20 Million Leagues Over the Sea

by K. T. Hunter

  The image in Gemma's mind paused its tentacles in the air. Maggie simply froze for a moment, whether in sadness or contemplation, Gemma could not tell.

  "But, my darling jewel," Maggie said at last, "your parents did not die in the Invasion."

  ~~~~

  Christophe

  On the bridge, Christophe scratched his chin and felt the scraggly beginnings of an emerging beard. He had barely paused to eat in the rapid fire of events since Cervantes' memorial service, let alone shave. He looked at his pocket watch to check the time, but he wasn't sure if it was time for breakfast or tea. He could hear the noise of Booleans working through the open window, and he could hear the tap-tap-tappity-tap of Humboldt talking to his cousin back at the Badger and Tentacle. With Wallace under guard, he felt safe working from the command deck.

  Christophe was tired, so very tired. He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his closed eyes with the tips of his fingers. Exhaustion settled into his joints; he ached with it. The world was upside-down, and if they did not fix the power soon, it would be unanchored entirely.

  There was no protocol for this. He had never anticipated getting his most reliable news from a public-house barkeep, but then again he had never anticipated fighting his own command. He was truly flying without a net now. If he were on the Kiwi, he would know what to do: find some remote and exotic island and tell the rest of the world to go hang themselves. What could he do here, in space? The endless sky around them bound him to a narrow set of options.

  He could not stop now, even as he heard the siren call of his hammock, not until he knew his crew could rest in safety. They were all weary. Fatigue crept into the corners of his vision, and his stomach growled from inattention.

  A pile of cold rations waited on one of the panels for the busy bridge crew. He opened one of the wrapped bars, tore off a corner with his teeth, and swallowed it as quickly as he could manage with a straight face. As tasteless as it was, it took the edge off his hunger while he mulled over the next problem, the one that would need resolution as soon as the current crises were over.

  It wasn't Wallace. It wasn't Rathbone. They were safe enough where they were. It wasn't even the conundrum that was Miss Llewellyn. She was injured, and she might even hate him now, but she was safe. It wasn't even the possibility of another ship looming over his shoulder.

  Should they go on to Mars or return to Earth? Could they go back now? That was the real question. He did not have enough information to make the call. It would be all he could do to keep them alive long enough to decide. In all his training, in all those years, no one had ever posed that question: what do you do when your command turns against you?

  He shivered in the growing chill; the cold was just another reminder of how far away he was from the South Pacific. Even with the engines down, the ship's momentum took him farther and farther away from his beloved sea. Without acceleration, the time it would take to return stretched out endlessly.

  Even the heated portions of the ship were cold. The walk back from sick bay had turned his fingernails blue. The bounce in his step along the way disturbed him. He wasn't sure how much longer the manufactured gravity would hold out. He was saving the majority of power for the most basic life support and for the Gardens. If they made it to Mars, they would need the food it provided in the future, not to mention its contribution to the air recycling. The animals in the stable could stand cold better than the vegetation -- even if the stable deck would be rather messy if things started floating about there -- but if they couldn't get the power up soon, they wouldn't have to worry about cabbages or goat manure or anything else.

  A crewman's voice broke into his thoughts: "Captain? Dr. Pugh on the pipephone for you, sir."

  Christophe nodded at him and picked up the handset. "A little heat would be nice, Elias," he said into it, trying to still the chatter in his teeth.

  "So would a cup of tea, a side of bacon, and a fat rascal or three," replied the tinny voice of Pugh. "Not sure we'll get any for a bit. It's touch and go on the power, lad. We think it will be at least several more hours. Pritchard is a real trooper, though, and he is charging through. One would almost think he had a bit of Martian in him. I'm not sure if he is a better engineer or first mate. Either way, he is due a promotion."

  Christophe allowed himself a faint smile. "Another one. To captain, even. Once everything else is working, we will be able to solve that bit at our leisure. A problem that simple would be a luxury."

  "How are you holding up, son?"

  Christophe faced the wall so that the bridge crew could not see his yawn. They were all going to have to get some rest, and soon.

  "I am hanging on," Christophe replied as he fought the urge to lean on the panel. "I need to swap out the bridge crew. We're losing focus up here."

  "You need rest, too. Even you need sleep."

  "I will when everyone else can. Occupational hazard of captaincy. It is probably time to swap out the cranking crews as well, and see if we can get the batteries to last a little longer. How is our friend?"

  "Wallace? Oh, Maggie is keeping a close watch on him, don't you worry. He's not going anywhere."

  "Has she... has she said anything to you? I have not heard from her in a bit."

  "Not a peep. I think she is focused on something."

  Oh, she's focused, all right, Christophe thought. He hoped that her analysis of Gemma's Code would be complete before it was too late to give the man a little comfort. He heard a gasp from the direction of the wireless room.

  "I'm needed here. Keep me informed."

  "Take care, son."

  "You, too, Da," Christophe replied softly.

  He hung up the pipephone and turned on his heel to investigate the noise, almost grateful for any distraction from the impossible decisions that kept rearing up in his path.

  Humboldt stood up from his chair at the wireless machine. With a moon-pale face, he stumbled his way over to the window that separated him from the bridge.

  "What is it, Humboldt? What news?"

  The man swallowed hard as he tried to still his trembling hands.

  "It was all for nothing," he stammered. A sob escaped the man. "Oh, Captain! It was for nothing, nothing at all. Cervantes. Nesbitt. Wallace. The Fury. We're all going to die for nothing."

  "What do you mean? What's happened?"

  "The war, Captain. The one Wallace said he wanted to prevent. It's started. The world has declared war on the TIA."

