Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Nemo forced a tight smile again and looked at Cyrus Harding waiting just outside the airlock hatch. His anger had turned to ice, and he was completely prepared for what he must do. “Yes, Caliph, we will have much to celebrate.” The second-in-command gave a curt nod to show that he understood.

  The four suited men sealed the airlock chamber. Nemo turned a rotating wheel to open a valve that allowed sea water to pour in. Both the guard and the caliph became frantic at the gushing flow, but Nemo raised his gloved hand, gesturing for them not to fear. When the water filled the chamber, they stood together for a moment, testing their breathing apparatus and looking through their helmets.

  Nemo tasted metallic air in his lungs and again saw a bright vision of the meteorologist lying beheaded on the docks. Conseil had developed these systems, much improved over the crude bladder helmet young Nemo had used to walk under the Loire, when he’d been unable to save his drowning father. . . . With renewed determination, he opened the outer door, and the party stepped out of the sub-marine boat and onto the bottom of the sea.

  Nemo’s boot sank deep, sending up a cloud of silty mud. For a second he wondered if he had stumbled upon a murky trough of quicksand . . . but then he struck hard rock. With slow, fluid steps, he left footprints that the ocean erased.

  Caliph Robur walked beside him like a child, struggling to keep his balance, but soon he was filled with delight and wonder. Liedenbrock followed them, letting himself become accustomed to the suit. The reluctant guard used his harpoon like a walking stick. Nemo watched them every second, ready to strike the moment either man made a mistake or showed any weaknesses.

  They passed through a garden of olive-green seaweed that waved like ferns around their knees and provided shelter for darting, exotic fish. The ground rose in rippled mounds of volcanic rock mixed with colorful coral like the antlers of a stag.

  When Nemo saw the twined coral, he felt another sharp pang. He recalled that long-ago morning when he and Jules Verne had each promised to obtain a coral necklace for the beautiful young Caroline Aronnax. Now he stood looking at a fortune of the substance . . . and he was farther from Caroline than he had ever been—and far from his wife Auda, as well, who had risked a great deal to warn him of the dangers he faced.

  Robur intends to kill us all.

  Hidden among boulders, they saw a cluster of giant clams, each one like a wide set of gray lips rimming a hard shell. Nemo wondered if they might find enormous black pearls inside the crushing bivalve jaws of the clams.

  The explorers were so intent on the mollusks that only Nemo noticed the shadow like a sharp canoe over their heads. He tilted his armored helmet to see the sleek form of a hammerhead shark swimming in search of prey.

  The air bubbles escaping from their tanks had attracted the predator. Nemo froze, hoping the shark would swim away, but the hammerhead circled back. Nemo grabbed Liedenbrock’s arm to get his attention. Seeing the movement, the caliph looked up and recoiled in astonishment. The guard holding the spear flailed in terror as the shark swam closer.

  Nemo bounded forward, the water’s embrace forcing him into a slow-motion dance. He wrested the spear out of the befuddled guard’s gloved hand, then made certain he had a strong foothold on the rough coral surface.

  The hammerhead stroked its angular tail back and forth, propelling itself toward Liedenbrock. As the shark passed overhead, Nemo thrust the spear upward with all his might. The barbed tip plunged into the shark’s belly. The hammerhead shuddered, but Nemo refused to let go of the spear. He pushed and tugged, using the jagged blade to rip open the fish’s abdomen and spill its entrails along with a cloud of red blood.

  The shark wheeled away, thrashing as it died. Trembling from the effort, Nemo ripped the spear loose. The air tasted hot and metallic inside his helmet. Liedenbrock stood beside him, poised for further action. The caliph’s guard lumbered forward to retrieve the spear. His dark eyes glowered with anger and shame at his own inaction.

  Both Nemo and Caliph Robur looked with contempt at the burly man, but Nemo surrendered the weapon without argument. He wouldn’t need it for what he had in mind anyway. He gestured for the men to begin the return trek to the Nautilus, whose lights gleamed in the distance like a lighthouse beacon. The dissipating blood from the shark would attract other aquatic predators . . . and Nemo had enough human enemies right beside him.

