Galactic Medal of Honor

XIII

Inwardly laughing, Don Mathers made his way out of the building. He would never forget the way the commodore’s eyes popped when he announced that he was dropping out of the Space Service. Had he made such an announcement a month ago, he would have been dropped all right, all right, right into the laps of a bunch of psych doctors’ laps. But now? Now there was absolutely nothing the brass could do. He was out! At long last, he was out! No more three week patrols in deep space. No more space cafard. No more toadying to officers who ranked him. No more scorn to be seen in the eyes of his chief mechanic when he came in prematurely from an aborted patrol.

No more of the damned military, period! He got his full salute at the entrance to the administration buildings again and stood there for a moment on the curb, waiting for the hovercart he summoned on his transceiver. While he waited, half a dozen passing officers stopped to shake hands and congratulate him. He recognized several of them, but none too well. They were all of different squadrons than his own. However, the way they gushed, you would have thought they were lifelong buddies. It was a relief when the hovercart pulled up and he got into it.

He dialed the living quarters of the Third Division and got out before the non-residents’ dressing rooms. On his way over he’d had to answer to a few score waves of passers-by who recognized him. All right, it was part of the game and to be truthful it gave him a bit of ego-boo.

He made his way to his locker and opened it. He had been away only a couple of weeks or so, but already the contents looked foreign to him, as though he had never seen them before.

He brought out the several personal things that he wanted to retain, but left most of the locker’s contents where they were. Anybody who wanted them could scrounge them. Probably quite a few would want to, as souvenirs of such a celebrity.

He undressed, threw the colonel’s uniform aside, and brought forth the civilian suit he customarily kept in the locker. If he had anything to say about it, that was the last time he’d ever be seen in a uniform. The civilian suit was a bit on the proletarian side, he recognized now, but he could remedy that as soon as he got to an order box. From now on, Don Mathers was yearly going to make the Ten Best Dressed Men of the Solar System list.

Then, even as he redressed, something either Demming or Rostoff said came back to him. They were going to sponsor a “simplicity look” with some far-out plan in mind to lower the standard of living, and with it wage and salary standards. Well, he could think about that later.

Among the things in his locker had been his wrist chronometer, which he had never taken with him into space. For one thing, there was a chronometer in the cockpit of his V-102, and secondly he didn’t want to run the risk of batting it against something while in free fall.

He took it up now and sneered slightly as he compared it to the one that had been given him in Geneva.

There was an enlisted man nearby, idly supervising a half a dozen automatic floor waxers. Don called him over and proffered the chronometer.

“Could you use this, spaceman? I don’t need it any more.”

The other goggled. “Your own personal wrist chronometer?”

Don said impatiently, “Yes, of course. I have a new one. Take it if you want it.”

The other all but grabbed in his anxiousness. He blurted, “Almighty Ultimate! Imagine! I’ll be able to show it to my grandkids and tell them it was the chronometer of Colonel Donal Mathers and he gave it to me personally!”

Don remembered that the German girl had said something similar. She was going to be able to tell her grandchildren that she was the first woman Don had laid after winning his fight over the Kraden, while she was on her honeymoon.

He’d had a small bag in his locker. He put his things into it and left.

He summoned another hovercart and dialed the entrance of the base, but the screen of the small vehicle said, the computer voice metallic, “This transportation is restricted to space base personnel.”

Don said laconically, “I am Colonel Donal Mathers.”

“Yes, sir. Apologies.” The hovercart took off.

At the entry of the base, the guard sprang to attention, but Don ignored them. So far as he was concerned, if he never gave or received a salute again, it would still be too soon.

He dismissed the cart and summoned a hovercab and, after a moment’s hesitation, dialed Harry Amanroder’s Nuevo Mexico Bar. It wasn’t, of course, very far. He could have walked it. However, he’d just as well not be spotted. He’d wind up leading a host into the bar and spend his time there shaking hands and writing autographs.

