Butterfly Planet

by Philip E. High

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Look down into the streets, the buildings, the parks. There is your battleground. Down there is the enemy - an enemy who wears no uniform. He walks behind you in the street, sits with you when you eat, and perhaps swims beside you in a public pool. He may ask you for a light, bow you into a hotel, sell you a flyer, or in another form, leave the smell of perfume on your pillow. The enemy is young and old, male and female, and he is everywhere. Could such a situation arise - or has it arisen? In this exciting story of the future, the author depicts a world at war. An undercover war, so skilfully manipulated that sixty per cent of the population is unaware of its existence. Yet, daily, the casualty figures climb higher and higher. Can you say that such a war is impossible? Can you say when you have this all-action novel, that it has not already begun?

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 105

Sample

THERE was no high drama, no intuitive awareness and certainly no danger signal. It appeared to Maynard that he merely changed his mind. One minute the hot dinner he had been about to order seemed worthwhile and, the next, he was no longer hungry.

He re-pocketed his coins, shrugged and began to shoulder his way unhurriedly out of the eatateria. Dinner at noon was habit, but not always a necessity. Today, the thought of the menu-serve regurgitating a plateful of food had taken away his appetite. Again, there were the crowds, no matter where one went to eat, there were always crowds.

He became suddenly aware, as he approached the exit, that there was a man on either side of him. They looked straight ahead, apparently unaware of his existence, but somehow they were too close for comfort. They were also too determined to keep level.

Maynard hated being crowded, he also hated people walking too close behind him. Automatically he slowed his pace and began fumbling in his pockets as if searching for something.

It was then that something hard pressed into the small of his back and a low voice said: “Just keep walking, friend, make it casual.”

Outside there was a low, waspish but luxurious vehicle and he was almost ushered into it—but for the unchanging pressure in his back.

The men took positions on either side of him and the vehicle whispered away.

“Where are we going?” On subsequent reflection, it seemed a futile sort of question but he realized he had asked it to relieve his growing alarm.

“You’ll find out.”

“That I could figure out myself. What are you—police?”

“Spare us, please. Do we look like police?”

“Then clearly you have made some sort of mistake. I’m a nobody, I’m a second-class technician named—”

“Maynard. We’re familiar with your name and background. Incidentally, you appear to be a reasonably sensible man, you obeyed our orders. Continue to do so, that was a congealer we had pressed into your back.”

Maynard said nothing, aware only of a remote faintness. A congealer caused blood-clotting with an immediate and invariably fatal heart attack. Had his warders chosen to use the weapon, they would have got clean away with it. Only a post-mortem would reveal the true cause of death which was of no consolation whatever.

The car stopped and he was ushered out. The men guided him to a tall building and they were whisked upwards in the gravity shaft to almost the highest floor.

“This way.”

He found himself in a high, wide room dominated by a huge ornate desk.

“Sit down.” A fat, brown-faced man sat behind the desk, resting his chin on his hands as if brooding.

“You heard. Sit down!” Someone pushed a chair against the back of his knees and he sat rather heavily.

The fat man said: “That’s better, I prefer the minor courtesies, don’t you?” He removed his chin from his hands and showed small white teeth, briefly. “For identification purposes, you may refer to me as Smith—Mr. Smith. You are Peter Maynard, aged thirty years, two months and ten days. You are a second-class technician employed by Allied Electronics.”

He paused and looked at the other directly. “A third-class technician holding on to a second-class ticket with his finger nails. You don’t rate second-class, not really, you wear it because of a naïve honesty. So far, you have ‘lost’ nothing, disposed of nothing or acquired anything for your personal use. Honest techs are rare and your employers appreciate it.”

He smiled again, the eyes remaining cold and calculating. “You are a nobody, Maynard, and I expect you are wondering why we bothered to pick you up. The answer is brief, you are a deviant. Before you get big ideas about that, permit me to cut you down to size. The word ‘deviant’ is an official label denoting minor psychological variations. Actors, artists, musicians and various other creatives are thus bracketted. Occasionally, however, someone crops up who is a little different. They may possess some minor asset which could prove profitable and we like to get hold of them first.”

Maynard said: “Presumably you have gained access to the psychological tapes in the Institute of Psychiatry. The information contained on those tapes is supposed to be private.”

The fat man laughed. “What an engaging little innocent you are.” He looked beyond Maynard and said: “Difficult to believe that such can exist even in the ranks of the neutrals.”

He looked again at Maynard. “We are a large organization, employing experts. You will be passed on to these same experts for routine tests. Should these tests reveal something useful, you will be enrolled in the organization at ten times the salary you are now receiving.”

“With or without my consent!”

“Thank you for saving me the trouble of explaining, that is exactly the position.” He leaned back and nodded briefly. “Take him away.”

Hands descended on Maynard’s shoulders. “Come along, friend.”

Once more he was led to the gravity shaft, this time, however, there was no pressure in his back and he was less dazed.

He wished briefly that he was some sort of superman or highly skilled agent such as one saw so often depicted on the three-dimensional. Unfortunately his knowledge of self-defence and applied violence was second-hand and basic.

