Part 7 (2/2)
”You tellingabout: where we'd get gang-bosses And another thing; thiswouldlike that,” Fawzi said ”We've needed it for a long ti hoet run down Franz, suppose you and Towyn and Lorenzo for up worst, and set up a project Who's city engineer now?”
”Abe O'Leary; he died six years ago,” Dawes said ”You never appointed his successor”
”Well, I guess I never got around to that,” thefinally adjourned, they went up and got in the car; his father lifted it straight up to thirty thousand feet and started circling An aircar was one place where they could talk safely
”Conn, I was kind of worried, down there You were being a little too positive You know, you're only twenty-three As long as you agree with those people, you're a brilliant youngideas of your own, and you're just a half-baked kid You let the older and wiser heads run things You can't begin to hope to foul things up the way they can Look at all the experience they've had”
”But we've got to have a shi+p Everything depends on that”
”I know it does We'll get a shi+p Let Kurt Fawzi and Klem Zareff and the rest of theh Keep the and run over to Barathrurab your spaceport Wait till they find out that Merlin isn't at Force Command Duplicate Then you can convince them it's really on Koshchei”
VI
The car Rodney Maxwell got out of the hangar the nextin; it was the one he had flown in from Tenth Army HQ at noon of the previous day An Army reconnaissance job, sli , iridescent collapsiu on Poictesme, at that; only a millionaire on Terra could have owned a car like that
”Nice,” Conn said ”Where did you dig it?”
”Where we're going, Tenth Army”
”I'll bet she'll do Mach Three”
”Better than that I've never had her above 25, but the airspeed gauge is : all kinds of detection instruments, cameras, audiovisual pickups, arh any kind of radiation”
The armor was only a couple ofIt was collapsed matter, the electron shells of the atoms collapsed upon the nuclei, the atohth-inch sheet steel as heavy as twelve-inch ar properties, lead was like sponge by comparison
They climbed in, and Rodney Maxwell snapped on the screens that served as s Conn leaned back and looked at the underside view in a screen on the roof of the car, as his father started the lift-engine
”Still think it's worth the price, son?” his father asked
The price had begun to rise; even so, he was afraid that what they had paid so far was only the down pay Flora, who had evidently been talking to Wade Lucas, shouting accusations at the from the table in tears As the car rose, he reached out and turned on and adjusted the telescreen for the under-view
”Keep your eye on that, Father,” he said ”That's e're paying to get rid of”
A distillery, bigger than the Menardes plant, long closed and now half roofless and cru Rows of warehouses, erants Jerry-built shanties with rattletrap aircars grounded around the sore on the south side of Litchfield
”If we put this over,” he continued, ”all those traood homes We can have a park there, with fountains that'll work Maybe even Flora and Mother will think we've done so”
”It'll be kind of hard to take in the h, but if you can take it, I can” Rodney Maxwell turned off the underside teleview screen and put on the forward one ”See that little pink spot over there? Sunrise on the east side of Snagtooth; Tenth Are is telling the truth or just bragging”
Sudden acceleration pushed thee rose swiftly; the pink-lighted peak greiftly in the teleview screen The gauge hadn't been bragging, it had been understating; the car had ister Two and a halfslowly around Snagtooth, looking down on a tilted plateau that ended on the western side in a sheer drop of als on it: barracks and storehouses and offices, an airshi+p dock and an air-traffic control tower froreat steel telecast tower that had fallen, crushi+ng a couple of buildings Young trees had already grown ae