Frigid Fracas Read online

since I'm in it and have noother recourse, I must follow its rules."

  She nodded. "I remember. And I said, why not try and change therules?"

  Joe nodded. He moistened his lips carefully. "O.K. Now I'm willing tolisten. How do we go about changing the rules?"

  XIV

  Dr. Nadine Haer, Category Medicine, Mid-Upper caste, was driving andwith considerable enjoyment resultant not only from her destination,long desired, now to be realized, but also from the sheer exuberanceof handling the vehicle. Since pre-history, man's pleasure in thephysical control of a speedy vehicle has been superlative,particularly when that vehicle is known by the driver to be unique inits class. The Hittite charioteer, bowling across the landscape ofAnatolia, a Sterling Moss carefully tooling his automobile around themulti-curves of the Upper Cornice on the Riviera, or a Nadine Haerdelicately trimming the controls of a sports model Hovercar.

  She shot a quick glance at Joe Mauser, formerly of Category Military,formerly Rank Major, now an unemployed Mid-Middle who slouched in thebucketseat next to her. He noticed neither speed nor direction.

  Nadine called, above the wind, "Zen, Joe! Where did you ever acquiresuch a car? It must have been built entirely by hand, and by Swisswatchmakers."

  Joe stirred and shrugged. Newly from the hospital, he was still deepin the gloom of his recent loss of the dream, the defeat of hislife-long ambitions. He said, "A buff gave it to me."

  She slowed down, the better to frown at him in amazement. "_Gave_ itto you? Why the thing is priceless."

  Joe sighed and told her the salient details. "Quite a few mercenariesmanage to acquire a private fracas-buff." He defined the term for her."He makes a hobby of your career. Winds up knowing more about it thanyou, yourself can possibly remember. He follows every fracas you getinto. Knows every time you cop one, how serious it was, how long youwere in hospital. He glories each time you get a promotion, is ingloom each time your side loses a fracas. He's got pictures of you invarious poses taken from the fracas-buff magazines, and files away allarticles in which your name appears."

  "Zen!" Nadine laughed in deprecation.

  "That's just the beginning. After a while he starts writing you fanletters, wanting autographed portraits, wanting a souvenir--sometimesnothing more exciting than a button off your uniform. More often theywant a gun, sword or combat knife, particularly one they saw you usingin some fracas or other. They usually offer to pay for such, sometimesquite fabulous amounts. Other times they want a bit of bloody uniform,your own true blood from a time when you were in the dill and managedto cop one."

  Nadine was astonished. Antagonistic as she was, herself, to thefracases, she wasn't particularly knowledgeable about all theirramifications. She said, repelled, "But doesn't such morbidity disgustyou? This fawning, this slobbering--"

  Joe grunted. "All part of the game. A mercenary without buffs to boosthim, to form fracas-buff clubs and such, hasn't much chance ofpromotion. So far as disgust is concerned, you'd have to see one ofthe really far-out ones. The gleam in an ordinarily fishlike eye whenhe recounts the time you killed three men in hand-to-hand combat,equipped only with an entrenching tool, when they came at you withbayonets. The trace of spittle, running down from the side of hismouth."

  "And this buff of yours. Why did he give you this perfectly marvelouscar?"

  "It was a she, not a he," Joe said.

  Nadine's voice changed infinitesimally. "You mean you accepted a giftof this value from a ... woman?"

  Joe looked at her and grinned sourly. "I wasn't in much of a positionto refuse. The gift was in her will. She was well into her ninetieswhen she died. She was an Upper-Upper, by the way, and the mostknowledgeable fracas buff I ever met. She knew the intimate details ofevery fracas since Tiglath-Pileser and his Assyrians captured Babylon.She could argue for an hour on whether Parmenion or Alexander theGreat should have been given the credit for the victory over thePersians at Issus." Joe grunted. "I suppose there should be a moralsomewhere about this kindly old lady who was the outstanding fracasbuff of them all."

  * * * * *

  Nadine Haer was in the process of hitting the drop lever with her lefthand as they slowed and headed for the entrance to a parking area. Shesaid brittlely, "The moral is that you can have slobs at any level insociety. Being an Upper doesn't guarantee anything."

