The Rise of Ransom City (58 page)

Adela wasn’t the only person who got letters smuggled in to me. As the months went by I guess Harrow Cross’s security got worse and worse. The War was— you could call things
uncertain,
I guess. Seven or eight or nine or none of the Engines had been destroyed, maybe forever, depending on which reports you trusted. Arsenal, Dryden, and Fountainhead Stations were in a state of open revolt— Gloriana Station’s leaderless armies had declared for the Republic. I hear the original forces of the Republic were not always too sure of their new allies but they could not stop them. Anyhow it was open to debate who was the real Red Republic and who was not. Anyone could put on red and say they were fighting for the Republic and for what it stood for. Opinions differed on exactly what it stood for but it was generally agreed what it stood against, namely what was left of the Line. Strange times. Harrow Cross itself was in a state of uncertainty. For the first time in a long time there was crime in the streets of Harrow Cross. Painted slogans appeared on the walls. The frequency of moving-pictures was doubled, then for no reason that was ever made clear moving-pictures were abolished.

A letter from Dr. Lysvet Alverhuysen appeared one evening beneath my pillow:

Harry. I was so happy for you when I heard you got rich like you always wanted, and so sad when I heard that you were working for the Line, like you always said you would never do. You picked the wrong side but I want you to know that it is not too late to make amends. The Red Valley Republic lives again but our struggle is dire. We need your Bomb, Harry. We need your plans. We have a contact and can smuggle them out if you . . .

I did not believe that was really from Liv. Maybe this letter was really from John Creedmoor:

Ransom. This is from John Creedmoor. You damned son of a bitch, you traitor. I should have shot you when I had the chance. I saw them test your Bomb at Log-Town. Maybe one day I will shoot you.

And I do not doubt that this letter was from the Agent Gentleman Jim Dark:

Professor Ransom. I have not forgotten our appointment. One day you and I will talk. Your friend, “Gentleman” Jim Dark.

And nor do I doubt that this letter was from Mr. Angel Langhorne, my friend the rain-maker:

Mr. Ransom— I just want you to know that I know it’s not true what they say about you. Our correspondence back in Jasper meant the world to me. One day I hope we’ll meet.

I heard about the test at Log-Town, and how many men on both sides died. I was not there. I do not intend to write about it.

Anyhow they moved Adela out of Harrow Cross and we lost contact. They moved her to Archway. While she was still en route the Archway Engine disappeared and that Station too fell into chaos and for a long time I could not discover where she had been diverted to. Before she departed she sent me a copy of her plans for the reconstruction of the self-playing piano. I still possess them.

As it happens I was studying those plans at my desk in my apartment on the evening when the adjutant unlocked my door, and entered without a word of explanation or apology, with her pistol in her hand and an expression of bemusement on her face, and announced that there was a mob at the door to the laboratory.

“It’s—sir, they’re—”

“Well,” I said, “whose side are they on? What do they want? We’re under siege, is that it? Is it the Republic?”

She shut the door behind herself, and leant against it. She did not put her pistol away. I think I had sounded too hopeful and made her wary of me.

“No,” she said. “It’s— sir, they’re nobody.”

“They can’t be nobody,” I said. “If nobody were assaulting the laboratory it wouldn’t be newsworthy. Do you mean you don’t know?”

“They’re just— people from Harrow Cross. Workers. Men and women of the Line. I’ve never— I’ve never seen anything like it. Not here.”

I stood. I was still walking with the aid of my self-made walking-stick. I packed up the plans and some other papers in my briefcase, and I stood beside the adjutant at the door. The poor woman looked quite lost. I had never seen her that way before, and for the first time I felt a certain fellow-feeling for her, and I regretted that I did not know her name.

I put my ear against the door and imagined that somewhere over the constant din of Harrow Cross I could hear angry shouting.

“Numbers,” I said.

“A hundred or more.”

“Do they know where I am?”

My apartment was just a short walk from the laboratory.

“I don’t know.”

“Well,” I said. “Well then. What do they want? To smash the Apparatus or steal it or— what?”

She thought for a moment. “Smash it, sir.”

“They wouldn’t be the first. What’s their particular objection?”

“They say— sir, I shouldn’t tell you this— shit, sir— the Harrow Cross Engine has not returned from the front. It’s been a week. I don’t know— its location is unknown, sir.”

“Nobody told me.”

“It’s not publicized, sir. But it gets out regardless.”

“I don’t see how I’m to blame, or my Apparatus.”

