The Rise of Ransom City

by Felix Gilman

  We were not fifteen minutes’ walk back down the road together and I was still smarting from my bruises when John Creedmoor turned to me and shoved me against a tree, dislodging a light fall of snow.

  “I should kill you,” he said, “Damn it I should just—”

  He had only one good hand and his leg was hurt and he wobbled but I still did not think I could fight him.

  I said, “But—”

  “We had little enough chance of success before and now when word gets out— and word will get out— the people of White Rock will not hold their tongues forever— damn it in the old days I’d have shot ’em all myself—when word gets out then every idiot in every town from here to the World’s Walls will be on the lookout for us to gossip or catch us for a reward or worse try to fucking help us. This is no game, this is not a story-book, this is not theater, this is war, Ransom. I should kill you. Damn it, I think I will kill you.”

  He let go of me, and drew his gun.

  Miss Harper put a hand on his arm and persuaded him to change his mind.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “He’s right, Harry.”

  I said, “But—” again.

  “Don’t follow us,” she said. “Good luck with your Apparatus and Mr. Baxter and all of that, and I’m sorry about what happened to Carver, I really am, and I’m sorry we ever dragged you into our affairs. But it’s better for all of us if we each go our ways and— well, just, good luck, Harry.”

  I was for once lost for words.

  I watched them walk away.

  I would not see either of them again for a very long time.

  The rest of that night was very long and cold and that’s all I intend to say on the matter.

  THE SECOND PART

  THE RIVER

  CHAPTER 11

  THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND PART

  Well. So that was the first part of my story. After I finished it I wrapped two of the three copies in parcel-paper and entrusted them both to young Dick Beck. He has taken them into town, with instructions to mail one copy to my friend the famous journalist Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson, and to leave the other copy in a prominent place, such as a pulpit or doctor’s office or saloon bar. The mails these days cannot be trusted and who knows whether Mr. Carson will get it or he won’t but if he does I hope it will answer certain questions.* Dick is also taking the usual open invitation to Ransom City. He took a pistol and a knife. The roads are dangerous here. Same as everywhere else these days. Meanwhile I am tinkering with the typewriter and with the Apparatus.

  We are camped by a river. I don’t know what the locals call it but I have started to think of it as Adela’s River, because it is fast and bright and musical like the piano. We have been here for the better part of a week, mostly waiting for Dick Beck’s return. The quartermaster of our expedition is a deserter from the Line by the name of Rapp, who is hard at work planning and ordering and who without whom we would surely be doomed right from the start, but I am no good at that kind of work so here I am.

  There are more than a hundred of us now, and I no longer know everyone’s name. We are dreamers and drifters. The first of us were men and women of science. That’s what I say in every invitation to Ransom City that I leave nailed to hitching-posts or meeting-house doors or &c. Nobody will be turned away. It’s surprising who finds us. Seventh sons. Refugees. Traveling salesmen. We have more than the usual number of homosexuals. Jailbirds. Soldiers of every side. Men who disgraced themselves back in the War and a few who distinguished themselves. Edge-of-the-world types, for whom a trip into the unmade lands is all in a day’s work— solitary fellows who are silently happy to travel in a pack— men who would have been born Folk if they had only had the option. We have a couple of dozen men and women who left their homes back in ’91 to follow Liv Alverhuysen and John Creedmoor east, in what the newspapers at the time called the ’91 Dash or the Fools’ Pilgrimage or the Great Transcendentalist Nonsense, and who have been wandering ever since, looking for the next promise of salvation. We have more adherents of more faiths than I knew there were, not just the Smilers and the snake-handlers and the Silver City types but also—

  * * *

  * I got it all right, though it took a year to find me. It came in the mail. Subsequent Parts of Mr. Ransom’s story had less luck with the mail, and had to be painstakingly assembled over the course of many years, from scattered fragments. I acquired most of the Second Part fifteen years after it was mailed; I purchased it from a retired officer of the Line, a mail censor, and though I do not like censors I honor my promises, and he shall remain nameless. —EMC

  The truth is that I thought we would have been arrested long since. I am a notorious individual. When I began sending out my letters I would have bet you I’d be arrested within the week. My letters were a poke in the world’s eye. I was tired of anonymity.

  I cannot believe the Line forgives me for what happened at Jasper. I cannot believe the Gun has forgotten me. And yet here I am, still walking around free and making speeches and telling people how it will be in Ransom City and now I am thinking that maybe it will even happen. Maybe the world is changing faster than I thought. Maybe the Great War really is coming to an end. From time to time wreckage comes floating down the river, like a piece of an Ironclad’s tracks or a tangle of barbed wire. Who knows.

  Why are they following me? Well, I’m a good talker. I made my living selling the impossible. I have the map— that precious map she gave me, of the way west beyond the settled world’s rim. There are not many like it. I am the inventor of the Ransom Process, which is our great strength and our only defense. I am mad in a way that infects others. I want to do one thing perfect and right and magnificent and that does not go wrong and if I have to build a new world for that to happen in then I will do so. I will go out into lands not yet settled by men and I will go out past lands settled by Folk and out past it all if I must.

