Wasp

by Eric Frank Russell

  “So do I,” said Mowry, squirting pseudo-patriotism out of his ears. He gave his neighbour a dig in the ribs. “Don’t you?”

  “Yar,” said Snat.

  For the rest of the journey the driver maintained his paean of anguish about the general lousiness of the day, the iniquity of truck-builders, the menace and expense of war and the blatant impudence of an enemy ship that had surveyed Jaimec in broad daylight. All the time. Snat lolled in the middle of the cab, gaped glassy-eyed at Mowry’s leather case and responded in monosyllables only when metaphorically beaten over the head.

  “This will do,” announced Mowry as they trund1ed through city suburbs and reached a wide crossroad. The truck stopped, he got down. “Live long!”

  “Live long!” responded the driver and tooled away.

  He stood on the sidewalk and thoughtfully watched the truck until it passed from sight. Well, he’d put himself to the first minor test and got by without suspicion. Neither the driver nor Snat had nursed the vaguest idea that he was what they called a Spakum—literally a bed bug—an abusive term for Terrans to which he’d listened with no resentment whatsoever. Nor should he resent it: until further notice he was Shir Agavan, a Sirian born and bred.

  Holding tight to his case, he entered the city.

  This was Pertane, capital of Jaimec, population a little more than two millions. No other place on the planet approached it in size. It was the centre of Jaimecan civil and military administration, the very heart of the foe’s planetary stronghold. By the same token it was potentially the most dangerous area in which a lone Terran could wander on the loose.

  Reaching the downtown section, Mowry tramped around until twilight, weighed up the location and external appearance of several small hotels. Finally he picked one in a sidestreet off the main stem. Quiet and modest-looking, it would serve for a short time while he sought a better hideout. But having reached a decision he did not go straight in.

  First it was necessary to make up-to-the-minute check of his papers lest anything wrong with them should put a noose around his neck. The documents with which he had been provided were microscopically accurate replicas of those valid within the Sirian Empire nine or ten months ago. They might have changed the format in the interim. To present for examination papers obviously long out of date was to ask to be nabbed on the spot.

  He’d be trapped in an hotel, behind doors, with Sirians all around. Better the open street where if it came to the worst he could throw away his case along with his bandy-legged gait and run like the devil in pursuit of a virgin. So he ambled casually past the hotel, explored nearby streets until he found a policeman. Glancing swiftly around, he marked his getaway route and went up to the officer.

  “Pardon, I am a newcomer.” He said it stupidly, wearing an expression of slight dopiness. “I arrived from Diracta a few days ago.”

  “You are lost, hi?”

  “No, officer, I am embarrassed.” He fumbled in a pocket, produced his identity-card, offered it for inspection. His leg muscles were tensed in readiness for swift and effective flight as he went on, “A Pertanian friend tells me that my card is wrong because it must now bear a picture of my nude body. This friend is a persistent prankster. I do not know whether he is to be believed.”

  Frowning. the policeman examined the card’s face, He turned it over, studied its back. Then he returned it to Mowry.

  “This card is quite in order. Your friend is a liar. There is no such silly regulation. He would be wise to keep his mouth shut.” The frown grew deeper. “If he does not he will someday regret it. The Kaitempi are rough with those who spread false rumours.”

  “Yes, officer,” said Mowry, vastly relieved but looking suitably frightened. “I shall warn him not to be a fool. May you live long!”

  “Live long!” said the policeman, curtly.

  Hurrah! He went back to the hotel, walked in as though he owned it, said to the clerk, “I wish a room with bath for ten days.”

  “Your instrument of identity?”

  He passed the card across.

  The clerk wrote down its details, handed it back, reversed the register on the counter and pointed to a line. “Sign here.”

  On taking the room his first act was to have a welcome wash. Then he reviewed his position. He had reserved the room for ten days but that was mere camouflage since he had no intention of staying that long in a place so well surveyed by official eyes. If Sirian habits held good for Jaimec he could depend upon some snoop examining the hotel register and, perhaps, asking awkward questions before the week was through. He had all the answers ready—but the correct wasp-tactic is not to be asked so long as it can be avoided.

