The Rise Of Ransom City Part 16

"The Line, Mr.- I apologize, sir, I forget your name, it's been a long strange night- the Line sir and ma'am has held Gibson City for six months or more. n.o.body admits it but it's true. Their Senators still walk and talk like it's still their city but I have seen the soldiers in the street and the Heavier-Than-Air Vessels overhead and the Senators know who their masters are if no one else does. The Line came in six months ago and n.o.body dared say no. There's a silence about it. n.o.body writes it in their letters or in the newspapers but they know. People here in Jasper are pretending not to know- or do you really not know yet?"

One of the stagehands cursed. Amaryllis drew Mr. Quantrill's coat tighter around herself and s.h.i.+vered.

"They were looking for someone. They came up into Gibson because they were hunting and n.o.body knew who or why. Then we started hearing rumors about that turncoat Agent Creedmoor and the woman what ever her name is and that b.l.o.o.d.y Ransom charlatan- and the rumors said they were coming east, past Gibson- well, I don't know. The Line's mad with fear. The Engines jump at shadows. I know because I spent three months under interrogation. The things they asked me were mad."

As she said this Adela was walking ahead down the stone steps at the east end of a street so remote from the city's heart that it had no name but only a number, and that number was preposterously high, two or three hundred or more. The steps were slippery with muck and night mists and Amaryllis in her high-heeled shoes nearly fell. The steps led down to an isolated stretch of riverbank, where n.o.body lived or did business.

"The old century was theirs, and three or four before that. Who knows what the next will bring. No wonder they're afraid."

"Word got out that I was a Scientist- like this Professor Ransom, if indeed he exists. A garbled account of the piano got to the ears of the mob- you know the mania that has got into the ma.s.ses for secret weapons, magic machines to win the war. I didn't think the authorities of the Line would be equally credulous but they were. First a lawyer told me that the Baxter Trust had brought suit against me and when I told them to go to h.e.l.l they arrested me and handed me over to the Line, to be questioned and questioned over and over. They wanted to know all about the principles of automation and how I came by my learning, I said that's all I will tell you, my family name and my given name and my genius. Well, they did not like to hear that. Are you in league with Professor Ransom, they said. As if there is some world-wide b.l.o.o.d.y brotherhood of tinkerers. Had I ever been west or east or just about anywhere. Ridiculous things- what did I know about the Folk. What did I know about the Red Valley Republic. Once they start questioning you they can't stop. I was moved and moved again and questioned- they make you, they make you nothing but questions- they make you nothing- they had machines for questioning- until you're released without any kind of reason or warning and the world is . . ."

She looked up and down the length of the river. We were alone, unwatched, unpoliced. There was mud leading down to rushes and then wide black water. There were some empty shacks with caved-in tin roofs and a disused jetty. There was a bad smell- it can best be described as a sad and frightening smell- which I guess was because on the other side of the river were the Yards, the pens and slaughter houses and wire-fence mazes and red pinp.r.i.c.ks of fire all dimly visible like the camp of a vast besieging army. This figure of speech did not occur to me until later.

We were quiet for a while, thinking that it was now or never. I was thinking that I was sorry I had caused Adela to be arrested- though it was hardly my intention- and I wondered what the Line had done to her to put that desperate look in her eye. I still believed that the mind that had made the self-playing piano was a beautiful one but I was afraid it had been damaged. I thought about the machines the Line might use for questioning, and I recalled the flash of light with which they had shocked me back into life, so long ago back in East Conlan, and I s.h.i.+vered at the thought of what such a device might do if used as a weapon.

By rights she should be the hero of this story not me, but right has nothing to do with anything.

"Well," I said, and drew my gun and pretended to clean it with my sleeve. It was a stage-gun, like I said. Mr. Barnabas Busby Bosko, Wizard of the Western Rim, had two of them, one real and one fake. He used the real one to put a hole in a plank of wood, to demonstrate its deadliness, then secretly switched it for its double, which flashed and made a noise but did nothing else. Both guns were big and ornate, with fake-gold inlays and embellishments that were intended to be visible even from the cheap seats. I had checked and re-checked it but was still not entirely convinced that I had the real gun and not its double.

