Sure enough the sticker had disappeared while in its place the same message was etched deeply and milkily 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 offence 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.
CHAPTER III
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 travelled 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 Gast 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 unsavoury neighbours 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 waspish buzzings 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.