Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (10 page)

After that he went back on foot and satisfied himself that it could not be seen from the road. With his feet he scuffed the grass and thus concealed the tire tracks entering the forest. That done, he headed for the distant cave, moving as fast as he could make it.

He got there in the late afternoon. When still deep among the trees and eight hundred yards from his destination the ornamental ring on the middle finger of his left hand started tingling. The sensation grew progressively stronger as he neared. This caused him to make a straight and confident approach with no preliminary skirmishing around. The ring would not have tingled if Container-22 had ceased to radiate and that would happen only on the breaking of its beam by the invasion of the cave by something man-sized.

Yes, if accidentally or otherwise the enemy had found the hidden dump and made a trap of it, the quarry would have faded away with a half-mile running start. And they’d have been left to sit on their butts and wait for him who never arrives.

Also in the cave was something more spectacular than an invisible warning system. Probably the discoverers’ curiosity would have got the better of them and they’d start prying open the stacked duralumin cylinders including Container-30. When they interfered with that one the resulting bang would be heard and felt in faraway Pertane.

Once in the cave he opened Container-2, got busy while daylight lasted and treated himself to a real Earth meal concocted of real Earth food. He was far from being a guzzle-guts but shared with exiles a delight in the flavors of home. A small can of pineapple seemed like a taste of heaven, he lingered over every drop of juice and made it last twenty minutes. The feed gave quite a lift to his morale, made the growing forces out there among the stars seem not so far away.

Upon the fall of darkness he rolled Container-5 out of the cave’s mouth, opened it on the tiny beach. It was now a tall silver-gray cylinder pointed at the stars. From its side he unclipped a small handle, stuck it into a hole in the slight blister near the base, wound vigorously. Something inside began to murmur a smooth and steady
zuum-zuum.

He now took the top cap off the cylinder, having to stand on tiptoe to get at it. Then he sat on a nearby rock and waited. After the cylinder had warmed up it emitted a sharp click and the
zuum-zuum
struck a deeper note. He knew that it was now shouting into space, using soundless words far stronger and more penetrating than those of any spoken language.

Whirrup-dzzt-pam! Whirrup-dzzt-pam!

“Jaimec calling! Jaimec calling!”

Now he could do nothing more save bide his time in patience. The call was not being directed straight to Terra which was much too far away to permit a conversation with brief time-lags. It was being squirted at a spatial listening-post and field headquarters near enough to be on or perhaps actually within the rim of the Sirian Empire. He did not know its precise location and, as Wolf had remarked, what he didn’t know he couldn’t tell.

A prompt response was unlikely. Out there in the dark they’d be listening for a hundred calls on a hundred frequencies and be held on some of them while messages passed to and fro. He’d have to wait his turn.

Nearly three hours crawled by while the cylinder stood on the pebble beach and gave forth its scarcely hearable
zuum-zuum.
Then suddenly a tiny red eye glowed bright and winked steadily near its top.

Again he strained on tiptoe, cursing his shortness, felt into the cylinder’s open top and took out what looked exactly like an ordinary telephone. Holding it to his ear, he said into the mouthpiece, “I'm on Jaimec.”

It was a few minutes before the response came back in the shape of a voice that sounded as though speaking through a load of gravel. But it was a Terran voice speaking the welcome-sounding Terran language. It said, “Ready to tape your report. Fire away.”

Mowry tried to sit down while he talked but found the connecting cord too short. So he had to stand. In this position he recited as fast as he could.
The Tale of a Wasp
by Samuel Sucker, he thought wryly. He gave it in full detail and again had to wait quite a while for the comeback.

Then the voice rasped, “Good! You’re doing fine!”

“Am I? Can’t see any signs of it so far. I’ve been plastering paper all over the planet and nothing is happening.”

“Plenty is happening,” contradicted the voice. It came through with a rhythmic variation in amplitude as it fooled Sirian detection devices by switching five times per second through a chain of differently positioned transmitters. “You just can’t see the full picture from where you’re standing.”

“How about giving me a glimpse?”

