FullReads

Joe lowered himself into the room’s easy-chair and bent down to untie his laces. He kicked his shoes off. He could use that drink. He began wondering all over again if his scheme for winning this Vacuum Tube Transport versus Continental Hovercraft fracas would come off. The more he saw of Baron Haer’s inadequate forces, the more he wondered. He hadn’t expected Vacuum Tube to be in this bad a shape. Baron Haer had been riding high for so long that one would have thought his reputation for victory would have lured many a veteran to his colors. Evidently they hadn’t bitten. The word was out all right.

Max Mainz returned with the drink.

Joe said, “You had one yourself?”

“No, sir.”

Joe said, “Well, Zen, go get yourself one and come on back and sit down. Let’s get acquainted.”

“Well, yessir.” Max disappeared back into the kitchenette to return almost immediately. The little man slid into a chair, drink awkwardly in hand.

His superior sized him up, all over again. Not much more than a kid, really. Surprisingly aggressive for a Lower who must have been raised from childhood in a trank-bemused, Telly-entertained household. The fact that he’d broken away from that environment at all was to his credit, it was considerably easier to conform. But then it is always easier to conform, to run with the herd, as Joe well knew. His own break hadn’t been an easy one. “Relax,” he said now.

Max said, “Well, this is my first day.”

“I know. And you’ve been seeing Telly shows all your life showing how an orderly conducts himself in the presence of his superior.” Joe took another pull and yawned. “Well, forget about it. With any man who goes into a fracas with me, I like to be on close terms. When things pickle, I want him to be on my side, not nursing some peeve brought on by his officer trying to give him an inferiority complex.”

The little man was eying him in surprise.

Joe finished his highball and came to his feet to get another one. He said, “On two occasions I’ve had an orderly save my life. I’m not taking any chances but that there might be a third opportunity.”

“Well, yessir. Does the captain want me to get him–“

“I’ll get it,” Joe said.

When he’d returned to his chair, he said, “Why did you join up with Baron Haer, Max?”

The other shrugged it off. “The usual. The excitement. The idea of all those fans watching me on Telly. The share of common stock I’ll get. And, you never know, maybe a promotion in caste. I wouldn’t mind making Upper-Lower.”

Joe said sourly, “One fracas and you’ll be over that desire to have the buffs watching you on Telly while they sit around in their front rooms sucking on tranks. And you’ll probably be over the desire for the excitement, too. Of course, the share of stock is another thing.”

“You aren’t just countin’ down, captain,” Max said, an almost surly overtone in his voice. “You don’t know what it’s like being born with no more common stock shares than a Mid-Lower.”

Joe held his peace, sipping at his drink, taking this one more slowly. He let his eyebrows rise to encourage the other to go on.

Max said doggedly, “Sure, they call it People’s Capitalism and everybody gets issued enough shares to insure him a basic living all the way from the cradle to the grave, like they say. But let me tell you, you’re a Middle and you don’t realize how basic the basic living of a Lower can be.”

Joe yawned. If he hadn’t been so tired, there would have been more amusement in the situation.

Max was still dogged. “Unless you can add to those shares of stock, it’s pretty drab, captain. You wouldn’t know.”

Joe said, “Why don’t you work? A Lower can always add to his stock by working.”

Max stirred in indignity. “Work? Listen, sir, that’s just one more field that’s been automated right out of existence. Category Food Preparation, Sub-division Cooking, Branch Chef. Cooking isn’t left in the hands of slobs who might drop a cake of soap into the soup. It’s done automatic. The only new changes made in cooking are by real top experts, almost scientists like. And most of them are Uppers, mind you.”