The Forever War

  Mother went off to turn the ground beef into a meatloaf and I settled down with the evening ’fax. She pulled some carrots from her little garden and called the mushroom lady, whose son came over to make the trade. He had a riot gun slung under his arm.

  “Mother, where’s the rest of the Star?” I called into the kitchen.

  “As far as I know, it’s all there. What were you looking for?”

  “Well…I found the classified section, but no ‘Help Wanted.’”

  She laughed. “Son, there hasn’t been a ‘Help Wanted’ ad in ten years. The government takes care of jobs…well, most of them.”

  “Everybody works for the government?”

  “No, that’s not it.” She came in, wiping her hands on a frayed towel. “The government, they tell us, handles the distribution of all natural resources. And there aren’t many resources more valuable than empty jobs.”

  “Well, I’ll go talk to them tomorrow.”

  “Don’t bother, son. How much retirement pay you say you’re getting from the Force?”

  “Twenty thousand k a month. Doesn’t look like it’ll go far.”

  “No, it won’t. But your father’s pension gave me less than half that, and they wouldn’t give me a job. Jobs are assigned on a basis of need. And you’ve got to be living on rice and water before the Employment Board considers you needy.”

  “Well, hell, it’s a bureaucracy—there must be somebody I can pay off, slip me into a good—”

  “No. Sorry, that’s one part of the UN that’s absolutely incorruptible. The whole shebang is cybernetic, untouched by human souls. You can’t—”

  “But you said you had a job!”

  “I was getting to that. If you want a job badly enough, you can go to a dealer and sometimes get a hand-me-down.”

  “Hand-me-down? Dealer?”

  “Take my job as an example, son. A woman named Hailey Williams has a job in a hospital, running a machine that analyzes blood, a chromatography machine. She works six nights a week, for 12,000k a week. She gets tired of working, so she contacts a dealer and lets him know that her job is available.

  “Some time before this, I’d given the dealer his initial fee of 50,000k to get on his list. He comes by and describes the job to me and I say fine, I’ll take it. He knew I would and already has fake identification and a uniform. He distributes small bribes to the various supervisors who might know Miss Williams by sight.

  “Miss Williams shows me how to run the machine and quits. She still gets the weekly 12,000k credited to her account, but she pays me half. I pay the dealer ten percent and wind up with 5400k per week. This, added to the nine grand I get monthly from your father’s pension, makes me quite comfortable.

  “Then it gets complicated. Finding myself with plenty of money and too little time, I contact the dealer again, offering to sublet half my job. The next day a girl shows up who also has ‘Hailey Williams’ identification. I show her how to run the machine, and she takes over Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Half of my real salary is 2700k, so she gets half that, 1350k, and pays the dealer 135.”

  She got a pad and a stylus and did some figuring. “So the real Hailey Williams gets 6000k weekly for doing nothing. I work three days a week for 4050k. My assistant works three days for 1115k. The dealer gets 100,000k in fees and 735k per week. Lopsided, isn’t it?”

  “Hmm…I’ll say. Quite illegal, too, I suppose.”

  “For the dealer. Everybody else might lose their job and have to start over, if the Employment Board finds out. But the dealer gets brain-wiped.”

  “Guess I better find a dealer, while I can still afford the fifty-grand bite.” Actually, I still had over three million, but planned to run through most of it in a short time. Hell, I’d earned it.

  I was getting ready to go the next morning when Mother came in with a shoebox. Inside, there was a small pistol in a clip-on holster.

  “This belonged to your father,” she explained. “Better wear it if you’re planning to go downtown without a bodyguard.”

  It was a gunpowder pistol with ridiculously thin bullets. I hefted it in my hand. “Did Dad ever use it?”

  “Several times…just to scare away riders and hitters, though. He never actually shot anybody.”

  “You’re probably right that I need a gun,” I said, putting it back. “But I’d have to have something with more heft to it. Can I buy one legally?”

