by Mike Ashley
He wandered out into the warm Sri Lankan night, heavy with rainfall and the song of crickets. No matter, he thought, with a patience accrued over many, many years. An answer would present itself. The universe had started to align itself for him, as it always had, as if in compensation for all that had been taken away, and would now be returned.
A day after that, he read the newspaper article in the little bar along the street, and realized with dismay that his answer was waiting for him. And he could not let it happen.
The museum fascinated me as a child. It stood perched on its hill above the curve of the Loire, high over the silvery gleam of the river. In winter, my mother used to take me there after school, shaking her head, saying, “Jacques, wouldn’t you like to go to the cinema instead?” She was a practical woman, but science bored her, and I think she thought that the museum was little more than a folly, a legacy of the last century. Perhaps she was right. But I was enchanted with the diagrams and pictures, the dioramas, the mock-up of the submarine’s steering room with its plush red-velvet seats. I used to imagine that I was its captain, battling sea monsters from the deep and when we came out of the museum, I would stare down the estuary to the chilly line of the Atlantic and think: one day, I will sail out there.
When I was eleven, however, my father was transferred to a plant on the outskirts of Paris and we went with him. I could no longer see the sea, and over the years I forgot about the museum. I followed in his footsteps, first intending to become an engineer, but rapidly becoming diverted into information technology. I found myself working for a dotcom in Germany, and then running one. It seemed as though nothing could go wrong, for a while, but I could see the crash coming, like a great wave towering above the horizon, and I sold out just in time. I made a fortune by the time I was twenty-five, and my luck held. By the time I was thirty-six, I was quite unspeakably wealthy, living partly in France but mainly in California.
I saw what a lot of people did with their money, and it didn’t disgust me, exactly, but I did wonder why they bothered. They seemed to be scrambling through the here and now, without any thought to the future beyond their kids’ inheritances. Perhaps it was the fact that I didn’t have children that led me toward developing the Shoal.
I don’t think I consciously had Verne’s little museum in mind when I first started idly sketching the blueprints. My Breton past had receded to a kind of hazy childhood vista: rainy school-days, sunny summers on the beach. It had been happy enough and so I rarely thought about it: I’m not much of a one for introspection. But what I did know was that I wanted to leave something for the future, something tangible, and something big. As soon as I thought of it, I knew that it was going to happen: it was like a crackling in the air before a storm hits. Next morning, I called an architect friend of mine and got him to put me in touch with some of his contacts.
A year later, the Shoal was beginning to become a reality. I’d got the financial backing, and we’d been in talks with the Pakistani government for some months. Dealing with them proved to be a steep learning curve for me, but we made it. In early autumn, I took a boat out to the patch of sea that would one day become the building site of the Shoal.
It was located just off the mouth of the Indus, a calm stretch of rippling waves with the red bluffs visible in the distance. There wasn’t much there, obviously: only a few sand-spits rising above the shimmering water, but in my mind’s eye I could see the Shoal rising above the waves, its great shell gleaming. I envied those who would be its first guests, who would see it for the first time as they raced across the sea, who would not have been privy to the long, laborious planning process. Fascinating though I found it, I should have liked to have seen the Shoal in its entirety, feel its impact without prior knowledge.
Within months, construction had begun. I wanted to start in winter, as the climate was milder then, the heat less fierce. It went too smoothly: the rigging arching up from the dry-dock like a curling ammonite, growing day by day. The under-structure, as I termed it, grew more slowly. This section, the service part of the hotel – the malls and golf courses and restaurants and gardens – would be towed out first, and then the shell would be attached. I supervised the operation, and watched the Shoal grow day by day, until to my slightly incredulous wonder, it was almost complete.
And then, one night, I had a dream. I rose from the couch in my office in the Shoal, in which I had fallen asleep, and walked through the silent, half-finished corridors to the platform where my speedboat was docked. I knew that it had been night when I fell asleep, but this looked like noon: a high, burnished blue sky and blazing sun, glittering from the metallic hulls of the craft that surrounded the Shoal. I gazed in wonder at all kinds of ships: huge clippers with crimson sails, gleaming with bronze and gold; a spined iron vessel that churned the waves into a froth of milk, and on the horizon, something huge and hulking, a ship that must, from this distance, be close to a mile in length. I thought, with a burst of joy: I am seeing the future.
I wanted to see more, but it was not to be: the dream ended, and I woke to find myself in the quiet office, with the dawn coming up over the waves. But the exhilaration at seeing that display of naval invention stayed with me throughout the day, and with it the knowledge that perhaps I was contributing to that future, with the building of the Shoal.
When the man first came to see me, I was not unduly surprised. Initially I thought he was a local – yet another of the clerics or politicians who had caused me no few difficulties to date. He wore a turban, like a Sikh, and he was dark, with a close-cropped beard and black eyes. To my surprise, however, he spoke excellent French. He gave his name as Rashid, said that he was a local businessman, but did not specify in what.
