Wasp

by Eric Frank Russell

  As he walked rapidly along he pondered the evening’s work, decided it had been a wise move to insist that money did not grow on trees. They’d have shown no respect whatsoever if he’d been willing to shovel it out regardless as, in fact, he could afford to do should the necessity arise. They’d have put on maximum pressure to gain the most in return for the least and that would have produced more arguments than results.

  It was also a good thing that he’d refused a cut to Arhava and left them to fight it out between themselves. The reaction had been revealing. A mob, even a small mob, is only as strong as its weakest link. Anyone capable of ratting to the Kaitempi. could blow the whole bunch sky-high. It was important to discover a prospective squealer before it was too late and, if one existed, to be warned accordingly. In this respect Butin Arhava hadn’t shown up so good.

  “Somebody had better fork out or—”

  The testing-time would come soon after he’d paid over fifteen thousand guilders for a job well done and those concerned divided the loot. Well, if the situation seemed to justify it, that’s when he’d give the Gurd-Skriva brothers the next name—that of Butin Arhava. He felt no compunctions about this decision, no qualms of conscience. So far as he was involved, all Sirians were enemies, any one of them being no more or less a foe than any other.

  He continued homeward, deep in thought and not looking where he was going while he settled this matter in his mind. He had just reached the final conclusion that Arhava’s throat would have to be slit sooner or later when a heavy hand clamped on his shoulder and a voice rasped in his ear.

  “Lift them up, Dreamy, and let’s see what you’ve got in your pockets. Come on, you’re not deaf, lift ’em I said!”

  With a sense of sudden shock he raised his arms, felt fingers start prying into his clothes. Nearby forty or fifty equally surprised walkers were holding the same pose. A line of phlegmatic police stood across the street a hundred yards away. In the opposite direction a second line looked on with the same indifference. Yet again the random trap had sprung.

  CHAPTER VI

  A flood of superfast thoughts raced through his startled brain as he stood with arms extended above his head. Thank heavens he’d got rid of that money; they’d have been unpleasantly inquisitive about so large a sum being carried in one lump. If they were looking for Shir Agavan they were dead out of luck. In any case, he wasn’t going to let them take him in, even for questioning. Not if he could help it. Most people who survived a Kaitempi interrogation did so as physical wrecks. It would be better at the last resort to break this searcher’s neck and run like blazes.

  “If the cops shoot me down it’ll be a quicker and easier end. When Terra gets no more signals from me, Wolf will choose my successor and feed the poor sap the same—”

  “Hi?” The Kaitempi agent broke his train of thought by holding Mowry’s wallet open and gazing with surprise at Pigface’s card reposing therein. The tough expression faded from his heavy features as if wiped away with a cloth. “One of us? An officer?” He took a closer look at the other. “But I do not recognise you.”

  “You wouldn’t,” informed Mowry, showing just the right degree of arrogance. “I arrived only today from H.Q. on Diracta.” He pulled a face. “And this is the reception I get.”

  “It cannot be helped,” apologised the agent. “The revolutionary movement must be suppressed at all costs and it’s as big a menace here as on any other planet. You know how things are on Directa well, they’re not one whit better on Jaimec.”

  “It won’t last,” Mowry responded, speaking with authority. “On Diracta we expect to make a complete clean-up in the near future. After that you won’t have much trouble here. The movement will collapse from sheer lack of leadership. When you cut off the head, the body dies.”

  “I hope you’re right. The Spakum war is enough without an army of traitors sniping in the rear.” He closed the wallet, gave it back. His other hand held the Krag Wulkin documents at which he had not yet looked. Waiting for Mowry to pocket the wallet, he returned the remaining material and. said jocularly, “Here are your false papers.”

  “Nothing is false that has been officially issued,” said Mowry, frowning disapproval.

  “No, I suppose not. I hadn’t thought of it in that light” The agent backed off, anxious to end the talk. “Sorry to have troubled you. I suggest you call at local headquarters as soon as possible and have them circulate your photo so that you’ll be known to us. Otherwise you may be stopped and searched repeatedly.”

