Galactic Medal of Honor

XVII

After Rostoff had left, slamming the door behind him, Don grabbed up the bottle of cognac and took a deep swig. Then he slapped it down to the desk again and glared at Dirck Bosch.

Bosch shook his head, his face, as usual, expressionless. “The bottle is no answer,” he said.

“How the hell would you know, you plastic doll?”

“Tried it.”

“What is the answer?”

The Belgian shook his head. “I don’t know. They are more ruthless men than we are… Don.” It was the first time he had ever called Don Mathers by his first name. “Men who are completely, ruthless can sweep all before them. Rostoff, and especially Demming, are probably the most ruthless men in the solar system.”

Don took up the bottle again. He said, “Like a drink, Dirck?”

The other shook his head. “No. Like I said, I tried that route. I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting to interview any more today.”

“No,” Don said.

Dirck Bosch left. To cancel any more of the day’s appointments, Don assumed.

He took up the bottle and took one more belt from it then threw it against the wall. Screw Lawrence Demming’s million dollar guzzle.

He went over to the room’s elevator door and flung it open. Inside, was one of the always present bodyguards.

Don said, “Get the hell out.”

The guard, whose name escaped Don, there were so damned many of them around the place, said, apologetically, “Colonel, my orders are…”

. “You can stick your orders up your rosy-red rectum,” Don told him in the language of his cadet days. “Get out of there.”

The guard got.

Don said to the order screen, “Motor pool, in the basement.”

“Yes, sir,” the screen said. “Colonel Mathers, our orders are…”

“Screw your orders.”

That command stopped the metallic computer voice only a moment. He had never heard a phone screen hum before. This one hummed only for the briefest of moments and then said, “The motor pool. Yes, Colonel Mathers.”

In the motor pool, he summoned an automated hovercab. While he waited, several persons approached him, as usual. He snarled at them. When the cab came he got in and dialed the entertainment area of Center City.

He began the biggest, most prolonged toot of his life, and in his time Donal Mathers had been on some king-sized binges.

From time to time the fog would roll in on him and when it would roll out again he couldn’t remember where he was, how he had gotten there, or what had been happening just previously. Usually, he found himself in some sort of nightclub or bar. He would immediately order again and take up where he left off. He assumed that he was still in Center City but he couldn’t be sure. Hell, he might be in SanSan, London or Bombay.

It was when he came out of one of these alcoholic dazes that he found her seated across the table from him. They were in some sort of night spot. He didn’t recognize it.

He licked his lips and scowled at the taste of stale vomit. He slurred, “Hello, Di. Cheers, cheers. What spins?”

Dian Keramikou said, “Hi, Don.”

He said, “I thought you were on Callisto.”

She laughed at him. “We went through all that. I’ve been back over a month. It seems that the gravity on Callisto didn’t” agree with me. It’s only slightly larger than Luna and with a gravity only two tenths that of Earth. I was continually nauseated. Finally, they shipped me home. This is the third time I’ve told you about it.”

He said, “I must’ve blanked out. Guess I’ve been hitting it a little hard.”

She laughed again. “You mean you don’t remember all the things you’ve been telling me the past two hours?” She was obviously quite sober. Dian had never been much for the guzzle.

Don looked at her narrowly. “What’ve I been telling you for the past two hours?”

“Mostly about how it was when you were a little boy. About fishing and your first .22 rifle. And the time you shot the squirrel and then felt so sorry.”

“Oh,” Don said. He ran his right hand over his mouth.

There was an ice bucket beside him, but the bottle of ersatz champagne in it was empty. He looked about the room for a waiter. People at nearby tables would shoot looks at him from time to time, but none approached. He got the feeling that possibly some of them had tried earlier and that he had run them off, probably nastily.

Dian said gently, “Do you really think you need any more, Don?”

He looked across the table at her. She was as beautiful as ever. Not a glamour type like Alicia, but for Donal Mathers the most beautiful woman in the world.

Don said, “Look, I can’t remember. Did we get married, or something?”

Her laugh trilled. “Married! I only ran into you two or three hours ago.” She hesitated before saying further, “I had assumed you were deliberately avoiding me. Center City isn’t as big as all that.”

Don Mathers said shakily, “Well, if we’re not married, let me decide when I want another bottle of the grape.”

Dian flushed. “Sorry, Don.”

The headwaiter approached, bearing another magnum of the ersatz champagne. He bobbed at Don Mathers. “Having a good time, Colonel?”

“Okay,” Don said shortly. When the other was gone he downed a full glass and felt the fumes almost immediately.

He said to Dian, “I haven’t been avoiding you. We haven’t met is all. I don’t get out much—being a celebrity is a hazard—and didn’t know you were back on Earth. But even if I had known, I don’t know whether or not I’d have looked you up.” He twisted the knife in his own wound. “The way I remember it, the last time we saw each other, you gave me quite a slap in the face. The way I remember, you didn’t think I was hero enough for you.” He poured another glass of the wine, hating himself.

Dian’s face was still flushed. She said, her voice very low, “I misunderstood you, Don. Even after your defeat of that Kraden cruiser, I still, I admit, think I basically misunderstood you. I told myself that it could have been done by any pilot of a One Man Scout, given that one in a million break. It just happened to be you, who made that suicide dive attack that succeeded. A thousand other pilots might have also taken the million-to-one suicide chance rather than let the Kraden escape.”

