The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures
Page 24
“Forced by whom?” I asked.
“By those who wanted my father’s discovery.” He rose and began to pace in agitated fashion. “You may see fit to call me mad, Louis, but what I am about to tell you is the truth. My father discovered a way to make gold. I do not mean earn gold, I mean make it, create it from a base element.”
“He found the Philosopher’s Stone?” I gasped.
The captain shook his head impatiently. “There is no such thing. The transmutation of iron into gold is a chemical reaction involving extreme heat and molecular bombardment.”
“What a boon to mankind that could be!” I enthused.
Captain Nemo smiled sardonically. “So it might seem. So father wished. Alas, there was a dangerous side to it. Through Ludovico’s indiscretion, word of my father’s discovery filtered out. Most refused to believe it; however a few dangerous and powerful men sought to verify the rumour, and did so. Once confirmed, these men never gave us a moment’s peace, they hounded us for father’s notes.” He sat back down and regarded me through sorrow-filled eyes. “I was the weak link in the chain of familial stubbornness because I had a family. I took my wife and children out of Italy, but no matter where we went, we were pursued by these evil men. Eventually we fled to India, a country we loved, but were soon discovered. These human monsters did not even try for me. Instead they went straight for my innocent family. They murdered my wife and babes in cold blood and over their precious bodies told me to go to my father and tell him that they would not be deterred in their campaign to gain the secret of transmutation.”
After swallowing down a lump in his throat, the captain continued: “I did travel back to my father to deliver a message, but not the one my tormentors were expecting. I told him Cesaré Divenchy was dead, murdered as thoroughly as my wife and children. I told him I cared not if he also died at the hands of these criminals. And then I forcibly expelled him from his own laboratory and used his damnable discovery for my own good. I worked for two full days, never stopping to eat or sleep, the heat of the forge searing my flesh, until I had created enough gold to buy the city of Rome. I’d have made even more, had not Father summoned Ludovico to the house and told him to break down the door.”
The captain again fell silent, casting the cabin into an eerie stillness. At last he continued: “I left him, not caring a lira for his fate, took my gold and used it to finance the Nautilus and my escape from the world. Six years later he came to me, ill, weary and disillusioned, a broken relic of a once indomitable figure. He was tired of being pursued and knew there was only one place he could truly hide: on board the Nautilus. I dismissed my crew and took him in, and for the first time began to develop something of a filial relationship with my father. I took the Nautilus to an uncharted island in the South Pacific and vowed to remain there with him, hidden from the eyes of the world. And then the impossible happened: that infernal balloon filled with castaways landed on the island! I wanted to go elsewhere, but Father would not hear of it. By then the admirable side of his personality had gained dominance over the dark side, and he wished only to help others. It was he who aided the castaways while I remained in the shadows.
“After three interminable years of blundering about, they made their way into the Nautilus. By then, my father was dying, and in his last moments on earth he managed to put forth the greatest prevarication of his life: he claimed that he was Captain Nemo. He spun a fabrication of his supposed early days as Prince Dakkar, which, despite glaring inconsistencies, the fools accepted without question. On his deathbed, Father created a lie to throw our constant pursuers, who had begun to suspect that the missing Cesaré Divenchy was Captain Nemo, off the trail. He thought only of protecting me, and thus died for me. I secretly recovered everything I needed from the Nautilus and then sent it down to become the grave for both my father and his papers. How I hated to consign my glorious ship to oblivion. I went on to build the Argonaut, which is smaller, less personal, harder to love, but which has given me ten years of peace. Until now.”
He then fell into a silent, almost trance-like, contemplation that I was unable to penetrate. Even though I still had questions about his story, there was nothing I could do except leave him to his mood and go back to my cabin and my journal. Except for what communication was necessary for the continuance of life on board the Argonaut, the silence continued until we reached the designated latitude and longitude coordinates.