  “Sure, there’s a gun store down in the Mall. As long as you don’t have a police record, you can buy anything that suits you.” Good; I’d get a little pocket laser. I could hardly hit the wall with a gunpowder pistol.

  “But…William, I’d feel a lot better if you’d hire a bodyguard, at least until you know your way around.” We’d gone all around that last night. Being an official Trained Killer, I thought I was tougher than any clown I might hire for the job.

  “I’ll check into it, Mother. Don’t worry—I’m not even going downtown today, just into Hyattsville.”

  “That’s just as bad.”

  When the elevator came, it was already occupied. He looked at me blandly as I got in, a man a little older than me, clean-shaven and well dressed. He stepped back to let me at the row of buttons. I punched 47 and then, realizing his motive might not have been politeness, turned to see him struggling to get at a metal pipe stuck in his waistband. It had been hidden by his cape.

  “Come on, fella,” I said, reaching for a nonexistent weapon. “You wanna get caulked?”

  He had the pipe free but let it hang loosely at his side. “Caulked?”

  “Killed. Army term.” I took one step toward him, trying to remember. Kick just under the knee, then either groin or kidney. I decided on the groin.

  “No.” He put the pipe back in his waistband. “I don’t want to get ‘caulked.’” The door opened at 47 and I backed out.

  The gun shop was all bright white plastic and gleamy black metal. A little bald man bobbed over to wait on me. He had a pistol in a shoulder rig.

  “And a fine morning to you, sir,” he said and giggled. “What will it be today?”

  “Lightweight pocket laser,” I said. “Carbon dioxide.”

  He looked at me quizzically and then brightened. “Coming right up, sir.” Giggle. “Special today, I throw in a handful of tachyon grenades.”

  “Fine.” They’d be handy.

  He looked at me expectantly. “So? What’s the popper?”

  “Huh?”

  “The punch, man; you set me up, now knock me down. Laser.” He giggled.

  I was beginning to understand. “You mean I can’t buy a laser.”

  “Of course not, sweetie,” he said and sobered. “You didn’t know that?”

  “I’ve been out of the country for a long time.”

  “The world, you mean. You’ve been out of the world a long time.” He put his left hand on a chubby hip in a gesture that incidentally made his gun easier to get. He scratched the center of his chest.

  I stood very still. “That’s right. I just got out of the Force.”

  His jaw dropped. “Hey, no bully-bull? You been out shootin’ ’em up, out in space?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hey, all that crap about you not gettin’ older, there’s nothin’ to that, is there?”

  “Oh, it’s true. I was born in 1975.”

  “Well, god…damn. You’re almost as old as I am.” He giggled. “I thought that was just something the government made up.”

  “Anyhow…you say I can’t buy a laser—”

  “Oh, no. No no no. I run a legal shop here.”

  “What can I buy?”

  “Oh, pistol, rifle, shotgun, knife, body armor…just no lasers or explosives or fully automatic weapons.”

  “Let me see a pistol. The biggest you have.”

  “Ah, I’ve got just the thing.” He motioned me over to a display case and opened the back, taking out a huge revolver. “Four-ten-gauge six-shooter.” He cradled it in both hands. “Dinosaur-
stopper. Authentic Old West styling. Slugs or flechettes.”

  “Flechettes?”

  “Sure—uh, they’re like a bunch of tiny darts. You shoot and they spread out in a pattern. Hard to miss that way.”

  Sounded like my speed. “Anyplace I can try it out?”

  “’Course, of course, we have a range in back. Let me get my assistant.” He rang a bell and a boy came out to watch the store while we went in back. He picked up a red-and-green box of shotgun shells on the way.

  The range was in two sections, a little anteroom with a plastic transparent door and a long corridor on the other side of the door with a table at one end and targets at the other. Behind the targets was a sheet of metal that evidently deflected the bullets down into a pool of water.

