20 Million Leagues Over the Sea

by K. T. Hunter

  "A true remittance man?" Gemma asked. "I thought they were just in stories. Then he is still an orphan, after a fashion, isn't he?"

  Nigel answered, "He's had some rough patches, to be sure, but that doesn't excuse his actions. I'll give him some extra duties or something, though, and remind him to behave himself. I'll have him archive the wireless messages or muck out the stable deck. Maybe both."

  "What you did was amazing, though," Caroline chirped before popping another forkful of eggs into her mouth. "Never seen a scientist move like that before. Your school may be as tough as the Academy. Tougher, maybe."

  Gemma wondered how Caroline could be so cheerful all the time, with all the hardships she had endured, having to live her life in a hideous uniform and look like a boy. She simply could not understand it, and she was thankful yet again to her mistress for rescuing her from such things; but deep inside she began to wonder if she was correct in thinking that Caroline must be unhappy.

  Over the course of breakfast, the pile of cards grew at Gemma's side as crew left for duty. By the time she was finished eating, she had acquired five Dickens, a Darwin, two Queen Victorias, two Lord Nelsons, a Baron Robert Baden-Powell, and a picture of a rather sad-looking India rubber Martian.

  Noticing Gemma's grimace, Nigel explained, "Oh, that's just the Martian from the Badger 'n' Tentacle down in Hammersmith. Leave it to the British to commemorate the Invasion with a pub."

  "I hear they built the bar out of the leg of a walking machine," Caroline added. "Wonder how that got that past the TIA salvagers."

  Caroline then traded a picture of another pub, The Falcon, Battersea, and one of the Badger and Tentacle, for the Moreau card, much to Gemma's relief. She couldn't bear the thought of that man knowing that she was toting his face about in her pocket. Gemma was amazed to see a CDV of a pub; apparently, there was an entire series of them.

  "Humboldt's trying to get the entire set," Caroline explained. "He's been bothering me for this one for a while."

  Anything was better, in Gemma's opinion, than that horrid painting. She would have given the card to Caroline freely, just to be shot of it, if Nigel had not insisted on a trade.

  The Booleans bid her a good day as they left the table. Gemma jogged the cards into a neat stack. She didn't have enough time to return them to her room before reporting to Pugh's office for the day. She'd simply have to endure his ribbing -- or his advice, she wasn't sure which was worse -- about them. At least he wouldn't see her with the Moreau card. Her new collection did make her breathe more easily, though. This little pat on the back from her shipmates was the bolster that she needed.

  It was time to work on her special assignment: the reading of the two ledgers. She could face them now; she felt lighter and freer than she had in a very long time. The crew wasn't afraid of her even after her tussle with Humboldt. She was surprised at how much delight that gave her. Perhaps it was because there was no physical escape from this place. She was going to be with them longer than she'd ever been with a target before. The farther the ship crawled along its course, the less it seemed possible that there was a Watcher aboard. It had been hard enough to smuggle her in -- how much harder it would have been to get two on the ship! She had time, and time again, before they reached Mars to find Orion.

  There was no Watcher.

  There couldn't be.

  In the lift, she considered the possibility that Brightman had meant OBERTH instead of ORION. The analytical part of her mind quickly discarded the notion. Most previous assignments had concerned small, portable oddments of science that were easy to move and study, like an equation, a photograph, or a chemical sample. Gemma found the notion of hiding the great Oberth engines in the school cellar amusing. This mission did seem to have thrown all the usual rules out the window, true, but surely Orion was a formula, a file, something that she could transmit via wireless or smuggle off the ship upon her return. Assuming she did return.

  She shook off the morbid thought and spent the rest of the morning in a corner of Dr. Pugh's office, sandwiched between two columns of musty books. She knew that it was entirely possible that Orion was within arms' reach, but she did not dare rifle through those notes, not with Dr. Pugh right across the room. He drew odd twisting ladders upon the glass panel, looked down at his notes, grunted, then erased and redrew. It was hard to focus at times over the squeak-squeak of his writing, but she was able to make some headway into the material he'd given her. It was a refreshing respite from the deluge of chemistry notes bubbling in her head.