"Well," Adela agreed.

I didn't know what she was thinking. Later she would confess to me that she did not think that she was thinking at all, just listening to the sound of her awful father and her brothers laughing in her head, to the sound of Linesmen interrogating her over and over.

Anyhow I said, "Let's be done with it, shall we?"

Mr. Quantrill took Adela's coat and Amaryllis took mine. Amaryllis dabbed a handkerchief at her own tearful eyes, and also at a mark on my face. The stagehands offered around cigarettes, which both duelists declined. All this seemed to take a very long time. Adela saluted and I mirrored her gesture. We turned back to back. I walked slowly down-river, one pace, two paces, three, four . . .

Adela said, "What's that?"

I turned. I did not mean to shoot but my fingers had a mind of their own and pulled the trigger.

v Well. The gun was the real article and it fired all right, but the shot went nowhere near Adela. One of the stagehands threw himself facedown in the mud and Mr. Quantrill stepped bravely in front of Amaryllis, but both these gestures were unnecessary- the bullet went no place in particular, out over the river. There was a theatrical flash and a cloud of smoke. The gun made a deafening noise, which was not swallowed by the night as we'd hoped but instead echoed in it, so that we all instantly understood that every policeman for a mile up and down the river would have heard us. Three geese launched themselves skyward out of the rushes. The stagehand who had not thrown himself down in the mud broke into a run without a single word or a glance back. Mr. Quantrill raised a finger like he was about to start yelling at somebody for incompetence and irresponsibility but didn't know who to blame. Adela stood where she was, her back to me still.

What Adela had seen as she looked up-river-as she paced her ten paces- as she studied every rush and reed and ripple of black water with that precise awareness that comes to a person in the face of death, or after committing an enormous irreversible blunder- what she saw was one of the Line's Combustion-Powered Submersible Vessels rising from the river.

The C.S.V. is unique among the vehicles of the Line in that it makes very little noise- they are infrequently deployed, but the Line makes use of them for missions of reconnaissance, sabotage, and clandestine transport- and preoccupied as we were we had not noticed this Vessel approaching or surfacing.

The C.S.V. is long and black and glistening and bullet-shaped, except for two turrets and one steam-vent. It is unnerving to see it rise from the water in the same way that it is unnerving to see the Heavier-Than-Air Vessels rise up into the air- it speaks of the Line's terrible indifference to human limitations and boundaries- it suggests that no place is safe.

This particular C.S.V. operated under the orders of the Archway Engine, and carried between ten and sixteen soldiers of the Line in conditions of hideous discomfort, and was engaged in the covert delivery into Jasper of communications equipment, weaponry, and personnel. I learned all this later, of course, from a memorandum that happened to cross my desk, after the Battle. At the time all that was apparent was that the river was no longer empty, but that it had suddenly sp.a.w.ned this nightmarish metal behemoth.

What's more, a hatch in the side of the thing had opened. The face of an Officer of the Line peered out from its reeking red-lit innards. No doubt he'd expected to see a quiet stretch of undesired riverfront, empty of witnesses. Instead he saw Miss Adela Kotan Iermo &c with her weapon c.o.c.ked and lifted, and me behind her with a theatrical cloud of black smoke still wafting from my ridiculous ornate gold-inlaid pistol. The way I remember it I saw his eyes widen and then his eyebrows lift, first one then the other.

"Run," I said.

Adela did not run. Amaryllis, hiking up her skirt and kicking off her shoes, did. The stagehand who lay in the mud crawled on his knees and elbows into the rushes to hide. To this day I do not know how Mr. Quantrill escaped.

I stood beside Adela, and together we stood there pistols drawn long enough to permit Amaryllis and the stagehand and Mr. Quantrill to escape, although I will be d.a.m.ned if they ever thanked us.

The Officer of the Line had ducked back inside the C.S.V. so quickly that his hat fell off. There was a minute of silence then his men came tumbling out through the hatch, all of them crouching low to the ground and all of them holding weapons of their own.

Adela and me, we fled too.

I guess this surprised the Linesmen, who had no doubt a.s.sumed they were being ambushed by bloodthirsty battle-hardened Agents of their adversary. They did not immediately pursue us. We made it to the stone steps before they gave chase, where Adela slipped and I steadied her, or maybe she steadied me.