  Aboard the Nautilus, after he’d waited long enough for the underwater party to be far away, Cyrus Harding sounded the alarm. The other crew members had been primed, and they reacted to the emergency, pointing toward one of the ballast chambers. Harding raised his voice in false panic. “Sabotage! Sabotage, mates! Someone’s in the ballast rooms!”

  The confused guards sensed the urgency, but they understood little. Harding could have spoken in perfect Turkish after so many years at Rurapente, but he stumbled over the foreign words with feigned confusion, explaining little. A loud siren and a flashing beacon flustered the well-muscled guards even more.

  The Englishman ran toward the rear ballast chambers, and three of the five remaining guards stormed after him, drawing their scimitars. While the other crew members scrambled about, faces filled with mock terror, Harding flung open the metal bulkhead door. He pointed in alarm.

  The three guards plunged inside, swords raised, ready for battle with saboteurs—and Harding slammed the metal door, sealing them into the ballast chambers. Then, coldly and without remorse, the British boatbuilder opened the valves and filled the sealed room with cold sea water.

  The trapped guards shouted and hammered their sword hilts on the other side of the door. Harding stood stony-faced. These men had executed Conseil without mercy and would have happily dispatched every member of the Nautilus crew. The followers of Caliph Robur deserved to drown.

  The other Europeans turned on the remaining guards, overwhelming them. One of the engineers had retrieved the scimitar left behind by Robur’s bodyguard; now the men threw themselves at the white-clad guards, using metal bars and equipment to fight for their lives. They knocked the curved swords away from Robur’s men and retrieved the blades for themselves. Their enthusiasm and anger ran unchecked.

  By the time Cyrus Harding went to meet them, turning deaf ears to the final cries of the drowning men inside the ballast chamber, the caliph’s murderous guards had already been slain with their own swords. They lay in pools of blood on the Nautilus deckplates.

  After the successful revolt, the captive crew members stood in shock, drenched in sweat. Blood spattered the uniforms Caliph Robur had forced them to wear, identifying them as prisoners of Rurapente. The long silence extended for more than a minute.

  Finally, without a word or sign from Cyrus Harding, the men let out a loud cheer that signified their victory and their freedom at last after so many long years held hostage. Now the Nautilus belonged to them.

  Harding went back to the helm and stared out the thick windows, watching for his captain to return.

  Nemo waited until they approached the Nautilus. The running lights from the sub-marine boat shone out, overpowering the shimmering illumination from the sun far above.

  He moved his gloved hand in a secret signal to Liedenbrock. Nemo fumbled inside a wide pocket in his underwater suit and withdrew the long knife he had secreted there. He stepped in front of their captor and turned so that his eyes, dark with hatred, could stare through the viewing plate at Robur’s scarred face. He had waited long years for this moment.

  When Robur saw the knife, a burst of bubbles evacuated from his air tank as the caliph flailed backwards, clumsily trying to get away. Nemo gracefully slid forward and slashed the air hose behind Robur’s brass helmet. Helpless, the warlord struggled, but to no avail.

  Air poured from the severed hose the way blood had sprayed from Conseil’s neck. Nemo watched impassively as the once-powerful caliph fought to breathe . . . but all of his air bled away. Gratified, thinking of the years of oppression he and the other captives had suffered, Nemo watched eve
ry moment and felt no sympathy whatsoever. . . .

  Liedenbrock struck at the same moment, cutting the guard’s air hose with another knife. As the burly man lumbered about in confusion, the pressurized air propelled him like a jet, knocking him forward and off balance. In desperation, the guard swung his spear, but the metallurgist sidestepped the jagged blade, then plucked the weapon from the guard’s gloved hand as if it were a welcome gift.

  Liedenbrock lowered the spear and thrust it into his enemy’s chest, killing him instantly. Nemo regretted that extra bit of violence, because now it would take longer to repair the valuable watertight suit.

  When Robur finally ceased his struggles, Nemo looked down to see that the warlord’s helmet had filled with water, and his eyes and mouth were open.

