“Surely you judge yourself too harshly,” Wheatstone protested.
“Not at all! It’s taken every iota of ingenuity we possess just to translate Nemo’s devices into automobiles and trains and such. That’s why large-scale manned flight has baffled us. Nemo’s engines were never designed for such applications. And we’ve just about reached the limit of what we can mine from the last scraps of the Nautilus. But what’s even worse is how we’ve fatally detoured the destined course of scientific history. By futilely investing generations of talent in following Nemo’s bizarre avenues, we’ve allowed the foundations of science circa 1870 to crumble and moulder. The world of 1898 is not what it should have been. There is no organic path left for us to follow from here out. To re-organize the scientific establishment that existed thirty years ago is nigh impossible. Yet our only hope for the future is to attempt such a thing. But we cannot even make such a last-ditch effort until we first tear down the sickly monster we have erected. And your help is essential for that task.”
Wheatstone felt torn between a host of contradictory impulses. His affection for what Lincoln Island had created vied with his desire to make a journalistic splash. His belief in Brown’s sincerity — the man appeared to truly believe everything he had said — warred with his incredulity at the enormity of the long-standing hoax.
“How can I accept what you tell me without some kind of proof, sir?”
Brown got tipsily to his feet and secured the neglected carpetbag from the corner of the room. He hoisted it to the tabletop, unclasped it, and reached within. From the bag he lifted a fantastical helmet with thick glass plate for a visor, bearing an ornate capital N. This he thumped down on the table.
“Here is one of the diving helmets from the Nautilus.” Brown examined the headgear with interest. “Intriguing, sir. But this could be something intended to deceive me.” “Thought you might say that.” Brown reached again into the bag and removed another exhibit.
Wheatstone’s knowledge of human skeletal anatomy had been buffed by various professional interviews with leading anthropologists. The skull now flaunted before him displayed odd configurations of bone that seemed to hint at larger mental proportions than the human norm.
“Yes,” Brown confirmed, “this is Nemo’s very skull. The fishes had picked him quite clean by the time we returned. He claimed to be an Indian prince, but I suspect that he was much more. Perhaps a visitor from the future, perhaps a stranded traveller from another star. Or perhaps a human sport, a forerunner of some species of mankind yet to come. In any case, he possessed qualities of mind the likes of which are all too seldom encountered.”
The skull formed a shocking weight in the pan of the scales that favoured Brown’s story. But still Wheatstone hesitated. So much was riding on his decision —
Brown sensed this hesitancy. “Damn it, man! I had been hoping to avoid this, but I can see I’ve got no choice. Come with me. I’m taking you to see the carcass of the Nautilus itself!”
Brooking no resistance, Brown grabbed Wheatstone’s sleeve with one hand and his bottle of wine with the other, and they departed the Gilded Cockerel. Outside, they strode off, Brown leading. He continued to swig from his bottle, muttering all the while.
“We’re rotten at the core, Wheatstone! Nemo was the worm in the apple of the original Lincoln Island, and he remains so today. Our whole existence is predicated on a lie!”
Wheatstone refrained, wisely he thought, from either agreement or dissent.
After half an hour of progress through the deserted streets of a manufactory district, the pair arrived at an innocuous warehouse. Brown pulled Wheatstone down an alley and around to a side door.
“No one comes here anymore. The Nautilus was stripped long ago, its components distributed to various laboratories. We should be perfectly safe venturing inside.”
“I take it then that you are playing a lone hand. You have no fellow conspirators to rely on?”
“Hah! Who among those self-satisfied drones wants to rock the boat? They’re all frightened old men. But poor little Harbert Brown, the baby of the group, still has some hot blood in his veins! They’ll all be dead soon, the duffers! Not me! And I don’t want to live in a desolate future. That’s why I’m doing this, Bing!”
After employing a key on the padlocked door, Brown led Wheatcroft into the stygian interior. “There should be an electric-light switch somewhere near this entrance — Ah-ha!”