  He’d arrived too late in the day to seek and find better sanctuary. Tomorrow would be well-spent hunting and finding a rooming-house, preferably in a district where inhabitants tended to mind their own business. Meanwhile he could put in two or three hours before bedtime by exploring Pertane, studying the lie of the land and estimating future possibilities.

  Before starting out he treated himself to a hearty meal. To a native-born Terran the food would have seemed strange and somewhat obnoxious. But he ate it with gusto, its flavours serving only to remind him of his childhood. It wasn’t until he had finished that it occurred to him to wonder whether some other less well-equipped wasp had ever betrayed himself by being sick at a Sirian table.

  For the rest of the evening his exploration of Pertane was not as haphazard as it looked. He wandered around with seeming aimlessness, memorising all geographical features that might prove useful to recall later on. But primarily he was seeking to estimate the climate of public opinion with particular reference to minority opinions.

  In every war no matter how great a government’s power its rule is never absolute. In every war, no matter how allegedly righteous the cause, the effort is never total. No campaign has ever or will ever be fought with the leadership united in favour of it and with the rank and file unitedly behind them.

  Always there is a disgruntled minority that opposes a war for a multitude of reasons such as reluctance to make necessary sacrifices, fear of personal loss or suffering, philosophical and ethical objection to warfare as a method of settling disputes, lack of confidence in the ability of the leadership, resentment at being called upon to play a subordinate role, pessimistic belief that victory is far from certain and defeat very possible, egoistic satisfaction of refusing to run with the herd, psychological opposition to being yelled at on any and every petty pretext, a thousand and one other reasons.

  No political or military dictatorship ever has been one hundred percent successful in identifying and suppressing the malcontents who, typically, conceal themselves behind a veil of silence and bide their time. By sheer law of averages Jaimec must have its share of such as these. And in addition to the pacifists and quasi-pacifists were the criminal classes whose sole concern in life was to snatch an easy profit while dexterously avoiding involvement in anything deemed unpleasant such as mass antics on a barrack square.

  A wasp could make good use of all those who would not heed the bugle-call nor follow the beat of the drum, Indeed, even if it proved impossible to trace any of them and employ them individually he could still exploit the fact of their very existence. All that was necessary was first to satisfy himself that there really was such a minority on Jaimec.

  By midnight he was back at the hotel confident that in Pertane there lived an adequate supply of scapegoats. On buses and in bars he’d had fragmentary conversations with about forty citizens and had overheard the talk of a hundred more.

  Not one had uttered a word definable as unpatriotic, much less treacherous or subversive. Strong, deep-rooted fear of the Kaitempi was more than enough to deter them from condemning themselves out of their own mouths. But at least a tenth of them had spoken with that vague, elusive air of having more on their minds than they cared to state. In some cases two of this type conversed together and when that happened it was done with a sort of conspi
ratorial understanding that any onlooker could recognise from fifty yards away but could never produce as evidence before a military court.

  Yes, these—the objectors, the selfish, the greedy, the resentful, the conceited, the moral cowards and the criminals—could all be utilised for Terran purposes. When it isn’t expedient to use one’s own strength, then is the time to exploit the enemy’s weakness.

  While lying in bed and waiting for sleep to come, he mentally enrolled the whole of this secret opposition in a mythical, dreamed-up organisation calledDirac Angestun Gesept, the Sirian Freedom Party. He then appointed himself the D.A.G.’s president, secretary, treasurer and field-director for the planetary district of Jaimec. The fact that the entire membership was unaware of its status and had no hand in the election did not matter a hoot. It was irrelevant.

  Neither did it matter that sooner or later the aggravated Kaitempi would start organising the collection of members dues in the form of strangled necks, or that some members might be so lacking in enthusiasm for the cause as to resist payment. If some Sirians could be given the full-time job of hunting down and garrotting other Sirians, and if other Sirians could be given the full-time job of dodging or shooting down the garrotters, then a distant and different lifeform would be saved a few unpleasant chores.

