Cities in Flight

“I’m not omniscient,” Amalfi said mildly. “I looked at the other city on the way in. And I looked at the instruments. You didn’t. The instruments alone told me that almost nothing was going on in that city that was normal to Okie operation. They also told me that its spindizzies were being tuned to produce a field which would burn them out within a year, and they told me what that field was supposed to do—what kind of conditions it was supposed to resist.

“Spindizzy fields will bounce any fast-moving large aggregate of molecules. They won’t much impede the passage of gases by osmosis. If you so drive a field as to exclude the smallest possible molecular exchange, even under a pressure of more than a million atmospheres, you destroy the machine. That set of conditions occurs only in one kind of situation, a situation no Okie would ever commit himself to for an instant: setting down on a gas giant. Obviously then, since the city was being readied for that kind of job, it had been garnisheed—it was now state property, and nobody cares about wasting state property.”

“Once again,” Hazleton said, “you might have told me that in time to prevent my taking my side jaunt. However, this time it’s just as well you didn’t, because I still haven’t come to the main thing I discovered. Do you know the identity of that city?”

“No.”

“Good for you for admitting it. I do. It’s the city we heard about when it was in the building three centuries ago; the so-called all-purpose city. Even under all the junk and decay, the lines are there. These Acolytes are letting it rot where it makes a real difference, just to hot-rod it for one job only. We could take it away from them if we tried. I studied the plans when they were first published, and—”

He stopped. Amalfi turned toward where Hazleton was looking. The garageman was coming back at a dead run. He had a meson pistol in one hand.

“I’m convinced,” Amalfi said swiftly. “Can you get over there again without being observed? This looks to me like trouble.”

“Yes, I can. There’s a—”

“ ‘Yes’ is enough for now. Tune our City Fathers to theirs, and set up Standard Situation N in both. Cue it to our ‘spin’ key—straight yes-no signal.”

“Situation N? Boss, that’s a—”

“I know what it is. I think we need it now. Our bum spindizzy prevents us from making any possible getaway without the combined knowledge of the two sets of City Fathers; we just aren’t fast enough. Git, before it’s too late.”

The garageman was almost upon them, emitting screams of fury each time he hit the ground at the end of a leap, as if the sounds were jolted out of him by the impact. In the thin atmosphere of Murphy, the yells sounded like toots on a toy whistle.

Hazleton hesitated a moment more, then sprinted up the stairway. The garageman ducked around a trunnion and fired. The meson pistol howled at the sky and flew backwards out of his hand. Evidently he had never fired one before.

“Mayor Amalfi, shall I—”

“Not yet, sergeant. Cover him, that’s all. Hey, you! Walk over here. Nice and slow, with your hands locked behind your head. That’s it …. Now then: what were you firing at my city manager for?”

The dark-complected face was livid now. “You can’t get away,” he said thickly. “There’s a dozen police squads on the way. They’ll break you up for fair. It’ll be fun to watch.”

“Why?” Amalfi asked, in a reasonable tone. “You shot at us first. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Nothing but pass a bum check! Around here that’s a crime worse than murder, brother. I checked you with Lerner, and he’s frothing at the mouth. You’d damn well better pray that some other squad gets to you before his does!”

“A bum check?” Amalfi said. “You’re blowing. Our money’s better than anything you’re using around here, by the looks of you. It’s germanium—solid germanium.”

“Germanium?” the dockman repeated incredulously.

“That’s what I said. It’d pay you to clean your ears more often.”

The garageman’s eyebrows continued to go higher and higher, and the corners of his mouth began to quiver. Two fat, oily tears ran down his cheeks. Since he still had his hands locked behind his head, he looked remarkably like a man about to throw a fit.

Then his whole face split open.

“Germanium!” He howled. “Ho, haw, haw, haw! Germanium! What hole in the plenum have you been living in, Okie? Germanium—haw, haw!” He emitted a weak gasp and took his hands down to wipe his eyes. “Haven’t you any silver, or gold, or platinum, or tin, or iron? Or something else that’s worth something? Clear out, bum. You’re broke. Take it from me as a friend, clear out; I’m giving you good advice.”

He seemed to have calmed down a little, Amalfi said. “What’s wrong with germanium?”