Part 22 (1/2)

”No? You will, Professor, you will.”

”This is kidnap, Mr. Gates. Let me go. Let her go.”

”Don't be childish, Ransom. Now sign this.”

What he put in front of me was a letter to the Jasper City Evening Post, announcing that I had taken employment with Mr. Baxter. Not a word about the man's death.

”Sign it.”

”I will not.”

”Sign it and get ready to speak to your admirers- there's a crowd of 'em outside the tower- sign it or we'll have to take other measures to get rid of 'em.”

”Let me see Adela.”

”Sign it and we'll see.”

For five days after the death of Mr. Baxter, a crowd waited at the foot of the Tower. The last of my true believers- an odd bunch of people, by all accounts. They endured the late summer rain and occasional lightning with the calm patience of obsessives. Some of them were die-hard Jasper City patriots who were still sure I would deliver the Bomb that would ensure Jasper's freedom and preeminence once and for all. Some of them were paranoids with various kinds of delusions. Some of them were my friends my fellow inventors. I know that Mr. Lung was there- the soap-inventor, with whom I'd corresponded- and Mr. Bekman, another correspondent, the inventor of financial instruments- and Mr. Angel Langhorne, the rain-maker. Lung is short and round and round-faced while Bekman is tall and thin and stooped. Mr. Langhorne is of average height and build and in every other respect he is of average appearance, except that he shakes and he stutters and his red-black hair stands up on end like he is being electrified. The Amazing Amaryllis was there too, it touches me to say, in full stage finery and eager to talk to reporters. Together they must have made an odd picture!

Mr. Gates summoned his detectives from far and wide to scare them off but the crowd only grew. Mr. Carson wrote about them- he made a lot of comic business out of Mr. Lung's roundness of body and baldness of head and poor Mr. Angel Langhorne, who as Mr. Carson observed ”can no more easily look you in the eye than I”-that is, Mr. Carson- ”can stare at the sun.”

The crowd grew. Some of them were there to demand my release, and some of them were there to demand that I come out of hiding and explain myself, and some of them were just there to see what would happen. The news of the fighting in the rest of the Territory had been bad all week and I think some of them were expecting the Tower to explode like a big rocket and wanted to be there to see it when it did.

The Tower was sealed. Linesmen came and went by motor-car through the big bra.s.s gates or by Heavier-Than-Air Vessel from the roof, but the clerks and secretaries were as much prisoners as I was. This was by order of the Linesman Mr. Watt, who meant by doing this to keep the news of Mr. Baxter's death a secret. Of course it only attracted more attention.

I do not know who first floated the rumor that Mr. Baxter was dead, but the way Mr. Carson wrote about it in his newspaper was that the crowd all moaned at once and looked up at the cloud-wreathed Tower like they expected it to fall over on them. Even the people who hated Mr. Baxter did not want to see him go- they could hardly imagine Jasper City without him. Some of them ran away like rats while others charged the gate. The ones who ran away commenced to trigger an immediate run on the Jasper City Bank that did more damage to the city than any Bomb yet known to science or sorcery. The ones who charged the gate accomplished nothing except that they provoked the guards into shooting. The Amazing Amaryllis- who I guess was with the gate-chargers though I cannot easily imagine it in a woman of her age- got shot. Subsequently she was carried to hospital by Mr. Lung, among others. Crowds do strange things to people.

The Jasper City Bank locked its doors and posted guards at the vault and on the ornately pedimented rooftop and it hunkered down to defend itself against the public, many of whom were on the verge of open riot. One by one bits of the machinery of Mr. Baxter's Trust failed. The Northern Lighting Corporation fired its workers. Half of the Yards shut down- the workers went home and the killing engines stopped and the cattle were left to starve in their pens. A significant percentage of the detectives deserted, and Mr. Baxter's closest loyalists on the Senate mostly left town or retreated to their mansions on the bluffs. ”At this time of Crisis,” the Evening Post said, ”we are without leaders.h.i.+p.”

Well, nature abhors a vacuum and so does politics. Scarlet Jen moved to take over. In the first three days after the Jasper City Bank collapsed four Senators- the last of Baxter's loyalists- were murdered. Two died in their beds, one was shot while he gave a speech urging calm, a fourth died when his mansion burned down. On the fourth day Scarlet Jen appeared before a crowd of frightened and angry citizens in Tanager Square, on the steps out front of the Bank. She was wearing a red dress and some accounts have her wearing a hat with a red feather in it- anyhow Gentleman Jim Dark stood smiling at her side, and the Agent Rattlesnake Renner leaned his long thin body against one of the Bank's marble pillars, and scowled and toyed with a knife. I do not know how many other Agents were there.