  Joe sighed, "Here we go again." He looked about him, scowling. "Whichbrings to mind. Where _are_ we going? These are governmentalbuildings, aren't they?"

  They were sinking quickly, below street level, now in the power of theauto-parker. Nadine turned off the engine and released the controls.She said, cryptogrammicly, "We are going to see about doing somethingwith your abilities other than shooting at people, or being shot at."

  When the car was parked, she led the way to an elevator.

  Joe said wryly, "Oh, great. I love mysteries. When do we find out whokilled the victim?"

  Nadine looked at him from the side of her eyes. "I killed the victim,"she said. "Major Mauser, mercenary by trade, is now no more."

  There was bitterness in him and he found no ability to respond to whatwas meant as humor in her words. He followed her silently and hispuzzlement grew with him. The office building through which they movedwas as well done as any he could ever remember having observed, evenon the Telly. Surely they couldn't be in the Octagon or the New WhiteHouse. But, if so, why?

  Nadine said. "Here we are," and indicated a door which opened at theirapproach.

  There was a receptionist in the small office beyond, a bit of ostentationJoe Mauser seldom met with in the modern world. What in the name of Zencould anyone need with other than an auto-receptionist? Didn't efficiencymean anything here?

  The receptionist said, "Good afternoon, Dr. Haer. Mr. Holland isexpecting you."

  It came to Joe now--Philip Holland, secretary to Harlow Mannerheim,the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He had met the man a few months agoat Nadine's home in that swank section of Greater Washington onceknown as Baltimore. But he had no idea what Nadine had in mindbringing him here. Evidently, she was well enough into the graces ofthe bureaucrat to barge into his office during working hours.Surprising in itself, since, although she was an Upper born, stillgovernmental servants can't be at the beck of every hereditaryaristocrat in the land.

  Holland stood up briefly at their entrance and shook hands quickly,almost abruptly, held a chair for Nadine, motioned to another one forJoe. He sat down again and said into an inter-office telly-mike, "MissMikhail, the dossier on Joesph Mauser, and would you request FrankHodgson to drop in?"

  What was obviously the dossier slid from the desk chute and Hollandleafed through it, as though disinterested. He said, "Joseph Mauser,born Mid-Lower, Clothing Category, Sub-division Shoes, Branch Repair."Holland looked up. "A somewhat plebian beginning, let us admit."

  A tic manifested itself at the side of Joe Mauser's mouth, but he saidnothing. If long years of the military had taught him anything, it waspatience. The other man had the initiative now, let him use it.

  Holland cast his eyes ceilingward, and, without referring to thedossier before him, said, "Crossed categories at the age of seventeento Military, remaining a Rank Private for three years at which timepromoted to corporal. Sergeant followed in another three years andupon reaching the rank of lieutenant, at the age of twenty-five wasbounced in caste to High-Lower. After distinguishing himself in afracas between Douglas-Boeing and Lockheed-Cessna was further raisedto Low-Middle caste. By the age of thirty had reached Mid-Middle casteand Rank Captain. By thirty-three, the present, had been promoted tomajor, and had been under consideration for Upper-Middle caste."

  That last, Joe had not know about, however, he said now, "Also atpresent, expelled from participation in future fracases on any levelof rank, and fined his complete resources beyond the basic commonstock issued him as a Mid-Middle." His voice was bitter.

  Philip Holland said briskly, "The risks run by the ambitious."

  * * *
* *

  The office door opened and a tall stranger entered. He had a strangegait, one shoulder held considerably lower than the other, to thepoint that Joe would have thought it the result of a wound hadn't theother obviously never been a soldier. The newcomer, office pallorheavily upon him, but his air of languor obviously assumed andartificial, darted his eyes around the room, to Holland, Nadine, andthen to Joe where they rested for a moment.

  He murmured some banality to Nadine, indicative of a long acquaintanceand then approached Joe, who had automatically come to his feet, andextended a hand to be shaken. "I'm Frank Hodgson. You're Joe Mauser.I'm not fracas buff, but I know enough about current developments toknow that.