“For the most part, anyway,” Hazleton agreed. “This heath is an ugly place, but the rest of the land seems to be excellent—much better than you’d think it from the way it’s being farmed. The tiny little fields they break it up into here just don’t do it justice, and even I know better cultivation methods than these serfs do.”
“I’m not surprised,” Amalfi said. “It’s my theory that the Proctors maintain their power partly by preventing the spread of any knowledge about farming beyond the most rudimentary kind. That’s also the most rudimentary kind of politics, as I don’t need to tell you.”
“On the politics,” Hazleton said evenly, “we’re in disagreement. While that’s ironing itself out, the business of running the city has to go on.”
“All right,” Amalfi said. “What’s on the docket?”
“I’m having a small plot on the heath, next to the city, turned over and conditioned for some experimental plantings, and extensive soil tests have already been made. That’s purely a stop gap, of course. Eventually we’ll have to expand onto good land. I’ve drawn up a tentative contract of lease between the city and the Proctors, which provides for us to rotate ownership geographically so as to keep displacement of the serfs at a minimum, and at the same time opens a complete spectrum of seasonal plantings to us—essentially it’s the old Limited Colony contract, but heavily weighted in the direction of the Proctors’ prejudices. There’s no doubt in my mind but that they’ll sign it. Then—”
“They won’t sign it,” Amalfi said. “They can’t even be shown it. Furthermore, I want everything you’ve put into your experimental plot here on the heath yanked out.”
Hazleton put a hand to his forehead in frank exasperation. “Oh, hell, boss,” he said. “Don’t tell me that we’re
“We did. We will. But as you reminded me yourself yesterday, there are other people in possession of this planet at the moment-people we can’t legally push out. As matters stand right now, we can’t give them the faintest sign that we mean to settle here; they’re already intensely suspicious of that very thing, and they’re watching us for evidence of it every minute.”
“Oh no,” Dee said. She came forward swiftly and put a hand on Amalfi’s shoulder. “John, you promised us after the March was over that we were going to make a home here. Not necessarily on this planet, but somewhere in the Cloud. You promised, John.”
The mayor looked up at her. It was no secret to her, or to Hazleton either, that he loved her; they both knew, as well, the cruelly just Okie law—and the vein of iron loyalty in Amalfi that would have compelled him to act by that law even if it had never existed. Until the crisis in the jungle had forced Amalfi to reveal to Hazleton the existence of that love, neither of the two youngsters had more than suspected it over a period of nearly three centuries.
But Dee was comparatively new to Okie mores, and was, in addition, a woman. Only to know that she was loved had been unable to content her long. She was already beginning to put the knowledge to work.
She was certainly not old enough yet to realize that the crisis had passed, leaving behind only a residuum of devotion useless to her and to Amalfi alike. She could not know that the person who had replaced her in Amalfi’s mind was Karst; that Amalfi was now hearing from the lips of the serf the innocent and vastly touching questions which Dee had once asked; that Amalfi had realized that his thousand years of adult life had fitted him to answer not one question, but a thousand. Had anyone suggested to her that Amalfi was only just now coming into his full maturity, she would not have understood; possibly, she might have laughed. Amalfi had himself smiled when the realization had come to him.
“Of course I promised,” he said. “I’ve delivered on my promises for a millennium now, and I’ll continue to do so. This planet will be our home if you’ll give me just the minimum of help in winning it. It’s the best of all the planets we passed on the way in, for a great many reasons—including a couple that won’t begin to show until you see the winter constellations here, and a few more that won’t become evident for a century yet. But there’s one thing I certainly can’t give you, and that’s immediate delivery.”
“All right,” Dee said. She smiled. “I trust you, John, you know that. But it’s hard to be patient.”
“Is it?” Amalfi said, not much surprised. “Come to think of it, I remember when the same thought occurred to me, back on He. In retrospect the problem doesn’t seem large.”
“Boss, you’d better give us some substitute courses of action,” Hazleton cut in, a little coldly. “With the possible exception of yourself, every man, woman, and alley cat in the city is ready to spread out all over the surface of this planet the moment the starting gun is fired. You gave us every reason to think that that would be the way it would happen. If there’s going to be a delay, you have a good many idle hands to put to work.”
“Use straight work-contract procedure all the way down the line. No exploiting of the planet that we wouldn’t normally do during the usual stopover for a job. That means no truck gardens or any other form of local agriculture; just refilling the oil tanks, re-breeding the
“That won’t work,” Hazleton said. “It may fool the Proctors, Amalfi, but how can you fool your own people? What are you going to do with the perimeter police, for instance? Sergeant Anderson’s whole crew knows that it won’t ever again have to make up a boarding squad or defend the city or take up any other military duty. Nine- tenths of them are itching to throw off their harness for good and all and start dirt farming. What am I going to tell them?”
“Send ’em out to your experimental patch on the heath,” Amalfi said, “on police detail. Tell ’em to pick up everything that grows.”
Hazleton started to turn toward the lift shaft, holding out his hand to Dee. Then, characteristically, he had a third thought and turned back.
“But why, boss?” he said plaintively. “What makes you think the Proctors suspect us of squatting? And what could they do about it if we did?”
“The Proctors have asked for the standard work contract,” Amalfi said. “They knew what it was, they got it, and they insist upon its observation, to the letter—
Hazleton looked stubborn. Dee took his hand reassuringly, but it didn’t seem to register.
“As for what the Proctors themselves can do about it,” Amalfi said, picking up the earphones again, “I don’t know. I’m trying to find out. But this much I do know:
“The Proctors have
Under the grey, hazy light in the schoolroom, neutral light which seemed cast like a cloak along the air rather than to illuminate it, voices and visions came thronging even into the conscious and prepared mind of the visitor, pouring from the memory cells of the City Fathers. Amalfi could feel their pressure, just below the surface of his mind; it was vaguely unpleasant, partly because he already knew what they sought to impart, so that the redoubled impressions tended to shoulder forward into the immediate attention, nearly with the vividness of immediate experience.
He waved a hand before his eyes in annoyance and looked for a monitor, found one standing at his elbow, and wondered how long he had been there—or, conversely, how long Amalfi himself had been lulled into the learning trance.
“Where’s Karst?” he said brusquely. “The first serf we brought in? I need him.”
“Yes, sir. He’s in a chair toward the front of the room.” The monitor—whose function combined the duties of classroom supervisor and nurse—turned away briefly to a nearby wall treacher, which opened and floated out to him a tall metal tumbler. The monitor took it, and led the way through the room, threading his way among the scattered couches. Usually most of these were unoccupied, since it took less than 500 hours to bring the average child through tensor calculus and hence to the limits of what he could be taught by passive inculcation alone. Now, however, every couch was occupied, and few of them by children.
One of the counterpointing, sub-audible voices was murmuring: “Some of the cities which turned bindlestiff did not pursue the usual policy of piracy and raiding, but settled instead upon faraway worlds and established tyrannical rules. Most of these were overthrown by the Earth police; the cities were not efficient fighting machines. Those
