Cities in Flight

an uncertainty correction, a constant which amounts to 0.25.

“If the figures we collected on the magnetic field strength of Jupiter forced us to retire the equations, then none of the rest of the information we’ve gotten from the Bridge would have been worth the money we spent to get it. On the other hand, Jupiter was the only body in the solar system available to us which was big enough in all relevant respects to make it possible for us to test those equations at all. They involve quantities of infinitesimal orders of magnitudes.

“And the figures showed that Dirac was right. They also show that Blackett was right. Both magnetism and gravity are phenomena of rotation.

“I won’t bother to trace the succeeding steps, because I think you can work them out for yourself. It’s enough to say that there’s a drive-generator on board this ship which is the complete and final justification of all the hell you people on the Bridge have been put through. The gadget has a long technical name—The Dillon-Wagoner gravitron polarity generator, a name which I loathe for obvious reasons—but the technies who tend it have already nicknamed it the spin-dizzy, because of what it does to the magnetic moment of any atom — any atom—within its field.

“While it’s in operation, it absolutely refuses to notice any atom outside its own influence. Furthermore, it will notice no other strain or influence which holds good beyond the borders of that field. It’s so snooty that it has to be stopped down to almost nothing when it’s brought close to a planet, or it won’t let you land. But in deep space … well, it’s impervious to meteors and such trash, of course; it’s impervious to gravity; and—it hasn’t the faintest interest in any legislation about top speed limits. It moves in its own continuum, not in the general frame.”

“You’re kidding,” Helmuth said.

“Am I, now? This ship came to Ganymede directly from Earth. It did it in a little under two hours, counting maneuvring time. That means that most of the way we made about 55,000 miles per second—with the spindizzy drawing less than five watts of power out of three ordinary No. 6 dry cells.”

Helmuth took a defiant pull at his drink. “This thing really has no top speed at all?” he said. “How can you be sure of that?”

“Well, we can’t,” Wagoner admitted. “After all, one of the unfortunate things about general mathematical formulae is that they don’t contain cut-off points to warn you of areas where they don’t apply. Even quantum mechanics is somewhat subject to that criticism. However, we expect to know pretty soon just how fast the spindizzy can drive an object. We expect you to tell us.”

“I?”

“Yes, you, and Colonel Russell, and Miss Abbott too, I hope.” Helmuth looked at the other two; both of them looked at least as stunned as he felt. He could not imagine why. “The coming debacle on Earth makes it absolutely imperative for us—the West—to get interstellar expeditions started at once. Richardson Observatory, on the Moon, has two likely-looking systems mapped already—one at Wolf 359, the other at 61 Cygni—and there are sure to be others, hundreds of others, where Earth-like planets are highly probable.

“What we’re doing, in a nutshell, is evacuating the West—not physically, of course, but in essence, in idea. We want to scatter adventurous people, people with a thoroughly indoctrinated love of being free, all over this part of the galaxy, if it can be done.

“Once they’re out there, they’ll be free to flourish, with no interference from Earth. The Soviets haven’t the spindizzy yet, and even after they get it, they won’t dare allow it to be used. It’s too good and too final an escape route for disaffected comrades.

“What we want you go do, Helmuth … now I’m getting to the point, you see … is to direct this exodus, with Colonel Russell’s help. You’ve the intelligence and the cast of mind for it. Your analysis of the situation on Earth confirms that, if any more confirmation were needed. And—there’s no future for you on Earth now.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for a while,” Helmuth said firmly. “I’m in no condition to be reasonable now; it’s been more than I could digest in a few moments. And the decision doesn’t entirely rest with me, either. If I could give you an answer in … let me see … about three hours. Will that be soon enough?”

“That’ll be fine,” the senator said.

For a moment after the door closed behind Helmuth there was silence in the senator’s cabin. At last Paige said:

“So it was long life for spacemen you were after, all the time. Long life, by Cod, for me, and for the likes of me.”

Wagoner nodded. “This was the one part of this affair that I couldn’t explain to you back in Hal Gunn’s office,” he said. “Until you had ridden in this ship, and understood as a spaceman just what kind of a thing we have in it, you wouldn’t have believed me; Helmuth does, you see, because he already has the background. In the same way, I didn’t go into the question of the anti-agathic with Helmuth, because that’s something he’s going to have to experience; you two have the background to understand that part of it through explanation alone.

“Now you see why I didn’t give a whistle about your spy, Paige. The Soviets can have the Earth. As a matter of fact they will take it before very long, whether we give into them or not. But we are going to scatter the West throughout the stars, scatter it with immortal people carrying immortal ideas. People like you, and Miss Abbott.”

Paige looked back to Anne. She was aloofly regarding the empty space just above Wagoner’s head, as though still looking at the bewhiskered picture of the Pfitzner founder which hung in Gunn’s office. There was something in her face, however, that Paige could read. He smothered a grin and said: “Why me?”

“Because you’re just what we need for the job. I don’t mind telling you that your blundering into the Pfitzner project in the first place was an act of Providence from my point of view. When Anne first called your qualifications to my attention, I was almost prepared to believe that they’d been faked. You’re going to be liaison-man between the Pfitzner side of the project and the Bridge side. We’ve got the total output to date of both ascomycin and the new anti-agathic salted away in the cargo-hold, and Anne’s already shown you how to take the stuff and how to administer it to others. After that—just as soon as you and Helmuth can work out the details—the stars are yours.”

“Anne,” Paige said. She turned her head slowly toward him. “Are you with this thing?”

“I’m here,” she said. “And I’d had a few inklings of what was up before. You were the one who had to be brought in, not I.”

Paige thought about it a moment more. Then something both very new and very old occurred to him.

“Senator,” he said, “you’ve gone to an immense amount of trouble to make this whole thing possible—but I don’t think you plan to go with us.”

“No, Paige, I don’t. For one thing, MacHinery and his crew will regard the whole project as treasonous. If it’s to be carried out nevertheless, someone has to stay behind and be the goat—and after all, the idea was mine, so I’m the logical candidate.” He fell silent for a moment. Then he added ruminatively: “The government boys have nobody but themselves to thank for this. The whole project would never have been possible so long as the West had a government of laws and not of men, and stuck to it. It was a long while ago that some people—MacHinery’s grandfather among them—set themselves up to be their own judges of whether or not a law ought to be obeyed. They had precedents. And now here we are, on the brink of the most enormous breach of our social contract the West has ever had to suffer—and the West can’t stop it.” He smiled suddenly. I’ll have good use for that argument in the court.”

Anne was on her feet, her eyes suddenly wet, her lower lip just barely trembling. Evidently, over whatever time she had known Wagoner and had known what he had planned, it had never occurred to her that the young-old senator might stay behind.

“That’s no good!” she said in a low voice. “They won’t listen, and you know it. They might easily hang you for it. If they find you guilty of treason, they’ll seal you up in the pile-waste dump—that’s the current penalty, isn’t it? You can’t go back!”

“It’s a phony terror. Pile wastes are quick chemical poisons; you don’t last long enough to notice that they’re also hot,” Wagoner said. “And what difference does it make, anyhow? Nothing and nobody can harm me now. The job is done.”

Anne put her hands to her face.

“Besides, Anne,” Wagoner said, with gentle insistence, “the stars are for young people—eternally young people. An eternal oldster would be an anachronism.”

“Why—did you do it, then?” Paige said. His own voice was none too steady.