Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

  The train lurched forward as Penniman released the brake, almost tumbling Julian onto the tracks, then proceeded more smoothly.

  And that was how we arrived in the newly-captured town of Chicoutimi. A fine snow had begun to fall, and the afternoon was theatrical in its shifting scrims of sun and cloud. We rode all the way into the depot with Julian up front like a patriotic ornament. His uniform was ragged and dirty, and his face was alabaster with the cold, but he grinned irrepressibly and waved the Sixty Stars and Thirteen Stripes before the hundreds of infantrymen and cavalrymen who assembled at the sight of our smoke. The engine passed down a corridor of these astonished soldiers before it finally hissed to a stop. Then the doors of the boxcars were thrown open, and a great and jubilant outcry rose up, for it was obvious to every spectator that we had captured a Chinese Cannon all intact.

  * As I believe the Dutch called it.

  * Though some of the men carved scrimshaw out of venerable ankles, or employed knobby old forearms as hooks on which to hang blankets to dry.

  * Or Deutsche, in this case, I’m told.

  * We were forced to evict the mules.

  8

  The scourge of cholera caught up with us later that month. Many brave men who had survived injury and starvation all the way up the bloody Saguenay were taken to their graves by the disorder. The stench, inconvenience, and tragedy of the disease made life unpleasant for all of us, sick or not, and eventually most of us did get sick, though we did not necessarily die. I did not, for example—and I was as sick as anyone.

  The human mind edits from memory its feverish interludes, and I can recollect very little of January or February of 2174. When I came to myself, what astonished me most—apart from my emaciation and general weakness—was that I had been transported without my knowledge from Chicoutimi to a field hospital in Tadoussac, and from there to the Soldier’s Rest, a recuperation-house in the City of Montreal. I learned that many men I knew and liked had died in the outbreak, and that saddened me. But there was good news, too. Sam, Julian, and Lymon Pugh had survived the disease, though they were sickened by it; and all three of them were here in the Soldier’s Rest, also recuperating. Out of all of our small circle the sickest had been Julian; the doctors said he had come close to dying; but he was well enough now that he could sit up, and take medicinal soups and such. Sam and Lymon were in even better mettle, and would be leaving the Rest within days.

  And there was another bright light on the horizon, which served to improve my mood. That was the prospect of our release from the Army of the Laurentians. The Draft Act of 2172 specified a single year of involuntary service (though an Aristo could contribute an indentured man “for the duration”); and although we were strenuously canvassed to re-enlist we resisted that temptation (except for Lymon Pugh, who felt the Army, despite its manifest dangers, was a more attractive option than the meat-packing trade). This meant that as early as Easter I would be able to leave here with Sam and Julian, and we would be bound for New York City—as civilians!—just as we had intended when we fled Williams Ford, though with a heightened sense of the injustices and opportunities of life.

  During my enforced idleness I did a great deal of reading and writing. I wrote to my mother in Williams Ford, as I had written several times before, being careful not to disclose any dangerous information about Julian or our precise whereabouts, since there was always a chance the mail might be intercepted by some perfervid Dominion or Government agent still hunting the President’s nephew. That meant that I could not receive any letters from my mother in return, a sore trial for me; but I was careful to write as regularly as possible, and to reassure her about my health and welfare.

  I also wrote to Calyxa Blake, confessing my continued love and my desire to see her again. She responded with letters of her own, but these were curiously brief, though friendly enough. Something in the tone of them worried me, and I vowed to seek her out as soon as I could convince the doctors to release me.

  That did not happen immediately, however; so I pursued other kinds of writing. I wrote an account of the events of the winter—of our voyage up the Saguenay, the Siege of Chicoutimi, the fall of that town, and the capture of the Chinese Cannon. I tried to hew to the principles the correspondent Theodore Dornwood had taught me, that is, to remain within the borders of the truth but to veer, where there was latitude, toward Drama. I worked at the piece over several days, reading what I had written and re-writing it, until I was satisfied with the result. Then I pondered how to get the pages to Mr. Dornwood, if he was still anywhere near Montreal. Mr. Dornwood had praised my previous efforts, and—if the truth be told—I had grown somewhat addicted to his flattery, coming as it did from a professional War Correspondent.

