20 Million Leagues Over the Sea

by K. T. Hunter

  "No," Nigel said. "No, that can't be. My Jennie was an Orphan. Like me. She told me her parents were dead. She knew for certain. Are you saying my wife lied to me?"

  "That was no lie," Gemma said. "She told you what she thought was true."

  Nigel snapped his head around to her and snarled, "And what would you know about it? You know far too much about her -- you've done too much for her. It can't just be for my sake. It's as if you knew her. Knew a side of her that I didn't."

  Pugh squeezed her shoulder to hold her back, but the truth wailed for release. Even if it made him feel worse, Nigel needed to know. He needed to know what sort of monster stalked his child. Even the captain, had he been present, could not order her silence now. Secrecy would only fester inside of her until it was set free.

  "I did know her," she replied.

  She could hear Pugh sobbing softly behind her. He had known for many years what had happened to his child, but that did not soften the blow of hearing it again. Nigel's knuckles went white as she told him. The story wound out of her like a ball of Frau Knopf's yarn being sucked through Maggie's lightning-fast needles. Tears slid out from underneath the wire rims of his spectacles as the words spilled across the floor in a flood.

  Brightman. Computers. Stealth. Codes. Secrets. Theft.

  Death.

  Nigel covered his ears and howled. "I don't want to hear any more! It's too fantastic! Too horrid! Not my sweet Jennie!"

  "I knew her as Philippa."

  "And you, Pugh," he sobbed, "what did you call her? What was her name?" His question echoed around the cold walls of the slumbering orrery. "What was her name?"

  "Cora," he said, his voice that still, soft breeze after a storm. "My little Cora."

  "Cora," Nigel repeated. "How did she die? I mean, really die? Did you know that was going to happen? Why didn't you tell me earlier? Perhaps we could have--"

  "I didn't know anything until it was too late," Gemma sighed, her own vision slightly blurred. "I did not make the connection until--"

  "Until you saw my pocket watch," he said, recollection dawning on his pain-twisted face. "It was like you had seen a ghost."

  "I had, Nigel. I had seen a ghost. Brightman had told me, told all of us, that she was dead. My only friend in the world was gone. Oh, Nigel! I am sorry she is gone. I am sorry for the life we were forced to lead. But I am glad, so glad, to know that she had some portion of happiness with you."

  "Did she? Did she, really? Did she love me, or was I just another job?"

  "I don't know, Nigel. I honestly don't know. I don't know if Brightman sent her to you, or if she ran away and was tracked down later. I don't know how you met her. From time to time she had whispered to me that there was a better life out there." She choked for a moment and glanced at Dr. Pugh for a dose of strength. "I wasn't ready to believe that. I do believe that, now. And I want to believe that she loved you, that she was happy with you. Happy to become a mother, however briefly."

  Pugh said, "I want to believe that, too. I've known you for some time, lad. I know you loved her well. I, too, am glad my Cora, Gemma's Philippa, and your Jennie, was with you, of all people."

  "Was she truly with me? Can I even be sure that--"

  Gemma stopped him. "I can never know anything for certain, but I would wager that she is your child. You have a father-in-law! A daughter! You have living family! That is more than most on this ship can boast!"

  Pugh said, "There is a way to tell for certain, when we get home, if you have doubts. Maggie can--"

  "Keep that beast away from me!" he bellowed. He flung the weighty wrench against the globe of Mars, and the fury of it dented a new crater in the crimson orb. "You cannot change what it is by giving it a name! Damn Mars! Damn the Martians! Damn the Invasion! And damn you!"

  "Nigel--"

  "Get out! Leave me be! Get out, get out, get out!"

  As the days passed, they closed in on the Red Planet and picked up the pieces floating in the wake of Wallace's sabotage. Between Dr. Hansard's strict supervision and the maternal clucking of Frau Knopf, Gemma healed. Her bruises faded, and the complaining of her ribs softened to a whisper.

