by Mike Ashley
As I’ve said before, money that one has not earned is easy to discard.
Sadly, it appears that the thief will escape once more, and I must continue my relentless pursuit, even if it takes me all the way around the world. He is boarding the Rangoon, which lays at anchor and is to depart in an hour for Hong Kong.
I have no choice but to follow, despite your half dozen letters imploring me to come home, which I recently collected from the consulate. I’m a little puzzled as to how you seem to be sending your letters ahead to my next destination. Perhaps you believe the extravagant story of a trip around the world in eighty days. Yes, doubtless it’s been published in every newspaper in England, and it appeals to your romantic female imagination. I must dissuade you from continuing for soon the thief will stop his travels and your charming letters will be lost forever in some city to which I’ll never travel.
And still the warrant hasn’t caught up with me. Bureaucracy can be truly exasperating.
My greatest worry now is that Fogg is flinging money about with such abandon that the reward – being a fixed percentage of the recovered money – is shrinking visibly before my eyes.
I’m sure it will still be enough to make you happy.
I shall get him in the British colony of Hong Kong. Fogg and Passepartout are now traveling with a beautiful and clearly genteel young lady they picked up somewhere in the jungles of India. I suspect an elopement, and though you might call it unworthy of me – considering that we also eloped – I should be able to arrest Fogg for that, too, because elopement, until sanctified by marriage, can be prosecuted as a crime. I will question Passepartout for details about this woman.
Yours,
Herbert Fix.
Letter #37
6 November 1872
Hong Kong
Elizabeth,
We arrived in Hong Kong after much adventure. In your letters you expressed the wish that you could join me in my pursuit. You must realize that this travelling abroad, though exhilarating for a man, would be much too demanding for a delicate woman such as yourself. You are much happier at home.
Just before we landed we met with a hurricane, the greatest storm I’ve ever seen. It was as if the heavens themselves were on my side, whipping the seas and the wind into frenzy to delay us. And while I was gripped by the most horrible nausea, I hoped we’d have to turn and run before the squall, which would slow our journey to Hong Kong. This made it more likely the warrant would arrive, and would also disrupt whatever plans this scoundrel has for escaping the law.
Alas, the vessel braved it, and we made landfall shortly after.
Meanwhile, I learned that the relatives of the mysterious woman are not likely to chase Fogg for besmirching her honour. Aouda is a mere native, despite her pale skin – an Indian princess, whom Passepartout and Fogg supposedly rescued from being burned with her husband’s body, a barbarous tradition of immolation. Now she is travelling with them.
They have already reserved berths on the Carnatic, which was scheduled to depart tomorrow for Yokohama. But I met Passepartout on his way from the quay to his master’s hotel, and he told me the Carnatic has unexpectedly changed its departure time to this evening instead. The Frenchman was in a great hurry to tell Fogg about it, but I waylaid the simple-minded and naive servant and got him intoxicated in an opium den, a very common establishment in these parts.
The man will sleep for at least a day, till long after the Carnatic has sailed. I am sure Fogg will not leave without his man. If my plan succeeds in delaying them, I shall go to the embassy and see if there are any forwarded letters from you.
Yours,
Herbert Fix
Letter #45
14 November 1872
Yokohama, Japan
Elizabeth,
Once more I write in haste. Fogg, having missed the Carnatic, engaged a small sail boat, the Tankedere – and he allowed me to travel with him. He does not even suspect that I am his nemesis! And Passepartout refuses to believe his master might be a thief. Either he is a wily accomplice, or a fool.
It is maddening to be so near him for so long and yet not to have the warrant that would stop him in his tracks. But there is nothing for it, as we’re no longer in British territory. My only hope now is that he’ll indeed go around the world in such a fashion hoping to confuse pursuers. I shall arrest him as soon as he lands in England again. Fogg intends to pursue travel to America aboard the General Grant.
