by Adam Roberts
But Dakkar only said, ‘Please continue with your narrative.’
‘My? My history of?’ Lebret stroked his swollen jaw. ‘Well, well. I’ll say I am, Monsieur, I am heartened to discover that we share similar humanitarian aims – even if we can debate, pleasantly, the best means of achieving them …’
‘There’s no debate on the matter,’ interrupted Dakkar. ‘I am right.’
Lebret waited, before continuing, ‘As I say, I am heartened. Because you will perhaps be able to understand my particular situation. Because after the First World War there was a second, even more destructive …’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Dakkar, impatiently. ‘And after that no doubt a third, and a fourth and …’
‘There have only been two,’ said Lebret.
‘So far!’
‘Well,’ Lebret agreed. ‘The point is that the Second World War was unprecedented in world history. Ostensibly it was fought between two mighty imperialist nations, on the one hand America-Britain, on the other Germany …’
‘Germany!’ exclaimed Dakkar. ‘Since when have they possessed an empire? They barely have a navy!’
‘As I was saying,’ Lebret explained, as patiently as he could. ‘Things have changed since you … since you left. And anyway, the war only appeared to be between these two imperial powers. In fact it was Russia who suffered the most – because the imperialists sought to destroy its revolution. This fact was proved by the way, as soon as Germany was defeated, the American powers attempted to press their advantage. The hot war, called Second, mutated into the First Cold War. Only with heroic effort has the Soviet Union kept the flame of revolution burning.’
‘The … ?’
‘Russia, I mean. This is my moment of honesty, M’sieur. If the others aboard the Plongeur discover what I am about to tell you, they will shoot me – plain and simple.’
‘Shoot you again,’ said Dakkar, ‘I suppose you mean.’
‘Well,’ said Lebret. ‘Yes. But you must understand. I am aboard the Plongeur as an agent of the French government. But whilst I am such an agent, I am also secretly an agent of the Soviet Union, a …’
‘A spy,’ said Dakkar, looking bored. ‘Yes. I see.’
Lebret gulped. ‘I tell you this, I confide in you with this information, because—’
‘Politics!’ interrupted Dakkar. ‘I am entirely uninterested in politics.’
‘Please,’ begged Lebret. ‘Your message – it was intercepted by …’
‘You adapted the vessel? You personally?’
‘The Nautilus was refurbished, yes. Fitted out with an atomic pile – a new form of energy.’
‘I am perfectly well acquainted,’ said Dakkar, haughtily, ‘with the principles of nuclear energy. How do you think the Jewel is able to bring such powerful energies to bear – the suction ray, for instance?’
‘That was him? I thought—’
‘The technology comes from him. I have merely utilised it here.’
‘And who is the Great Jewel?’
‘You do not want to have dealings with the Mighty Jewel,’ said Dakkar, sternly. ‘He is not well disposed to … your kind.’
‘My kind?’ repeated Lebret. ‘If he is not my kind, then what is he? And are you not my kind, Monsieur?’
‘Whatever I am, whatever I have become,’ said Dakkar, with dignity. ‘I have never been a spy.’
With a sinking sensation Lebret understood that, far from winning Dakkar’s sympathy, he had actively alienated him. ‘I wish the world were a different place,’ he urged. ‘I wish I did not have to act the traitor to my nation – and when world Communism has been achieved …’
‘Monsieur,’ said Dakkar, shaking his great head. His tentacular beard worked moisture in at his mouth as he spoke. ‘Your politics, and the politics of your crew, are of no interest to me.’
‘But—!’
‘The game is larger than terrestrial politics!’ boomed Dakkar.
‘You don’t understand!’
‘I understand that my message was intercepted by a spy! But from what you say, it seems the crew of the official vessel have seen through your disguise. They attempted to execute you for your treason! Somehow you escaped, and stole a diving suit and came down here before them – but they are on their way!’
‘It is vital,’ Lebret urged, feeling the encounter slipping away from him, ‘that the technological advances of which you spoke – that they do not fall into the hands of the Western Imperial forces! Let me take you back to Moscow! My superior officers refused to believe the veracity of your message, it is true; but if I bring you back then they must believe! And the technology capacities you possess can help win the world for Communism.’ He put his hands together, pleading. ‘You lived your life as an anti-Imperialist; don’t abandon that principle now!’