  In the end it was Lymon Pugh who offered to be my intermediary.

  He was the healthiest of us, and he came to the ward-room the day he was due to be released. We talked idly at first. Then he saw what I was reading, and asked me about it.

  It was A History of Mankind in Space. I had kept this tattered and very ancient volume with me all through my military career, tucked into the bottom of my ditty-bag. It wasn’t heavy—the formidable stiff covers of the book had fallen off months ago. Really it was only a bundle of pages held together with a binding of threads which I had sewn myself (clumsily). “An old book,” I said to Lymon.

  “How old?”

  “More than a century. It’s from the last days of the Secular Ancients.”

  Lymon’s eyes widened. “That old! Did they write in English back then, or did they have some language of their own?”

  “It’s English, though some of the words and usages are peculiar. Here, look.”

  Lymon had lately taken an interest in books, since he was now able to puzzle out enough words to make them intriguing to him—books, which had been mute lumps in prior times, were suddenly full of voices, all clamoring for attention. In the course of Lymon’s instruction I had read him chapters of Mr. Charles Curtis Easton’s Against the Brazilians, which had also survived intact in my ditty-bag, and I had even allowed Lymon to borrow the volume and read ahead, once he was captivated by the plot.*

  But the History of Mankind in Space seemed to oppress him as he leafed through its pages and inspected its photographs. His features knotted into a spindled emblem of perplexity. “It seems to say here that people went to the moon,” he uttered in a low voice.

  “That’s exactly what it says.”

  “And this is not a work of fiction?”

  “It claims not to be. I don’t know whether folks walked on the moon or not. But the Secular Ancients clearly believed it, and so does Julian.”

  It was a poorly-ordered world we lived in, Lymon said, if moon-visiting was deemed to be “non-fiction” while Mr. Easton’s straightforward narratives about wars and pirates were excoriated (as they had been, Julian once told me, in some quarters) as crude storytelling. “This isn’t a Dominion book, is it?”

  “No. When it was written, there was no Dominion.”

  “Keep your voice down—you’ll get us in trouble with that kind of talk.”

  “It’s not ‘talk,’ only history. Even the Dominion admits that it came into being with the False Tribulation. Before that all the churches were independent, and disorganized, and had little sway with the government, or any way of fulfilling the ideal of a Christian World under the direct administration of Heaven.”

  “That’s what the Dominion means to set up?”

  “That’s its ultimate purpose—to unite the world in advance of the rule of Jesus Christ.” Which he would have known, if he had not slept through so many Sunday services.

  “I’m not well-churched,” said Lymon, rubbing his left hand over his scarred right forearm. “Do you suppose that’s about to happen, with the fall of Chicoutimi and all?”

  “The Dominion must conquer a great deal more of the world than just Labrador before the end of all worldly strife. I doubt we’ll see the Global Reign of Christianity in our
lifetime.”

  Lymon nodded with obvious relief. He said he didn’t mind the prospect of Christian government—he was willing to be ruled by Heaven—what troubled him was that Heaven might employ men like Major Lampret as intermediaries.

  I asked whether the Major had recovered from the wounds he received during the capture of the Chinese Cannon.

  “He did, and he even survived the cholera; but he’s gone back to Colorado Springs for the time being. The events up the Saguenay were an embarrassment to him, and he needs to improve his morale and reputation as much his health.”

  “Good news for Julian, at least,” I said. “Lymon, since you’re leaving here shortly, and I’m still confined to bed, would you do me a favor?”

  “Yes, certainly—what?”

  “I have two packages I need delivered in Montreal.” I took these out from where I had stashed them beneath the bed. “The smaller one is a letter, to be delivered personally to Calyxa Blake. I’ve written her address on the envelope—can you read it adequately well?”