  Ransom City will be arranged in a wheel, I’ve decided. The circle is a perfect form and rich in significance, and also practical. We will expand in rings as others join us. We will build tall. It will be a city of elevators and buildings that taper into the sky. The spokes of the wheel will be treelined avenues, where there will be theaters and on the corner of every street self-playing musical instruments. No one will go hungry and everyone will have their share because there will be abundance for all, and every man will work on tasks that please him and suit his spirit. Women too. Children, especially. Each and every tree will be lit at night by the lamps of the Process. If anyone lives out there already there will be fair dealing— there will be peace between us and plenty enough for all without stealing. I am an honest businessman. It will be a new world.

  Dick Beck’s back. He got in a scuffle with some fellows who blacked his eye and tore his shirt and bloodied his nose but he could be worse— he does not stop smiling. The letters are in the hands of Fortune now. I told him that in the new city in the unmade lands he’ll be Postmaster General, and I do not think he understood I was joking. Well, I guess somebody has to be. Anyhow tomorrow we move on. I should tear this up and start over.

  This is the story of my second and third brushes with History. I am going to try to write as much as I can to night, by the glow of the Apparatus. This is the story of how I got to Jasper City and how I got rich and famous and how it all came to an end.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE PIANO

  In the weeks and months after White Rock I wandered, drifting in no particular direction, first out west and then north and then back east. I was hungry for much of the winter. I took hard jobs or sometimes jobs of questionable legality. I presented myself as a man of the Smiler faith fallen on hard times and was given bread and shelter and lectures about perseverance and bootstraps. The Apparatus was gone and my savings were gone and my friend Mr. Carver was gone. Even my name was gone. I did not dare call myself Harry Ransom any more. After White Rock who knew who might be looking for Harry Ransom. I grew a beard and I let m
y hair go wild and I called myself by different names, like John Norton and Joe Reiser and others I forget.

  I wrote a hundred letters. I wrote

  Jess. I cannot tell you where I am so do not even wonder about it. Things have not worked out so well for your kid brother as he hoped and he has got himself into trouble again. The Apparatus came to nothing after all. The future does not belong to me after all. I hope you are doing well in Jasper City and that you are a famous singer or actress or what ever it is that you do on the stage, your letter did not say. Sometimes I wish I could come home. Yours, H.

  Or

  Hello May. It’s your brother. I was thinking of your letter and how you said you prayed for me, and I was thinking of the time back in East Conlan when we were children and I ran off into the woods and when I came back I said that I had been living with the Folk there, and I think that is the first time you prayed for me, or anyone prayed for me. At the time I was angry but now I know you meant well. Maybe you are right and I have been unwise. A prayer or two would not go amiss and I would pay you back in kind if I knew how.

  Or

  Mr. Baxter, I have never written to you before but you may have heard my name, I am an inventor or businessman like you. Your book about your struggle from rags to riches was a great inspiration to me and I know it just about by heart. In Chapter Three and again in Chapter Six you said that even in your lowest adversity you never despaired because you knew you were made for greater things. That is a good trick and I wish you would tell me how it works.

  Maybe you read about what they are calling “The Miracle of White Rock.” That was my work. It was not exactly how they wrote about it in the newspapers but it was a hell of a show. One day it will change the world. I would like to talk to you one day. I am kind of in trouble but maybe one day a man of your stature might recognize a kindred soul and help out.

  Sincerely, Professor Harry Ransom.

  Most of the letters I wrote I did not send. I could not afford to. But I scraped together the money to mail that last letter to Mr. Baxter. Then I left town— I didn’t dare wait for an answer.

  I stayed for three weeks in a town called Split Hoof, where I went by Joe Reiser and made a small living writing letters for other people, mostly about cows. That was where the rumors first caught up with me. A man came to the market with half-a-dozen goats and the news that a rogue agent of the Gun named John Creedmoor and a jet-black wizard called Ransom and a beautiful blond woman had invented an Apparatus that could kill the Engines of the Line or the demons of the Gun, and that they were bringing it slowly along the road east and north to the Station of Harrow Cross itself. He was known as a drunk and nobody believed him. I moved on anyhow. In the next town I read about the incident at White Rock in the newspaper.

  I had no money to construct a new Apparatus. Even if I had money, I would not have dared. I did not know if I could. I did not remember how it could be done. I had saved a few of my notes and sketches from the disaster at White Rock, but when I looked at them now they were nonsense to me, like childhood poems or riddles. I sketched the mathematics by candlelight but could not make any part of it begin to balance. I could not even recall how the light of the Process had looked. When I passed back through the town of Caldwell I purchased dope from a man in an alley and lay all through a cold bright day in the street trying to recall the Light, and though I saw a great many strange things I did not see what I wanted. I missed Mr. Carver terribly.