I’ve already engaged a cabin in the General Grant, and I’ve now read the latest batch of your letters which, if you’ll forgive me, are rather tiresome in your insistence that I return to you at once. I have a job to do. Despite the rate at which this scoundrel is spending the stolen money, think of the renown his capture will bring me, and how much easier it will make my rise in the world.
Only minutes ago I saw Passepartout being dragged into the boat by Fogg. Passepartout wore a most extraordinarily fanciful oriental uniform, with wings and a false nose which would have sufficed for a family of twelve. People on deck say this is a costume worn in theatre for the glory of some god or other. Foolish native habits and abominable idolatry, of course, and one wonders how even a Frenchman could bear to mix himself in it.
While I take a moment to catch my berth, let me tell you something about Yokohama. It is a city of good size, and the native quarter is lit by many-coloured lanterns. There are astrologers everywhere using fine telescopes. Scientific instruments to enhance their superstition. Most ironic. For fun, I thought about having a horoscope cast for you – an unusual and exotic gift – but I had no time to delay. I must catch Fogg.
Sincerely,
Herbert Fix
Letter #64
3 December 1872
San Francisco, United States of America
Elizabeth,
We are in San Francisco, the wild city of 1849, with its bandits, incendiaries, and assassins who all came here in the Gold Rush. The city looks more civilized than you’d expect, with a lofty tower in the town hall and a whole network of streets and avenues. It also has a Chinese town, that you’d swear came from China itself.
We found ourselves caught in the middle of some incomprehensible political rally – a dispute for the post of Justice of the Peace involving two men – and soon it turned into a brawl. I could not make head nor tail of it, nor why anyone would seek to harm anyone else over such a silly squabble. I think these Americans are just hot-tempered.
In the turmoil, I actually protected Fogg from what might have been a disabling blow. Don’t worry. Other than my clothes, nothing was hurt. Fogg insisted on buying me new garments, which are of a quality and cut to which even your parents could not object.
In your latest letters you reproached me for my “despicable Opium plot.” I must say that you simply don’t understand the business of men. Some deeds, though unpleasant, are necessary. Don’t concern yourself about the matter any further.
You’ll be heartened to know I’m now wholeheartedly working to speed Fogg’s travel. Indeed, now that the thief is heading back to England, I am more than glad to help him. The sooner he gets there, the sooner I can arrest him. (And be back home with you, of course.)
And now we are to catch a train on the Pacific Railroad, headed for New York, from where we shall sail for London. I must rush to the train, so I don’t lose sight of Fogg.
Herbert Fix
Letter #70
11 December 1872
New York, United States
Elizabeth,
Sorry for not writing for two days. Ran out of paper. You’d never believe what we’ve done in our trip across the United States. We rushed over a bridge mere moments before it collapsed, and in the process we’d stoked up such a head of steam that we didn’t even stop until we’d passed the station! Then there was a herd of animals so large that they impeded the movement of the train. We had to wait until the beasts moved before the train could pass. Only imagine! The Americans call them buffalo, though Fogg said tha
t such a classification is absurd. Not sure why.
The wonders of this continent. This world.
At one point, Fogg nearly engaged in a gunfight duel with another passenger, but they were interrupted by an attack from the savage Sioux, who kidnapped three passengers, including Passepartout – which, naturally, necessitated a rescue. Afterward, we caught an express train at Omaha station. Fogg, apparently imagining the demons of justice after him, is not fond of sightseeing, only rushing onward and onward. All the better, for that means I’ll collect my reward sooner.
Now we’ve reached New York at last – but alas the vessel in which we expected to cross the Atlantic sailed forty-five minutes before our arrival. Fogg will no doubt find some boat to purchase or coerce. I very much fear there’s not much money left out of the £50,000 he stole, but I shall still reap fame for apprehending him. Wouldn’t you like to be the wife of a hero?
