Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (58 page)

His mechanical, armored war vessel would have to do the same.

Auda, who knew not to interrupt him during these contemplative times, had taken their son Jules, now four years old, to play in the back room of their home.
 
Nemo’s many years of enforced work and research at Rurapente would culminate today with the launching of the new vessel.
 
Despite the caliph’s self-imposed urgency, the Suez Canal had not yet been completed.
 

But the sub-marine warship was truly ready after many long years of labor, of sweat and blood.
 
Either Nemo would succeed today . . . or fail utterly.
 
With so many lives dependent on him, failure was not an option.
 
Conseil had already paid for their work with his life.

A muscular guard marched through the door covering without announcing himself.
 
“Caliph Robur wishes to depart.
 
Now.”
 
The bald man stood, intimidating, and waited for Nemo to turn away from the fish tank. His shaved scalp wrinkled with consternation at the delay.

Still, Nemo refused to hurry, resisting in every small manner he could find.
 
With a deep feeling of dread, he went to Auda and Jules.
 
While the guard glowered and made impatient noises, Nemo embraced his wife and son, promising them that nothing was wrong . . . but he wondered if this might be the last time he ever saw them.
 
What did Robur have in mind for his engineers if the sub-marine vessel did perform as expected?

Hanging his head in resignation, Nemo followed the guard.
 
He took one last look at the gracefully swimming -- though still trapped -- fish, then at the meager possessions he and Auda had gathered during their life in Rurapente.
 
He marched behind the white-robed guard out to the crowded docks.

The new armored vessel lay like a half-submerged predatory fish tied up against the pilings.
 
Eyelike portholes made of thick glass stared from the control bridge within the bow.
 
Overlapping armor plates reminded him of the scales of the shark he had fought while adrift on a raft of flotsam from the
Coralie
.
 
Jagged fins like sawteeth lined the dorsal hull, the better for causing severe damage to wooden-keeled ships traversing the Suez.

In secret, Nemo had named the boat the
Nautilus
, after Fulton’s turn-of-the-century design.
 
In nature, the real nautilus was a cephalopod cased in a beautiful corkscrew shell, but the ethereal name could not disguise the fact that this was a powerfully armed ship of war, designed for causing death and destruction, nothing else.

Workers and slaves had gathered from the barracks, and Nemo hoped Auda would also come out to join them.
 
The ever-present guards stood watching as the
Nautilus
was prepared for her maiden voyage.
 
Nemo had taken the craft up and down the cove several times, testing her movement and stability while submerged in the deepest water.
 
His men had worked hard, and with care, proud of their accomplishment even as they hated Robur.
 
They had learned their lesson from the first ruined prototype.
 
Allowing themselves to be rushed had led to the death of poor Conseil.
 

Nemo meant to avenge the hapless meteorologist . . . somehow.
 
Robur had much to atone for.

Torn by even greater political strife back in Ankara, Caliph Robur had threatened further executions.
 
He insisted that Nemo’s team work to complete the construction as fast as humanly possible.
 
Nemo held the stubborn man’s bloodlust at bay only by emphasizing how the loss of more good workers would cause further delays.
 

Nemo had grown cold inside, feeling the guilt on his conscience, no matter how much Auda tried to soothe him.
 
He had lost an innocent comrade because of this warlord’s mad ambitions.
 
Any enthusiasm he’d had for the project had been killed with the same scimitar that had murdered Conseil.
 
Even after such a long time at Rurapente, Nemo had never accepted his fate, had never believed in the caliph’s barbarous ambitions.
 
But he would have to do something soon.

The
Nautilus
functioned perfectly.
 
Once Nemo had demonstrated the vessel’s capabilities, Robur could easily convince his Sultan of its necessity.
 
All political power would shift.
 
With such a clear triumph over conservative Caliph Barbicane, Robur would once again become a favorite in the Sultan’s court.
 

Nemo knew the warlord would never keep his promises of rewarding his captive experts with freedom, though.
 
He could see it in Robur’s dark, calculating eyes.

His twenty-five remaining engineers were already aboard the
Nautilus,
a full crew.
 
Food and supplies had been stored in the sub-marine’s chambers.
 
The men had said farewell to their families, because Robur had announced his intention to explore the Mediterranean on this trial voyage.
 
Accompanied by his most trusted guards, the caliph meant to be gone for a full week.
 

At the edge of the docks, Caliph Robur sat on his stallion as if he intended to bring his big horse aboard the vessel.
 
When the warlord saw Nemo walking toward the launch site under escort, he dismounted and handed the reins to a servant.
 
He motioned to a troop of white-robed guards who climbed through the hatch down into the armored sub-marine.
 
Smiling above his pointed beard, Robur stood proudly beside Nemo, congratulating his chief engineer.
 
Nemo wanted to spit at him.

“We will now depart and explore the realm beneath the seas,” Robur shouted for all the gathered workers to hear.
 
“We will journey into unknown territories, and when I return, all of the Ottoman Empire -- in fact, the entire world -- will know the power and terror of this invincible warship.
 
The Turks shall once again be masters of the Mediterranean.”

