Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Over the next several days, the Victoria drifted inland, generally westward but with a tendency toward the north. The river they had followed from the coast took a sharp turn to the right and flowed out of sight. Before long the ground rose, and to the north they spotted the bulwarks of an enormous mountain far greater than anything Nemo had ever seen. Its crest was adorned with a glittering white that could not be explained by clouds. Nemo stared and studied, then passed the spyglass to Caroline. “Snow,” he said.

  “Impossible,” Fergusson answered, taking the spyglass from her. “We’re on the equator. There cannot be snow at the equator.” Then he let out a sharp cry of recognition. “Ah, indeed! I remember recent reports by a German missionary who also went inland from Zanzibar. He claimed to have seen a snow-covered peak in eastern Africa, and he became a laughingstock. He was German, after all.”

  Nemo thought for a moment. “Rebmann? Could that be Johann Rebmann’s mountain?”

  “Yes, the natives named it Kilimanjaro. Now it appears he was right.” Fergusson began scribbling notes in his journal, while Nemo took out a sextant and other navigational devices. Using trigonometry, he estimated the height of Kilimanjaro at an impossible 20,000 feet above sea level.

  The winds tugged them westward, where the ground flattened out into a sprawling veldt. Tall, dry grass rippled like golden waves on a stormy sea, and the sheer abundance of animal life took Nemo’s breath away. According to the maps drawn by native slave traders and intrepid missionaries, this was called the Serengeti Plain.

  Dr. Fergusson removed his two shooting rifles, loaded them, and checked the sights. “Use the recondenser to take us down, eh? It’s time to collect some specimens.” He gave a formal nod to Caroline. “And Madame, if you would be so kind as to sketch the specimens I shoot? Our friend Nemo insists that you are quite an accomplished artist.”

  Glad to be considered a part of the expedition, Caroline took out her sketchpad and used a small knife to sharpen the drawing points of her lead pencils.

  The balloon descended toward the plain, where the vegetation was broken by strange baobab trees that looked like oaks uprooted and planted upside down. Tall termite mounds towered above the grass like abstract concrete art.

  Nemo threw a grappling hook over the side and secured the balloon to one of the baobab trees. Using a winch, they lowered the balloon down to where Nemo could drop a chain ladder. Fergusson took his loaded rifles and scanned the congregation of animals. Some had already run from the odd apparition in the sky, but throngs of zebras and wildebeests remained, restless but not yet fleeing.

  Long-necked giraffes stood at another cluster of baobabs, munching leaves from the upper branches. Caroline stared at them. “Those are the strangest animals I have ever seen. A spotted horse with a neck stretched like taffy.”

  A shot rang out, startling them, and Dr. Fergusson lifted the barrel of his long rifle to watch a wildebeest tumble to the ground. “Good shot!” The other herd animals ran about in confusion. Fergusson picked up the second rifle and aimed. It took him two shots to bring down a young zebra. Reloading, he fired four more times to secure a pair of antelope.

  “That’s quite sufficient for now.” Fergusson gestured to the ladder. “Come along, my friends. We must take measurements and do our duty for science, eh?”

  The three explorers climbed down the jingling chain ladder to the branches; Fergusson reloaded and took one rifle with him, slung over his shoulder. Nemo carried a satchel filled with scientific instruments, while Caroline followed, sketchpad tucked under her arm.

  As they descended the baobab, startled birds took wing. On ground again, the explorers waded through a rustling sea of tall grasses that rose higher than their heads. Nemo kept a sharp watch for snakes in the underbrush, but Dr. Fergusson strode with childlike determination toward his trophy.

  The zebra lay sprawled on the ground. The black and white stripes on its hide formed a perfect camouflage among the rippling shadows of the Serengeti. “Magnificent specimen. Well-fed and well-muscled.” Fergusson asked for the measuring tape, and he and Nemo noted the animal’s statistics.

  Caroline stood back, scratching her lead pencil across the paper to capture the major details. Later, she would spend the slow hours aboard the balloon to complete the fine points of the drawing.

