On an impulse he stepped up to the small man, who grinned in recognition. The grin was a revelation of an inner warmth beyond average in a world which had lost much of its human warmth.
Mauser said, “Like a job, soldier?”
“Name’s Max. Max Mainz. Sure I want a job. That’s why I’m in this everlasting line.”
“First fracas for you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I had basic training in school.”
“What do you weigh, Max?”
Max’s face soured. “About one twenty.”
“Did you check out on semaphore in school?”
“Well, sure. I’m Category Food, Sub-division Cooking, Branch Chef, but like I say, I took basic military training like most everybody else.”
“I’m Captain Joe Mauser. How’d you like to be my batman?”
Max screwed up his not overly handsome face. “Gee, I don’t know. I kinda joined up to see some action. Get into the dill. You know what I mean.”
Mauser said dryly, “See here, Mainz, you’ll probably find more pickled situations next to me than you’ll want—and you’ll come out alive, or at least have a better chance of it than if you go in as infantry.”
The recruiting sergeant looked up from the desk. “Son, take a good opportunity when it drops in your lap. The captain is one of the best in the field. You’ll learn more, get better chances for promotion, if you stick with him.”
Mauser couldn’t remember having run into the sergeant before, but he said, “Thanks, Sergeant.”
Evidently realizing Joe didn’t recognize him, the other said, “We were together on the Chihuahua Reservation in the jurisdictional fracas between the United Mine Workers and the Teamsters, sir.”
It had been almost fifteen years ago. About all that Joe Mauser remembered of that fracas was the abnormal number of casualties they’d taken. His side had lost, but from this distance in time Mauser couldn’t even remember what force he’d been with. But now he said, “That’s right. I thought I recognized you, Sergeant.”
“It was my first fracas, sir.” The sergeant returned to a businesslike manner. “If you want me to hustle this lad through, Captain—”
“Please do.” Mauser turned back to Max. “I’m not sure where my billet will be. When you’re through all this, locate the officer’s mess and wait there for me.”
“Well, OK,” Max said doubtfully, still scowling.
“That’s ‘sir’,” the sergeant added ominously. “If you’ve had basic, surely you know how to address an officer?”
“Well, yes sir,” Max said hurriedly.
Mauser began to turn away, but then spotted the man immediately behind Max Mainz. He was the one with whom he had tangled earlier, the one with previous combat experience. He pointed the man out to the sergeant. “You’d better give this lad at least temporary rank of corporal. He’s a veteran and we’re short of veterans.”
The sergeant said, “Yes, sir. We sure are. Step up here, lad.” Mauser’s former foe looked properly thankful.
* * * *
Mauser finished with his own red tape and headed for the street to locate a military tailor who could do him up a set of the Haer kilts and fill his other dress requirements.
As he went, he wondered vaguely just how many different uniforms he had worn over the years. In a career as long as his own one could take, from time to time, semi-permanent positions with bodyguard services, company police, and the permanent combat troops of this corporation or that. Such positions held an element of security, but if you were ambitious you signed up for the fracases and that meant into a uniform and out of it again in as short a period as a couple of weeks.
At the door he tried to move aside, but was too slow for the quick-moving young woman who caromed off him. He caught her arm to prevent her from stumbling. She looked at him with less than thanks.
Joe took the blame for the collision. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t see you, Miss.”
“Obviously,” she said coldly. Her eyes went up and down him, and for a moment he wondered where he had seen her before. Somewhere, he was sure.
She was dressed as they dress who have never considered cost, and she had an elusive beauty which would have been even the more had her face not projected quite such a serious outlook. Her features were more delicate than those to which he was usually attracted, her lips less full, but still—he was reminded of the classic ideal of the British Romantic Period, the women sung of by Byron and Keats, Shelley and Moore.
She said, “Is there any particular reason why you should be staring at me, Mr. …”
“Captain Mauser,” Joe said hurriedly. “I’m afraid I’ve been rude, Miss—well, I thought I recognized you.” He hoped that she wouldn’t think he was running a tired old line on her.
She took in his civilian dress, typed it automatically, and came to an erroneous conclusion. She said, “Captain? You mean that with everyone else I know drawing down ranks from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general, you can’t make anything better than captain?”
Joe winced. “I came up from the ranks. Captain is quite an achievement, believe me. Few make it beyond sergeant,” he said humbly.
“Up from the ranks!” She took in his clothes again. “You mean you’re a Middle? You neither talk nor look like a Middle, Captain.” She used the caste rating as though it was not quite a derogatory term.
Not that she meant to be deliberately insulting, Joe told himself wearily. It was simply born in her. As once a well-educated aristocracy had, not necessarily unkindly, named their status inferiors niggers—or other aristocrats, in another area of the country, had named theirs greasers—so did this aristocracy use derogatory labels in an unknowing manner.
“Mid-Middle now, Miss,” he said slowly. “However, I was born in the Lower castes.”
An eyebrow went up, half cynical, half mocking, as though amused at a social climber. “Zen! You must have put in many an hour studying. You talk like an Upper, Captain.” With a shrug, she dropped all interest in him and turned to resume her journey.
“Just a moment,” Mauser said. “You can’t go in there, Miss—”
Her eyebrow went up again. “The name is Haer,” she said. “And just why can’t I go into my father’s offices, Captain?”
Now it came to him why he had thought he recognized her. She had basic features similar to those of that overbred ass, Balt Haer. With her, however, they came off superlatively.
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess you can, under the circumstances. I was about to tell you that they’re recruiting, with men running around half clothed. Medical inspections, that sort of thing.”
She made a noise of derision and said over her shoulder, even as she sailed on, “Besides being a Haer, I’m an M.D., Captain. At the ludicrous sight of a man shuffling about in his skin, I seldom blush.” She was gone.
Mauser watched her go. Her figure was superlative from the rear, as Grecian classic as her face. “I’ll bet you don’t,” he muttered.
Had she waited a few moments, he could have explained his Upper accent and his unlikely education. When you’d copped one and spent days or weeks languishing in a hospital bed, you had plenty of time to read, to study. And Mauser had decided early on in life that any bit of knowledge he might gain was precious, potentially useful. His career had verified that belief on numerous occasions, and his natural curiosity and intelligence made it easy for him to follow his program of self-education. Had he been born an Upper, he might have