Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “It’s time you were certified, Jules. You have worked as a law clerk in my office for nearly a year, and you must proceed with your instruction. I am sending you to Paris so that you can enroll in a well-respected school.” The older man tugged on his sideburns and met Verne’s gaze. “You will pass the entrance examination for the Paris Faculty of Law, and then your future will be bright. You need have no worries.”

  Verne reeled. He had never liked the profession, did not intend to become a lawyer for the rest of his life—yet he was the eldest son. And while his brother Paul had already failed his application to enter the Naval Academy, the younger boy had received his father’s permission to sign aboard as an apprentice shipmate . . . much the way Verne had wanted to do when he’d run away from home with Nemo.

  “You will take the train, son. Pack lightly, but bring enough clothes so you can be presentable at all times. One never knows when an opportunity might arise. You will visit the Faculty of Law, see the school, and return here to help me in the office during the summer pause in classes. In autumn, I expect you to return to Paris to work toward your law degree. It will take you several years, but you’ll be well rewarded in the end.”

  Verne could not answer, but discipline and his strict upbringing had taught him not to challenge his father’s wishes. At least he would have an excuse to be away from Nantes during Caroline’s wedding. He could not endure seeing her take marriage vows to another man.

  He had heard much about Paris, though: the opera, literary salons, coffee shops, and theaters. Perhaps in the City of Light, he would find a home near to his heart, a place that would sing to his creative spirit. Perhaps there, he could forget his misery over Caroline. . . .

  The next week passed in a blur as he prepared to go to the capital city. Barely nineteen and still wide-eyed with innocence, Jules Verne went to the largest city in France—a hotbed of discontent—on the eve of the bloody and violent Revolutions of 1848.

  VII

  By any measure, Nemo was a man now, twenty years old according to his careful reckoning with the solar calendar and daily journal. His hair had grown to his shoulders, though he hacked it off with a flint knife; his cheeks and chin were covered with a thickening dark beard.

  Dragging out the glider-wings once again, he stood near the plateau cliff and looked behind him at the cone of the volcano. For months, the earthquakes had been growing worse, striking with greater frequency. At unpredictable times the ground heaved and bucked as if a subterranean beast were stirring in its sleep. Something mysterious and unknown lay beneath his island, and Nemo wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was.

  Now, as he reattached the fabric to the glider frame, winds gusted up the slopes. Another fine day for flying. After the first risky test of the kitewings, Nemo had modified and improved his design. He’d added a small rudder, flaps, and cords to control his flight. The craft allowed him to continue exploring the island’s wild parts, but he also enjoyed the pure exhilaration of flight. Even after years ashore, Nemo had never allowed himself to become complacent.

  The sky was clear to the ocean horizon. Nemo had spent so many years in solitude that he no longer even thought about rescue. Once he’d stopped tormenting himself with thoughts of Caroline and Jules, his misery decreased.

  He’d left Nantes so long ago, yet he could still remember the smell of the Loire in summer, the bustling docks, the coarse bread and pungent cheese he and his father had shared during lunches together, their late-night card games.

  He wondered if Verne had gone on to become a success. His redheaded friend would be training to become a lawyer by now. Had Caroline married? Probably. She’d had such good prospects for a rich and well-connected husband. Could she and Verne have married each other?

  Rather than think of such things, Nemo finished the tight lashings on the glider kite. Out of habit he gazed across the boundless sea—and stood bolt upright. He saw the distant silhouette of a large vessel with three masts approaching his island.

  A ship!

  Nemo weighted his glider down so the winds would not blow it away, then scrambled pell-mell along jungled paths until he reached the meadow overlooking the sheltered lagoon. Here, he’d long ago piled mounds of dry wood for a signal fire.

  Though the ship would still take hours to reach the island, he hurried, breathless and flushed with excitement. Expert now, Nemo used his flint and steel to strike sparks, and within minutes, the bonfire was ablaze, a dazzling signal that raised smoke into the sky. The ship had to see him. He was saved!

