Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (54 page)

He drew a deep breath.
 
“You men were brought here for one purpose.
 
In Egypt, Pasha Mohammad Said has given his permission for the construction of a massive canal across the Suez Isthmus.
 
When completed, this waterway will bring a flood of European trade through the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.
 
If unchecked, this Suez Canal will mean the destruction not only of the Ottoman Empire, but of Egypt as well.

“I, however, intend for my Turkish people to use this to our advantage,” Robur said, his voice rising.
 
“Just as we control the bottleneck of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, we must also maintain an iron grip on the Suez.
 
For that, I require an unprecedented
weapon
.
 
A vessel that can raid and hold for ransom any ship that passes through this canal.”
 

The emerald in his turban gleamed in the sunlight like an evil green eye.
 
He looked at the Europeans, then squarely met Nemo’s eyes.
 
“You men will invent, construct, and test a powerful warship -- but not just any warship.
 
I must have one that can travel unseen under the water, like an armored fish, so that I can strike at all who defy our tolls.”

“Ach!
 
An underwater boat?” Liedenbrock said.
 
“This is impossible.”

“Your word
impossible
does not translate into my language,” Robur said.

Cyrus Harding maintained his silence, but his brow furrowed as if his mind were already imagining solutions to the problem the Caliph had posed.

Nemo remembered the drawings Captain Grant had shown him of the prototype sub-marine boat that Robert Fulton had designed and built for Napoleon Bonaparte.
 
That idea had always intrigued him.
 
“We can do it,” he said in a low voice, already calculating how he could turn this task against the caliph.

Robur made an instant decision.
 
“You, Engineer -- I place you in charge of the project.”
 
Nemo couldn’t tell if the caliph had planned this assignment all along, or simply rewarded the young man for his quiet confidence.

“You shall have all the resources you need.
 
Any calculations you desire, any raw material, any assistant.
 
We expect you to work and to cooperate.
 
Once my underwater boat is functional, you will all be given the greatest riches you desire.
 
Perhaps you will even be allowed to go home.”

The captives grumbled, still uncomfortable to be assisting a man who -- though ostensibly an ally to their European countries -- had already proven his complete disregard for the rights and freedom of so many people.
 
The caliph could well become a tyrant . . . especially given such a weapon.
 

But this was not the moment to challenge him.
 
Nemo would bide his time.

“The Suez Canal will take many years to complete,” Robur continued.
 
“You must succeed in your task before that time.”
 
He turned to descend the raised platform, but stopped and spoke again as if in an afterthought, stroking his beard.
 
“If you fail me, or if I sense your work is progressing too slowly, I will execute you --
all of you
-- and find myself another group of engineers.”

Then, leaving them stunned, he mounted his stallion and rode off down the streets of Rurapente to his ornate pavilion.

Part VIII

Master of the world

i

Amiens, France, 1857

By the age of 29, Jules Verne had resigned himself, and so he finally married.
 
Someone other than Caroline Aronnax.

While spending two weeks in Amiens for a friend’s wedding, he met a sturdy woman named Honorine Morel, a widow whose husband had died of consumption a year earlier.
 
She was pretty enough in a plain sort of way, though encumbered with two young daughters, Valentine and Suzanne.

Drowning in the celebratory atmosphere of the friend’s wedding, swept along with the joy and love and well-wishes, Verne convinced himself that he could make a life with the widow Morel.
 
While she wasn’t Caroline, he had decided to be pragmatic.
 
Thanks to the inheritance from her first husband, Honorine had a solid dowry, and Verne was weary of being a bachelor.
 
Having few other prospects, he decided to give as much of his heart to her as he could spare.
 
So long as she allowed him to continue writing his stories, even if in secret. . . .

Years earlier, Verne had joined a bachelors’ club,
les Onze Sans Femmes
, sanguine young men who had declared their total independence from female company.
 
Together, they shored up each others’ beliefs, convinced each other of their continued bliss without the encumbrances of a spouse and children.
 
But recently many of his “bachelor society” friends had finished university, settled down in marriage despite their earlier smug protestations of disinterest in feminine company, and started their own lives.
 
Some seemed quite happy with their new situation -- and Verne felt restless again.

Gloomy and impatient, he convinced himself that Caroline would never accept the obvious.
 
Although Captain Hatteras could have been legally declared lost at sea years before, she vowed not to make any such decision until Nemo returned from the Crimean War.
 
But their friend’s last letter had been dated a year before the peace treaty, and they had heard nothing from him since. . . .

Verne had a decent job at the Bourse, the Paris stock exchange.
 
Once married, he would settle into a normal existence, without adventures and without anxiety.
 
Over the years, much to Pierre Verne’s satisfaction, his redheaded son had grown more serious toward life.
 
Though he continued to write plays that were never produced and scientific articles that never got published, Jules Verne no longer talked about becoming a famous writer like Dumas or Hugo.
 
