Cities in Flight (34 page)

"Sure, four or five, at least. I can put my finger on any of 'em."

"Good. Find a fairly husky one, a-man that could pass for a thug with a minimum of make-up, and send him to Indoctrination for hypnopaedia. In the meantime, you'll have to see that scientist again. Get a picture of him somewhere, a tri-di if they have them here- When you talk to him, answer any questions he asks you."

Carrel looked puzzled. "Any questions?"

"Any technical questions, yes. It won't matter what he knows very shortly. Here's another lesson in practical public relations for you, Carrel. When on a strange planet, you have to use its social system to the best advantage possible. On a world like this one, where the struggle for power is plenty raw, assassination must be very common and nine chances to one there's a regular Assassins' Guild, or, at least, plenty of free-lance killers for hire."

"You're going to-have Doctor Schloss assassinated?"

The shocked expression on Carrel's face made Amalfi abruptly sodden with weariness. Training a new city manager up to the point where his election would be endorsed by the City Fathers was a long and heartbreaking task, for so much of the training had to be absorbed the hard way. He felt too old for such a job now, and much too aware of some failure in his methods, the failure which alone had made the job necessary now.

"Yes," he said. "It's a shame, but it has to be done. In other circumstances we'd take the man into the city-he doesn't care who he works for-but the Hruntans would look for him, and find him, too. There has to be an inarguable corpse, and if possible, a local culprit. Your operative, after a suitable course in this Balkanese they speak here, will scout the rivalries among the scientific clique and try to pin the killing on one of those hawk-nosed laboratory chieftains. But the man must be killed- for the survival of the city."

Carrel did not protest, for the final formulation was the be-all and end-all of Okie logic; but it was plain that the waste of intelligence the plot necessitated upset him. Amalfi decided silently to keep Carrel exceptionally busy in the city for a while-at least until the Hruntans had their anti-friction installation well under way.

Now, anyhow, was the time to put another needle into the cops; Hazleton's timetable called for it, and although Amalfi had already been forced to abandon much of Hazleton's strategy-Hazleton's timetable, for instance, had called for a treacherous Utopian landing on Gort, with the full force of the Hamiltonians thrown behind delivering the Hruntan planet into the hands of the Earth police-the notion of bargaining with the cops for the planet still seemed to have merit.

Dismissing Carrel, Amalfi went to his office, where he took the flexible plastic dust cover off a little-used instrument: the Dirac transmitter. It was the only form of communication which the Hruntans-and, of course, the Hamiltonians-did not have; the want of it had cost them an empire, for it operated instantaneously over any distance. Amalfi thrust a cigar absently between his teeth and sent out a call for the captain of police.

The obsolete model had no screen, but the captain's voice conveyed his feelings graphically. "If you're going to rub my nose in the fact that we're obliged to protect you because the Hruntans have violated the contract," he snarled, "you can save your breath. I've half a mind to blow up the planet anyhow. Some one of these years the Okie laws are going to be changed, and then—"

"You wouldn't have blown up the planet in any case," Amalfi said tranquilly. "The shock wave would have detonated the local sun and destroyed the whole system, and your superiors would have had your scalp. What I'm trying to do is save you some trouble. If you're interested, make me an offer."

The cop laughed.

"All right," Amalfi said. "Laugh, you jackass. In about ten months you'll be yanked back to patrolling a stratosphere beat on Earth that sees a plane once every two years, and braying about how unjust it all is. As soon as the home office hears that you let the Hruntans and the Hamiltonians join forces, and that the war is going to cost Earth two or three hundred billion Oc dollars and last maybe twenty-five years—"

"You're a bum liar, Okie," the cop said. The bravado behind the pun seemed a little strained, however. "They been fighting each other a century now."