  ~~~~

  Gemma

  "That cannot be!" Gemma exclaimed.

  Her yelp jolted Caroline from her slumber. The Boolean, eyes heavy with sleep and confusion, blinked at Gemma in the dim light of Hansard's office.

  "Wha'?" she mumbled. "Nigel here?"

  "Not yet, Caroline. Rest, dear."

  "Yessum," she said and was fast asleep at once.

  Gemma sorted the cards with trembling hands into jumbled piles. In her mind, she said, "That cannot be. Mrs. Brightman said--"

  "Why would you believe anything that woman says?" Maggie replied. "She lied to you about Jennie. That was not her only lie."

  "How do you know this? How long have you known?"

  "I made the discovery just a few moments ago. Your Code, like all Code, takes time to examine."

  "How did you--"

  "You must forgive Christophe, my dear. He had his reasons, but you must ask him what they are."

  Gemma growled in her throat as she examined her mass of hair. She had thought there was a bit missing, but she had chalked it up to her fight with Wallace.

  "You said my parents are still alive. Who? Where?"

  "No, my little gem, I said they did not die in the Invasion. Your father, alas, died before it happened. Sadly, that meant I also had no chance of knowing him. However, I must say, you come by your scientific talents honestly."

  Gemma's mind whirled. If Maggie could identify the man personally, then she had had access to his Code. The hair on her neck stood on end as a chi
ll deeper than the one on the slowly freezing ship crawled across her skin.

  "Who?"

  "Our Elias' beloved mentor."

  Gemma rested one hand on the journal that had followed her around the ship like a shadow. Her eyes were wide and wet with wonder. The man that had written this diary, had traveled with Nemo, and had taught the man that had fought so hard to save her from herself, was her father.

  Her father had written these words.

  "Aronnax," Gemma replied, and the name barely slipped out of her throat into the room. "My father is Pierre Aronnax."

  "Yes. As he was a confirmed bachelor, he had no other family save Pugh to handle his affairs. Pugh keeps a lock of his hair in a mourning locket. When I came along after the Invasion, they gave me a few strands of it. They were trying to collect as much Code as possible, you see. I have not used his Code otherwise, but it seems that someone else did."