Anyhow in the face of a common enemy we had utterly forgotten about our duel. I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of the Code of Dueling but it seemed that honor had been satisfied. We were shot at- maybe that was all that the Code required. Three or four bullets whirred and cracked at the stone wall beside us as we made it to the top of the steps and ran down the street. Adela shot back wildly, not meaning to kill but only to scare- I did likewise. Someone shouted and then they stopped shooting at us- maybe so as not to alert the police or maybe because they hoped to capture us alive. After that they just ran after us, not quickly but tirelessly, heads down, ten or more men in ranks. The sun rose. We did not appreciate the beauty of the morning mist or the lively street-scenes of bakers and butchers and newspapermen opening their businesses and starting their days- we just ran, Adela and me dodging around bakers &c and the Linesmen behind us bowling them over and trampling them. I will not say that I was not terrified. The Linesmen seemed as implacable as Engines. I had visions of the stamping of their boots on my face and Adela's. Adela and I led each other this way and that, with a hand on the arm or a nod of the head. The Linesmen kept coming. The sun was like an electric lamp had been switched on in the sky. It was instantly hot and bright and the buildings and the lampposts and Kotan and me and all the scattering pedestrians and the Linesmen behind us cast very sharp shadows that lengthened and receded and chased us when we turned street-corners. I sweated and so did Miss Adela Kotan &c &c Iermo- I cannot speak for the Linesmen. I recall the sounds of panting, street-muck splas.h.i.+ng underfoot, Adela gasping with laughter, and how at that sudden unexpected sound I started laughing as well, until the pain in my sides and my shortness of breath made me stop. I recall a big handsome woman who wobbled between me and Adela like a bowling-pin as we ran past her on either side shrieking as she fell on the street and then the different sound of her shrieking again as the Linesmen trampled her, I guess- I did not look back. I had already looked back at the Linesmen a number of times and every time I looked I saw all of them staring at me, in a way that gave me a chill, a row of gray eyes in red sweating angry faces, and I found their expressions strange until I realized that each of them was trying to fix my own face in his memory so that he could make a full report. After that I kept my head forward, glancing only to the side to see that Adela was still with me.

I would like to say that we eluded the Linesmen through some ingenious stratagem on my part, some piece of story-book cleverness, but as a matter of fact all that happened was that the Linesmen steadily fell further and further behind. I have already written about the Ransom System of Exercises I think and this was an advertis.e.m.e.nt for its benefits- and Adela had good breeding I guess- and as for the Linesmen, I guess that living bent double in a submersible cannot be good for anyone's health. They looked smaller and smaller as they ran, not only because they fell behind but because they got more and more hunched. Slowly terror ebbed away and relief mounted, the balance tipping in favor of elation some time around our entry into the district of Hoo Lai. The Linesmen were determined but the flesh can do only so much. Each time we turned a corner there was a moment until they turned it behind us, and each time that moment got longer. We could all of us understand the mathematics of this situation but the Linesmen kept coming anyhow, determined to play it out, until eventually we turned a corner and the Linesmen did not appear behind us until we'd already turned the next. The C.S.V. by this time must have long since submerged itself and retreated up-river, its cargo undelivered. It is possible that our interruption of the C.S.V.'s delivery delayed the Battle of Jasper, at least briefly, though of course it did not stop it. I do not know what happened to the Linesmen- whether they were retrieved, or whether they just hid out in Jasper until they could be re united with the invading forces. I do not care. Anyhow by the time Adela and me turned onto Swing Street the Linesmen were long gone, and we were no longer afraid at all, in fact we were both pretending that neither of us had ever been afraid. We had forgotten our differences. We were congratulating each other on our courage under fire and our cleverness and our mutual genius. We'd survived the Linesmen together and were now firmly allied, neither of us alone in the world anymore or afraid of anything. The voices in Adela's head were silent. We started talking big plans, though to all outward appearances we were just a young and bohemian Jasper City pair staggering home after a long wild night on the town, laughing and arms around each other's shoulders and quite naturally after all we'd been through together turning and doing what in the romance-novels they might call locking our lips together, with her tugging at my wild & unruly hair and me running my hand down her back. I stumbled on the sidewalk and fell back with her pressed against me, hearts still hammering, the both of us falling together against the ornate facade of Harriman's Theater and causing a sign that advertised a night of wonder to swing back and forth. Some small boys hooted. Delicacy forbids me to say more.

