Mason & Dixon (81 page)

Yet removing Trees to create a pair of perfectly straight Edges, is to invite Sha, as Captain Zhang, ever eager upon the Topick of the Line and its Visible expression upon the Landscape, with its star-dictated indifference to the true inner shape, or Dragon, of the Land, will be happy to indicate to them.

"They came from the Sky, they prepar'd to emplace these Webs of right lines upon the Earth, then without explanation they went away again. Their work is being continued by the Jesuits, inscribers of Meridians, whether in blind obedience to some ancient Coercion, long expir'd, or in witting Complicity with it, who can say?" Captain Zhang can of course imagine Jesuits guilty of anything, including conspiring with Extra-terrestrial Visitors, to mark the living Planet with certain Signs, for motives of their own, motives they do not discuss, especially not with their Jesuit hirelings.

"Hearken, Gentlemen,— Someone wants your Visto. Not your Line, nor the Boundary it defines. Those are but a Pretext for the actual clear'd straight Track. In the Domain of very slow Undulations we're discussing

 
here, Wood is as much an Element as Air or Water,— living Trees in particular producing a Force that might interfere in too costly a way with whatever is to be sent up and down this Line.

"Earth, withal, is a Body, like our own, with its network of Points, dis-pos'd along its Meridians,— much as our medicine in China has identified, upon the Human body, a like set of Lines invisible, upon which, beadwise, are strung Points, where the Flow of Chee may be beneficially strengthen'd by insertions of Gold Needles. So, this arrangement of Oolite Shafts, at least partly inserted into the Earth,— you see, it is suggestive."

"Do we want to hear this?" Capt. Shelby inquires, plaintively.

"Hold, 'twill be legal evidence of his insanity, allow him to— ah, yes then Captain you were saying and how fascinating that you believe the Planet Earth to be a.. .living Creature? Hum?"

"Exactly as the creatures Microscopic upon your skin believe you to be a Planet. They may be arguing even now about whether or not you are a form of Life. Each time you step into a Tub, there comes upon them another universal Flood, with its Animalcular Noah, and another Re-inhabiting, another Chain of Generations, to them how timeless, till the next Wash."

"Some reason that Bottle isn't moving more briskly?" Dixon wishes to know. "Thankye,— now Mason, don't ta'e the Hoomp, but the Captain's right,- "

" 'Right'?"

"Consider. We've an outer and an inner surface, haven't we, which mathematickally, 'tis easy, using Fluxions, to warp and smooth, by small, continuous changes, into a Toroid, with openings at either end, leading to—

"Hold," cries Mason, "— An Inner Surface? Are you by chance seeking analogy between the Human Body and the planet Earth? The Earth has no inner Surface, Dixon."

"Have you been to its End, to see?"

"Tho' I come from pret-ty far North," Stig puts in, "yet there's a lot more North, North of even that,— out of which, now and then, a Sail will appear upon the Horizon, a Snow-craft approach, all the day long, and at Evening at last put in at our little Village,— Ev'ryone crowds into the Inn, by the light of bear-fat Candles, to drink Cloud-berry Flip, and lis-

 
ten to the Visitor's tales of a great dark Cavity up there, mirror'd overhead, as by a Water-sky,— Funnel-shap'd, leading inside the Earth...to another World."

"Grant me Patience 0 Lord," Mason with a bleak Expression, holding his head. "When 'tis not the Eleven Days missing from the New Style, or the Cock Lane Ghost, yet abides the Hollow Earth, as a proven Lure and Sanctuary to all, that too lightly bestow their Faith."

"Why," snorts Dixon, "half of all the Philosophers in Durham are Hollow-Earthers."

"That accounts for Emerson," hisses Mason. "Who was the other, again?"

"Lud Oafery," glowers Dixon, "marvelous chap, and he ever spoke highly of thee,—

"Dixon,— pray you. Think. If Newton's figure is correct,— if the density of the Earth, on average, is between five and six times that of water, then the shell of this Hollow Earth of yours, be it hundreds of miles thick, would have to possess some quite impossibly high density to make up for the empty interior,— at least, say, twelve times that of water, maybe more. Where is the evidence of this? Solid Rock is but two and a half times as dense as water. What more could be down there?"

"Precisely what the Royal Society would wish to know."

"You've not, ehm that is, mention'd this to,— " pausing to consider how not to give offense.

