20 Million Leagues Over the Sea

by K. T. Hunter

  Dr. Pugh withdrew his hand from Christophe's shoulder. The scientist rubbed the edge of his sharp chin with the bony knuckle of his index finger. It was one of their many secret signals to each other. This one, which told him to keep his chin up, bolstered Christophe as he replied. He nodded in response to the salute, since he could not release the pressure on Cervantes' arm.

  "Just a moment, if you please, Mr. Rathbone. Let's get Mr. Cervantes squared away first."

  Corpsmen surged through the door behind Rathbone, who moved against the wall to allow them to bring in a stretcher. They carefully rolled the injured man onto it and lifted him from the floor. One of the corpsmen took over Christophe's pressure point, and the others that were not holding up the stretcher were pouring styptic powder on the myriad wounds. They moved him in a slow scrum towards the door.

  "Hold on, Miguel," Christophe said to his friend's still form. "Hold on, old sport. The Fury needs you!"

  To Dr. Hansard he said, "Please keep me informed. Do you think we should get Father Alfieri?"

  The surgeon shuffled along with his corpsmen, careful to avoid jostling his charge. "Oh, heavens, I hope not. But you might send someone for him to come down. His presence would be a comfort to Cervantes, at any rate. I'd keep this off the speaking tubes for the moment, until we know something."

  "I'll be glad to fetch him," Rathbone volunteered.

  Christophe nodded at both of them, feeling unsteady as he heard the sand crunch beneath his feet. At least with Miguel around, he had some vestige of his days at sea with him. He could feel that tenuous thread slipping away. Biting his lip, he wished he could lend his friend some of his own strength.

  When the surgeon's crew was gone, Christophe turned to the waiting wireless officer, who could not tear his gaze away from the blackened walls of the Chamber and the bits of jagged metal embedded in them.

  "We need to report this incident back to the Admiralty," Christophe said. "Please send a message to Thorvaldson that we have had an incident with the heat ray test."

  Rathbone swept the scene once more with his gaze and arched a wary eyebrow. "An incident, sir?"

  "Yes, a severe incident, Mr. Rathbone." His reply was rather harsher than he had intended. "Tell him that a full report will follow by the end of the day. No more than that, Rathbone. We need to assess what happened here and make sure what we say is accurate. And tell no one else, yet, of what you've seen. I need to address the crew myself on that account. Except for Father Alfieri, of course. Just tell him that Cervantes is injured and that his presence is needed in sick bay. The doctor will fill him in on the rest. Make sure no one else hears you. Dismissed, Mr. Rathbone."

  "Aye Aye, Captain," Rathbone replied with another sharp salute. He turned on his heel and left the Chamber.

  Pugh and Christophe were alone in the filthy, smoky room, with the acrid smell of electrical fire and burnt skin lingering about them.

  Christophe thought his voice would shatter into a million pieces. "What will we do without him? He's the best sailor on the ship. He always kept a cool head at the wheel. There were icicles on his nose when we rounded Cape Horn, and he didn't even blink! Even the winds of the Furious Fifties couldn't drive him from his post." He paced across the small chamber. He caught himself against an unshredded strip of console when he encountered a sandless pool of blood and nearly lost his balance.

  "Blast it all, Elias!" Christophe said, pounding his fist on the console and snarling. "What absolute bollocks! If only the Martians were pirates on the Spanish Main! We wouldn't need a bloody heat ray. I could use a cutlass and a musket or a good cannon or two. A pox on space travel!"

  "Time to captain up, Christophe," Pugh said, after giving him a moment to catch his breath. "Keep busy. Before you write your report for headquarters, even before you run to sick bay, make arrangements for the fire buckets to be refilled straight away, especially the sodium bicarbonate, in case the fires flare up again. I do hope we brought enough, if this is any indication of what is to come. Someone needs to be on watch in here in case it does flare up, or in case--"

  "In case someone decides to come back and try again? Do you think it was sabotage, then?" Christophe asked in a low voice, futilely attempting to brush the sand off his hands and casting a furtive glance at the still-open door. "Admiral Thorvaldson was concerned that we might have agents aboard, but I had hoped he was just paranoid. Who would do such a thing? They would endanger themselves as well as the ship."

