The Rise of Ransom City (45 page)

And that is how I got famous.

Mr. Carson caused the story to be rushed into print while Mr. Baxter’s lawyers and detectives argued with the lawyers and muscular ink-stained apprentices of the
Jasper City Evening Post.
The more they blustered and threatened and slandered me the more they convinced Mr. Carson of my good faith. Suits and counter-suits flew until my head was spinning, and the next day the
Post
’s presses were seized but it was too late— the story was out. It was mostly my own words and mostly true. I told Mr. Carson everything I knew to be true about Liv and Creedmoor, and I told him a few things besides. I said that they had found an ancient and buried weapon of the Folk, and that I myself had seen it. I told him that the Ransom Process itself was a marriage of the latest modern science and the Folk’s magic. I told him that Liv and Creedmoor had gone West to defend Juniper from the Line, while I had come to bring Jasper: free energy— light and warmth in winter for every man woman and child— and above all an unbeatable super-weapon against which no aggressor could stand. If only, I said, I could be free of these legal struggles with Mr. Baxter. . . .

I promised the Apparatus free of charge to Jasper City. I thought if I could make Jasper love me it might buy me some insurance against assassination or kidnapping by Baxter’s goons or the Floating World, and I guess it worked at least for a while, because I am still here. As it happened the silver-haired Senator with whom Mr. Carson had been taking lunch was up for re-election, and he was so taken with my whole speech about the defense & prosperity of Jasper City that he thought it a good deal to be photographed with his arm about my shoulder, smiling and thumbs-up as if he had invented me himself. That was the picture everyone in Jasper saw the next day.

That afternoon a mob attacked the Ormolu Theater, under the misapprehension that I still resided there. Most of them I think were looking for my autograph or for me to promise them that I would save Jasper from the War or cut them in for a percentage of the profits. Some of them wanted me to cure their cancer— within hours of the
Evening Post
’s story the rumor had developed that the Process cured cancer. I do not think I am to blame for that. A couple of fellows wanted to make themselves famous by shooting me, and there was some unpleasantness in the course of which Mr. Quantrill got hurt. He sued me and Mr. Carson and the
Evening Post
. As for me— I was not there. The first I heard about any of this was when Adela tracked me down and slapped me in the face.

“How could you,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to— what about our plans? We were going to go to Juniper. We were going to slip away. I was going to slip away. They’ll destroy you now, Harry, they’ll have to.”

“They were going to do that anyway. Anyhow I’ve survived worse.

First time we met you yourself tried to shoot me, as I recall—”

“They’ll destroy us all.”

“Things will work out. See, things are finely balanced right now—

there’s a strange mood abroad. Everyone who’s traveled this last year knows it. I know it and I know you know it and I know Mr. Baxter knows it and I know the minds behind him have compiled statistical observations on it— and who knows what gets overheard in pillow-talk beneath the roof of the Floating World but I bet
she
knows it and her masters know it too— it’s whispered in their Lodge. They’re scared to name it but I’m not— it’s change, it’s uncertainty, it’s the new century to come— I’m speechmaking but I can’t help it, Adela— what I mean is that the city is on the brink of revolt. So is the whole damn territory. Either side might lose its grip, or both. All eyes are on me. If I disappear now the whole thing could explode. They won’t dare. Don’t look so skeptical— I can keep this under control.”

I do not recall where I was when Adela found me. Those days were a whirlwind. At first Mr. Carson put me up in one of his properties on the bluffs but then he was arrested, and even after he was released without charges it did not seem proper to return. I was summoned before the Senate to justify my claims and I reckon I made a decent showing of it, because at least half of those gentlemen applauded me and came up afterwards to shake my hand, and no more than half of them jeered me or denounced me as an unscrupulous opportunist. I was invited to the opera, where I was prevailed upon to get up onstage and take a bow. A senior executive of Mr. Baxter’s Trust was there with his wife— they walked out. After the show was over Plug-ears and the Pig tried to lay hands on me and were swept away by a well-dressed but angry mob and I never saw their unlovely faces again. Two Senators competed to offer me lodgings. I was invited to the Jasper City Museum to donate the floating brass leaf to their collection. I was invited three times to Vansittart University to speak. On the first occasion I spoke to a flag-strewn lecture-hall full of natural scientists on the subject of free energy. On the second occasion I spoke to the VU Union regarding the political situation on the Western Rim, and on the third occasion I spoke to the Chatterton Debating Club on how it was up to young people like ourselves to build the New Century, and on the fourth occasion I was ambushed and presented before a roomful of solemnly nodding doctors as a classic example of
xenomanic paranoia
— that is the word Jasper City’s doctors use for those unfortunate souls who are driven mad by an unhealthy obsession with the secrets of the Folk, and the syndrome is said to be caused by guilt or by suppression of the sexual urge. I did not know this either until a doctor in a black gown pointed at me with a stick and said it.

I returned to the Ormolu in triumph, this time onstage, under the lights— two nights only, and you may be sure that I drove a hard bargain with Mr. Quantrill, who I had not yet forgiven for his lack of loyalty. The crowd squeezed into the Theater until I thought it might burst. I showed them the automated orange tree and all the rest and I told tales about the Western Rim and the Miracle at White Rock and about Liv and Creedmoor and I guess I made some big promises I could not keep. Amaryllis joined me on stage— Adela would not. Big Charley Browder re-enacted the role of the giant Knoll— a gentler man you could never hope to meet— I do not know how he fared in the Battle of Jasper but he was big and gentle so I guess not so well. My friend Mr. Carson described my performance as “eccentric.” Anyhow two nights of tale-telling in Jasper City made me twice as much money as I had made altogether in my life so far.