"Some believ'd me, some didn't. Some took me for a Jes-uit Agent, angling for a Northern Expedition of some kind. Mr. Birch, bless him, immediately went off to make converts. Others asked questions tha'd have to term more or less rude...? My mining background, and so forth...? A Geordie descends into the Earth just once, and right away everyone starts to get ideas." Dixon on now like a tree-ful of ravens, with his Hollow Earth, an enthusiasm, Mason judges, too developed to be argued away without investing more time and patience than he possesses. Withal, he is too open himself to the seductions of Melancholy and its own comfortless phantoms, to call anything even as remotely hopeful as this into question,— no more Doubts for Mason just at the moment, thank you,— considering how ever less serviceable to him, as his days spin onward, they are proving to be.

"China may once have been another Planet," Capt. Zhang is now speculating, "embedded into the Earth thro' some very slow collision,— long ago, all populated, with its Language and Customs, arriving from the East Northeast, aiming for the Pacific,— over-shoots, plows into Asia, pushes up the Himalaya Range,— comes to rest intact, which is how, until the first Christian Travelers, it remains,—

Taking this courteously if not perhaps seriously, Dixon replies, "Yet, from all we know, from Newton onward, how could the mechanism of its approach have been other than swift and Cataclysmick?"

"Why, if, within the last few miles of mutual approach, a Repulsive Force were to come into play, between the Earth and the Chinese Planet, acting counter to, and thus slowing, the Collision,— by analogy, of course, to Father Boscovich's Theory of Repulsion, at very close distance, among the primordial Atoms of Nature."

Dixon shakes his head, as if to clear some Passage within. "This is Jesuit physics. Why are you telling us this? Why must you ever be 'subtle'? Is this what Jesuits believe to be the origin of China?"

"Zarpazo does." The Chinaman beams and nods, as if Dixon has just understood a Joke.

The night before they set out westward again, Captain Shelby, from behind a can of his own Ale, brewed in the Shed adjoining, his face com-pos'd, inquires of them, Where is the Third Surveyor?

Mason, mistrustful, looks about as if this Newcomer might be at hand. Dixon, understanding Shelby to be posing a Riddle, is pull'd between loyalty to Mason and despair at his slowness in these matters. "Pray, Captain," he feels oblig'd to play in, "what Third Surveyor is that, for we are but two."

"Why," chuckles Shelby, "you are Wise Men from the East,— and ev'ryone knows they come in Threes!"

"Eeh, eeh! That's a canny one, for fair!"

Mason is less amus'd. The Captain's discourse verges upon Impiety.— Furthermore, it seems a bad Omen. "Well. It's like the Thirteenth Guest, isn't it.”

Yet, reported sightings of the Supernumerary Figure now begin to drift in. He is seen often in the Company of an Animal that most describe as a Dog, though a few are not so sure, for its Eyes glow as if all the Creature's Interior be a miniature of Hell. The best time for a Sighting seems to be at around Sunset,— just as the Axmen are leaving off work and heading for the Mess Tent, the Wind changing, here in Pennsylvania, as between this World and the Next,— when one may catch him flitting across the Visto behind the Party, back at the edge of Visibility,— black Cloak, white Wig, black Hat, white Stock, black Breeches and so forth, on foot, carrying a three-legged Staff, with an Instrument of some kind affix'd. A rumor goes 'round that he is a Surveyor of Surveyors, independently hir'd by the Line Commissioners to keep an eye upon the first two. But where are the rest of his Party? Other interpretations are less Earthly. A Figure that might arouse no comment in Philadelphia, in these parts 'tis esteem'd a Wonder,— particularly as it shows no sign of having made the passage from there to here,— not, anyway, upon the Ground, nor through the Forest.

Presently, in camp, the phrase, "Resembles the old Gentleman," spoken low, is being heard, in reference to the Third Surveyor,— it having been long understood out here, as Capt. Shelby explains, that if one wishes to convey a certain Item of Spiritual Property in consideration of a Sum to be paid in advance, why, such a Contract may be arrang'd. "The old Gentleman is always interested, always buying,"— even this long at the Trade, as Shelby relates it, still resentful about his exile from the Infinite, descended here among the harsh Gradients of Space, subject to the cruel flow of Time,— denied the Future and the Past and thus his Omniscience,— whilst, as to drafting Contracts, left slightly worse at it than the average Philadelphia Lawyer.

