Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (26 page)

Heart pounding, he tore southward along the road, on and on until he bolted full-tilt into a waiting group of forty figures. They were looking his way, ready for him, having been alerted by the frantic clomping of his feet. The entire bunch topped him by head and shoulders, wore dark green uniforms and were holding things that gleamed in the starlight.

“Take it easy, Blowfly,” advised a Terran voice.

Mowry panted for breath. He did not resent this rude counterthrust to the Spakum tag. Every Sirian was a blowfly by virtue of his purple backside.

He pawed at the speaker’s sleeve. “My name is James Mowry. I’m not what I seem—I’m a Terran.”

The other, a big, lean-faced and cynical sergeant, said, “My name’s Napoleon. I’m not what I seem—I’m an emperor.” He gestured with a hand holding a whop-gun that looked like a cannon. “Take him to the cage, Rogan.”

“But I
am
a Terran,” yelped Mowry, flapping his hands.

“Yeah, you look it,” said the sergeant.

“I’m
speaking
Terran, aren’t I?”

“Sure are. A hundred thousand Blowflies can speak it. They think it gives them a certain something.” He waved the cannon again. “The cage, Rogan.”

Rogan took him.

For twelve days he mooched around the prisoner-of-war compound. The dump was very big, very full and swiftly became fuller. Prisoners were fed regularly, guarded constantly and that was all.

Of his fellows behind the wire at least fifty sly-eyed specimens boasted of their confidence in the future when the sheep would be sorted from the goats and justice would be done. The reason, they asserted, was that for a long time they’d been secret leaders of
Dirac Angestun Gesept
and undoubtedly would be raised to power when Terran conquerors got around to it. Then, they warned, friends would be rewarded as surely as foes would be punished. This bragging ceased only when three of them somehow got strangled in their sleep.

At least a dozen times Mowry seized the chance to attract the attention of a patrolling sentry when no Sirian happened to be nearby. “Psst! My name’s Mowry— I’m a Terran.”

Ten times he received confessions of faith such as, “You look it!” or “Is zat
so?”

A lanky character said, “Don’t give me that!”

“It’s true—I swear it!”

“You really are a Terran—
hi?”

“Yar,” said Mowry, forgetting himself.

“Yar to you, too.”

Once he spelled it so there’d be no possibility of misunderstanding. “See here, Buster, I’m a T-E-R-R-A-N.”

To which the sentry replied, “Says Y-O-U,” and hefted his gun and continued his patrol.

Came the day when prisoners were paraded in serried ranks, a captain stood on a crate, held a loud-hailer before his mouth and roared all over the camp, “Anyone here named James Mowry?”

Mowry galloped eagerly forward, bow-legged from force of habit. “I am.” He scratched himself, a performance that the captain viewed with unconcealed disfavor.

Glowering at him, the captain demanded, “Why the heck haven’t you said so before now? We’ve been searching all Jaimec for you. Let me tell you, Mister, we’ve got better things to do. You struck dumb or something?”

“I—”

“Shut up! Military Intelligence wants you. Follow me.”

So saying, he led the other through heavily guarded gates, along a path toward a prefab hut.

Mowry ventured, “Captain, again and again I tried to tell the sentries that—” “Prisoners are forbidden to talk to sentries,” the captain snapped.

“But I wasn’t a prisoner.”

“Then what the blazes were you doing in there?” Without waiting for a reply he pushed open the door of the prefab hut and introduced him with, “This is the crummy bum.”

The Intelligence officer glanced up from a wad of papers. “So you’re Mowry, James Mowry?”

Correct.

“Well now,” said the officer, “we’ve been primed by beam-radio and we know all about you.”

“Do you really?” responded Mowry, pleased and gratified. He braced himself for the coming citation, the paean of praise, the ceremonial stroking of a hero’s hair.

“Another mug like you was on Artishain, their tenth planet,” the officer went on. “Feller named Kingsley. They say he hasn’t sent a signal for quite a piece. Looks like he’s got himself nabbed. Chances are he’s been stepped on and squashed flat.” Mowry said suspiciously, “What’s this to me?”