  With a sigh, the doctor gazed down. “A pity we can’t take these specimens back with us, eh? Imagine what this one would look like stuffed in the Royal Museum in London.”

  Nemo looked back at the colorful balloon tethered to the tree. “We could never carry the extra weight.”

  “My sketches will have to do,” Caroline said.

  Next, they set off to where the wildebeest had fallen. They took similar measurements, and Fergusson used a bone saw to remove the beast’s horns. Nemo put the souvenirs in his canvas satchel. By the time they reached the two dead antelopes, some animals had returned to the vicinity, wary and confused.

  While Dr. Fergusson again recorded the vital statistics and made meticulous notes regarding the differences among the three species, Nemo bent down with the hunting knife and began to carve steaming strips from the antelope’s back. “This is the best meat we’ll find in a long time, I suspect,” he said. “We’ll make camp on the ground so we can build a fire to roast it.”

  Caroline continued to sketch. She turned around, studying the particulars of the landscape to add to the picture. Fergusson puttered with his notebook, adding thoughts and details.

  Then Nemo realized that the air around them had grown oppressively silent. His awareness raised to a high peak, as when he’d hunted wild boars on his mysterious island. Ears attuned, ready to protect Caroline, he heard a rustle in the grasses—then a muscular form like a tawny liquid shadow burst forward. He saw bright feline eyes and long teeth.

  Nemo reacted without thinking. He snatched the rifle Fergusson had laid on the ground, swiveled, and fired. The booming sound startled the nearby herd of animals.

  Caroline stumbled backward, dropping her pencil. Fergusson cried out, and Nemo stared in amazement as a lioness collapsed to the ground, a bullet hole blossoming scarlet at the center of her breast.

  Dr. Fergusson stepped away from the antelope, astonished. “Good Lord! I never expected a magnificent specimen like this.” He went about making measurements of the lioness, wishing he could take the time to skin it. “This pelt would have made a marvelous display.”

  Nemo reloaded the gun and kept careful watch. “Just be quick about your work, Doctor.”

  Taking their antelope steaks, the three adventurers returned to the balloon, scrambled up the baobab and the ladder and into the Victoria ’s basket.

  When he looked down onto the plain again, Nemo was alarmed to see that half a dozen lions had appeared from the deep grasses, as if by magic, and were feasting on the dead animals. Timid hyenas lurked around the fringes, waiting for their turn at the carcasses.

  Shaken, but enthralled, Caroline began a new sketch, trying to draw the tawny lioness in mid-leap.

  II

  Buoyed by warm and fragrant air, they floated across the Serengeti until the end of the first week. Fergusson shot dozens of specimens and made numerous notations in his journals. The explorer had been quite a sportsman back in England. They ate fresh meat every night, after the specimens provided data for Fergusson’s scientific logbook and scenes for Caroline’s increasingly detailed drawings. Otherwise, the slain animals would have been wasted.

  While drifting along, the crew of the Victoria had considerable idle time, and the doctor told them his life story. Samuel Fergusson’s younger years had been rather checkered: He’d served aboard a ship from the age of eighteen and had sailed around the world before his twenty-second birthday. He had spent a year in Australia and Tasmania, and later trudged across India and into Nepal and Tibet, always bearing the British flag. He had a restless nature, a burning curiosity, and so much impatience to move on to the next conquest that he rarely enjoyed the fruits o
f his own discoveries.

  Nemo got along well enough with the man, though Caroline grew weary of Fergusson’s constant killing in the name of science. The doctor neither scorned her presence nor opposed her desire to do her share of the work, since Caroline’s finances had made the entire adventure possible. The only things that inspired great enthusiasm in Fergusson were his hunt and the expedition.

  As they floated over rock-studded plains, they came upon a ponderous herd of elephants. Beaming, Dr. Fergusson insisted that they obtain a pachyderm specimen so that he could perform meticulous physiognomic measurements on the size and thickness of the ears, the biological hydraulics of the trunk, and the protective qualities of the hide. But the herd milled about in the open grasslands, far from any convenient tree for the balloon’s anchorage. “Drop the grappling hook anyway,” Fergusson suggested, “all the way to the ground. Perhaps we’ll snag it on a rock, eh?”