The blaze of illumination that flooded forth following Brown’s simple action caused Wheatcroft to fling up an arm across his face against the glare. When his eyes had adjusted, he lowered his limb.
The vast open floor of the warehouse held just what had been promised. Like a slaughtered whale strewn across a beach, the segments of Nemo’s wonder-vessel reared ceilingward. Steel arches and ribs trailed bits of truncated wiring and pipes and bits of decoration. The shattered pieces of the Nautilus’s staterooms — slabs of mahogony and tile, broken chandeliers and armoires — were heaped in a corner. The whole panorama was morbid and desolate in the extreme.
Wheatstone moved forward for closer inspection, but was arrested in his tracks by a shout.
“Stop right there! We are from the council!”
Across the room, framed in another doorway, stood a short, gnarled yet feisty old man surrounded by quadrumanes. The surly apes wore not the vests of their servant cousins but rather leather brassards, and carried truncheons belligerently.
“Pencroff!” exclaimed Harbert Brown.
“Yes, you cocksure little fool. Did you actually think your plotting went unnoticed? We’ve known all along about your treacherous scheme. And now you’ll have to face the consequences. Secure them, boys!”
At Pencroff’s command the apes bounded forward and cruelly pinioned Wheatstone and Brown. Within seconds the prisoners had been placed in the claustrophobic back of a Black Maria wagon, which motored off.
Brown was too devastated to speak, and Wheatstone found himself similarly dejected. How had he come to such a fix? Ambition had undone him. He could not delude himself that high-minded principles had played any part in his involvement.
Their windowless conveyance eventually came to a stop. The rear doors opened, and a rough-handed quadrumane escort hustled Brown and Wheatstone out and into a new building. Inside, the conspirators were separated. Soon, much to his surprise, Wheatstone found himself deposited in a spacious library. His animal captors left him then, and he collapsed into a chair.
Not many minutes passed before the library door clicked open. Wheatstone shot quivering to his feet and found himself face to face with the president-for-life of Lincoln Island.
At age seventy-eight, Cyrus Smith still possessed all the charisma of his youth. His stern, bearded countenance radiated a patriarchal aura not unmixed with a sly humour. He smiled at Wheatstone, and extended a hand.
“Come, come, Mr Wheatstone, you’re not among ogres here. If at all possible, no harm will come to you. I think you’ll find us more than reasonable when it comes to straightening out this imbroglio you’ve stumbled into.”
“Sir, you have foisted an imposture upon the world!”
“Have I, Mr Wheatstone? Yes, I suppose I have. But consider the benefits that have accrued thanks to my little charade. The living standards of much of the world’s population are higher than they’ve ever been before. Cowed by the weapons we have liberated from the Nautilus, the nations of the globe have learned to value diplomacy over aggression. The Sons of Ham are fully enfranchised and valued, both in North America and elsewhere. I venture to say that this version of 1898 is, on the whole, a more just and admirable one than any other merely hypothetical branch of history that would have resulted had Lincoln Island never existed.”
“But your paradise is balanced upon the tip of a needle! It takes all your efforts to keep it from toppling. And as Brown has revealed to me, you are soon to run out of strength.”
“Ah, poor Brown! We will see that he gets the kindly
care and attention he needs to overcome his alcohol-sodden delusions. No one is going to harm him. He is one of us.”
“Are you claiming that his presentation of the situation is incorrect?”
“No, not at all. But Harbert was not privy to our secret search, a quest that has now borne fruit. We have secured the allegiance of a new savant, a mastermind whose fertile brain will more than compensate for the absence of our beloved Captain Nemo.”
“You believe then that this newcomer can stave off that day when science reaches its natural limits?”
“Indeed, he will, I am certain. And may I say that you have a fine way with words, Mr Wheatstone. I’m certain you will do justice to the exclusive interview we intend to grant you with our new saviour.”
