Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (5 page)

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 loony’s work. There’s more to it than that.”

“Why?” demanded Pop Eyes.

“A solitary nut would be more likely to scribble 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 organization 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 sure 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 an 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 look, 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.”

The crowd mooched reluctantly away. Mowry glanced back from the far corner, saw the manager emerge with a steaming bucket and get busy swabbing the notice. He grinned to himself, knowing that hot water was just the thing to release and activate the hydrofluoric base beneath the print.

Continuing on his way, Mowry disposed of two more stickers where they’d best be seen and cause the most annoyance. It would take twenty minutes for water to free number fifty-six and at the end of that time he couldn’t resist returning to the scene. Going back on his tracks, he ambled past the shop.

Sure enough the sticker had disappeared while in its place the same message was etched deeply and milky in the glass. The cop and the manager were now arguing heatedly upon the sidewalk with half a dozen citizens gaping alternately at them and the window.

As Mowry loped past the cop bawled, “I don’t care if the window
is
valued at two thousand guilders. You’ve got to board it up or replace the glass. One thing or the other and no half-measures.”

“But, officer—”

“Do as you’re told. To exhibit subversive propaganda is a major offense whether intentional or not. There’s a war on!”

Mowry wandered away, unnoticed, unsuspected, with eighteen stickers yet to be used before the day was through. By dusk he’d disposed of them all without mishap. He had also found himself a suitable hideaway.

At the hotel he stopped by the desk and spoke to the clerk. “This war, it makes things difficult. One can plan nothing with certainty.” He made the hand-splaying gesture that was the Sirian equivalent of a shrug. “I must leave tomorrow and may be away seven days. It is a great nuisance.”

“You wish to cancel your room, Mr. Agavan?”

“No. I reserved it for ten days and will pay for ten.” Dipping into his pocket he extracted a wad of guilders. “I shall then be able to claim it if I get back in time. If I don't, well, that’ll be my hard luck.”

“As you wish, Mr. Agavan.” Indifferent to the throwing away of good money so long as it was somebody else’s, the other scribbled a receipt, handed it over.

“Thanks,” said Mowry. “Live long!”

“May you live long.” He gave the response in dead tones, not caring if the customer expired on the spot.

Mowry went to the restaurant and ate. Then to his room where he lay full length on the bed and gave his feet a much needed rest while he waited for darkness to become complete. When the last streamers of sunset had faded away he took another pack of stickers from his case, also a piece of crayon, and departed.

The task was lots easier this time. Poor illumination helped cover his actions, he was now familiar with the locality and the places most deserving of his attentions, he was not diverted by the need to find another and safer address. For more than four hours he could concentrate single-mindedly upon the job of defacing walls and making a mess of the largest, most expensive sheets of plate glass that daytimes were prominently in public view.

Between seven-thirty and midnight he slapped exactly one hundred stickers on shops, offices and vehicles of the city transport system, also inscribed swiftly, clearly and in large size the letters D.A.G. upon twenty-four walls.

The latter feat was performed with Terran crayon, a deceitfully chalk-like substance that made full use of the porosity of brick when water was applied. In other words, the more furiously it was washed the more stubbornly it became embedded. There was only one sure way of obliterating the offensive letters—to knock down the entire wall and rebuild it.

In the morning he breakfasted, walked out with his case, ignored a line of waiting dynocars and caught a bus. He changed buses nine times, switching routes one way or the other and heading nowhere in particular. Five times he traveled without his case which reposed awhile in a rented locker. This tedious rigmarole may not have been necessary but there was no way of telling; it was his duty not only to avoid actual perils but also to anticipate hypothetical ones.

Such as this: “Kaitempi check. Let me see the hotel register. H’m!—much the same as last time. Except for this Shir Agavan. Who is he,
hi?”

“A forestry surveyor.”

“Did you get that from his identity-card?”

“Yes, officer. It was quite in order.”

“By whom is he employed?”

