Cities in Flight

“They’re under orders never to volunteer information. And a good thing too, almost all the time; without such an order they’d be jabbering away on all channels every minute of the day—they have no judgment. Now Lutz is demanding ransom. We’d pay any reasonable sum, but what he wants is the planet—you were right again, Chris, logic has gone out the window over there—and we can’t give him what we don’t own, and we wouldn’t if we could. Piggy has gotten us into a war, and not even the machines can see what the consequences will be.”

Chris blew out his breath in a long gust. “What are we going to do?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“No, I don’t want to know about tactics or anything like that. Just a general idea. Piggy is a friend of mine—it sounds silly right now, but I really like him.”

“If you don’t like a man when he’s in trouble, you probably never liked him at all,” the perimeter sergeant agreed reflectively. “Well, I can’t tell you very much more, all the same. In general terms, Amalfi is stalling in a way he hopes will give Lutz the idea that he’s going to give in, but won’t give the Argidae the same impression; the machines have run him up a set of key words that should convey the one thing to the colonists and the other to Scranton. Contract termination is only a week away, and if we can stall Lutz until the day before that—well, I can’t say what we’ll do. But generally, again, we’ll move in there and deprive him of his marbles. That’ll give us a day to get out of this system before the cops come running, and when they do catch us, at least they’ll find that we have a fulfilled contract. Incidentally, it also gives us a day to collect our pay—”

“OVERRIDE,” the City Fathers said suddenly, without being asked anything at all.

“Woof! Sorry. Either I’ve already said one word too many, or I was going to. Can’t say anything else, Chris.”

“But I thought they never volunteered information!”

“They don’t,” Anderson said. “That wasn’t volunteered. They are under orders from Amalfi to monitor talk about this situation and shut it up when it begins to get too loose. That’s all I can say—and it’s none of it the best news I ever spread.”

Only a week to go—and the contract date, Chris realized for the first time, was exactly one day before his birthday. Everything was going to be gained or lost within the same three days: for himself, for Piggy and his two victims, for Scranton, for Argus III, for the city.

And again he knew, as surely as he knew his left hand from his right, that Amalfi’s present plan was not going to work.

And again the rock upon which it was sure to founder was Frank Lutz.

Chris did not doubt that Amalfi could outsmart Lutz hands down in any face-to-face situation, but that was not what this was. He did doubt, and doubted most thoroughly, that any list of trigger words the City Fathers could prepare could fool Lutz for long, no matter how well they lulled the hundred eyes of Argus to sleep; the city manager of Scranton was educated, shrewd, experienced in the ways of politics and power—and by now, on top of all that, he would be almost insanely suspicious. Suspicion of everyone had been normal for him even in good times; if he suspected his friends when things were going right, he would hardly be more trustful of his enemies in the very last days of a disaster.

Chris knew very little yet about the politics of Okie cities, but he knew his history. Also, he knew skunks; he had often marveled at the obduracy with which poor Kelly had failed to profit by his tangles with them. Maybe the dog had liked them; they are affectionate pets for a cautious master. But the human variety was not worth the risk. One look at Frank Lutz had taught Chris that.

And even supposing that Lutz did not shoot from the hip while New York was still trying to stall, bringing down upon the city a rain of missiles or whatever other bombardment Scranton was able to mount; even supposing that Lutz was totally taken in by Amalfi’s strategy, so that New York took his city away from him at the very last minute, without firing a shot or losing a man; even supposing all this—and it was an impossible budget of suppositions—Piggy and the two women prisoners would not survive it. In New York only Chris could know with what contempt Lutz treated the useless people aboard his own town; and only Chris could guess what short shrift he would give three putative refugees from a great city that did tolerate passengers.