  Dr. Pugh recovered as well. In their mutual convalescence, they took many walks in the Garden, which was undergoing a healing of its own after the power outage. Dr. Pugh told her tales of her famous father, and she told him about the life of his daughter. Arm in arm, they followed the paths that wound about the Gardens. They passed Herr Knopf as he fussed over his frostbitten cabbages and hovered hawk-like over Rathbone as the man set stone urns of petunias to rights. The former wireless officer -- and Brightman Boy -- had not a glance to spare her as she passed by.

  She spent time with each member of the Cohort, at Pugh's urging, to learn about each one's research.

  "It's all rather dry, Miss," the linguist said as he showed her the fruits of his labour. "Very technical, very efficient. The lack of metaphors makes the translation easier to understand, though."

  "Had they no poetry with them? No novels?" Gemma asked. "We brought so much literature with us."

  "Not a syllable, I'm afraid," he replied. "Not even the Martian version of a dirty limerick. They are brilliant engineers, but I am afraid their conversation at tea would be rather dreary."

  Later she perched upon her lab stool and pored over the journals. She wished to solve Pugh's mystery of the Nautilus dates, but she also wanted to search for other clues about Aronnax himself. The last time she had been in this spot, she had not had a scrap of a hint about her parents' identities. Now, she read the words written by her father, one who had never known of her, either. What would they have made of each other if they had ever met, she wondered.

  She brushed the dog-eared record of his famous journey under the seas with her fingertips. She allowed herself a light chuckle when she recalled that this man's daughter was on an even more perilous journey through a completely different kind of sea, with a man who was at once the son of his host and of his protégé.

  Perhaps she should start a journal of her own, documenting this journey from a woman's point of view, like Nellie Bly...

  "Good to see you smiling again."

  She lifted her eyes to see Christophe lurking on the other side of the lab bench with a curious grin on his face and a book tucked under one arm.

  He placed the book on the lab bench and pushed it towards her. The cloth on the cover was so faded that its original colour was difficult to determine. The frayed corners had seen better days. The gilt letters on the cover had been brushed by fingers one too many times, and she could barely make out the title: Captain Stormfield's Visit to Mars and Other Tales. She beamed when she saw the author's name.

  "More Twain?" she asked. "I've never seen this one before."

  "Yes! He wrote it after meeting Maggie."

  "He met Maggie?"

  "One of the few outside the labs to do so. It was a limited run, though. The TIA found it a bit too comical and bought up most of the copies. I thought you could use something relaxing to read. Journals can be rather heavy at times, especially that one. I have several books, but I thought that Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology might have limited application on Mars." He lowered his voice, and hope shone in his eyes. "And I thought we should have something to discuss if by some chance we have another... midnight salon."

  He was there again, the laughing boy that she had found in the gazebo. This man had been her mission, but she had only discovered that fact when she had broken free of it. Oh! If she were still under Brightman's sway, how easy it would be to obey right now. That mélange of command and mischief playing around the edges of his mouth...

  She focused on the book, unable to answer him. She opened the cover. Her fingers drifted across the flyleaf, which was wrinkled and freckled with age.

  "It's inscribed to you," she said, "by the author himself!"

  "Heh, yes, it is. He and Tesla were great pals back in the day. He spent a lot of time in the labs, when I w
as a lad."

  "You must have been very young at the time."

  "I was. But I have an excellent memory, if nothing else. Couldn't have made it through my academy exams, otherwise."

  She regarded him with narrowed eyes, watching the playfulness nearly pouring out of his ears.

  "Why am I not surprised?" she purred.

  They both burst into a laughing fit, ignoring the curious stares of the other scientists in the room. She felt a flicker of an undefined warmth kindling somewhere near her toes that was working its way up into her belly.

