20 Million Leagues Over the Sea

by K. T. Hunter

  A movement at the door made them both pause. Gemma shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep. Instead of Christophe's long strides, she heard the determined march of Frau Knopf, accompanied by the alluring scent of fried pork. Gemma risked cracking open one eye to watch the matron set down a tray and a folded bundle of cloth on the table at the head of the bed. She hummed her way across the room to Maggie, who stretched out a free tentacle to her.

  "And how are you today, Liebchen?" Frau Knopf asked Maggie as she scratched the limb as one would a cat's ears. "Is the Fraulein being a good girl and getting some rest?"

  At that last question, she turned to look at Gemma, who gave up the game and returned her gaze.

  Gemma grimaced. The sight of the proper matron cooing over that squirming mass made her queasy. Finally, she managed to say, "You are the last person that I would expect to pet a Martian."

  "A Martian?" Frau Knopf blinked. "On this ship? Ausgeschlossen! Don't be ridiculous. Maggie would be the first to let us know if we had been boarded. Do not worry. You are safe here, Fraulein." She tickled the underside of the tentacle, and Maggie fairly trilled at the touch. "Isn't she, Liebling?"

  "H-how long have you known? About Maggie, I mean."

  "Oh, I have always known, Fraulein. Why else do you think I am here? I have been with Dr. Pugh for many years. I have cared for Maggie since she was smaller than a kitten. She trusts me." She marched back over to Gemma's bed. "Essen! Eat, eat! I brought your favourites. We had some fat rascals left from tea, as well. You need your strength to heal." She pointed to the tumbler next to the plate. "And that will help you sleep."

  Gemma recognized the scent, the same evergreen and cinnamon blend that Knopf had enjoyed at the Knitting Circle. "What is it?"

  "Gin. My husband's secret recipe. He is a bit of a scientist, himself! Why else have juniper trees on a space ship? It goes down better with some blues, but we will have to make do for now." She poked around the room for a moment, straightening this and tidying that. "Can you believe some people wanted to outlaw such spirits? Fortunately, the TIA is made up of more than just steel tycoons. The major breweries would not stand for it."

  She snatched up the pile of fabric at the foot of the bed. "Your uniform!" She clucked her tongue at the sight. "Such a tragedy here. A real villain, that Rathbone, more than just a Funkmeister! Perhaps we can get some of this grease off. Bah! The sleeve is torn! You cannot wear this! I brought you some fresh clothes." She pointed at the bundle she had brought in with the tray. "Eat and rest. Have Maggie fetch me if you need anything."

  With that, she swept out of the room before Gemma could utter another word, leaving the two to stare at each other once more.

  Gemma reached for the tray and immediately collapsed back into the mattress. The plate with the tantalizing smell was just out of reach, and stretching was pure torture. At her moaning, Maggie stirred. She dropped her grease pencils and rolled across the room. Gemma was certain it was all over now, but Maggie simply pushed the tray closer to her with the tip of her smallest tentacle. She barked out one high-pitched squeal.

  Somewhere in the depths of Gemma's brain, a foggy image of the Man from Shanghai emerged. This time, he was whole and unharmed, without a wrinkle in his tweed suit. He adjusted his cravat and remarked in a deep voice, "I mean you no harm. And I do regret the damage to the cabbages."

  Gemma bit her lip as she looked from the tray to Maggie and back again. She reached for the bacon again (unburnt, she noted) and grasped a strip between her thumb and index finger.