”You know me,” she said.

I have spoken to men who were there. They say she spoke plainly. ”You've always known me. This city's known me since before most of you were born. You've always known the score even if you pretended you didn't. You know who's who and who runs things. Well now the time for pretense is over. This city must take sides- us or them. The forces of the Line are coming- you know who I am and you know that I know what I'm talking about. They let Juniper slip from their grasp; they won't let Jasper go too. But they move slow- don't be afraid. We'll take care of you.”

”They move slow,” Dark said. ”You have a week to be ready for them. Will you let them take your city from you? Are you cowards, to roll over like Gibson, or are you sporting men with a bit of fight in you?”

”It's all changed now,” Jen said. ”The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d's dead and everything's yours for the taking, if you have the b.a.l.l.s for it.”

”First we take the Bank,” Dark said. ”Who's with us?”

Twelve died in the taking of the Jasper City Bank, but the operation succeeded. Coin and bullion were shared among the mob- notes and stock were already worthless. Later that day Dark led the same mob against the gates of Baxter's Tower, without success. Fifteen died. I have no doubt that for Mr. Dark it was all great good fun.

For sixty years there had been a kind of truce in the Territory between Line and Gun. The War was fought on the Rim and in the north but the Territory was spared. That had all begun to change months ago, when word of Liv and Creedmoor's secret weapon got out- and of my Process- oh, why not call it the Bomb. They were not the same thing exactly but I guess there was a lot of confusion on that point- anyhow the great powers of the world wanted both of them. In the scramble to be first to claim control of the weapon the Line broke the truce and seized Gibson City. Then there was the uprising at Juniper City, where Liv and Creedmoor's weapon was deployed for the first time- unless you count the Miracle at White Rock, which I did not, since I do not believe that the Process was the same thing as what Creedmoor and Liv found- anyhow it was at Juniper City that the Angelus Engine was destroyed.

With Baxter's death the Gun moved to consolidate their power in Jasper, and not long after that the Line moved to retake control. It didn't take a week.

The greater part of the Line's armies in the Territory were still camped all the way over by Juniper City, but the Line had been moving elements of its forces into Jasper all summer. On the evening of the second day after Scarlet Jen and Gentleman Jim Dark raided the Bank and handed out spoils to the mob, four Submersible Vessels surfaced out of the River Ja.s.s at the point where the Senate looked out over the sunset-reddened water. Each C.S.V. disgorged a dozen Linesmen, who jumped from the backs of their vehicles onto the Senate's private dock. Two policemen were shot. The Linesmen charged up from the dock and across the Senate's rear lawn and they smashed down the rear doors of the Senate building itself- they have a special device for smas.h.i.+ng down doors, that I have never seen in operation and know only by a code-name. There was fighting in the corridors and a few more policemen were shot and the marble busts of who knows how many dead and venerable Senators were smashed in the crossfire before the C.S.V.s deployed the noise-making weapons and pacified the whole street. The Linesmen took down the Jasper City flags and they took the big bra.s.s bull down from the building's dome and they settled in to occupy the Senate. The next morning as flocks of Heavier-Than-Air Vessels flew back and forth between the Senate and Baxter's Tower an officer of the Line by the name of Mr. Lime stood on the Senate's steps and issued a statement, to the effect that the Line had been forced to act to protect its holdings in Jasper and to protect Jasper itself from any further slide into chaos.

Mr. Watt had by that time been shot, as punishment for letting Baxter die. He was replaced by a Mr. Nolt.

The city split three ways- I mean both ideologically and geographically. Some people sided with the Linesmen, some with Jen and Dark, some stood for Jasper against both sides. The Linesmen held Fenimore and Jen and Dark's mob held Hoo Lai and the bluffs and the neutrals held on wherever they could, I guess.

Mr. Nolt came to see me in my cell. He looked just like all the rest of them.

”I won't sign your d.a.m.n letter,” I said.

He waved that away. ”We're past that, now.”

I confess that I was frightened to hear him say that, and part of me wanted to plead No, I've changed my mind, I will come and work for you. I fought back that craven instinct and instead I said, ”Where is she?”