  For the first time in years, Nemo thought of rescue, of fellow human beings. The young man didn’t even know if regular society would accept him anymore. Some poor wretches—such as William Dampier, the original inspiration for Robinson Crusoe —had become more like animals than men after being stranded on desert islands.

  But Nemo could learn again. He had the imagination and the drive. Once back to civilization, he could be cleaned up and dressed in finery. He could return to France, give speeches, wave at the crowds, an adventurer and hero. He would see Caroline again, and Jules. Nemo hurried down the counter-weighted elevator into Granite House. Oh, the stories he would tell!

  Then the waiting began. Hour after hour. He found it agonizing. All day, Nemo continued to feed his blazing bonfire in an unmistakable call for help.

  By late afternoon, the strange ship had grown close, angling in from the west. In the orange-tinted sky of sunset, the details of her threemasted form were clear enough in silhouette.

  Nemo stared through his rockface window, using a crude spyglass he had constructed out of bamboo tubes, the lens from his magnifying glass and a second lens painstakingly ground from the bottom of a salvaged brandy bottle he’d found in the original jetsam that had washed ashore. Now he realized with a growing cold sensation in his chest that he knew this ship. Knew it too well.

  The Coralie.

  Nemo could never forget the vessel on which he had become a seaman, where he’d learned the ways of rigging and sails and the currents of the seven seas. There could be no mistake. Led by the hideous Captain Noseless, the brigands must have taken the Coralie as their own, killing all crew aboard who refused to join them. For years now, the marauders had used Captain Grant’s brig as if it were their own.

  And now that pirate crew had arrived at the island. His island.

  Thanks to the signal fire, they would know that some poor castaway lived here. Now the pirates would come after him and take everything he’d managed to hoard for his survival. Then they would delight in killing him.

  Swallowing hard, knowing the enemy would come in with the morning tide, Nemo set about preparing his defenses. This would be his chance to avenge what the pirates had done to him, to the Coralie crew, and to Captain Grant.

  Maybe it would be worth all the suffering.

  VIII

  On the clearing above the cliffs, he let his bonfire fade to embers, but it was already too late.

  Engrossed in the slim possibility of rescue, he had never planned or built military defenses. Even from the shelter of Granite House, Nemo had no way to drive back a hundred armed and bloodthirsty pirates. He’d already seen how these men fought, how they killed without compunction. Not even Captain Grant, the brawny Ned Land, and the seasoned English sailors aboard the Coralie had been able to drive them back.

  And Nemo was just one man. How could he possibly succeed where the others had failed?

  But he had time, and resources, and ingenuity on his side. He would never run and hide. He had to protect what he could and inflict all possible damage—if only in honor of Captain Grant’s memory.

  During the night he returned to the plateau and loosed his goats from the corral. The pirates would slaughter any animals they found and take the meat back to their ship. Bleating, the goats ran into the forest, where at least they had a chance to escape. If he got through this, Nemo could round up most of them again. He could not save his vegetable garden, nor the outdoor huts wher
e he stored the supplies he’d accumulated over the years.

  Nemo secured himself inside Granite House. He drew up the ladders, severed the baskets of his elevator, and set fire to his bamboo stairway so that it fell off the cliffside in smoking cinders. Safely isolated, he ate and drank his fill, then tried to doze. He would need all of his energy the following day.

  He meant to kill as many pirates as possible. For Captain Grant.

  A long passage in the rear of Granite House led through winding caves up to the mountainside. The entire island was honeycombed with underground tunnels, covered by jungle-overgrown openings. If forced to run, Nemo could hide in the wilderness . . . but if the pirates decided to set up a permanent base, he would have a long battle ahead of him. Sooner or later, he intended to wipe them out. They all deserved to die.

  At dawn, he went to the cave opening and looked out to sea. The Coralie had sailed into the lagoon with the tide and had anchored not far from shore. Squinting through his spyglass, Nemo could just make out the hideous Captain Noseless standing on the quarterdeck and watching his crew. Already, two longboats filled with men were being lowered over the sides. Once in the water, the pirates rowed toward the base of the cliff where he had set his bonfire.

