And Amalfi had found no point anywhere in the underground chamber from which the spindizzies of IMT could be controlled. The control point was somewhere else; the main control cable ran into a pipe which shot straight up through the top of the cavern.
… IMT made the sky Fall …
Amalfi yawned ostentatiously and bent back to fastening the plate over the booster’s observation port. Karst squatted near him, frankly asleep, as relaxed and comfortable as a cat drowsing on a high ledge. Heldon watched.
“I’m going to have to do the job for you,” Amalfi said. “It’s really major; might take weeks.”
“I thought you would say so,” Heldon said. “And I was glad to give you the time to find out. But I do not think we will make any such replacements.”
“You need ’em.”
“Possibly. But obviously there is a big factor of safety in the apparatus, or our ancestors would never have flown the city at all. You will understand, Mayor Amalfi, that we cannot risk your doing something to the machines which we cannot do ourselves, on the unlikely assumption that you are increasing their efficiency. If they will run as they are, that will have to be good enough.”
“Oh, they’ll run,” Amalfi said. He began, methodically, to pack up his equipment. “For a while. I’ll tell you flatly that they’re not safe to operate, all the same.”
Heldon shrugged and went down the spiral metal stairs to the floor of the chamber. Amalfi rummaged in the pack a moment more. Then he ostentatiously kicked Karst awake—and kicked hard, for he knew better than to play-act with a born overseer for an audience—and motioned the serf to pick up the bundle. They went down after Heldon.
The Proctor was smiling, and it was not a nice smile. “Not safe?” he said. “No, I never supposed that they were. But I think now that the dangers are mostly political.”