Cities in Flight James Blish

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"He'll be back-I hope," Amalfi said. "Look, friend, what we need is repair
work. We've got a bad spindizzy in a hot hold. Can you haul it out and give us
a replacement, preferably the newest model you've got?"
The garageman considered it. The problem seemed to appeal to him; his whole
expression changed, so thoroughly that he looked almost friendly in his
intimate ugliness.
"I've got a Six-R-Six in storage that might do, if you've got the
refluxlaminated pediments to mount it on," he said slowly. "If you haven't,
I've also a reconditioned B-C-Seven-Seven-Y that hums as sweetly as new. But
I've never done any hot hauling before-didn't know spindiz-zies ever hotted up
enough to notice. Anybody on board your burg that can give me a hand on
decontamination?"
"Yes, it's all set up and ready to ride. Check the color of our money, and
let's get on it."
"It'll take a little time to get a crew together," the garageman said. "By the
way, don't let your men wander around. The cops don't like it.",
"I'll do my best."
The garageman scampered away, dodging in and out among the idle, rust-tinted
machines. Amalfi watched him go, marveling anew at how quickly the born
technician
can be gulled into forgetting who he's working for, let alone how his work is
going to be used. First you mention money-since technics are usually
underpaid; you then cap that with a tough and inherently interesting problem-
and you have your man. Amalfi was always happy when he met a pragmatist in the
enemy's camp.
"Boss--"
Amalfi spun. "Where the hell have you been? Didnt you hear me say that this
planet is probably taboo to tourists? If you'd been on hand when you were
needed, you'd have heard the 'probably' knocked out of that statement-to say
nothing of speeding matters considerably!"
"I'm aware of that," Hazleton said evenly. "I took a calculated risk-something
you seem to have forgotten how to do, Amalfi. And it paid off. I've been over
to that other city, and found out something that we needed to know.
Incidentally, the graving docks around here are a mess. This one, and the one
the other city is in, must be the only ones in operation for hundreds of
miles. All the rest are nearly full or sand and rust and flaked concrete."
"And the other city?" Amalfi said very quietly.
"It's been garnisheed; there's no doubt about it. It's shabby and deserted.
Half of it is being held up by buttressing, and it's got huts pitched in the
streets. It's nearly a hulk. There's a crew over there putting it in some sort
of operating order, but they're in no hurry, and they aren't doing a damn
thing to make the city habitable-all they want it to do is run. It's not the
city's own complement, obviously. Where they are, I'm afraid to think."
"There's considerable thinking you haven't done," Amalfi said. "The original
crew is obviously in debtor's prison. The garage is putting the city in order
for some kind of dirty job that they don't expect it to outlast-and that no
city still free could be hired to do at any price."
"And what would that be?"
"Setting up a planethead on a gas giant," said Amalfi. "They want to work some
low-density, ammonia-methane world with an ice core, a Jupiter-type planet,
that they can't conquer any other way. It's my guess that they hope to use
such a planethead as an inexhaustible source of poison gas."
"That's not your only guess," Hazleton said, his lips thinned. "I expect to be
disciplined for wandering off,
Amalfi, but I'm a big boy, and won't have rationalizations palmed off on me
just^o keep the myth of your omniscience going."
"I'm not omniscient," Amalfi said mildly. "I looked at the other city on the
w|y,iin. And I looked at the instruments. You didn't. The instruments alone
told me that almost nothing was going on in that city that was normal to Okie
operation. They also told me that its spindizzies were being turned to produce
a field which would burn them-out within a year, and they told me what that
field was supposed to do-what kind of conditions it was supposed to resist. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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