Nemo scanned the slaves and workers.
 
Though they cheered on cue, many seemed agitated in a strange way.
 
The warlord remained oblivious to the changed mood -- Robur had never heeded the feelings or motivations of the people who were forced to serve him.

Then, even in his red haze of resentment, a relieved grin broke across Nemo’s face as he recognized beautiful, long-haired Auda pushing through the crowd.
 
He’d known she would come.
 
His wife clutched little Jules’s hand in her own and made her way to the dock.
 
In her other hand, she grasped a bouquet of flowers.

“Wait!” she called in Turkish.
 
“I must give these to my husband.
 
It is a tradition from his home country.”

The guards let her pass, and she hurried forward.
 
After years of knowing Auda so well, Nemo could read the concern in her sepia eyes.
 
“Take these flowers, my husband,” she said, using French this time.
 
While Robur could still understand her, the guards could not.
 
“Put them in your stateroom and think of me on your journey.”
 

Then she bowed formally to the caliph himself, though her eyes remained as hard as flint.
 
“It is my way of offering prayers to Allah,” she said.
 
“A gift of beauty for my husband.”

Robur gruffly nodded to her.
 
“Take the flowers from your woman, Engineer, and get aboard.
 
I am anxious to be off.”

Concerned, Nemo took the bouquet from her trembling hand -- perhaps she was afraid for him on this trial journey?
 
But Auda had not shown such fear on his other test voyages.
 
Why now?

Impatient, Robur gestured for him to climb through the hatch into the vessel, then rapidly followed, scrambling down the metal rungs.
 
The hatch clanged shut with a sound like a coffin lid closing.

The
Nautilus
’s front chamber consisted of a raised bridge deck made of anodized metal plates.
 
Corrugated steel steps dropped down to the main control deck where workers manned the apparatus.
 
Wide plate-glass portholes showed a forward view, as if through the eyes of a fish; side windows also looked out upon the undersea world.

Within the main body of the sub-marine boat, private cabins for Nemo and the crew members lined the hull.
 
A large sitting room and salon -- which Robur intended to use as his throne room -- filled the central section of the
Nautilus.
 
On the lower deck were supply closets and a dressing room complete with undersea suits and brass helmets, as well as a double-lock door to allow egress beneath the water.
 
The engine room, with propulsion screws and pounding pistons, was crowded into the narrow aft chambers.

Nemo deposited Auda’s flowers on the table in his cabin and hurried back to complete preparations for submerging.
 
By now, his European crew was well-practiced, and he merely gave the orders to reassure them.
 
He took his formal place at the bridge controls.
 
Robur stood next to him, domineering, as if he meant to take the helm as soon as he had observed Nemo’s piloting skills.

The sub-marine’s engines started.
 
Electricity pulsed through the motors; the crew tested the rudders.
 
Finally, the ballast tanks were opened as the
Nautilus
drifted free of the dock.

The metal deck hummed beneath them.
 
Solid and sturdy, the undersea vessel showed no distress as water filled the tanks, and the ocean rose above the porthole windows until it swallowed the ridged upper hull.
 
The
Nautilus
sank, and then moved forward.
 

Away from direct sunlight, the bridge deck darkened.
 
“Lights,” Nemo said.
 
Brilliant cones of white illumination stabbed into the water as they proceeded through the mouth of the cove into the Mediterranean.

Robur gasped with childlike glee at the new world beyond the thick portholes.
 
He saw confused fish swimming about, rocky outcroppings far below on the ocean bed, waving tendrils of seaweed.

“Marvelous, Engineer.”
 
Robur startled him by clapping a firm hand on Nemo’s shoulder.
 
“My ambitious dream has come true.”

Nemo considered guiding them down the Turkish coast to where they would find the rusted wreckage of the gigantic cannon
Columbiad
-- just to show the caliph evidence of his hubris and his technological folly.

“You need never have doubted us,” he answered, trying hard to keep the vindictive tone out of his voice.
 
The round, terrified face of slain Conseil swam in front of him.

The caliph and two guards observed Nemo closely, studying the man’s every movement to learn how to pilot the
Nautilus
.
 
Nemo wondered how soon the caliph would consider his crew obsolete -- and what Robur would do to them then.
 

They traveled all day, covering many leagues under the sea faster than any sailing ship.
 
Propelled by the
Nautilus
’s powerful engines and ignoring the vagaries of wind or water currents, they could choose their own direction.

The muscular guards eventually relaxed.
 
After all, where could Nemo and his men go?
 
They could never escape.
 
Robur soon insisted that he take the helm on his own, giving Nemo no choice but to relinquish command.
 
He pretended to do so willingly, feigning weariness.
 
“I’ll retire for a while and rest, Caliph.”

In his cabin Nemo sat down, his thoughts in a turmoil.
 
He stared at the bouquet Auda had insisted on giving him.
 
He smiled at the thought of his wife and their boy Jules, fastening on the one shred of pleasure remaining to him.
 
Although he had never surrendered the place in his heart he would always hold for Caroline, his first love, he adored Auda and their son.
 
They had made him happy during what would otherwise have been an impossible time.