"Eh?" Soligen said. "Major, by the looks of you, you're going to have
a beaut, comes morning. Why don't you stick to trank?"
"Cause I'm not a slob," Joe sneered. "Why?"
"Why, what? Listen, you want me to help you on home?"
"Got no home. Live in hotels. Military clubs. In barracks. Got nothing
but my rank and caste." He sneered again. "Such as they are."
Soligen said, "Mid-Middle, aren't you? And a major. Zen, most would
say you haven't much to complain about."
Joe grunted contempt, but dropped that angle of it. However, he could
have mentioned that he was well into his thirties, that he had copped
many a one in his day and that now time was borrowed. When you had
been in the dill as often as had Joe Mauser, the days you lived were
borrowed. Borrowed from some lad who hadn't used up all that nature
had originally allotted him. He was well into the thirties and his
life's goal was still tantalizingly far before him, and he living on
borrowed time.
He said, "Why're you ... exception? How come you get right into the
middle of it, like that time on the Panhandle Reservation. You coulda
copped one there."
Soligen chuckled abruptly, and as though in self-deprecation. "I _did_
cop one there. Hospitalized three months. Didn't read any of the
publicity I got? No, I guess you didn't, it was mostly in the Category
Communications trade press. Anyway, I got bounced not only in rank on
the job, but up to Low-Middle in caste." There was the faintest edge
of the surly in his voice as he added, "I was born a Lower, major."
Joe snorted. "So was I. You didn't answer my question, Soligen. Why
stick your neck out? Most of you Telly reporters, stick it out in some
concrete pillbox with lots of telescopic equipment." He added
bitterly, "And usually away from what's really going on."
The Telly reporter looked at him oddly. "Stick my neck out?" he said
with deliberation. "Possibly for the same reason you do, major. In
fact, it's kinda the reason I looked you up. Trouble is, you're
probably too drenched, right now, to listen to my fling."
Joe Mauser's voice attempted cold dignity. He said, "In the Category
Military, Soligen, you never get so drenched you can't operate."
The other's cynical grunt conveyed nothing, but he reached out and
dialed the auto-bar. He growled, "O.K., a Sober-Up for you, an ale for
me."
"I don't want to sober up. I'm being bitter and enjoying it."
"Yes, you do," the little man said. "I have the answer to your
bitterness." He handed Joe the pill. "You see, what's wrong with you,
major, is you've been trying to do it alone. What you need is help."
Joe glowered at him, even as he accepted the medication. "I make my
own way, Soligen. I don't even know what you're talking about."
"That's obvious," the other said sourly. He waited, sipping his brew,
while the Sober-Up worked its miracle. He was compassionate enough to
shudder, having been through, in his time, the speeding up of a
hangover so that full agony was compressed into mere minutes rather
than dispensed over a period of hours.