Cities in Flight

He was spotted at once, of course, and two guards came trotting out to meet him, red-eyed and yawning; obviously, it was near the end of their trick.

“Whatcha doin’ out here?”

“Went to pick mushrooms,” Chris said, with what he hoped was an idiotic grin. “Didn’t find any. Funny kind of woods they got here.”

One of the sleepy guards looked him over, but apparently saw nothing but the issue clothing and Chris’s obvious youth. He cussed Chris out more or less routinely and said:

“Where ya work?”

“Soaking pits.”

The two guards exchanged glances. The soaking pits were deep, electrically heated holes in which steel ingots were cooled, gently and slowly. Occasionally they had to be cleaned, but it wasn’t economical to turn the heat off. The men who did the job were lowered into the pits in asbestos suits for four minutes at a time, which was the period it took for their insulating wooden shoes to burst into flame; then they were hauled out, given new shoes, and lowered into the pit again—and this went on for a full working day. Nobody but the mentally deficient could safely be assigned to such an inferno.

“Awright, feeb, get back on the job. And don’t come out here no more, get me? You’re lucky we didn’t shoot you.”

Chris ducked his head, grinned, and ran. A minute later, he was twisting and dodging through the shabby streets. Despite his confidence, he was a little surprised at how well he remembered them.

The hidey hole among the crates was still there, too, exactly as he and Frad had last left it, even to the stub of candle. Chris ate his other tin of field rations, and sat down in the darkness to wait.

He did not have to wait long, though the time seemed endless. About an hour after the end of the work day, he heard the sounds of someone threading the labyrinth with sure steps; and then the light of the flash came darting in upon him.

“Hi, Frad,” he said. “I’m glad to see you. Or I will be, once you get that light out of my eyes.”

The spoor of the flashlight beam swung toward the ceiling. “Is that you, Chris?” Frad’s voice said. “Yep, I see it is. But you must have grown a foot.”

“I guess I have. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

The big man sat down with a grunt. “Never thought you’d make it at all—it was just a hunch, once I heard who it was we were up against. I hope you’re not trying to switch sides, like those other three idiots.”

“Are they still alive?” Chris said with sudden fear.

“Yep. As of an hour ago. But I wouldn’t put any money on them lasting. Frank is getting wilder by the day—I used to think I understood him, but not any more. Is that what you’re here for—to try and sneak those kids out? You can’t do it.”

“No,” Chris said. “Or anyhow, not exactly. And I’m not trying to switch sides, either. But we were wondering why you let your city manager get you into this mess. Our City Fathers say he’s gone off his rocker, and if the machines can see it, you ought to be able to. In fact, you just said you did.”

“I’ve heard about those machines of yours,” Frad said slowly. “Do they really run the city, the way the stories say?”

“They run most of it. They don’t boss it, though; the Mayor does that.”

“Amalfi. Hmm. To tell you the truth, Chris, everybody knows that Frank’s lost control. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Suppose we threw him out—not that it’d be easy—where’d we go from there? We’d still be in the same mess.”

“You wouldn’t be at war with my town any more,” Chris suggested.

“No, and that’d be a gain, as far as it went. But we’d still be in the rest of the hole. Just changing a set of names won’t put any money in the till, or any bread in our mouths.” He paused for a moment and then added bitterly, “I suppose you know we’re starving. Not me, personally—Frank feeds his own—but I don’t eat very well either when I have to look at the faces I meet on the streets. Frank’s big play against Amalfi is crazy, sure—but except for that we’ve got no hope.”

Chris was silent. It was what he had expected to find, but that made the problem no easier.

“But you haven’t answered my question,” Frad said. “What are you up to? Just collecting information? Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“I’m trying to promote a revolution,” Chris said. It sounded embarrassingly pompous, but he couldn’t think of any other way to put it. He was also trying to avoid saying anything which would be an outright lie, but from this point onward that was going to be increasingly difficult. “The Mayor says you must have flunked your contracts because you don’t have any machines to judge them. Evidently that happens a lot of times to small cities that don’t have computer control. And the City Fathers say you could have done this job.”

“Now wait a minute. Let’s take this one step at a time. Suppose we got rid of Frank and patched things up with Amalfi. Could we get some help from your City Fathers on reorganizing the job?”