At least, he was less conspicuous in civvies. He brought out his Universal Credit Card when they arrived at the bar and put it in the slot. The cab’s screen voice said, “Company’s orders. The credit card of Colonel Mathers is not to be recognized.”

He assumed that meant he wasn’t expected to pay. He got out of the cab and hustled into the bar, wanting to get off the street before being spotted.

At this time of the morning, there was only one customer present, a Space Service lieutenant sitting on a stool at the bar. Harry Amanroder, of course, presided, and was idly wiping the space before him with a soiled bar rag. His pudding face brake when he saw who the newcomer was.

“Lieutenant… I mean, Colonel Mathers! I… I never expected to see you ever come in this dump again!”

Don took a stool, two down from the lieutenant, and said, smiling, “This is my favorite bar, Harry. Besides, I have a tab here that’s been accumulating for months. Hell, for all I know, for years.”

Harry stood before him, tears in his eyes. “No, sir. That tab’s been picked up.”

Don scowled at him. “By whom?”

“Byrne.”

Don shook his head. “No, sir, Harry. A hundred times you’ve put my guzzle on the cuff when I was broke. I’ve got more credits in my account than I’ve ever had before, and I’m having no luck at all spending them. But I’m going to pay your bill. I’ll consider it a special favor, if you’ll let me.”

Harry said, his voice all but breaking, “All right, sir. But from then on in, the same thing applies in this bar as anywhere else in the Solar System. A holder of the Galactic Medal of Honor doesn’t pay no tab.”

“All right,” Don said, in acceptance of the inevitable. “But let me have my accounting.” He stuck his Universal Credit Card into the payment slot before him.

Harry went and got the bill from a sheaf of bills in a confusion of fellow bills in a drawer. Don wondered how in the hell the man stayed in business when he wouldn’t turn down the credit requests of any man in space uniform.

Actually, Don was surprised at the magnitude of his own. Hadn’t he ever paid up even part of his bar tab? Not that he gave a damn. He made the credit transfer and then said, “How about a tequila, for old time’s sake, Harry? I haven’t had a tequila since I was in here last.”

The lieutenant down the bar from him said, in a woozy voice, “How about one with me, Don?”

It was Eric Hansen, who had been here the last time Don had dropped by. A fellow One Man Scout pilot and a member of Don’s squadron—Don’s former squadron, he amended thankfully. Eric was already obviously drenched. At this time of the morning? He was asking for it. It wouldn’t be long before he was ordered psyched, if he wanted it or not.

“Sure, Eric,” Don said.

The other slid off his stool and climbed shakily up on the one next to Don Mathers.

Harry said worriedly, “You sure you need any more, Lieutenant Hansen? Dint you tell me you were due to go on patrol today?”

“Shut up,” Eric said. “That’s why I need another one. Ill have tequila, too, though why I should drink that rotgut is a holy mystery. How’s it going, Don, you lucky son-of-a-bitch?”

Don said, a little irritated, “I didn’t ask for the damn decoration.”

“That’s not what I was talking about. I mean you’re lucky to be alive.”

“That I am,” Don admitted, going into his usual modesty routine. “But anybody else would have done the same thing.”

“Go up against a Miro Class cruiser? Like hell I would. I would have hung back out of range on his flanks as long as I could keep him in my sensors and reported to Command. In fact, that’s exactly what I did do when I spotted mine.”

Don said uncomfortably, “You didn’t have time to close in. You hardly more than glimpsed yours.”

“Thank the Almighty Ultimate I only glimpsed him,” Eric slurred. “I nearly shit myself as it was.”

Don ignored that. He took up his salt and tequila and toasted the other. “Cheers,” he said.

They went through the tequila ceremony and Eric Hansen reeled to the point Don was afraid he’d fall off the stool. Harry looked at him worriedly.

He said to Don, “Won’t they throw him into the brig?”

