Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell by Eric Frank Russell Page B

is very variable in form. Paper can convey a private warning, a public threat, secret temptation, open defiance; wall-bills, window-stickers, leaflets dropped by the thousands from the roof-tops, cards left on seats or slipped into pockets and purses . . . money.
    Yes, money.
    With paper money he could buy a lot of the deeds needed to back up the words. With paper money he could persuade the Sirian foe to kick himself good and hard in the pants and thereby save the Terrans a tedious chore.
    At the proper hour he set out for the Cafe Susun.
    Not having yet received the D.A.G.’s thumb-on-nose registration the Jaimecan authorities were still able to think in a calculating and menacing way. Their countermoves had not been confined to that morning’s new law. They had taken matters further by concocting a dangerous technique, namely, that of the snap-search.
    It almost caught Mowry at the first grab. He did not congratulate himself on his escape, realizing that to avoid one trap might be merely to fall into another. The risk was great, the trick being of such a type that none could tell when or where the next blow would fall.
    He was heading for his rendezvous when suddenly a line of uniformed police extended itself across the street. A second line simultaneously did likewise four hundred yards farther on. From the dumbfounded mob trapped between the lines appeared a number of plainclothes members of the Kaitempi. These at once commenced a swift and expert search of everyone thus halted in the street. Meanwhile both lines of police kept their full attention inward, watching to see that nobody ducked into a doorway and bolted through a house to escape the mass-frisk.
    Thanking his lucky stars that he was outside the trap and being ignored, Mowry faded into the background as inconspicuously as possible and beat it home fast. In his room he burned all documents relating to Shir Agavan, crumbled the ashes into fine dust. That identity was now dead forever and ever, amen. It would never be used again.
    From one of his packages he took a new set of papers swearing before all and sundry that he was Krag Wulkin, special correspondent of a leading news agency, with a home address on Diracta. In some ways it was a better camouflage than the former one. It lent added plausibility to his Mashambi accent. Moreover a complete check on it would involve wasting a month referring back to the Sirian home planet.
    Thus armed he started out again. Though better fitted to face awkward questions the risk of being asked them had been greatly boosted by this latest technique and he took to the streets with the queasy feeling that somehow or other the hunt at last had picked up the scent.
    There was no way of telling exactly what the snap-searchers were seeking. Maybe they were trying to catch people carrying subversive propaganda on their persons. Or perhaps they were looking for treacherous sokos with D.A.G. membership cards. Or could be they were haphazardly groping around for a dynocar renter named Shir Agavan. Whatever their reasons, the tactic proved that someone among Jaimec’s big shots had become aggravated.
    Luckily no more traps opened in his path before he reached the Cafe Susun. He went in, found Arhava and two others seated at the far table where they were half-concealed in dim light and could keep watch on the door.
    “You’re late,” greeted Arhava. “We thought you weren’t coming.”
    “I got delayed by a police raid on the street. The cops looked surly. You fellows just robbed a bank or something?”
    “No, we haven’t.” Arhava made a casual gesture toward his companions. “Meet Gurd and Skriva.”
    Mowry acknowledged them with a curt nod, looked them over. They were much alike, obviously brothers. Flat-faced, hard-eyed with pinned-back ears that came up to sharp points. Each looked capable of selling the other into slavery provided there was no comeback with a knife.
    “We haven’t heard your name,” said Gurd,