  “I’ll do that,” promised Mowry, unable to imagine anything he’d less intention of doing.

  “You’ll excuse me—I must tend to these others.” So saying, the agent attracted the attention of the nearest police, pointed to Mowry. Then he made for a sour-faced civilian wha was standing nearby waiting to be searched. Reluctantly the civilian lifted his arms and permitted the agent to dip into his pockets.

  Mowry walked toward the line of police which opened and let him pass through. At such moments, he thought, one is supposed to be cool, calm and collected, radiating supreme self-confidence in all directions. He wasn’t like that at all. On the contrary he was weak in the knees and had a vague feeling of sickness in the stomach. He had to force himself to continue steadily onward with what appeared to be absolute nonchalance.

  He made six hundred yards, reached the next corner before some warning instinct made him look back. Police were still blocking the road but beyond them four of the Kaitempi had clustered together in conversation. One of them, the agent who had released him, pointed his way. The other three shot a glance in the same direction, resumed talking with vehement gestures. There followed what appeared to be ten seconds of heated argument before they reached a decision.

  “Stop him!”

  The nearest police turned round startled, their eyes seeking a fleeing quarry. Mowry’s legs became filled with an almost irresistible urge to get going twenty to the dozen. He forced them by an effort of will to maintain their steady pace.

  There were a lot of people in the street, some merely hanging around and gaping at the trap, others walking the same way as himself. Most of the latter wanted no part of what was going on higher up the road and considered it expedient to amble someplace else. Mowry kept with them, showing no great hurry. That baffled the police; for a few valuable seconds they stayed put, hands on weapons, while they sought in vain for visible evidence of guilt.

  It provided sufficient delay to enable him to get round the corner and out of sight. At that point the shouting Kaitempi realised that the police were stalled. They lost patience, broke into a furious sprint. Half a dozen clumping cops immediately raced with them, still without knowing who was being chased or why.

  Overtaking a youth who was sauntering dozily along, Mowry gave him an urgent shove in the back. “Quick!—they’re after you! The Kaitempi!”

  “I’ve done nothing. I—”

  “How long will it take to convince them of that? Run, you fool!”

  The other used up a few moments gaping sceptically before he heard the oncoming rush of heavy feet, the raucous shouts of pursuers nearing the corner. He lost colour, tore down the road at velocity that paid tribute to his innocence. He’d have overtaken and passed a bolting jackrabbit with no trouble at all.

  Unhurriedly entering an adjacent shop, Mowry—threw a swift look around to e what it sold, said casually, “I wish ten of those small cakes with the toasted-nut tops and—”

  The arm of the law thundered round the corner fifty strong. The hunt roared past the shop, its leaders baying with triumph as they spotted the distant figure of him who had done nothing. Mowry stared at the window in dumb amazement. The corpulent Sirian behind the counter eyed the window with sad resignation.

  “Whatever is happening?” asked Mowry.

  “They’re after someone,” diagnosed Fatty. He sighed, rubbed his protruding belly. “Always they are after someone. What a world! What a war!”

  “Makes you t
ired, hi?”

  “Aie, yar! Every day, every minute there is something. Last night, according to the news-channels, they destroyed the main Spakum space-fleet for the tenth time. Today they are pursuing the remnants of what is said to have been destroyed. For months we have been making triumphant retreats before a demoralised enemy who is advancing in utter disorder.” He made a sweeping motion with a podgy hand. It indicated disgust. “I am fat, as you can see. That makes me an idiot. You wish-?”

  “Ten of those small cakes with the toasted-nut—”

  A belated cop pounded past the window. He was two hundred yards behind the pack and breathless but plain stubborn. As he thudded along he let go a couple of shots into the air just for the heck of it.

  “See what I mean?” said Fatso. “You wish-?”

  “Ten of those small cakes with the toasted-nut tops. I also wish to order a special celebration-cake to be supplied five days hence. Perhaps you can show me some examples or help me with suggestions, hi?”