He kept those dreams to himself, but they did not vanish entirely.

#

For his wedding, Verne managed little more than a meager ceremony and a sparse dinner for the dozen attendees, including his parents.
 
Honorine’s lacy wedding gown emphasized her broad shoulders, wide hips, and dark brown hair that curled against her skull.
 
Stoic and placid, she had pale eyes and a wide mouth that rarely showed any expression: not a scowl or pout or smile of joy.
 
Still, she had a steady keel, and Verne welcomed the stability she would bring to his life.
 
Though passionless, at least Honorine was quiet.
 
And he could still work on his stories to his heart’s content.

Verne lived in a small flat a few minutes’ walk from the Bourse.
 
He’d found the place comfortable enough as a bachelor, but it was unsuitable for a man, a wife, and two young girls.
 
Valentine and Suzanne were shipped off to spend several months with the parents of Honorine’s first husband, while Verne and his new bride settled in.

Though she was a devoted wife who did everything society required of her, Honorine spent little time in conversation with her husband.
 
She showed no interest in Verne’s stories and did not share his creative needs.
 
She felt no particular obligation to understand:
 
After all, what wife
did
know about her husband’s interests and activities?
 

Instead, Honorine supported him in her gentle, sturdy way.
 
Verne rose at five o’clock every morning and retreated to a small room where he closed the door and spent hours reading newspapers and magazines, scribbling notes, and writing drafts of manuscripts.

Honorine brought him freshly brewed coffee or tea and a small breakfast.
 
Most importantly, she left him in peace.
 
When her two daughters stayed with them, making the place oppressive and crowded, Honorine did her best to keep them silent until ten o’clock came around and Verne emerged from his writing study to dress.
 
He would then leave for an early lunch and spend the remainder of the day in the stock exchange.

Although Verne was not
happy
, he could not ask for more.
 
His wife did not intrude on the time he spent in his writing room.
 
He read scientific journals voraciously, clipping articles for his folders -- though he spent far more time in research than in actually putting words on paper.

Each day he scanned the news for events of the world, new discoveries and reports of far-flung lands -- places he and Nemo had dreamed about in their youth.
 
Most of all, he tried to be satisfied with the life he had accepted and never to think of Caroline Aronnax again. . . .

One morning, a bizarre article in a Paris weekly caught Verne’s attention.
 
German explorers in a caravan marching south into the Sudan from Tripoli had discovered a strange wrecked vessel in the sand dunes of the Sahara.
 
The iron-walled capsule, shaped like a gigantic artillery shell, had been embedded in a crater in the rolling ocean of desert.
 
The projectile seemed to have fallen out of the sky and crashed.
 

While the uneasy nomads hung back on their camels, the German explorers had pried open the wreckage.
 
Inside, they found the remains of several men squashed to jelly, bones pulverized by an explosive acceleration of inconceivable magnitude.
 
Desiccated supplies, dead chickens and goats lay in a mashed clutter.
 
But the explorers could find no explanation of how these poor wretches had gotten here, what they had been up to, or why they had undertaken such a terrible risk.

Puzzled, Verne used his heavy scissors to snip out the article.
 
Such mysteries tantalized him.
 
Even without additional information, Verne could perhaps invent a tale to explain such a fantastic occurrence, but he could think of no circumstance outrageous enough to fit the facts.

He added the clipping to his growing pile of notes and ideas, wondering when he would ever have the freedom or enthusiasm to pursue all the stories that floated in his head.
 
Perhaps he needed a “fiction factory” of his own, like Dumas . . . but for that, he would have to begin making money at it, and that seemed a long way off.

Honorine knocked on the door and quietly reminded him of the time.
 
With a heavy sigh, Verne finished his cold tea and stood to get dressed.
 
Once again, he had written nothing all morning, had made no progress toward creating a famous work of literature.

Instead, he spent the rest of his day at the dreary stock exchange, making and losing other people’s money.

ii

Over time, Nemo came to love Auda, his assigned wife in Rurapente.
 

She was a beautiful Turkish maiden with silky black hair and creamy tan skin, her sepia eyes large and catlike, her mouth full, her body lean and supple.
 
Auda would have become part of the Sultan’s harem in Ankara, if Caliph Robur had not given her to Engineer Nemo as a reward. . . .

For more than two years now, Nemo had managed the caliph’s ambitious project to create an armored sub-marine boat.
 
He had been given comfortable accommodations, good food, and various amenities, all of which were intended to make him forget his situation -- and he had demanded the same for every one of the captive men.
 

But even his beautiful wife and luxurious dwelling could not disguise the fact that he remained the Caliph’s prisoner, forced to work against his will on a terrible weapon of war.
 
Every time he saw the dusky, exotic features of Auda, he could think only of Caroline, their stolen moments of love aboard the ship home from Africa, and in her own bedchambers on his last night before departing Paris by train to the Crimean front.