"So when Brother Pritchard,— lives just over the Ridge, there,— without the Gentleman's noticing, decides to sneak in a force mojeure clause that turns out to contain the phrase 'Acts of God,' why there's a legal crisis, the Gentleman wishing to nullify the Contract and get his money back,— Pritchard seeking to keep the money, and his Soul as well. Very, very expensive lawyers, all from Philadelphia, are engag'd by both parties. The Journals and Broadsiders get hold of the story, and

 
quite excessive indeed grows the Commentary that follows, in Prose, Verse, and Caricature. The Gentleman, having virtually invented Pub-lick Sensationalism,— which is reckon'd, indeed, upon his own torrid shores, as Entertainment,— has no illusions about anyone's motives, or the chances for great harm to his Case, yet naively, as others would say, disingenuously,— he clings to a belief in 'Justice.''

"Well I don't know what you may have heard about what we call Justice up here," his Solicitor advises him, "but don't set your Hopes too high.—
 
Just enjoy your Time in Town, visit the Shops, take in a Show...."

Hell, of late, has been growing so congested, that the Gentleman is happy enough to come up to Pennsylvania,— even Philadelphia in the Morning Rush seems to him a Prairie desolate,— and who even knows how many years this lawsuit may take? To him, as to the Deity, 'tis the blink of an Eye. "Damn'd Souls, you think I even like damn'd Souls? I go down to that Rout call'd 'Processing,' see them crowding in, more and more ev'ry day, I grasp the Situation, but don't enjoy it? Who could enjoy it?"

"Upon consideration, I think you're better advis'd not to sue in any of our courts. You could get fried like a Fritter, and Counsel along with you. Don't you have any, um, machinery for resolving this, out there in the Cosmos, wherever you come from?"

"A legal system? Us? Ha, ha, ha. What for? We're a Rubbish-tip, Sir! for all your worst Cases!— not that we get to pick or choose,— tho' we do have to deal with the Consequences for Eternity, of course,— yet, there I go, complaining again.. .oh and by the way, I'm anything but 'out in the

Cosmos,' no no, being but Earth's D——l, local lad, working, in fact,for

His Omnipotence these days, ha-hah yes, once an equal and respected Adversary, now but another contract employee. Ah, woe...and forget about Luncheon,— does he even write? once a century, maybe! If any of these damn'd Souls could see the misery I get, maybe they wouldn't groan so much."

"Howbeit, Milord,— my best advice is, Drop the case."

"Suppose we just go for the money. He can keep his Soul, but posting this kind of Debit isn't going to amuse my Commissioners.”

"Style it an 'Investment.' Say the huge sum was to ensure his Corruption. You were developing a damn'd Soul."

"Already us'd that one too much, they shut me down a few sessions back, alas. But you seem like a Mortal of some ingenuity. Perhaps from time to time we could chat."

"Those would, of course, be billable Hours.”

62

In the Conoloways, on the Twenty-second of April,— the first point of Aries,— it snows all night, four inches of it upon the Ground when the Axmen wake, and merrily begin to form it into Missiles or stuff it down the backs of one another's Breeches. Springtide. Mason puts his head out the Tent-Flap and is caught in an intimate Avalanche down the side of the Tent. Dixon has his hat knock'd off by a Snowball, and goes chasing Tom Hynes 'round the Cook-Waggon.

"I dreamt of a City to the West of here," Dixon tries to recall, scrying in his Coffee-Mug, the wind blowing Wood-smoke in his eyes, "at some great Confluence of Rivers, or upon a Harbor in some inland Sea,— a large City,— busy, prospering, sacred."

"A Sylvan Philadelphia...."

"Well.. .well yes, now tha put it thah' way,—

"I hope you are prepar'd for the possibility, that waking Philadelphia is as sacred as anything over here will ever get, Dixon,— observe you not, as we move West, more and more of those Forces, which Cities upon Coasts have learn'd to push away, and leave to Back Inhabitants,— the Lightning, the Winter, an Indifference to Pain, not to mention Fire, Blood, and so forth, all measur'd upon a Scale far from Philadelphian,— whereunto we, and our Royal Commission, and our battery of costly Instruments, are but Fleas in the Flea Circus. We trespass, each day ever more deeply, into a world of less restraint in ev'rything,— no law, no convergence upon any idea of how life is to be,— an Interior that grows meanwhile ever more forested, more savage and perilous, until,— perhaps at the very Longitude of your 'City,'— we must reach at last an Anti-City,— some concentration of Fate,— some final condition of Abandonment,— wherein all are unredeemably alone and at Hazard as deep as their souls may bear,— lost Creatures that make the very Seneca seem Christian and merciful."

"Eeh, chirpy today...? yet do I wish thee joy of thy dreams, Mason. I knaah the ones just before tha wake are most pleasant to thee,— having myself by then been long awake, from reluctance to re-visit the Horrors of my own, and so able to observe thee."