‘There is nothing trustworthy or honourable about you, Monsieur,’ Dakkar announced. ‘Nothing! I am Prince Dakkar! I choose to speak to the legitimate authorities. I shall wait for the arrival of the Plongeur, and address myself to its Captain.’
‘The Soviet Union is a legitimate authority!’
‘Yet you yourself concede,’ Dakkar pressed, with a shrewd expression, ‘that you took my message to them and they refused to believe you?’
‘It,’ sputtered Lebret, pressing a hand to the numb, spongy swollen jaw. ‘It was complicated. My superior officers scoffed. It was hard for me to present the case without breaking my cover. I may not have done as good a job as I should. And there was a degree – I’m sorry to say it – a degree of racism in the reception of the news. You see, I had been based in India, and …’
‘India?’
‘I was supposed to be liaising with the British on behalf of the French. In fact I was working with the Soviets, with a view to destabilising Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Punjab. But the connection of your message with …’
‘Enough!’ boomed Dakkar. ‘You tell me that you have betrayed your nation and failed your true masters. Why should I trust you?’
‘But,’ said Lebret, a feeling akin to despair swelling inside his chest, like ink poured into a vase of clear water. ‘But – you don’t understand the pressures …’
‘You could not persuade the Russians, yet you persuaded the French?’
‘We,’ said Lebret, ‘we came to them with your old submarine. The Indian authorities had discovered it – a museum piece. But a friend of mine had been involved in the Soviet nuclear programme; and he defected – or appeared to defect – to the West, and fitted it with an atomic pile …’
‘This story wearies me,’ Dakkar pronounced, his writhing beard jabbing accusingly at Lebret. ‘All these betrayals and double-betrayals! What has happened to honour? I shall speak to your captain.’
‘Captain Cloche is,’ said Lebret, feeling sick in his stomach, ‘dead; he is dead.’
‘Dead?’ With a squirting sound, like a child blowing a raspberry, Dakkar moved through the air towards Lebret, his huge head looming larger still and accusation in his eyes. ‘Did you kill him?’
‘He refused to bring the Plongeur down!’ Lebret squealed, startled by the combination of hideousness and proximity. ‘He was stubborn – but I didn’t kill him,’ he added, too late. ‘He died in an accident. He, he.’ Lebret was hypnotised by the snake-like wrigglings of Dakkar’s beard. He could see detail in the mare’s-nest of it – not just the coating of tiny water-bead, but myriad soft-looking thorns that lifted and laid themselves flat against each strand. And at the end of each individual tentacle was a miniature stoma, opening and closing as if breathing, or perhaps tasting the air.
‘What? What?’
‘He had an accident in his cabin,’ Lebret concluded, weakly. ‘His death was a tragic accident.’
Dakkar glared at him. ‘You’re lying,’ he announced. ‘A traitor, a liar and a murderer! Why should I have anything to do with you?’
The monstrous form reached out two of its legs, connected with the white walls and pushed off, spin
ning himself about. Then, darting like a fish, he shot straight towards the bulb of water.
‘Wait!’ Lebret cried. ‘Don’t leave me – what about the Jewel? What manner of being is he? Where is he from?’
Dakkar ducked his head into the water, and for a moment Lebret thought he was going to vanish entirely. But then, his four paddle-shaped feet planted on the side, he drew himself back into the air. ‘The Pearl of Great Price,’ he said, slowly, not looking at Lebret. ‘The Multi-Faceted One.’ He turned his huge head, and laid one eye on Lebret. ‘I am Prince Dakkar, of a noble and honourable lineage. It is no arrogance in me to describe myself as a great man. But the Great Jewel is an entity incomparably greater than I.’
‘Is he a man?’ Lebret pressed. ‘An alien? Was he born in this place, or did he come here – like you and I?’
‘Do not,’ Dakkar barked, ‘juxtapose yourself and myself in any sentence your mouth may form!’
