wds screaming
in the arena seats for him to go in and the promoters and managers
watching from the _barrera_ and possibly wondering if he were gored if
next week's gate would improve.

The Telly cameras which watched you as, crouched almost double, you
scurried into the fire area of a mitrailleuse or perhaps a Maxim; the
Telly cameras which swung in your direction speedily, avidly, when a
blast of fire threw you back and to the ground; the Telly cameras with
their zoom lenses which focused full into your face as life leaked
away. The Spanish aficionados never had it so good. The close-up
expression of the dying matador had been denied them.

The other undeterred, sank into the chair opposite, his face twisted
cynically. Joe placed him now. Freddy Soligen. Give the man his due,
he and his team were right in there when the going got hot. More than
once, in the past fifteen years, Joe had seen the little man lugging
his cameras into the center of the fracas, taking chances expected
only of combatants. Vaguely, he wondered why.

He demanded, "Why?"

"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 on