  "Do you think someone may have wanted to harm Miguel in particular?"

  "How could they be sure it would be him at that very moment? Besides, the men respect him. And he liked everyone except--"

  He stopped, not wanting to speak the name that came to his lips.

  "Except?"

  "He was concerned about Miss Llewellyn. Not about anything specific, but you know how suspicious he is sometimes. I can't believe it, though. She's no killer. I'd stake my life on it."

  Alarm crossed the elderly scientist's face. He pursed his lips before he said, "I'm not sure of anything yet. I need to have someone take a closer look at the gubbins here before we start clapping people in irons. But not until the fire buckets are refilled. That fire might flare up again, and I would hate to be the one on the business end of it. At the same time, I would say that on the surface, this is no great surprise. Honestly, they never really understood the entire workings of the Martian version of the ray, no matter how many times old Abbie translated what we found. Even Maggie couldn't get it to work, if you recall. I warned them, but they wouldn't listen. I can't lay the blame on the gun crews or Cervantes. Or you, for that matter, son. There is a high price to be paid, though, for trying to wage war with stolen weapons."

  "And Miguel paid it."

  A surge of fury pulsed through him. He knew it was time to take charge, no matter what was happening with his first mate. His jaw clenched tightly with anger, but his thoughts were clearing.

  "I feel responsible, Elias. As skipper of this ship, I agreed that we should launch now. We needed the heat ray to defend ourselves in case we met any resistance. The launch window was closing. At the next opposition, we'd be out of solar minimum, and we'd have had a much greater chance of repeating the disaster of the lunar voyage. I didn't want to lose anyone else that way." He took a deep breath and felt a veil fall between him and the gnawing anxiety over his first mate. "We need some kind of contingency plan for ship to ship fighting in case we cannot repair it. We don't want to be caught with our trousers down if Martians meet us halfway. Those G-bombs aren't guided missiles. They're useless unless we're in orbit. What does the Cohort have that we might use in its stead?"

  Pugh ruminated for a moment. "I need to talk to Hui. Perhaps it's time his pet project took centre stage. I need to discuss it with Maggie, as well, then compose the right message for the boys back home, after we've dealt with the more immediate issues." Pugh chewed on his lip. "Do you think Old Nicky still has that volume of Tennyson you gave him last Christmas?"

  "I gave you both one," Christophe replied, puzzled.

  "Precisely, my boy," Pugh said with a mysterious smile. "Buck up. We will see this through."

  "One last thing," Christophe said. "Maggie will need to know. About Cervantes, I mean. I don't know how to tell her." Despair struggled to get through his shield of captainship again. "She'll be distraught."

  Pugh said in a low whisper, "She may know already. You manage things up here, Captain. I'll handle Maggie. I'll have some of the Cohort go over the scene here. We'll meet in your Ready Room as soon as possible to report our findings. We both have work to do." He loped out of the chamber. "Don't forget the fire buckets, son," he called over his shoulder. Pugh's voice faded as he moved down the corridor. "Rathbone, hold the lift for me, there's a good lad!"

  Christophe stared down at his hands. He tried to curl his fingers, but they were too stiff from the mixture of sand and blood drying on them.