  He managed to waste twenty minutes within the shop and the time was well worth the few guilders it cost. If he’d wanted he could have stayed longer. Twenty minutes, he estimated, would be just enough to permit local excitement to die down while the pursuit continued elsewhere. But the longer he extended the time the greater the risk of falling into the hands of frustrated huntsmen who’d returned to comb out the area.

  Halfway home he was tempted to donate the cakes to a mournful looking cop, but refrained. The time for having fun had gone by and some restraint was called for. The more he had to dodge authority’s frantic fly-swattings the harder it was to play like a wasp and get a laugh out of it.

  Within his room he flopped fully dressed on the bed and summarised the day’s doings. He had escaped a trap but only by the skin of his teeth. It proved that such traps were escap-able—but not for ever. What had caused them to take after him he did not know, could only guess at. Probably the intervention of an officious character who had noticed him walking through the cordon.

  “Who’s that you’ve let go?”

  “An officer, Captain.”

  “What d’you mean, an officer?”

  “A Kaitempi officer, Captain. I do not know him but he had a correct card. He said that he had just been drafted from Diracta.”

  “A card, hi? Did you notice its serial number?”

  “I had no particular reason to try remember it, Captain. It was obviously genuine. But let me see… yar… it was SXB80313. Or perhaps SXB80131. I am not sure which.”

  “Major Sallana’s card was SXB80131. You half-witted soko, you may have had his killer in your hands!”

  “STOP HIM!”

  Now, by virtue of the fact that he had evaded capture, plus the fact that he had failed to turn up at headquarters to gain photographic identification, they’d assume that Sallana’s slayer really had been in the net. Previously they had not known where to start looking other than within the ranks of the mysteriously elusive D.A.G. But they had gained three welcome advantages. They knew the killer was in Pertane. They had a description of him. One Kaitempi agent could be relied upon to recognise him on sight.

  In other words, the heat was on with every likelihood of getting hotter. Numberless eyes would be keeping watch for anyone bearing close resemblance to himself. The snap-search technique would be intensified, the net spread wider and with greater frequency. In these conditions he’d have to go around daytimes carrying stuff guaranteed to make the Kaitempi lick their chops like hungry tigers. Some evenings he’d have to go to the Cafe Susun bearing a load of money that no searcher in his right mind would regard as a beggar’s alms.

  Henceforth, in Pertane at least, the going would be tougher with the pressure-cell and the strangling-post looming ever nearer. He groaned to himself as he thought of it. He had. never asked much of life and would have been quite satisfied merely to sprawl on a golden throne and be fawned upon by sycophants. To be dropped down a Sirian-dug hole, dead cold and dyed purple, was to take things too much to the opposite extreme.

  But to counterbalance this dismal prospect there was something heartening—a snatch of conversation.

  “The revolutionary movement… as big a menace here as on any other planet. You know how things are on Diracta—well, they’re not one whit better on Jaimec.”

  That told him plenty; it revealed that Dirac Angestun Gesept was not merely a Wolf-concocted nightmare designed to disturb the sleep of Jaimecan politicos. It was empire-wide, covering more than a hundred planets, its strength or rather its pseudo-strength greatest on the home-world of Diracta, the nerve-centre and beating heart of the entire Sirian species. It was more than a hundred times greater than had appeared to him in his purely localised endeavours.

  To the Sirian powers-that-be it was a major peril hacking down the back door while the Terrans were busily bashing in the front one.

  Cheers! Blow the bugle, beat the drum! Other wasps were at work, separated in space but united in purpose. And in this sense he was not alone.

  Somebody in the Sirian High Command—a psychologist or a cynic—worked it out that the more one chivvied the civilian population the lower sank its morale. The constant stream of new emergency orders, regulations, restrictions, the constant police and Kaitempi activity, stoppings, searchings, questionings all tended to create that dull, pessimistic resignation demonstrated by Fatty. in the cake shop. An antidote was needed. The citizens had bread. They lacked the circus.

  Accordingly a show was put on. The radio, video and newspapers combined to strike up the band and draw the crowds.