“We’re dropping you in his place. You leave tomorrow.”

“Hi?
Tomorrow?”

“Sure thing. We want you to become a wasp. Nothing wrong with you, is there?” “No,” said Mowry, very feebly. “Only my head.”

For me, the novel you're about to read was one of the most influential of all the science fiction books I read growing up. It remains one of my favorites, and has always cemented Russell to me and my work. It is also Russell’s most complex work, even though it’s told in his usual easy, fast, and expertly-paced thriller style.

This is a version of the “closed loop” plot. An open loop is like a murder mystery—you go from the beginning through the middle to the end, where all is explained. In a closed loop tale there’s an extra step. These have beginnings, middles, and ends, and then a second ending that often reveals that you’ve been reading a different book than the one you thought you were.
Vertigo
is a good example of this. A plot that seems like a good man’s descent into mental illness all the way to its climax when he recreates his insane vision, only to find out that, even if he’s off his noggin, he’s still a great detective and at that point the solution to the murder mystery you didn’t know you were reading is explained. I can reveal that
Sentinel
is a hidden loop because Russell gives you a taste of that other plot as you go along. You
know
something beyond what you’re reading is going on, but it’s very unlikely that you’ll guess this one, one of the most cosmic double endings in all modern SF and a unique concept in science fiction as far as I know. No peeking or you will
really
ruin a brilliant
tour de force
of writing.

There is also too much else here to ruin by not reading from the start.

The world that is created here is a fascinating one—near future, interplanetary but not interstellar, familiar yet remote. Terraformed Venus and Mars are well colonized and developed, and are now chafing as colonies under a relatively benign but still undemocratic and unresponsive Earth. Effects of radiation or something from lots of space travel has also had the side effect of creating a small but significant number of people with active extrasensory perception abilities and powers, some quite scary, transmitted to their descendants.

Against a well drawn backdrop of colonial rebellion, reminiscent of what was happening to the postwar British empire Russell had grown up taking for granted, is a secondary plot addressing a subject little discussed or thought of back then, particularly in science fiction—racism, based upon fear and prejudice. In many ways this is a complex novel using science fiction to address the revolutionary social and political waves let loose on the western world by and after World War II, and as metaphor it works extremely well. There is also a moral question of involvement here. Do our obviously alien sentinels hiding here in human form get involved? They are no threat to Earth, that’s clear, but they dare not expose themselves for various reasons and they have little use for colonial rebellions and local squabbles. The fear and prejudice, and the intended pogrom that’s unearthed, are other more moral matters. If they’re opening up the extermination camps in that nation over there, and you’re out over here with your own important fish to fry, do you risk your own people and plans
just
on moral principles? These are questions, and attitudes, as valid today as a half century ago when they were posed in this book.

This is Russell, and science fiction, doing what it does best, all in the format of one heck of a good thriller.

The World Council sat solemn and grave as he walked toward them. They numbered twelve, all sharp-eyed, gray or white of hair, their faces lined with many years and much experience. Silently with thin lips, firmed mouths, they studied his oncoming. The thick carpet kept saying
hush-hush
as his feet swept through it. The expectant quietness, the intent gaze, the whispering of the carpet and the laden weight of deep, unvoiced anxieties showed that this was a moment distinct from other minutes that are not moments.

Reaching the great horseshoe table at which the council members were seated, he halted, looked them over, starting with the untidy man on the extreme left and going slowly, deliberately around to the plump one on the far right. It was a peculiarly penetrating examination that enhanced their uneasiness. One or two fidgeted like men who feel some of their own sureness beginning to evaporate. Each showed relief when the soul-seeking stare passed on to his neighbor.

In the end his attention went back to the leonine-maned Oswald Heraty, who presided at the table’s center. As he looked at Heraty the pupils of his eyes shone and the irises were flecked with silver and he spoke in slow, measured tones.

He said, “Captain David Raven at your service, sir.”

