Cities in Flight

There was only one possible answer, and for a reason which he did not try to understand, it made Amalfi breathe a little easier. All around him the jungle sighed and swayed, and humming clouds of gnats made rainbows over the dew-laden pinnae of the ferns. The jungle, almost always murmurously quiet, had never seemed like the real enemy—and now Amalfi knew that his intuition had been right. The real enemy had at last declared itself, stealthily, but with a stealth with was naïveté itself in comparison with the ancient guile of the jungle.

“Miramon,” Amalfi said tranquilly, “we’re in a spot. That criminal city I told you about—the bindlestiff—is already here. It must have landed even before my city arrived, long enough ago to hide itself very thoroughly. Probably it came down at night in some taboo area. The tramps in it have leagued themselves with Fabr-Suithe anyhow, that much is obvious.”

A moth with a two-meter wing spread blundered across the clearing, piloted by a gray-brown nematode which had sunk its sucker above the ganglion between the glittering creature’s pinions. Amalfi was in a mood to read parables into things, and the parasitism reminded him of how greatly he had underestimated the enemy. The bindlestiff evidently knew, and was skillful with, the secret of manipulating a new culture. A shrewd Okie never attempts to overwhelm a civilization by direct assault, but instead pilots it, as indetectably as possible, doing no apparent harm, adding no apparent burden, but turning history deftly and tyrannically aside at the crucial instant …

Amalfi snapped the belt switch of his ultraphone. “Hazleton?”

“Here, boss.” Behind the city manager’s voice was the indistinct rumble of heavy mining. “What’s up?”

“Nothing yet. Are you having any bandit trouble out there?”

“No. We’re not expecting any, either, with all this artillery.”

“Famous last words,” Amalfi said. “The ’stiff’s here, Mark—and it’s no stranger, either.”

There was a short silence. In the background, Amalfi could hear the shouts of Hazleton’s crew. When the city manager’s voice came in again, it was moving from word to word very carefully, as if it expected each one to break under its weight. “You imply that the ’stiff was already on He when our Dirac broadcast went out. Right? I’m not sure these losses of ours can’t be explained some simpler way, boss; the theory … uh … lacks elegance.”

Amalfi grinned tightly. “A heuristic criticism,” he said. “Go to the foot of the class, Mark, and think it over. Thus far they’ve out-thought us six ways for Sunday. We may be able to put your old scheme about the women into effect still, but if it’s to work, we’ll have to smoke the ’stiff out into the open.”

“How?”

“Everybody here knows that there’s going to be a drastic change in the planet when we finish what we’re doing, but we’re the only ones who know exactly what we’re going to do. The ’stiffs will have to stop us, whether they’ve got Doctor Beetle or not. So I’m forcing their hand. Moving Day is hereby advanced by one thousand hours.”

“What! I’m sorry, boss, but that’s flatly impossible.”

Amalfi felt a rare spasm of anger. “That’s as may be,” he growled. “Nevertheless, spread it around; let the Hevians hear it. And just to prove that I’m not kidding, Mark, I’m turning the City Fathers back on at M plus 1100. If you’re not ready to spin before then, you may well swing instead.”

The click of the belt switch to the off position was unsatisfying. Amalfi would much have preferred to have concluded the interview with something really final—a clash of cymbals, for instance. He swung suddenly on Miramon.

“What are you goggling at?”

The Hevian shut his mouth, flushing. “Your pardon,” he said. “I was hoping to understand your instructions to your assistant, in the hope of being of some use. But you spoke in such incomprehensible terms that it sounded like a theological dispute. As for me, I never argue about politics or religion.” He turned on his heel and stamped off through the trees.

Amalfi watched him go, cooling off gradually. This would never do. He must be getting to be an old man. All during the conversation with Hazleton he had felt his temper getting the better of his judgment, yet he had felt sodden and inert, unwilling to make the effort of opposing the momentum of his anger. At this rate, the City Fathers would soon depose him and appoint some stable character to the mayoralty—not Hazleton, certainly, but some unpoetic youngster who would play everything by empirics. Amalfi was in no position to be threatening anyone else with liquidation, even as a joke.