“They’ve heard things, sir— the Bomb to end the world, the Bomb that kills the Powers— they hear about the tests that go wrong— they hear about the— the things you call the phantoms— they’re frightened, sir, and confused. Things are changing and they don’t know what to do. I never thought I’d see it in Harrow Cross. I’ve lived here forty-five years sir and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well then. Well. I suggest we run.”

“Run?”

“It offends your pride? Not mine. I don’t have much pride left and I never did mind running.”

I opened the door. She did not stop me.

The corridor outside was empty.

She followed me along two turns of the corridor to the elevator.

I said, “What
is
your name, anyhow?”

She didn’t answer.

The elevator took us down to the rooftop. Its doors opened onto a broad expanse of concrete. In the red-gray perpetual half-light of Harrow Cross at night you could see the hangar that housed the laboratory, its tall locked gates. Outside the gates there was a crowd.

As a matter of fact I would say that there were at most a couple of dozen men and women. By the standards of Jasper City or the Western Rim it was not much of a mob. Many of them were in uniform. They were milling uncertainly— it was very strange to see people in Harrow Cross who did not know what they were supposed to do or where they were supposed to go.

Not much of a mob. But they had a good try at chasing us down anyhow, until the adjutant started shooting at them and then with a thunderous noise a half-dozen Vessels converged overhead. The wind of their blades whipped the cap off the adjutant’s head and blew her gray hair wild. The wind knocked the mob off their feet. Their spotlights marked a clear white line across which the mob did not dare step.

Among the mob were a number of the silent phantoms conjured by the Process— fierce Folk with stone spears, soldiers of Jasper City with bayonets, women in pioneer bonnets and tear-streaked faces— the wind didn’t touch them, the spotlights didn’t scare them, and when the rest of the mob fell back they kept on running. The adjutant shot at them until her gun was empty and she fell to her knees on the concrete and they kept running. They ran right past us— when I turned to see where they’d gone it seemed they’d vanished.

The mob had their hands in the air. So did I. The adjutant was weeping. I lowered one hand very slowly to her shoulder to console her.

It was true. The Harrow Cross Engine never did return from the front. After a few weeks the Kingstown Engine took its place. It moved out of Kingstown for reasons of safety and it traveled north to Metzinger. The tracks west out of Metzinger were broken and so was the route north. It moved itself into Dryden and then out of Dryden. All the Engines seemed to be moving themselves about like chess-pieces, each one in its own mind a king, as their enemies cut their lines and trapped them— well, somehow it was the Kingstown Engine that ended up in Harrow Cross. It inserted itself into the deepest darkest parts of the Station and it issued a torrent of orders and threats and it did not emerge into the light ever again.

There were rumors that the armies of the Republic, swelled by the men of the rebellious Stations of Archway and Gloriana, were approaching Harrow Cross itself.

The Ransom Project was moved, for safety, and under conditions of extreme secrecy, to a new location— another hangar, on a different rooftop.

We were located directly above the Kingstown Engine itself, and though there was a tall building between us and the depths the Engine hid in, and sometimes you could feel the floor vibrate, as if the thing was shifting in uneasy dreams. I complained— it was bad for the Apparatus. I was ignored.

The adjutant was reassigned for the sake of her mental health and I never did learn her name. There were a whole lot of new guards outside the new hangar and my new quarters. They were grim and loyal-looking Linesmen, hand-picked. A new adjutant appeared. This one was also a woman, younger than the last one, red-haired and freckle-faced, pretty but stern and zealous. She informed me that she had personally requested to work with me, in light of the critical situation in the inner Territories and the need for urgent progress. A number of my engineers were transferred away and I was left only with the most loyal and the most ambitious. And yet I had not been in my new quarters a week before somebody left a note for me, poking out beneath the edge of the triplicate typewriter.

H. It’s me. They transferred me back to HC. But while I was out I made contact with the Republic. They can get us out. They can get us out together. They want you and your Process. It must be together. This is our moment. Send back word.

Is it you? Adela, is that you? I thought I’d never hear from you again. Where have you been? I heard you were lost en route to Archway. I feared you were dead. I hoped you’d escaped.

Will you come? There’s little time. Are you with us?

I’m with you, Adela. I care nothing for the Republic or the Line or the Gun or anything else. How do I know you’re really yourself?

Will you make me repeat all those words of love? I’ll write them again. Will you make talk about music— that stupid piano you loved so much? The Republic’s forces will be at the walls soon— we don’t have time for games. Will you come?

Yes. Tell me what to do.

That exchange lasted maybe two weeks. I have cut it short, because I am in a hurry now.