  "If I really am dead," she muttered between nibbles, "this is a very strange sort of hell."

  ~~~~

  Christophe

  Rathbone rested on the edge of the narrow cot anchored to the wall of his cell. Sweat glistened on his brow, and a nasty half-grin slithered across his mouth.

  "So, the abomination comes out at last," he said.

  Christophe did not flinch at the taunt. He had expected no less from this ruffian. "I am still the captain of this ship. You will address me as such."

  "Oh, Captain Abomination, then. Pardon me. So the monster is your pet, I see. Taking her back home, are you?"

  "You must be mad, Rathbone," Pugh replied. "There are only Terrans on this ship. Terrans and a traitor."

  "Ah, traitor. Now you come to it. A traitor, you got that right, but it's not me. 'Traitor' implies I was on your side at some point. I never was. No, no, no. 'Mole'. That word fits much better, don't you think? Gemma? Now, she's a traitor, but not to you, so she don't count here. No, no, you have a traitor of your own."

  "Who, then? And what proof do you have?"

  "Knowledge has its price."

  "You're the prisoner here, Rathbone. You are in no position to negotiate."

  "That's what you think. Look, I know the regs as well as anyone on this ship. I know what's in store for someone like me. I want immunity!" He stood up from the cot and stepped up behind the bars, just out of Christophe's reach. "If I say nothing, I got nothing to lose! If I don't tell you, we all die. If I tell you what I know without something in return, I die alone. I'd prefer to have some company."

  "Immunity? You are mad! Do you honestly think we'd let you loose inside this ship after what you did to Miss Llewellyn?"

  "Ha-ha, oh, no, no, my Lord Monster! Of course not. Why I went after her ain't important, anyway. Just don't let me loose outside the ship. Anything else is negotiable. Guarantee that I won't get the premature Cervantes treatment, and I'll give you the secrets of the ages." Rathbone's voice dropped to a husky growl as his lip curled in a mixture of distaste and amusement. "I'll tell you all about our little Miss Llewellyn. You want to keep that little tart alive, don't you? Smart lass, that one. Almost as smart as her old man!"

  Rathbone spit in Dr. Pugh's direction. Christophe heard the old man's gasp, but he never took his eyes off Rathbone.

  The prisoner wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and continued. "Grant me immunity and oh, she won't have anything to fear from me. But she might be afraid of you when I tell you all about her. About the secrets she's stolen. The hearts she's broken and the lives she's left in ruin. The men she's seduced. The man I watched her kill. When you know you might not want her any--"

  The impact of his face upon the bars cut off his speech. Christophe's reach was longer than Rathbone had calculated. Rathbone simply hooted, as if he had received a mere tickle, at least until Christophe's other arm snaked through the bars and helped the other one slam him into the bars again, over and over, until they were slick with spit and blood, until Pugh called for the master-at-arms to pull Christophe off him. Rathbone's breath rattled in his throat as he spit out a broken tooth. He shuffled back to the cot and wiped his mouth on the edge of a blanket.

  Pugh's hand rested on Christophe's shoulder, which was shaking from the aftermath of his attack. "Perhaps we should contact the--"

  "Contact whom, exactly?" Rathbone asked. "Headquarters? Why would they give you permission to discover one of their own? Admiral Thorvaldson? Old Artur hasn't got the foggiest idea what's happening under his nose." A bit of blood dribbled off his lips.

  "Their own?" Christophe shook Pugh's hand off his shoulder. His carefully ordered world crumbled with every word that Rathbone fired at him.

  The prisoner gurgled for a second, speaking through bleeding gums. "The TIA has Watchers of their own. A Watcher that could be anyone, from the lowliest swabbie on up the chain."

  "Who, then?"

  "Promises, Captain. Promises."

  Pugh said, "Christophe, the regulations! On your own you can't--"

  "I can do what I need to do to protect my ship," Christophe snarled without looking at him. "This is my decision, Elias. On my own head be it. If our own people are trying to kill us, I'm not concerned about disobeying orders! Very well, Rathbone. You are granted immunity. From execution. But not from confinement. You'll stay in the brig for the duration. I can't let you talk to anyone else. Not after what you've seen. We'll give i
t out that you had a nervous breakdown, just in case you do start talking to someone. When we get back to Shackleton Station… well, we'll see."

  "And your pet?"

  "I can't guarantee Maggie's behaviour. But I'll order her to stay out of the brig," he said. He straightened his spine and his jacket. He had to keep this from being a doomed ship. "This is all contingent, of course, upon verification. You're leveling a very serious charge at a member of my crew."

