Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

This book, unlike the one recovered from the Tip at Williams Ford, possessed a brightly colored paper wrapper, with a picture of what I recognized from previous study as the Plains of Mars, dusty under a pinkish sky. The printed image was so crisp and clear it made me shiver, as if the ethereal winds of that distant planet were blowing out of it. “But it must be very valuable,” I said.

“There are things in this building far more valuable than that. Authors and texts from the Efflorescence of Oil and before. Think about the Dominion-approved literature we were raised on, Adam, all that nineteenth-century piety the clergy admire so—Susan Warner and Mrs. Eckerson and Elijah Kellog and that crew—but the Dominion readers don’t include Hawthorne from that era, or Melville, or Southworth, just to begin with. And as for the twentieth century, there’s a whole world we haven’t been allowed to see—scientific and engineering documents, works of unbiased history, novels in which people curse like sailors and fly in airplanes… Do you know what we found locked away in the cellar, Adam?”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

“Movies!” He grinned. “At least a dozen of them—movies on celluloid film, in metal canisters, from the days of the Secular Ancients!”

“I thought none had survived.”

“I thought so too, until we uncovered these.”

“Have you seen any of them?”

“Not yet. They’re fragile, and they don’t run in the simple projection machines we use. But I assigned a group of mechanics to study them and work on the problem of duplicating them for posterity, or at least rendering them into a form more easily viewed.”

This was all wonderful and daunting. I took books from the shelves and handled them reverently, fully conscious that they had not been regarded by sympathetic eyes since before the Fall of the Cities. Later Julian would give me another book he had culled from among the Archival duplicates, a short novel called The Time Machine by Mr. H. G. Wells, about a marvelous but apparently imaginary cart which carried a man into the future—and it fascinated me—but the Archive itself was a Time Machine in everything but name. Here were voices preserved on browning paper like pressed flowers, whispering apostasies into the ear of a new century.

It was dark by the time we left, and I was dazed by what I had seen. We were silent for a time as the carriage and its military escort passed along Broadway and into the grounds of the Presidential Palace. But I had been thinking about what Julian had said regarding movies, and I was reminded of that project he used to talk about so passionately, namely The Life and Adventures of the Great Naturalist Charles Darwin. “What about your movie, Julian?” I asked. “Have you made any advancement on that front?” Julian was busy these days with matters of State; but in his spare time, he had admitted to me, he still contemplated the project, which might now be within practical reach; and he had begun writing a script for it.

On this occasion he was evasive. “Certain things are difficult to work out. Details of plot and so forth. The script is like a horse with a nail in its hoof—it isn’t dead, but it won’t move forward.”

“What are the problems exactly?”

“I make Darwin the hero of it, and we see his fascination with beetles, as a child, and he talks about the relationship of all living things, and then he gets on a boat and goes looking at finches—”

“Finches?”

“For the shape of their beaks and such, which leads him to certain conclusions about heredity and environment. All this is important and true, but it lacks…”

“Drama,” I suggested.

“Drama, possibly.”

“Well, the boat is a good touch. You can’t go wrong with a boat.”

“The heart of the thing eludes me. It won’t settle down on paper the way I want it to.”

“Perhaps I can help you with it.”

“Thank you, Adam, but no. I would rather keep the business to myself, at least for now.”

If Julian’s cinematic work-in-progress lacked drama, the incidents of daily life did not, especially regarding his increasingly hostile relations with the Dominion of Jesus Christ in general and Deacon Hollingshead in particular.

Sam told me he feared Julian was involving himself in a battle he could never win. The Dominion had a devious history and deep pockets, he said, and Julian’s best bet would be to ingratiate himself with the Senate, and be sure to keep the Army on his side, which would give him greater leverage in any political wrestling match with Colorado Springs.

But that was strategy for the long run; in the short term it was the threat to Calyxa that concerned us. Julian’s capture of the Dominion Archive did not result in the withdrawal of the Writ against Calyxa… nor did it seem that Julian would be willing to surrender his prize, now that he had it in his possession, even if such a bargain had been offered. But he continued to insist that Calyxa was safe; and I could hardly believe otherwise, since it would require a wholesale revolution before the Dominion could march onto the grounds of the Executive Palace and take her into their custody. In all likelihood, Julian said, Deacon Hollingshead wouldn’t even issue a summons to court; if he did, Julian would see that it was quashed.

In light of all this he began to take a greater interest in the events that had resulted in the Writ of Ecclesiastical Quarantine in the first place. “This Church where you were Found In,” he asked Calyxa, “is it still in operation or did Hollingshead shut it down completely?”

The Parmentierist friends Calyxa had made in the city continued to keep her informed of developments. She sat on a sofa in the guest-house (this was late in March, on a windy night), her swollen belly prominent under a maternity dress Mrs. Comstock had obtained for her. She looked beatific, I thought, with her coiled hair for a halo; and I could not so much as glance at her without smiling to myself. [The glances she returned were not always equally warm, for carrying a child to term is a cumbersome job, which can wear down a person’s good spirits.]

“Its former location has been seized and put up for auction,” she said. “But Pastor Stepney managed to avoid arrest. The Church of the Apostles Etc. continues to meet, at a new location… and with a different congregation, since the first batch are still in prison.”

“I’m curious about this church. We might do ourselves a favor by learning more about the case, as a way of anticipating any new move Hollingshead might make.”

“Stepney seems like a good man,” Mrs. Comstock remarked, “though I only saw him from a distance. I was impressed with him, despite his radical doctrines.”

(She said this even though she knew the words would make Sam, who was also visiting us that evening, shudder and scowl. She gave him sidelong glances to gauge his reaction, which I suspect she found entertaining.) “I could take you there,” Calyxa said, “if I were allowed to travel freely in the city.”

She was far too close to her term to entertain any such idea, and Julian quickly demurred. Then Mrs. Comstock said, “Well, I for one would like a chance to speak to Pastor Stepney, and get to know him. Perhaps I could go with you, Julian, if Calyxa will tell us the current address.”

“The last thing we need,” Sam growled, “if for you to be ‘Found In’ a second time. I won’t sanction it.”

“I didn’t ask for your sanction ,” Mrs. Comstock said stiffly.

Julian forestalled the argument with a wave of his hand. “I’m the one who’s curious,” he said. “And I’m the one Deacon Hollingshead wouldn’t dare to arrest. Perhaps Adam and I can go to this man’s church, with enough Republican Guards to warn us if the Dominion tries some trick.”