  With that happy thought James Mowry alias Shir Agavan dozed off. His breathing was suspiciously slow and irregular for the purple-faced lifeform he was supposed to be, his snores were abnormally low-pitched and he snoozed flat on his back instead of lying on his belly. But in the privacy of this room there were none to hear and see a Terran with his defenses momentarily down.

  When one man is playing the part of an invading army the essential thing is to move fast, make full use of any and every opportunity, waste no effort. Mowry had to traipse around the city to find a better hideout. It was equally necessary to go hither and thither to make the first moves in his game. So he combined the two purposes.

  He unlocked his bag, opening it carefully with the aid of a special non-conducting plastic key. Despite that he knew exactly what he was doing a thin trickle of sweat ran down: his spine while he did it. The lock was not as innocent as it looked, n fact it was a veritable death-trap. He could never quite get rid of the feeling that one of these days it might forget that a plastic key is not a metal lock-pick. If ever it did so blunder the resulting blast-area would have a radius of one hundred yards.

  Apart from the lethal can wired to the lock, the bag held a dozen small parcels, a mass of printed paper and nothing else. The paper was of two kinds: stickers and money. There was plenty of the latter. In terms of Sirian guilders he was, a millionaire. Or with the further supply in that distant cave he was a multi-millionaire.

  From the bag he took an inch-thick wad of printed stickers. Not too many of them. Just enough for a day’s fast work and, at the same time, few enough to toss away unobserved should the necessity arise. That done, he refastened the bag with the same care, the same beading of perspiration.

  It was a tricky business, this continual fiddling with a potential explosion, but it had one great advantage. If any official nosey-poke took it into his head to search the room and check the luggage he would destroy the evidence along with himself. Moreover, proof of what had happened would be widespread enough to give clear warning to the homecomer: Mowry would turn into the street, take one look at the mess and discreetly fade from sight.

  Departing, he caught a cross-town bus, planted the first sticker on the front window of its upper deck at a moment when all other seats were vacant. He dismounted at the next stop, casually watched a dozen people boarding the bus. Half of them went upstairs.

  The sticker said in bold, easily readable print:War makes wealth for the few, misery for the many. At the right time, Dirac Angestun Gesept will punish the former, bring aid and comfort to the latter.

  That would hit the readers much harder than it would have done a month ago. It was sheer luck that he’d arrived coincidentally with a big boost in the war-tax. It was likely they’d feel sufficiently aggrieved not to tear the sticker down in a patriotic fury. Chances were equally good that they’d spread the news about this new, mysterious movement that had emerged to challenge the government, the military caucus and the Kaitempi. The tale would lose nothing in the telling: gossip is the same any part of the mighty cosmos in that it gains compound interest as it goes the rounds.

  Within five and a half hours he’d got rid of eighty stickers without once being caught in the act of fixing them. He’d taken a few risks, had a few narrow squeaks, but never was seen actually performing the dirty deed. What followed the Planting of the fifty-sixth sticker gave him most satisfaction.

  A minor collision on the street caused abusive shouts between drivers and drew a mob of onlookers. Taking prompt advantage of the situation, Mowry slapped number fifty-six bang in the middle of a shop window while backed up against it by the crowd all of whom were looking the other way. He then wormed himself forward and got well into the mob before somebody noticed the window’s adornment and attracted general attention to it. The audience turned around, Mowry with them, and gaped at the discovery.

  The finder, a gaunt, middle-aged Sirian with pop eyes, pointed an incredulous finger and stuttered, “Just l-l-look at that! They must be m-mad in that shop. The Kaitempi will take them all to p-p-prison.”

  Mowry edged forward for a better look and read the sticker aloud. “Those who stand upon the platform and openly approve the war will stand upon the scaffold and weepingly regret it. Dirac Angestun Gesept.."He put on a frown. “The people in the shop can’t be responsible for this—they wouldn’t dare.”