CHAPTER 20.

THE ORMOLU.

When we got back to the Ormolu Mr. Quantrill yelled and threatened to send both of us away.

"You're fugitives. The you-know-what is looking for you."

"The Line," Adela said. "Those were men of the-"

"Stop that- don't talk politics in my office- get out the both of you before you ruin me."

"The way I see it, Mr. Quantrill, you're no less a fugitive than the two of us."

"I'm not- I didn't- they didn't- ah, but at least I wasn't carrying a gun."

I said nothing. I guess Mr. Quantrill was thinking about whether that would make any difference to the Linesmen if they tracked him down, and I guess he decided it would not, because the fight went out of him.

"We're in this together, Mr. Quantrill. The best thing we can do is to go on as before."

"What business does the Line have in Jasper?" Adela said. "Why would you let them tell you what you may or may not do? Back home we would never have-"

Mr. Quantrill took that as an insult and started to yell again, and kept yelling until suddenly a wicked smile crossed his face and he sat down.

"Well, Mr. Rawlins. Maybe I'm stuck with you. But I was promised an inventor and since the two of you don't seem to be able to agree on which one of you that is I guess I'll have both of you- at one wage, mind."

Adela looked so surprised and happy that I could not bring myself to protest. Besides, I could not forgo an opportunity to work with the inventor of the self-playing piano, even if she was a little mad, and even if it meant that I would go hungry.

"Don't look so shocked, Mr. Rawlins. Count your blessings. At least you've got work. Now go and do it."

Well, n.o.body likes to hear that but it is usually good advice.

It was a good summer.

Together Adela and I made a device that could be hidden beneath the Amazing Amaryllis's frilly sleeve and could project one of half a dozen cards into her palm, the selection being made by firm gestures of the wrist. Amaryllis said that it was clever but not a whole lot of use, and besides it made her wrist chafe. We made a mechanical orange tree that appeared to bloom on command. Amaryllis liked that more. That was the first difficult thing we made together, and Adela was surprised and delighted to find out that I was not a fool, that in fact I maybe was what I said I was. She kissed me. We made a mechanical dove- I regret to say that it could not fly, but it appeared to fly, which was good enough. It swung on wires out to the cheap seats and back. Its feet could hold and release rings or watches, returning those items to the audience-members from which they were borrowed with pa.s.sable accuracy. We made these things for the most part out of junk. It is astonis.h.i.+ng what kind of junk can be found in Jasper City.

Adela acquired new clothes and cut her hair. At first she stayed in one of the rooms at the Ormolu, same as me. Later when Mr. Quantrill increased our wage she moved into a tiny room in the Gate. I said I guessed it couldn't compare to the mansions of the Deltas. She said it didn't matter.

We made flashes and bangs. We made more contraptions out of mirrors than I can possibly recall, some of which were designed to conceal and others to spy. Some of them were cleverly hinged and folded so that they could make doubles, so that they could reproduce Amaryllis in s.h.i.+ning sequined triplicate. Some of them were so tiny they could fit in the Amazing Amaryllis's other sleeve, some of them were cabinet-sized, and some of them were so big that n.o.body in the theater would ever understand what they were looking at. The theater was always full, sometimes so full that boys and girls sat on the steps or perched precariously on the balcony. If you doubt me you may consult the newspapers. We got favorable notices. Once a full row at the front was occupied by serious-looking young men in brown or gray suits, who I was told were a party from the Baxter Trust. Mr. Quantrill was making money and so he was happy, though in truth it was not really because of Adela or me or any of the things we built but because it was summer, and Swing Street was booming, and like I have said there was a mania for magic. He increased our wages anyhow.