Herbert Fix
Letter #80
21 December Friday
Liverpool
Elizabeth,
We have made landfall, and I served Phileas Fogg with the warrant, but – how could misfortune befall me so? After all my labours, after pursuing him round the world, I am not to enjoy success. Despite every indication, it appears that Fogg is not the thief after all, for the man who actually stole the £50,000 was apprehended three days ago, whilst I was travelling.
Worse, that upstart Passepartout punched me when he learned my true purpose in accompanying them on their long journey. Now I am bruised and tired, humiliated, disappointed – but at least I’m home, where doubtless you’ll be waiting for me.
Herbert Fix
[On embossed letterhead identifying it as belonging to the law firm of Everingham, Entwhistle and Brown – on the fireplace mantel of Fix’s home. ]
London, 18 December 1872
Dear Mr Herbert Fix,
This letter serves to notify you that your wife, the honourable Elizabeth Rose Merryweather Fix, has returned to her parents’ home and is suing you for divorce on the grounds of abandonment.
Our client has further instructed us to inform you that she did not object to your poverty or even your low upbringing, but she cannot forgive your obsession with career at the expense of her peace of mind and felicity. She further instructs us to inform you that you married her under false pretences, always having characterized your marriage as a love match, when it is clear you love nothing more than your reputation and the pursuit of your own ambitions.
Lord and Lady Merryweather advise you to pose no argument and seek no reconciliation with their daughter, as they have the means to see you dismissed from your employment.
Sincerely,
Nigel Entwhistle, Esquire.
THE ADVENTURERS’ LEAGUE
Justina Robson
Fresh from Around the World in Eighty Days, Verne returned to the character of Captain Nemo, believed dead at the end of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. L’île mystérieuse or The Mysterious Island had had a long genesis. Verne had written an early version before he wrote 20,000 Leagues, and this was essentially a novel of castaways who survive on an island by using their ingenuity and scientific knowledge. It was derived, to a large degree, from one of Verne’s favourite books, Swiss Family Robinson (1813) by Johann Wyss. By the time he returned to it, though, Verne was able to weave into it characters from other novels. We find that the survivors of a balloon accident on a remote island have some kind of mysterious protector who turns out, at the very end of the novel, to be none other than Captain Nemo. He reveals, in his final moments, the truth about his origins and motives. With his death the castaways obey his last wish and scuttle the Nautilus which bears its body to a watery grave. We have already seen from Mallory’s story that there might be another interpretation of Nemo’s final days. Now we look ahead to the inspiration that the character and story gave to future generations.
Riba leant out of the window and looked up. His body was at an awkward twist because he dare not let go of the ledge. It was twelve floors down to the pavement. Just above him and to his right, outside the Newsdesk window, the summons’ posts of the Avian Messenger Service jutted out of the brickwork. One of them was occupied by the sturdy form of an external maintenance Parrokeet who was testing the wirework for the new satellite dish the editor had just had installed. The other two were empty.
Riba pulled his head in and ran a hand through his hair reflectively. The posts and local environs were crusted with foul-smelling bird muck which had a habit of flaking loose. He lived in dread of inhaling the stuff, but he seemed to have escaped this once.
“Go stir up some trouble, Riba, you’re spoiling the view.” Slattery, who was supposed to be writing the minority sports column, had his feet up on his desk. A printed magazine was laid over his face as he leant back in his chair, arms behind his head.
“Something’s going on,” Riba told him, stuffing his hands into his pockets and leaning against the wall so that he could look out across the city towards Downing Street. “I can tell by the way everything’s flying.”
Slattery snorted. “Mmn, yes, maybe in some uncharted corner of the universe there still exists some angle on the day’s big story that’s not entirely shredded and bedded. The small pets of the world may be bursting to give you their reactions to the reactions on the reactions so far. I can see it now. Impossible Space Journey – a hamster speaks. I was in my wheel, you know, just doing a few laps, when suddenly . . .”
But Riba was already out of the door and moving out of the paper’s network footprint. In a café a half a mile distant he sat down and opened his Abacand – a handheld device of infinite practical use. Using the money from his last major investigative assignment he pump-primed his account with DarkNet, the non-governmental AI communications service.