  "Well, he's not as much a member of your crew as you think. D'you really need a Cultural Officer, anyway?"

  "Wallace?" Christophe asked, incredulous.

  "You're certain of this?" Pugh demanded.

  "Positive. You can verify it with the message archives. Been readin' his messages since I cracked his code. Long ones. Detailed ones. He's none too fond of you, Dr. Pugh, I can tell you that. I found most of Orion in his messages, what it was, at least. About the captain being, shall we say, custom ordered. Not the how. That's what I was needin'. How Frankenstein put together this particular creature."

  "What's Wallace going to do? I hardly believe he would want to martyr himself as well."

  "Don't reckon that was in his plans. Go have a look at the Iron Wind, Captain. Do an inventory of the ship's stores. You might find some missing items in its hold. Don't know exactly what he meant to do to the ship. He was smart enough to leave that out of his messages. But one thing is for sure. He's going to do something. He's going to do it soon. And he doesn't expect to hang around to admire his handiwork."

  "How do you--"

  "It's what I would do."

  "Sinister minds think alike, I suppose," said Dr. Pugh. "I'll work with the Booleans to verify his claim. We need to know before we act. Can we distract him until then?"

  "Oh, you'll need more than the messages, Captain. You'll need his code to read them. It's a doozy, that one. Took me forever to crack. Been workin' on it ever since we launched."

  "Wallace!" Christophe punched the wall of the chamber and let loose a string of curses. "Our own people! We'll never make it to Mars if we keep fighting each other! We'll never make it anywhere!"

  "That's what you don't understand," Rathbone answered with a frozen laugh, one devoid of mirth. "That's what his messages were about. You weren't meant to make it to Mars. Fighting the Martians is not the point. Not the point at all."

  "Then what is the point of all this? Why go to all this trouble, all this expense--"

  "Most of the people what funded it aren't in on it. Wallace is using what others have built for his own ends. He isn't trying to continue a war, you fool. He's trying to prevent one. On Earth."

  "Prevent one?"

  "Don't be such a prat. Anyone that can read a newspaper should guess that half of Europe is chomping at the bit to get back to business as usual now that the post-Invasion love-festival is fading out. And what else is our business, but to fight each other? I'm sure Pugh here taught you some history. Humans have never been nice to each other without some profit in it. We'd rather fight it out any old day, no matter what we signed at the Invasion Conference. It would've been messy enough with what we can cook up on our own. Then the Martians dropped by for a visit and left their toys behind: Black Smoke, walking machines, heat rays, Red Weed. Imagine what we can do to each other now! We can finish what the tentacle-heads started! Wallace and his fellows want to hold that off as long as they can. At least, until they can get the worst of the leftovers under their own control and they can wring some profit from it. Then they can dictate who is in charge of it all."

  "But what does that have to do with us?" Pugh asked.

  "Martyrs. Wallace needs martyrs, not victors. If we lose a crew to the Martians, it buys them some time." He rubbed his hands together, almost enjoying his revelations. "Oh, once I broke his codes -- and there ain't a code I can't break -- I read more than I cared to, more than even Brightman had told me. Bit of a nasty shock to find out who they were trying to bring back to life. Ha! A daft idea, maybe even more daft than going to Mars in the first place. And instead of the grand hero, they got you. They found the best possible use for their failure. A kind of success, I reckon." He spat on the floor again. "Your mission is to die, you freak. All of you. Die here in space. A little disaster for the folks back home, so they'll hold off killing each other for just a little bit longer. Maybe they'll say, oh, the engines went bad. Maybe they'll say, oh, the Martians outgunned 'em. The story doesn't really matter, does it? As long as they have martyrs. You're fodder. Your face on all those little cards. That's what they want. Like all the Sophie the Steamfitter smut. It's to stir people up, get them all on one side. The TIA's side. For just a little while longer."

  Christophe ground his teeth. He had never trusted Wallace, true, but he had never fathomed anything like this. He had to find the man, he had to find the truth, find--

  The harsh lights of the cell sputtered and died, leaving them in darkness for a heartbeat until the dimmer emergency illumination flickered on. Christophe glanced at the brig's monitor, and it glared back at him with one baleful red eye. Christophe had not seen the red one lit since the lunar voyage.

  "We're on batteries only," Christophe said as he held his hand out to steady Pugh, who had stumbled in the darkness. "Power's out."

  "Looks like he's already set to go," said Rathbone.