  Anger simmered within Nemo as he remembered how this ferocious pirate had coldly executed Captain Grant. Now he’d dispatched his henchmen to explore while he remained safe aboard the Coralie. Apparently, Noseless would not venture into danger until he discovered who waited for them on this island.

  The longboats came ashore where Nemo hoped they would, and he loosed his first desperate defense before the marauders expected anything. For just a moment, he had the advantage of surprise.

  Eight pirates climbed from each longboat and stood on the shore. Two brigands pointed at the signs of habitation on the cliffside. The men made their way toward a slope of broken rock jarred loose by recent seismic tremors.

  From his southernmost window opening, Nemo pushed several boulders he had lined up. The heavy rocks tumbled down the cliffs, striking more boulders on the steep slope, ricocheting and gaining momentum, carrying others along with them in a building avalanche.

  The pirate shore party looked up as countless chunks of stone fell and bounced with a cracking, roaring sound. The brigands scattered on the beach. One boulder crushed a pirate like a cockroach under a boot heel; the rest of the rockfall plunged down the cliff, across the beach, and into the sea. Several large stones splintered and sank one of the longboats.

  Nemo had struck the first blow, and he found it very satisfying.

  He looked over to see the Coralie ’s gunports opening up. So, the pirate captain had been watching. He retreated deep into his caves as Captain Noseless launched a full broadside from the ship. An instant after he heard the boom, cannonballs pounded the cliffside. The front of Granite House splintered, and the main chamber filled with smoke and rock dust. As the air cleared, Nemo saw that the cliff face had been blasted away, leaving him vulnerable.

  Below, the shore party cheered, then ran howling as debris rained down from the cliffs above. Noseless would be preparing a second broadside, and so Nemo ducked deeper into the back tunnels heading for escape onto the plateau.

  The landing party, frustrated because Nemo had destroyed his stairs and ladders, ran along the beach, searching for a different way up. From the Coralie, Noseless launched a third longboat, and more brigands swarmed ashore.

  Panting, smeared with smoke and rock dust, Nemo tried to plan what to do next. He was running for his life.

  IX

  The raiding parties landed at different points on the coast and crawled upland. The marauders, enraged by his first attack, drew their cutlasses as they climbed the steep slopes, fought through the jungles—and searched for Nemo.

  He knew it had been years since this band had come to the island. Did they know the terrain, or was this just an occasional stopping point? Though jungle thickets might have hidden him better, he fled higher up the volcano’s slope. He preferred room to move, a vantage from which he could see his enemies coming. He had to outsmart them.

  Breathing hard, Nemo worked his way up the rugged hillside toward the heights of the crater, careful to stay hidden among the boulders. From time to time he looked down at the Coralie still anchored in the lagoon. More longboats came ashore. When he saw smoke curling into the sky from the vicinity of his home, he realized they had set fire to his corral and his storage sheds. By now the pirates would have lowered themselves with ropes into Granite House. They would smash his hand-made furniture and destroy his belongings. More destruction, more loss.

  Yes, they all deserved to die. Rage simmered within him. He had hidden some supplies, and he could always rebuild . . . but he hadn’t anticipated the extent of damage Captain Noseless and his men would inflict. Nemo vowed to stop them, to strike back in every way he could.

  When he saw seven men climbing up from the plateau, Nemo moved behind tall rocks, where he could observe the invaders and yet be out of their line of sight. The pirates wove back and forth, searching for his trail. He raised his head to get a better view, secure in the shelter the rocks afforded him—

  He heard the crack of a flintlock pistol, and a ball shattered with a white starburst against the stone a yard to his left. Four more pirates charging toward him from the opposite side of the slope. He hadn’t even noticed them coming.

  Nemo ducked as one of the men jerked a pistol from his belt and fired a wild shot, which drew the attention of the first party of seven. He ran as both groups charged toward him from opposite directions. He could never fight them all.