“By the Ministry of Natural Resources.”

“Was his card embossed with the Ministry’s stamp?”

“I don’t remember. Maybe it was. I can’t say for sure.”

“You should notice things like that. You know full well that you’ll be asked about them when the check is made.”

“Sorry, officer, but I can’t see and remember every item that comes my way in a week.”

“You could try harder. Oh. Well, I suppose this Agavan character is all right. But maybe I’d better get confirmation if only to show I’m on the job. Give me your phone.” A call, a few questions, the phone slammed down, then in harsh tones, “The Ministry has no Shir Agavan upon its roll. The fellow is using a fake identity-card. When did he leave the hotel? Did he look agitated when he went? Did he say anything to indicate where he was going? Wake up, you fool, and answer! Give me the key to his room—it must be searched at once. Did he take a dynocar when he departed? Describe him to me as fully as you can. So he was carrying a case? What sort of a case,
hi?”

That was the kind of chance that must be taken when one holes up in known and regularly checked haunts. The risk was not enormous, in fact it was small— but it was still there. And when tried, sentenced and waiting for death it is no consolation to know that what came off was a hundred to one chance. To keep going and to maintain the one-man battle the enemy had to be outwitted, if possible, all along the line and all the time.

Satisfied that by now the most persistent of snoops could not follow his tortuous trail through the city, Mowry retrieved his case, lugged it up to the third floor of a crummy tenement building, let himself into his suite of two sour-smelling rooms. The rest of the day he spent cleaning the place up and making it fit to live in.

He’d be lots harder to trace here. The shifty-eyed landlord had not asked to see his identity-card, had accepted him without question as Cast Hurkin, a low-grade railroad official, honest, hard-working and stupid enough to pay his rent regularly and on time. To the landlord’s way of thinking the unsavory neighbors rated a higher I.Q.—in terms of that environment—being able to get a crust with less effort and remaining tight-mouthed about how they did it.

Housework finished, Mowry bought a paper, sought through it from front to back for some mention of yesterday’s activities. There wasn’t a word on the subject. At first he felt disappointed, then on further reflection he became heartened.

Opposition to the war and open defiance of the government definitely made news that justified a front-page spread. No reporter, no editor would pass it up if he could help it. Therefore the papers had passed it up because they could not help it. They’d had no choice about the matter. Somebody high in authority had clamped down upon them with the heavy hand of censorship. Somebody with considerable power had been driven into making a weak countermove.

That was a start, anyway. His first wasping buzzing had forced authority to interfere with the press. What’s more, the countermove was feeble and ineffective. It wouldn’t work. It was doomed to failure, serving only as a stopgap while they sat around and beat their brains for more decisive measures.

The more persistently a government maintains silence on a given subject of discussion, the more the public talks about it, thinks about it. The longer and more stubborn the silence the guiltier it looks to the talkers and thinkers. In time of war the most morale-lowering question that can be asked is, “What are they hiding from us
now?"

Some hundreds of citizens would be asking themselves that same question tomorrow, the next day or the next week. The potent words
Dirac Angestun Gesept
would be on a multitude of lips, milling around in a like number of minds, merely because the powers-that-be were afraid to talk.

And if a government fears to admit even the pettiest facts of war, how much faith can the common man place in the leadership’s claim not to be afraid of anything?
Hi?

A disease gains in menace when it spreads, popping up in places far apart and taking on the characteristics of an epidemic. For that reason Mowry’s first outing from his new abode was to Radine, a town two hundred and forty miles south of Pertane. Population three hundred thousand, hydroelectric power, bauxite mines, aluminum extraction plants.

He caught an early morning train. It was overcrowded with all those people compelled to move around by the various needs of war: sullen workers, bored soldiers, self-satisfied officials, colorless nonentities. The seat facing him was occupied by a heavy-bellied character with bloated, porcine features, a caricaturist’s idea of the Jaimec Minister of Food.