(eng) Mack Reynolds by Galactic Medal of Honor

Author:Galactic Medal of Honor [Honor, Galactic Medal of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

X

He couldn't have shocked Don Mathers more if he had suddenly levitated and flown out a window.

"We've been looking for you for over a week," Rostoff snapped, enraged. "Out of one bar, into another. Our men couldn't catch up with you. Dammit, don't you realize we've got to get going, you drunk? We've got a double dozen and more of documents for you to sign. We've got to get this thing underway, before somebody else does."

Don blurted, "You can't talk to me that way!"

It was the other's turn to stare. Obviously, Max Rostoff had as short a temper as his power was long. He said, low and dangerously, "No? Why can't I?"

Don glared at him.

Max Rostoff ran a hard hand back over his bald, tanned head and sneered, low and dangerously, "Let's get this straight, Mathers. To everybody else but Demming and me, you might be the biggest hero in the solar system. But you know what the hell you are to us?"

Don felt his indignation seeping from him. For the past two weeks he had been a god. For the past few days, he had begun to believe it himself. But here he was confronting reality.

Rostoff was saying, "To us, you're just another demi-buttocked incompetent on the make. You're a guzzler. A woman chaser. An opportunist willing to freeload on all the starry-eyed slobs who think you're the greatest thing to come down the aisle since Alexander the Great. You think our men didn't check you out? Hell, you didn't even pay your hovercabs. Underpaid cabbies who needed the couple of pseudo-dollars you owed them. Hell, you didn't even pay in the whorehouse you spent twenty-four hours in, in Paris. The madam closed the place up to all customers as long as you were there. Do you know who her husband was? I won't bother to tell you. He died in a One Man Scout; blew when the shuttle was taking him into orbit."

Don sank into one of the enormous office's huge, real-leather chairs.

Rostoff said, "You're a rummy and a con man and… a coward. We have the record of your past six patrols, Mathers."

Don said nothing. He was breathing deeply.

Rostoff added contemptuously, "Make no mistake, Mathers, you'll continue to have a good thing out of this only so long as we can use you."

A voice from behind them said, "Let me add to that, period, end of paragraph." It was the corpulent Lawrence Demming, who had just waddled in from an inner office.

He said, and even his voice seemed fat, "And now that's settled, I'm going to call in some of our lawyers who have already begun to work on the project. While they are about, we conduct ourselves as though we're three equals. Theoretically we will be." He lowered himself into a sizable chair with a sigh. It was obvious that his feet were too small for his bulk.

"Wait a minute now," Don blurted. "What do you mean theoretically? What in the hell do you think you're pulling? The agreement was we split this whole thing three ways.

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