Joe nodded enthusiastically. “That’s one of the things that awes me, whenever I think about it. In the old days—I mean, in my day—” He shook his head. “I keep getting my terms of reference mixed up. Anyhow, it used to be that a man could learn enough to do what he wanted to do by the time he was thirty, and then his life was half done. Now—” He looked baffled. “It’s hard to take in. Tell me, Miss Place said something about rocket flights to the stars—?”
“Oh, yes. They got to the Moon in 1954. That must have been a year or two after you blanked out Mars ia 1961, I think it was, and Venus the year after. Moons of Jupiter in 1969. All uninhabitable, of course.”
“Yes, but I meant interstellar flights?”
JUST one. Alpha Centauri, along about the turn of the century. The trip took something like six years each way, I understand. They found a very Earthlike planet, and I believe there’s some talk of putting a small colony there.”
“Lord!” said Joe Krueger. “But—all this time, and they haven’t done anything more about it?”
“Well, it’s really a hobbyist’s kind of thing,” said George thoughtfully. “A good many people, with more time and more capital to play with, have turned to space-flight who wouldn’t have been much involved with it before. But it hasn’t any economic base, you see. No really urgent reason for anyone to tackle it.”
“That’s what I don’t get,” said Joe, creasing his brow into an anxious frown. “Wouldn’t it solve the problem we were just talking about?”
“It might, at that,” said George, trying valiantly to see the question from the other man’s viewpoint. “But it hasn’t come to that yet, and probably won’t for a good long time. As things stand, human life is a very precious thing, much more than it was even in the Western countries in your day. That’s understandable, isn’t it? It’s like betting at roulette—if you haven’t got much to lose, you may as well risk it all; but if you’ve got a lot, you’re a fool to gamble it away. So that’s one reason we don’t have war— another argument against breeding that I forgot to mention—and we play a good deal of tennis and squash and so on, but no football; and we’re not anxious to risk our necks on exploring expeditions. You had something in mind like the colonization of the Amazon basin and so on, didn’t you?”
Joe nodded. “All habitable areas.”
“Not the same thing, though—we have no population pressure, no economic pressure. Things are good here for everybody. Why should anybody want to leave? There’s more room in the Americas, but I like Europe and who needs more room just for himself?”
Joe grinned wryly. “I see it— in theory, anyhow. But I’m damned if I feel that way about it. Me, I’d like to go.”
“I’ll see if I can wangle an introduction to Clarke, the Rocket Society high lama. Luther knows him, I think.”
Joe was saying, “That would be wonderful,” when George’s wrist phone buzzed. He said, “Excuse me,” and swiveled the disk into his palm so that the receiver covered his ear and the transmitter pickup touched his throat, making eavesdropping impossible.
“George Miller,” he said.
“George, this is Art Levinson,” said the tiny voice rapidly. “I’m about to be arrested by the Security Police. I tried to reach the others, but they’re both out of phone range.”
“The Security—that’s impossible,” George protested. “We haven’t done a thing. They couldn’t know!”
“I told you I spoke to Van Dam, the Public Health Commissioner,” said the voice impatiently. “He must have figured I’d do something about the sterility situation, so he evidently had my rooms wired and put a detail of police on my trail. Everything we said in our conference must be on official tapes.”
“Good God!” George exclaimed. “Then we’re all in danger!”
“Of course. Don’t tell me you haven’t got anybody trailing you.”
George glanced around apprehensively. Everybody suddenly looked suspicious, but there was no one he could specifically identify as a Security Policeman.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Where are you?”
“In Luther’s bedroom. I locked myself in. They’re trying to break the door down. Good-by, George. Just pass the word along. That’s all you can—”
“Hold on! How long can you keep them out of there?”
“Another few minutes, if that. Don’t try to do anything foolish. George. There’s another of them in a copter outside the bedroom window. Just tell—”
“Wait!” said George excitedly. “Hold them off as long as you can. Throw a fit. Do anything.” He broke the contact and said to Joe’s astonished face, “Something urgent. Pay the check for me, will you? I’ll call you later.”
He fumbled a bill out of his wallet, stood up and leaped off the moving strip, dashing past indignant patrons of the arts to the roof exit.
Thoughts blurred in his head. He didn’t know what he could do, but he intended to do something. He couldn’t let Levinson stand off the police by himself. The excitement was somehow pleasant—the adrenalin squirting through his veins, his chest filling massively with air, his shoulders knotting with the expectation of a fight. It was astonishing. He couldn’t think of anyone who wouldn’t avoid danger at absolutely any cost; with his conditioning, it was hard to believe that he was being so foolhardy.
Yet George felt rather proud of himself. He’d wondered why Levinson had included him in the original tiny group of conspirators, had resignedly assumed it was actually because of his money. Now he knew at least part of the reason and respected Levinson’s shrewdness.
He was, he thought quickly, about two minutes away from Luther’s apartment by air—if he could get a cab.
The roof was crowded with private ’copters, and for a moment George debated the idea of stealing one. Impossible. They were all stowed in parking clips, and he couldn’t get one out past the attendant anyhow, even if some fool had left his keys in the dashboard console. He ran on, reaching the cab section just in time to see a red-and-green ’copter lifting away. He thought it was empty, but he couldn’t be sure.
He shouted futilely, then swung his wrist-radio out, dialed it to “Directional” and sighted carefully at the rising ’copter. After a long moment the instrument clicked and said, “Signor?” The cab steadied and hovered.
“Down here,” said George. “Where you just came from—the Modem Museum.” Apparently he had lost the contact, for the ’copter hung annoyingly where it was. Then he could see the tiny dot that was the driver’s head. He waved madly, and in a moment the cab settled back to the landing stage.
George piled in and said, “Get up—quick.” As the ’copter lifted again, the driver’s mustachioed face turned to regard him quizzically. He said, “The Penaldo Building on the Rio S. Polo. You know the place I mean?”
“Surely, signor.”
“Then hurry, will you?” George waved a hundred-lira note, on second thought added another. The ‘driver’s eyebrows went up the merest trifle; philosophically, he headed the machine into the northbound traffic level and fed power to the rotors.
George looked anxiously at his phone. He didn’t have Art’s call number, worse luck. But if they had already broken down the door when he got there, he’d know soon enough. He forced himself to relax, then exploded into motion the next instant as the cab settled on the Penaldo Building’s roof. He thrust the money at the driver, shouted, “Good work, thanks!” and ran across the roof to the canal-side parapet.