  Captain, he thought to himself, wondering if he
really deserved that title, after all.

  ~~~~

  Gemma

  Gemma could smell the chamber before she reached it. The stink of burnt flesh and the iron of spilt blood were unmistakable. She had been in enough laboratories over the past few years to know a horrific accident when she smelt it.

  As they approached the entrance, the captain emerged. He was so changed that Gemma thought she was looking at a different man. The brash countenance and the sharpness of his eyes had vanished; in their place was the saddest face she had ever seen. A bloodstained scarecrow had replaced the bright blue jay that just a few days ago had told her to have no fear. Deep lines furrowed either side of the frown scraped across his face. It was as if a heavy mist had veiled the sun. She looked from his face to his hands, where he clutched a towel stiff with drying crimson. She would much rather see the rakish captain than this wretched fellow.

  "Miss Llewellyn, Dr. Pugh," he said, greeting them with a curt nod. His sad eyes widened a little at the sight of Gemma. He looked at her in confusion, then at Dr. Pugh. His voice was so diminished that her heart ached in a way it hadn't since she had lost Philippa.

  "Will Dr. Hui be joining you?" asked the captain.

  "In a bit," Dr. Pugh replied.

  "Very well. We've refilled the fire buckets, and I've confirmed that the speaking tubes are in working order. Should I stay, in case--"

  "We should be fine, Captain," Pugh replied. "I know you have other duties that require your attention. I'll be by later to present our findings." The elderly scientist leaned closer to the young man and whispered the rest. Gemma's keen hearing still picked up his next words: "I've asked Knopf to send a tray up to your Ready Room. Keep up your strength, son."

  Son? Gemma thought as he took his leave of them and made his way down the corridor at a funereal pace.

  She noted once more how both men had the same tall, lean frame. She was supposed to watch the captain, after all, in addition to finding Orion. She was not convinced that they were unrelated -- either the captain and Orion, or the captain and Dr. Pugh. Humboldt's theory that Pugh had "found" an orphaned Moreau seemed less and less likely to her.

  As she observed the captain's slow gait, she wasn't sure if she felt irritation or dismay, or equal parts of both. The world spoke of him as Arthur returned, or even Nemo, risen from the grave and taking the Nautilus to the stars. She chided herself for reading too many of Aronnax's notes. The real Nemo was more likely to kick the Oberths up a notch, slide right past Mars, and leave the teeming masses of humanity behind. In that case, they had better hope that the captain was not Nemo returned. There was small chance of that, anyway. Moreau was nothing like him... except perhaps his reaction to the current situation. Nemo may not have been a man of the people, but he had had a deep attachment to his crew.

  She considered that for a moment. Wouldn't it be ironic, she thought, if they had resurrected Nemo, but ended up with all the wrong bits?

  Dr. Pugh led her through the door, and she shook her head free of such flights of fancy. Even though she was not exactly a novice to grisly situations, she still grimaced at the sight. Before Dr. Pugh could address her again, her eyes swept the chamber: blackened and scarred walls, bits of metal and gears spread hither and yon, and a dried mud of more blood and sand on the floor, with a dusting of pink-stained powder over it all.

  Dr. Pugh secured the door and leaned upon it, his giant praying mantis-like arms folded against his brown jacket. "Please, please tell me that you had nothing to do with this. Please tell me that this was not your mission."

  She shook her head. "No. Mrs. Brightman is in the habit of appropriating technology, Dr. Pugh. Not destroying it."

  "You must admit, Miss Llewellyn, that the entire idea of this mission breaks all the normal Brightman protocols."

  "I assure you, this was not my doing. I did not know where this chamber was until now. And what possible motivation would I have to do so? It would put me in as much danger as the rest of you. Are you certain it was not just an accident?"

  "That is what I am trying to ascertain. With Petunia, you never know. You might only steal science, but she is certainly not above sacrificing one of her Girls to avenge herself. Hell hath no fury like the scorned Belladonna of Guildford." He held a hand up to stop the obvious question that sprang to her lips. "Oh, not now, not now. I did not think it was you, but I had to ask. I've already spoken with the Gun Control lads, and they don't recall seeing you in this area at any point. They'd remember the swishing of skirts, of that I'm certain." He took a deep breath, then released it. "What a relief. I did not want to think that my brightest student--"

  "What do you need, Dr. Pugh?"

  "I need you to role-play for me, Gemma. I need for you to turn your Brightman Eye to a higher purpose. If it had been your mission to fool about with the heat ray, why would you do it?"