We made secret weapons- we made smoke, fire, and light. That was what people wanted and that was we gave them. Very modern-looking devices that spun gears and flashed sparks, or things that looked like ancient runes of the Folk and emitted stinks and vibrations at frightening and exciting frequencies. It was not required or expected that these devices do anything, merely that they be strange and wonderful and a little alarming. Adela and I drank in all the coffee houses on Swing Street until morning every morning sharing wild ideas, challenging each other to greater and greater feats of impossibility and absurdity. That was how Adela came to make the Automated Orange Tree, which I have already mentioned, and the famous Calculating Serpent. Both were more hers than mine.

On three occasions we were interrupted while we were dining by representatives of rival theaters looking to hire us away. We would not. We dined together frequently- I had developed plain and simple tastes out on the Rim, she craved fine food. On this, as on most matters of politics, we agreed to disagree. On another occasion while dining we were approached by a representative of the Baxter Trust looking to purchase the patent for some of our flashes and bangs, but the price he named was an insult- we agreed on that. Once I saw Mr. Merrial Carson in one of the bars on Swing Street, and he saw me and tipped his hat and waggled his extraordinary eyebrows at the two of us in a gesture I did not quite understand. Not once did we see any soldiers of the Line on Swing Street, and we decided that we had escaped them entirely. We were both very proud of that.

Together we made four different kinds of transforming or traveling or vanis.h.i.+ng cabinet, and though my vanity makes me want to describe their mechanisms, we both signed papers to the effect that we would not, and those promises are still binding, or so I believe, despite Amaryllis's death and Mr. Quantrill's and the razing of the Ormolu itself. We discussed a great many more ideas which we never had time to bring to life, and never shared with anyone. We were like a corporation or conspiracy of two, the best in the whole city.

The Beck brothers, d.i.c.k and Joshua, both read the preceding pages. Both of those excellent fellows are now grinning like bandits and d.i.c.k Beck keeps winking. So let me be clear. With the exception of that first instance after the duel, and one other occasion after the first delirious perfumed performance of the Automated Orange Tree, there was nothing of the romantic sort between the two of us. That came later- too late. While we were together at the Ormolu our communion was on a higher plane. She was the first person I had met in all my life who I thought might- if I could only tell her- understand my dreams & notions &c. That was more than enough. As a matter of fact I spent much of that summer pursuing the affections of an actress at the Dally Theater, who later escaped the Battle of Jasper unharmed- I shall not name her. She was pretty and good-natured and she did not ask difficult questions about who I was and so far as I know never once thought of shooting anybody for any reason. Adela received flowers backstage almost nightly from a young insurance agent, who I regret to say did not- escape Jasper that is. I have nothing against him and I was not jealous and when I warned him what he was getting into it was for his own good. Anyhow I shall not wax romantic. There is too much History and Politics I still have to write about.

The truth is I was sometimes somewhat terrified of Miss Adela Kotan &c &c Iermo. She was brilliant and beautiful and ingenious but I could hardly forget that on our first acquaintance she had been quite determined to shoot me- though she seemed to have forgotten that incident entirely.

Her temper was fiery, her ambition and her curiosity were at least the equal of my own, and in intellect she exceeded me. She could not understand why I was content to idle away my summer working for tricksters and theater-people, who she regarded as a very low form of life. As soon as she was fed and housed she began planning greater things.

She attempted to reconstruct the self-playing piano. She marked out a zone of s.p.a.ce backstage like a conjurer drawing his magic circle and she filled it with wires and paper punched with holes and strange unmusical sounds. Black and white keys were scattered about its perimeter. At first I was delighted to watch her work, but we both pretty quickly understood that she could not rebuild it. The plans were lost and the moment of inspiration was lost. In my experience it is often harder to rebuild than to build for the first time. Anyhow it hurt to watch. I do not know if she still blamed me for the loss of the prototype. She said she did not but sometimes she had a look in her eye that frightened me. I have spent a lot of time in war-torn places and I have seen the look in the eye of mothers who have lost their children, and that is what it reminded me of. It was her soul. I wish I had saved it.

She said it didn't matter. She visited the Yards and took notes on the deplorable working conditions and began to talk about Automation of the processes there. She wanted me to go into business with her. She wanted to approach Mr. Baxter with her ideas. I advised her against it.