  Three more pistol shots rang out, though the balls each missed him by an arm’s-length. Nemo took heart from the wasted shots, since the pursuing pirates would have no time for the tedious muzzle-reloading process. And Nemo didn’t intend to let them get close enough to use cutlasses. The pirates might have been murderous, but they were not smart.

  Unfortunately, the gunfire might rally the other brigands on the island, and Nemo could find himself trapped before long. But he knew exactly where to run. It wasn’t far.

  Nemo had survived by his wits for years, and he wouldn’t give up now. He scrambled down a slope, threading his way through a labyrinth of rocks. As he neared the thermal areas, the ground felt hot through the soles of his seal-hide moccasins.

  Soon he reached the most perilous part of his flight: a stony clearing where sulfurous steam hissed from fumaroles in the ground. He had very little cover, and if the pirates had kept any of their pistols loaded, a lead ball could catch him in the back.

  Hearing the pursuers behind him, he put on a burst of speed, wishing he could fight them face to face, one at a time. But before he could go far, the ground bucked and shook with a heavy tremor that jarred the mountainside in the most powerful earthquake Nemo had yet experienced. He stumbled and sprawled on his face, cutting palms, arms, and chin on the sharp lava rock. The raiders shouted, terrified by what was happening.

  Then with a tearing sound and a rumble from deep beneath the surface, part of the steep hillside caved in. The crust of the mountain dropped away and rocks sloughed aside, leaving a yawning black door—the entrance to a cave that had been sealed until the quake shattered it open. Humid, swampy smells came from the new cave, as if an entire subterranean world were hidden within the mountain. A pallid glow of eerie phosphorescence leaked out of the dark hole.

  Nemo scrambled backward as he heard something deep in the cavern: footsteps like mallets pounding against rock, an explosive exhalation of breath, a loud and hungry snort.

  The pirates, however, had no interest in the phenomenon. Their only concern was killing him. Intent on their victim, the men passed the broad cave mouth. Their shadows fell across the sunlit opening.

  The noises from within grew louder . . . hungrier.

  Nemo staggered to a halt as he saw a reptilian shape emerge from the cave. The pirates backed up and shrieked as the enormous beast lumbered out.
Its hide was covered with scales, and it had huge, muscular back legs, a lashing tail, and a head barely large enough to contain its yawning rack of jaws. Scarlet, glittering eyes fastened on its prey.

  When reading the science magazines Verne had shared in Nantes, Nemo had become familiar with paleontology debates, the remarkable discoveries of the French naturalist Baron Cuvier Georges and the meticulous restorations of the American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. He had seen sketches of enormous skeletons on display in museums, as well as artists’ renderings of how the beasts might have looked before some catastrophe had made them extinct.

  Dinosaurs, they had been called.

  “It’s a dragon!” one of the pirates screamed.

  Nemo sprinted across the sulfurous clearing toward the distant rocks. As the marauding party scrambled for cover, the predatory dinosaur moved clumsily after them, sniffing and squinting in the bright island sunshine. The creature’s nostrils flared as it scented fresh meat. It opened its mouth and emitted a honking roar—then set out after the prey.

  Though its front claws looked small and delicate, the monster snagged the red-and-white striped shirt of the closest pirate. Before the man could even scream, the beast tucked him inside its gigantic shovel-shaped maw, bit down with a crunch of bone, and swallowed the morsel in a spray of blood.

  Nemo disregarded the pirates, hoping they would all be slain. He had to get down off this rugged slope to the grassy plateau above the lagoon. The screaming men fled after him, as if hoping Nemo might lead them to safety.

  Two scrawny, blue-shirted men ran pell-mell next to each other; with a wild look, the man on the right reached over and shoved his companion, who stumbled and sprawled on his face. When the dinosaur paused to gobble up the unfortunate man, the first raced ahead—but the monster caught up with him in a moment, and soon two torn and bloodied blue shirts dangled in shreds from its long fangs.