Frigid Fracas Part 7

Joe shrugged and picked himself a chair. He took in Sam's robes and made conversation. "Studies tough in the Temple schools?" he asked.

The teen-ager realized it was a make-talk question. He said, "Aw, not much. A lot of curd about rituals and all. You hafta memorize it."

"Curd, yet," Joe laughed. "You don't sound particularly pious, Sam.

Come to think of it, I suppose any child of Freddy's could hardly be."

Sam said, his young voice urgent, "Papa said you were on your way up, Major Mauser. Just like us. Gee, how come you chose Category Military, instead of Religion?"

Joe Mauser looked at the other. It was his policy to treat young people either as children or adults. If he was to deal with a teen-ager as an adult, he didn't believe in pulling punches any more than had he been dealing with a person of sixty. He said, flatly, "I've never had much regard for those categories in which a man makes his living battening on human sorrow or fear, Sam. That includes in my book such fields as religion, undertakers and their affiliates, and even most doctors, for that matter." He added, to explain the last inclusion, "They profit too much from illness, for my satisfaction."

Major Mauser was enough of a current celebrity for practically anything he said to be impressive to young Sam Soligen. That youngster blinked. He said, "Well, gee, don't you believe in any G.o.ds at all? If you believe in any G.o.d at all, you gotta have a religious category, and that means priests."

"Why?" Joe said. Inwardly, he was amused at himself for getting into a debate with this youngster and even a trifle ashamed of needling the boy about his chosen field. But he said, "If there are G.o.ds, I doubt if they'd intrust a priesthood to threaten their created humanity with h.e.l.lfire."

Sam was taken aback. "Well, why not?"

"G.o.ds couldn't be bothered with such triviality. In fact, I'd think it unlikely they could be bothered with priests. If I was a G.o.d, certainly I couldn't."

The boy's face was intent, its youthfulness somewhat ludicrous in view of the dark robes he wore. He leaned forward, "Yeah, you talk about priests and undertakers and all battening on human sorrow, but how about you? How about the Category Military? How many men you killed, major?"

Joe winced. "Too many," he said abruptly. The tic was at the side of his mouth, unbeknownst to him. He added, "But mercenaries have deliberately chosen their path. They know what they're going into and they do it willingly, they haven't been drafted."

He thought a moment, and Phil Holland's talk about the Roman _ludi_ came back to him. He said, "It's like the difference between throwing a bunch of Christians to some wild bulls in a Roman arena, to being a torero in Spain, a matador who has chosen his profession and enters the bullring to make money."

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?"

_Touche_, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 partic.i.p.ated. 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.mp 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 s.h.i.+ne. 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 drivel-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?"