“Yeah,” Don said. Even in his alcohol, he was surprised at her words. He said gruffly, “Sure, anybody might have done it. A pure fluke. But why’d you change your mind about me? How come the switch of heart?”

“Because of what you’ve done since, darling.”

He closed one eye, the better to focus. “Since?”

He recognized the expression in her dark eyes. A touch of star gleam. That little girl receptionist when he had gone to the Interplanetary Lines Building, on his return from Geneva. The honey-mooner in Geneva. Even Alicia. In fact, in the past few months Don had seen it in many feminine eyes. And all for him.

Dian said, “Instead of cashing in on your fame, you’ve devoted yourself, unselfishly, to something even more important to the defense than bringing down individual Kraden cruisers.”

Don looked at her. He could feel a nervous tic beginning in his left eyebrow. Finally, he reached for the champagne bottle again and refilled his glass. He said, “You really go for this hero stuff, don’t you?”

She said nothing, but the starshine was still in her eyes.

He made his voice deliberately sour. “Look, suppose I asked you to come back to my place tonight?”

“Yes,” she said, so softly as hardly to be heard.

“And told you to bring your overnight bag along,” he added brutally.

Dian Keramikou looked into his face. “Why are you twisting yourself, your inner-self, so hard, Don? Of course I’d come, if that’s what you wanted.”

“And then,” he said flatly, “suppose I kicked you out in the morning?”

Dian winced, but kept her eyes even with his, her own moist now. “You forget,” she whispered. “You have been awarded the Galactic Medal of Honor, the bearer of which can do no wrong.”

“Almighty Ultimate!” Don muttered in soul defeat. He filled his glass, still once again, motioning to a nearby captain of waiters who was obviously hovering only for his orders.

“Yes, Colonel,” the captain said.

Don said, “Look, in about five minutes I’m going to pass out. See that I get to some hotel, any hotel, will you? And that this young lady gets to her apartment. And, waiter, just send my bill to the Radioactives Mining Corporation.”

The other bowed. “The manager’s instructions, sir, are that Colonel Mathers must never see a bill in this establishment.”

Dian said, worrying over the new drink he was taking, “Don!”

He didn’t look at her. He raised his glass to his mouth and shortly afterward the fog rolled in again.

When it rolled out, the unfamiliar taste of black coffee.was in his mouth. He shook his head in an attempt to achieve clarity.

He seemed to be in some working class type auto-cafeteria. Next to him, in a booth, was a fresh faced sub-lieutenant of the, Don squinted at the collar tabs, yes, of the Space Service. A One Man Scout pilot.

Don stuttered, “Cheers. What spins?”

The pilot said apologetically, “Sub-lieutenant Pierpont, sir. You seemed so far under the weather that I thought I’d best take over. No disrespect, sir.”

“Oh, you did, eh?”

“Well, yes sir. You were, well, reclining in the gutter, sir. In spite of your, well, appearance, your condition, I recognized you, sir.”

“Oh,” Don got out. His stomach was an objecting turmoil.

The lieutenant said, “Want to try some more of this coffee now, sir? Or maybe some soup or a sandwich?”

Don groaned, “No, no thanks. I don’t think I could hold it down.”

The pilot grinned. “You must have thrown a classic, Colonel Mathers.”

“I guess so. Don’t call me Colonel. I’m a damned civilian now. What time is it? No, that doesn’t make any difference. What’s the date?”

Pierpont told him and then added, “You’ll always be Colonel Mathers to me, sir. I have your photo-graph above my bed, and in the cockpit of my Scout.”

The date was hard to believe. The last he could remember, he had been with Di. With Dian in some nightclub. He wondered how long ago that had been.

He growled at the lieutenant, “Well, how go the One Man Scouts?”

Pierpont grinned back at him. “Glad to be out of them, sir?”

“Usually.”

Pierpont looked at him strangely. He said, “I don’t blame you, sir. But it isn’t as bad as it used to be when you were still in the Space Service, Colonel.”

Don grunted at that opinion. He said, “How come? Two weeks to a month, all by yourself, watching the symptoms of space cafard progress. Then three weeks of leave to get drunk in, get laid in, and then another stretch in deep space.”

The pilot snorted in deprecation. “That’s the way it used to be,” he said. He fingered the spoon in his coffee cup. “That’s the way it still should be, of course. But it isn’t. They’re spreading the duty around now and I spend less than one week out of four on patrol.”

Don hadn’t been listening too closely, but now he looked up. “What’d ya mean?”

Pierpont said, “I mean, sir—I suppose this isn’t bridging security, seeing who you are, but fuel stocks are running so low, in spite of all your efforts, that we can’t maintain full patrols any more, especially of the Monitors and the other larger spacecraft.”

There was a cold emptiness in Don Mathers* stomach.

He said, “Look, I’m still woozy. Say that again, Lieutenant.”

The lieutenant told him again.

Don Mathers rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and tried to think.

He said, finally, “Look, Lieutenant, first let’s get another cup of coffee into me and maybe that sandwich you were talking about. And then would you help me to get back to my place?”

He might be drunk, and he might not be up on the inner workings of the Donal Mathers Radioactives Corporation, but he knew damn well that production of uranium had zoomed since its founding.