  Nemo followed the command, but the colorful balloon continued to drift unhindered. The anchor plowed a furrow through the grasses, doing little to slow the Victoria ’s progress. As if to spite them, the breezes increased, and the balloon drifted rapidly over the elephant herd.

  Fergusson loaded both of his rifles then looked in dismay at the pachyderms. He didn’t shoot because he had no way to retrieve his prize. But then, as the anchor dragged through the herd, its hooks snagged on something. With a lurch, the balloon jerked to a halt.

  “Ah, we’re caught,” Fergusson said. “Now we can—”

  The balloon began to move again, tugged along as if by a locomotive. Hearing a loud bellow, Nemo looked over the basket to find that the hook had caught on the curved tusk of a huge bull elephant. Tangled, the beast trumpeted with its long trunk and thrashed its head from side to side, which only set the sharp grappling hook tighter.

  Furious, the elephant charged across the plain, dragging the Victoria along.

  Thinking of practical matters, Caroline secured the loose equipment to the wicker walls of the basket. Normally, the breezes gave them a gentle ride, but now the three were yanked about as the maddened creature stampeded, first in one direction, then the other.

  Within moments, Dr. Fergusson regained his senses enough to pick up his first rifle. He leaned over the basket, pointed the barrel at the elephant below, and let loose a shot. Against the thick hide, however, the bullet did little damage other than spurring the elephant to a greater frenzy. As the beast ran, the balloon bobbed along behind it like a fish on the end of a hook.

  Fergusson shot his second rifle, saw that the bullet struck the elephant squarely in the back of the head. He reloaded and fired again and again, until at last the animal slowed to a plod, bleeding from numerous wounds. With a great wheeze of pain and exhaustion, it dropped in its tracks.

  Nemo and Caroline were both sad for the magnificent creature, but Fergusson saw it as no more than another set of descriptions to be entered into his logbook. They winched the balloon closer to the ground, and the doctor leaped over the side without even bothering to use the ladder. Enormous vultures and ravens circled around, waiting for the feast.

  Nemo and Fergusson spent an hour poking and prodding the carcass, measuring, estimating weight, making notes. Then they stored both of the elephant’s tusks, each worth a fortune in ivory, inside the balloon’s basket.

  From her lookout above, Caroline sketched the scene and added more poignancy to the dramatic flight of the elephant than pure scientific analysis required.

  III

  In misery, Jules Verne sat alone in a bistro by the river Seine. The waiter served him a bottle of cheap wine, strong cheese, bread, and poached fish with a mushroom cream sauce. At any other time, he would have savored every morsel; now, though, the future loomed like a yawning chasm, and made him lose his appetite.

  The bistro owner presumed the red-bearded student was celebrating his graduation, though Verne’s lack of enthusiasm suggested otherwise. “No, Monsieur,” he answered the grinning man’s question. “This is most definitely not the happiest day of my life.”

  At the Paris Academy, Verne had reviewed every legal detail he’d learned in the past several years. The dry words crawled across the pages like listless insects, and he stared until his eyes burned and his head ached. He remained uninterested in the law—but he didn’t dare face the consequences of letting his father down. . . .

  When he received his grade and discovered that his score was sufficient for a diploma (by a scant few points in his favor), Verne realized that he no longer had any escape. His dismal future had been set. Not as a literary genius, not a world explorer, not a brave adventurer . . . but a small-town lawyer.

  As he watched a pleasure boat go by on the Seine, he took a forkful of fish and chewed. Now that he was certified as a practicing attorney, his father would expect him to settle down in Nantes and, over time, take over the family trade. Proud of his son’s accomplishment, the older man had already mounted a new sign above the door to his offices: “Pierre Verne, et fils.” Verne & Son.