  "Most likely I'd locate information to send back. Notes, drawings, schematics, that sort of thing. A photograph or two of what was behind the panel, if I could manage it."

  "Would you need flash powder, still?"

  "Yes."

  "Hmmm. Do we see any evidence of it? Perhaps someone else in your Peculiar Occupation was at work here?"

  The spectre of a possible Watcher arose once more in her mind.

  "We can look for flash powder," Gemma mused, "but it may be difficult to trace it in the rest of this mess. But I would also add that one would need chemicals and a private space in which to develop any film." She knelt on the cleanest spot she could find to get a closer look at a piece of shrapnel. "There is one other problem."

  The panel shard bore the name "Squid's Bane"; she smiled faintly at the nod to maritime tradition. She squinted, as much to think about her next point as to see what lay in the shadows beneath a chunk of ruined panel.

  "And that would be?" asked Pugh.

  "How useful would the images be? We will not be back to Earth for some time. We cannot transmit those images to Earth from here. We haven't advanced that much, unless the Booleans have figured it out and haven't told anybody. I'm certain that any images captured on this mission will have to be stored until our return. Whoever wanted those images back home would have to be very patient, indeed. Surely, they would have retrieved such information before we left, whilst the shuttles were still moving back and forth. It seems a bit late for that sort of skulduggery now."

  There was something underneath the broken panel. It appeared to be a charred slip of paper. She was not quite sure if she should reach for it and disturb the evidence. It might be important; it might be nothing but doodles sketched by a bored sailor.

  "Hmmmm. Well, I do have to tell you," Pugh said as he walked over to the scorched wall on the far side of the room, "that within the TIA there are various philosophies concerning this mission. One small but vocal faction did not want this mission to go forward at all. Perhaps someone wants us to fail early, and turn round, but in such a way that we can still make it home. That would explain why they sabotaged the heat ray, rather than the Oberths."

  Gemma sat back on her heels and gazed at other parts of the chamber, hoping that Pugh hadn't noticed she'd seen something.

  "A Peacenik? Or a Neo-Luddite? There are many such. But it does seem like a waste of resources."

  Pugh chuckled and leaned forward into the wall. One long finger traced the blackened scar that raced across it. "I see that Petunia did not neglect your political education. Not everyone is obsessed with the Martians, you see. Some are more concerned about other Terrans. And not in a polite way."

  Whilst his back was turned, she answered, but only to cover the noise of grasping the paper between two fingertips.

  "But why not cause the malfunction back at Shackleton? Why take the chance out here, past the moon? Sabotage at this point doesn't make sense. The saboteur would be in just as much danger as the rest of us."

  She sensed he was turning, so she released her paper -- it felt like a card -- and turned to study another pile of deb
ris before he could fully view her.

  "So, perhaps an accident," he said. "I certainly hope poor Miguel doesn't snuff it because a bolt was out of place. Hardly a blaze of glory. He deserves better."

  The elderly scientist shuffled over to the gaping hole that had tried to eat the first mate. He bent over as much as he could to peer into it. He grunted as he did so, and Gemma took advantage of the noise to retrieve the card and drop it into the pocket of her skirt. It might be nothing. It might be everything. But she wanted to examine it before revealing what she had found.

  "It's no good," his muffled voice told her. "I'll need an electric torch to see up in here. I'm not mechanically minded. We'll need for an engineer to take a look." He backed his head out, and his voice grew louder. "Perhaps one of the gun crew lads if they aren't too injured. Maybe Nesbitt or Pritchard. He's good at this sort of thing. Hui, too, might want to have a gander. I think we're damned lucky we didn't have a hull breach."

  He struggled to stand back up. Gemma hopped to her feet and sprinted over to help him. He smiled in spite of his arthritic groans.

  "Ah, your knees are some decades younger, I'm afraid," he said through a wince. "Don't grow old, child. Who knows what Brightman will do when it is time to put you out to pasture?" He coughed and finished straightening himself up. "Thank you, Miss. That will be all for now, I think. I want the scene to be undisturbed until Hui has seen it. Until then, find something useful to do, why don't you? I don't think I have to remind you that it's better if you keep this quiet. Let the captain make any announcements about this."

  "Yes, Dr. Pugh. Should you need me--"

  "I'll give you a screech down the pipephone. Highly unlikely today, I should think. Should you have any additional ideas, though, leave a note on my office door. Go have a cup of tea or something, there's a good lass."