  “I think so.”

  “This bigger bundle of papers is meant for Mr. Theodore Dornwood, if he’s still around, and if you can find him.”

  “Dornwood the newspaper writer? That might be difficult. Rumor is that he left the regiment when we went up-river, and that he sits in some cheap rental and posts lies to Manhattan, between bouts of drunkenness and debauchery. But I’ll try to find him, for your sake, if you want me to, Adam.”

  The reader may imagine with what impatience and anxiety I awaited Lymon’s return, for each of the missives I had entrusted to him was greatly significant to me. The package for Theodore Dornwood contained my whole account of the Saguenay Expedition. The smaller letter, meant for Calyxa, was even more momentous. In it, I expressed my intention to propose marriage to her, should she find the time to visit me in the hospital.

  But Lymon did not return that afternoon, nor in the evening. To forestall my uneasiness I talked with the two other patients with whom I shared the ward. One was a lease-boy like myself, but from a Southern estate, where he had been worked cruelly in the tropical heat; he had been wounded north of Quebec, and his whole right arm, though intact, was a useless appendage. My other companion was a cavalryman with a generous mustache and his head shaved bald, who wouldn’t say how he had acquired the injury that was hidden by a layer of bandages wrapping his belly. Neither of these men were scintillating conversationalists, since both were in constant pain; but the cavalryman owned a box of dominoes, and we passed an hour or two playing Estates. After that I asked the nurse whether the hospital had any fresh reading material, since I had memorized nearly every page of the History of Mankind in Space and Against the Brazilians. “I think there might be something,” she said. But all she could scare up was a slender volume of stories by Mrs. Eckerson. Mrs. Eckerson was one of the classic authors of the nineteenth century, suitable for modern tastes, and preserved from extinction by the Dominion press; but she wrote mainly for young girls, and the book provoked memories of my sister Flaxie. Nevertheless I read until my eyes tired of it; and my bedside lamp, by the time I blew it out, was the last one burning.

  In the morning I was treated to one of the hospital’s Hygienic Baths—a mandatory ordeal, overseen by nurses, and damaging to male dignity—and when I returned to my bed I found Lymon Pugh waiting in the visitor’s chair. He was alone.

  “Well?” I said. “Did you deliver the messages I gave you?”

  “Yes,” he said, with an apparent uneasiness.

  “Well, don’t make a mystery of it! Tell me what happened.”

  He cleared his throat. “I found that Theodore Dornwood for you. The stories about him are true, Adam. He’s living by the docks, in a shack not much better than a stable. He lies in a yellow bed and drinks whiskey and smokes hempen cigarettes all day long. He still possesses that ‘typewriter’ you always talk about, but he don’t seem to employ it much.”

  “His bad habits don’t concern me. Did he accept my account of the Saguenay Expedition?”

  “At first he didn’t want to see me at all—he’s surly when he’s drunk, and he called me a poxy hallucination, and said I was absurd, and things of that nature. Ordinarily I wouldn’t take that from anyone, but I took it from him, Adam, on your behalf, and he mellowed somewhat when I mentioned your name. ‘My Western Muse,’ he called you, whatever that means. And when I showed him that bundle of papers his eyes lit right up.”

  The praise tickled my vanity, and I asked whether Mr. Dornwood had said anything more on the subject.

  “Well, he took the papers out and began to read them, and then he looked at the last few pages and grinned. He said it was excellent work.”

  “That’s all?”

  “If he said anything else, it wasn’t to me—he shooed me away without a thank-you. But the package must have improved his mood, because I heard a great deal of clacking and tapping from his machine as I walked off.”

  “I’ll seek him out when I’m released,” I said, pleased by the report of Mr. Dornwood’s enthusiasm, though it had lacked any flattering specifics. A vastly more important question loomed. “And did you deliver my letter to Miss Blake?”

  “Well, I went to the address you gave me.”

  “Wasn’t she home?”