  The very thought horrified Jules. He felt as if he were on the deck of a sinking ship.

  He forced himself to finish every scrap of his dinner and all the wine, regardless of whether his digestive system—queasy at the best of times—would appreciate it. Since he’d paid for the meal, he vowed to consume it . . . not that he ever let good food go to waste.

  His theatre work had been both amusing and difficult, sapping his strength but teaching him many things (none of which, unfortunately, would benefit an attorney). He had earned little money in the theatre—just enough to repay his expenses and supplement the meager allowance his father sent him each month. If he defied his father and remained in Paris, the allowance would stop abruptly, no matter how much his sympathetic mother might argue. And Verne could not live on a theatre worker’s salary.

  By now he had hoped to become a renowned playwright. The poetry that had always delighted his family and friends did not seem brilliant enough to warrant publication. His historical novels, pale imitations of the works of Dumas and Hugo, were tedious, dry, melodramatic. The more he worked at them, the duller they became (at least according to his literary associates who read them and gleefully offered their acid criticism).

  But Verne wanted to find some way to be successful through his writing, no matter the cost. It was time to give up those aspirations and slink home in the night in hopes that no one had noticed his dreams . . . or he must swallow his pride and ask a tremendous favor from his strongest literary acquaintance. By now, he vowed, it was no longer time to be polite or subtle.

  Verne paid the waiter, then returned to his apartment where he changed into his best clothes, well-worn though they were. Alexandre Dumas hired writers to assist in the production of his novels and plays, and Verne had always hoped to join them. He had dropped hints during visits to the Monte Cristo chateau, but the enormous man with his booming laugh and glittering jewelry had ignored each gentle reminder. Now, though, Verne would be direct, drop to his knees if necessary. If he could work for the great “fiction factory,” perhaps he would earn enough to make a living. He had no other choice, besides being a lawyer.

  As he rode in a carriage to the outskirts of Paris, Verne worked up his courage, remembering all he had learned in the theatre and in law school. He had to make a compelling case for himself. Nothing he’d ever done would matter as much as this.

  When the carriage pulled up to the graveled courtyard of Monte Cristo, Verne handed the appropriate coins to the driver, along with a very small tip, then climbed out.

  Into total chaos.

  The carriage rattled away with a surly comment from the driver. Verne stood astonished as the front door was flung open and well-dressed men marched out of the entrance.

  Inside the huge house, crews of workers bustled about, dragging furniture, taking down paintings, wrapping statuary for transport. The sound of hammers rang out from the magnificent marble-tiled ballroom as carpenters assembled storage crates. Gri
m-faced businessmen slapped labels on tapestries or alabaster busts of Dumas himself. Secretaries recorded the items in heavy ledger books.

  “What is going on here?” Verne caught the elbow of a well-muscled workman who had extraordinarily hairy arms. He felt too intimidated to speak to any of the businessmen.

  The worker brushed sweat from his forehead. “You another creditor? I only take orders from him.” He nodded toward a small man with a wispy beard and a bright red cravat.

  Gathering his courage, Verne hurried to the indicated man. “What is the meaning of this? Are you thieves? By what right are you taking these treasures from the great Dumas?”

  “They’re being marked for auction,” the man said. “Monsieur Dumas is bankrupt. Even selling the chateau and its contents will not pay all his bills.”

  Verne was astonished. “Impossible! He is one of the most successful writers in France.”

  The small man gave a brief, maddening chuckle. “And he is also one of the greatest spendthrifts. Now be on your way.”

  Verne spluttered. “But . . . but have you no respect for books?”

  “Aye—for ledger books. You’ll have to find a new patron if you’re another of those leeches who clung to Dumas and his wealth.” The man sneered. “Or else find legitimate work of your own.”

  The haughty man marched off into another room, where a beautiful gilt-framed mirror was being hauled down with two ropes and a great deal of clumsiness. He bellowed an admonition to the workmen, and the startled brutes let loose the ropes. The mirror crashed into thousands of shards upon the polished floor.