Short Fiction, Mack Reynolds [best book reader txt] 📗

gets harder and harder for a man to raise his caste or to earn some additional stock shares.”

The applejack had worked enough on Joe for him to rise against one of his pet peeves. He said, “That term, the old time way, is strictly Telly talk, Max. We don’t do things the old time way. No nation in history ever has⁠—with the possible exception of Egypt. Socio-economics are in a continual flux and here in this country we no more do things in the way they did fifty years ago, than fifty years ago they did them the way the American Revolutionists outlined back in the Eighteenth Century.”

Max was staring at him. “I don’t get that, sir.”

Joe said impatiently, “Max, the politico-economic system we have today is an outgrowth of what went earlier. The welfare state, the freezing of the status quo, the Frigid Fracas between the West-world and the Sov-world, industrial automation until useful employment is all but needless⁠—all these things were to be found in embryo more than fifty years ago.”

“Well, maybe the captain’s right, but you gotta admit, sir, that mostly we do things the old way. We still got the Constitution and the two-party system and⁠—”

Joe was wearying of the conversation now. You seldom ran into anyone, even in Middle caste, the traditionally professional class, interested enough in such subjects to be worth arguing with. He said, “The Constitution, Max, has got to the point of the Bible. Interpret it the way you wish, and you can find anything. If not, you can always make a new amendment. So far as the two-party system is concerned, what effect does it have when there are no differences between the two parties? That phase of pseudo-democracy was beginning as far back as the 1930s when they began passing State laws hindering the emerging of new political parties. By the time they were insured against a third party working its way through the maze of election laws, the two parties had become so similar that elections became almost as big a farce as over in the Sov-world.”

“A farce?” Max ejaculated indignantly, forgetting his servant status. “That means not so good, doesn’t it? Far as I’m concerned, election day is tops. The one day a Lower is just as good as an Upper. The one day how many shares you got makes no difference. Everybody has everything.”

“Sure, sure, sure,” Joe sighed. “The modern equivalent of the Roman Bacchanalia. Election day in the West-world when no one, for just that one day, is freer than anyone else.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” The other was all but belligerent. “That’s the trouble with you Middles and Uppers, you don’t know how it is to be a Lower and⁠—”

Joe snapped suddenly, “I was born a Mid-Lower myself, Max. Don’t give me that nonsense.”

Max gaped at him, utterly unbelieving.

Joe’s irritation fell away. He held out his glass. “Get us a couple of more drinks, Max, and I’ll tell you a story.”

By the time the fresh drink came, Joe Mauser was sorry he’d made the offer. He thought back. He hadn’t told anyone the Joe Mauser story in many a year. And, as he recalled, the last time had been when he was well into his cups, on an election day at that, and his listener had been a Low-Upper, a hereditary aristocrat, one of the one percent of the upper strata of the nation. Zen! How the man had laughed. He’d roared his amusement till the tears ran.

However, Joe said, “Max, I was born in the same caste you were⁠—average father, mother, sisters and brothers. They subsisted on the basic income guaranteed from birth, sat and watched Telly for an unbelievable number of hours each day, took trank to keep themselves happy. And thought I was crazy because I didn’t. Dad was the sort of man who’d take his belt off to a child of his who questioned such school taught slogans as What was good enough for Daddy is good enough for me.

“They were all fracas fans, of course. As far back as I can remember the picture is there of them gathered around the Telly, screaming excitement.” Joe Mauser sneered, uncharacteristically.

“You don’t sound much like you’re in favor of your trade, captain,” Max said.

Joe came to his feet, putting down his still half-full glass. “I’ll make this epic story short, Max. As you said, the two actually valid methods of rising above the level in which you were born are in the Military and Religious Categories. Like you, even I couldn’t stomach the latter.”

Joe Mauser hesitated, then finished it off. “Max, there have been few societies that man has evolved that didn’t allow in some manner for the competent or sly, the intelligent or the opportunist, the brave or the strong, to work his way to the top. I don’t know which of these I personally fit into, but I rebel against remaining in the lower categories of a stratified society. Do I make myself clear?”

“Well, no sir, not exactly.”

Joe said flatly, “I’m going to fight my way to the top, and nothing is going to stand in the way. Is that clearer?”

“Yessir,” Max said, taken aback.

IV

After routine morning duties, Joe Mauser returned to his billet and mystified Max Mainz by not only changing into mufti himself but having Max do the same.

In fact, the new batman protested faintly. He hadn’t nearly, as yet, got over the glory of wearing his kilts and was looking forward to parading around town in them. He had a point, of course. The appointed time for the fracas was getting closer and buffs were beginning to stream into town to bask in the atmosphere of threatened death. Everybody knew what a military center, on the outskirts of a fracas reservation such as the Catskills, was like immediately preceding a clash between rival corporations. The high-strung gaiety, the drinking, the overtranking, the relaxation of mores. Even a Rank Private had it made. Admiring civilians