I had matters to see to, and so I was reluctant to make time for him, but I did not want to antagonise the community. We sat over coffee while he made small talk about the weather and France, with which he seemed familiar. Impatiently, I waited for him to get to the point of his visit, but then he asked me where I was from.
“Nantes,” I replied. “It’s a small town, in Brittany. It –”
“But I know it well, Monsieur Hoenec,” he replied in some surprise. “I used to visit it, often. I had a close friend there.”
“Extraordinary,” I said, still being polite. “Whereabouts?”
“In the district of Mebec. A very elegant part of town.”
I frowned. “It must have been some time ago, then. Mebec hasn’t been elegant for many years.”
“Oh, it was a long time ago,” Rashid said, smiling, although I would not have placed him much above fifty. “But I can see that you are busy, Monsieur, and pleasant though it is to reminisce about old haunts, there is something I must say.”
“Please do,” I said, eager to terminate the interview and return to work. Through the window, I could see the shell of the Shoal rising above me like a promise.
“You cannot build here. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but these waters are too unstable to support such a structure as you have in mind. You will have to tow your hotel to a safer location. I would have come before, but I was detained.”
I sighed. I’d had to take a great deal of advice from various local authorities: some of it good, of course, but much of it simply irrelevant to the facts.
“Look,” I said. “I appreciate your concern, but we’ve done a full marine survey. My architects have taken immense care to test the seabed – obviously, this whole region is prone to fault-lines. But you have to understand that the Shoal is, essentially, afloat. It has in-built seismic testers which will give due warning if there’s any shift in the earth’s crust, and can be moved out of harm’s way.”
“That is not what I am talking about,” Rashid said. He leaned forward, clearly in deadly earnest. “It is not a question of location as such, but of time.”
“Time? I don’t understand.”
“This is a very old place, Monsieur Hoenec. One of the oldest locations of civilization on the planet
. It may not look so to you, but under these placid waters lies a great rift.”
“The survey showed nothing,” I said, with a slight shake of my head. “What evidence do you have for such a thing?”
He conceded my point with a smile of his own. “Let us just say that the knowledge has always been in my family.”
A mystic, I thought, or perhaps even mad. “Even if what you say is true,” I said, “I cannot simply cancel the project without evidence. As I say, we’ve had exhaustive surveys carried out.”
“I see that I cannot persuade you,” Rashid said. “Only show you. May I come again to your hotel, tomorrow evening, and do so?”
I sighed. “Very well.” I wanted to keep on the right side of the local community: animosity could go a long way in affecting good relations – not to mention prices. I already knew that we had been cheated on some of the local goods, but I had factored it into the profit margins. “Shall we say seven?”
Rashid paused for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you, M. Hoenec. I appreciate your courtesy in humouring me.” There was a flash in the dark eyes that told me that he was quite well aware of my unease. Embarrassed, I coughed to hide it.
“I shall see you at seven, then,” I said.
But next day, the storm came.
It began just after noon, a darkening of the distant horizon: a grey line between the blue. I noticed it out of the window of my office and for a moment, the shadow of the Shoal’s shell seemed to fall across me. I blinked and it was once more back to its glittering arc. I thought to myself that it was probably nothing more than a tropical monsoon and would hurl itself out over the waters before it reached the coast, with only a swift lashing of raindrops across the bay. I devoted myself to some legal documents and when I next glanced up, some two hours later, I realized that it had become quite dark.
The phone rang. When I answered it, the foreman’s voice echoed through my office. “Looks like a typhoon. You want me to evacuate?”
I was confident of the Shoal’s ability to ride out any storm, once complete – but it was as yet unfinished. It was best to be on the safe side. Cursing under my breath, I told him to get the men to shore.
“What about you?”
“I’ll sit it out for a while,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”
It was perhaps foolish, but I could not bear to leave the Shoal to the mercy of the storm. We would confront it together. I reassured the foreman and a few minutes later, I saw the boats speeding toward the bluffs. Then I sat staring out of the window at the oncoming storm. It did not look like a typhoon to me. It looked like a wall of mist, at once barely substantial and completely solid.
There was a knock on the door of my office. Frowning, I rose and opened it. Rashid was standing on the other side. I gaped at him.
“I am sorry,” he said, and I could see horror in his dark eyes. “My calculations have not been correct. We have no more time,” – and at that moment the whole Shoal lurched violently to one side as if it had been struck a blow by a giant hand. Rashid and I fell against the wall. I think I cried out. The Shoal righted itself with as much violence as it had shifted and then we were plummeting downward, as though the whole structure had been placed within some gigantic elevator. The breath was ripped from my lungs. I tried to scream, but could not. Staring in horror through the window of my office, I saw at first only water, but then I realized that I could see other things through the straining glass: startled faces lining the decks of a great-sailed ship, the configuration of the red bluffs along the shore shifting and changing, becoming wooded, then bare of trees, then wooded once more. The images became dream-like. My fear ebbed like a tide.
“I am sorry,” I heard Rashid say softly into my ear. “I was too late. I thought I knew when it would be, but I was wrong.”
“What’s happening?” I said.