“The pot is coming slowly but surely to the boil. Their fleets are being widely dispersed, there are vast troop movements from their overcrowded home system to the outer planets of their empire. They’re gradually being chivvied into a fix. They can’t hold what they’ve got without spreading all over it. The wider they spread the thinner they get. The thinner they get the easier it is to bite lumps out of them. Hold it a bit while I check your planet.” He went off, came back after a time. “Yes, position there is that they daren’t take any strength away from Jaimec no matter how greatly needed elsewhere. In fact they may yet have to add to it at the expense of Diracta. You’re the cause of that.”

“Sweet of you to say so,” said Mowry. A thought struck him and he said eagerly, “Hey, who gave you that information?”

“Monitoring and Decoding Service. They dig a lot out of enemy broadcasts.”

“Oh.” He felt disappointed, having hoped for news of a Terran Intelligence agent somewhere on Jaimec. But of course even if there was one they wouldn’t tell him. They’d lie about it. They’d give him no information that Kaitempi persuasion might force out of him. “How about this Kaitempi card and embossing machine? Do I leave them here to be collected or do I keep them for myself?”

“Stand by and I’ll find out.” The voice went away for more than an hour, returned with, “Sorry about the delay. Distance takes time in any terms. You can keep that stuff and use it as you think best. T.I. got a card recently. An agent bought one for them.”

“Bought
one?” He waggled his eyebrows in surprise.

“Yes—with his life. What did yours cost?”

“Major Sallana’s life, as I told you.”

“Tsk-tsk! Those cards come mighty dear.” There was a pause, then, “Closing down. Best of luck!”

“Thanks!”

With some reluctance Mowry replaced the receiver, switched off the
zuum-zuum,
capped the cylinder and rolled it back into the cave. He’d have liked to listen until dawn to anything that maintained the invisible tie between him and that faraway lifeform. “Best of luck!” the voice had said, not knowing how much more it meant than the alien, “Live long!”

From yet another container he took several packets and small parcels, distributed them about his person, put others into a canvas shoulder-bag of the kind favored by the Sirian peasantry. Impatience prevented him from waiting for the full light of day. Being now more familiar with the forest he felt sure he could fumble his way through it even in the dark. The going would be tougher, the journey would take longer, but he could not resist the urge to get back to the car as soon as possible.

Before leaving his last act was to press the hidden button on Container-22 which had ceased to radiate the moment he’d entered the cave and remained dead ever since. After a one-minute delay it would again set up the invisible barrier that could not be passed without betrayal.

He got out of the cave fast, the parcels heavy around him, and had made thirty yards into the trees when his finger-ring started its tingling. Slowly he moved on, feeling his way from time to time. The tingling gradually weakened with distance, faded out after eight hundred yards.

From then on he consulted his luminous compass at least a hundred times. It led him back to the road at a point half a mile from the car, a pardonable margin of error in a twenty-mile journey two-thirds of which had been covered in darkness. At two hours after dawn he arrived with tired eyes and aching feet, clambered thankfully into the car, edged it unseen from the forest and purred along the highroad to the dump called home.

The day of the appointment kicked off with a highly significant start. On the radio and video, through the public address system and in all the newspapers the government came out with the same announcement. Mowry heard the miserably muffled bellowings of a loudspeaker two streets away, the shrill cries of news vendors. He bought a paper, read it over his breakfast.

“Under the War Emergency Powers Act, by order of the Jaimec Ministry of Defense: All organizations, societies, parties and other corporate bodies will be registered at the Central Bureau of Records, Pertane, not later than the twentieth of this month. Secretaries will state in full the objects and purposes of their respective organizations, societies, parties or other corporate bodies, give the address of habitual meeting places and provide a complete list of members.

