Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (57 page)

In the rear of the main deck, one of his men shouted in alarm.
 
Too late, Nemo heard the agonized groaning of stressed metal.
 
Plates bent, and rivets popped like small bullets.
 
Two of the lower ballast tanks burst, spraying gouts of seawater into the bottom decks.
 
It all happened so fast.

The caliph’s guards lumbered about in confusion, barking toothless threats at the crew.
 
Nemo shoved them aside, ignoring them as he ordered the inner hatches sealed.
 
Harding yelled for the crewmen to crank armored covers into place over the glass ports, but it was no use.
 
The sub-marine boat began to fill with water from the ruptures.
 
The stern tilted downward.
 

“We have no choice but to evacuate,” Nemo said.
 
The deck was at such an angle he had to climb to the upper hatch.
 
Below, more of the main hull plates bent inward as the vessel sank deeper.
 
“This ship can’t be saved.”
 

One of the guards drew his scimitar and snarled, but Nemo stopped him with a commanding look.
 
He replied in clear Turkish, “Remain here if you like.”

Robur’s forced construction schedule had been too hectic.
 
Additional support girders and hull reinforcements he had suggested on his original design had not been added.
 
Forced by their tight deadline, Nemo had chosen to omit backup systems.
 
Now they would pay for the oversight.

If they did not abandon the vessel now, they would plunge too deep into the channel for anyone to escape.
 
His crew would never manage to swim to the surface before they drowned.

Nemo reached up to open the primary hatch, and a thunderous waterfall of brine poured down upon his head.
 
Oddly, he now remembered the bladder helmet he had used as a teenager on the river Loire -- even that crude invention would have given him a few more breaths of air on his way up.
 
But they had left Conseil’s undersea helmets and diving suits in Rurapente.
 
Robur had insisted they’d have no need for undersea exploration on this test voyage.

Nemo grabbed Cyrus Harding and his two engineers and forced them to climb through the water pounding from the hatch.
 
The ship continued to plunge deeper and deeper.
 
He looked at Robur’s panicked guards, pitied them for a moment -- and chose to let hell take the allies of the man who had stolen their lives from them.
 
His heart felt utterly cold as he left them to die.

With powerful strokes, he swam into the deep water, surging toward the bright surface that seemed miles above.
 
The pressure squeezed his skull and chest, but he stroked and kicked.
 
In a dizzy, sickening instant he recalled when he had tried to rescue his father trapped beneath the Loire in the sinking hulk of the
Cynthia
.
 
He saw the shadowy forms of his crewmen overhead, rising with the flow of bubbles toward daylight.
 
His need to get away grew more urgent.

Below, a cyclone of escaping air accompanied the plunge of the sub-marine.
 

Nemo swam until his arms ached and his lungs wanted to explode.
 
He burst to the surface, heaving huge lungfuls of air.
 
His men were beside him, panting, bedraggled, and exhausted.
 
They looked at each other in dismay.
 
Five of the caliph’s guards also surfaced, while the sinking craft claimed the other two lives.

Sick at the disaster, seeing all their work wasted -- and dreading the consequences Caliph Robur was sure to impose -- Nemo and his weary men swam toward the distant shore.

vi

Caliph Robur began his bloody punishments before the full year was up.

Strident horns blew across the compound, summoning the dejected engineers from where they had begun work on a second vessel based on Nemo’s modified design.
 
The caliph’s guards marched out, their shaved heads glistening in the Turkish sun, their loose white garments looking too clean.

The captive engineers knew something terrible lay in store for them, though they had done their best under impossible circumstances.
 
Robur’s own foolish impatience had been the root cause of the disaster.
 

Standing at the docks with industrial smoke hanging like a pall over the cove, Nemo stepped to the front of his team in an attempt to reassure them.
 
During the Crimean War, Robur had coolly selected each man because of his individual expertise.
 
Each one was valuable to this project, vital to the completion of the undersea vessel.
 
But Nemo feared the warlord’s rage would provoke him to unwise actions. . . .

The night after the first sub-marine craft had sunk, two-year-old Jules had played innocently on the carpets in their home, laughing.
 
He was a good-natured boy, whose vivid imagination made a toy out of any scrap of material.
 
Auda played a stringed musical instrument and sang to Nemo, trying to soothe his despair.

“I have word from the Sultan’s court at Ankara, my husband,” she said in a low voice.
 
“Caliph Robur finds himself in a terrible situation.
 
My father has grown stronger, and Robur has lost the Sultan’s support.”

“Why?” Nemo said.
 
“Because of what happened today?”

Auda shook her head.
 
“For years, Robur has secretly diverted much of the Sultan’s treasury to Rurapente, yet he still has nothing to show for it.
 
My father, on the other hand, knows the power of sweet words, compliments, and promises . . . and he uses them daily on the Sultan’s weak will.
 
