Eventually, they were party to Wilfried’s story regarding the living globe, and the brief demonstration that followed it.
After a pause, Rupert concluded: “Glô and Wilfried are leaving the cupola by means of the staircase in the Teledynamo’s pedestal. They’re going down. At the foot of the stair, they’re turning left into a corridor. A door. A workroom. They’re passing through it. Another door. The dining-room. A meal is served. They’re sitting down. They’re eating...”
“Enough!” said the Nyctalope. “Let’s get on. Wake him up, Professor! We must act–but my plan will have to be profoundly modified. We’ll have to hold another council, like yesterday’s.”
“After lunch?” said Sir Patrick.
“No, before. We’ll eat afterwards.”
“As you wish.”
When Rupert VI was woken up, he was so exhausted that he almost fainted, but Lourmel had taken the precaution of putting a small flask of an ad hoc elixir in his coat pocket. Rupert VI drank the restorative liquor and recovered immediately. The bell-jar was lifted up and they came out. They left Rupert VI behind, because the radioactive environment, resistant to Lucifer’s distant fluids, made it impossible for a subject to project his perispirit, in response to a summons from the Supreme Lord. One of Sir Patrick’s launches took the three leaders back to Elmwood.
The council of war was immediately assembled, comprising exactly the same individuals as the day before. Once the session had been opened by the chairman, Sir Patrick Swires, the Nyctalope revealed the substance of Rupert VI’s new revelations, without unnecessary details, but comprehensively. He concluded: “The most important thing in all of this, for us, is the Teledynamo–and the fact that Lucifer will be incapable, until midnight on June 9, of carrying out several distant actions simultaneously. For many hours to come, he and his prodigious machine will be entirely preoccupied with the Lampas. He will only be able to exercise a very feeble influence on Rupert VI, using his brain alone–his own human brain–without the amplificatory effect of the Teledynamo. And Lucifer cannot make that feeble influence effective because Rupert is in the bell-jar, completely isolated from any magnetism.”
“What about me, Leo?” asked Laurence Païli.
“Yes, my darling Laure, Lucifer mentioned you, and the manner in which Rupert VI might, by capturing your thoughts, learn what you knew about me, so that he could use it to send me racing to help the Lampas. By that means, Lucifer thought to have me killed in some vulgar manner, as he put it, by the most banal of ambushes. Well, let’s leave him to it. If, after having tried in vain to influence Rupert VI, Lucifer passes on to you, Laure, and plants a suggestion in your mind, we’ll let him play the enemy and listen to what he inspires you to tell me. As we’re now forewarned and won’t be fooled, perhaps what you say to me will be useful rather than inimical.”
“I hope so!” said Laurence, exchanging glances with Grisyl, who was sitting beside her.
Then the young and hot-headed Lieutenant Romski, seized by a self-sacrificial impulse, took advantage of the fact that Saint-Clair did not resume speaking immediately, and cried: “Messieurs, I understand that our great leader the Nyctalope does not only wish to defeat Lucifer, but to obtain that victory with the least possible risk to our lives–all our lives, whether we are soldiers or colleagues–but what are our lives worth in proportion to the benefit that all humankind will derive from the annihilation of Lucifer? Nothing! Or, rather, they are only worth what they contribute to that victory.”
“Bravo!” Sergeant Berge could not help adding, enthusiastically. He had the same temperament and generous character as his immediate superior.
