by Various
The owner looked at me, at the woman, who kept staring at Nothing, and back at me.
“What d’ya want?”
“Well, it said Hotel outside. Sorry if I’m the first to break it to you. My name’s Harry Ransom. I need a room. Myself and my assistant.”
“That’s two rooms.”
“One. I like him close by, in case I have a flash of genius and someone has to take notes. I’m a scientist, you see.”
I smiled at the owner, and then at the woman, who kept staring, and then at the owner again.
I said, “Can I ask your name?”
“Adams.”
“Well, good afternoon, Mr. Adams. I’m new in town.”
“You here for the celebrations?”
“I never miss ’em. Sure. What celebrations, exactly?”
Adams got to his feet, and tossed the washcloth into a bucket. He is short, also bald, with hair scraped thin across his scalp but bushy sideburns below.
“Founding Day, of course.”
“Right.” I nodded and smiled. I have never heard of it. Have you, Jess? I don’t recall Founding Day being observed back in good old East Condon. You know I am terribly ignorant of History, always with my eyes on the Light Of The Future &c, but I think I would have heard of it. By the way I shall forget to ask later so I’ll ask now if your kids are doing okay.
“We got rooms,” Adams said. “No one travels much these days. A dollar a night. That’s two dollars for you both—you and your hairy friend, wherever he’s gone to.”
“Fetching my bags.”
“Right.” Adams went to stand behind the bar. “You said. Eight dollars and you can stay for the week.”
“Is that for both of us?”
The town is called Disorder. Not a good omen, you might think, but not necessarily a bad one, either. In my extensive experience there are two basic ways of naming towns out in this part of the western Rim. One is to name them after some sort of local Hill Folk word, which usually turns out to be the word for how dare you or go away or stop touching that. Like Kloan, for instance, or Kumko. The other way is when you get to the Edge where you daren’t go farther you just stop and pick a word at random out of whatever dog-eared sacred text you happened to have with you on the journey, like Sam Smiles’ Self-Help Commonplace Book or The Book of the White City or whatever your tastes run to, and that’s how you get Increase and Prosperity and Dominion, but also how you get Mischief and Abomination, and once I passed through a Shellfish, and my theory as a Scientist and a Man of the World is that Disorder is the same story: it means nothing. You may not have found this little lecture interesting, Jess, but it beats an account of the haggling which followed, all throughout which Adams wiped the bar pretending like he wasn’t interested and didn’t need my business, and I pretended not to be starving, and the fat woman kept staring, until I began to wonder, being starving and light-headed, if she was stuffed.
We got it down to six dollars for the week, which I still didn’t have. I said, “Forget the money. Let me make you a better offer.”
“No,” Adams said.
“I said I was a Scientist. I said that, I’m pretty sure, and I can already tell not much escapes you. What kind of Scientist, you’re wondering, and what’s he doing out here, why isn’t he back in Jasper City or Gibson at one of the big brick universities with the robes and the funny hats, why’s he out here, on the ragged edge of creation? No offense to your great little town here—I mean that as a compliment to your courage and pioneer spirit. Out here, making the world, a Light in the dark, et cetera and et cetera.”
“I charge for wasting my time, Mr. Ransom. It’s back to eight dollars now.”
“Light,” I said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ll get to the point. I am a maker of Light.”
You know how I get when I am on this topic, Jess.
“I won’t bore you with the science. It’s Electricity, which is a kind of lightning, and there’s more to it but that’s the essence. Light in the glass, the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, like God himself in a bottle. One spark, one little spark, and then there’s Light forever—it pays for itself in candles and lamp oil in less than a month. My assistant Carver’s got the Apparatus, I’m afraid, out with my bags, the lightning jars and the capacitors and the coils and everything. I’d love to show it to you but instead, here.”
I gave him one of my last business cards, and pointed to where it said, Inventor of the Ransom Process.
“Never heard of it.”
“You will. You know, Adams, as it happens I am looking for investors….”
“Oh yeah? I know how this goes. I bet there’s a reason why you can’t get it working right now, but if I give you some money, well then…”
“You got me. The fact is I’m lacking some parts, due to an accident on the road.”
That was the truth but not the whole truth, Jess. I was lacking some parts, though also other parts, and in fact everything.
I said, “Valuable stuff, I’m sorry to say, was lost.”
Adams perked up. “Valuable?”
“Very! Materials alone worth a prince’s ransom.”
“Well, what’re we talking about? You mean gold or… ?”
“Brass. Copper. Zinc. Certain very valuable chemicals and minerals you don’t even have names for. And yes, gold, too.”
That’s true, Jess—there are certain parts of the Process that require an inert metal, if you know what that means. There was some gold in the Apparatus, though only a very little.