Leaning back in his chair, Heraty sighed, fixed his attention upon the immense crystal chandelier dangling from the ceiling. It was difficult to tell whether he was marshaling his thoughts, or carefully avoiding the other’s gaze, or finding it necessary to do the latter in order to achieve the former.

Other members of the council now had their heads turned toward Heraty, partly to give full attention to what he was about to say, partly because to look at Heraty was a handy pretext not to look at Raven. They had all watched the newcomer’s entrance but none wanted to examine him close up, none wanted to be examined by him.

Still frowning at the chandelier, Heraty spoke in the manner of one shouldering an unwanted but immovable burden: “We are at war.”

The table waited. There was only silence.

Heraty went on, “I address you vocally because I have no alternative. Kindly respond in the same manner.”

“Yes, sir,” was Raven’s inadequate return.

“We are at war,” Heraty repeated with a slight touch of irritation. “Does that not surprise you?”

“No, sir.”

“It ought to,” put in another Council member, somewhat aggrieved by the others refusal to emote. “We have been at war for about eighteen months and have only just discovered the fact.”

“Leave this to me,” suggested Heraty, waving aside the interruption. For an instant—only an instant—he met Raven’s eyes as he asked, “Have you known or suspected that we are actually at war?”

Smiling to himself, Raven said, “That we would be involved sooner or later has been obvious from the start.”

“From what start?” inquired the fat man on the right.

“From the moment we crossed interplanetary space and settled upon another world.” Raven was disconcertingly imperturbable about it. “War then became inherent to the newly created circumstances.”

“Meaning we blundered in some way or other?”

“Not at all. Progress demands payment. Sooner or later the bill is presented.” It did not satisfy them. His line of reasoning ran too swiftly from premise to conclusion and they were unable to follow the logic of it.

Heraty took over again. “Never mind the past. We, as present day individuals had no control over that. It’s our task to cope with immediate problems and those of the near future.” He rubbed his bluish jowls, added, “Problem number one is this war. Venus and Mars are attacking us and officially we can’t do a thing about it. Reason: it’s a war that isn’t a war.”

“A difference of opinion?” asked Raven.

“It began with that. Now it has gone a whole lot further. They have turned from words to deeds. Without any formal declaration of war—indeed, with every outward appearance of friendship and blood-brotherhood—they are implementing their policies in a military manner. If you can call it military. I don’t know how else to describe it.” His voice sounded more ireful. “They’ve been at it for something like eighteen months and we’ve only just discovered that we are being hit, often and hard. That sort of thing can go on too long.”

“All wars go on too long,” Raven observed.

They viewed this as a profound thought. There was a murmur of agreement, much nodding of heads. Two of them went so far as to glance straight at him, though as briefly as possible.

“The worst of it is,” continued Heraty, morbidly, “that they have got us cunningly fixed in a tangle of our own devising and—officially at any rate—there’s no way out. What’s the answer to that?” Without waiting for suggestions he provided one himself. “We must take action that is unofficial.”

“Me being the goat?” put Raven, shrewdly.

“You being the goat,” Heraty confirmed.

For a moment the silence returned while Raven waited politely and the Council occupied itself with various thoughts. There was good cause to ponder. There had been wars before in the far past, the very far past; some slow and tortuous, some swift and bloody. But they had all been Earth wars.

A conflict between worlds was something new, something different. It posed unique problems to which bygone lessons could not apply. Moreover, a new style war, conducted with novel weapons, employing previously unheard of techniques posed fresh problems not solvable on the basis of past experiences. There was nothing to go by other than the hard, grim facts of today.

After a while. Heraty said moodily, “Venus and Mars have long been settled by
homo sapiens,
our own kind, our very flesh and blood. They are our children but no longer see it that way. They think they are now grown up and plenty old enough to go where they like, do what they like, come home any time they want. They’ve been agitating for self-government the last couple of centuries. They’ve been demanding the key of the house while they’re still damp from their christening. We’ve consistently refused them their desire. We’ve told them to wait, be patient.” He sighed again, long and deeply. “See where it puts us!”