The latter continued: “Now, it seems to me that the Nyctalope is taking too much risk with his own life, and not enough with ours–all of which added together are not as precious as his alone. Do we need to be so careful? No! If our deaths could safeguard the Nyctalope’s and ensure victory, we would die happily. This is what I propose, therefore–begging Monsieur de Saint-Clair’s pardon for rendering his plan unnecessary.” Standing up with his eyes aflame and his face enraptured by heroism, Romski concluded: “The crews of the RC1, RC2 and RC3 will take off in their respective aircraft. They will proceed directly to the Pole at a great height. Once there, they will spiral down above Fort Warteck, getting as close to it as possible, and when they reach the fort, they will release all their bombs. Three times 20 is 60: 60 bombs, of which one alone would flatten the Panthéon in Paris! In three minutes, Fort Warteck will be reduced to a heap of shapeless ruins, and Lucifer, his Teledynamo, Wilfried and all his company to burned and broken corpses! In the meantime, the Nyctalope, Captain Girard, Corsat and Pilou, aboard the RC4, and the Uberalles, with Professor Lourmel and its crew, will leave before us in order to launch a simultaneous attack on the Wartecks’ submarine station. It will be easy enough for the Nyctalope and Commander Saincer to take possession of the station and the Kaiser-Gott. It is highly probable, if not certain, that the detonation of 60 bombs will immediately reduce the RC1, RC2 and RC3 to dust, along with their pilots and mechanics, but so what? You can raise a commemorative memorial to us at the North Pole, on the ruins of Fort Warteck!”
Cheers and applause burst forth; all the personnel of the three aircraft approved of Romski’s heroic enthusiasm for self-sacrifice. Laurence and Grisyl had eyes full of tears. Corsat and Pilou envied Romski; Captain Girard shook his hand; the Englishmen admired him; Lourmel cried: “Ah, the brave lads!”
Saint-Clair, who had risen to his feet, went to embrace the Polish officer fraternally, but when the general emotion had calmed down somewhat, the Nyctalope began speaking again, with the necessary authority.
“Before anything else,” he said, “let’s thank Lieutenant Romski for his generous offer, and also thank these young men who, by their loud applause and cheers, immediately declared their willingness to die gladly in his company. That’s wonderful! Personally, I’m touched to the bottom of my heart–and I know that I would have to battle hard against Romski and his noble cohort if all I had to oppose him was an equivalent determination to sacrifice myself... But no, my friends, no. This isn’t a matter of dying in order to win, for you or for me; it’s a matter of winning in order to live. We run the risk of being killed, that’s taken for granted–and I assure you that you will be just as exposed to that risk as I shall be–but a victory of the sort that Lieutenant Romski would obtain, if I accepted his sacrifice, is not the sort of victory we need to win.
“Yesterday and just now, I revealed to you the essentials of my strategy and my tactics. Romski’s generous intervention obliges me to specify my objectives, in order that you and he will understand why I will not accept his sacrifice. We must not only defeat Lucifer, capture him–dead or alive–and make it impossible for him to do any harm, and do the same with all his fanatical supporters, but we must also capture the Teledynamo intact, to study it, to make use of it in the cause of scientific progress, while taking every precaution to ensure that no perverse human being will ever again be able to attempt what we have to prevent Lucifer from accomplishing.
“The total destruction of Fort Warteck, which would be the inevitable result of the kind of offensive the Romski proposes, would annihilate not only the Teledynamo but the living globe and many other machines and agencies that it would be extremely useful for us to discover and study. A true victory, on the other hand, would give the conqueror the benefit of all the advantages by which by means of which the enemy nearly triumphed. The real conqueror, in this case, will neither be me, nor you, nor the company of which we are all a part, but the entirety of humankind.
“To these general considerations, I add others. Since it is possible that we might win without risking any of our lives, it would be criminal for me to accept an incomplete victory ensured by the certain death of the youngest among us. We must not forget, either, that Laurence Païli’s mother is in Fort Warteck...”
“Oh, Leo!” cried Laurence, so deeply moved that tears were running
down her lovely face. “Leo, if my mother could hear us and speak to us, she would say: ‘Don’t think about me! Kill Lucifer, to save the world!’ ”
“Yes!” said the Nyctalope. “And I would expect no less of your nobility, Laure–but your mother’s presence in Fort Warteck is, for me, merely one reason among others. I won’t repeat them, but I say this to Romski: Are you convinced, my friend, that the necessity is not to die in order to win, but to win in order to live?”
“Pardon me, Monsieur!” said Romski, emotionally. “I’m convinced. You will win so that the world may live. But...”
