Wasp
by Eric Frank Russell
CHAPTER I
He ambled into the room, sat in the indicated chair and said nothing. The baffled expression had been on his face quite a time and he was getting a bit tired of wearing it.
The big fellow who had brought him all the way from Alaska now departed, silently closing the door and leaving him alone with the man contemplating him from behind the desk. A small plaque informed that this character’s name was William Wolf. It was inappropriate: he looked more like a bull moose.
Wolf said in hard, even tones, “Mr. Mowry, you are entitled to an explanation.” A pause, followed by, “You will get one.” Then he stared unblinkingly at his listener.
For a long-drawn minute James Mowry suffered the intent scrutiny before he asked, “When?”
“Soon.”
With that, Wolf went on staring at him. The gaze was unpleasantly piercing, analytical, and the face around it was about as warm and expressive as a lump of hard rock.
“Mind standing up?”
Mowry stood up.
“Turn around.”
He rotated, looking bored.
“Walk to and fro across the room.”
He walked.
“Tsk-tsk!” grunted Wolf in a way that indicated neither pleasure nor pain. “I assure you, Mr. Mowry, that I am quite serious when I ask you to oblige by walking bow-legged.”
Splaying his knees as much as possible, Mowry stumped around as if riding an invisible horse. Then he resumed his chair and said pointedly. “There’d better be money in this. I don’t come three thousand miles and make like a clown for nothing.”
“There’s no money in it, not a cent,” informed Wolf. “If lucky, there is life.”
“And if out of luck?”
“Death.”
“You’re damnably frank about it,” Mowry commented.
“In this job I have to be.” Wolf stared at him again, long and penetratingly. “You’ll do. Yes, I’m sure you’ll do.”
“Do for what?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment.” Opening a drawer, he extracted some papers, passed them across. “These will enable you better to understand the position. Read them through—they lead up to what follows.”
Mowry glanced at them. They were typescript copies of press reports. Settling back in his chair he perused them slowly and with care.
The first told of a prankster in Roumania. This fellow had done nothing more than stand in the road gazing fascinatedly at the sky, occasionally uttering ejaculations and loud phrases such as, “Blue flames!’ Curious people had joined him and gaped likewise. The group became a crowd, the crowd became a mob, and the bigger the mob the faster it grew.
Soon the audience blocked the street, overflowed into side-streets. Police tried to break it up, making matters worse. Some fool summoned the fire squads. Hysterics on the fringes swore they could see or had seen something weird above the clouds. Reporters and cameramen rushed to the scene. Rumours raced around. The government sent up the air force for a closer look. Panic spread over an area of two hundred square miles from which the original cause had judiciously disappeared.
“Amusing if nothing else,” remarked Mowry.
“Read on.”
The second report concerned a daring escape from jail of two notorious killers. They had stolen a car, made six hundred miles before recapture. Their term of freedom had lasted exactly fourteen hours.
The third detailed an automobile accident. Three killed,. one seriously injured, the car a complete wreck, the sole survivor had died nine hours later.
Handing back the papers, Mowry said, “What’s all this to me?”
“We’ll take those reports in the order as read,” began Wolf. “They prove something of which we’ve long been aware but, maybe you haven’t realised yourself. For the first one, that Roumanian did nothing, positively nothing save stare at the sky and mumble. All the same, he persuaded a government to start jumping around like fleas on a hot griddle. It shows that in given conditions action and reaction can be hopelessly out of proportion. Also that by doing insignificant things in suitable circumstances one can obtain results monstrously in excess of the effort.”
“I’II give you that.” Mowry conceded.
“Now the lamsters, They didn’t do much either; climbed a wall, grabbed a car, drove like mad until the petrol ran out, got caught’ He leaned forward, continued with added emphasis, “But for most of fourteen hours they monopolised the attention of six planes, ten helicopters, one hundred and twenty patrol-cars, eighteen telephone exchanges, uncountable phone lines and radio link-ups, not to mention police, deputies, posses of volunteers, hunters, trackers, forest rangers and National. Guardsmen to a grand total of twenty-seven thousands scattered over three states.”
“Phew!” Mowry raised his eyebrows.
“Finally, let’s consider this auto smash. We know the cause; the survivor was able to tell us before he died. He said the driver lost control at high speed while swiping at a wasp which had flown in through a window and started buzzing around his face.”
“It nearly happened to me once.”
Ignoring that, Wolf went on, “The weight of a wasp is under half an ounce. Compared with a human being its size is minute, its strength negligible. Its sole armament is a tiny syringe holding a drop of irritant, formic acid, and in this case it didn’t even use it. Nevertheless it killed four big men and converted a large, powerful car into a heap of scrap.”
“I see the point,” agreed Mowry, “but where do I come in?”
“Right here,” said Wolf. “We want you to become a wasp”
Leaning back, Mowry eyed the other contemplatively, then commented, “The muscle-bound lug who brought me here was a Secret Service agent who had satisfied me as to the genuineness of his credentials. This is a government department. You’re a high-ranking official. But for those facts I’d say you’re crazy.”
“Maybe I am,” gave back Wolf, blank-faced, “but I don’t think so.”
“You want me to do something?”
“Yes.”
“Something extra-special?”
“Yes.”
“At risk of death?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And for no reward?”
“Correct”
Mowry stood up, reached for his hat. “I’m not crazy either.”
“You will be,” said Wolf, in the same flat tones, “if you rest content to let the Sirians kick us out of existence.”
Letting go the hat, Mowry sat down again. “What d’you mean?”
“There’s a war on.”
“I know. Everybody knows.” He made a disparaging gesture. “We’ve been fighting the Sirian Combine for ten months. The newspapers say so. The radio says so. The video says so. The government says so. I am credulous enough to believe the lot of them.”
“Then perhaps you’re willing to stretch your credulity a bit further and swallow a few more items,” Wolf suggested.
“Such as?”
“The Terran public is complacent because to date nothing has happened in this sector. They know that already the enemy has launched two determined attacks against our solar system and that both have been beaten off. The public has great confidence in Terran defences. That confidence is justified; no Sirian task force will ever penetrate this far.”
“Well, what have we to worry about?”
“Wars must be won or lost and there’s no third alternative. We cannot win merely by keeping the foe at arm’s length. We can never gain victory solely by postponing defeat.” Suddenly and emphatically he slammed a heavy fist on his desk and made a pen leap two feet into the air. “We’ve got to do more than that. We’ve got to seize the initiative and get the enemy fiat on his back while we beat the bejazus out of him.”
“But we’ll get around to that in due course, won’t we?”