Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (56 page)

Verne didn’t know what to say -- but then, he had always been tongue-tied around her.
 
Just seeing the beautiful woman who had consumed his youthful, imaginative passions reminded Verne of all the things he had not achieved in his life.
 
“No one could ever forget you, Caroline,” he said.

Without a further word, she leaned forward to let Verne awkwardly gather her in his arms.
 
He embraced her, thinking of all the times he had longed to do just this.
 
But now grief made her touch cold and desperate.

“I will survive somehow, Jules,” she said.
 
“I cannot believe André is gone, when his memory lives so strongly in my heart.
 
Could it be a mistake?
 
We thought him dead before, and yet he returned.
 
He promised me he would return.”

“I . . .”
 
Verne found himself at a complete loss for words, again.
 
“I would not want to give you an unreasonable hope, Caroline.
 
This letter leaves no doubt.”
 
He held up the paper note he had wrinkled in his grasp.

“We must remember André as the wonderful man he was, you and I.
 
No one knew him better.”
 
She brushed her fingers across Verne’s unruly reddish-brown hair, sending a shiver down his spine.

His heart pounded, and his blood grew hot from reawakened longing.
 
But now that she might finally give up waiting for her lost captain, and waiting for Nemo . . . Verne himself was married.
 
They stood together for a long moment, until Caroline pulled away.

“Yes, I’ll certainly remember him.
 
He was closer to me than my own brother,” Verne said and understood that he had to go.
 
His wife was waiting for him back at home.

iv

Rurapente’s cove had become a massive construction site.
 
Ramps and scaffolding extended into the deep water.
 
The sounds of Robur’s slave workers hammering rivets echoed like gunfire off the close mountain walls.
 
The slaves pounded hull plates, bent framework pipes, and twisted steel support ribs into proper shapes.
 
Gritty smoke and chemical fumes from the refineries filled the air faster than ocean breezes could sweep the stench across the Mediterranean.
 

Nemo stood on a platform deck, directing construction and supervising the captive engineers and indentured workers.
 
Rather than just watching, though, he spent most of his time up to his knees in water that sloshed into the drydocks.
 
He tried to maintain the morale of the men, while searching for subtle ways to resist their despised captor.

The skeleton of his sub-marine craft was taking shape.
 
Despite being forced to this labor against his will, Nemo admired what he had accomplished and felt pride in his design.
 
If only the innovative vessel had been for a different purpose, other than hated war . . .

The bottom hull had been reinforced according to Cyrus Harding’s instructions.
 
The British boatbuilder teamed up with the German-born metallurgist to inspect the progress.
 
Riveted plates crawled up the walls, sealing the underwater vessel so that it floated like a dragon inside the construction dock.
 
Muscular Turkish slaves used hand-pumps to drain water from the bilges.

Nemo’s son Jules was a year old now, a bright joy in an oppressive life.
 
The boy had his mother’s black hair and full mouth, and his father’s determined, optimistic spirit.
 
The child had no idea that his loving home was a prison camp.
 
At times, the toddler’s laughing eyes even made Nemo forget for a while.

The captive engineers had been away from their homelands for so long that they hardly remembered what a normal existence could be like.
 
Few had left families behind, and after so many years their longing for Europe had deadened to a dull ache.
 
Their lives were here, and now, and they had little hope for improvement.
 
They worked on the undersea vessel and devoted their hearts to its completion -- for their own pride, not for their captor’s.

When Caliph Robur returned to Rurapente after a three-week sojourn with the great Sultan, he rode his stallion down to the construction site.
 
As he haughtily studied the incomplete vessel, his expression was not pleased.
 
The warlord’s narrow face twisted, and his skin darkened with rage, highlighting the scar along his cheek.
 
Nemo looked at him and guessed that Robur was losing his continuing political battles against the conservative caliphs in Ankara.

Conseil, the French meteorologist, peeped out from his instrument shack at the end of the docks, noted Robur’s stormy expression, and hid himself again.
 
His bristly hair had grown into a haphazard shock of gray; his hangdog face continued to sunburn regularly despite years in the Turkish heat.

Nemo watched the angry caliph, then climbed away from the skeleton of the undersea boat to face him.
 
For the sake of his men, he had to fend off Robur’s capricious moods.
 
He stood straight-backed in front of the turbaned man on the horse.
 
“As you can see, Caliph,” Nemo said, masking his sarcasm with pride, “we have made substantial progress during your absence.”

The warlord scowled in disgust at the frame of the vessel.
 
He spoke in a loud, sharp voice.
 
“I bear news from Egypt that actual excavation has begun on the Suez Canal.
 
Your French engineer de Lesseps is already digging the channel that will bring the downfall of the Ottoman Empire.”
 
His stallion pranced and snorted, sensing his rider’s rage.
 

Robur’s mouth twisted, as if he wanted to spit on the ground.
 
“Unfortunately, my Sultan is blind to the implications, and so I must act alone, for his own good.
 
