Wasp

Wasp, Eric Frank Russell, Permabooks, 1959

Under the right circumstances, totally innocent happenings can have effects far in excess of the original event. For instance, consider a prisoner escaping from jail. He will singlehandedly tie up hundreds of police and prison personnel, plus police cars, helicopters and who knows what else, for hours or days. Consider a wasp or bee. It flies into a car and, buzzing around, can cause the driver to lose control and crash. Taking things one step further, it is possible for one person to bring down a government.

Human James Mowry is recruited to be such a person. Foe the previous 10 months, Earth has been at war with the Sirian Combine. It's pretty much of a stalemate; the war has yet to reach Earth. The Earth authorities know that such a state of affairs will not last forever, since the Combine outnumbers Earth in several vital areas. Mowry is one of a number of "wasps" placed on planets in the Combine, one per planet, to disrupt the Sirian war effort from the inside.

The planet Jaimec is full of humanoids with purple skin. It helps that Mowry was actually born there, so he has the accent all set. It's also a police state, a place of informants, patrols and sudden police searches in public. Mowry must change identities, and locations, every few days, in order to keep away from the kaitempi, the interrogators. The only way to not give information to the kaitempi is to be dead. Mowry spends his time putting stickers all over the town in which he is staying, talking about the Sirian Freedom Party (which, of course, doesn't exist). There is the occasional political assassination; boxes are sent to various leading officials, containing inexpensive clocks and wires. The recipients are left with the unmistakable impression that it could very easily have been a bomb.

As time goes on, Mowry begins to have an effect on the population. At first, he is ignored, then notices reach the official press about members and leaders of the Party being arrested and executed. Blurbs also reach the Jaimec press about this planet or that planet being abandoned for "strategic" reasons. Also, the enemy (Human) fleet is either severly damaged, decimated, or wiped out, seemingly every week (according to the official press). Then, Mowry gets the word that the official attack from Earth is coming, to end the war, once and for all.

This book is pretty good. It has a very interesting central premise, it has plenty of action, and it will keep the reader entertained. It's worth reading.