The sun was high when we surfaced and all I could see on any horizon was water. But using a telescope, Captain Nemo spotted a small dark shape protruding from the water to the east. “There,” he said, pointing. “It has drifted some.” Going below, he steered the Argonaut toward the object, and as we came closer, I could see fins on the back of the shape — steel fins. It was the Nautilus. As soon as the Argonaut had pulled up against its hull, the captain reappeared on deck and threw a noose of rope over one of the metal dorsal fin spikes, then swung himself aboard and waited for me to do the same.
He opened the hatch of the Nautilus, and as we descended into the vessel, I was struck by both the design of the Nautilus and its beauty, and I could easily see how a man could live here indefinitely, the laird of his own self-created, tranquil castle. In the dim light of a single candle, I followed him into a chamber that was clearly designed as living quarters. On the bed was the well preserved, if emaciated, body of an elderly man with long white hair and beard, and I could see the facial resemblance between the remains of Beniamino Divenchy and his son. “I am sorry, Father,” Captain Nemo said quietly. Then looking to the wall opposite, he added: “Even from here I can see that the safe has been opened.” Hastening to it, he found it empty.
Before he could comment, though, a low, unearthly moan filled the Nautilus, and for a moment I stopped breathing, for it seemed to be coming from the body of Beniamino Divenchy! Captain Nemo’s face paled as we cautiously approached the ornate bed that served as the corpse’s bier, and only when close enough to touch it did we notice a figure lying on the floor on the other side of it. It was a man — a brawny man of about thirty years of age, with dark hair and beard.
“Ludovico!” the captain exclaimed. Then, handing me the candle, he dashed to the figure and pulled him upright. The man gave forth another moan. “Help me get him above,” the captain ordered.
As best I could, I aided him in dragging Ludovico Divenchy to the main hatch stair and struggled to hoist him upwards, though the burden of the task fell onto the captain’s strength, not mine. Once we got him on to the deck of the Nautilus, the captain reached down and took a handful of seawater and flung it into his face. It took several dousings before Ludovico began to stir. He opened his eyes and squinted in the glaring sunlight. Seeing the captain, his face darkened. “You,” he muttered.
“Yes, Ludo, it is I,” the captain replied.
A look of rage came over Ludovico’s face, and he attempted to lash out at Captain Nemo. Despite his weakened condition, the blow could have done a good deal of damage, had it connected. “You have come back to the scene of the crime, eh, Cesaré?” he said.
“What crime, Ludo?” the captain protested. “The only crime that has taken place here was committed by you. Your very presence here attests to that. To whom have you given Father’s papers, Ludo?”
“Oh, that is rich,” Ludovico spat, struggling to his feet on the deck. “First you lure me here, and then —”
“I lure you here?”
“Yes, and I do not appreciate being played for a fool, least of all by you!”
“Gentlemen, please!” I called out in desperation.
“Who in hell are you, whey-face?” Ludovico Divenchy demanded, giving me a vicious glare.
“He is my crewman,” Captain Nemo said, “and while you are on board this vessel you are to treat us both with civility. I will not countenance any of your —” He stopped suddenly and appeared momentarily lost in thought, then said: “Ludo, are you under the impression that I summoned you to the Nautilus?”
“What letter?”
“The one you sent to —” Now it was Ludovico Divenchy who stopped mid-sentence as a realization dawned upon him. He slapped a hand to his forehead and wailed, “Oh, my God, it was a forgery!”
“What did this purported missive of mine say?” Captain Nemo asked.
“It instructed me to return to the Nautilus and raise it,” Ludovico answered. “Cesaré, it was in your handwriting. I
recognized your signature. That was the only reason I acquiesced. What a fool I was!”
“Agreed,” his brother said, “but nothing can be done about it now. Come, we have work to do.”
Ludovico required only a little help descending into the Argonaut, and no help whatsoever consuming the three brandies his brother offered him in the vessel’s salon, though they did not serve to put him in a more congenial mood.
