Frigid Fracas - free ebook by Mack Reynolds

FRIGID FRACAS

In any status-hungry culture, the level a man is assigned depends on what people think he is—not on what he is. And that, of course, means that only the deliberately phony has real status!...

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I

n other eras he might have been described as swacked, stewed, stoned, smashed, crocked, cockeyed, soused, shellacked, polluted, potted, tanked, lit, stinko, pie-eyed, three sheets in the wind, or simply drunk. In his own time, Major Joseph Mauser, Category Military, Mid-Middle Caste, was drenched. Or at least rapidly getting there. He wasn't happy about it. It wasn't that kind of a binge. He lowered one eyelid and concentrated on the list of potables offered by the auto-bar. He'd decided earlier

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II

When Major Mauser, escorting Dr. Nadine Haer, daughter of the late Baron Haer of Vacuum Tube Transport, entered the swank Exclusive Room of the Greater Washington branch of the Ultra Hotels, the orchestra ceased the dreamy dance music it had been playing and struck up the lilting "The Girl I Left Behind Me." As they followed the maître d'hôtel to their table, Nadine frowned in puzzled memory and after they were seated, she said, "That piece, where have I heard it before?" Joe cleared his throat

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III

When Freddy Soligen entered his living room, he automatically switched off the Telly screen which was the entire north wall. The room's lights automatically went brighter. His perpetual air of sour cynicism was absent as he chuckled to the room's sole inhabitant, "What! A son of mine gawking at Telly? Next I'll be finding tranks by the bowl full, sitting on the tea table." His son grinned at him. Already, at the ago of sixteen, Samuel Soligen was a good three inches taller than his father, at le

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IV

Joe Mauser shook hands with the Telly reporter in an abrupt, impatient manner. Freddy said, "Major, I'd like to introduce my son, Samuel. Sam, this is Major Joe Mauser. You don't follow the fracases, but the major's one of the best mercenaries in the field." Sam scrambled to his feet and shook hands. "Gee, Joe Mauser." Joe looked at him questioningly. "I thought you didn't follow the fracases." Sam grinned awkwardly. "Well, gee, you can't miss picking up some stuff about the fighting. All the ot

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V

A servant took Joe Mauser's cap at the door and requested that Joe follow him. Joe trailed behind on the way to the living room of the mansion, somewhat taken aback by the, to him, ostentation of the display of the luxuries of yesteryear. Among them was to be numbered the butler. Servants, other than military batmen, were simply not in Joe's world. Only the Uppers were in position to utilise the full time of individuals. Long years past, those tasks which once called for servants had been automa

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VI

It was the common practice among Category Military mercenaries of highest rank to maintain skeleton staffs between those periods when they were under hire by corporations or unions. That of Marshal Stonewall Cogswell was one of the most complete, he habitually keeping upward of a hundred officers in his private uniform. It paid off, for with such a skeleton force of highly skilled professionals as a cadre, the marshal could enlist veterans for his rank and file and whip together a trained fighti

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VII

Freddy Soligen wasn't at home when Joe Mauser called. The Category Military officer was met, instead, by young Sam Soligen, clothed this day in the robes of a novitiate of the Temple. Joe remembered now that Freddy had mentioned the boy in training in Category Religion. Sam led him back into the living room, switching off the Telly screen which had been tuned in on one of the fictionalized fracases of the past. Poor entertainment, when compared to the real thing, for any fracas buff, but better

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VIII

When Major Joe Mauser entered the swank Agora Bar, the little afternoon dance band broke into a few bars of that tune which was beginning to pall on him. Nadine looked up from the little table she occupied and caught the wry expression on his face and laughed. "What price glory?" she said. He took the chair across from her and chuckled ruefully. "All right," he said, "I surrender. However, if you think a theme song is bad, you'll be relieved at some of the other ideas my, ah, publicity agent had

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IX

Marshal Stonewall Cogswell looked impudently around at this staff officers gathered about the chart table. "Gentlemen," he said, "I assume you are all familiar with the battle of Chancellorsville?" No one bothered to answer and he chuckled. "I know what you are thinking, that had any of you refrained from a thorough study of the campaigns of Lee and Jackson, he would not be a member of my staff." The craggy marshal traced with his finger on the great military chart before them. "Then you will ha

