“Can’t,” Amalfi said.
“We’ll see about that. What’s to prevent you?”
“We have a contract with the Hruntans.”
There was a long and very dead silence. At last the police vessel said, “You’re pretty sharp. All right, proof your contract over on the tape. I suppose you know that we’re about to blow the Hruntans to a thin haze.”
“Yep.”
“All right. Go ahead and land if you’ve got a contract. The more fools you. Make sure you stay for the full contract period. If you do get off before we reduce the planet, make sure you can pay your fine. If you don’t—good riddance, Okie!”
Amalfi managed a ghost of a grin. “Thanks,” he said. “We love you, too, flatfoot.”
The ultraphone growled and stopped transmitting. There was a world of frustration in that final growl. The Earth police accepted officially the Okie cities’ status as hobos—migratory workers—but unofficially and openly the cities were called tramps in the wardrooms of the police cruisers. Opportunities to break up a city did not come very often, and were met with relish; it must have been quite a blow to the cop to find the vanadium-clad, never-varying Contract in his way.
But now there were the Hruntans to cope with. This was the penultimate and most delicate stage of Hazleton’s plan—and Hazleton wasn’t on deck to administer it. As a matter of fact, if his Utopian friends had heard Amalfi admit to a contract with the Hruntans, he was probably in the hottest water of his career right now. Amalfi tried not to think about it.
The plan originally had not included signing any contracts with either planet; so long as the city was not committed legally, it could refuse jobs, leave them when it pleased, and generally exercise the freedom of the unemployed. But it hadn’t worked out that way. The speed with which the police had been reinforced had made it impossible even to approach the Hruntan planet without uncrackable legal protection.
At least the city’s stay on Utopia had accomplished some part of its purposes. The oil tanks were a little over half full, and the city’s treasury was comfortable, though still not exactly bulging. That left the rare-earth and the power metals still to be attended to; collecting and refining them was unavoidably time-consuming, and would take even longer on the Hruntan planet than on Utopia—the Imperial world, farther out from its sun than Utopia, had been given a correspondingly smaller allowance of heavy elements.
But there was no help for it. To stay on Utopia while the Hruntans were being conquered—or “consolidated,” as it was officially called on Earth—would have left the city completely at the mercy of the Earth forces. Even at best, it would have been impossible to leave the system without paying the fine for violating the Vacate order, and Amalfi was constitutionally unwilling to part with the money for which the city had labored. Even at the present state of the treasury, it might easily have bankrupted them, for work had been very scarce lately.
The intercom had been modestly calling attention to itself for several minutes. Answered, it said, “Sergeant Anderson, sir. We’ve got another visitor.”
“Yes,” Amalfi said. “That would be the Hruntan delegation. Send ’em up.”
While he waited, chewing morosely on a dead cigar, he checked the contract briefly. It was standard, requiring payment in germanium “or equivalent”—the give-away clause which had prevented its use on Utopia. It had been signed by ultraphone—the possession of that tight-beam device alone “placed” the Hruntans as to century—and the work the city was to do was left unspecified. Amalfi hoped devoutly that the Hruntans would in turn give themselves away when it came to being specific on that count.
The buzzer sounded once more, and Amalfi pushed the button that released the door. The next instant he was not sure it had been a wise move. The Hruntan delegation bore an unmistakable resemblance to a boarding party. First of all, there were an even dozen soldiers, clad in tight-fitting red leather breeches, gleaming breastplates, and scarlet-plumed casques; the breastplates, too, were emblazoned with a huge scarlet sun. The men snapped to attention in two files of six on each side of the door, bringing to “present arms” weapons which might have been copies of Kammerman’s original mesotron rifle.
Between the files, flanked by two lesser lights as gorgeously and unfunctionally clad as macaws, came a giant carved out of gold. His clothing was interwoven with golden threads; his breastplate and helmet were gilded; even his complexion was tanned to a deep golden tone; and he sported a luxuriant golden-blond beard and flowing mustache. He was altogether a most unlikely-looking figure.
He spoke two harsh-sounding words, and boot heels and weapons slammed against the floor. Amalfi winced and stood up.
“We,” the golden giant said, “are the Margraf Hazca, Vice Regent of the Duchy of Gort under his Eternal Eminence, Arpad Hrunta, Emperor of Space.”
“Oh,” Amalfi said, blinking. “My name’s Amalfi; I’m the mayor here. Do you sit down?”
The Margraf said he sat down, and did. The soldiers remained stiffly “at ease,” and the two subsidiary nobles posted themselves behind the Margraf’s chair. Amalfi subsided behind his desk with a muffled sigh of relief.
“I presume you’re here to discuss the contract.”
“We are. We are told that you have been among the rabble of the second planet.”
“An emergency landing only,” Amalfi said.
“No doubt,” the Margraf said dryly. “We do not concern ourselves with the doings of the Hamiltonians; we will add them to our serfs in due time, after we have driven off these upstarts from decadent Earth. In the meantime, we have use for you; any enemy of Earth must be friends with us.”
“That’s logical,” Amalfi said. “Just what can we do for you? We have quite a variety of equipment here—”
“The matter of payment comes first,” said the Margraf. He got up and began pacing slowly up and down with enormous strides, his golden cloak streaming out behind him. “We are not prepared to make any payment in germanium; we need all we have for transistors. The contract speaks of equivalents. What counts as equivalent?”
It was remarkable how the regal manner was snuffed out when it got down to honest haggling. Amalfi said cautiously, “Well, you could allow us to mine for germanium ourselves—”
“Do you think this planet’s resources will last forever? Give us the equivalent, not some roundabout scheme for being paid in the metal itself!”
“Equipment, then,” Amalfi said, “or skills, at a mutually agreed valuation. For instance, what are you using for lubrication?”
The big count’s eyes glittered. “Ah,” he said softly. “You have the secret of the friction-fields, then. That we have long sought, but the generators of the rabble melt when we touch them. Does Earth know this process?”
“No.”
“You got it from the Hamiltonians? Excellent.” The two minor nobles were beginning to grin wickedly. “We need babble no further of ‘mutually agreed valuations,’ then.” He gestured. Amalfi found himself looking down a dozen rifle barrels.
“What’s the idea?”
“You are within our defensive envelope,” Hazca said with wolfish gusto. “And you are not likely to survive long among the Earthmen, should you by some miracle break free of us. You may call your technicians and tell them to prepare a demonstration of the friction-field generator; also, prepare to land. Graf Nandor here will give you explicit instructions.”
He strode toward the door; the soldiers parted deferentially. As Amalfi’s hand reached for the button to let him out, the big man whirled. “And you need not attempt to trip any hidden alarms,” he growled. “Your city has already been boarded in a dozen places and is under the guns of four cruisers.”
“Do you think you can win technical information by force?” Amalfi said.
“Oh yes,” said the Margraf, his eyes shining dangerously. “We are—experts.”
Carrel, Hazleton’s protege, was a very plausible lecturer, and seemed completely at home in the echoing, barbaric gorgeousness of the Margraf’s Council Chamber. He had attached his charts to the nearest tapestry and had propped his blackboard on the arms of the great chair in which, Amalfi supposed, the Margraf usually sat; his chalk traced swift symbols on the slate and squeaked deafeningly in the groined vault of the room.
The Margraf himself had left; five minutes of Carrel’s talk had been enough to arouse his impatience. The Graf Nandor was still there, wearing the suffering expression of a man delegated to do the dirty work. So were four or five other nobles. Three of these were chattering in the back of the room with muffled sniggers, and a raucous