Exclusive interview? Wheatstone began to feel for the first time in hours that he might yet emerge from this deadly affair with both his hide and reputation intact, even enhanced.
“Would you care to meet him now?”
“Why, yes, if the hour is not too late.”
“Not at all. Our new comrade is almost superhuman in his endurance and vital spirits.”
Wheatstone used an ordinator to issue his summons. Within a few minutes, a man strode boldly into the library. And what a figure of a man! Of middle height and geometric breadth, his figure was a regular trapezium with the greatest of its parallel sides formed by the line of his shoulders. On this line attached by a robust neck there rose an enormous spheroidal head — the head of a bull; but a bull with an intelligent face. Eyes which, at the least opposition, would glow like coals of fire; and above them a permanent contraction of the superciliary muscle, an invariable sign of extreme energy. Short hair, slightly woolly, with metallic reflections; large chest rising and falling like a smith’s bellow; arm, hands, legs and feet, all worthy of the trunk. No moustaches, no whiskers, but a large American goatee.
Even Cyrus Smith seemed to shrink a little in the presence of this newcomer, who remained forebodingly silent. But Smith soon recovered himself and said, “Mr Wheatstone, may I present our new friend, Robur. With his aid, I believe we can conquer all such problems as our aerial delays at last. With Robur at our side, progress need never end.”
Wheatstone shook Robur’s hand and felt a galvanic charge.
The young reporter suspected that things were really going to get interesting now .
OLD LIGHT by Tim Lebbon
From 1886, Verne entered a long period of depression. It was probably started when Verne’s nephew, Gaston, in a moment of madness, shot Verne, wounding him in the leg. The injury left Verne with a limp that severely reduced his mobility and though he was still only fifty-eight, he began to feel “geriatric”. It was not helped by the deaths of several friends and relatives, including Hetzel, who died in 1886, and Verne’s mother who died early in 1887. This depression was apparent in a series of lacklustre and rather negative novels, including North against South (1887), The Flight to France (1887), Two Years’ Vacation (1888, better known as Adrift in the Pacific) and A Family Without a Name (1889).
In the midst of this he completed, but then put aside, a very personal novel about loss and love. Le Château des Carpathes (The Castle of the Carpathians) is usually dismissed as an over sentimental gothic romance. Set in Translyvania (and written several years before Bram Stoker completed Dracula), it tells of strange events happening at the eponymous castle once owned by the Barons de Gortz but long believed to have been abandoned. The villagers suspect that the manifestations are supernatural but two more pragmatic locals set out for the castle to discover the truth. We eventually learn that the Baron de Gortz had fallen in love with the voice of a great singer, La Stilla, who had died.
The scientist, Orfanik, had invented a recording device that captured La Stilla’s voice and, using her portrait, de Gortz arranges for Orfanik, to project the vision and sound of La Stilla throughout the castle, where de Gortz retreats to be alone with his memories. Biographers believe that the novel is a projection of Verne’s own views at this time as his friends and loved ones died. In the following story Tim Lebbon captures that mood admirably as he explores the further work of Orfanik.
In the beginning, I turned away.
I’m not sure why. I’m normally a helpful person, compassionate, and the sight of a man in such a state would usually urge me to aid him as much as I could. He was injured, though still alive; the twitch of an eyelid, a foot moving in circles as if dreaming a dance. Before I realized what I was doing I was back on the pavement, seven steps and a lifetime of guilt separating me from the prone figure.
Perhaps it was the shock of what I had seen. Walking along the canal the last thing I expected to come across was someone lying across the towpath, apparently bleeding to death. Maybe it was the sight of flies buzzing around him. Or perhaps subconsciously I had already realized the danger. He exuded strangeness like the warmth of a dying breath. I must have picked up on that long before my morals kicked in.
Even then I did not return straight away. I looked around for help, but there was none to be had. The countryside was quiet, its solitude broken only by the bleating of new-born lambs and the mournful cries of a single buzzard circling high overhead. I wondered where its mate had gone, and whether it regarded this man as a possible source of carrion.
