ARMY WITHOUT BANNERS

Originally published in Galaxy, April 1957.

“A trim-a the dish,” he said. He slid his eyes from the puddle mirages on the streaming concrete to the girl beside him in the open convertible. Again he wished he were a painter; in a few clean lines, one might abstract perfection.

“What?” Clean lines curved his way.

“A trim-a the dish. That’s you. A trim dish. Play on words. ‘To trim the dish’ is to put a vessel on an even keel.”

She smiled. “We’re all-out nautical today, I see.”

He was about to say something about how good it would be to get out on the Sound again when a black mass with streaks of coral flashed abreast on the right, cut across his lane, outstripped the car obliquely ahead, cut sharply back, and continued in and out of the two lanes.

“That crazy idiot! You see that, Pauline? He nearly clipped me!” He was scandalized. His eyes hardened. “That guy needs a good lesson.”

Pauline said nothing.

The steering wheel seemed to pulse as his grip tightened. He pressed the horn ring until the car ahead swung into the right-hand lane.

“Admiral Hornblower,” Pauline said. She placed her left hand across his white knuckles. The diamond solitaire exploded miniature fireworks. “Let him go.” Her hand withdrew.

He bore down on the gas pedal. The ends of his tie whipped out like pennants and the scarf covering her hair like a windsock. He fumed as cars gave way sluggishly under the goading of his horn. He knew he was spotting the black-and-coral car a growing lead by observing the rules its driver flouted.

Pauline brought the fluttering ends of his tie down from his face and held them lightly against his chest. “Come on, Corbet. Chances are he has a reason to be in a rush.”

He slowed. “Maybe.” Anyway, the black-and-coral car was nowhere in sight.

“I’ll get you a tie clip I saw. Shaped like an anchor. Promise you’ll wear it?”

“Promise.” They passed the half moon of a service station. He saw the black-and-coral car gassing up. The driver was standing beside it with his hands locked behind his head, yawning. The creep had all the time in the world. Pauline gave no sign that she had seen the car. Corbet smiled to himself. He kept flicking his eyes to the rear-view mirror.

In a few minutes, it showed black-and-coral zigzagging, expanding. Corbet pulled even with a car in the slow lane and held his speed down. The black-and-coral car was behind him now, giving him the horn. He paced the car alongside lovingly, effectively blocking the black-and-coral car.

He could feel Pauline’s eyes on him. She said, “Someone wants to pass.”

“Really?”

Pauline gazed at him a moment longer, then twisted to look back. “Oh.” She faced forward again.

“Oh is right.” The bleating became a high-pitched drone. He smiled. “There’s your Admiral Hornblower.”

“This is childish.” She drew away from him and sat stiffly.

He darted a look at her. The look went past her to the driver of the car alongside. The driver was staring at him curiously. Corbet flushed and concentrated on the road ahead. Look, buddy, I’m showing a wise guy he doesn’t own the road.

A jolting impact from behind snapped Corbet and Pauline back against the seat. Corbet paled. He grimly held to his thwarting tactic. Another jolt, harder. The devil was deliberately ramming them.

Pauline said, “Oh, let him pass.”

“No,” he said angrily.

The jolts came with the monotony of a drumbeat, hard but not hard enough to lock bumpers. In spite of himself, Corbet began to grin foolishly. It was childish. He wondered how he could end it gracefully. On cue, the car alongside turned off into a side road.

The black-and-coral car swung into the space and matched Corbet’s speed. Dark eyes in a pasty face turned toward them. The eyes moved from Corbet to Pauline and locked.

“Hello, baby,” the driver said in a shrill, excited voice.

He accelerated. A twist of the wheel cut his car at theirs.

Corbet’s foot kicked in desperate reflex from gas to brake and his hands wrenched the wheel. The black-and-coral car surged away. High laughing drifted back. Corbet’s foot trod from brake to gas.

Banners of a punitive expedition, his tie ends fluttered against his face. His lips moved, urging the car on. Pauline looked up to heaven, then closed her eyes, her mouth curved in a bitter smile.

They were coming to the crossing where he had to make a right turn to reach the marina where they docked their cabin cruiser.

He hesitated the split of a second, then kept straight on after the black-and-coral car.

The wheels spun a sticky sound; the state’s responsibility had ended and a tar-surfaced stretch began. Childish thoughts were the order of the day? All right, then—he stole a glance at an abstracted Pauline—the road was licorice, the traffic lights cherry, lemon and lime drops.

Ahead, lemon drops dirtied as if they had fallen and rolled into a coating of dust, and cherry drops gleamed moistly. Gloating, Corbet saw the black-and-coral car first in line under the nearest light. He stopped, bumper to bumper with the car in front, pulled on the hand brake and sprang out.

He ran along the shoulder. It was only thirty yards, but he was afraid the light would change before he got there. At thirty-nine, he was becoming more easily winded. He had a big frame—not that he was fat. Portly was the word. He could still punt a football a good distance and swing a mean bat.

The smell of burned rubber diffused in his lungs. He made it. He felt like a tom-tom. He loomed threateningly over the driver.