"He's a thief," I said. "He will steal your ideas and give you nothing." She frowned. "I haven't forgotten that you-"

"If you want another apology it's yours. Just steer clear of Mr. Baxter and his untrustworthy Trust."

"You always talk as if you know more than you're willing to say, Hal. Here you are working for play-actors for pennies-"

"There are worse fates. Let the stage-lights fall on the Amazing Amaryllis, let Wise Master Lobsang and Mr. Barnabas Bosko struggle with fame. I'll work backstage and be happy. That's hard-won wisdom, Adela-"

"There it is again- you drop hints. You talk as if you know Mr. Baxter personally, you talk about politics and about the Great War as if you played some great part in it, but all you are is- oh, I don't mean it that way, but-"

Of course I did not explain the reasons for my low profile. Nor did I like to lie. I waited for her to depart, then I returned to my work. I had commandeered a corner of the Ormolu's bas.e.m.e.nt, hidden away behind rows and rows of costumes and painted scenes. In one corner of the ceiling there was a little light from a hole up at street-level, and in another corner there was a trap-door that led to the stage above.

Behind my workplace there was a door boarded over that led who-knows-where. Probably like most things beneath Jasper there was some picaresque ancient history of crime or politics behind it, but I did not investigate. There were rats, with whom I was willing to establish friendly relations if only they would meet me halfway.

I started to rea.s.semble the Apparatus down there.

I can't say I had any real plan for what I would do if I could re-create it. As I worked I daydreamed that I might confront Mr. Baxter with it. I wrote letters to him in my head, telling him that my spirit was unbowed. I imagined showing it to the world, refuting his libel in one bright undeniable flash of Light. The truth is that more than anything else I needed to know if it could be re-created. I was not certain. I stripped wire from junkyards. I liberated springs of all kinds from conjurers' top-hats and mirror-tricks. I sawed wood. I was able to commission the blowing of gla.s.s personally, after Mr. Quantrill showered us with money on account of what Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson wrote in the Jasper City Evening Post about the wonders of the Automatic Orange Tree. I had no choice but to steal the magnets I required, I confess it, from the electrical generators stored in a ware house belonging to the Northern Lighting Corporation. This theft too was written about in the newspapers, though it was beneath the notice of Mr. Carson. It is hard to do anything in Jasper City that escapes the attention of the newspapers, I have found.

I brewed up the acids and alkalis I needed in an old porcelain bathtub, which had previously been used as a prop in risque comedies. This process caused Mr. Quantrill some anxiety, not least because it produced odors that could be detected by the more sensitive members of the audience upstairs. Adela was curious. I told her to wait and see. That made her angry, as I recall- at that time her own work on the self-playing piano was frustrating her.

I built the frame. I used parts of an old typewriter and I used some old bra.s.s breastplates that had formerly been employed in opera, and which Mr. Quantrill did not miss.

Lastly I reproduced that red-sun-of-creation sigil that had always been at the heart of it. It was there in the wires and in the tubes and in the play of the magnetic fields. The snake eating its own tail, the always-ascending staircase &c &c. It was warm to the touch. When I pa.s.sed a charge across it there was a glow so faint that it was visible only by night, and then only if you closed one eye and stared. Adela asked again what it did and I said it did nothing so far. I did not want to tell her what it was. I kept on working.

You may recall that when I first came to Jasper, I tried to find my sister Jess. I failed. She had left her last known address, maybe because after Professor Harry Ransom And His Terrible Secret Weapon got famous it was hard being his sister. Well, I do not want you to think I am a quitter. I kept on asking around after her. I came up with this ingenious plan: I persuaded Mr. Quantrill to authorize me to hire dancing girls and concession girls for the Ormolu Theater, and under cover of that purpose I made inquiries all along Swing Street. I felt like a story-book spy, an Agent-in-training. Rumor had it she had left Swing Street. I followed her trail to a low and sinister hotel in the worst part of Fenimore. I shall not describe that place. From there rumor pointed the way to the Floating World.

The Floating World, if you have never heard of it, was a very famous- I shall be blunt- it was a very famous wh.o.r.e house. It stood on the top of the bluffs overlooking Jasper City, and sometimes at night you could see the faint red glow of its lanterns, taunting all the respectable and religious people of the city below. I was told by two or maybe three people that Jess or a woman answering to her description was working there now.