‘Is he, you know, an actual crystalline life-form, a sentient jewel, or is he …’
But Dakkar dived into the bulge of water and vanished, leaving a scattering of droplets behind him to hang in the air.
25
THE PRODIGIOUS EMERALD
Lebret emptied his lungs in a great sigh. ‘Well,’ he told himself. ‘That didn’t go so well.’
He looked about the chamber. The walls appeared to be made of a similar material to the gigantic scallop shell above – dense but yielding. There were a number of shelves and some items of what looked like advanced technology – a white cube with blue curving lines incised into it; a series of tubes that did not seem to open or otherwise respond to Lebret’s investigations. There was a flat rectangular sheet fixed to the wall and a number of squirls like dry white pasta arranged in what might have been a pattern. None of this appeared to be of any immediate use to Lebret.
‘Am I trapped here?’ he wondered
He went back up into the corridor that led to the scallop shell and retrieved his air tanks. But fitting the mouthpiece and trying to breathe the contents made him cough. The air was almost exhausted. ‘So I cannot use these to swim away,’ he thought to himself. ‘Unless I can somehow recharge them? But no – what would be the use? Where would I go?’
He floated back through to the main chamber, bringing the empty tanks with him. The thought of simply waiting, helplessly, for the Plongeur to arrive – to be denounced by the weird monster that Dakkar had become, and to face once again the violent animosity of Billiard-Fanon. The passivity of it was obnoxious to him. But what else could he do?
His ripped-up diving suit was floating where it had been discarded. He pushed himself over to it and found the pocket with its knife. Looking at it in the bright light of that place he was surprised by how small it seemed: a small iron blade, a Bakelite handle. With so small a weapon had he truly fought off ocean monsters of nightmare?
Well, it felt better to be armed, even if armed with something so tiny. And the air tanks, even empty, were solid tubes of metal. He dragged them over to the bulb of water and left them there.
Floating about in his undergarments struck him as demeaning. He tried to cut a pair of make-shift shorts from the remnants of his diving suit, but the material was too tough for it. So instead he crossed his legs, floating in mid air about a metre from the bulb of water, and spent a half hour carefully sharpening the little blade against the metal of the empty air cylinder.
Tucking the knife into the elastic band at the top of his underpants, Lebret thrust his head into the bubble of water. Weightlessness gave his gesture the disorienting action of turning the world about – he pushed his head down into water, but it seemed to him his head was now poking up into a large watery space, illuminated with a string of bubble-lights stretching away into the murky distance. It was not immediately obvious whether this was open to the general ocean, or was a water-filled chamber of large dimensions. A number of shadowy shapes were visible in the middle-distance, but it was not possible to determine exactly what they were. If Dakkar was there, Lebret could not see him.
He withdrew his head and wiped away some of the water.
Always have a plan, Seleznyov had told him, once, long ago. ‘It is better to have a bad plan than no plan at all. Always be thinking – how can I turn this situation to my advantage? What can I do to improve my odds?’
‘A plan,’ Lebret breathed. His thinking was hampered by not knowing how long it would be before the Plongeur arrived. But he could at least plan out possible scenarios.
If the submarine arrived before Dakkar returned … well, then, Lebret would have an advantage. Since young Capot had seen him, in the air-lock, after Billiard-Fanon had shot him, they must know that he was still alive. They would not be too surprised to see him there. The trick, then, would be talking down Billiard-Fanon’s hostility – assuming the ensign was still in charge. But he could tell them anything he saw fit: tell them, for instance, that Dakkar was a monster. Get them on side. And when Dakkar returned, perhaps together they could kill him … repair the Plongeur, steal such of his technology as they could, and return to the surface …
It was far-fetched. He knew that. But Lebret consoled himself with the thought that just surviving this far had involved him superbly beating the odds. Fate must be preserving him for something – more than simply dying pointlessly in this distant pod.