“But that’s not important—mere earthly dross. We’re talking about Light.” I gestured at the shadows of the room, at the dark heaps of dusty furniture. “We’re talking about the abolition of night. This whole town, gleaming, why, people would come from miles around to—”
Adams looked interested despite himself. “And it runs on—”
“Once it gets started it runs on itself, spinning and spinning like the sun. The word is perpetual. But I’m not going to tell you how that works, because that’s not the deal. I’m not going to ask for money, either. Here’s the deal. I need some time to fix my apparatus, and gather parts. I’d like to work right here. It’s private, and quiet, by which I mean I’ve noticed you don’t have a whole hell of a lot of business here. That’s all right. I’m a businessman too, as well as a scientist, and I know what it’s like to have a bad patch. I’ll work here, and when I get the apparatus up and running again the first place in town I’ll install it is right here. And because I’ll be working for you, it’s only fair I get room and board free. Right?”
Adams looked at the fat woman for support, but she didn’t give it.
“How long?”
I wondered how far I could push it, and settled on two weeks.
“Two weeks, and if you don’t do what you said you’d do by the end of it, which you won’t, I keep your whatever you called it, your apparatus.”
I honestly was not steering him in this direction, and was caught by surprise. I know you think I am something of a con artist, but I had pretended to send Carver for my nonexistent bags only so that I wouldn’t look like a bum, which I am not. My conscience reproached me, but I ganged up on it with my hunger and exhaustion and wrestled it down.
I said, “In two weeks, Adams, if I don’t come through, you can have everything but the clothes on my back.”
We shook on it.
Jess, this has been a great help to me, talking it out with you. I recall what I said precisely, and I do not think that I lied, though I may have misled or allowed Mr. Adams to mislead himself. He is desperate for money, by the way, and that is why he jumped at the chance of acquiring the Apparatus for parts. Disorder is in the grip of a Drought so bad it seems like the whole town might dry up and blow away into the west at any moment, and all the farms are failing and no one comes to market here, and all the fighting between Line and Gun is not helping business any either, and he needs to move on but no one will buy this big crumbl
ing ruin of a Hotel from him. Of course in two weeks when I have nothing to give him then he will very likely consider me a fraud regardless. Almost but not quite casually he mentioned to me while I was eating that his wife is the Mayor and his brother-in-law is the Sheriff.
I do not know what I will do, but something will turn up, no doubt.
So Adams brought me something to eat. I told him I was a Vegetarian and that took some explaining, believe me. He asked where I had come from, and I said I had gotten turned around some but thought I had come here from the north, and he thought that couldn’t be right because I would have passed through Wild Folk territory, alone except for Carver, and would have known about it, if you know what I mean. Well I said the First Folk and I have never been at odds, and he looked at me very oddly in a way that gave me a chill.
Then since that was the mood at the table already I told him about what happened in Wherever. I thought I ought to warn him, I guess, that the War is coming to these parts. I could not tell him the actual name of the town or where it was exactly. He guessed for a while, throwing out names of places I’d never heard of. The fat woman did too. It was the first time she’d spoken, and her eyes lit up. She wanted to know all about the Motor Cars and the Heavier-Than-Air Vessels and whether they used the Ironclads, and I told her there weren’t any of the Ironclads, thanks for small mercies, and she asked whether they used the poison gas or the rockets or the wire or the noise-makers or any of the other horrible weapons they use. Some people get like that about the Line, I think because they have been afraid so long they end up a little in love with it, like some Religious people get about Death. She wanted to know what they were looking for: smugglers, she suggested, or refugees from the Republic or maybe even an Agent of the Gun. She said the Line had been hunting for someone or something in this part of the world ever since that incident at the Hospital, and I didn’t ask which Hospital or what incident because I just wanted to get away from her horrible hungry grin. I do not like thinking about these things. Also, just half an hour ago, while I was writing this letter or maybe the letter to Sue, at the writing desk in this little room under the mirror beside the window, a Vessel passed overhead. I heard it first then saw it out of the window, iron wings beating, bullying through the clouds and for a moment defacing the moon. They are hunting for someone, and one of the things about the Line is that even though you know it isn’t you and there is no reason for it to be you it still always feels like it is, like you have done something terribly wrong for which you must be punished, and will be punished forever. Anyway you know how I get in the dark, and I do not want to stop writing because then I shall have to put out the Light of this candle.
How are the kids? See, I remembered to ask.
H.
III. Founding Day
Dear Sue,
Two letters in two days! Surely a record. Don’t panic. All I have in the world is the clothes on my back and writing paper, because the rooms in the World’s Edge have writing paper, so I write. Like the Process, once begun it is Perpetual. I believe the writing paper was left there by the Smilers, for the purpose of making Confessions and Resolutions on. Instead I am writing to you.
I am still in Disorder. I should say that in addition to writing paper I have acquired a razor for shaving and needle and thread for the white suit and I am almost presentable again; you would not necessarily be ashamed to acknowledge me your brother.
I have entered into a new business arrangement. You can picture it as triangular. It involves me, and the whole town of Disorder, and a Mr. Flood, who is a Scientist like myself, a Rain-Maker. I stand to make between 150 and 300 dollars, depending on how things go, and also to do some good for some people who’ve had a bad time lately, much worse than me. It is not exactly my usual arrangement, but out here you have to take things as they come.
Yours,
Harry.
