Cities in Flight

And in this first disastrous instance he had simply been in the way. The city would have known soon enough in any event of the fact that Anderson and Dulany were being held prisoner, since the colonists of Heaven could not have used them effectively as hostages without notifying Amalfi of the fact; and there was no doubt in Chris’s mind that the two cops could have gotten out of Castle Wolf-whip without his intervention, and perhaps a good deal faster, too. Above all, they might have been gotten out by Amalfi without violence, and thus saved the contract intact. The appearance of Chris as a third prisoner had been totally unwelcomed to both sides, and had turned what had been merely a tense situation into an explosion.

In the end, they gave him full marks for imagination and boldness, as well as for coolness under fire, but by that time Chris had learned enough about the situation to feel that his chances of ever becoming a citizen were not worth an Oc dollar. The new contract was considerably more limited than the old, and called for reparations for the damage the two sergeants had done to Castle Wolf-whip; under it, the city stood to gain considerably less than before.

Chris was astonished that there was any new contract at all, and said so, rather hesitantly. Anderson explained:

“Violence between employer and employee is as old as man, Chris, but the work has to be done all the same. The colonists as a corporate entity disown the kidnapper and claim the right to deal with him according to their own system of justice, which we’re bound to respect. Damage to real property, on the other hand, has to be paid for—and the city can’t disown Irish and me because we’re officers and agents of the city.”

“But what about the scheme to ground the city and take it over?”

“We know nothing about that except what you overheard. That would have no status in a colonial court, and probably wouldn’t even if you were a citizen—in this case, if you were of legal age.”

And there it was again. “Well, there’s something else I’ve been wondering about,” Chris said. “Why is the age to start the drugs fixed at eighteen? Wouldn’t they work at any age? Suppose we took aboard a man forty years old who also happened to be a red-hot expert at something we needed. Couldn’t you start him on the drugs anyhow?”

“We could and we would,” Anderson assured him. “Eighteen is only the optimum age, the earliest age at which we can be sure the specimen is physically mature. You see the drugs can’t set the clock back. They just arrest aging from the moment when they’re first given. Tell me, have you ever heard of the legend of Tithonus?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I don’t know it very well myself; ask the City Fathers. But briefly, he got himself in the good books of the goddess of dawn, Eos, and asked for the gift of immortality. She gave it to him, but he was pretty old at the time. When he realized that he was just going to stay that way forever, he asked Eos to take the gift back. So she changed him into a grasshopper, and you know how long they live.”

“Hmm. A man who was going to be a permanent seventy-five wouldn’t be much good to himself, I guess. Or to the city either.”

“That’s the theory,” the perimeter sergeant agreed. “But of course we have to take ’em as we find ’em. Amalfi went on the drugs at fifty—which, for him, happened to be his prime.”

Thus his education went on, much as before, except that he stayed scrupulously away from the docks. Since the new contract was limited to three months, there probably wouldn’t have been much to see down there anyhow—or so he told himself, not without a suspicion that there were a few holes in his logic. In addition, he got some sympathy and support from a wholly unexpected source: Piggy Kingston-Throop.

“It just goes to show you how much truth there is in all this jabber about citizenship,” he said fiercely, at their usual after-class meeting. “Here you go and do them a big fat favor, and all they can think of to do is lecture you for getting in their way. They even go right on doing business with these guys who were going to grab the city if they could.”

“Well, we do have to eat.”

“Yeah, but it’s dirty money all the same. Come to think of it, though, if I’d have been in your shoes I’d have handled it differently.”

“I know,” Chris said, “that’s what they all keep telling me. I should never have gotten into the boat in the first place.”

“Pooh, that part’s all right,” Piggy said scornfully. “If you hadn’t gotten into the boat they’d never have known about the plot to take the city—that’s the favor you did them, and don’t you forget it. They’re on their guard now. No, I mean what happened after you locked the guys up in the back cabin. You said that the boat had bumped into the dock and was trying to climb it, right?”

“Yes.”

“And a lot of cops came running?”

“I don’t know about a lot,” Chris said cautiously. “There were three or four, I think.”