A frightened smile was frozen on the wooden face of the driver. Behind the carved mask, the eyes jerked up and away. It gave Corbet an uncanny feeling. Life was where it didn’t belong, as if the eyes of a trophy head followed you, or as if you tore open a doll and shining viscera spilled out. The man was clearly scared, but fear excited him and kept him from shrinking away from Corbet. The eyes looked out almost eagerly.

Corbet wished Pauline could hear the mature, civilized way he was going to handle this. “This is a citizen’s arrest. I’m a lawyer, so I know it’s legal. I’m arresting you for reckless driving and taking you before the local magistrate. Let me see your license.”

It was just as well Pauline couldn’t hear. His breathing was too ragged. It would sound better when he told her later. The driver settled his eyes for a moment on Corbet’s tie.

“Come on,” Corbet said testily, “let me see your operator’s license.”

Out of the tail of an eye, Corbet saw the lemon drop glisten as if washed off. A horn blew. The driver reached out suddenly and seized Corbet’s tie. He jumped the light, pulling Corbet along.

Corbet trotted awkwardly, clawing at the tie with mounting panic, his eyes rolling up to the hot glare of the sun as the driver’s fingers remained leeched to the tie and the car picked up speed.

With a suddenness that sent him tripping over his own feet, he slipped free. He stumbled a few steps, then stopped and stood a moment, limp, sweat-logged, rejoicing in gulpings of gas-fumed air. A shrouding blur stung his eyes and he wiped them. His chest heaved in a vast ballooning of anger. He turned and ran back to his car, his heart knocking, his feet splatting bubbling tar of chewable consistency.

Homs were sounding mad playground shrieks as traffic piled up behind his car. He deafened himself to the horn-blowing and to the howling of the livid-faced driver jammed immediately in back.

Pauline held the door open for him. He leaped in and slammed the door.

“That tops everything,” she said flatly. Then a shading of concern rounded her voice. “You all right?”

He nodded shortly, getting the car underway with a jerk.

“You might’ve been killed,” she said flatly again. Pitch of voice ineffably grave, she interpreted his grim silence and the avenging flutter of chartreuse and claret. “Oh, no! Not again!” Clean lines curved away from him.

He hunted the black-and-coral car down, cutting in and out recklessly, gaining, burning for chance to reappear. Cherry drops glistened and he saw his prey stop, boxed in.

He loomed above the driver. Anger strangling his voice, he said, “Out! Make it fast or I’ll haul you out!”

Something manipulated the driver’s head now in a wide arc. The eyes behind the frightened smile weren’t black but a dark dark-blue. They shone excitedly.

Corbet unlocked a fist to grab the door handle. Horns blew, gears clashed, a kaleidoscope spilled its fragments over the crossing.

Again the man reached out and seized Corbet’s tie. Again the car leaped forward. And again Corbet was trotting awkwardly, clawing at his tie with mounting panic, his eyes rolling up to the white glare of the Sun as the driver’s fingers remained leeched to the tie and the car picked up speed.

* * * *

The spaceship, invisibly wrapped in light, hung high above the delicate embroidery of lanes and cloverleaf. Inside the spaceship, in the sick bay, the two medical officers gazed impersonally at the figure standing stiffly before them, his eyeless pasty mask hanging from his belt like one of those grisly trophies that the aborigines of this continent learned from their conquerors to value, the dark dark-blue eyes in his real face staring blankly ahead.

The medical officers talked about him as if he weren’t standing squarely before them. And, in a sense, he wasn’t—they had switched off his mind.

The medic with the more body cilia said, “No doubt about it. Combat fatigue. Only natural, considering the number of missions he’s been on.”

The medic with the brighter ears flapped them in agreement. “I think we must recommend that every agent come in sooner for the thorough check-up. He’s a perfect case of what can happen when we let it go too long. Have you seen the films?”

“No.”

“Well, the camera that was on him while he was in action shows beyond question that, if he hadn’t lost control of himself, there were several times when he could have caused beautiful pile-ups, with numerous casualties. But he forgot the object is to set up collisions and let them do the rest. He disobeyed the order not to engage the enemy in situations where there’s a chance of being caught and discovered. Our side had to spirit him away under the very noses of their police.”

Cilia vibrated in horror. Anxiously, “Why do it this way? It’s so damnably hard on our warriors!”

Compassionately, “What would you suggest?”

“Outright invasion! Get it over with in a hurry, one way or the other, instead of a little at a time for year after year!”

“Logistics is the answer. We can’t raise a fleet that big and transport as many warriors as we’d need or supply them over so great a distance.”

“But we’d win even with a smaller fleet and fewer warriors!”

Amusedly, “No doubt, but why gamble when it isn’t necessary? And it isn’t a little at a time.”

Doubtful, but wanting to believe, “It isn’t?”

“No. This is the most powerful country on the planet and yet, since the invention of the internal-combustion engine, accidents have taken more lives than all its wars combined. And the rate is steadily increasing. With our help, of course, plus their growing productivity. When the figures are large enough—that’s the time for outright invasion. And logistics won’t be a problem then.”

Ears flapped agreement. “Very sound plan. We’ll have the resources of the most powerful country as a supply base. Very sound.”

“Naturally. Meanwhile, we have a job to do.” He gave his full attention to the figure standing stiffly before them.

The other did the same. With sudden enthusiasm, “Just a bit of gland work and we’ll have him back in there in no time—and carrying out his missions according to orders!”