Cities in Flight

“So then the question was, what were they going to do with their city? They didn’t need it. Everything they needed came right up out of the ground while their backs were turned. So they decided to stock it up and send it out into space again, to look for other cities. Whenever they make contact with a new Okie town, they take all the passengers off—nobody else—and take them back to this planet where everybody can have the drugs, because there’s never any shortage.”

“Suppose the other city doesn’t want to give up its passengers?”

“Why wouldn’t it want to? If it had any use for them, they’d be citizens, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes, but just suppose.”

“They’d give them up anyhow. Like I said, the Lost City is big.”

Unfortunately for the half-million other questions Chris wanted to ask, at that point the city moaned softly to the sound of the take-cover siren. The boys parted hurriedly; but Chris, after a moment’s thought, did not go home. Instead, he holed up in a public information booth, where he fed his card into the slot and asked for the Librarian.

He had promised not to mention the Lost City to anyone but another passenger, which ruled out questioning his guardian, or the City Fathers directly; but he had thought of a way to ask an indirect question. The Librarian was that one of the 134 machines comprising the City Fathers which had prime charge of the memory banks, and was additionally charged with teaching; it did not collect information, but only catalogued and dispensed it. Interpretation was not one of its functions.

“CARD A CCEPTED. PROCEED.”

“Question: Do any anti-agathics grow naturally—I mean, do they occur in plants that could be raised as crops?”

A brief pause. “A PRECURSOR OF THE ANTISLEEP DRUG IS A STEROID SUBSTANCE OCCURRING NATURALLY IN A NUMBER OF YAMLIKE PLANTS FOUND ON EARTH, LARGELY IN CENTRAL IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA . T HIS SAPOGENIN IS NOT, HOWEVER, IN ITSELF AN ANTI-AGATHIC, AND MUST BE CONVERTED; HUNDREDS OF DIFFERENT STEROIDS ARE PRODUCED FROM THE SAME STARTING MATERIAL.

“A SCOMYCIN IS PRODUCED BY DEEP-TANK FERMENTATION OF A MICROORGANISM AND HARVESTED FROM THE BEER. T HIS PROCEDURE MIGHT BROADLY BE DEFINED AS CROP RAISING.

“A LL OTHER KNOWN ANTI-AGATHICS ARE WHOLLY SYNTHETIC DRUGS. ”

Chris sat back, scratching his head in exasperation. He had hoped for a clear-cut, yes-or-no answer, but what he had gotten stood squarely in the middle. No anti-agathics were harvested from real crops; but if a crop plant could produce something at least enough like an anti-agathic to be converted into one, then that part of Piggy’s astounding story was at least possible. Unhappily, he could think of no further questions sufficiently indirect to keep his main point of interest hidden.

Then he noticed that the booth had not returned his card to him. This was quite usual; it meant only that the Librarian, which spent its whole mechanical life substituting free association for thinking, had a related subject it would talk about if he liked. Usually it wasn’t worth while exploring these, for the Librarian could go on forever if so encouraged; all he needed to do now was to say “Return,” and he could take his card and go. But the take-cover alert wasn’t over yet; so, instead, he said, “Proceed.”

“S UBJECT, ANTI-AGATHICS AS BY-PRODUCTS OF AGRICULTURE. S UB-SUBJECT, LEGENDARY IDYLLIC PLANETS. ” C hris Sat bolt Upright. “A NTI-AGATHICS AS BY-PRODUCTS OF AGRICULTURE, USUALLY IN THE DAILY BREAD, IS ONE OF THE COMMON FEATURES OR DIAGNOSTIC SIGNS OF THE LEGENDARY PLANETS OF NOMAD-CITY MYTHOLOGY. O THERS INCLUDE: E ARTHLIKE GRAVITY BUT GREATER LAND AREA; E ARTHLIKE ATMOSPHERE BUT MORE ABUNDANT OXYGEN; E ARTHLIKE WEATHER BUT WITH UNIFORM CLIMATE, AND COMPLETE ISOLATION FROM EXISTING TRADE LANES. N O PLANET MATCHING THIS DESCRIPTION IN ANY PARTICULAR HAS YET BEEN FOUND. N AMES OFTEN GIVEN TO SUCH WORLDS INCLUDE: A RCADY, B RADBURY, CELEPHAIS …”

Chris was so stunned that the Librarian had worked its way all the way through “ZIMIAMVIA” and had begun another alphabetical catalogue before he thought to ask for his card back. His question had not been very crafty, after all.

By the time he emerged from the booth, the storms of Heaven had vanished and the city was once more soaring amid the stars. Furthermore, he was late for dinner.

So, after all, there had been no secret to keep. Chris told the Andersons the story of his failure to outwit the Librarian; it made the best possible excuse for his lateness, since it was true, and it reduced Carla to tears of helpless laughter. The perimeter sergeant was amused, too, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness beneath his amusement.

“You’re learning, Chris. It’s easy to think that because the City Fathers are dead, they’re also stupid; but you see that that isn’t the case. Otherwise they would never have been given the power that they wield—and in some departments their power is absolute.”

“Even over the Mayor?”