“Now, Ludo,” Captain Nemo began, as his brother finished his third drink, “it is imperative that I know who has the secret.”
Looking with some embarrassment at his brother, Ludovico Divenchy said: “A priest named Father Saldana.” “A priest?”
“He came to me and claimed to know everything about Father’s notes, and said that it was the will of God that the church be in control of the discovery before any government of the world obtained it. He said that it was the only way to prevent worldwide strife. You must admit, that is a reasonable argument. Then he presented me with that letter purportedly from you, stating that I should trust and help him. And when I had managed to bring that sunken coffin to the surface and handed over the papers, I was offered a congratulatory drink for my efforts — a poisoned one. Forgive me, Cesaré, but I assumed it was your doing all along.”
“Have things so deteriorated between us that you would really think I would seek your death?”
A silence fell between them, which I broke to say: “If, as you say, the drink was poisoned, why are you still alive?”
Ludovico Divenchy’s withering gaze reduced me to the status of a gnat. “I may be a fool at times, boy, but I am not an easy man to vanquish.”
“That quality, brother, can only aid us,” Captain Nemo said, “for we must get those papers back!”
My mind was still raging with questions. “Forgive me, Captain, but I fail to see how a formula for creating gold carries with it such dire consequences.”
“Do you possess the mental capacity to understand?” Ludovico challenged.
“How can I tell if I do not even know what it is I may not understand?” I snapped back.
Captain Nemo gave a deep sigh, and said: “What do you know of atomics, Louis?”
“Atomics? Nothing, sir.”
“You see?” Ludovico said.
The captain stifled his brother with a gesture. “Listen to me, Louis; the ability to create gold carries with not simply the potential for economic havoc. When one element changes into another, it is because its atoms move and regroup, but that very atomic movement produces an extreme form of radiation. Father discovered ways to control the process to minimize the danger. However, if used improperly or ignorantly, the transmutation process could create a force of heat and fire that could consume cities and destroy every living thing for tens, if not hundreds, of miles. It could lay waste to entire countries, perhaps even mankind itself.”
“Good God,” I muttered.
“The invocation of God is more than proper, for in the wrong hands my father’s discovery could unleash Armageddon.”
I studied the faces of the two men, both of whom, I knew, were not given to levity. Their present expressions confirmed the fact that Captain Nemo was not exaggerating the danger of metal transmutation. “God help us,” I muttered, fearfully.
“We cannot wait for His intervention,” the Captain said. “We must retrieve the secret and destroy it ourselves. Ludo, do you have any idea where to find this M. Saldana, whom I doubt very much is a man of the church?”
“None,” Ludovico said, shaking his boulder-like head. “Wait . . . at one point he used a strange word in such context as to indicate a place: Rakata, he said. Do you know where that is?”
“That is the name of an island in the Flores Sea, in Indonesia,” Captain Nemo replied. “There is very little hospitable there, though.”
“Isn’t that area volcanic?” I asked.
Upon hearing my query, the heads of both brothers snapped up. “Heat!” they cried in unison.
“With the heat of a volcano, they could manufacture a ton of gold,” Captain Nemo said, “but at what consequences?”
“We must get there at once,” Ludovico said.
“We can be there in less than two days.”
“If we only had a flying ship, we could arrive there in one,” Ludovico mused.
“A flying ship?” the captain retorted. “Come, Ludo, that is sheer whimsy. Even you cannot conquer the skies.”
“What a pity, brother, that your imagination does not match your intellect.”
After that, the two men ceased conversation. Captain Nemo stood watch over the Argonaut’s control instruments, never resting or even stopping to eat. Under normal circumstances it was impossible to detect the sense of motion on board the submersible; however, travelling at a constant maximum speed, as we were doing now, gave me a slight sense of dizziness. Luckily, I had to endure only one more day of it before we arrived at the captain’s coordinates of 9° 23’ longitude and 114° 49’ latitude. Calling both Ludovico and I into his private study, Captain Nemo unveiled the glass panel set in the room’s ceiling. It was early evening in this part of the world, and there remained enough light on land above us for us to see the shadow of the ship a dozen or so fathoms overhead. “We will surface immediately,” the captain said. “I wish to see the colours the vessel is flying.”