  The fearsome caliph looked like nothing more than a dead fish. With a heart of stone, Nemo had no regrets for what they had been forced to do. He grasped Robur’s body by the thick sleeve and dragged him to the Nautilus airlock.

  Liedenbrock did the same with the guard. The crew would have plenty of time now to repair the underwater suits. When Nemo emerged from the airlock into the sub-marine, dripping and exhausted, he saw that Cyrus Harding had done his part. They had succeeded in capturing the Nautilus.

  Nemo lifted the brass helmet from his shoulders as the ecstatic crewmen set up a loud cheer. He was their captain, and these men would follow him around the Earth, if he asked it. They had lived and worked and suffered together for years. They had built an unparalleled sub-marine vessel, they had slain a brutal warlord who wanted to be master of the world—and now they were free again.

  The Nautilus remained submerged while the crew washed the blood off the deck and disposed of the bodies, feeding the caliph and his hated guards to the fishes.

  Nemo stood at the helm of his great sub-marine boat and studied his loyal and devoted men. They were now in command of their own destinies.

  According to Auda’s note, it would not be safe to go back to the Ottoman Empire for some time. Instead, he would take the Nautilus and head out of the Mediterranean.

  “Captain . . .” Cyrus Harding said, looking at the other men as if they had elected him to speak for them. “We’ve all been away for six or seven years. The things we’ve done, and the things we’ve seen since then—well, sir, our homelands are just memories now. They ain’t nobody’s home anymore.”

  Liedenbrock stomped his foot on the metal deckplate of the Nautilus. “Ach! If we were having anything to return to, why would we join the war in the first place? I want to stay aboard this ship that we built, with these men who are closer comrades than anyone I knew back in Europe.”

  A Sardinian glassmaker with long hair said, “If it’s all the same to you, Captain, I’d rather wait out the year and go back for my family in Rurapente. I want to take them away from there. When it’s time.”

  Hearing his men, Nemo nodded. He longed to go back to France and see Caroline again, and Jules Verne—but he had traveled so far along life’s path since he’d last spoken to them. He was married to Auda now, and he loved her. Thanks to the vile deception Caliph Robur had perpetrated, Nemo knew that Caroline had believed him dead for years . . . lost to her. By now, she would have gone on with her life, perhaps even married again. He could not bear to torment Caroline—or himself—with things that now could never be. Better to let her keep thinking him lost than to suffer more regrets. . . .

  The Nautilus headed out into the depths of the Mediterranean Sea, setting a course eastward. Nemo would not forget what lay behind him. He vowed someday to return to his wife and son.

  “For now,” Nemo said, “perhaps we will simply enjoy our freedom.”

  PART IX

  20,000 L EAGUES

  I

  Paris, 1862

  At the age of thirty-four and bored, Jules Verne considered his life a failure.

  When a brown-wrapped package arrived with the afternoon post, Verne took it from the delivery man himself, trying not to let Honorine see—knowing, dreading, what the parcel contained.

  The sky outside was a robin’s-egg blue, the air sharp and autumn cool, pleasant enough to make pedestrians smile as they walked the streets. The delivery man tipped his hat to the bearded writer and strode away, whistling. Verne envied the man’s optimism.

  With a growing sense of resignation, he shuffled over to the low writing desk and used a pocketknife to snap the twine on the packet. Honorine watched from the other side of the room as she gathered her hoops and threads to begin a new needlework pattern for a pillowcase. She smiled encouragement to him, and Verne tried to maintain his composure. Unfortunately, by now, most of his optimism had already been used up.

  Year after year, he had continued to strive at his writing career, and achieved just enough success to keep him doggedly trying. No one would sing his praises in the halls of literary fame because of the few minor plays he’d had produced. No one would remember his clever verse or his magazine articles. Still, he tried . . . and tried.

  He had spent a full year on an ambitious new manuscript, burying himself in clippings and books and journals. He had devoted his research attentions to a massive scientific study based on the uses of balloons in travel and exploration. He himself had never been up in a balloon or explored distant lands . . . but he had talked with Nemo and Caroline, and had read Dr. Fergusson’s published account of the voyage across Africa. That should have been sufficient.