Don said, trying to keep bitterness from his voice, in his new role as hero, “No. They’ll throw him into space, with an initial double dose of oxygen. He’ll sober up out there. What percentage of Scouts do you think go up completely drenched?”

Harry didn’t answer that, but he looked distressed.

Eric said, “You wanta know something, Don?”

“Sure, Eric.”

“Well, you know that last time I saw you asked if I really saw that Kraden I reported that time? You told me about that friend of yours who didn’t think they were really coming back. And you know, I got around to believing that he was right. I had a touch of cafard, knock on wood…” he knocked on the bar which wasn’t wood but plastic “… and just imagined it. But now I know I was wrong. If you knocked one of them out, they’re still coming back.”

Don couldn’t think of anything to say.

Eric looked at his chronometer and slurred, ” I gotta be getting over to the base. Listen, Don, what are you doing in mufti?”

“I just resigned.”

“I wish the hell I could,” Eric Hansen said, slipping from his stool. He looked about the bar, his eyes finally coming to rest on the two tired potted cactus plants flanking the door. “Well, adios, guys. Isn’t that what they say in Mexico?”

Neither Don nor Harry knew what they said in Mexico.

They watched the space pilot stumble toward the entrance.

“He drinks too much,” Harry said worriedly. “Don’t you guys have to be sharp all the time out in deep space?”

“Not for a day or so,” Don told him. “It’s all pretty automated at first. Not until you get to your own patrol sector.” He was sorry now he had come here.

Eric Hansen had hardly left before the door swung open again and a king-sized redhead entered. Both Don and the bartender looked up.

In surprise, Don recognized the newcomer. What in the hell was his name? Thor, something or other. The big man had rescued him from the drunken footpads and then took him back to his apartment to sleep off his own load of guzzle. It came back to Don Mathers. A present-day pacifist who didn’t believe in the all out effort against the Kradens.

The overgrown Viking came up with a grin on his square face. He held out a hand and said, “Thor Bjornsen. Remember me?”

Don shook and said, “Sure I remember you. You saved my neck. What in the world are you doing here?”

The other looked around the barroom, noting it was empty, and spotting a booth in the furthest corner. “Looking for you,” he said. “Could I have a few minutes of your time?”

“You can have, all of my time you want. How about a drink?”

“Okay. Let’s go over to that booth. I’d like to keep it private.”

They ordered their drinks and carried them over to the booth and got in it across from each other.

Don said, “How’d you know I was in here?”

Thor Bjornsen told him, “It was on the news this morning that you had returned to Center City. I remembered that you’d made it rather clear that you didn’t like the Space Service. I made an educated guess that one of the first things you’d do is come out here and resign.” He took in the civilian suit Don was wearing. “Was I right?”

“Yes.”

“At any rate, I came out and hung around the main entrance to the base. Finally, I spotted you leaving and followed you over here.”

Don took a swallow of his drink and scowled at the other. The drink tasted awful after the guzzle he’d been drinking recently. “Why?” he said.

“I wanted to talk to you about that Kraden you destroyed. You see, you flushing the cruiser and shooting it out with him throws the whole argument of the organization I belong to out of kilter.”

“How do you mean?” Don said cautiously.

“Remember? Our story is that the Kradens aren’t coming back. They were a peaceful armada, probably interested in trade, or new planets to colonize, if they weren’t already occupied.”

Don said grumpily, “That big shoot out we had with them half a century ago didn’t indicate that they were exactly peace lovers.”

The big man was unhappy at that. He said slowly, “As I mentioned to you before, some of us aren’t sure that the Kradens participated in that shoot out. That possibly they were shocked by the attack upon them and simply disappeared back into hyper-space, or whatever they call it.”

Don said, “Look, even if they were originally peacefully inclined, once our four space fleets hit them, they’d fire back.”

The big Scandinavian shook his head. “Not necessarily. The human race doesn’t subscribe to Jesus’ teaching that, if someone slaps you, turn the other cheek. But that doesn’t mean that more advanced, more enlightened cultures might not believe in it. Possibly when attacked, and even after having lost some of their spaceships, the Kradens, with their higher ethics, simply left.”

