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

to the older man. “You have political pull, sir. Oh, I know you don’t make and break presidents. You couldn’t even pull enough wires to keep Hovercraft from making this a divisional magnitude fracas⁠—but you have pull enough for my needs.”

Baron Haer leaned back in his chair, his barrel-like body causing that article of furniture to creak. He crossed his hands over his stomach. “And what are your needs, Captain Mauser?”

Joe said evenly, “If I can bring this off, I’ll be a fracas buff celebrity. I don’t have any illusions about the fickleness of the Telly fans, but for a day or two I’ll be on top. If at the same time I had your all out support, pulling what strings you could reach⁠—”

“Why then, you’d be promoted to Upper, wouldn’t you, captain?” Balt Haer finished for him, amusement in his voice.

“That’s what I’m gambling on,” Joe said evenly.

The younger Haer grinned at his father superciliously. “So our captain says he will defeat Stonewall Cogswell in return for you sponsoring his becoming a member of the nation’s elite.”

“Good Heavens, is the supposed cream of the nation now selected on no higher a level than this?” There was sarcasm in the words.

The three men turned. It was the girl Joe had bumped into the day before. The Haers didn’t seem surprised at her entrance.

“Nadine,” the older man growled. “Captain Joseph Mauser who has been given a commission in our forces.”

Joe went through the routine of a Middle of officer’s rank being introduced to a lady of Upper caste. She smiled at him, somewhat mockingly, and failed to make standard response.

Nadine Haer said, “I repeat, what is this service the captain can render the house of Haer so important that pressure should be brought to raise him to Upper caste? It would seem unlikely that he is a noted scientist, an outstanding artist, a great teacher⁠—”

Joe said, uncomfortably, “They say the military is a science, too.”

Her expression was almost as haughty as that of her brother. “Do they? I have never thought so.”

“Really, Nadine,” her father grumbled. “This is hardly your affair.”

“No? In a few days I shall be repairing the damage you have allowed, indeed sponsored, to be committed upon the bodies of possibly thousands of now healthy human beings.”

Balt said nastily, “Nobody asked you to join the medical staff, Nadine. You could have stayed in your laboratory, figuring out new methods of preventing the human race from replenishing itself.”

The girl was obviously not the type to redden, but her anger was manifest. She spun on her brother. “If the race continues its present maniac course, possibly more effective methods of birth control are the most important development we could make. Even to the ultimate discovery of preventing all future conception.”

Joe caught himself in mid-chuckle.

But not in time. She spun on him in his turn. “Look at yourself in that silly skirt. A professional soldier! A killer! In my opinion the most useless occupation ever devised by man. Parasite on the best and useful members of society. Destroyer by trade!”

Joe began to open his mouth, but she overrode him. “Yes, yes. I know. I’ve read all the nonsense that has accumulated down through the ages about the need for, the glory of, the sacrifice of the professional soldier. How they defend their country. How they give all for the common good. Zen! What nonsense.”

Balt Haer was smirking sourly at her. “The theory today is, Nadine, old thing, that professionals such as the captain are gathering experience in case a serious fracas with the Sovs ever develops. Meanwhile his training is kept at a fine edge fighting in our inter-corporation, inter-union, or union-corporation fracases that develop in our private enterprise society.”

She laughed her scorn. “And what a theory! Limited to the weapons which prevailed before 1900. If there was ever real conflict between the Sov-world and our own, does anyone really believe either would stick to such arms? Why, aircraft, armored vehicles, yes, and nuclear weapons and rockets, would be in overnight use.”

Joe was fascinated by her furious attack. He said, “Then, what would you say was the purpose of the fracases, Miss⁠—”

“Circuses,” she snorted. “The old Roman games, all over again, and a hundred times worse. Blood and guts sadism. The quest of a frustrated person for satisfaction in another’s pain. Our Lowers of today are as useless and frustrated as the Roman proletariat and potentially they’re just as dangerous as the mob that once dominated Rome. Automation, the second industrial revolution, has eliminated for all practical purposes the need for their labor. So we give them bread and circuses. And every year that goes by the circuses must be increasingly sadistic, death on an increasing scale, or they aren’t satisfied. Once it was enough to have fictional mayhem, cowboys and Indians, gangsters, or G.I.s versus the Nazis, Japs or Commies, but that’s passed. Now we need real blood and guts.”

Baron Haer snapped finally, “All right, Nadine. We’ve heard this lecture before. I doubt if the captain is interested, particularly since you don’t seem to be able to get beyond the protesting stage and have yet to come up with an answer.”

“I have an answer!”

“Ah?” Balt Haer raised his eyebrows, mockingly.

“Yes! Overthrow this silly status society. Resume the road to progress. Put our people to useful endeavor, instead of sitting in front of their Telly sets, taking trank pills to put them in a happy daze and watching sadistic fracases to keep them in thrills, and their minds from their condition.”

Joe had figured on keeping out of the controversy with this firebrand, but now, really interested, he said, “Progress to where?”

She must have caught in his tone that he wasn’t needling. She frowned at him. “I don’t know man’s goal, if there is one. I’m not even sure it’s important. It’s the road that counts. The endeavor. The dream. The effort expended to make a world a better place than it was at the time of your birth.”

Balt Haer said