  Now, if only someone would publish Verne’s tome. It had begun to seem hopeless . . .

  After five uneventful years, his marriage to Honorine had settled into a quiet familiarity. Though he felt guilty about it, Verne paid scant attention to his wife, spending but a few minutes with her at meals, during which he spoke little before dashing back to his writing study. This wasn’t how he had fancied his life as an author. It seemed hard work, dedication, and enthusiasm was simply not enough. Perhaps Alexandre Dumas had been kind in trying to discourage him, or at least make him face the realities of the career.

  His tedious job at the stock market provided enough money for them to live in reasonable comfort, though without extravagances. Verne had managed to represent every member of his extended family who had any money at all to invest. Sometimes his advice was good, sometimes it failed, but he did nothing so rash as to make his relatives consider his performance disastrous. Jules Verne made no waves, no ripples in life whatsoever.

  He and Honorine became the parents of a baby son, Michel, more through a fortuitous accident rather than any ambitious effort on Verne’s part. A colicky baby, Michel spent most of his time fussing and causing disturbances. Verne feared the baby would grow up to be a difficult youngster as well. In stories, life never seemed to happen this way. He had a hard time reconciling his disappointing daily reality with his imagination.

  In the household, with her daughters visiting their grandparents again, Honorine’s task was to keep the infant as quiet as possible so her husband could concentrate on his writing. Later, after Verne had trudged off to the dreary stock exchange, Michel could wail to his lungs’ content.

  As his creative frustration built, Verne became a more impatient person, sharper tempered. It was not his wife’s fault, nor his son’s, but they often bore the brunt of his disillusionment. The stamina he needed to continue his unflagging (and unrewarded) writing efforts began to wane, despite Honorine’s continued calm encouragement. The noise and disruptions at home made concentration even more difficult. Even the plots of his own adventures gave him diminished enjoyment.

  Still, Verne had been proud to complete his exhaustive balloon manuscript, convinced that he had found his path to success. Honorine could sense her husband’s excitement about the project, and she smiled at him each time he looked at her.

  Full of optimism again, he had selected the best Parisian publisher and submitted the completed manuscript. Surely, the hungry minds in France would want to read everything there was to know about lighter-than-air travel. And the boo
k came back—rejected.

  Undaunted, silently dubbing the editor a blind fool who could not recognize talent, Verne sent the balloon treatise to his second choice, an equally reputable and impressive publisher. Again the book was returned to him. Angry, but still determined, he submitted the manuscript over and over . . . and waited for the return post. Each morning, like a sleepwalker, he went to the Bourse, uninterested in the endless routine of selling and buying shares. Days, sometimes weeks, passed—but always his manuscript came back with similar verdicts. “Too long.” “Too dull.” “Too unfocused.”

  Verne’s coworkers knew of his ambitions and joked about him being a lightheaded dreamer. While they thought he wasted his time at writing, they themselves spent extra hours in the stock exchange, making (and losing) fortunes.

  As the balloon book repeatedly failed to find a home, Verne’s mood soured. His doubts and disappointment grew, and coworkers stopped teasing him. In fact, they stopped conversing much with him at all. . . .

  Now, with his palms sweating, he unwrapped the parcel and closed his eyes. He drew a deep breath and removed the handwritten note on top of his fastidiously produced manuscript. Deemed unpublishable.

  Again.

  Verne had lost a substantial sum in the stock market that day, and the baby’s loud crying exacerbated his headache. The letter from yet another ignorant publisher only reinforced his doubts and his foul mood. Rejected seventeen times. How could an 800-page manuscript about the history and engineering of ballooning possibly be boring? It went beyond all reason.

  Giving in to frustration, Verne strode across the room with the heavy manuscript in hand, his only copy of the work that had taken him a year to complete. Melodramatically, he threw open the iron door of the stove where a fire burned, warming the house against the autumn chill. With a wordless gesture of disgust and a dramatic flair, he tossed the thick manuscript into the fire and slammed the door with a nod of petulant satisfaction. “There! Good riddance. Now things will change around here.”