  She clamped down on the feeling, hard. It was too close. It was too close to what Brightman had wanted of her. She would not give Brightman that. She would not destroy that earnest face. He had once thought she was a lady, but that disguise was only a candy-coating over bitter bones. Even with all he knew about her now, he still pursued her, perhaps even more than when he thought her to be an innocent. But without Brightman's control, she was drained of everything she had ever known, even of the cynicism that Brightman had poured into her Girls with every glance, every word, every cup of tea. Gemma had become a hollow vessel, waiting to be filled with she knew not what.

  She turned some of the pages and examined the illustrations. There was much affection surrounding this volume. He was lending her a treasure, a slice of his heart. She continued to examine the book, mostly to avoid his gaze, and discovered a CDV wedged between two pages. She turned it over to see the image of an elderly professor, with spectacles perched on his nose between twinkling eyes. Otherwise, he had the same unsmiling face that everyone had in portraits from that time.

  She read the caption aloud: "Professor Aronnax."

  "Yes," he said. "I thought you might like a picture of him. I had to trade three different Nelsons and a Sophie for it. Our new first mate drives a hard bargain."

  She studied it more closely, looking for traces of herself in his face. The spectacles made it hard to tell, but they did have the same slight upturn in the corner of their eyes.

  "Thank you," she said.

  This was a gift, even greater than that of the loan of the book. This was one treasure she could not refuse. She closed the book and pushed it back towards him, but he simply pulled out his pocket watch and muttered something about being late to a meeting with Hui.

