MAKE ME AN OFFER By CON BLOMBERG Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Fellow City Mgrs., only you can help me--progress has made "Go Fight City Hall" a battle cry! TO: ALL CITY MANAGERS FROM: ROSS RO, NEW YORK CITY MANAGER SUBJECT: GELATIN MOLDS Well, boys, this is going to be rather an informal communication because I think there's a serious lesson for you in a situation we had here recently. I might as well be the first to tell you about it. You'll hear about it soon enough anyway. Frankly, I'm hoping you'll have a heart and lend a brother City Manager a hand. As you boys know, I was re-elected last April to my post as City Manager for another four years and I felt pretty good about it. So good that I was looking around for something to do which would sort of let the voters of little old New York know how I felt about them. Most of you have met my political assistant Charlie Tight--or, rather, my ex-political assistant. Charlie was looking around, too, and he came up with the idea of covering over Central Park. We have never covered over Central Park with the perma-plast roof like the rest of the city because it is a fairly large area and there wasn't any public demand for it. So naturally it rains and snows there and we spend a lot of dough keeping the grass cut and what have you. It's a popular spot with a lot of folks. Charlie figured--and I must admit that I agreed with him--that covering over Central Park was quite an idea. Controlled conditions would let the grass grow only so much and the temperature would remain constant. No rain or snow except from 1 A.M. to 3 A.M., when we would put in a little artificial precipitation to keep the greenery going. Plenty of nice air-conditioned air. Eternal spring. Really up-to-date. We put it through the computer down at the Civic Machine and figured it would cost only about 25 hundred million. It looked real good. You see, we recently got a new addition to the Civic Machine and the manufacturer gave us a deal on a new model Projector for the whole city. It makes constant forecasts on practically everything we need from moment to moment. It doesn't wait for a Tech to run the data thru it. Saves a lot of time because it's directly connected with Supply. This Projector is so good that we have been able to cut down on expenses about 20 hundred million in only two years. I figured this would easily pay for the perma-plast roof over good old Central Park. * * * * *