“Zen!” Max muttered. “I was thinking Military was one category where education didn’t make much difference. Way you sound, Captain, you gotta be like an Education Category professor in every field there is before you make even Rank Sergeant.”
They came to a halt before the hangers, and Mauser cut the exchange short. He turned the craft over to the field’s employees, gathered up the charts and the papers on which he’d scribbled notes. His face was thoughtful. The morning had been profitable, but he wanted to take at least one more flight over the reservation. What he had been telling Max was all too true. You became a real pro, an old pro, by taking infinite pains with every detail.
But for Mauser it was more than just the old survival bit, this time. This was his big fling.
He was walking toward the administration building to wind up his account for the mini-jet’s rental when a male voice behind him whined, “Captain Mauser, could I have your autograph?”
He began to turn, wearily bringing a smile to his face for the sake of the fracas buff, fumbling in his jerkin pocket for a stylus.
But then the man laughed.
It was Freddy Soligen. Back in the shadow of one of the hangers Mauser could see the little man’s crew, taking advantage of the shade and relaxing between interviews of the notables that were coming and going.
Mauser grinned. “Hello, Freddy. It works both ways. Could I have yours? Somebody ought to collect the autographs of telly reporters who’ve been in the dill as much as you have.”
Freddy Soligen must be out here at the airport getting preliminary material, as he had been in the recruiting offices in Kingston. Mauser knew it was all part of the game. The buffs couldn’t expect to see a top fracas every day, nor even every week—a major conflict such as this one would only develop, say, ten or a dozen times a year. In between the buffs had to be happy with telly war dramas, or with the sort of thing Freddy was doing now—building up to the fracas to come, or following it, rehashing and commenting on the action.
Of course, true buffs ate it up. Interviews, especially, since these allowed the buffs to see their favorite warriors live, and any hints about the personal affairs of star-level fighters were most valued.
He didn’t expect Soligen to want to interview him again just now. It was too soon after yesterday, and Joe Mauser wasn’t a top fracas star. Somebody like Stonewall Cogswell or Jack Altshuler, the cavalryman, you could interview as often as they would submit, which wasn’t too often in some cases; in fact, the marshal was notoriously uncooperative with the telly men. He could afford to be; he was as high in the Category Military as it was possible to get, and he needed publicity like he needed a head wound.
But on Joe Mauser’s level, the better his in with the combat lensmen the more likely the lenses would be on him for his moments of glory—and Mauser could certainly use that in this fracas. This was his big fling, and it would not do to have what he had planned pass notice.
“That’ll be the day,” Freddy said, his voice sour with cynicism, “when somebody asks a telly reporter for an autograph. The stupid cloddies don’t even realize that somebody has to be there in the middle of the action, directing the cameras.”
Mauser chuckled. “Face it, Freddy—your colleagues aren’t usually as near as all that. That’s why they have pillboxes for the cameras! Some of you boys are as safe as the buffs sitting in front of their idiot boxes watching the show, and the buffs know it.”
Freddy frowned slightly. “A lot of my friends might be interested to hear what you say, Captain—if they hadn’t copped the final one.”
Mauser nodded. “I’ll take that. I wasn’t talking about you, Freddy, nor all of the others. I haven’t forgotten the time the two of us were pinned down in a foxhole on that damn knoll.”
“Yeah. Hotter ‘n’ hell, and me with a mini-ball through my camera—right in the middle of it, and I couldn’t get any footage! We were thirsty enough to drink a river, and nothing to drink but that little half pint of whatever you had.”
“Tequila,” Mauser said. “Mexican tequila.” He shook his head. “That’s the last time I ever took anything stronger than water into combat. It tasted all right for the minute, but Kipling was right.”
“Kipling?” Freddy’s eyes were automatically scanning the tarmac, checking to see if he was missing anyone he might approach for some telly footage.
Mauser said, “Old-timer British poet. He used to write about the fighting in India—
“When it comes to slaughter,
“You’ll do your work on water,
“And you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots
“Of ’im that’s got it.”
The reporter’s eyes came back to him, speculatively. “Where’n Zen did you learn to quote poetry?” Mauser laughed it off. “In hospital beds, Freddy. In hospital beds.”
Soligen was looking at him as though for the first time. “You know,” he said, “now that I think about it, I’ve known you about as long as anybody I can think of in Category Military, and my memory must go back at least fifteen years. I haven’t seen a great deal of you, perhaps, but over the years you’ve always been around. What in Zen are you doing, still a captain?”
Mauser couldn’t completely repress the flush that came to his face. He said, “What are you doing still in charge of a combat camera crew after fifteen years? By this time, you ought to at least be in charge of covering this whole fracas.”
Freddy shook his head. “You know better. There’s precious little promotion in Category Communications; it’s frozen. The jerk in charge of this coverage sits back in Kingston in an air-conditioned office giving commands to units like me. He’s never been in the dill in his life and doesn’t expect to be—he’s an Upper. But it’s different in Military. If you’re on the ball, you can get bounced in rank.”
Joe shrugged it off. “Maybe I’m not photogenic, Freddy. The buffs don’t take to me.”
The telly reporter cocked his head to one side and peered up at Joe. “No, it’s not that,” he said seriously. “As a matter of fact, that beautiful withdrawn air of yours…”
Mauser’s eyebrows went up.
Soligen snorted. “Don’t you even know about it?
“Most of the phonies I come in contact with cultivate this craggy, military dignity that you come by naturally. You look like the kind of officer a bunch of Lower riflemen would love to have in command when the situation pickles. I’m just wondering why you’ve never hit the big time. What you ought to do is pull something out of the hat that’d give us cameramen a reason to zero in on you.” He grinned. “Capture old Stonewall Cogswell, or something.”
For a moment, Mauser wondered if Soligen suspected that he was about to do exactly that. That is, pull something out of the hat that would focus the attention of every fracas buff in the West-world on Joe Mauser. But no, that was ridiculous. Mauser had confided in no one—he couldn’t. Oh, had Jim still been alive, yes, Joe would have told him. But as it was, no. It might take no more than a hint to blow the whole plan.
But still… here was the man who could bring the results of that plan to the attention of the world. Without thinking it through, Mauser said, “Freddy, possibly you’re right. Can you keep something under your hat?”
Freddy Soligen tilted his head to one side again and cocked an eye at Joe. “I’ve kept so many items under my hat in my time, Captain, that sometimes there’s been damn little room for my head.”
“I’m sure you have. In your own field, Soligen, you’re an