  ~~~~

  Gemma

  The glass walls shimmered in the light of Maggie's "nest". Gemma examined her new cell as she nibbled bacon and tried to ignore the purring Martian in the corner. It was far easier to focus on the walls and the strange symbols that marched across them.

  "You've been a busy little squid, haven't you?" she asked in a dry voice. She felt that if this creature were going to harm her, it would have already. An annoyance at her own fear crept over her.

  "Please don't call me that," she heard the Man from Shanghai say in her head. "My name is Maggie."

  Rather than answer, Gemma kept one wary eye on the beast as she tore into some of the other items from the tray and felt her strength return. There was very little, it seemed, that bacon could not cure. She washed the salty taste down with the gin.

  Gemma recognized Dr. Pugh's scrawl peeking out here and there from the forest of letters. After her tenure as his pupil, she could decipher most of it. Notes on the Code of Life coated the room like blood cells on a microscope slide. His notes could act as a Rosetta stone for this new jungle of information.

  Her mission was dead, but her curiosity was not. Gemma had enjoyed the learning, albeit after the fact. She hungered for more, despite her current discomfort.

  Not to mention, the notes also distracted her from thinking about Christophe.

  Had she felt something for the captain? She had felt something, to be sure, but she was at a loss to name it. She could not call it love, as it was as unfamiliar to her as the landscape of Mars. Despite Father Alfieri's sermon, she could not compare that celebrated sentiment with the tangled feelings bouncing around in her head.

  For most of the trip, she had felt annoyance where he was concerned. But there in the Gardens, when they had both let their guard down, she had felt something else. The feeling had been close cousin to what she had felt for her Philippa, her Jennie, and it had warmed her. During that time, she had enjoyed his company, and he had treated her as an equal.

  Her computer's mind shifted gears. Could she use what she had felt for Jennie as a Rosetta stone, as well? Could one form of love help her understand the others that Alfieri had mentioned? Could it be that her love for Jennie was what she felt for Christophe?

  She had wanted the man to kiss her. She had wanted that kiss, in that moment. But a desire for a kiss did not encompass what Alfieri had said about love. Did she even want that kiss now?

  She had recoiled from Christophe -- as she had on the inside from every other man -- when she had discovered what he was. But now? Having been fed bacon by a purring creature that was basically his mother, having rested a little and imbibed a little liqu
id courage, she wasn't so repelled. She wasn't even sure how to name what he was. But there was one thing she was sure of: something still stirred deep inside her when she remembered that almost-kiss.

  That very moment, which had been so fuzzy for the past hour, was coming back to her now as her headache receded. He had been about to ask her something. He needed to know something. "Do you trust me?" he had asked. What did he need to know? What had he been about to ask, if not the old standard "do you love me" tripe found in the penny dreadfuls? What else could it have been? She scowled at the walls again, wishing she could find the answer written there.

  "Maggie," she mused aloud, "I think the Code of Life will be easier to decode than men ever will be."

  Maggie squealed in what might have been agreement. She tapped a section of the wall with a tentacle so urgently that Gemma turned her attention to the diagrams there.

  Pugh had described Maggie as a researcher. Gemma no longer needed to question how Pugh had analyzed the Code of Life. He needed neither machine, nor microscope, nor analytical engine to analyze Codes; there was no algorithm to steal. There was no secret formula to encode in a furtive frenzy and hurl through space over the wireless to a waiting Mrs. Brightman, even if Gemma had still been so inclined.

  There was just Maggie.

  Maggie was the true author of this research. Pugh and his team had taken all the credit and left the real creator none.

  "Typical," Gemma said with a snort. "And Pugh said he didn't use computers."

  "He has his reasons," came the reply. The words slipped into Gemma's brain so easily, so painlessly, like a voice buried deep in her memory, though she had never heard it out loud before. "I doubt the Royal Society dinners could accommodate my dietary requirements, anyway."