Caliph Barbicane gives the Sultan little gifts to show his loyalty, while Robur does not.”
 
She stroked his dark hair.
 
“It is a game of politics, my beloved -- and Robur does not play it well.”

Nemo looked at her, distracted by her beauty.
 
Young Jules chuckled in a corner, playing with a small twig studded with dry leaves.
 
He waved it about like a flag.

“Much as I despise him, Robur does have the truer vision,” Nemo told her.
 
“He sees the future, while Barbicane does not.
 
The Ottoman Empire
will
fall if the Turks persist in old ways and ignore how the world will change once the Suez Canal is completed.”

Auda leaned forward to give him a gentle kiss, then played her musical instrument again.
 
“Husband, this matter has nothing to do with who is correct and who is wrong . . . only which of the caliphs can persuade the great Sultan.”

When she had begun to sing once more, Nemo closed his eyes and listened to her voice, but she hadn’t been able to lull him out of his misery. . . .

Now, months later, Robur’s voice boomed out with the grim threat of a cannon strike.
 
“You have failed me.
 
All of you.”
 
He looked from one captive engineer to another, his gaze like a stiletto dragged across their throats.
 
“But I shall be merciful -- and only one of you will pay the ultimate price.
 
This time.”

He made a brisk gesture with a ringed hand.
 
Nemo could see that the whole spectacle had been rehearsed beforehand.
 
The muscular guards marched forward and grabbed fidgety Conseil, the meteorologist.
 
“No, no, no!”
 
The small man from Marseilles flailed and cried out, but they pinned his arms.
 
His sunburned face turned beet red, and his eyes looked as if they might spring from their sockets.
 
The guards dragged Conseil to the end of the docks.

“Caliph Robur, you must not do this!”
 
Nemo stepped forward, but guards shoved him back.

The Turkish leader gave him a withering glare.
 
“You do not command me, Engineer.
 
You are my
slave
.”

Nemo did not blink.
 
“I am the one building your sub-marine boat -- and if you want it finished, you cannot deprive me of my men.”
 

Robur fixed Nemo with a stony gaze.
 
“Nevertheless, you will learn to work without this man.”

Conseil’s arms and legs had turned to jelly.
 
Desperation turned Nemo’s voice deeper, gave it a ragged edge.
 
“You must not do this!”

At the caliph’s quick nod, the guards shoved Conseil down onto his knees.
 
His face was now pasty white, and his arms fluttered.
 
He tried feebly to get away, but the strong men held him down.
 

“I said stop, or I swear to you that we will all sabotage our work and you will never have your sub-marine boat!”
 
Defiant and angry, Nemo pushed against the crossed scimitars of the guards.
 
He struck out with his fists, trying to make his way to the doomed man, but one of them hammered the hilt of his weapon against Nemo’s forehead, making him crumple to the ground.

“Then you will all die, in the most horrible manner I can imagine.
 
I suggest that you do not challenge my ingenuity in concocting tortures.”
 
Robur looked at him as a man might inspect a bug.
 
“I do as I wish, Engineer -- just as
you
must also do as I wish.
 
All of you.”

Nemo struggled to his knees, wiping a scarlet splash of blood from his eyes, and snarled in desperation, “No!
 
If you insist on doing this, then you are a
fool
.”
 
The threat in his voice made the guards glare at him.
 
Nemo had dealt with thugs and pirates and warlords before, and he hated them all.
 
“Robur, you have my word that if you spare him, we --”

Caliph Robur gave a barely perceptible flick of his right hand.

The curved scimitar struck downward, and Conseil had time for only a brief squawking cry that was abruptly cut short as his head rolled onto the dockboards.
 
The guards released his decapitated body, which slumped forward like a dropped sack.

The engineers staggered in shock, as if they, too, had felt the blow.
 
Some stared with a thunderstorm of rage across their faces.
 
Liedenbrock swore under his breath, then began to weep.

Nemo clenched his jaw, trying to contain his absolute loathing for the man who had forced them here.
 
He vowed again that he would never cooperate for the caliph’s aims.
 
They had been here for seven years already and had grown too complacent.
 
It would take cleverness and determination, but he
would
find a way to use Robur’s own technology against him.
 

The warlord’s men used their booted feet to shove Conseil’s body off the dock and into the cove.
 
Then, three workers ran forward with buckets of water to wash away the blood.
 

His green turban in place, its emerald staring like a third eye from his forehead, Robur scowled at the gathered prisoners.
 
“Now, get back to work.”

vii

As daylight seeped through the red silk curtains that hung over his windows, Nemo stood motionless, hypnotized by the fish swimming inside their tank.
 
A glass-walled enclosure contained ten fish of various sizes and species, gliding back and forth.
 
He had spent hours observing how their bodies and fins moved for propulsion, how their gills pumped water, how the fish
existed
beneath the surface.