  She recognized the first after a few pages. It was an account of the adventures of Pugh's mentor, Professor Aronnax, on the Nautilus. She had read it at Mrs. Brightman's insistence long ago. The professor and two other men had had a remarkable adventure with the legendary Captain Nemo decades ago, back in 1867. Brightman had explained how it was an important example of scientific observation, and some of the information had come in handy when she had assisted an oceanographer in Sicily for a few months. He had studied the maelstrom that had swallowed Nemo's vessel after Aronnax had escaped it. She had no idea why this account might apply to their trip to Mars; did Pugh expect to encounter a giant squid in space?

  She was deep into the description of Nemo's mollusk collection when Dr. Pugh interrupted her study with a tray of cheese and biscuits for a light lunch. After fussing over the cheddar and potted Stilton, he planted her in front of the glass panels once more and launched into another lecture.

  She examined the sketches, which were little more than intertwined and overlapping vertical lines. They resembled spiral staircases and were a stark contrast to the honeycombs he had drawn before. The one on the left, labeled "HUMAN", had its pair of lines connected at regular intervals with smaller horizontal straight ones. The "MARTIAN" one on the right was similar, but the connecting lines were so close together that they almost melded into a single block of colour. The overarching label was "THE CODE OF LIFE".

  "You were correct the other day. It is like a numerical cipher, except it uses combinations of chemicals instead of numbers. The truly odd thing that we've found is that humans and Martians use the same chemicals for their Codes of Life, even though they originated on different worlds. At the same time, there are differences. Do you see them?"

  Blast the Socratic method, Gemma grumbled to herself whilst doing her best to keep a semblance of placidity on her face. "The Martian one has more connecting lines," she replied after a moment's consideration. "The information is denser."

  Pugh nodded. "Quite correct. We believe that they could carry out their major functions of life using the same density as human Code. So why the extra? That's the mystery we are trying to solve."

  He cleared his throat after a moment of her silence. "Feel privileged, Llewellyn," he said. "This is the heart of my research. There are those who would kill to get even a glimpse of it. Nevertheless, it wouldn't matter if you were to share it back with your mistress. There are no Martians available for her to examine or to make use of, so the information would be useless to her."

  Gemma asked, "If all the Martians on Earth are dead, and we already have a plan to destroy the remaining ones on Mars, why are we even bothering to study their Codes?" She pointed to the diagrams on the panel. "And how did you decipher all of that? Did the Martians carry machines with them to perform this sort of analysis? Isn't that all a bit advanced? And if they did, why would they bring that sort of machine with them when they meant to conquer?"

  Dr. Pugh was silent for a moment, and she wondered what flour the gears in his head was grinding.

  "Science!" he roared, jabbing a large gnarled finger into the air. "Because we must know the secrets of the Universe!"

  She blinked at him, slowly, with no emotion on her face. Governments do not fund science and exploration "just because". She had a feeling that even the Martians did not attack "just because". There was always a reason behind funding, or war, no matter how strange or irrational that reason may be. She allowed her face to
say all of this to him in a stony silence.

  He cleared his throat, lowered his hand, and resumed his normal growly countenance.

  "I should have known that that wouldn't work with you, Llewellyn," he continued. "But, you know, I had to try."

  "Of course," she replied with her best commiserating smile. She gazed at the photographs on his office wall for a long moment, and Dr. Pugh's reasons -- if not the TIA's -- suddenly seemed very clear to her.

  She continued in a softer tone. "It's so Captain Moreau doesn't have to give the order, isn't it?" she asked at last. "I think deep down you agree with Alfieri. That you think this mission is genocide. Just like they have to have a reason to explore, they also have to have a reason, at times, not to kill. You are looking for that reason, aren't you?"