  He loaded the pistol and set it on the table. “Please don’t pick it up until the door’s closed.” He went into the anteroom, closed the door, and picked up a microphone. “Okay. First time, you better hold on to it with both hands.” I did so, raising it up in line with the center target, a square of paper looking about the size of your thumbnail at arm’s length. Doubted I’d even come near it. I pulled the trigger and it went back easily enough, but nothing happened.

  “No, no,” he said over the microphone with a tinny giggle. “Authentic Old West styling. You’ve got to pull the hammer back.”

  Sure, just like in the flicks. I hauled the hammer back, lined it up again, and squeezed the trigger.

  The noise was so loud it made my face sting. The gun bucked up and almost hit me on the forehead. But the three center targets were gone: just tiny tatters of paper drifting in the air.

  “I’ll take it.”

  He sold me a hip holster, twenty shells, a chest-and-back shield, and a dagger in a boot sheath. I felt more heavily armed than I had in a fighting suit. But no waldos to help me cart it around.

  The monorail had two guards for each car. I was beginning to feel that all my heavy artillery was superfluous, until I got off at the Hyattsville station.

  Everyone who got off at Hyattsville was either heavily armed or had a bodyguard. The people loitering around the station were all armed. The police carried lasers.

  I pushed a “cab call” button, and the readout told me mine would be No. 3856. I asked a policeman and he told me to wait for it down on the street; it would cruise around the block twice.

  During the five minutes I waited, I twice heard staccato arguments of gunfire, both of them rather far away. I was glad I’d bought the shield.

  Eventually the cab came. It swerved to the curb when I waved at it, the door sliding open as it stopped. Looked as if it worked the same way as the autocabs I remembered. The door stayed open while it checked the thumbprint to verify that I was the one who had called, then slammed shut. It was thick steel. The view through the windows was dim and distorted; probably thick bulletproof plastic. Not quite the same as I remembered.

  I had to leaf through a grimy book to find the code for the address of the bar in Hyattsville where I was supposed to meet the dealer. I punched it out and sat back to watch the city go by.

  This part of town was mostly residential: grayed-brick warrens built around the middle of the last century competing for space with more modem modular setups and, occasionally, individual houses behind tall brick or concrete walls with jagged broken glass and barbed wire at the top. A few people seemed to be going somewhere, walking very quickly down the sidewalks, hands on weapons. Most of the people I saw were either sitting in doorways, smoking, or loitering around shopfronts in groups of no fewer than six. Everything was dirty and cluttered. The gutters were clotted with garbage, and shoals of waste paper drifted with the wind of the light traffic.

  It was understandable, though; street-sweeping was probably a very high-risk profession.

  The cab pulled up in front of Tom & Jerry’s Bar and Grill and let me out after I paid 430k. I stepped to the sidewalk with my hand on the shotgun-pistol, but there was nobody around. I hustled into the bar.

  It was surprisingly clean on the inside, dimly lit and furnished in fake leather and fake pine. I went to the bar and got some fake bourbon and, presumably, real water for 120k. The water cost 20k. A waitress came over with a tray.

  “Pop one, brother-boy?” The tray had a rack of old-fashioned hypodermic needles. “Not today, thanks.” If I was going to “pop one,” I’d use an aerosol. The needles looked unsanitary and painful.

  She set the dope down on the bar and eased onto the stool next to me. She sat with her chin cupped in her palm and stared at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. “God. Tuesdays.”

  I mumbled something.

  “You wanna go in back fer a quickie?”

  I looked at her with what I hoped was a neutral expression. She was wearing only a short skirt of some gossamer material, and it plunged in a shallow V in the front, exposing her hipbones and a few bleached pubic hairs. I wondered what could possibly keep it up. She wasn’t bad looking, could have been anywhere from her late twenties to her early forties. No telling what they could do with cosmetic surgery and makeup nowadays, though. Maybe she was older than my mother.

  “Thanks anyhow.”

  “Not today?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I can get you a nice boy, if—”

  “No. No thanks.” What a world.

  She pouted into the mirror, an expression that was probably older than Homo sapiens. “You don’t like me.”

