Cities in Flight

“The kid won’t get rough. Go ahead and march your man over. I’m not going to walk another foot on this leg.”

Barney hesitated, but obviously the big man’s marked limp was an unanswerable argument. Finally he shrugged and herded the rest of his party around the corner. His boss grinned at Chris; but the boy looked away.

The cab came floating down out of the sky at the intersection and maneuvered itself to rest at the curb next to them with a finicky precision. There was, of course, nobody in it; like everything else in the world requiring an I.Q. of less than 150, it was computer-controlled. The world-wide dominance of such machines, Chris’s father had often said, had been one of the chief contributors to the present and apparently permanent depression: the coming of semi-intelligent machines into business and technology had created a second Industrial Revolution, in which only the most highly creative human beings, and those most gifted at administration, found themselves with any skills to sell which were worth the world’s money to buy.

Chris studied the cab with the liveliest interest, for though he had often seen them before from a distance, he had of course never ridden in one. But there was very little to see. The cab was an egg-shaped bubble of light metals and plastics, painted with large red-and-white checkers, with a row of windows running all around it. Inside, there were two seats for four people, a speaker grille, and that was all; no controls, and no instruments. There was not even any visible place for the passenger to deposit his fare.

The big press-gang leader gestured Chris into the front seat, and himself climbed into the back. The doors slid shut simultaneously from the ceiling and floor, rather like a mouth closing, and the cab lifted gently until it hovered about six feet above street level.

“Destination?” the Tin Cabby said cheerily, making Chris jump.

“City Hall.”

“Social Security number?”

“One five six one one dash zero nine seven five dash zero six nine eight two one seven.”

“Thank you.”

“Shaddup.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

The cab lifted vertically, and the gang captain settled back into his seat. He seemed content for the moment to allow Chris to sight-see out the windows at the passing stubby towers of the flying city; he looked relaxed and a little indulgent, but a little wary, too. Finally he said:

“I need to dutch-uncle you a little, Red. I didn’t call a cab because of the leg—I’ve walked farther on worse. Feel up to listening?”

Chris felt himself freezing. Distracted though he was by all this enormous budget of new experience and the vast reaches of the unknown which stretched before him, the press-gang leader’s remark reminded him instantly of Kelly, and as instantly made him ashamed that he had forgotten. In the same rush of anger he remembered that he had been kidnapped, and that now there was no one left to take care of his father and the little kids but Bob. That had been hard enough to do when there had been two of them. It was bad enough that he would never see Annie and Kate and Bob and his father again, but far worse that they should be deprived of his hands and his back and his love; and worst of all, they would never know what had happened.

The little girls would only think that he and Kelly had run away, and wonder why, and mourn a little until they forgot about it. But Bob and his father might well think that he’d deserted them … most likely of all, that he had gone off with Scranton on his own hook, leaving them all to scrounge for themselves.

There was a well-known ugly term for that among the peasantry of the Earth, expressing all the contempt it felt for any man who abandoned his land, no matter how unrewarding it was, to tread the alien streets and star lanes of a nomad city: it was called, “going Okie.”

Chris had gone Okie. He had not done it of his own free will, but his father and Bob and the little girls would never know that. For that matter, it would never have happened had it not been for his own useless curiosity; and neither would the death of poor Kelly, who, Chris now remembered too, had been Bob’s dog.

The big man in the hard hat saw his expression close down, and made an impatient gesture. “Listen, Red, I know what you’re thinking. What good would it do now if I said I was sorry? What’s done is done; you’re on board, and you’re going to stay on board. We didn’t put the snatch on you either. If you didn’t know about the impressment laws, you’ve got your own ignorance to blame.”

“You killed my brother’s dog.”

“No, I didn’t. I’ve got a bad rip or two under that rag to prove I had reasons to kill him; but I wasn’t the guy who did it, and I couldn’t have done it, either. But that’s done too, and can’t be undone. Right now I’m trying to help you, and I’ve got about three minutes left to do it in, so if you don’t shut up and listen it’ll be too late. You need help, Red; can’t you understand that?”

“Why do you bother?” Chris said bitterly.

“Because you’re a bright kid and a fighter, and I like that. But that’s not going to be enough aboard an Okie city, believe me. You’re in a situation now that’s totally new to you, and if you’ve got any skills you can make a career on here, I’ll be darned surprised, I can tell you that. And Scranton isn’t going to start educating you this far along in your life. Are you smart enough to take some advice, or aren’t you? If you aren’t, there’s no sense in my bothering. You’ve got about a minute left to think it over.”

What the big man said made a bitter dose to have to swallow, but it did seem to make sense. And it did seem likely, too, that the man’s intentions were good—otherwise, why would he be taking the trouble? Nevertheless Chris’s emotions were in too much of a turmoil for him to trust himself to speak; instead, he merely nodded mutely.

“Good for you. First of all, I’m taking you to see the boss—not the mayor, he doesn’t count for much, but Frank Lutz, the city manager. One of the things he’ll ask you is what you do, or what you know about. Between now and when we get there, you ought to be thinking up an answer. I don’t care what you tell him, but tell him something. And it had better be the thing you know the most about, because he’ll ask you questions.”

“I don’t know anything—except gardening, and hunting,” Chris said grimly.

“No, no, that’s not what I mean! Don’t you have any book subjects? Something that might be useful in space? If you don’t, he’ll put you to work pitching slag—and you won’t have much of a lifetime as an Okie.”

The cab slowed, and then began to settle.

“And if he doesn’t seem interested in what you tell him, don’t try to satisfy him by switching to something else. No true specialist really knows more than one subject, especially at your age. Stick to the one you picked and try to make it sound useful. Understand?”

“Yes, but—”

“No time left for ‘buts.’ One other thing: If you ever get into a jam on board this burg, you’ll need to know somebody to turn to, and it’d better not be Frank Lutz. My name is Frad Haskins—not Fred but Frad, F-R-A-D.”

The cab hovered for a moment, and then its hull grated against the cobblestones and the doors slid open. Chris was thinking so hard and in so many directions that for a long moment he did not understand what the press-gang chief was trying to convey by introducing himself. Then the realization hit home, and Chris was struggling unsuccessfully to blurt out his thanks and to give his own name at the same time.

“Destination, gentlemen,” the Tin Cabby said primly.

“Shaddup. Come along, Red.”

Frank Lutz, the city manager of Scranton-in-flight, reminded Chris instantly of a skunk—but by this Chris meant not at all what a city boy would have meant by a skunk. Lutz was small, sleek, handsome, and plump, and even sitting behind his desk, he gave an appearance of slight clumsiness. As he listened to Haskins’ account of the two impressments, even his expression had something of the nearsighted amiability of the wood-pussy; but as Haskins finished, the city manager looked up suddenly—and Chris knew, if he had ever been in any doubt about it before, that this animal was also dangerous … and never more so than when it seemed to be turning its back.

“That impressment law was a nuisance. But I suppose we’ll have to make a show of maintaining our pickups until we get to some part of space where the police aren’t so thick.”

“We’ve got no drug for them, that’s for sure,” Haskins agreed obscurely.

“That’s not a public subject,” Lutz said, with such deadly coldness that Chris was instantly convinced that the slip, whatever its meaning, had been intended by Haskins for his own ears. The big man was a lot more devious