  “No, and hadn’t been for quite a while, according to the neighbors. So I asked after her down at the Thirsty Boot. It took some effort, because those people are not universally well-disposed toward American soldiers, but I finally found out what had become of her.”

  He paused at this critical juncture, as if considering his words; and I said, “Go on! Whatever you learned, tell me!”

  “Well, I—I found her, at the place where she’s now residing; and I gave her your letter—that’s the bones of the story.”

  “Flesh it out, then! Didn’t she have any response?”

  “She was thoughtful about it. She read it a couple of times over. Then she said, ‘Tell Adam I find his suggestion interesting—’ ”

  “Interesting!”

  It wasn’t an acceptance of my proposal, but neither was it a rejection—I held that small hope close to my heart.

  “‘Interesting,’ she said, ‘but unfortunately not practical right at the moment.’”

  “Not practical!”

  “I expect she meant, because of where she lives.”

  I could not help remembering that her villainous brothers had threatened to sell her into a brothel, and I was terrorized by the notion that they might have succeeded. “Lymon, I’m strong enough for the truth—what terrible place has she gone to, that prevents her from coming to see me?”

  Lymon blushed and looked at his feet. “Well—”

  “Oh, say it!”

  “She’s in—and don’t take this too hard, Adam—she’s in prison.”

  I set up a meeting between myself, Sam, Julian, and Lymon Pugh, in order to plan strategy, and in defiance of the rules of the Soldier’s Rest. We convened in the ward where Julian was recovering, ignoring the protests of the nurses, and it was quickly agreed that we ought to rescue Calyxa, although my proposal—that we leave immediately and storm the prison—was rejected. It was unwise strategy, Sam said, to attack a target before acquiring reliable intelligence about its strengths, its weaknesses, and the mood of its defenders. I was forced to admit the truth of this; though sitting in idleness while Calyxa endured confinement was not a comfortable chore.

  Sam was as healthy by now as Lymon Pugh, and he agreed to leave the hospital for the purpose of scouting out the prison. I would stay here, in the meantime, with Julian, who was less recovered, though he took a keen interest in the subject.

  I shook hands with all parties at the conclusion of the meeting, and I was profoundly moved, and struggled to control my emotions. “It’s more than I ever expected to have such friends as would risk themselves on my behalf—despite the difference in our stations in life—and I want you all to know that I would do the same for each one of
you, if the boot were on the other leg.”

  “Don’t be so eager to thank us,” Sam said, “until we actually accomplish something.”

  But I could tell that he was moved, as well.

  I sat with Julian a while longer after Sam and Lymon left. Julian appeared more frail than I liked to see him. His skin was very white, and it cleaved to the bones of his cheeks, for he had lost considerable weight, and Julian had never been stout. Something about his eyes had changed, too, I thought, as if they had absorbed an unpleasant wisdom, which dulled their color. That might have been due to the cholera, or to war in general and all the death he had seen. It made me nervous, and I thanked him again for his kindness, addressing him as if he were an Aristo, and I was a lease-boy … which of course we were; but it had never seemed so, between us.

  “Settle down, Adam,” he said. “I know how fond you are of this Montreal woman.”

  “More than fond!” I confided in him, and shared my secret, that I hoped to marry her.

  He grinned at the news. “In that case we must certainly have her released from jail! It would never do to have my best friend wedded to a prisoner.”

  “Don’t make light of it, Julian—I can’t bear it. I love her more dearly than I can describe without blushing.”

  He said, more gently, “It must be wonderful to feel that way about a woman.”

  “It is; though it has its distressing aspects. I know one day you’ll meet a suitable woman, and feel about her as I do about Calyxa.”

  I think he appreciated this kindness on my part, for he looked away, and smiled to himself. “I suppose anything is possible,” he said.

  What was not possible was for us to converse much longer, for the hour of lamps-out was approaching, and the nurses had rallied and were preparing to descend on us in force. I told Julian he needed his sleep. “You must sleep as well, Adam,” he said, “though it might be hard to keep from worrying all night long. Sleep confidently—that’s an order.”