So, to consider other possible futures. What if Dakkar returned before the Plongeur arrived? This, Lebret thought, was probable; he must have instrumentation that would inform him of the craft’s approach. Well, then, Lebret might use the metal tanks as a crude club, or might deploy his newly sharpened diver’s knife as a stabbing implement, and so end the creature’s life. Would it be possible? His physical form was, evidently, much altered from what it had been before. But his skull, though hugely enlarged, must surely still be susceptible to blunt-force trauma. He must still have a beating heart that a knife could pierce.
What then? At least Dakkar would not then be able to denounce Lebret to the remaining crew of the Plongeur. He would have to think of some other explanation for events.
Better, perhaps, would be to beat Dakkar, to give him earnest of his intent, and force him somehow to help him – or help them all? But to enter into a fight with that monster … Lebret’s heart quailed at the prospect. And even if he could force the creature to do his bidding, what would that bidding be?
To return home, of course. But to return home with more than just testimony that this strange ocean-universe existed. To bring back some technological marvel, something to prove to his masters in Moscow that he had been right …
His thoughts turned to the Great Jewel, the Many-Faceted One, of which Dakkar had spoken. Lebret, floating in that strange place, pondered what such a being might be. An aboriginal intelligence? It did not seem unlikely to him that a water universe might give rise to crystalline intelligences. A great sapphire, its facets glinting in the dim light, and possessing within it enormous complexity. Was the Jewel to whom Dakkar clearly owed allegiance one such alien being? Were there many crystalline creatures? If there were one, presumably there were others.
Lebret thought – perhaps it would be best to speak directly to the Jewel creature? If menacing Dakkar compelled him to bring Lebret into the Jewel’s presence, or to bring the crystalline being to him …
Exhausted, Lebret dozed.
He slept fitfully for a while, since the pain in his jaw had not entirely been removed. Then he sank deeper into slumber.
He dreamed.
He saw a giant emerald floating before him, a polyhedral structure of perfect proportion, symmetry and beauty, its glass-pure facets shining with an inner light. A perfect sea green crystal. ‘Jewel,’ he gasped. ‘Perfection beyond human possibility!’
I am here, said the Jewel, speaking directly to Lebret’s mind.
‘You are a god!’ Lebret wept, humbled and awed. Tears squeezed from his shut eyes to drift away as dots and blobs.
Belief in God is an i
ntellectual opium, unworthy of you, said the Jewel. I am the crystalline embodiment of dialectical materialism.
‘You,’ Lebret gasped. ‘You are a Communist?’
I am an advanced form of alien life, the Jewel communicated to him telepathically. Naturally my kind are Communist, for it is the most advanced form of social organisation.
‘There are many of you?’
There were a million varieties of pure green glinting in the facets of the giant Jewel. Naturally.
‘Yet Dakkar was hostile to Communism … he dismissed all mundane political philosophies …’
Dakkar is still in thrall to the prejudices of his kind. He is not enlightened, as I am enlightened.
‘He called me,’ Lebret said, crying again, ‘murderer and traitor and …’
He did not understand, the Jewel said, that you acted according to the dictates of Necessity. Every true Communist understands Necessity. It is the logic of the universe.
‘Yes!’ gasped Lebret, tears pouring from his eyes. ‘Yes!’
When your metallic vessel arrives, I will compel the occupants to accept the rightness of your actions, said the Jewel. We must repair your craft and use it to return to your world. And I shall come with you. You shall be greeted with adulation! You will be acclaimed a hero of the Soviet Union! With me at your side, and drawing on my superior technological and intellectual capacities we will establish global Communism on your world! As if in ecstasy, the giant gemstone began to rotate about its vertical axis, slowly at first but then more rapidly. I shall be the first of my kind to enter your world, but many more will follow.
‘I will be vindicated,’ gasped Lebret. ‘Everybody will see – I did what had to be done! All my sufferings … all my sufferings … will be redeemed in my triumph …’
The gigantic emerald was spinning so rapidly now that its facets had blurred into a symmetrical ovaloid. Light was pouring from it. There was a noise, too; a low level hum. But as soon as Lebret became aware of it suddenly increased in volume, and became a violent din. It was painfully loud. He clutched his ears. The certainty dashed in upon him that the Jewel was about to explode, killing Lebret and destroying the entire facility. He opened his mouth to cry, ‘No!’
