IT HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED, BUT THEORETICALLY IT IS
QUITE SIMPLE; A BILL TO REGULARIZE EARTH’S AXIS
WAS DEFEATED BY THREE VOTES IN THE EIGHTY-SECOND COUNCIL, OWING TO THE OPPOSITION OF THE
CONSERVATION LOBBY.”
“Could the city handle it?”
“NO. THE COST WOULD BE PROHIBITIVE. MAYOR AMALFI, ARE YOU CONTEMPLATING TIPPING THIS PLANET? WE FORBID IT! EVERY INDICATION SHOWS—”
Amalfi tore the helmet from his head and flung it across the room. Miramon jumped up in alarm.
“Hazleton!”
The city manager shot through the door as if he had been kicked through it on roller skates. “Here, boss—what’s the—”
“Get down below and turn off the City Fathers—fast, before they catch on and do something! Quick, man—”
Hazleton was already gone. On the other side of the control room, the phones of the helmet squawked dead data in italic capitals.
Then, suddenly, they went silent.
The City Fathers had been turned off, and Amalfi was ready to move a world.
III.
THE fact that the City Fathers could not be consulted—for the first time in two centuries—made the job more difficult than it need have been, barring their conservatism. Tipping the planet, the crux of the job, was simple enough in essence; the spindizzy could handle it. But the side-effects of the medicine might easily prove to be worse than the disease.
The problem was seismological. Rapidly whirling objects have a way of being stubborn about changing their positions. If that energy were overcome, it would have to appear somewhere else—the most likely place being multiple earthquakes.