I was recognized in stores by sales clerks. Cabs stopped for me in the street. I received more letters than I could count— threats, pleas, propositions, challenges, invitations to speak or play cards or go into business— I read through heaps of the damn things looking for word from my sisters that never came. I was questioned in the Senate by a row of silver-haired gentlemen in green leather chairs, all alike, both the chairs and the gentlemen, at least to my eye, about the War and about the Process and about my dispute with Mr. Baxter. I denounced Mr. Baxter as a liar and a fraud, and then since I was there I took the opportunity to lecture the Senate on my philosophy of Life and Business and the Future. I shall not deny that fame had its pleasures. That night I was forced to attend a ball thrown by some Senator’s wife and only Adela’s assistance saved me from humiliation— I never could dance.

I sat for photographs. If you have seen a photograph of me it most likely dates from that summer. There are two photographs in which I am sat between flags, there are several with Senators, there is a photograph in which I am standing beside a pile of junk which was assembled to pass for the Apparatus. There is one in which I am standing on the Ormolu’s black stage in a white suit, arms outflung and smiling so care-free you could almost imagine it was the good old days and Mr. Carver was by my side. There is another in which Adela stands stiffly at my side, and the expression that appears on her face seems in hindsight to be a warning of what would happen. I don’t know. I have never trusted photographs. Light was meant to move.

What happens when you are famous and much-loved in Jasper City in summer is that the city suddenly becomes full of beautiful women, to a degree of disproportion that defies the laws of chance. It was if some statistical demon like that hypothesized by Professor Fenglin of VU— I told you I was a learned man!— as if such a demon had set itself squatting at the gates of the city to throw out ordinary women and yank in the beautiful. Well anyhow I could not go any place in the city without being approached by one or more beautiful women with insincere smiles. I am only human and I will confess that I was often tempted, even after one such beauty who’d got me on my own laughed and leaned in close and whispered,
“Jen wants you to know, Ransom, we’re still watching. We’ll have you in the end.”
That ruined the romantic mood— truth is I ran away, leaving her laughing on a barstool.

Meanwhile Mr. Baxter had gone silent. The stock of the Northern Lighting Corporation fell to next to nothing. Baxter’s detectives no longer followed me— in fact they were nowhere to be seen. The
Tribune
reported that a man in uniform who resembled Plug-Ears was found dead in the river down by the Yards— I can only speculate as to how he came to that end. I was quoted in the newspapers as to how Old Man Baxter could not hold back the future forever. His lawyers would not comment on our dispute. I thought I had humiliated him, scared him into retreat. I got so confident and proud that I sat down and I wrote a letter to the proprietor of the Floating World, demanding the release of my sister— and I mailed it too. I received no response.

News of my doings and speculation as to when I would deliver on my promises drove the War off the front pages of the newspapers, so that Jasper hardly remarked upon the siege of Juniper, or the fighting down in the Deltas against the so-called Republican Baronies, or the birth of the Gibson Engine. The
Tribune
started to describe my Apparatus as a
bomb,
the word
Apparatus
being too many-lettered for their readers, and though this was both inaccurate & offensive to
me
it became popular, so that people sometimes shouted at me “Jasper’s got the Bomb! Jasper’s got the Bomb! Give ’em hell, Ransom!” The fair & statuesque &c actress returned to the city and went to the
Clarion
to inform the public that she had always loved me, and had always known of my secret. Shortly thereafter she left the city once again and once again I can only speculate as to the reasons why. Truth is fame had gone to my head and I had kind of forgotten about her.

The Agent of the Gun Gentleman Jim Dark sent this letter to be published by the
Evening Post
—

DEAR SIR
I read with great entertainment all about how your friend Mr. Harry Ransom says he did for my comrade in arms Mr. Knoll at a place called White Rock. Now the world knows that I am a sporting man and I want it to be known that in my opinion White Rock was a fair fight and there are no hard feelings on my account. Mr. Ransom has no need to fear revenge from this quarter! But if we fancy a fair fight of our own against Mr. Ransom and his Apparatus then I do believe he is a sporting man too and as a sporting man he will not begrudge us that. As a matter of fact I do not see how I can well offer anything fairer.

I was showered with money from benefactors and investors and patriots and small boys who mailed me pennies wrapped in touching notes. I could have rebuilt the Apparatus a hundred times over, I could have gone into mass-production, I could have lit up all of Jasper City, except that I could not think straight or find time to work. I was always on the move. I was always waiting for Baxter’s next move, or the Agents’. The chant of
bomb— bomb—bomb
was in my ears and I could not sleep right.

The
Tribune
was the first of the newspapers to question whether I was ever going to deliver the bomb. “The War presses ever closer. The clock stands at midnight and Jasper stands alone.” After that the mood of the public turned and for a bad week or two not all of the things that were shouted on me in the street were friendly. A woman who was later discovered to be a refugee from the Rim and a widow chained herself in protest at my dallying to the railings of what I guess she thought was my workshop but were in fact the premises of the Ransome-with-an
E
Textile Co.— no relation. My investors demanded explanations from me. Mr. Carson wrote a story for the
Evening Post
all about the ’91 Dash and how throughout the history of the West well-meaning people have looked to mountebanks and charlatans for salvation while the forces of wickedness get on with their business. His portrait of me fairly dripped venom. I have forgiven him now.