His two escorts were lean, broad-shouldered and, all too clearly, professionals. He stood about as much chance with them as a new-born lamb with a couple of tigers.

Nonetheless he was aware of desperation building something up inside him which, at any moment, was liable to explode into action. Ill-considered and probably suicidal action he thought pessimistically but he was unable to stop the tension building up. It was like a steam-head building up inside a boiler with no safety valve and, in the long run, he knew, something would have to give.

In the street they urged him towards the waiting vehicle and he realized suddenly they were casual. Perhaps they had decided he was harmless or, by now, so cowed that his resistance level was beneath contempt. No weapon was pressed into his back and the men were doing their best to appear normal before the surging crowds.

It was then that the pent-up desperation exploded into action but, even as he acted, he realized that his mind was cool and detached and strangely uninfluenced by panic.

He lurched sideways, catching the man on his right in mid-stride. He spun, his nobbly technician’s fist clenched, and hit the other man in the stomach with all his force.

‘Right’, clutching desperately at his pocket, staggered sideways, tripped over his own feet and went sprawling. ‘Left’ folded in half with a wheezing noise and sank to his knees.

Maynard leapt for the surging crowds on the sidewalk and, dodging and side-stepping quickly merged with them.

Within two minutes he came to an intersection, he turned left and found himself level with a subway entrance. He followed the crowds entering and was successful in catching the first train he saw just as it was leaving. At the next station, he crossed platforms, changed trains and went back five stations in the opposite direction.

Thirty minutes later he emerged in the outer suburbs, having changed trains nine times. Surely, for the moment at least, he must be safe now.

Sweating and shaky he bought an iced drink from a street auto-vendor and looked about him.

Some distance away, an arched and ornate gateway bore the words “Green Belt”. One of the city parks, there at least he could relax on one of the benches and think. Furthermore, there were attendants at frequent intervals, closed-circuit cameras to deter vandals and always a comforting policeman or two.

Inside the gate, a wide gravel path wound away between green and beautifully tended lawns. In the distance, a lake shimmered, there were tree-lined walks, benches under spreading oaks and, despite strolling people, a measure of solitude.

He found an unoccupied bench and sank gratefully and rather heavily into the soft pseudo-wood. Now he must think. He was aware, however, that he had come to a dead-end. A period in his life had come to an abrupt stop. He could never return to work or his apartment—they would be waiting. He had a small nest-egg saved over the years which he could draw from any bank but it was no fortune. It would be enough to carry him across the ocean to another continent but would do very little more. Certainly there was not enough to approach the transmitter banks for transport to one of the stellar colonies. Unsubsidized transport cost three thousand per light year and, even then, one needed official sanction both from Earth and one’s intended planetary destination.

He realized, with a kind of dull despair, that he was now a man on the run with very little future. The police? What could he tell them? Only an unlikely story which he was unable to prove. If they believed him, which was doubtful indeed, what could they do? An over-taxed organization like the police force would hardly provide a permanent guard on such a slim story.

He sighed aloud and fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette.

“Here friend, save yourself some trouble.” A hand, holding a lighted cigarette, appeared suddenly in front of him. At the same time, something cold pressed against the back of his neck.

“It’s okay, take it, it’s your brand but don’t try anything.” The man came round from behind him and seated himself at the far end of the bench. He was as lean, as professional, as his previous captors and although of a different colouring and build might have been stamped from the same mould. His hand, casually in right-hand pocket, clearly held and pointed a weapon.

Maynard shrugged and accepted the cigarette. “It didn’t take you long?”

“Should it? We have agents all over, friend. In a way, it’s a good thing, taught you a well-needed lesson. There is no escape, nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, wherever you go, or how fast, you will always find someone waiting at the other end. No, no need to get up yet, finish your cigarette, because, when we get you back, you have another lesson to learn. After which, no doubt, you will be less inclined to independent action.”

A policeman strolled past and his captor said: “Hello, Fred, nice beat.”

“Hello, Mr. Combes—yes, do with months of this, like a paid holiday.” He strolled on without glancing back.

His captor smiled. “Well, go on, run after him, tell him that a familiar local business man has a gun pointed straight at your guts. Another lesson, Maynard, one I don’t have to spell out for you. Look around you, all these people, but which one can you trust, which one is not watching?”

Maynard, cold inside, took another drag at the half-smoked cigarette and stared at a world which had suddenly become hostile. What the man had said was probably true, the elderly man apparently half asleep on a nearby bench, the strolling youth with his hands in his pockets, both could be enemies. Then there was the tall man contemplating the flower bed, the young couple approaching with the baby-float. No hardly, not with a baby, but one never could tell. They looked like normal people leading normal lives and, as they drew level, he could hear them talking animatedly— It was then that the man spun the baby-float and thrust it suddenly forwards so that it crashed against the bench between Maynard and his captor. At the same time, something flashed in the woman’s hand. His jailer half rose and fell back limply with his mouth open.

His rescuer—if rescuer he was—was beside him in one stride. “All right, Maynard, up. We haven’t much time—this way.”

They almost dragged him away from the trees and, as they did so, something descended from the sky and stood there whispering about a foot . . .