"Times change," Amalfi said. "In any event, the merger will be forcible, because if you don't want the Duchy of Gort, I'm going to offer it to Utopia. The combined arsenal will be impressive-each side has some stuff the other hasn't, and we couldn't prevent either of them from learning a few tricks from us. However—"

"Wait a minute," the cop said cautiously. He was quite aware, Amalfi was more than certain, that this conversation was inevitably being overheard by hundreds and perhaps thousands of Dirac receivers throughout the inhabited galaxy, including those in police headquarters on Earth. That was one of the major characteristics of Dirac transmission-whether you called it a flaw or an advantage depended largely on what use you made of it. "You mean you got the upper hand there already? How do I know you can hold it?"

"You don't risk a thing. Either I deliver the planet to you, or I don't. All I want is for you to rescind the fine against the city, wipe the tape of the earlier Vacate order, and give us a safe-conduct out of this system. If we don't deliver, you don't pay."

"Hm-mm." There was a muttering in the background, as though somebody were talking softly over the cop's shoulder. "How'd you pull it off?"

"That," Amalfi said dryly, "would be telling. If you want to play, proof over the agreement."

"No soap. You violated the Vacate order and you'll have to pay the fine-that's flat."

That was good enough for Amalfi. The cop certainly was not going to promise to wipe his tape of evidence of a tort while he was talking on the Dirac; that he had picked this particular point to stick on indicated general agreement, however.

"Just send me a safe-conduct under seal, then. I'll put the whole thing in the Margraf Hazca's strong room; you get it back when you get the planet."

After a short silence, the cop said, "Well ... all right." The tape began to whir at Amalfi's elbow. Satisfied, he broke the contact.

If this coup came off on schedule, it would become legendary-the police would be mighty tight-lipped about it, but the Okie cities would spread the tale all over the galaxy.

Somehow, the desertion of Hazleton made the prospect flavorless.

Someone was shaking him. He wanted very badly to awaken, but his sleep was as deep as death, and it seemed that no possible struggle could bring him up to the rim of the pit. Shapes and faces whirled about him, and in the blackness he felt the approach of great steel teeth.

"Amalfi! Wake up, man! Amalfi, it's Mark-wake up—"

The steel jaws came together with a terrible snapping report, and the wheeling faces vanished. Bluish light spilled into his eyes.

"Who? What is it?"

"It's me," Hazleton said. Amalfi blinked up at him uncomprehendingly. "Quick, quick. There's only a little time."

Amalfi sat up slowly and looked at the city manager. He was too stunned to know whether he was pleased or not, and the oppression of his nightmare was still with him, a persistent emotion lingering after dreamed events he could no longer remember.

"I'm glad to see you," he said. Oddly, the statement seemed untrue; he could only hope it would become true later. "How'd you get through the police cordon? I'd have said it couldn't be done."

"By force, and fraud, the old combination. I'll explain later."

"You nearly didn't make it," Amalfi said, feeling a sudden influx of energy. "Is it still night here? Yes. The big blowup isn't due much before noon, otherwise I wouldn't have been asleep. After that, you'd have found no city here."

"Before noon? That isn't according to the timetable. But that can wait. Get up, boss, there's work waiting."

The door to Amalfi's room slid aside suddenly, and the Utopian girl stood at the sill, her face pinched with anxiety. Amalfi reached hastily for his jacket.

"Mark, we must hurry. Captain Savage says he won't wait but fifteen minutes more. And he won't-he hates you underneath, I can tell, and he'd love to leave us here with the barbarians!"

"Right away, Dee," Hazleton said, without turning.

The girl disappeared. Amalfi stared at the prodigal city manager. "Wait a minute," he said. "What is all this, anyhow? Mark, you haven't sold yourself on some idiotic personal rescue mission?"

"Personal? No." Hazleton grinned. "We're getting the whole-city out of here, right on the timetable. I wanted to get word to you that we were following through as planned, but the Utopians have no Diracs, and I didn't want to tip off the cops. Get dressed, that's a good fellow, and I'll explain as we go. These Hamiltonians have been working like demons, installing spindizzies in every available ship. They'd about decided to surrender to the cops- after all, they've more in common with Earth than with the Hruntans-but when I told them what we planned, and showed them how the spindizzy works, it was like giving them all new hearts."