He drank his way through four espressos and oiled, smoothed and bribed his way through all but a handful of dollars in the next few hours. Finally, as lights began to come on across the city, he felt that lifting of the hairs on the back of his neck as an old contact from the Forged Uluru network came on line. Using the café’s integral holographic units they projected their avatar into the empty chair opposite Riba’s.
Forged people, whose bodies might be far distant or in a form not suitable for talking, in order to manifest themselves in the form of Original, or Unevolved human beings, used Avatars as a matter of course in order to communicate more effectively. Their appearance conventionally revealed much about the personality behind their design. This one took the form of an ancient Chinese man with a pot belly. He wore orange robes, had a shaved head, and smoked a meerschaum pipe that gave off a fierce blast of smoke every so often, like the funnel of a tug-boat. Riba knew this avatar, even though he knew nothing about who it really was, and he was used to the fact that it never spoke. Instead it gave him an amused smile and sent his Abacand the time and departure point of a trans-Atlantic flight. Then, with an extra-large puff of smoke, it did the genie-thing and vanished.
The notes included a brief description of a person. Riba had used this contact before, when it gained him access to a file that revealed the identities of a half a dozen businessmen involved in financing interplanetary piracy. Upon receiving this new instruction he immediately called in a couple of favours from other journalists to borrow enough money to buy a ticket and by the time Slattery was ploughing his way through the volleyball scores Riba was stepping aboard the helium airship Byzantium, bound for New York.
The Byzantium was a passenger craft ideally suited to extending journey time beyond the practical and into the realms of affluence. No vehicle appealed less to Riba personally but, if it led him to definite information on the peculiar circumstances of Voyager Lonestar Isol’s return to Earth space, then it was the best transport in the world. That this return was a matter that required serious investigation was beyond question.
The Voyager was an early type of Forged human being, an engineered mind in an engineered body which was suited for the long ye
ars, great speeds and incredible tedium of interstellar exploration. Her Manifest Photograph was currently showing on every newscast in the system. Riba flinched instinctively every time he saw it. Isol looked like fifty different kinds of assassin bug wedded to the toughest machinery money could buy. She was as inhuman as he could imagine, on the outside at least. On the way to catch his flight he did his best to forget it although it was the kind of thing that had a way of stamping itself on the mind.
Isol had returned only yesterday from a journey of over thirty years’ duration. According to the official story she had followed a single, accurate trajectory out of the Sol system towards its near neighbour, Barnard’s Star. All had been well. There were some nice photographs of nebulae, some pertinent observations on planets, black holes, the galactic hub and other such matters of importance to science. There were also many transmissions to and from the Forged Independence Party Headquarters.
Riba re-read these and their latest updates with the feeling that at last here was something he could get his teeth into. Isol was a political agitator and a radical of the out-there order. She wrote vehemently about the obsolescence of Old Monkey – the humans like Riba who were as nature had made them. It was Isol’s view that the Forged should create an independent state beyond the legislative and economic grip of the present Solar Government so that they could pursue their own reproduction and evolution unhindered by “historical and unsympathetic” views of their destiny.
Riba viewed the looming prospect of a civil war with mixed feelings. For the last few years the Forged Independence movement had grown. Together with an increasing lawlessness out in the wider system it had built an ominous momentum with incident after incident of piracy and assault out on the frontiers of Solar space. The Unevolved fear of their stronger and faster gengineered cousins had grown and on Earth there were daily incidents of violence and misunderstanding between the two. The Forged resented their slavery. The Unevolved envied the Forged their power. But the Forged supplied the Unevolved settlements with essential resources from the wider system, and the Unevolved . . . well, sometimes it was difficult to see exactly how the Unevolved fit into the macroeconomics of it all, but you could safely say they still had the dollars to buy in. They were a big market and the Forged had a lot to sell.