  “S-somebody’s dared,” said Pop Eyes, quite reasonably.

  “Yar.” Mowry gave him the hard eye. “You saw it first. So maybe it was you, hi?”

  “Me?” Pop Eyes went a very pale mauve, that being the nearest a Sirian could get to sheet-white. “I didn’t put it there. You think I’m c-crazy?”

  “Well, as you said, somebody did.”

  “It wasn’t me,” denied Pop Eyes, angry and agitated. “It must have been s-some crockpat”

  “Crackpot,” Mowry corrected.

  “That’s what I just s-said.”

  Another Sirian, younger and shrewder, chipped in with, “That’s not a looney’s work. There’s more to it than that.”

  “Why?” demanded Pop Eyes.

  “A solitary nut would be more likely to scribbie things. Silly ones too” He nodded indicatively toward the subject of discussion. “That’s a professional print job. It’s also a plain. straightforward threat. Somebody risked his neck to plaster it up there but that didn’t stop him. I’ll bet there’s an illegal organisation back of that stunt”

  “It says so, doesn’t it?” interjected a voice. “The Sirian Freedom Party.”

  “Never heard of it,” commented another.

  “You’ve heard of it now,” said Mowry.

  “S-s-somebody ought to do s-something about it,” declared Pop Eyes, waving his arms around.

  S-s-somebody did, to wit, a cop. He muscled through the crowd, looked on the pavement for the body, bent down and felt around in case the victim happened to be invisible. Finding nothing, he straightened up, glowered at the audience and growled, “Now, what’s all this?”

  Pop Eyes pointed again, this time with the proprietary air of one who has been granted a patent on the discovery. “S-see what it s-says on the window.”

  The cop looked and saw. Being able to read, he perused it twice while his face went several shades more purple. Then he returned attention to the crowd.

  “Who did this?”

  Nobody knew.

  “You’ve got eyes—don’t you use them?”

  Apparently they didn’t.

  “Who saw this first?”

  “I did,” said Pop Eyes proudly.

  “But you didn’t see anyone put it up?”

  “No”

  The cop stuck out his jaw. “You su
re of that?”

  “Yes, officer,” admitted Pop Eyes, becoming nervous. “There was an accident in the s-street. We were all watching the two d-d-d—” He got himself into a vocal tangle and choked.

  Waving him away, the cop addressed the crowd with considerable menace. “If anyone knows the identity of the culprit and refuses to reveal it, he will be deemed equally guilty and will suffer equally when caught.”

  Those in front backed off a yard or two, those in the rear suddenly discovered they had business elsewhere. A hard core of thirty of the incurably curious stayed put, Mowry among them.

  Mowry said mildly, “Maybe they could tell you something in the shop”

  The cop scowled. “I know my job, Shortass.”

  With that, he gave a loud snort, marched into the shop and bawled for the manager. In due course that worthy came out, examined his window with horror and swiftly acquired all the symptoms of a nervous wreck.

  “We know nothing of this, officer. I assure you that it is no work of ours. It isn’t inside the window, officer. It is outside, as you can see. Some passer-by must have done it. I cannot imagine why he should have picked on this window. Our patriotic devotion is unquestioned and -—”

  “Won’t take the Kaitempi five seconds to question it,” said the cop, cynically.

  “But I myself am a reserve officer in the -—”

  “Shut up!” He jerked a heavy thumb toward the offending sticker. “Get it off.”

  “Yes, officer. Certainly, officer. I shall remove it immediately.”

  The manager started digging with his nails at the sticker’s corners in attempt to peel it off. He didn’t do so good because Terran technical superiority extended even to common adhesives. After several futile efforts he threw the cop an apologetic looks, went inside, came out with a knife and tried again. This time he succeeded in tearing a small triangle from each corner, leaving the message intact.

  “Get hot water and soak it off,” commanded the cop, rapidly losing patience. He turned and shooed the audience. “Beat it. Go on, get moving.”