Frigid Fracas Part 11

Joe snapped, "Hand me those gla.s.ses!"

"What gla.s.ses? What's the matter?" Freddy complained. "Try to get closer to them and let me get a close-up of you giving them a burst."

"My binoculars!" Joe snapped urgently. "I want to see what's going on below."

"Oh," Freddy said. "I threw them out. Along with all the rest of the equipment. Gla.s.ses, semaph.o.r.e flags, that sun blinker you had. All of it went overboard with my extra lenses."

The craft was so banked as almost to have the wings perpendicular to earth. Joe shot an agonized look at the smaller man, then back again at the earth below, trying desperately to narrow his eyes for keener vision.

Freddy said, "What in Zen's the matter with you? What difference does it make what they're doing down below? We're all occupied up here, thanks."

"This is a frame-up," Joe growled. "Bob and that other pilot. They weren't out on reconnaissance, this morning. They were laying for me.

They're out to keep me from seeing what's going on down there. And I know what's going on. Jack Altshuler's pulling a fast one. Here we go, Freddy, hang on!"

He slapped his flap brake lever with his left hand, winged over and began dropping like a shot as his gliding angle fell off from twenty-five to one to ten to one. In seconds the other two gliders were after him, riding his tail.

Freddy Soligen, his eyes bugging, shot a look of fear at the two trailing craft, both of which, periodically, showed brilliant cherries at their prows. Maxim guns, emitting their blessings.

The Telly reporter turned desperately back to Joe Mauser, pounding him on the shoulder. His physical fear was secondary to another. "Joe!

You're on lens with every Telly team down there, and you're running!"

"Cut that out," Joe rapped. "Duck your head. Let me train this gun over you. I've got to keep those jokers from shooting off our tail before I can get to the marshal."

"The marshal!" Freddy yelled. "You can't get to him anyway. I told you I threw away your semaph.o.r.e flags, your blinker--everything. This country's hilly. You can't get your message to him anyway. Listen, Joe, you've still got time. You can stunt these things better than those two can."

"Duck!" Joe snarled. He let loose a burst at the pursuing gliders over the smaller man's head, and just missing his own tail section.

They sped down almost to tree level at fantastic speed for a glider.

The two enemy craft were hot after them, their guns _flac, flac, flacing_ in continuous excitement, trying to catch Joe in sights, as he kicked rudder, right, left, right, in evasive maneuver.

He guess had been correct. The swashbuckling Jack Altshuler had know his many times commander even better than Cogswell had realized.

Instead of three alternative maneuvers open to the wily cavalryman, he'd ferreted out a fourth and his full force, hauling mountain guns on mule back with them, were trailing over a supposedly impossible mountain path which originally could not have been more then a deer track.

Freddy Soligen, in back, was holding his head in his hands in surrender. He could have focused on the troops below, but the desire wasn't in him. Not one fracas buff in a hundred could comprehend the complications of combat, the need for adequate reconnaissance--the need for Joe to get through.

He made one last plea. "Joe, we've put everything into this. Every share of stock you've acc.u.mulated. All I have, too. Don't you realize what you're doing, so far as the buffs are concerned? Those two half-trained pilots behind have you on the run."

Joe growled, "And twenty thousands lads down below are depending on me to report on Altshuler's horse."

"But you can't win, anyway. You can't get your message to Cogswell!"

Joe shot him a wolfish grin. "Wanta bet? Ever heard of a crash landing, Freddy? Hang on!"

XI

Stretched out on the convalescent bed in the Category Military rest home, Joe grinned up at his visitor and said ruefully, "I'd salute, sir, but my arms seem to be out of commission. And, come to think of it, I'm out of uniform."

Cogswell looked down at him, unamused. "You've heard the news?"

Joe caught the other's tone and his face straightened. "You mean the Disarmament Commission?"

Cogswell said brittlely, "They found against the use of aircraft, other than free balloons, in any military action. They threw the book, Mauser. The court ruled that you, Robert Flaubert and James Hideka be stripped of rank and forbidden the Category Military. You have also been fined all stock shares in your possession other than those unalienably yours as a West-world citizen."

Joe's face went empty. It was only then that he realized that the other was attired in the uniform of a brigadier general. The direction of his eyes was obvious.

Cogswell shrugged bitterly. "My Upper caste status helped me. I could pull just enough strings that the Category Military Department, in conjunction with the rulings of the International Disarmament Commission merely reduced me in rank and belted me with a stiff fine.

Your friend--your former friend, I should say, Freddy Soligen, testified in my behalf. Testified that I had no knowledge of your mounting a gun."

The former marshal cleared his throat. "His testimony was correct. I had no such knowledge and would have issued orders against it, had I known. The fact that you enabled me to rescue the situation into which I'd been sucked, helps somewhat my feelings toward you, Mauser. But only somewhat."

Joe could imagine the other's bitterness. He had fought his way up the hard way to that marshal's baton. At his age, he wasn't going to regain it.

Brigadier general Stonewall Cogswell hesitated for a moment, then said, "One other thing. United Miners has repudiated your actions even to the point of refusing the cost of your hospitalization. I told the Category Medicine authorities to put your bill on my account."

Joe said quite stiffly, "That won't be necessary, sir."

"I'm afraid you'll find it is, Mauser." The former marshal allowed himself a grimace. "Besides, I owe you something for that spectacular scene when you came skimming over the treetops, the two enemy gliders right behind you, then stalling your craft and cras.h.i.+ng into that tree not thirty feet from my open air headquarters. Admittedly, in forty years of fracases, I've never seen anything so confoundedly dramatic."

"Thank you, sir."

The old soldier grunted, turned and marched from the room.

XII

Freddy Soligen had been miraculously saved from the physical beating taken by Joe Mauser in the crash. The pilot, sitting so close before him, cus.h.i.+oned with his own body that of the Telly reporter.

For that matter, he had been saved the financial disaster as well, save for that amount he had contributed to the campaign to increase Mauser's stature in the eyes of the buffs. His Category Communications superiors had not even charged him for the cost of the equipment he had jettisoned from the glider during the flight, nor that which had been destroyed in the crash. If anything, his reputation with his higher-ups was probably better than ever. He'd been in there pitching, as a Telly reporter, right up until the end when the situation had completely pickled.

All that he had lost was his dream. It had been so close to the grasping. He could almost have tasted the sweetness of victory. Joe Mauser, at the ultimate top of the hero-heap. Joe Mauser accepting bounces in both rank and caste. And then, Joe Mauser being properly thankful and helpful to Freddy and Sam Soligen, in their turn. So near the realization of the dream.

He entered his house wearily, finally free of all the ridiculous questioning of the commission and the courts martial of Mauser and Cogswell, and Flaubert, Hideka and their commander, General McCord.

All had been found guilty, though in different degrees. Using weapons of warfare which post-dated 1900. Than which there was no greater crime between nations.

He tossed the brief case he had carried to a table, and made his way to the living room, heading for the auto-bar and some straight spirits.

A voice said, "Hi, Papa."

He looked up, not immediately recognizing the Category Military, Rank Private, before him.

Then he said weakly, "Sam!" His legs gave way, and he sat down abruptly on the couch which faced the wall which was the Telly screen.

The boy said, awkwardly, "Surprise, Papa!"

His father said, very slowly, "What ... in ... Zen ... are ... you ...

doing ... in ... that ... outfit?"