“This was a journey that was meant for me, and me alone. I hoped to show you just the beginning of it but it started more swiftly than I ever imagined.”
“I don’t understand,” I said again, but suddenly I remembered my dream, that shining future of glorious ships and a strange hope leaped in me.
He sighed. “Soon you will.”
The shifting, changing landscape was slowing now. I felt a bump, as when the landing wheels of an aircraft are released. The Shoal sighed as it settled. We were on dry land.
“Come,” Rashid said, sadly. “I will show you.”
He led me through the tilting corridors to the outer doors of the Shoal, which in its natural environment led to one of the docks. Numbly, still unable to take in what had happened to me, I followed him out on to the platform.
The bluffs, the storm, and even the sea itself had disappeared. The arc of the Shoal listed above me as it perched on a rolling plain. Before us, stretched the city: massive walls made of ochre earth, sloping up to high ramparts with gilded domes of temples visible above them. A flock of immense birds flapped slowly overhead, with the glitter of metal collars clearly visible. Far in the distance, I saw a waterfall cascading down a crag, contained within the city limits themselves.
“This is Indec-Herat,” Rashid said. “This is my home.”
“When are we?” I heard myself say. “Is this the future?”
“Alas, no. It is the far past. Many thousands of years before your own time, when the cities of the coastal plains of Earth held sway and the great maritime civilization of the Indus ruled the world. A far more civilized time than your own, full of science and learning and peace.”
“Atlantis?” I murmured, shocked, and he gave a bitter laugh.
“Atlantis is the memory of a myth. There was no great island in the midst of that ocean, but all around the shores of the continents were cities. We were –” he looked briefly exultant, fleetingly sad, “– the greatest seafaring nation that this world has ever known. And then the waters rose, and swallowed it. Everything – gone in a span of years. We saved those we could, sending the ordinary folk into the mountains, and for those of us of the elite – time-bending, sent into the future to preserve what knowledge we could. But time wears thin, Monsieur Hoenec. It frays, like elastic. It snatches us back again. I knew my time was coming. I have been in your world for several centuries. I felt myself growing faint.”
“You spoke with him, didn’t you?” I said. “With the writer, with Verne?”
“Of course. He wove a few of my stories into a dream, but he did not really believe what I had to say. In that regard, I failed.”
“And your Nautilus?”
“Is real. It was my ship, of course. It’s gone now, long gone. I searched for a while for another vessel, but I did not have the resources to rebuild it, and anyway, what was the point? I knew I would be coming back, if I lived.”
“And what about me?” I asked, but I thought I already knew the answer to that.
“Monsieur Hoenec . . . I am truly sorry.”
The shock hit me then, punching a hole through my heart. I barely registered it when a barge glided in from the city, filled with men in red robes who greeted Rashid as a brother and took us both into Indec-Herat. I remember little of its magnificence.
They treated me well, that first day: bringing me fruit that I had never seen before, and dishes of grains. They did not, Rashid informed me, eat meat. He told me a little about the cities of the coasts: their maritime goddesses, their marvels, and I listened like a child, with as much wonder and the same suspension of belief. Dimly, I saw that Rashid’s face sharpened into concern and when he held out a fizzing glass and said, “Here, drink this. It is a sedative,” I did not hesitate. I think I hoped to wake and find it a dream, but when I opened my eyes the next morning the sun was already high above the gold-and-crimson domes. I went with Rashid compliantly, letting him lead me down through the city. I observed with a remote, detached interest the lines of priestesses in their blood-coloured robes, the huge leathery birds wheeling about their heads, and the sellers of gold and jade and strange vegetables. There
were all manner of people here: some immensely tall, others squat and barely human with slate-blue skin. The human species, in this pre-catastrophe world, seemed much more varied. It was starting to dawn on me what we had lost.
“I will show you something,” Rashid said. “You’ll find it of interest, I think.” He was smiling and I returned it with, I am sure, a wan grimace of my own. We took a barge down through a series of canals and I watched the city glide by into unreality.
And then we came to the harbour. Ships bigger than any I had ever seen, with vast gleaming sails, span out across the Indus sea. I could see the spined back of a submarine, cresting the water briefly before it dived. Smaller boats, clearly equipped with some form of engine, darted like dragonflies between the hulls of the larger craft. It was a level of technology that put my own Shoal into the shade. And I knew then, with a lift of the heart at all I was to witness, and a sinking of the spirits at the thought of all that would be lost, that there was no point in looking either forward or back.
CONTRIBUTORS
Kevin J. Anderson (b. 1962) has written several X-Files and Star Wars novels, as well as collaborations with such writers as Kristine Kathryn Rusch, John G. Betancourt, and Brian Herbert, with whom he has written the continuing Dune saga: House Atreides (1999), House Harkonnen (2000), and House Corrino (2001). With Doug Beason he wrote the SF novels Lifeline (1990), Assemblers of Infinity (1993), and Ignition (1996), a techno-thriller. His solo work includes Resurrection Inc. (1988), Blindfold (1995) and Hopscotch (1997). His 2002 novel, Captain Nemo, was subtitled “The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius”.