Chapter III

The Belt Cities could survive without the help of Earth, and the Supreme Congress of the United Nations of Earth knew it. But they also knew that “survive” did not by any means have the same semantic or factual content as “live comfortably”. If Earth were to vanish overnight, the people of the Belt would live, but they would be seriously handicapped. On the other hand, the people of Earth could survive--as they had for millennia--without the Belt Cities, and while doing without Belt imports might be painful, it would by no means be deadly.

But both the Belt Cities and the Earth knew that the destruction of one would mean the collapse of the other as a civilization.

Earth needed iron. Belt iron was cheap. The big iron deposits of Earth were worked out, and the metal had been widely scattered. The removal of the asteroids as a cheap source would mean that iron would become prohibitively expensive. Without cheap iron, Earth’s civilization would have to undergo a painfully drastic change--a collapse and regeneration.

But the Belt Cities were handicapped by the fact that they had had as yet neither the time nor the resources to manufacture anything but absolute necessities. Cloth, for example, was imported from Earth. A society that is still busy struggling for the bare necessities--such as manufacturing its own air--has no time to build the huge looms necessary to weave cloth ... or to make clothes, except on a minor scale. Food? You can have hydroponic gardens on an asteroid, but raising beef cattle, even on Ceres, was difficult. Eventually, perhaps, but not yet.

The Belt Cities were populated by pioneers who still had not given up the luxuries of civilization. Their one weakness was that they had their cake and were happily eating it, too.

Not that Harry Morgan didn’t realize that fact. A Belt man is, above all, a realist, in that he must, of necessity, understand the Laws of the Universe and deal with them. Or die.

Commodore Sir Harry Morgan was well aware of the stir he had created in the lobby of the Grand Central Hotel. Word would leak out, and he knew it. The scene had been created for just that purpose.

“_Grasshopper sittin’ on a railroad track,

Singin’ polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!

A-pickin’ his teeth with a carpet tack,

Singin’ polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!_”

He sang with gusto as the elevator lifted him up to the seventy-fourth floor of the Grand Central Hotel. The other passengers in the car did not look at him directly; they cast sidelong glances.

This guy, they seemed to think in unison, is a nut. We will pay no attention to him, since he probably does not really exist. Even if he does, we will pay no attention in the hope that he will go away.

On the seventy-fourth floor, he did go away, heading for his room. He keyed open the door and strolled over to the phone, where a message had already been dropped into the receiver slot. He picked it up and read it.

COMMODORE SIR HARRY MORGAN, RM. 7426, GCH: REQUEST YOU CALL

EDWAY TARNHORST, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE OF GREATER LOS

ANGELES, SUPREME CONGRESS. PUNCH 33-981-762-044 COLLECT.

“How news travels,” Harry Morgan thought to himself. He tapped out the number on the keyboard of the phone and waited for the panel to light up. When it did, it showed a man in his middle fifties with a lean, ascetic face and graying hair, which gave him a look of saintly wisdom.

“Mr. Tarnhorst?” Morgan asked pleasantly.

“Yes. Commodore Morgan?” The voice was smooth and precise.

“At your service, Mr. Tarnhorst. You asked me to call.”

“Yes. What is the purpose of your visit to Earth, commodore?” The question was quick, decisive, and firm.

Harry Morgan kept his affability. “That’s none of your business, Mr. Tarnhorst.”

Tarnhorst’s face didn’t change. “Perhaps your superiors haven’t told you, but--and I can only disclose this on a sealed circuit--I am in sympathy with the Belt Cities. I have been out there twice and have learned to appreciate the vigor and worth of the Belt people. I am on your side, commodore, in so far as it does not compromise my position. My record shows that I have fought for the rights of the Belt Cities on the floor of the Supreme Congress. Have you been informed of that fact?”

“I have,” said Harry Morgan. “And that is precisely why it is none of your business. The less you know, Mr. Tarnhorst, the safer you will be. I am not here as a representative of any of the City governments. I am not here as a representative of any of the Belt Corporations. I am completely on my own, without official backing. You have shown yourself to be sympathetic towards us in the past. We have no desire to hurt you. Therefore I advise that you either keep your nose out of my business or actively work against me. You cannot protect yourself otherwise.”