“Under the War Emergency Powers Act, by order of the Jaimec Ministry of Defense: After the twentieth of this month any organization, society, party or other corporate body will be deemed an illegal movement if not registered in accordance with the above order. Membership of an illegal movement or the giving of aid and comfort to any member of an illegal movement will constitute a treacherous offense punishable by death. ”

So at last they’d made a countermove.
Dirac Angestun Gesept
must kneel at the confessional or at the strangling-post. By a simple, easy legislative trick they’d got D.A.G. where they wanted it, coming and going. It was a kill-or-cure tactic full of psychological menace and well calculated to scare all the weaklings right out of D.A.G.’s ranks.

Weaklings are blabs.

They talk. They betray their fellows, one by one, right through the chain of command to the top. They represent the rot that spreads through a system and brings it to total collapse. In theory, anyway.

Mowry read it again, grinning to himself and enjoying every word. The government was going to have a tough time enticing informers from the D.A.G. Fat lot of talking can be done by a membership completely unaware of its status. There are no traitors in a phantom army.

For instance, Butin Arhava was a fully paid up member in good standing— and didn’t know it. Nobody had bothered to tell him. The Kaitempi could trap him and draw out his bowels very, very slowly without gaining one worthwhile word about the Sirian Freedom Party.

Around mid-day Mowry looked in at the Central Bureau of Records. Sure enough a line stretched from the door to the counter where a couple of disdainful officials were dishing out forms. The line slowly edged forward, composed of secretaries or other officers of trade guilds,
zith
-drinking societies, video fan clubs and every other conceivable kind of organization. The skinny oldster moping in the rear was Area Supervisor of the Pan-Sirian Association of Lizard Watchers. The podgy specimen one step ahead of him represented the Pertane Model Rocket Builders Club. There wasn’t one in the entire string who looked capable of spitting in a Spakum eye much less overthrowing his own government.

Joining the line, Mowry said conversationally to Skinny, “Nuisance this, isn’t it?”

“Yar. Only the Statue of Jaime knows why it is considered necessary.”

“Maybe they’re trying to round up people with special talents,” Mowry offered. “Radio experts, photographers and folk like those. They can use all sorts of technicians in wartime.”

“They could have said so in plain words,” opined Skinny impatiently. “They could have published a list of them and ordered them to report in.”

“Yar, that’s right.”

“My group watches lizards. Of what special use is a lizardwatcher,
hi?”

“I can’t imagine. Why watch lizards, anyway?”

“Have you
ever watched them?”

“No,” admitted Mowry, without shame.

“Then you don’t know the fascination of it.”

Podgy turned round and said with a superior air, “My group builds model rockets.

“Kid stuff,” defined Skinny.

“That’s what you think. I’ll have you know every member is a potential rocket-engineer and in time of war a rocket-engineer is a valuable—”

“Move up,” said Skinny, nudging him. They shuffled forward, stopped. Skinny said to Mowry, “What’s your crowd do?”

“We etch glass.”

“Well, that’s a high form of art. I have seen some very attractive examples of it myself. They were luxury articles though. A bit beyond the common purse.” He let go a loud sniff. “What good are glass-etchers for winning battles?”

“You guess,” Mowry invited.

“Now take rockets,” put in Podgy. “The rocket is essential to space war and—”

“Move up,” ordered Skinny again.

They reached the stack of forms, were each given one off the top. The group dispersed, going their various ways while a long line of later comers edged toward the counter. Mowry went to the main post office, sat at a vacant table, filled up the form carefully and neatly. He got some satisfaction out of doing it with a government pen and government ink.

Title of organization:
Dirac Angestun Gesept.

Purpose of organization:
Destruction of present government and termination of war against Terra.

Customary meeting place:
Wherever Kaitempi can't find us.

Names and addresses of elected officers:
You'll find out when it’s too late.

Attach hereto complete list of members:
Nar.

Signature:
Jaime Shallapurta.

That last touch would get someone hopping mad. It was a calculated insult to the much revered Statue of Jaime. Loosely translated it meant James Stoneybottom.

He bought an envelope, was about to mail it back to the Bureau when it occurred to him to hot it up still more. Forthwith he took the form to his room, shoved it into the embossing machine and impressed it with the Kaitempi cartouche. Then he posted it.