James Blish - Earthman, Come Home

“What would he be wanting here?”

“Perhaps he will tell us.” Karst’s eyes remained fixed upon the Proctor’s image.

“Your request puzzles me,” Hazleton’s voice said, issuing smoothly from the speaker above the judas. The city manager could not be seen, but his expression seemed to modulate the sound of his voice almost specifically: the tiger mind masked behind a pussy-cat purr as behind a pussy-cat smile. “We’re glad to hear of new services we can render to a client, of course. But we certainly never suspected that antigravity mechanisms even existed in IMT.”

“Don’t think me stupid, Mr. Hazleton,” Heldon said. “You and I know that IMT was once a wanderer, as your city is now. We also know that your city, like all Okie cities, would like a world of its own. Will you allow me this much intelligence, please?”

“For discussion, yes,” Hazleton’s voice said.

“Then let me say that it’s quite evident to me that you’re nurturing an uprising. You have been careful to stay within the letter of the contract, simply because you dare not breach it, any more than we; the Earth police protect us from each other to that extent. Your Mayor Amalfi was told that it was illegal for the serfs to speak to your people, but unfortunately it is illegal only for the serfs, not for your citizens. If we cannot keep the serfs out of your city, you are under no obligation to do it for us.”

“A point you have saved me the trouble of making,” Hazleton said.

“Quite so. I’ll add also that when this revolution of yours comes, I have no doubt but that you’ll win it. I don’t know what weapons you can put into the hands of our serfs, but I assume that they are better than anything we can muster. We haven’t your technology. My fellows disagree with me, but I am a realist.”

“An interesting theory,” Hazleton’s voice said. There was a brief pause. In the silence, a soft pattering sound became evident. Hazleton’s fingertips, Amalfi guessed, drumming on the desk top, as if with amused impatience. Heldon’s face remained impassive.

“The Proctors believe that they can hold what is theirs,” Heldon said at last. “If you overstay your contract, they will go to war against you. They will be justified, but unfortunately Earth justice is a long way away from here. You will win. My interest is to see that we have a way of escape.”

“Via spindizzy?”

“Precisely.” Heldon permitted a stony smile to stir the corners of his mouth. “I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Hazleton. If it comes to war, I will fight as hard as any other Proctor to hold this world of ours. I come to you only because you can repair the spindizzies of IMT. You needn’t expect me to enter into any extensive treason on that account.”

Hazleton, it appeared, was being obdurately stupid. “I fail to see why I should lift a finger for you,” he said.

“Observe, please. The Proctors will fight, because they believe that they must. It will probably be a hopeless fight, but it will do your city some damage all the same. As a matter of fact, it will cripple your city beyond repair, unless your luck is phenomenal. Now then: none of the Proctors except one other man and myself know that the spindizzies of IMT are still able to function. That means that they won’t try to escape with them, they’ll try to knock you out instead. But with the machines in repair, and one knowledgeable hand at the controls—”

“I see,” Hazleton said. “You propose to put IMT into flight while you can still get off the planet with a reasonably whole city. In return you offer us the planet, and the chance that our own damages will be minimal. Hm-m-m. It’s interesting, anyhow. Suppose we take a look at your spindizzies, and see if they’re in operable condition. It’s been a good many years, without doubt, and untended machinery has a way of gumming up. If they can still be operated at all, we’ll talk about a deal. All right?”

“It will have to do,” Heldon grumbled. Amalfi saw in the Proctor’s eyes a gleam of cold satisfaction which he recognized at once, from having himself looked out through it often—though never in such a poor state of concealment. He shut off the screen.

“Well?” the mayor said. “What’s he up to?”

“Trouble,” Karst said slowly. “It would be very foolish to give or trade him any advantage. His stated reasons are not his real ones.”

“Of course not,” Amalfi said. “Whose are? Oh, hello, Mark. What do you make of our friend?”

Hazleton stepped out of the lift shaft, bouncing lightly once on the resilient concrete of the control-room floor. “He’s stupid,” the city manager said, “but he’s dangerous. He knows that there’s something he doesn’t know. He also knows that we don’t know what he’s driving at, and he’s on his home grounds. It’s a combination I don’t care for.”

“I don’t like it myself,” Amalfi said. “When the enemy starts giving away information, look out! Do you think the majority of the Proctors really don’t know that IMT has operable spindizzies?”

“I am sure they do not,” Karst offered tentatively. Both men turned to him. “The Proctors do not even believe that you are here to capture the planet. At least, they do not believe that that is what you intend, and I’m sure they don’t care, one way or the other.”

“Why not?” Hazleton said. “I would.”

“You have never owned several million serfs,” Karst said, without rancor. “You have serfs working for you, and you are paying them wages. That in itself is a disaster for the Proctors. And they cannot stop it. They know that the money you are paying is legal, with the power of the Earth behind it. They cannot stop us from earning it. To do so would cause an uprising at once.”

Amalfi looked at Hazleton. The money the city was handing out was the Oc Dollar. It was legal here—but back in the galaxy it was just so much paper. It was only germanium-backed. Could the Proctors be that naive? Or was IMT simply too old to possess the instantaneous Dirac transmitters which would have told it of the economic collapse of the home lens?

“And the spindizzies?” Amalfi said. “Who else would know of them among the Great Nine?”

“Asor, for one,” Karst said. “He is the presiding officer, and the religious fanatic of the group. It is said that he still practices daily the full thirty yogas of the Semantic Rigor, even to chinning himself upon every rung of the Abstraction Ladder. The prophet Maalvin banned the flight of men forever, so Asor would not be likely to allow IMT to fly at this late date.”

“He has his reasons,” Hazleton said reflectively. “Religions rarely exist in a vacuum. They have effects on the societies they reflect. He’s probably afraid of the spindizzies, in the last analysis. With such a weapon it takes only a few hundred men to make a revolution—more than enough to overthrow a feudal set-up like this. IMT didn’t dare keep its spindizzies working.”

“Go on, Karst,” Amalfi said, raising his hand impatiently at Hazleton. “How about the other Proctors?”

“There is Bemajdi, but he hardly counts,” Karst said. “Let me think. Remember I have never seen most of these men. The only one who matters, it seems to me, is Larre. He is a dour-faced old man with a potbelly. He is usually on Heldon’s side, but seldom travels with Heldon all the way. He will worry less about the money the serfs are earning than will the rest. He will contrive a way to tax it away from us—perhaps by declaring a holiday, in honor of the visit of Earthmen to our planet. The collection of tithes is a duty of his.”

“Would he allow Heldon to put IMT’s spindizzies in shape?”

“No, probably not,” Karst said. “I believe Heldon was telling the truth when he said that he would have to do that in secret.”