“But what?” Saint-Clair echoed, smiling.
“But it won’t be easy!”
“Of course not!” cried the Nyctalope. “If it were going to be easy, you wouldn’t have proposed that you and your companions should commit suicide to make it less difficult!” And immediately after that declaration, made with a smile, he said: “Messieurs, the matter is closed. Has anyone else any remark or proposition to make regarding my plan of action?”
No one said a word.
“In that case, Messieurs,” Saint-Clair concluded, “here are my orders.” And the Nyctalope spoke, no longer as a member of a council but as the commander-in-chief, assuming all the prerogatives and all the responsibilities of power.
X. Laure, Grisyl and Romski
It was 2:20 p.m. on June 4 when the Nyctalope, having finished giving orders and allocating roles in the unfolding tragedy, cheerfully declared: “I’m dying of hunger–let’s eat!” Yes, cheerfully–for he possessed the kind of combative temperament for which a fight, on whatever scale and however grave its perils might be, always has an element of ardent vitality, and hence of joy.
“Grisyl!” called Laurence–and as the young woman came towards her, La Païli seized the hand of Lieutenant Romski, who was standing beside her, and whispered: “Follow us without anyone noticing. I need to talk to you.” Then, aloud, to Grisyl, she said: “Let’s go take a look at the dining-room. We’ve been too forgetful of the fact that we’re women.”
The overheard remark generated smiles around her. Saint-Clair made a gesture of approval–from some way off, for he was at the back of the room giving supplementary instructions to Sir Patrick Swires, in the presence of Lourmel and Captain Girard.
Twenty-eight places had been set for the members of the council of war in one of Elmwood station’s hangars, on a long table made up of boards on trestles. The English mission included an Irish cook and four Eskimo assistants, whose four wives had been hastily trained as waitresses. Everyone thought that when she left the station’s main building, where the council had been held, Laurence Païli was going to the dining-room. No one whose gaze might have followed her, intentionally or otherwise, would have suspected anything else. But once in the “feasting hangar,” as Pilou facetiously called it, the young woman drew Grisyl and Romski towards a side door, and immediately said to the Polish officer: “If Saint-Clair, Lourmel and Patrick come in, go over there–no one must see you talking to me.”
“All right.”
La Païli went on, gravely and rapidly: “Grisyl, you’re utterly determined, like me, to help Leo Saint-Clair, even if he doesn’t wish it?”
“Utterly,” the young woman replied, resolutely.
“And you, Romski–will you put your strength and your life at my disposal?”
The officer blushed like a child, and his blue eyes sparkled as he said: “I’m yours, Madame, with all my heart. And since I feel that we’re approaching a critical moment, let me tell you that, since I have known you, I have seen no other solution for me than death. When I offered my life to the Nyctalope just now, it was to you that I was giving it.”
“I accept it,” Laurence said, simply.
The hot-headed young man and the illustrious seductress looked at one another, the former giving away his soul without asking anything in return, the latter accepting it without promising anything in return.
“Ladislas,” La Païli murmured, “if you die in the course of what we are going to do, tell yourself that I, living, shall not experience a single moment of joy that I do not associate with you–and that, should I die, it will be for the same cause as you.”
She offered him her hand. He took it, kissed it for a long time, and let it fall back. Coolly and calmly, he became the perfect instrument, which the audacious virtuoso might use without apprehension. “I’m ready,” he said.
The dialogue proceeded rapidly.
“You will order Berge and Dopp to cede their places on the RC3 to Grisyl and me.”
“Yes.”
“You will leave the RC1 and the RC2 to constitute the RC4’s reserve and you will fly to the North Pole at top speed.”
“Without any explanations?”
“None.”
“All right.”
“Will it be possible, after we touch down, for us to change places very rapidly, in order to make anyone watching believe that it was me who was piloting the aircraft?”
“Yes, quite easily.”
“Good. Grisyl will have ropes ready. She’ll tie you up, as if you were our prisoner.”
