The Rise of Ransom City (53 page)

At one I took lunch alone in the dining room of the old man’s penthouse apartment. Paintings all around the room bore the likenesses of thirty-eight Engines, which all looked alike to me. I ate lightly. Mr. Baxter was an old man and had had little taste for rich food— the bill of fare was fixed and invariable. At least I did not ask them to vary it— who knows if they would have. Dinner was at seven under the same circumstances. Like me, Mr. Baxter was a Vegetarian. From two until seven I worked in a laboratory of the Northern Lighting Corporation, which had been given to me for the development and refinement of the Process. After dinner I continued my researches and correspondence at the old man’s writing-desk, sitting beneath a circle of cold electric light, typing away on this very machine right here. The Line’s finest chemical science ensured that I slept by midnight every night, and did not dream.

The first time I refused to cooperate with Mr. Lime’s instructions was, as I recall, when I was asked to sign a document authorizing the seizure and depopulation of certain territories on the South-Western Rim— well, I will say no more, for I have enough enemies. It was shortly after I had learned of my sister’s survival, and I was starting to think for myself again.

“No,” I said.

“No?”

“No, Lime. Take it away.”

He waited very patiently for me to change my mind. You have never seen a more patient man in all your life. His face was as blank as a clock, ticking its way toward midnight. I flatter myself that my face was firm as well. When he saw that I would not easily relent he simply gathered up the papers and left me alone in the pent house. He locked the door behind him and had the lights turned off. At first I thought I had won. It took me a while to realize that he had ordered no food or water to be brought to me until I changed my mind. I am telling the truth when I say that I held out for a long time before giving in— as a matter of fact I was so weak from hunger and thirst that I could hardly pull the bell-rope to summon him back. They did not come when I summoned, but waited until I was near-dead before opening the door, letting in a great blast of electric-light that at first I thought was the light of the next world, and they hoisted me on the shoulders of two heavyset officers and swept me down to the infirmary in the Tower’s basement. While I lay on a bed down there I seemed to hear many voices talking to me, and I dare say all of them were really just nurses or doctors or Officers of the Line, but it seemed to me that I heard the voice of Liv Alverhuysen, counseling silence, cunning, and subterfuge, and I heard the voice of my old friend Mr. Carver counseling patience.

When Mr. Lime presented the document to me again, I signed it. I do not mean to say that I rebelled that way often. I did not. Sometimes I pretended to be sick, retreating to my bed like a child— I am not very proud of that, but you play the hand you are dealt. When the discomfort of my situation became too great there were chemicals that the Line’s doctors could provide, ones that would help to calm you or to take away anxiety or to narrow and sharpen your thinking. Sometimes I asked for them. For the most part I did not need them. The truth is that for the most part I cooperated, telling myself I was biding my time, waiting for my moment to escape or to turn the tables on the Line. I kept thinking that I could do some good with Baxter’s money. I kept thinking that for longer than you might credit, but it is the truth. I used Mr. Baxter’s money to establish the Baxter-Ransom Scholarship for Poor Boys and Girls, and although it only lasted for two years before everything fell apart it was not a bad thing to have done. I am not a fool and I do not imagine that it counts for much set against everything else.

Often, and more and more as the months went by, I forgot to resist, even in my own mind. I forgot that I was playing a part. I found myself taking plea sure in the triumphs of the Baxter-Ransom Trust, the way Mr. Baxter must have.

My work in the laboratory kept me sane, or just about sane enough. I could forget about politics and I could forget about right and wrong. I could think about nothing except the work itself.

A whole basement floor beneath the Baxter-Ransom Tower was cleared out for the reconstruction of the Apparatus, and a couple dozen Line engineers were assigned to assist me. Some of them were from Harrow Cross, and others were formerly employed by the Northern Lighting Corporation. They could have given me a thousand Line engineers and they would not have been the equal of one half of Mr. Carver or Adela Kotan Iermo and I was not shy about telling them so. Nevertheless within a few weeks all the grimy and sinister stone corridors beneath the Baxter-Ransom Tower were lit by the lights of the Process, and the elevators were powered by it too— not that Mr. Lime was impressed.

“That’s not what you’re here for, Ransom.”

“The Process is free-energy—it’ll save the Baxter-Ransom Trust a substantial sum— I know, I’ve seen the books.”

