “Not with the artillery of pre-1900. No, sir.”
“What can you do?” Cogswell barked.
The artillery man was shaking his head. “We could mount some Maxim guns on wagon wheels, or something. Keep him from coming low.”
“He doesn’t have to come low,” Cogswell growled unhappily. He spun on Lieutenant Colonel Warren again. “When were they invented?” He jerked his thumb upward. “Those things.”
Warren was twisting his face in memory. “Some time about the turn of the century.”
“How long can the things stay up?”
Warren took in the surrounding mountainous countryside. “Indefinitely, sir. A single pilot, as long as he is physically able to operate. If there are two pilots up there to relieve each other, they could stay until food and water ran out.”
“How much weight do they carry?”
“I’m not sure. One that size, certainly enough for two men and any equipment they’d need. Say, five hundred pounds.”
Cogswell had his telescope glued to his eyes again, he muttered under his breath, “Five hundred pounds! They could even unload dynamite over our horses. Stampede them all over the reservation.”
“What’s going on?” Baron Zwerdling shrilled. “What’s going on Marshal Cogswell?”
Cogswell ignored him. He watched the circling, circling craft for a full five minutes, breathing deeply. Then he lowered his glass and swept the assembled officers of his staff with an indignant glare. “Ten Eyck!” he grunted.
An infantry colonel came to attention. “Yes, sir.”
Cogswell said heavily, deliberately. “Under a white flag. A dispatch to Baron Haer. My compliments and request for his terms. While you’re at it, my compliments also to Captain Joseph Mauser.”
Zwerdling was bug-eyeing him. “Terms!” he rasped.
The marshal turned to him. “Yes, sir. Face reality. We’re in the dill. I suggest you sue for terms as short of complete capitulation as you can make them.”
“You call yourself a soldier—!” the transport tycoon began to shrill.
“Yes, sir,” Cogswell snapped. “A soldier, not a butcher of the lads under me.” He called to the Telly reporter who was getting as much of this as he could. “Mr. Soligen, isn’t it?”
The reporter scurried forward, flicking signals to his cameramen for proper coverage. “Yes, sir. Freddy Soligen, marshal. Could you tell the Telly fans what this is all about, Marshal Cogswell? Folks, you all know the famous marshal. Marshal Stonewall Cogswell, who hasn’t lost a fracas in nearly ten years, now commanding the forces of Continental Hovercraft.”
“I’m losing one now,” Cogswell said grimly. “Vacuum Tube Transport has pulled a gimmick out of the hat and things have pickled for us. It will be debated before the Military Category Department, of course, and undoubtedly the Sov-world military attaches will have things to say. But as it appears now, the fracas as we have known it, has been revolutionized.”
“Revolutionized?” Even the Telly reporter was flabbergasted. “You mean by that thing?” He pointed upward, and the lenses of the cameras followed his finger.
“Yes,” Cogswell growled unhappily. “Do all of you need a blueprint? Do you think I can fight a fracas with that thing dangling above me, throughout the day hours? Do you understand the importance of reconnaissance in warfare?” His eyes glowered. “Do you think Napoleon would have lost Waterloo if he’d had the advantage of perfect reconnaissance such as that thing can deliver? Do you think Lee would have lost Gettysburg? Don’t be ridiculous.” He spun on Baron Zwerdling, who was stuttering his complete confusion.
“As it stands, Baron Haer knows every troop dispensation I make. All I know of his movements are from my cavalry scouts. I repeat, I am no butcher, sir. I will gladly cross swords with Baron Haer another day, when I, too, have … what did you call the confounded things, Paul?”
“Gliders,” Lieutenant Colonel Warren said.
XI
Major Joseph Mauser, now attired in his best off-duty Category Military uniform, spoke his credentials to the receptionist. “I have no definite appointment, but I am sure the Baron will see me,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” The receptionist did the things that receptionists do, then looked up at him again. “Right through that door, major.”
Joe Mauser gave the door a quick double rap and then entered before waiting an answer.
Balt Haer, in mufti, was standing at a far window, a drink in his hand, rather than his customary swagger stick. Nadine Haer sat in an easy-chair. The girl Joe Mauser loved had been crying.
Joe Mauser, suppressing his frown, made with the usual amenities.
Balt Haer without answering them, finished his drink in a gulp and stared at the newcomer. The old stare, the aloof stare, an aristocrat looking at an underling as though wondering what made the fellow tick. He said, finally, “I see you have been raised to Rank Major.”
“Yes, sir,” Joe said.
“We are obviously occupied, major. What can either my sister or I possibly do for you?”
Joe kept his voice even. He said, “I wanted to see the Baron.”
Nadine Haer looked up, a twinge of pain crossing her face.
“Indeed,” Balt Haer said flatly. “You are talking to the Baron, Major Mauser.”
Joe Mauser looked at him, then at his sister, who had taken to her handkerchief again. Consternation ebbed up and over him in a flood. He wanted to say something such as, “Oh no,” but not even that could he utter.
Haer was bitter. “I assume I know why you are here, major. You have come for your pound of flesh, undoubtedly. Even in these hours of our grief—”
“I … I didn’t know. Please believe …”
“… You are so constituted that your ambition has no decency. Well, Major Mauser, I can only say that your arrangement was with my father. Even if I thought it a reasonable one, I doubt if I would sponsor your ambitions myself.”
Nadine Haer looked up wearily. “Oh, Balt, come off it,” she said. “The fact is, the Haer fortunes contracted a debt to you, major. Unfortunately, it is a debt we cannot pay.” She looked into his face. “First, my father’s governmental connections do not apply to us. Second, six months ago, my father, worried about his health and attempting to avoid certain death taxes, transferred the family stocks into Balt’s name. And Balt saw fit, immediately before the fracas, to sell all Vacuum Tube Transport stocks, and invest in Hovercraft.”
“That’s enough, Nadine,” her brother snapped nastily.
“I see,” Joe said. He came to attention. “Dr. Haer, my apologies for intruding upon you in your time of bereavement.” He turned to the new Baron. “Baron Haer, my apologies for your bereavement.”
Balt Haer glowered at him.
Joe Mauser turned and marched for the door which he opened then closed behind him.
On the street, before the New York offices of Vacuum Tube Transport, he turned and for a moment looked up at the splendor of the building.
Well, at least the common shares of the concern had skyrocketed following the victory. His rank had been upped to Major, and old Stonewall Cogswell had offered him a permanent position on his staff in command of aerial operations, no small matter of prestige. The difficulty was, he wasn’t interested in the added money that would accrue to him, nor the higher rank—nor the prestige, for that matter.
He turned to go to his hotel.
An unbelievably beautiful girl came down the steps of the building. She said, “Joe.”
He looked at her. “Yes?”
She put a hand on his sleeve. “Let’s go somewhere and talk, Joe.”
“About what?” He was infinitely weary now.
“About goals,” she said. “As long as they exist, whether for individuals, or nations, or a whole species, life is still worth the living. Things are a bit bogged down right now, but at the risk of sounding very trite, there’s tomorrow.”
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