“Understood.”
“And you’ll have no other role to play but that of a bewildered and resigned captive.”
“Is that all?” said Romski, regretfully.
“Until the time when you are about to be killed,” Laure added, “or until the moment when, perhaps having need of you, I have you set free or set you free myself.”
“I shall hope for the second alternative, but I shall be ever-ready for the first.”
“Thank you. That’s all, my dear friend.”
“Can’t you tell me any more?”
“I don’t know any more myself.”
“But what are your plans?”
“Uncertain, vague and hazardous, as well as mutually contradictory–my plans will only reach the point of choice or decision when Grisyl and I find ourselves confronted by Lucifer, Wilfried or some other enemy.”
“Do you intend to kill Lucifer?”
“Perhaps.”
“So you’ll be carrying a weapon?”
“Yes, a silent Browning.”
“And you, Mademoiselle?”
“Me too,” said Grisyl.
“I know enough of all these strange things,” Romski said, “to think that, on seeing you or learning of your presence, Lucifer will be suspicious, and will probably be reluctant to have you brought to him.”
Laurence smiled at the young man’s naivete. Prudently, she replied: “We shall see.” Immediately thereafter, she added: “Go, Romski!” She opened the door.
The officer slipped out, just as Lourmel and the Nyctalope, preceded by Sir Patrick and Captain Girard, came into the hangar from the other side. Laurence pretended to be talking to a waitress through the half-open door through which the Pole had departed. “Yes, yes,” she said, in English. “Do hurry.” The Eskimos at the station, to which they had belonged for two years, understood the language of their habitual masters quite well.
Closing the door again, she rejoined Grisyl, who hurriedly set about pretending to put the place-settings in better order.
The other members of the council followed the Nyctalope into the hangar, sat down, and began to eat in relative silence. The food was abundant and tasty. The air of the polar regions sharpens the appetite, to the extent that none of these men and women were inhibited by their personal emotions or the gravity of the situation from taking the nourishment they needed. Everyone knew that they would need their physical strength, without which mental energy and intellectual lucidity cannot long maintain their intensity in action.
After the meal, everyone set about doing what needed to be done to execute the Nyctalope’s orders within the allotted time. These were the various things that had to be done between 3 and 8 p.m. on June 4: the gathering together of every piece of white-colored cloth–including furs, sheets and clothing–that was to be found in Elmwood station or the submarine Uberal
les; the compilation of an inventory of these materials and their distribution, according to individual need, among the 16 men comprising the crews of the four aircraft and the eight Englishmen who were to join these crews by way of reinforcement; and the arming of every individual, in the aeroplanes as well as in the submarine, with two Brownings and ten six-shot ammunition-clips, a hatchet and a knife. Saint-Clair, Corsat and Pilou still had their silent pistols, of course; Captain Girard, Sir Patrick and Elias Carter, who were traveling with them in the RC4, were furnished with spare pistols of a similar type from the Nyctalope’s luggage.
When everyone was hard at work and all these various operations were under way, Leo Saint-Clair and Elias Carter, the geographer, went up to the top of the basalt cliff overlooking Elmwood and, for nearly an hour, Saint-Clair looked silently and meditatively northwards, studying the immense polar wastes. Because summer was coming, slightly early this year, there had been considerable breakage of the ice a few days earlier. The contours of Northbrook Island, which constituted part of Cape Flora, stood out clearly. To the north of the island, beyond a chaplet of black reefs, at the opening of the channel leading to the Victoria Sea, was a chaos of stretches of grey water and huge ice-floes with gnarled surfaces, undulating in the waves. Far away in the distance, a large space gave the illusion of open sea, but icebergs calved from glaciers were heaped up on the neighboring land-based ice-sheets; almost everywhere there were long ranges of large aggregations known as hummocks, welded by fallen snow and refrozen to form abrupt slopes, extending as far as the eye could see.
The Nyctalope vs Lucifer 3: The Triumph of the Nyctalope Page 10