He dismisses my concerns and listens instead to Barbicane and other fools who have no understanding of the new world we live in.”
 
Robur narrowed his dark eyes and stared for a moment at his captive engineers and scientists.
 
“The Sultan thinks we are still fighting against primitive Tatars or Mongols.
 
He does not see the need for my underwater warship.”

Nemo wondered if the caliph would cancel the project now, but knew the arrogant man would never surrender so easily.
 
Perhaps the Sultan had commanded him to free all of his European prisoners -- but Nemo could not hope for that either.
 
He suspected instead that he and his companions would be quietly disposed of, their bodies hidden.
 
His fists clenched at his sides.
 
He would fight with his bare hands, if necessary.

“Therefore, I must prove my vision is superior,” the caliph continued, stroking his sharp black beard.
 
“The Suez Canal must not be completed before we are ready.
 
Your men must work faster and harder.”

Skeptical, Nemo looked back at the construction site.
 
He knew how frantic his men had been laboring in the hope of freedom once their task was completed.
 
Nemo was certain by now that this hope was false.
 
Caliph Robur would never allow the men to return to Europe, where they could reveal what this megalomaniac had done to them.
 
He also knew that a project as massive as the Suez Canal would require years of labor from thousands of people.

But Caliph Robur seemed to think it would be completed overnight.
 
Instead, the warlord thrust a long finger toward Nemo and his men.
 
“You have one year from today to complete this work.
 
If at that time my sub-marine warship is not ready, I will execute one of your men, and then another for every additional month you fail me.”

The men voiced their objections.
 
Nemo stepped forward, angry and defiant.
 
“Sir, that cannot be done.
 
We are already --”

Robur cut him off.
 
“Everything can be done, given sufficient incentive.”
 
He placed a menacing hand on the hilt of his scimitar, wheeled his stallion, and rode back toward his lavish pavilion.

v

The first full-scale prototype of the underwater vessel was completed and launched ten months later, a gleaming metal predator able to submerge beneath the cove.
 

Instead of experiencing triumph as he watched the vessel sway against its moorings, Nemo felt deeply uneasy.
 
Under Robur’s threat of reprisals, the rushed engineers had worked haphazardly, cutting corners.
 
The slave workers did not understand their work, and Nemo’s engineers had no time to perform sufficient safety checks.

All around the construction site, Robur had increased the presence of his private guards.
 
The bald men now stood with prominent scimitars tucked into waist sashes around their billowy white uniforms.
 
Some of the burly guards made a point of carrying whetstones with which they sharpened their blades in the afternoon sun.

During an actual underwater voyage, Robur would need all of Nemo’s trained men to sail the vessel -- but for the initial test, they would simply submerge and maneuver the sub-marine boat to the end of the cove to prove the vessel’s integrity.
 
The caliph sent seven of his trusted guards along, but refused to climb aboard the vessel himself.
 
With good reason, too
, Nemo thought with an unspoken sneer.
 
The undersea boat was not safe.

Under the caliph’s watchful eye, the hatches were sealed.
 
Nemo took the helm, and the electrical engines thrummed, turning gears and motivators.
 
The sub-marine boat pushed away from the docks into deeper water, its screws turning.
 
Underwater propellers and mechanical fins swung back and forth.

Through the thick glass windows, Nemo watched the receding dock and saw Robur, still on his horse, his face expressionless.
 
Nemo knew that Auda and their young son would be in the crowd, watching as well, and that thought tempered the constant ache of anger in his heart.

When the metal-walled vessel reached the end of the cove, Nemo tried not to think of the caliph’s unreasonable demands.
 
He scowled at the brutish guards aboard with him, then pushed them from his mind.
 
Staring out to the blue panorama of the Mediterranean, he smiled at Cyrus Harding and the other two engineers he had brought along.

“Prepare to submerge, Mr. Harding.”

“Yes, Captain.”
 
When Harding formally relayed the order, his gruff voice sounded tinny within the plated walls.
 
The crewmen worked controls to open the ballast tanks, forcing air out and filling the chambers.

Holding tight to the helm rail, Nemo watched the waterline creep up on the thick glass portholes.
 
He heard pumps and turbines, water gushing into the tanks, saw air bubbles foaming around the body of the vessel.
 
Though the hatches were sealed, Nemo glanced at the visible hull seams, watchful for leaks.
 
Though this vessel had been created under duress, for an evil purpose to spread warfare across the seas, he still felt a pride in its design and construction.

Frothing water covered the dome of the ship.
 
Perspiration glistened on the shaved scalps of the uneasy guards.
 
They looked at each other and fidgeted, hands on the golden hilts of their scimitars, as if swords could do anything to conquer their fear.
 

Nemo made sure each one of the caliph’s men saw his confident smile.
 
Here, far from Robur, he was their master.
 
Then he commanded more ballast tanks to be opened, and the vessel sank deeper.