“You’re here because of the Miracle at White Rock, Mr. Ransom. You’re here because you promised Bomb-making.”

“Never my words. And White Rock was an accident and not easy to replicate. These things take time.”

“You’re here because the other side has their secret weapon, and we must have ours. You’re here because of what you found. You’re here because of dumb luck. Never forget that you’re replaceable, Mr. Ransom, that’s my advice to you if you mean to survive in this life.”

“Replace me then, Lime, and see how far you get.”

Not long after that Mr. Lime himself was replaced. That was right about when I stopped remembering the names of the adjutants.

I guess that was about the time when the Concord of the Barons down in the Delta declared for the Republic, and so did the Territory of Thurlow. Dr. Lysvet Alverhuysen was appointed First Speaker of the Republic, second in rank only to the President himself. The Gloriana and Dryden Engines met their end. The Northwest Territory was swept by a wave of little rebellions. There was word that the abandoned town of White Rock had been taken over by a group of the Folk, who were not afraid of the transformations that had been worked on that place, and who were letting nobody across the pass. I guess they do not make the same mistake twice. The adjutants tried their best to keep news of the War from me but things slipped out. The rebellions in the Northwest Territory disrupted the Baxter-Ransom Trust’s operations so badly that I was forced to spend hours signing documents. Anyhow by the time the historians sort out who did what when and how I will be long gone, one way or the other.

I guess should say a few words about Bombs.

The thing Liv and Creedmoor dug up from under the World’s Wall Mountains was probably of the same kind as the thing I just plain stumbled upon in the woods outside of East Conlan. What I mean is that it was a word in the language of the world before people like me came over the mountains. I do not know how they learned how to use it. I guess the Folk must have showed them. I guess they made a deal of some kind. I wish they would have been so forthcoming with me, it would have saved a whole lot of hard work.

I never got the chance to see their weapon in operation with my own eyes and nobody knows better than me that the accounts you read in the newspapers are not always to be trusted, but I hear that it was more sound than light, like a great big drumming that makes everything in the world shake. I hear other accounts that say it was silent and still, that no warning sign of its operation could be detected except that suddenly Engines would fall still, Guns would fall silent. I heard other accounts that spoke of fire or a great dark cloud. Not all of those stories can be true at once and maybe none of them were.

At the Battle of Juniper it left the Gloriana and Dryden Engines as merely machines, tons of empty metal, so much junk.

There is a theory that a lot of people hold, myself included, but nobody much likes to write down, that the Gun and the Line are likewise powers of the world before. Some people will say that we drove them mad when we came here and put our names on them and gave them the shapes they wear now. There is a somewhat heretical sect of the Smiler Brotherhood who hold that Gun and Line are therefore a kind of self-punishment for our sins, and that all we need to do is forgive ourselves to be rid of them. I guess that hasn’t worked so well so far but the Smilers are always hopeful, in fact that is their best quality.

What the Folk entrusted to Liv and Creedmoor must have been something like a cure, or a stick to tame wild beasts. I wondered why they had waited so long to share it and I guess they had no real reason to stir themselves quickly on our behalf. Or maybe they thought we might only make more trouble with it. If half of what you hear about the fighting that followed the Battle of Jasper is true then maybe they were right.

What I found was something a little different, and more. A more fundamental process— something that struck at the roots of the world. I had to learn how to make it work for myself, and what could be done with it.

By all accounts, the weapon Liv and Creedmoor found kills the demons of the Gun and the Engines of the Line, but leaves everything else as it is. That is not true of the Process. If you have ever read a newspaper in recent years you know what happens when the Process is fully let off its leash.

If I had to guess I would say that the Folk who permitted me to see it never thought I would make anything of it. They did not think I would understand. I would guess it was a kind of joke for them.

Another possibility is that they wanted to see this whole world we have carved out of what was here before blown away, and therefore entrusted this power to fall into the hands of an irresponsible boy. That they saw some madness in me, something unstable, that would take their old science and add something new to it and make something terrible. I guess they have their factions and their disagreements and their politics just like anyone else, and if the Folk I met outside Conlan all those years ago had a plan it is not necessarily the same as the plans of those Liv and Creedmoor met out west. I don’t like that theory so much because it is less flattering to me

Or it was just an accident. Anyhow I played the hand that was dealt me as well as I could and I worked hard and I guess in a way I made something of myself, just like I always said I would.