We rose a fair distance from the ship, which appeared to be a schooner, and once we had climbed onto the deck, the captain took up his telescope to examine it. There have been times when I felt that nothing on earth, and probably few things in Heaven, could actually take Captain Nemo by surprise. But as he scanned the ship through the glass, he appeared to be at a loss for words. “What country is it, Cesaré?” asked his brother.
“See for yourself,” he said, handing him the telescope. After a lengthy look, Ludovico said: “I have never seen that flag in my life!”
I was permitted a look next, and, like them, had never before seen the banner, which was half green, half golden-yellow, surrounding a white diamond shape.
“We must get closer,” the captain said, and ordered us below. Sinking just under the surface, we proceeded over and through the jumble of levels formed by the underwater bases of the volcanic cones. At last we were below the unidentifiable schooner. “We will wait for darkness,” the captain instructed.
Under the sea the hour of the day loses its relevance, but the passage of time does not. The next three hours seemed endless. With nothing else to pass the time, I took to my cabin, where I recorded notes in my journal until a knock on the door signalled that it was time to make our move.
The Argonaut surfaced close to the hull of the schooner. The evening was warm and the full moon provided enough illumination for us to see, but cast an eerie yellow glow over the sea and ship. Since the only weapon to be found on board the Argonaut was a harpoon, we would board the ship as unarmed as we were uninvited. Attaching a rope to a grapnel, Captain Nemo skilfully threw it and hooked it on to the deck of the mysterious ship, permitting us to climb aboard.
No helmsman stood at the wheel of the schooner; in fact, the deck of the ghostly ship appeared to be deserted. “What do we do now, sir?” I asked the captain.
“We came for answers, Louis,” he replied, “so let us waste no time in posing our questions.” He then lifted his foot and stomped on the deck as forcefully as possible. Below, I could hear a confusion of voices. Then various forms began to appear on the deck. One of them
approached us with a lantern, and when he saw Ludovico, he stepped back. “Good Lord . . . Divenchy!”
“Well well, my friend, the holy man!” Ludovico said, and reached for the throat of the man I presumed to be the deceitful Saldana. Only the unmistakable sound of pistols being cocked at close range stopped him. “There is no need for this,” a voice said. “Come below, Signor Divenchy. The rest of you as well. God alone knows how you got on board this ship, but now that you are here, no immediate harm will come to you unless you invite it.” We were marched below and ushered into what normally would have been the captain’s quarters on a ship, but in this case appeared to be a meeting room, for seated around a table was a dozen or so men, each one dressed in-the garb and hair fashion of a different nation. “This is why we could not recognize the flag,” Captain Nemo commented.
At the head of the table was a nondescript fellow whose nationality became clear only when he spoke: “We fly our own flag,” he said, revealing an American drawl. “We represent each of the major countries of the globe, though before long, our flag will be the only flag, and there will no longer be separate nations.”
“And you will be in control, I suppose?” Ludovico sneered.
“Yes, and who better? We are the elite of the world,” the American replied. “We will provide the masses with their basic needs, and they, in turn, will work to provide us with ours. For the first time in history, there will be order in the world.”
“You cannot be serious,” Ludovico said.
“Utterly serious,” the man said, and despite the madness of his plan, his eyes betrayed a deadly earnestness.
“You expect the nations of the world to sit back placidly while you take them over?” Captain Nemo asked.
“Come now, Captain Divenchy . . . or do you still prefer Nemo? Yes, we know who you are. Our agents are nothing if not thorough. Anyway, ninety-nine per cent of the world’s population was born to be serfs and vassals. They are sheep constantly in search of a shepherd.”