  GREAT VICTORY IN CENTAURI SECTOR

  Yesterday powerful Terran space forces became trapped in the region of A. Centauri and a fierce battle raged as they tried to break out. The Sirian fourth, sixth and seventh fleets maneuvering in masterly manner frustrated all their efforts to get free and escape. Many casualties were inflicted upon the enemy. Precise figures are not yet available but the latest report from the area of conflict states that we have lost four battleships and one light cruizer, the crews of which have all been rescued. More than seventy Terran warships have been destroyed.

  And so the story went on for minutes of time and columns of print, complete with pictures of the battleship Hashim, the heavy cruizer Jaimec, some members of their crews when home on leave a year ago, Rear-Admiral Pent-Gurhana saluting a prosperous navy contractor, the Statue of Jaime casting its shadow across a carefully positioned Terran banner and—loveliest touch of all—a five centuries old photograph of a scowling, bedraggled bunch of Mongolian bandits authoritatively described as “Terran space-troops whom we snatched from death as their stricken ship plunged sunward.”

  One columnist, graciously admitting lack of facts and substituting so-called expert knowledge, devoted half a page to a lurid description of how heroic space-marines had performed the snatch-from-death in vacuo. How fortunate were the lousy Terrans, he proclaimed, in finding themselves opposed by so daring and gallant a foe.

  Mowry absorbed all this guff, found himself unable to decide whether casualty figures had been reversed or whether a fight had taken place at all. Dismissing it with a sniff of disdain, he sought through the rest of the paper without really expecting to find anything worthy of note. But there was a small item on the back page.

  Colonel Hage-Ridarta, officer commanding 77 Company SM was found dead in his car at midnight last night. He had been shot through the head. A gun was lying nearby. Suicide is not suspected and police investigations are continuing.

  So the Gurd-Skriva combination worked mighty fast; they’d done the job within a few hours of taking it on. Yar, money was a wonderful thing especially when Terran engravers and presses could produce it in unlimited supply with little trouble and at small cost. Money was a formidable weapon in its own right, a paper totem that could cause losses in the enemy’s ranks millions of miles behind the fighting front.

  This unexpected promptitude set him a new problem. To get more such action he’d have t
o pay up and thereby risk falling into another trap while on the way to the rendezvous. Right now he dare not show Pigface’s card in Pertane though it might prove useful elsewhere. His documents for Krag Wulkin, special correspondent, might possibly get him out of a jam provided the trappers didn’t search further, find him loaded with guilders and ask difficult questions about so suspiciously large a wad.

  Within an hour the High Command solved the problem for him. They put on the circus in the form of a victory parade. To the beat and blare of a dozen bands a great column of troops, tanks, guns, mobile radar units, flame-throwers, rocket-batteries and gas-projectors, tracked recovery vehicles and other paraphenalia crawled into Pertane from the west, tramped and rumbled toward the east.

  Helicopters and jetplanes swooped at low level, a small number of nimble space-scouts thundered at great altitude. Citizens assembled in their thousands, lined the streets and cheered more from habit than from genuine enthusiasm.

  This, Mowry realised, was his heaven-sent opportunity. Snap-searches might continue down the side streets and in the city’s tough quarters but they’d be wellnigh impossible on the east-west artery with all that military traffic passing through. lf he could reach the crosstown route he could head clean out of Pertane with safety. After that he could dance around elsewhere until the time was ripe to return attention to the capital.

  He paid his miserly landlord two months rent in advance without creating more than joyful surprise. Then he checked his false identity papers. Hurriedly he packed his bag with guilders, a fresh supply of stickers, a couple of small packages and got out.

  No sudden traps opened out between there and the city centre; even if they ran around like mad the police could not be everywhere at once. On the east-west road he carried his bag unnoticed, being of less significance than a grain of sand amid the great mob of spectators that had assembled. By the same token progress was difficult and slow. The route was crowded almost to the walls. Time and again he had to shove his way past the backs of an audience which had its full attention on the road.