  Once I wrote a letter to say:

  Mr. Carver. I am sorry that the last thing you said to me was about what I stole. It was not that way. I wish I could explain to you, or you could explain to me maybe. I wish you could come back, so we could talk one more time.

  But of course I had no place to send it. Not even a burial place. No body. The Process had swallowed everything.

  I went to the town of Domino because I heard they were looking for engineers. The town was built on the banks of the River Ire, just a half-mile upstream from a Line camp. Domino was newly rich and anxious about it. The camp brought in goods and matériel and men from the factories of the north, and some small part of that wealth ended up in Domino’s pockets. Main Street sported new and empty second stories and storefronts full of shiny goods nobody knew what to do with.

  I stood in a line outside one such building. It was one of those days that is not yet spring, where everything is bright but still bitter cold, and the storefronts glittered. When at last I got to the front of the line and into the building, I was allowed to present myself to a black-hatted man behind a desk, who looked at me like I was a defective part or stray nail that might just maybe be hammered into shape. I gave him a false name and an account of my experience and qualifications that was false in details but just about honest enough in substance. He scratched some quick notations in his ledger and told me he guessed I could be useful and named an insultingly low wage. Domino was to be electrified, he said, in the interests of efficiency and modernization and at the urging of the Linesmen in Camp Ire. He pushed a contract and a pen across the table. There was a space for my name, and beneath it the words For the Northern Lighting Corporation. I said that I would sooner starve than work for the Northern Lighting Corporation. He took back the pen and asked me if I was mad. I snatched the pen back from him, I do not know exactly why, and I said that maybe things hadn’t worked out so well for me but I had my pride still. He took off his hat and stood up. We exchanged some further words. It was not my finest hour and I do not enjoy recalling it. Two men lifted me by my arms and removed me from the building and threw me down in the street. I jumped up to my feet and brushed down my coat and turned with as much dignity as I could muster, smiling as if nothing in the world mattered to me, and walked down to the riverfront. There I met a man from the crew of the riverboat Damaris, who offered me a job, mainly I think because of my smile.

  “Why not,” I said.

  I was sick and tired of the land. It was time to give the water a fair try. If the science existed I would have taken to the air instead.

  The Damaris was a tall red affair, with a great white wheel, and a profusion of lanterns. She looked like an opera house or a whore house escaped from the big city streets and gone looking for adventure. She was dusty and creaky and rotting in places— no longer young, but still outrageous. She had no business in a business-like place like Domino, and none of her crew liked being anywhere near the Line’s Camp. She resupplied and let off passengers and hired me and moved on at once, which suited me just fine.

  The Damaris was owned by a man called John Southern. He was missing two fingers on his left hand and an old scar made his left eye droop in a way that was like a wink. He was quite bald on the top of his head but wore his gray hair extravagantly long behind, and his gray mustache hung right down to his collar, which was high and starched but dirty. Altogether these peculiarities lent him a roguish air. I knew at once that I would not be able to help liking him, but also that he was not a good man, and that he would never pay me regularly or fairly.

  “Name?”

  “Hal Rawlins.”

  His handshake was crushing. He glared for a moment then grinned. “Well, I’ve heard worse, Mr. Rawlins. Charley says you’re looking for work. You look like you got a story. Everybody’s got a story these days. Don’t tell me. You sing?”

  “I never tried but I guess I could learn. Charley said you needed a—”

  “A man with a knack for machines, yeah. That you? Charley says you can talk like you got learnin’. Say somethin’ learned.”

  “Light,” I said, “must be considered a form of energy, not dissimilar in nature to electricity or heat. It is a creative energy, a refinement of the raw Ether; darkness is merely its absence. It—”

  I was quoting from the Encyclopedia published by the Baxter Publishing Corporation of Jasper City, parts of which I happened to have by heart.

  “All right, all right. You a Linesman, Mr. Rawlins?”

  “I am not.”


  “I’ll have no Linesmen on board. Twenty years I’ve worked this river, since back when Damaris herself was alive and dancin’. You a dancer, Mr. Rawlins? No? Never mind. Got a girl for that. Twenty years and every year business gets harder as the Line gets closer. What keeps me afloat right now is defiance and spite.”

  I had in fact noticed that the Damaris was light on passengers.

  “I have my own grievances against the Line,” I said. “I understand.”

  “You’ll keep ’em to yourself, then. You been to school?”

  “Some school. Not much. I’m self-taught.”

  “We go all the way east to the Three Cities and into Jasper City, where the University is. Sometimes we get rich folks’ kids on board. What’s that look for, Rawlins, you don’t want to see the big city?”

  “Let’s talk about this machine. What do you need me for? As far as I can tell the wheel turns the, let’s say the old-fashioned way.”

  This was what the learned Professors of Jasper City would call a euphemism, which is to say a magic word to make the world seem better than it is. What I meant was that the wheel of the Damaris was turned by a team of Folk, who were kept in chains below. Mr. Southern gave me a searching look and I thought he might be about to say something on that subject, but instead he nodded and then slapped the top of the piano.