I no longer needed to borrow money from her but I believed I owed her my help, or at least an apology. You may think it would have been better if I had left her alone, but that was how I felt.

What stopped me from venturing up that well-worn trail to the Floating World was that rumor also had it that the Floating World was a front for the activities in Jasper of the Agents of the Gun. In fact this supposed secret was so open that hardly anyone in Jasper had not heard it. If I set foot in that place, might they recognize me? Professor Harry Ransom- confidant of Liv and Creedmoor, inventor of the terrible weapon that killed the giant Knoll- I could not take that chance.

Some of the Ormolu's crew were regulars at the Floating World. I asked them about it, but declined invitations to join them.

Adela, overhearing my questions, raised an eyebrow.

"If I asked what your interest in that place is, would you tell me?"

"I guess not."

"You're impossible, Hal. You and your secrets."

"I'd tell all if I could."

"You won't even tell me what you're building down in the cellar."

"Well- maybe not yet."

I did not confide in her. I wanted to- I longed to talk about her theories and mine- but I did not dare. I did confide in the other occupant of the Ormolu's bas.e.m.e.nt, who was a ghost.

This is a difficult subject. On the one hand maybe I have strained your credulity enough already. Ghosts are not uncommon on the Rim but nearly unheard of in crowded old Jasper City, and you may think I am stretching the truth. On the other I once said a long time back I would try to write the truth and the whole truth. So I will, even if it sounds unlikely. I keep my promises, when I can.

He first showed himself on my seventh night in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It had been a long night and I was still crouched over the Apparatus. It was not working. That was no big surprise. I had no money and the thing was made of junk. I had few waking hours to work on it, I was so busy making toys for the stage. Nevertheless I was in an ill humor. It seemed that I would never recover what I had had out on the Rim, when I was free. It seemed like a very long time ago. I stood and sighed and turned, meaning to bring the lantern closer to its workings.

A black man in a tall white wig and old-fas.h.i.+oned red velvet coat stood behind the lantern, its light turning his skin gold. He was wide-eyed, watching me. I jumped back, cried out, lifted a hammer to defend myself. He shook his head, then vanished. I lowered the hammer and persuaded myself that I had imagined it, perhaps mistaking a row of old coats and props for a visitor.

He came back two nights later, again appearing behind me just as I turned off the Apparatus. That time I seized the hammer and swung at his head. What I learned from that experience is that when you swing a hammer at a ghost it does not, contrary to the way it is in that one famous ghost story Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson wrote, pa.s.s as if through mist. Instead the ghost is simply not there, and he never was, but instead he is somewhere else, six feet away, then he is behind you, then he is gone, leaving you dizzy.

The third time he came back I asked him his name. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. Then he sat down on my bench, arranging his coat-tails beneath him, and looked so very sad that I felt sorry for him, and put down my hammer. Shortly afterwards he was gone.

He only appeared by night. He often opened his mouth but was never able to speak. It will no doubt have occurred to you to wonder whether he was a real ghost or simply an unexpected effect of the Process, and I do not know exactly what to tell you.

I did not think I had encountered any such presence before. Sometimes when I worked on the Process back in East Conlan I had felt like I was being watched- well, I was being watched, I guess, I had three sisters. But sometimes out on the Western Rim when I'd worked late through the night there had been motion at the corner of my eyes- I'd guessed rabbits, or cats on the prowl. I had never seen a ghost.

I asked the employees of the Ormolu if there were ghosts in their establishment and all of them said that there were, but that's just how theater-people always are and it did not necessarily mean anything. The ghost himself could not answer my questions or explain himself.

He had no visible wounds or cause of death. He was dressed in old-time finery and I imagined he might have been one of the founding generation of Jasper City, a n.o.bleman or n.o.bleman's private secretary back in the ancient days when Jasper had n.o.blemen. If so he had lived in the days before Gun and Line, before the Great War, when our world was still being made and everything was possible. Like I said, he could not answer my questions.

I called him Jasper.

"Jasper," I said, "this device you're looking at is the notorious Ransom Light-Bringing Apparatus. Tell no one."