Mack Reynolds: Galactic Medal of Honor

He said now, “Cheers, Lieutenant. What spins? Thought you were due for a patrol along in here. How come you’re back so soon? Didn’t expect to see you for maybe another couple of weeks.”

Don Mathers looked at him coldly. He said, “You prying into security subjects, Harry? I was on a… special mission. Top confidential.”

Harry wiped the bar with a dirty bar rag, distressed. He said, earnestly, “Well gee, no Lieutenant. You know me. I know all the boys. I was just making conversation.”

“Well, make it with somebody else,” Don said with less than graciousness. “Look, Harry, how about some more credit? I don’t have any pay coming up for a week. My Universal Credit Card is down to its last few pseudo-dollars.”

“Why, sure, Lieutenant. I ever turned you down? You’re into me more than anybody ever comes in here. But, you know me. I never turned down a spaceman in my life. And that goes double for a real pilot. I got a boy serving on the New Taos , you know, the light cruiser.”

Don Mathers knew, all right. He’d heard about it often enough.

Harry was saying, “Any spaceman’s credit is good with me. What’ll it be?”

“Tequila.”

Tequila was the only concession the Nuevo Mexico Bar made to its name, save two sick cactus plants in pots which flanked the entry. Otherwise, the place looked like every other bar has looked in every land and in every era, save the new automated, sterile horrors that were taking over these days.

Harry turned and reached out for a bottle of Sauza. He put it on the bar and took up a lime and cut it into four quarters, then reached back and got a shaker of salt. He took a two-ounce shot glass and filled it carefully with the water-colored liquid H-Bomb.

Don went through the routine. He sprinkled some of the salt on the back of his hand, licked it, picked up the shot glass and tossed its contents back over his tonsils, then hurriedly grabbed up one of the quarters of lime and bit into it.

He said, “I’ll be damned if I know why anybody punishes themselves by drinking this stuff.”

Harry leaned on the bar before him and said, sympathetically, “You know, Lieutenant, I don’t either. I’m a beer-drinking man myself. But, you know, the kind of beer they’re turning out these days, they could stick it back in the horse. No body, no strength, no nothing.” He sighed. “I guess it’s all necessary on account of the war effort. But we still had real beer, back when I was a kid.”

“I doubt it. I remember my grandfather, back when I was a boy. He used to tell us, and over and over again, that the beer in those days wasn’t worth drinking. No hops, no strength. Now when he was a young fellow they really had beer . I bet the complaint has gone back to the Babylonians, or whoever it was that first brewed beer.”

Harry never argued with a real spaceman. He said, “I guess you’re right, Lieutenant. Like another one?”

“Yeah, hit me again,” Don said. In actuality, in his humor, he wished he could think of something really cutting to say to the fawning bartender, but it was too damned much effort.

Harry poured more tequila.

He said, “You hear the news this morning?”

Don said, “No. I just got in. I’ve been in deep space.”

He knocked back the second drink, going through the same procedure as before. He still didn’t know why he drank this stuff, save that it was the quickest manner of getting an edge on.

“Colin Casey died.” Harry shook his heavy head. “The only man in the system that held the Galactic Medal of Honor. Presidential proclamation. Everybody in the solar system is to hold five minutes of silence for him at two o’clock, Sol time.”

“Oh?” Don said, in spite of his humor, impressed. “I hadn’t heard about it as yet.”

Harry said, “You know how many times that medal’s been awarded since they first started it up, Lieutenant?” Without waiting for an answer, Harry added, “Just twelve times.”

Don said dryly, “Eight of them posthumously, and most of them as a result of the big shoot-out with the Kradens.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, leaning on the bar again. His other two customers didn’t seem to require attention.

He added, in wonderment, “But just imagine. The Galactic Medal of Honor, the bearer of which by law can do no wrong. You come to some city, walk into the biggest jewelry store in town, pick up a diamond bracelet and walk out without paying. And what happens?”

Don growled, “The jewelry store owner would probably be over-reimbursed by popular subscription. And probably the mayor of the town would write you a letter thanking you for honoring his fair city by deigning to notice one of the products of its shops. Just like that.”

“Yeah.” Harry shook his head in continued awe. “And, imagine, if you shoot somebody you don’t like, you couldn’t spend even a single night in the Nick.”

Don said, “If you held the Galactic Medal of Honor, you wouldn’t have to shoot anybody. All you’d have to do is drop the word that you mildly didn’t like him, and after a week or so of the treatment he got from his fellow citizens, the poor bastard would probably commit suicide.”

Harry sighed. “And suppose you went into one of them fancy whorehouses, like in Paris or Peking. Anything would be free. Anything.”

Don snorted at the lack of imagination. “Why not just go out to New Hollywood? Look, Harry, mind if I use the phone?”

“Go right ahead, Lieutenant. Anything you want in the place, until two o’clock. Then I close down for the rest of the day, on account of Colin Casey.”

Don knew the Colin Casey story. Everybody knew the Colin Casey story. He had been a crewman on one of the Monitors, the heaviest of Solar System battle craft. When one of the reactors blew he had gone in immediately, improperly shielded, and had done what had to be done. His burns, though treated by the most competent physicians on Earth, had led to his present death, but he had saved the ship and had lived long enough to be awarded, though not to enjoy, the highest decoration the human race had conjured up. Yes, Don Mathers had known of Colin Casey—but hadn’t envied the poor damn fool. Sure, they had kept him alive for years, but what good is life when you’re blind, when you’re sexually impotent, when you can’t even walk? Precious little good the Galactic Medal of Honor had done Colin Casey.

He could have used his pocket transceiver to call Dian Keramikou but the screen was so small that he wouldn’t have been able to make out her features very well and even though he had seen her less than a week before, he wanted to feast his eyes on her.

In the phone booth he dialed and almost immediately the screen lit up and the face of the woman he loved faded in.

Dian Keramikou was a great deal of woman. Possibly five feet eight, possibly 134 pounds, possibly 39-25-39 and every inch glossy and firm. She wasn’t truly a pretty woman. Her features were too vital and just slightly heavy. The brows were heavy, her hair harsh and black and glossy, like a racing mare. She had Indian-black eyes, a bold nose and a broad mouth. Not pretty, no, but strikingly handsome in the Greek tradition which she had inherited from her forebears.

She was obviously in the process of packing when the screen had summoned her. She looked into his face and said, in that slightly husky voice of hers, “Why, Don. I thought that you were on patrol.”

He said, a little impatiently, “Yeah. Yeah, I was. However, something came up and I had to return to base.”

She looked at him, a slight wrinkle on her broad, fine forehead. She said, “Again?”

He said impatiently, “Look, Di, I called you to ask for a get together. You’re leaving for that job on Callisto tomorrow. It’s our last chance to be together.