Hi Jess. There is a fellow here who is exactly like some of those boys you used to run with back in East Condon when you were wild and I was a skinny kid with my nose always in a book of Mathematics. He is also exactly like what some people take me for, by which I mean I think but cannot prove that he is a crook. His name is Mr. Flood, but that can’t be his real name. I guess there are people who come by that name honestly, but not this guy. He is a professional Rain-Maker, you see, the same way I do Light, and “Flood” is just too pat. He and I are in business together, in a way. Let me explain.
I think I said in last night’s letter that Disorder is in the grips of Drought, worst of all the horrors of the western Rim. The irony, if that’s the right word, is that three days’ walk to the north in Wherever it was raining just fine, in fact more than I liked, enough to seep under canvas and threaten the integrity of the Apparatus. Probably three days’ walk south of Disorder there is rain too. The weather out on the Rim is not reliable, as you know. Out here the weather, like just about everything else in the world of nature or Man or Folk, is always up for renegotiation without warning.
So farming is what Disorder does, or did, before the Drought. There are maybe three hundred souls here. The World’s Edge Hotel is at its western end like a pioneer striding into the wilderness, and behind it straggles Main Street, which frankly is kind of halfhearted as these things go. There are a couple of general stores and a doctor of sorts and three lawyers, which seems excessive but what do I know. There is a huge sprawl of farms with wire fences and yellow dead-looking vegetation and bony animals and a few unfree Folk working in chains, which you know is a thing I have never liked to see. Otherwise it is not so ugly. It is in a dry waterless valley between two hills. The northwestern one has a strange kind of point like a crumpled witch’s hat when seen from most Main Street angles, and that is probably why they call it Big Witch or the Big Red Witch. The southeastern one is nameless and I guess just hill-shaped.
The better of the two general stores is Jo’s. The woman who runs it is pretty and blonde in the way of a flower that is a little faded but only needs water to come alive. I walked into her store this morning because when you are trying to make a deal with a town it is always good to get the store-owners on your side first, and because often the women are more open than the men are to hearing about the wonders of the Process and about Light and the New Century &c, and because I needed to buy needle and thread for the white suit and a razor for shaving, and she threw in ink for free, the ink you’re reading now. It was Jo who told me all about Disorder and about the Founding Day celebrations and about Mr. Flood, who she doesn’t like so much and I think neither do I, but she likes me and I am a little bit what you might call smitten with her. Now we (Jo & me) are sitting out side by side on the warm rocks and watching the sun set over the town and the valley and the Founding Day stage and Flood’s Pole and she is smiling at me. You have no idea how much work I invested in getting her to smile, but once she gets that first smile going the rest come easily and without cease. I told her I am writing to my business partners back east, which is true in a way, Jess, in that I still owe you money. It is one of those pretty scenes you could only really get out here, where everything may be gone at any moment. I should put this letter away now. More later if all goes well. H.
Hello May.
It seems only fair, after my last letter to you, that I let you know I’m okay, though I’m sure you will have heard from our sisters, if I ever get to a place where any of these letters can be mailed. In fact I guess you will get these letters all at once, so you may read them out of order and know I am okay before you knew I was in trouble. That is not so different from the jumbled-up way Time gets out here anyway. For me it is always one day into the Future. For Disorder it could be fifty years ago or it could be four hundred years. For the Line it is always wartime, and for the Folk up on Big Witch maybe it is a million years ago. May, I had a drink tonight and you know I ordinarily never drink but I had to look confident for the people of Disorder, who are now counting on me. So forgive me if I get confused.
Anyway I was aski
ng you before if you knew what Founding Day is. I have had it all explained to me, and that is what got me thinking about Time.
Adams from the hotel is a Webb on his mother’s side and the Mayor is a Nimmo. That may not mean much to you and it didn’t mean much to me, but it means they are direct descendants of families from Founding. And so are a lot of other people in town. One of the lawyers traces his heritage back to Governor Self himself, or so he said, and I nodded and smiled. I never cared for History, but I know that Founding was the first colony in this world on this side of the Mountains when everything was just woods and before anything anywhere had names or at least had names in our language. That must be three or four thousand miles from here, or more, and four hundred years ago. Every summer at high summer they celebrate Founding’s survival. Survival against what, I asked. Against the dark, Jo said. Ask Jess about Jo. The Mayor said, survival against the wild Folk of the Woods, who came at night and clawed at the walls. They have built a kind of stage for the celebrations. It has painted trees and painted darkness and part of a high wall. It looks fun in a morbid way. To these people it is like a religion and no dumber or less dumb than any other religion. I am sorry, May. That is rude and I should strike it out.
It is night and there is a Vessel going overhead again. Down on Main Street on the wall of the lawyer’s house someone has posted up WANTED posters in the gray-black print of the Line, for a John Creedmoor and a Doctor Lysvet Alleroosyn and a Drunkard Cuffee and some other people I do not remember the names of. It said that they were Agents of you-know-what. I do not like the Line, but its enemies are even worse, of course—thieves and murderers and bandits and bank robbers and wicked, wicked men and women, or so everyone says. I felt sorry for them anyway.