Diplomat at Arms by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online

scrawled in block letters across the record sheet. Retief nodded, rejoined
his guard.
    “All right, Jake. Let’s have a look at the communications
center.”
    Back in the car, headed west, Retief studied the blank
windows of office buildings, the milling throngs in beer bars, shooting
galleries, tattoo parlors, billiards halls, pin-ball arcades, bordellos, and
half-credit casinos.
    “Everybody seems to be having fun,” he remarked.
    Jake stared out the window. “Yeah.”
    “Too bad you’re on duty, Jake. You could be out there joining
in.”
    “Soon
as the corporal gets things organized, I’m opening me up a place to show dirty
tri-di’s. I’ll get my share.”
    “Meanwhile, let the rest of ’em have their fun, eh, Jake?”
    “Look, Mister, I been thinking: Maybe you better gimme back
that kick-stick you taken outa my gun . . .”
    “Sorry, Jake; no can do. Tell me, what was the real cause of
the revolution? Not enough to eat? Too much regimentation?”
    “Naw, we always got plenty to eat. There wasn’t none of that
regimentation—up till I joined up in the corporal’s army.”
    “Rigid class structure, maybe? Educational discrimination?”
    Jake nodded. “Yeah, it was them schools done it. All the time
trying to make a feller go to some kind of class. Big shots. Know it all. Gonna
make us sit around and view tapes. Figgered they are better than us.”
    “And Sozier’s idea was you’d take over, and you wouldn’t have
to be bothered.”
    “Aw, it wasn’t Sozier’s idea. He ain’t the big leader.”
    “Where does the big leader keep himself?”
    “I dunno. I guess he’s pretty busy right now.” Jake
snickered. “Some of them guys call themselves colonels turned out not to know
nothing about how to shoot off the guns.”
    “Shooting, eh? I thought it was a sort of peaceful revolution;
the managerial class were booted out, and that was that.”
    “I don’t know nothing,” Jake snapped. “How come you keep
trying to get me to say stuff I ain’t supposed to talk about? You want to get
me in trouble?”
    “Oh, you’re already in trouble, Jake. But if you stick with
me, I’ll try to get you out of it. Where exactly did the refugees head for? How
did they leave? Must have been a lot of them; I’d say in a city of this size
they’d run into the thousands.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Of course, it depends on your definition of a big shot.
Who’s included in that category, Jake?”
    “You know, the slick-talking ones; the fancy dressers; the
guys that walk around and tell other guys what to do. We do all the work and
they get all the big pay.”
    “I suppose that would cover scientists, professional men,
executives, technicians of all sorts, engineers, teachers—all that crowd of
no-goods.”
    “Yeah, them are the ones.”
    “And once you got them out of the way, the regular fellows
would have a chance; chaps that don’t spend all their time taking baths and
reading books and using big words; good Joes that don’t mind picking their
noses in public.”
    “We got as much right as anybody—”
    “Jake, who’s Corasol?”
    “He’s—I don’t know.”
    “I thought I overheard his name somewhere.”
    “Uh, here’s the communication center,” Jake cut in.
    Retief swung into a parking lot under a high blank façade. He
set the brake and stepped out.
    “Lead the way, Jake.”
    “Look, Mister, the corporal only wanted me to show you the
outside—”
    “Anything to hide, Jake?”
    Jake shook his head angrily and stamped past Retief. “When I
joined up with Sozier, I didn’t figger I’d be getting in this kind of
mess . . .”
    “I know, Jake; it’s tough. Sometimes it seems like a fellow
works harder after he’s thrown out the parasites than he did before.”
    A cautious guard let Retief and Jake inside, followed them
along bright lit aisles among consoles, cables, batteries of instruments. Armed
men in careless uniforms lounged, watching. Here and there a silent