  "Silly mission," he said as he walked away, "always getting in the way. I will see you at tea, my lady."

  ~~~~

  Christophe

  Now that they had settled back into a routine -- drilling their orbital insertion and targeting procedures -- Christophe resumed his midnight readings in the gazebo. He hoped, night after night, to see Gemma emerge out of the darkness and sit beside him. He missed the Gemma that had laughed with him in the still of the night a lifetime ago. But night after night, she did not appear. He lamented the fact to Maggie as they toured the orchard.

  "It is good to walk in the light," Maggie said. "Ship's day is so lovely."

  They passed beneath apple trees that had managed to avoid freezing during the power outage. Maggie tottered along beside him, using some of her tentacles as legs, with the tips of her tendrils curled into long feet. When they were alone, she would drape a free limb about his shoulders; but if others were about, she merely strolled beside him and allowed him the dignity of his command.

  Christophe replied to her in the privacy of his mind, giving any of the crew wandering about the impression that they were strolling arm-in-tentacle in silence.

  "We seem to have come to some sort of détente, after all that has happened," he said.

  "That is good. I know you are fond of her."

  "Certainly! Ever since I met her. There is something new around every corner with her. She is like no one else I have ever known. You've talked to her. Has she said anything--"

  "She is still healing," Maggie replied. The sound of her voice in his head was gentle but firm.

  "She seemed much better at tea today," he said. "Dr. Hansard said--"

  "Christophe," Maggie said, "those are not the wounds I mean."

  "What do you mean, then?"

  "I sometimes see past a person's words. Not everyone's, of course. Wallace has found a way to shut me out, and Rathbone is a complete mess. But with some people, I see memories and feelings. I value privacy, and I will not violate hers. I will say only this: she suffers. Deeply. Far more deeply than even she knows. She was never loved, save by one, and that one is long gone from her."

  Maggie paused for a moment to pick up a wayward basket of petunias. She repacked the soil around the flowers and hung the basket on its hook on the ironwork pole beside the path. She rubbed her limbs together to dislodge the soil. She retrieved a lost blossom and held it in one tentacle as she started walking again.

  She continued, "We all take some comfort in knowing the story of our lives. Even if the story is horrible, at least we have a sense of continuity. But she has had her story ripped away. Her life was a lie. How would you feel if someone told you that you were not my little bud?"

  "I could not even imagine it!" His face contorted in imagined pain. "How disconcerting!"

  Mr. Owen, enjoying some rare off-duty time, appeared on the path ahead of them as he walked in their direction. He froze for a moment, eyes wide and jaw so slack it nearly brushed the ground below him. Finally, he managed a watery salute, dove down another path, and disappeared into the cherry grove.

  Maggie merely shrugged as they watched the branches rattle in the man's wake. "Nor I," she said. "Imagine how she feels, discovering the opposite. That someone who claimed she was an orphan was really her mother. Someone that should have loved her as I love you, as Elias loves you, used her in horrid and unnatural ways. She never knew a mother's love, and very little of any other kind of love, except for a single friend that is now lost to her."

  "A friend who was my sister."

  "The same. That one was as dear to her as any sister or brother."

  "Like Miguel was to me."

  "Yes. Dear, dear Miguel." She fell silent for a moment, and her tentacles went limp with sorrow. She twitched and resumed her walk. "She has lost what made her feel important. What gave her life meaning -- her teacher, her mission here--"

  "Her mission," he said, his voice distant. "In all the kerfuffle, I had forgotten all about it."

  "I will leave it up to her to tell you what it really was. Suffice it to say, she will not carry it out. All that is over. Everything she knew and valued until she set foot on the ship no longer matters to her. And now, she must rebuild herself from the ground up."

  "I could help her with that."

  "Perhaps, but not yet in the way you wish. She needs care and support as she does so, but for the most part this is something she has to do herself. Far too many others have done the defining for her. It will take time." She squeezed his hand with the tip of her limb. "You ask her to make a leap, when she cannot yet see the other side of the chasm. Let her build a bridge there. Let her learn the language before you ask her to speak it. Remember what the priest said about love? She now sees glimmers of what he meant, but just glimmers. Be her friend, as you are now, until she is able to understand more."

  He licked the corner of his lips, as if to wipe away the frown that threatened to pull them down. "And if she is never ready?"

  "Then she is never ready. Look elsewhere for what you seek. It may be that she is like me and has no need to mate. Or will always associate such things with a life she no longer wants. It was a kind of slavery, my bud. She had to play many roles. But never herself. Warm embraces were thresholds to secrets. Kisses, merely keys. Romance was just a tool, a means to someone else's ends. She needs time, and space, to reframe her thinking, and see love for what it truly is, in all its forms. If you care for her -- not just want her -- you will give her that space."

  "I've never had to do that before." He shook his head. "I'm supposed to be the hero here! At least according to all of those wretched CDVs. I'm supposed to do something."


  "You can do something," said Maggie. "You can be her friend."

  "I'm not sure I know how to be just friends with a woman."

  "Then you need to learn that language as well."

  Not long afterward, just days shy of their destination, Christophe spent the evening with The Prince and the Pauper. Prince Edward was just inviting the uncannily similar-looking Tom into the palace when a small figure emerged out of the darkness and climbed the gazebo stairs. She held a familiar book in her hands.

  Christophe sat up straighter on the bench to make room for her. She sat down next to him, not quite close enough for their knees to touch. She held the book out to him.

  "Finished already?" he asked in as casual a voice as he could muster as he took it from her, careful not to brush her hands with his fingers.

  "Yes," she replied. "Quite the thrilling tale. Thank you."

  He waited a moment for further commentary, but none came. He shifted in his seat, unsure of what to say next. He prayed that she could not smell his breath. He had given up the Men-T-Fresh Tonic of late, and he found that he was more comfortable without the slightly burning sensation of it in his mouth. Besides, if a man were not courting a girl, what use would it be? He shifted in his seat again when he realized she was still staring at him.

  "You didn't come here just to return a book," he said.

  "No," she replied softly.

  He stacked both books on his other side and asked, "What can I do for you, Gemma? Do you require yet another infusion of Twain? There is plenty more."

  She laughed, and he could feel the frost between them melt a little.

  "I admit, the distraction was welcome," she replied. "Between everything that has happened and my work for Dr. Pugh, I've needed… needed something."

  "And what does old Elias have you working on these days? More Code of Life?"

  "That and another project. Sort of a pet topic of his. I've encountered something rather odd in my reading. I had hoped it was just an error, but--"