  "Someone else."

  She choked back a shriek as she re-opened the back flap of the journal and re-read the list of computers there, the list that she had seen earlier. Brightman's alias fairly floated off the page. She marked the date and worked figures in her head.

  "Oh."

  "Do you see the connection?"

  "I am a computer, Maggie," Gemma said, her veins seizing up from the ice forming in them. "I can do the calculations. I came by my other talents honestly as well, it seems."

  She studied the last few pages of the journal, the ones describing the late professor's last research project. These pages came after his adventurous tale, and they had not been included in his published account.

  They contained, in the loftiest of terms, a plan for researching the Code of Life and how to manipulate it, and how mankind might benefit from the artificial insertion of superior genes into existing Code. There were older, long-standing, time-tested names for this sort of research. It was the sort of research that filled Brightman's hidden office to overflowing.

  Selective Breeding. Animal Husbandry. Eugenics.

  Gemma concluded, "Brightman took more than Aronnax's research. She took a secret of her own. She took life with her." She slowly, gently, closed the file and pushed it away from her. "My life."

  She numbly gazed at Caroline's hunched-over form and wished she could join her in rest, but she thought it would be a very long time before she would sleep in peace again. The word mother floated in her mind, cut free from any true significance or sentiment. It was just a cold fact, as cold as the woman who had raised her. She could feel a young Brightman's train of thought pulling into the station. After exposure to such ideas, it seemed that the lady had performed her own version of Code engineering to combine her genius with that of Aronnax.

  Jennie. Gemma realized with an inner growl that Brightman had tried again, this time with the Code of a brilliant young Boolean named Nigel Davies. Brightman's keen interest in the infant made perfect sense in this light. That, then, was to be the source of the next generation of Brightman Girls and Watchers. Had her friend been aware of the plan, or had she been a willing participant?

  She looked down at the next card in her shaking hand. It was a painted CDV depicting an armoured Christophe kneeling to a queenly Sophie the Steamfitter, who was knighting him with her welding torch. She had a tawdry smile on her face, as if she anticipated a roll in the hay afterwards. The world saw him as the pinnacle of strength and daring, the hero's hero; everyone but Gemma seemed to want a piece of him.

  Did her mission mirror Jennie's? To capture Christophe's Code in the same fashion? Had that been Brightman's plan all along? One that even an eternally grateful Gemma might have refused if she had known it beforehand? Gemma had cut off communications with her before things had become clear.

  She didn't need a Maggie to capture Moreau's Code, Gemma thought. All she needed was me.

  She thought of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and his patchwork monster, stitched together from bits salvaged from the dead. She thought about Aronnax and science, about theft and heartbreak, and about the vicious spiral of history. The bizarre origins of Captain Moreau swirled about her, and she realized she had more in common with him than she had ever dreamt possible. She clutched the edges of her shawl to her, but she could not get warm.