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X

The airport nearest to the Grant Memorial Military Reservation was some ten miles distance from the borders which, upon the scheduling of a fracas, were closed to all aircraft, and to all persons unconnected with the fracas, with the exception only of Telly crews and military observers from the Sov-world and the Neut-world, present to satisfy themselves that weapons of the post-1900 era were not being utilized. The distance, however, wasn't of particular importance. The powered aircraft which wo

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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 acti

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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, cushioned 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 gli

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XIII

Joe was able to get around on auto-crutches by the time she finally arrived—a stereotype visitor. Done up brightly, a box of candy in one hand, flowers in the other. He could see her coming across the lawn, from the visitor's offices. He wished that he had worn his other suit. His clothing was on the skimpy side when uniforms were subtracted. She came up to him. "Well, Joe." He looked at the flowers and attempted a grin. "Lilies would have been more appropriate, considering the shape I'm in." Na

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XIV

r. Nadine Haer, Category Medicine, Mid-Upper caste, was driving and with considerable enjoyment resultant not only from her destination, long desired, now to be realized, but also from the sheer exuberance of handling the vehicle. Since pre-history, man's pleasure in the physical control of a speedy vehicle has been superlative, particularly when that vehicle is known by the driver to be unique in its class. The Hittite charioteer, bowling across the landscape of Anatolia, a Sterling Moss carefu

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XV

Budapest, basically, had changed little over half a millennium. The Danube, seldom blue except when seen through the eyes of a twosome between whom spark has recently been struck, still wandered its way dividing the old, old town of Pest from the still older town of Buda. Where the stream widens there is room for the one hundred and twelve acres of Margitsziget, or Margaret Island to the West-world. Down through the ages, through Celts and Romans, Slavs and Hungs, Turks and Magyars, none have be

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XVI

Although in actuality working on a private mission for Philip Holland, Frank Hodgson and the others high in government responsibility who were planning fundamental changes in the West-world, Joseph Mauser was ostensibly a military attaché connected with the West-world Embassy to Budapest. As such, he spent several days meeting embassy personnel, his immediate superiors and his immediate inferiors in rank. He was, as a newcomer from home, wined, dined, evaluated, found an apartment, assigned a ho

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XVII

It was a free evening for Joe, but one that Nadine had found necessary to devote to her medical duties. Max had been gushing about a cabaret in Buda, a place named the Bécsikapu where the wine flowed as wine can flow only in the Balkans and where the gypsy music was as only gypsy music can be. Max had developed a tolerance for wine after only two or three attempts at what they locally called Sot and which he didn't consider exactly beer. Joe said, only half interested, "For proletarians, Party m

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XVIII

Joe Mauser had assumed there would be some sort of reverberations as a result of his run-in with the Sov officers, but hadn't suspected the magnitude of them. The next morning he had hardly arrived at the small embassy office which had been assigned him, before his desk set lit up with General Armstrong's habitually worried face. He said, without taking time for customary amenities, "Major Mauser, could you come to my office immediately?" It wasn't a question. In General George Armstrong's offic

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XIX

To Mauser's surprise, the Sovs actually turned up two genuine Bowie knives. He had expected the duel, actually, to have to be conducted with trench knives or some other alternative. But the Sovs, ever great on museums, had located one of the weapons of the American Old West in a Prague exhibit of the American frontier, the other in Budapest itself in an extensive collection of fighting knives, down through the ages, in a military museum. Formally correct, Lieutenant colonel Bela Kossuth appeared

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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 th

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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 sc

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XXII

In spite of Nadine Haer's protests, Joseph Mauser insisted that they abide by the Sov government's expulsion order on the following day. A special plane took them to London, and they there caught the regular shuttle to Greater Washington. At least, Joe, Nadine and Max did, General Armstrong remained on in London. The flight itself was largely uneventful, Joe having retreated into his thoughts. He had a great deal to think about. Not only in regard to the immediate collapse of his mission, but bo

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