  "Yes," he sighed with a resigned slump of his shoulders. "It's no use playing the cold natural philosopher with you, is it? You have no heart yourself, but you can see right through mine. It is a horrid Order, an absolute nightmare. I don't want Christophe to have to execute it. He doesn't want to do it, not really. But he will, if that is what they order him to do. I'm hoping to give them a reason to rescind those orders, or to at least amend them."

  To hear that she had no heart was no insult. A heart would only get in the way of her work.

  She asked, "Even if it means this journey was all for nothing?"

  "Yes, even so."

  Gemma felt a pang of sympathy for the man. She had found murder to be a messy business, what with dispensing of weapons and leaving false clues and so forth. The subsequent memories and nightmares were never pleasant, either. If it did not serve her mistress, and was not in immediate self-defence, she had no use for the extra baggage that came with the act. Except for that nasty piece of work in Shanghai, she had usually found a way to escape such situations, rather than kill.

  For the Martians, however, she would gladly make an exception.

  "I believe we have something in common with them," he said as he pointed to the panel. "I want to know exactly what that commonality is. Can we use it? That is, can we use it to make a case for not killing them all?" He set the pencil down into its tray. "I think your analytical abilities will be of great help in finding that reason. Christophe was raised to command, to lead, not to be a mass murderer. Not to live with this on his conscience."

  Gemma inhaled sharply as she prepared to reply, but her words were lost in a sudden rumble that rolled through the deckplate beneath them like a deep, close thunder. She reached out for the desk to steady herself, looking to Dr. Pugh for some clue as to whether or not this was normal.

  It decidedly was not. His eyes went wide, and his face lost all colour. He was listening, as Gemma was, to the exclamations of the other members of the Cohort down the hall. Their yelps of excitement and surprise echoed off the metal walls of the corridor.

  "Good heavens!" he exclaimed.

  "I take it that this was unexpected?" Gemma asked.

  "Completely, completely unexpected. I hope the engines weren't affected. We're still accel--"

  The pipephone bell rang, and he picked it up with an irritated acknowledgement. Gemma watched his eyes grow wide as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line.

  "What's wrong, lad?" Dr. Pugh asked. His trembling hands had difficulty holding the handset. "Say again?"

  Gemma could hear broken pieces of the other person's words. "Heat ray test… mate hurt… fire…"

  "Fire?" Pugh exclaimed. "I'm on my way."

  Pugh hung up the pipephone. He jogged towards the corridor with his long loping gait without a word to Gemma, who followed him long enough to watch him catch the lift. Bidarhalli and Hui dashed out behind her. They each grasped one of the sand-filled fire buckets that dotted the walls.

  "Fire on the ship," Hui muttered, "is bad. Very bad." They carried the buckets back into the laboratory and left her alone again.

  With no direction, no hint as to when he would return, she returned to the office. She stared at the panel and the journals that she had been reading. Another journal was open on the corner of the desk. It had been exposed and forgotten in his rush out the door. Not one to waste an opportunity, Gemma circled around to view it. There was no guarantee, of course, but he was likely to be gone for some time. She examined the page without touching it, hoping to read it without leaving behind any evidence that she had even noticed it. As untidy and disorganized as Pugh might seem, he would know if a single speck of dust was out of place.

  She gazed down at the wrinkled page with its smudged notes and sketches. Some of them were identical to what he had just shown her on the glass panel. No secrets there.

  A sentence began at the bottom of the right-hand page: "In the course of our experiments, we found that Orion" and nothing more.

  Orion. It did exist. She paused to think about her own alias: Artemis. The two were connected in Greek mythology; Orion was the hunting companion of Artemis. In fact, in some myths, Artemis was the slayer of Orion, sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose, depending on the particular version of the story. Knowing Brightman's complex sense of humour, Gemma wondered if Orion was a person as well. Part of her hoped that the connection was not a hint of what she was expected to do with Orion, once found, but she would carry out whatever was required of her. She owed Mrs. Brightman no less than that. All she needed to do was turn the page to move forward. She knew she could do it quickly, deftly, without moving the book... why did she find herself hesitating now, when she had been handed Orion on a silver platter?