"They believed you as quickly as that?"

Hazleton shrugged. "No, of course not. To be on the safe side, they made up an escape fleet of twenty-five ships-reconverted light cruisers-and sent them out on this mission. They're upstairs now."

"Over the city?"

"Yes. I heard the hijacking of the city-I gather you had the radio on for the benefit of the cops, but it came through pretty clearly on Utopia, too. So I sold them on combining their escape project with a sneak raid to escort the city out. It took some selling, but I convinced them that they'd get out of this system easier if the cops had two things to think about at once. And so here we are, right on the timetable." Hazleton grinned again. "The cops had no notion that there were any Utopian ships anywhere near this planet, and they keep a sloppy watch. They know now, of course, but it'll take them a little while to mass here-and by that time, we'll be gone."

"Mark, you're a romantic ass," Amalfi said. "Twenty-five light cruisers-archaic ones at that, spindizzies or not!"

"There's nothing archaic about Savage's plans," Hazleton said. "He hates my guts for swiping Dee from him, but he knows space combat. This is a survival fleet, for Hamiltonianism, not just people. As soon as we're attacked, all twenty-five of them are going to take off in different directions, putting up a stiff battle and doing their best to turn the affair into a series of individual dogfights.

That insures the survival of some of them, of their ideology-and of the city."

"I expected something more from you than a gesture out of a bad stereo," Amalfi said. "Napoleonism! Heedless of danger, young hero leads devoted band into enemy stronghold, snatching beloved sovereign from enraged infidel! Pah! The city's staying where it is. If you want to go off with this suicide squadron, go ahead."

"Amalfi, you don't understand—"

"You underestimate me," Amalfi said harshly. He strode across the room to the balcony, Hazleton at his heels. "Sensible Hamiltonians stayed home, that's a cinch. Giving them the spindizzy was a smart idea-it made them fight longer and kept the cops busy when we needed the time. But these people who are trying to escape toward the edge of the galaxy-they're the incurables, the fanatics. Do you know how they'll wind up? You should, and you would if there wasn't a woman in your head addling your brains with a long-handled spoon. After a few generations on the rim, none of 'em will remember Hamiltonianism. Making a new planet livable is a job for a carefully prepared, fully manned expedition. These people are the tatters of a military debacle-and you want us to help set up the debacle! No thanks."

He threw the door to the balcony open so hard that Hazleton had to jump to avoid being hit, and went out. It was a clear night, bitterly cold as always on Gort, and hundreds of stars glared through the glow the city cast upon the sky. The Utopian ships, of course, could not be seen: they were too high, and probably were as well near to invisible and undetectable, even close up, as Utopian science could make them.

"I'll have a job explaining this to the Hruntans," he "aid, his voice charged with suppressed rage. "The best I'll be able to do is to claim the Hamiltonians were trying to destroy us before we could finish giving away the friction-field plans. And to do that, I'll have to yell to the Hruntans for help right away."

"You gave the Hruntans—"

"Certainly!" Amalfi said. "It was the only weapon we had left after we had to sign a contract with them. The possibility of a Utopian landing in force here vanished the moment the police beat us to the punch. And here you are ·till trying to use the blunted tool!"

"Mark!" the girl's voice drifted out from the room, frantic with anxiety. "Mark! Where are you?"

"Go along," Amalfi said, without turning his head. "After a while they'll have no time to cherish their ritual beliefs, and you can have a nice frontier home, on the ox-bone plow level. The city is staying there. By noon tomorrow, the Utopians who stayed will be put in an excellent position to bargain with Earth for rights, the Hruntans will be horn-swoggled, and we'll be on our way."

The girl, evidently having noticed the open door, came through it in time to hear the last two sentences. "Mark!" she cried "What does he mean? Savage says—"

Hazleton sighed. "Savage is an idiot and so am I. Amalfi's right; I've been acting like a child. You'd better get aloft while you have the chance, Dee."