This story fills twenty-six pages of text in my copy of Seven Conquests (which is the same collection as Conquests). The text begins just above the half way point of p. 141 and ends about a quarter of the way down p. 167.
An sf short story that is not an installment of a series can be set on or off Earth, in the past, present or future or in an alternative timeline and in any kind of society, including societies that have never existed but are imagined for "thought experiment" purposes by a speculative author. And all of this has to be established very quickly. We flounder with "License." In its first page and a half:
place names establish an American setting;
travel is by rocket;
"...the crimeless area." (p. 141);
an armoured taxi with a gun turret;
you are reasonably safe inside a YMCA (but not elsewhere?);
the taxi driver opines that his passenger will find work because business is good which he seems to equate with crime rates jumping;
his cab displays "...framed bootlegging and procurement licenses." (ibid.);
the passenger is a gangster in summer but otherwise a Ph.D. student - it seems that the gangstering pays his expenses;
he studies psychodynamic equations so he is starting to sound like some other Anderson characters;
they pass a school where a gym class practices with machine guns in the playground;
football involves bloodshed - goggles so no more blinding but maybe legalized switchblades;
gangsters earn fat fees but have heavy expenses and the work is sporadic;
the passenger is frisked on entering the Y - it is a safe place, remember.
OK. This is a violent scene. Maybe I need a break from it!
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