Cities in Flight

“Why are we hanging around here now, getting pushed around by these Acolyte hicks?” the King roared. “You’re fed with it. All right, I’m fed with it, too. I wouldn’t take it from the beginning! When I came here, you guys were bidding each other down to peanuts. When the bidding was over, the city that got the job lost money on it every time. It was me that showed you how to organize. It was me that showed you how to stand up for your rights. It was me that showed you how to form a wage line, and how to hold one. And it’s going to be me that’ll show you what to do when a wage line breaks up.”

Amalfi reached behind him, caught Dee’s hand, and drew her forward to stand beside him. They were now in the front row of the crowd, almost up against the dais. The King saw the movement; he paused and looked down. Amalfi felt Dee’s hand tighten spasmodically upon his. He returned the pressure.

“All right,” Amalfi said. When he was willing to let his voice out, he could fill a considerable space with it. He let it out. “Show, or shut up.”

The King, who had been looking directly down at them, made a spasmodic movement—almost as if he had been about to take one step backwards. “Who the hell are you?” he shouted.

“I’m the mayor of the only city that held the line today,” Amalfi said. He did not seem to be shouting, but somehow his voice was no smaller in the hall than the King’s. A quick murmur went through the mob, and Amalfi could see necks craning in his direction. “We’re the newest—and the biggest—city here, and this is the first sample we’ve seen of the way you run this wage bidding. We think it stinks. We’ll see the Acolytes in hell before we take their jobs at any of the prices they offer, let alone the low pay levels you set.”

Someone near by turned and looked at Amalfi slantwise. “Evidently you folks can eat space,” the Okie said dryly.

“We eat food. We won’t eat slops,” Amalfi growled. “You up there on the platform—let’s hear this great plan for getting us out of this mess. It couldn’t be any worse than the wage-line system—that’s a cinch.”

The King began to pace. He whirled as Amalfi finished speaking, arms akimbo, feet apart, his shiny bald cranium thrust forward, gleaming blankly against the faded tapestries.

“I’ll let you hear it,” he roared. “You bet I’ll let you hear it. Let’s see what your big talk comes to after you know what it is. You can stay behind and try to work boom-time wages out of the Acolytes if you want; but if you’ve guts, you’ll go with us.”

“Where to?” Amalfi said calmly.

“We’re going to march on Earth.”

There was a brief, stunned silence. Then a composite roar began to grow in the hall.

Amalfi grinned. The sound of the response was not exactly friendly.

“Wait!” the King bellowed. “Wait, dammit! I ask you—what’s the sense in our fighting the Acolytes? They’re just local trash. They know just as well as we do that they couldn’t get away with their slave-market tactics and their private militia and their shoot-ups if Earth had an eye on ’em.”

“Then why don’t we holler for the Earth cops?” someone demanded.

“Because they wouldn’t come here. They can’t. There must be Okies all over the galaxy that are taking stuff from local systems and clusters, stuff like what we’re taking. This depression is everywhere, and there just aren’t enough Earth cops to be all over the place at once.

“But we don’t have to take it. We can go to Earth and demand our rights. We’re citizens, every one of us—unless there are any Vegans here. You a Vegan, buddy?”

The scarred face stared down at Amalfi, smiling gruesomely. A nervous titter went through the hall.

“The rest of us can go to Earth and demand that the government bail us out. What else is government for, anyhow? Who produced the money that kept the politicians fat all through the good centuries? What would the government have to govern and tax and penalize if it weren’t for the Okies? Answer me that, you with the orbital fort under your belt!”

The laughter was louder and sounded more assured now. Amalfi, however, was quite used to gibes at his pod; such thrusts were for him a sure sign that his current opponent had run out of pertinent things to say. He returned coldly: “More than half of us had charges against us when we came here—not local charges, but violations of Earth orders of one kind or another. Some of us have been dodging being brought back on our Violations dockets for decades. Are you going to offer yourselves to the Earth cops on a platter?”

The King did not appear to be listening with more than half an ear. He had brought up a broad grin at the second wave of laughter, and had been looking back down at Dee for admiration.