tone and his face straightened. "You mean the
Disarmament Commission?"

Cogswell said brittlely, "They found against the use of aircraft,
other than free balloons, in any military action. They threw the book,
Mauser. The court ruled that you, Robert Flaubert and James Hideka be
stripped of rank and forbidden the Category Military. You have also
been fined all stock shares in your possession other than those
unalienably yours as a West-world citizen."

Joe's face went empty. It was only then that he realized that the
other was attired in the uniform of a brigadier general. The direction
of his eyes was obvious.

Cogswell shrugged bitterly. "My Upper caste status helped me. I could
pull just enough strings that the Category Military Department, in
conjunction with the rulings of the International Disarmament
Commission merely reduced me in rank and belted me with a stiff fine.
Your friend--your former friend, I should say, Freddy Soligen,
testified in my behalf. Testified that I had no knowledge of your
mounting a gun."

The former marshal cleared his throat. "His testimony was correct. I
had no such knowledge and would have issued orders against it, had I
known. The fact that you enabled me to rescue the situation into which
I'd been sucked, helps somewhat my feelings toward you, Mauser. But
only somewhat."

Joe could imagine the other's bitterness. He had fought his way up the
hard way to that marshal's baton. At his age, he wasn't going to
regain it.

Brigadier general Stonewall Cogswell hesitated for a moment, then
said, "One other thing. United Miners has repudiated your actions even
to the point of refusing the cost of your hospitalization. I told the
Category Medicine authorities to put your bill on my account."

Joe said quite stiffly, "That won't be necessary, sir."

"I'm afraid you'll find it is, Mauser." The former marshal allowed
himself a grimace. "Besides, I owe you something for that spectacular
scene when you came skimming over the treetops, the two enemy gliders
right behind you, then stalling your craft and crashing into that tree
not thirty feet from my open air headquarters. Admittedly, in forty
years of fracases, I've never seen anything so confoundedly dramatic."

"Thank you, sir."

The old soldier grunted, turned and marched from the room.

XII

Freddy Soligen had been miraculously saved from the physical beating
taken by Joe Mauser in the crash. The pilot, sitting so close before