  “I like you fine. That’s just not what I came here for.”

  “Well…different funs for different ones.” She shrugged. “Hey, Jerry. Get me a short beer.”

  He brought it.

  “Oh, damn, my purse is locked up. Mister, can you spare forty calories?” I had enough ration tickets to take care of a whole banquet. Tore off a fifty and gave it to the bartender.

  “Jesus.” She stared. “How’d you get a full book at the end of the month?”

  I told her in as few words as possible who I was and how I managed to have so many calories. There had been two months’ worth of books waiting in my mail, and I hadn’t even used up the ones the Force had given me. She offered to buy a book from me for ten grand, but I didn’t want to get involved in more than one illegal enterprise at a time.

  Two men came in, one unarmed and the other with both a pistol and a riot gun. The bodyguard sat by the door and the other came over to me.

  “Mr. Mandella?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Shall we take a booth?” He didn’t offer his name.

  He had a cup of coffee, and I sipped a mug of beer. “I don’t keep any written records, but I have an excellent memory. Tell me what sort of a job you’re interested in, what your qualifications are, what salary you’ll accept, and so on.”

  I told him I’d prefer to wait for a job where I could use my physics—teaching or research, even engineering. I wouldn’t need a job for two or three months, since I planned to travel and spend money for a while. Wanted at least 20,000k monthly, but how much I’d accept would depend on the nature of the job.

  He didn’t say a word until I’d finished. “Righty-oh. Now, I’m afraid…you’d have a hard time, getting a job in physics. Teaching is out; I can’t supply jobs where the person is constantly exposed to the public. Research, well, your degree is almost a quarter of a century old. You’d have to go back to school, maybe five or six years.”

  “Might do that,” I said.

  “The one really marketable feature you have is your combat experience. I could probably place you in a supervisory job at a bodyguard agency for even more than twenty grand. You could make almost that much, being a bodyguard yourself.”

  “Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to take chances for somebody else’s hide.”

  “Righty-oh. Can’t say I blame you.” He finished his coffee in a long slurp. “Well, I’ve got to run, got a thousand things to do. I’ll keep you in mind and talk to some people.”

  “Good. I’ll see you
in a few months.”

  “Righty-oh. Don’t need to make an appointment. I come in here every day at eleven for coffee. Just show up.”

  I finished my beer and called a cab to take me home. I wanted to walk around the city, but Mother was right. I’d get a bodyguard first.

  Twenty-four

  I came home and the phone was blinking pale blue. Didn’t know what to do so I punched “Operator.” A pretty young girl’s head materialized in the cube. “Jefferson operator,” she said. “May I help you?”

  “Yes…what does it mean when the cube is blinking blue?”

  “Huh?”

  “What does it mean when the phone—”

  “Are you serious?” I was getting a little tired of this kind of thing. “It’s a long story. Honest, I don’t know.”

  “When it blinks blue you’re supposed to call the operator.”

  “Okay, here I am.”

  “No, not me, the real operator. Punch nine. Then punch zero.” I did that and an old harridan appeared. “Ob-a-ray-duh.”

  “This is William Mandella at 301-52-574-3975. I was supposed to call you.”

  “Juzza segun.” She reached outside the field of view and typed something. “You godda call from 605-19-556-2027.” I scribbled it down on the pad by the phone. “Where’s that?”

  “Juzza segun. South Dakota.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know anybody in South Dakota.

  A pleasant-looking old woman answered the phone. “Yes?”

  “I had a call from this number…uh…I’m—”

  “Oh. Sergeant Mandella! Just a second.”

  I watched the diagonal bar of the holding pattern for a second, then fifty or so more. Then a head came into focus.

  Marygay. “William. I had a heck of a time finding you.”

  “Darling, me too. What are you doing in South Dakota?”

  “My parents live here, in a little commune. That’s why it took me so long to get to the phone.” She held up two grimy hands. “Digging potatoes.”

  “But when I checked…the records said—the records in Tucson said your parents were both dead.”