He didn't answer. Instead he stood so close to me that I could smell the stale sweat on his collar.

”So you're the one,” he said. ”You don't look like much.”

”Truth is, I don't feel like much right now.”

”Well, we need you- I don't like it but we need you. So it's time to shave and s.h.i.+ne your shoes and put on a big smile, Ransom. Or else.”

”What is there to smile about? That's a question, Officer- what's going on out there?”

They had not been taking the trouble to keep me informed about politics, so I did not know.

”Fighting,” he said. He began to pace. ”It'll all be over soon. Only a matter of time. We'll take Jasper City- not that we want it, it's a f.u.c.king cesspit, it's squalid beyond belief- but we'll take it back because that's what we do. The fighting won't matter. We have numbers, production, history on our side. Understand? We'll turn this place into a Station within the year, the Engines will come and go. Now listen.”

”Where's Adela?”

”What I don't like about you, Mr. Ransom, could fill a whole file. Understand? But the one big thing is that we need you. Numbers, ma.s.s-production, organization, ideology- that's what wins. Or it should be. Understand? Ever since that Creedmoor business last year we've been concerned with individuals. Like Creedmoor, like the General, like you with your stupid smile, Ransom. It's the Folk, that's what I think- but it doesn't matter, understand? What matters is we need you. We can take the City but it'll fight back, it'll keep fighting us, and we can't afford that- not with what's going on in Juniper, down in the Deltas, out on the Rim- all the wheels coming off- we need continuity here. A human face. Greasing the wheels, understand?”

”I don't understand, Officer. I guess I don't understand you any more than you understand me.”

”I mean, and this comes by order of the Engines themselves, who have taken an interest in you, you poor stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d, that before Mr. Baxter died of his long unfortunate illness he was so impressed by your pluck and ambition and your devotion to Jasper City that he buried your dispute and the old man personally chose you as his successor.”

I had nothing to say to that. In fact I was so surprised that I do not think I could have spoken at all without choking.

”Quite a promotion, understand? Heir to the whole enterprise. Order restored. Everyone gets in line. Everyone pulls together to get over this unpleasantness. Understand? We'll get you dressed up. You speak to the Senate in two hours. You do understand, right, Ransom? d.a.m.n it, he looks like he's choking.”

I know that I have been accused of being a collaborator, a sell-out, and other such things. I do not intend to plead my case here because what I have learned over the years is that people believe what they want to believe, and that is what makes the world go. Never apologize- keep moving. But I will say that I did not say yes until Mr. Nolt had threatened Adela and my sister May, and even after that I did not say yes until he observed that if I did not say yes the odds of a peaceful transition of power in Jasper City would be lowered by a significant percentage, and the odds of atrocity correspondingly increased. You cannot argue with mathematics.

My clothes were chosen for me and my speech was written for me and I was driven to the Senate in the middle of a military procession of motor-cars. All I had to do, as Mr. Nolt kept telling me, was smile. I read from a sheet of typed paper and I spoke without listening to what was coming out of my mouth. I was too busy trying to think of ways I might turn this sudden elevation to my advantage and against the Line. I was sure I would think of something.

I recall that I stumbled over some of my lines- something about the long history of partners.h.i.+p between the Baxter Trust and Jasper City- and I looked up. The Senate chamber was half-full, and most of the a.s.sembled Senators had a look about them that suggested they were not entirely a willing audience. I wondered what might happen if I tore up my speech and told them a few of the things I could tell them about Mr. Baxter and about the Line. I doubted I would be telling the Senators anything they did not already know, but there were reporters in the balcony, taking notes. I wondered what would happen if I told them to fight. I was not greatly experienced in making speeches of a martial character but I reckoned I could learn quickly.

Behind me Mr. Nolt coughed quietly, and I thought about Adela, wherever she was. The Senators were staring at their feet or at the walls, anywhere but at me.

Maybe there is another world where I diverted from my prepared remarks, and said what it was in my mind to say. Who knows how things in that world would have gone. One day maybe I will know, because sometimes when the Ransom Process gets up a good head of steam it seems it might burn a hole right through the world so that you can see how things might have been instead of the way they are. But I do not know now.

The silence became so heavy I could not stand it anymore.

Another time, I told myself. There would be a better moment. If I bided my time there would be a better moment.