  The image of a disappointed and angry Pugh rose in her mind like mist condensing out of the very air. She found herself cringing at the prospect, but she didn't know why. She found herself struggling to move her hand at all. Her index finger froze an inch from the page and hovered there.

  The simple turning of a page had never seemed such a complex matter. The reading of an open and forgotten page was trivial, innocent even -- but the turning of it felt fraught with -- what was it -- could it be guilt? Guilt for what? He was her only protection here on the Fury, but that was not all. Something in her ached at the thought of betraying what little trust he had shown her, leaving his work open to her in this way. She could not explain the feeling.

  Everyone has a motivation, Mrs. Brightman had always said. Everyone has a key that you have only to grasp and turn.

  Many times the key was predictable, almost pedestrian, like pleasures of the flesh. She had already concluded that the captain was firmly in this category. But such was not always the case. Some were turned by the avoidance of pain. And there were some whose keys were of a very different sort. Not warm flesh in their bed, but a willing ear, a friendly smile, or a soft word. They craved someone to impress, to make them feel powerful, genius, needed.

  No one performs for free, Mrs. Brightman had instructed her. No one. There is always a price. There is always a key. Never had Gemma encountered someone whose key she could not turn. It was her special gift.

  She had discovered Pugh's key: Christophe Moreau. He had rushed to the captain's side without hesitation at the slightest call. He had even left her alone in his office, after all his ominous warnings to the contrary. Worry and concern had been etched deeply into his face as he departed. Whatever their true relationship was, Pugh acted for Moreau's benefit. If only she had the will to turn that key, Pugh would be putty in her hands, no matter what he knew about her. Even Orion would not be safe from her.

  But how could she turn the key, if she could not turn the page?

  ~~~~

  Christophe

  "Can someone please tell me how in the bloody hell we left Shackleton without testing the heat ray?" Pugh shouted into the chamber.

  Christophe tried to hide the helplessness that threatened to crush him inside. He knelt on the floor at the head of Cervantes' crumpled form, surrounded by a pile of shattered metal, gears, and wires. A gritty concoction of sand and blood soiled his crisp uniform. Christophe looked back down at Miguel's b
urnt and melted face; he barely recognized his childhood companion.

  The ship's surgeon was already there, tending to an endless list of injuries: burns, lacerations, and limbs jutting out at impossible angles. At least the man was blessedly unconscious. As it was, Christophe's hands were slick with his blood as he tried to halt the flood of crimson. There were so many tears in his flesh, though, that Christophe felt like he was plugging one of a million holes in a dike; there weren't enough hands in the room to do the job properly.

  Dr. Pugh knelt next to him, pushed the empty fire bucket out of the way, and asked in a gentler voice, "What happened, son?"

  Christophe pointed at the open control panel with his chin. He stammered, "We were test-firing the heat ray against some of the growlers. Miguel reported that one of the valve gears had a problem. Prevented the ray from firing. He was trying to fix it when there was an explosion. Miguel was deep in at the time and took the brunt. We managed to get the fire out before it spread. The other crewmen were able to walk themselves down to sick bay, but he..."

  Christophe drifted off, sucked in a short shallow breath, and tried to rein in the wild winds of his feelings. Dr. Pugh rested a hand on his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. The pair looked at the surgeon.

  "What do you reckon, Paul?" Pugh asked.

  Christophe regarded Dr. Paul Hansard with a studied frown. He had seen that solemn look too many times on the lunar voyage; it was engraved into his brain, even without the aid of the redundant memory that Miguel always teased him about.

  "Mr. Owen and the others will be fine, but Cervantes' injuries are quite severe," the doctor said. "I need to get him to the surgery. I may be able to staunch the bleeding. It's the burns that concern me, especially the ones in his lungs."

  There was a shuffle at the door. Mr. Rathbone entered and took in the scene with horrified eyes. Christophe watched the man navigate around the mud of sand and blood. He shifted a loose sheaf of undelivered messages to his other hand, saluted and said, "You sent for me, Captain?"