Standing at the top of the steps leading to the towpath, I was suddenly certain that the man would be gone. When I skirted the wild undergrowth and reached the level of the canal once more there would be nothing there; no body, no blood, no promise of pain. I would be left with the fact of my hallucination, but I would rather live with that than be marked by this stranger’s blood and problems. And then there was that guilt again, flicking at my memories with its stale breath. I would much rather be without the guilt.
If he had been an hallucination, should I still feel remorseful for turning away? The thought troubled me, as if someone else were thinking it.
I went back down to the towpath. The man was very old. His forehead was badly gashed and bruised, and I saw the splash of blood on the rock he must have hit when he fell. But it was the weirdness of this fallen man that shuffled my thoughts, and fear was yet another consequence of my shock.
He was foreign, perhaps Eastern European, and his clothing set him aside. I had never seen clothing like that beyond a movie screen. His trousers were of sackcloth, rough and snagged, held up by a belt of rough animal skin. His shirt was colourful and bright, even though it was obviously aged and weathered. Cuts here, rips there, all of them added to the garment’s mystique. I could see no bottle, but I was already certain that he was not a drunk. Nearby on the towpath a long, heavy coat lay like a slaughtered shadow, arms askew, the material so strange that I could not place it. Not cotton, not wool, it reminded me most of rough elbow skin.
The man coughed. His eyes sprang open and fixed right on me, as if he already knew I was there. He smiled.
I stepped back. There was so much blood on his face, and his smile looked fearsome. Something scurried in the bushes beside the towpath and I turned, ready to face whatever came out. Perhaps it was a wild animal drawn by the smell of blood; a rat, a fox. But it was only a bird startled by my movement.
The man was still smiling at me. Ridiculously I smiled back, having no idea what else to do. He was bleeding copiously from the head. It can’t have been more than a few minutes since he had fallen.
“Here,” he said, “take this.” He sat up awkwardly, swaying. He looked so old. I thought of broken ribs or crushed hips, but there was little I could do about that right now. He held up a long object wrapped in an oily cloth, and beckoned me over with a tilt of his head.
I obeyed. It was that or turn and run, and I could not allow that a second time.
“Lie still,” I said, “don’t move, I’ll go and get help.”
“Hmph!” He tried to laugh, but it descended into more coughing. He looked up at the trees and down at the canal. “I’ll be fine. My time’s not just yet.” His voice was he
avily accented and distorted by pain, but still I understood every word.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I fell. I’m tired. I’ve been looking for weeks.”
“I don’t understand. Looking for what?”
“For you, Alex Norfan. Take it. You’ll understand.”
“I . . . I don’t think I can.”
“You must!” His vehemence brought on more coughing, and blood dropped from his nose on to the ground between his knees. “This is no simple trinket,” he whispered, trying to remain calm.
“It’s not mine,” I said, unable to ask what I was really thinking: Why was he looking for me?
“It is, it is.” Still he proffered the object.
“What is it?”
“The future,” he said. “It’s been mine for so long, and now you’re the last of the line, so it’s yours. It’s from the old castle in the Carpathians ... haunted, haunted by miracles from the past . . .” He closed his eyes. He looked so pale, so ready to die, and suddenly so familiar. The shape of his brow, the curve of his cheek, the hook nose. I put my hand to my own face, and wondered.
“But —”
“Alex Norfan? Orfanik?” the man said, and he must have seen the reaction that name inspired in me. “There are more things than you know,” he continued. “You’re a man open to mystery, yes? To exploration? And I came here for you, because this is yours by birthright.”
I shook my head to dislodge the strangeness, but it only tangled it more. “I need to get you to a hospital.”
“I’ve never been to one all my life, and I will not start now. It can do me no good. Now take this, curse you!”
I held out my hand and touched the thing he was offering. It was cold, even through the rag.
The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures Page 39