“Why did my cruiser come back?”

“How do you know it was a cruiser? Perhaps it was a merchantman, an explorer, possibly it was a ship bearing ambassadors.” Thor leaned forward. “Tell me the truth, Don. Did it fire at you? Even after you had initiated your attack?”

Don ran his tongue over his lip. He liked this man and was in his debt. However, there was nothing he could do without risking his neck. He said, finally, “Frankly, I can’t be sure. I was all caught up in the excitement, moving as fast as I could.”

Thor slumped back in his seat. He thought about it. He said finally, “Very possibly the Kradens were sending out another peaceful feeler to us. After the lapse of fifty years, perhaps their hope was that our warlike attitude toward extraterrestrials had cooled.”

“Perhaps,” Don said, putting doubt in his voice.

“It can never be proven now,” the other said in disgust. He finished his drink. “What are you going to do now that you’re a civilian again? I would have thought you might stay in and get some chairborne assignment that would keep you out of space but still allow you to enjoy your prestige.”

“I don’t have to wear a uniform to enjoy my prestige, as you put it. In fact, I’m beginning to wish I could avoid some of the damn prestige. But at any rate, I’m going to throw myself all out into the war effort to exploit the radioactives on the satellites.”

Thor stared at him. “They’re exploiting them too damn much as it is. In ten years there won’t be any remaining. If we haven’t solved the nuclear fusion problem by then there simply won’t be any radioactives left.”

Don Mathers couldn’t think of anything to say to that. If anything, he’d welcome the day. It would free him of Demming and Rostoff. They wouldn’t have any need of him any longer.

His companion waved at Harry to bring them a refill and then went into it. He said, “We’re destroying ourselves in destroying the solar system’s raw materials like this. It’s an utterly mad socioeconomic system. Are you at all up on economic history?”

“No,” Don said. What’s more, he couldn’t care less.

“Well, the last century in particular has been chaotic. Unbelievable. Classical capitalism, of the type raged against by Marx, actually collapsed in 1929. And never recovered. After ten years of economic chaos, prosperity was restored by the Second World War. The resources, both material and labor power, of practically the whole world were thrown into the military effort. Business boomed. When the war ended, so had classical capitalism. A form of what some call State Capitalism took over. The State entered into the economy to the point of dominating it. The military-industrial complex took over, increasingly, supported by government. Supposed prosperity was maintained by spending endless billions on the military. Supposedly the West and East were confronting each other eyeball to eyeball but in actuality their basic socioeconomic systems had little real difference. The Soviet Complex called itself communist, or socialist, but in truth, it was simply a different version of State Capitalism. The major difference was that instead of having individual capitalists and corporations owning the means of production, they were owned by the State, headed by the Communist party whose heads profited by the system. But basically both Eastern and Western economies were systems of waste, destruction of natural resources, pollution, inflation, threatened collapse of the international monetary system, overproduction in the developed countries and under-production in the undeveloped. These along with the uncontrolled population explosion were leading to a complete collapse. Only the coming of the Kradens prevented it. It was a shot in the arm, somewhat similar to the Second World War. Overnight, the planet was united and became an armed camp. The space program boomed, colonies went to every planet and satellite in the system that could support human life. Unemployment ceased to exist, production boomed.”

Don said, wearying of the long harangue, “Well, isn’t that for the good? At least nobody starves anymore. Everybody has work.”

Thor looked at him pityingly. “For how long? We’re ripping off not only the resources of Earth but now of the whole solar system. Ninety percent of the efforts are going into space and so-called defense. How long before we’ve stripped ourselves naked?”

Don had never thought about it. And he still didn’t give a damn. He had his and would continue to have it for the rest of his life. If what Thor said was correct, let the powers that be figure it out when the time came. After him the deluge? Okay, let it rain.