"Why Phil, inane words of flattery from serious old you?"
Joe squirmed inwardly, wondering again upon what basis was the friendship of Nadine Haer and Philip Holland.
The butler entered and said, "A call for Major Mauser, if you please."
Only Max Mainz, his batman during his last fracas and now permanently attached to Joe, knew that he might be found at this address. Joe said to Nadine, "Would you pardon me for a moment? I assume it's something important, or I wouldn't be disturbed."
She said, demurely, "Undoubtedly one of the feminine members of a Joe Mauser buff club."
He snorted amusement and followed the butler to the library and the tele-screen.
Max Mainz's face loomed in the viewing screen. As soon as Joe appeared, he said, "Major, sir, the marshal's been trying to get hold of you ever since you left the hotel."
"Marshal Cogswell. That one they call Stonewall Cogswell. And when he wants somebody, he really wants 'em, and I got a feeling it's a good idea to come on the double."
Joe laughed. "Stonewall Cogswell's a tough one all right, Max."
"You ain't just a countin' down, major, sir. He says when I get hold of you to come on over to his headquarters soonest."
"All right, Max, thanks." Joe flicked the set off.
Actually, Max was right. You didn't ignore a summons from Marshal Cogswell. Not if you were in the Category Military and ambitious. The date with Nadine was off. And just when he was beginning to detect signs of her meeting him on his own level.
It was the common practice among Category Military mercenaries of highest rank to maintain skeleton staffs between those periods when they were under hire by corporations or unions. That of Marshal Stonewall Cogswell was one of the most complete, he habitually keeping upward of a hundred officers in his private uniform. It paid off, for with such a skeleton force of highly skilled professionals as a cadre, the marshal could enlist veterans for his rank and file and whip together a trained fighting force in a fantastically short period.
And nothing was so of the essence as time, in the present Category Military. For when two corporations sued for permission to meet on a military reservation for trial by combat to settle their commercial differences, the sums involved were staggering. Joe Mauser had been correct in saying that the fracas had grown, even in his memory, from skirmishes involving a company or two of men, to full fledged battles with a division or even more on either side, forty thousand men at each other's throats.