Cities in Flight

The Okies set to work rapidly, dismounting the dead city’s spin-dizzies from their bases and shipping them into storage on board their own city. The one which had been overdriven in that last futile defense had to be left behind, of course; like the Twenty-third Street machine, it was hot and could not be approached, except by a graving dock. The rest went over as whole units. Hazleton looked more and more puzzled as the big machines came aboard, but he seemed resolved to ask no questions.

Carrel, however, suffered under no such self-imposed restraints. “What are we going to do with all these dismounted drivers?” he said. All three men stood in a sally port at the perimeter of their city, watching the ungainly bulks being floated across.

“We’re going to fly another planet,” Hazleton said flatly.

“You bet we are,” Amalfi agreed. “And pray to your star gods that we’re in time, Mark.”

Hazleton didn’t answer.

Carrel said, “In time for what?”

“That I won’t say until I have it right under my nose on a screen. It’s a hunch, and I think it’s a good one. In the meantime, take my word for it that we’re in a hurry, like we’ve never been in a hurry before. What’s the word on that mass chromatography apparatus, Hazleton?”

“It’s a reverse-English on the zone-melting process for refining germanium, boss. You take a big column of metal—which metal doesn’t matter, as long as it’s pure—and contaminate one end of it with the stuff you want to separate out. Then you run a disc-shaped electric field up the column from the contaminated end, and the contaminants are carried along by resistance heating and separate out at various points along the bar. To get pure fractions, you cut the bar apart with a power saw.”

“But does it work?”

“Nah,” Hazleton said. “It’s just what we’ve seen a thousand times before. Looks good in theory, but not even the guys who owned this city could make it go.”

“Another Lyran invisibility machine—or no-fuel drive,” the mayor said, nodding. “Too bad; a process like that would be useful. Is the equipment massive?”

“Enormous. The area it occupies is twelve city blocks on a side.”

“Leave it there,” Amalfi decided at once. “Obviously this outfit was bragging from desperation when it offered the technique for the Acolyte woman’s job. If she’d taken them up on it, they wouldn’t have been able to deliver—and I don’t care to lead us into any such temptation.”

“In this case the knowledge is as good as the equipment,” Hazleton said. “Their City Fathers will have all the information we could possibly worry out of the apparatus itself.”

“Would somebody give me the pitch on this exodus of cities from the jungle?” Carrel put in. “I wasn’t along on your trip to the King’s city, and I still think the whole idea of a March on Earth is crazy.”

Amalfi remained silent. After a moment, Hazleton said, “It is and it isn’t. The jungle doesn’t dare stand up to a real Earth force and slug it out, and everybody knows now that there’s an Earth force on its way here. The cities want to be somewhere else in a hurry. But they still have some hope of getting Earth protection from the Acolyte cops and similar local organizations if they can put their case before the authorities outside of a trouble area.”

“That,” Carrel said, “is just what I don’t see. What hope do they have of getting a fair shuffle? And why don’t they just contact Earth on the Dirac, as Lerner did, instead of making this long trip? It’s sixty-three hundred or so light years from here to Earth, and they aren’t organized well enough to make such a long haul without a lot of hardship.”

“And they’ll do all their talking with Earth over the Dirac even after they get there,” Amalfi added. “Partly, of course, this march is sheer theatricalism. The King hopes that such a big display of cities will make an impression on the people he’ll be talking to. Don’t forget that Earth is a quiet, rather idyllic world these days—a skyful of ragged cities will create a lot of alarm there.

“As for getting a square shuffle: the King is relying on a tradition of at least moderately fair dealing that goes back many centuries. Don’t forget, Carrel, that for the last thousand years the Okie cities have been the major unifying force in our entire galactic culture.”

“That’s news to me,” Carrel said, a little dubiously.

“But it’s quite true. Do you know what a bee is? Well, it’s a little Earth insect that sucks nectar from flowers. While it’s about it, it picks up pollen and carries it about; it’s a prime factor in cross-fertilization of plants. Most habitable planets have similar insects. The bee doesn’t know that he’s essential to the ecology of his world—all he’s out to do is collect as much honey as he can—but that doesn’t make him any less essential.