  She said aloud, in the barest of whispers, "Like Christophe, I am bespoke."

  ~~~~

  Christophe

  "Who has declared war on the TIA?" Christophe demanded.

  "Everyone," Humboldt replied, choking on the words. "Russian warships are firing on the blockade of the Bosphorous. France and Germany are invading and claiming their own quarters. Luxembourg City's in flames."

  "And London?"

  "Jules don't know, sir. London's quiet. Parliament's still meeting -- oh, it's chaos down there. That's all I know. But he'll try to find out."

  "All right. One crisis at a time. At the moment, we can only help ourselves. Humboldt, stay by the radio and find out all you can. In the meantime," he said, raising his voice for the entire bridge crew to hear, "this news doesn't go outside the bridge until the power--"

  "My son," Maggie broke into his brain, "come to us. Elias is ill."

  "What happened?" he asked her, picturing the dear old man keeled over from cranking the flywheels.

  "I am afraid he fainted when I gave him some rather startling news."

  Christophe lowered his eyes as his heart rolled over. Sister, it whispered to him in the middle of the fury that bloomed like a fiery rose in his chest.

  "I told you to wait and tell me first," he thought as loudly as he could. "I wanted to be the one--"

  "I can see him by the flywheels. He is not waking! I go to his aid!" Maggie declared.

  "No, Maggie, wait, you'll be seen! They don't know you! Wait for me!"

  There was no answer.

  "Maggie?"

  Still there was no answer. Without a word to Humboldt, Christophe dove for the pipephone and attempted to call the Oberth deck. No one picked up. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. He shivered even harder, and he knew this time it had nothing to do with the bridge's temperature.

  "Mr. Humboldt," Christophe said, "stay by the wireless and inform me the moment you hear from your contact. I'm needed in the engine room -- Pritchard is -- Pugh is -- Mr. Goldman, you have the conn!"

  The bridge had been a balmy paradise compared to the icy cave of the auxiliary corridor. Christophe re-armed himself with two of the Leyden pistols as he passed through the hidden tunnel.

  As fast as he went, he could not outrun the darkness that enveloped the tunnel as the conservation protocols shut off power to still more sections of the ship. He felt his way along the bone-chillingly cold walls, counting the exits down the path to the Oberths and cursing himself for not picking up an electric torch along with the Leydens.

  "I'm coming, Maggie," he thought as loudly as he could.

  The only answer was the echo of his feet against the slowly freezing blackness.

  ~~~~

  Gemma

  Gemma watched as Nigel set up the portable card reader on Hansard's office table. Her teeth chattered from more than just the growing cold in the room. Maggie had been silent for a few minutes, probably leaving Gemma alone to absorb her news in peace. Everything seemed off-kilter. Her entire life had been spent in acts of gratitude to this woman. From twenty million leagues away, Gemma had a completely different perspective of her mistress.

  Was she the only one? Had Brightman "engineered" other Girls? Gemma had been born before the Invasion, planned before anyone even knew Martians existed. Her trajectory had been set before the first cylinder had launched. Perhaps some of the other Girls would have had their real parents, their real lives, if the Invasion had not happened. Caroline and Nigel might have avoided the factory life. So many others -- Mr. Pritchard, Frau Knopf -- would have known a completely different history. But Gemma? She had been damned to her course, Martians or no Martians.

  Unvoiced words pierced her thoughts. "I can see
him by the flywheels. He is not waking! I go to his aid!"

  "No, Maggie, wait, you'll be seen!" cried another voice, one she knew but had never heard in her head before. "They don't know you! Wait for me!"

  "Christophe!" Gemma cried aloud.

  "Are you all right, Gemma?" asked Caroline.

  "No, no, I'm not," she replied, the words tumbling from her. "Something's wrong. Something's wrong on the Oberth deck. I have to get down there."

  Nigel looked up from the card reader. "Beggin' your pardon, Gemma, but what in the world would they need a geologist for right now? You're overwrought, that's all."

  "And how d'ye know, anyway?" Caroline asked, her face twisted in confusion.

  "Call it feminine intuition."

  Her breath came in rapid spurts. She could no longer hear their voices, but she could feel the combined fear of Maggie and Christophe writhing in her head. She had to get there. Now.

  She waddled towards the door, shedding blankets as she went to reduce the bulk that she had to move. Caroline grabbed her arm as she passed by, but Gemma shrugged her off.

  "I have to go, Caroline," she said. "The captain is in danger!"

  Nigel said, "But the decoding -- the other ship--"

  "This is more urgent," Gemma replied.

  She opened the door in the face of bedlam. She stared at the gauntlet of frenzy before her. The crewmen, who had moments before been milling about in a state of ennui, were turning sick bay upside down, pulling mattresses off the beds and wrenching iron crossbars from them. Loose papers and books sailed around the room. Bile rose in her throat; she knew impromptu weapons when she saw them. One man was shouting down the pipephone handset by the door, with the words "boarded" and "Martians" springing from his lips.