Agassiz gave serious consideration to the interesting request. “Well, we have to consider the inherent limitations of the Negro germ plasm, Mister Cohoon. There’s only a limited capacity for mentation in the smartest African, and trying to get more out of them by crosses is like trying to squeeze water from a stone. Now, I take it you’re not contemplating adding white blood of the lesser races to the line—”
Cohoon shot to his feet, his face livid. “Sir, what do imply?! Are you repeating, I say, repeating those scurrilous rumors about my darling Lily Belle? If so, then it means derringers under the Spanish moss by the river at dawn!”
“Please, sir, be seated! I intended no offense. I was speaking strictly from a theoretical standpoint. I abhor miscegenation as much as you evidently do.”
Cohoon relaxed and resumed his chair. “Very, I say, very well then. No offense taken. A man’s honor, you know—”
Templing his fingers, Agassiz said, “Your idea has many implications. If we could indeed create a new breed of Negroes, both more sensible and docile, it would have vast implications for the nation as a whole. You must let me ponder this project for some time, and write you with the results.”
“Splen—, I say, splendid! Let’s drink to it!”
After sealing their agreement, Agassiz and Cohoon passed an additional time in pleasant conversation.
“The family and I are heading north to Saratoga Springs for the summer. It gets so damn hot in the Carolinas that it makes your blood boil. Weather’s not fit for man nor beast. I even bring my hounds with me. They’re with Lily Belle at the hotel now. Rented the dogs their own room, I did! Of course, life at the plantation goes on. The niggers are out in the fields, I say, fifteen hours a day. Of course, the sun, I say, the sun doesn’t bother them. They can’t get any blacker, haw haw!”
Agassiz laughed too. More drinks were poured.
“That story, son, reminds me of this one slave of mine. Used to be an infamous free black in Philadelphia until I had him kidnapped. Pretended he was a lawyer, or some other such fool job. Riled me, I say, riled me no end. Well, once I had him in chains, I told him he could buy his freedom back. Took him three years of working overtime, three years, I say! No sooner was he back in the city than I had him waylaid again. Another three years, and I set him free—for a price. Just before I left, the slavers dumped him on my doorstep for the third time. All entirely legal in my state, of course. You should have seen the woolly-headed bastard cry!”
By the time Agassiz could get the jovial planter to leave, it was late afternoon and his head was swimming. Realizing that he had not checked today on his staff, he ventured shakily to his laboratory.
Maurice sat outside the workroom door at a small desk. “Do you have your papers in order?”
Agassiz’s head hurt. “Papers? What papers?”
“Your security clearance, your permits and your sponsorships. In triplicate.”
“Of course I don’t have any such foolish things. What is this? What’s going on?”
“We’ve implemented a new system, an apparatus to administer the resources of the proletariat. In short, the laboratory has undergone collectivization. We have modified Fourier’s notion of the phlanstery—”
“Collectivization be damned! This is my laboratory!” Agassiz began to hammer on the door. “Open up in there! Cease this nonsense immediately!”
“It won’t do any good to yell. They’re on strike.”
“Strike?!”
At this juncture the door opened and Edward Desor peered out. “Oh, it’s you, Agass. Please go away now, we’re busy. And I would suggest not throwing your weight around any more in the future. With what I’ve seen of your ribald behavior, you are in no position to demand anything.”
The door closed in Agassiz’s face before he could reply.
“I told you they wouldn’t take kindly to being disturbed. . . .”
Agassiz held his head. He was too jingled now to deal with this revolt. Air—he needed some fresh air. When he was his own master again, he would thrash them all—
Out on the back lawn, Agassiz looked toward Cezar’s ship. For a moment he thought he was seeing double. Then he realized that the Dolly Peach, absent since his insulting of its skipper, was moored alongside the Sie Koe.
Agassiz stumbled up the boarding plank of the latter vessel and into the cabin. There sat Cezar, Stormfield and the Hottentot, heads bent in earnest confabulation.
Upon Agassiz’s entrance, Stormfield came aggressively to his feet.
“Perfesser, I’m here for that suitably humble apology ye owes me!”
“I just—”
Stormfield interrupted. “Good enough! Never let it be said that old Dan’l didn’t know when to bury the hatchet. Now, get your carcass over here. We’re havin’ a council o’ war. Ye see, we knows now where your Well of Creation is, and when that sorcerer plans to be there!”
The fumes in Agassiz’s brain cleared immediately. “Where is it? Tell me!”
“Why, where else but goldanged Marblehead?!”
“Your home port?”
“Kee-rect! But I knows ye won’t credit it without some explanation, so jest set yerself down and lissen.
“Before the White Man came to this country, there was an Injun settlement where Marblehead stands today. It was shunned by all the neighboring Red Men, the Narragansett and the Pequots, since the tribe in question—the Miskatonicks—had a reputation as bein’ unclean and unwholesome. Ye ken, the waters off Marblehead shore were just a-swarmin’ with strange creatures—in fact, new ones seemed to be born daily—and the local Injuns were tainted through intimate contact with the queer beasts.”
“You mean,” said Agassiz hopefully, “that they fed upon the strange flesh, violating certain dietary taboos?”
“No sir—I means what I said! They had carnal relations with the creatures. At least them as was fitted for it.”
Agassiz gagged, and had to be refreshed with a sip from one of Dottie’s ostrich eggs.
“I knows, it strikes one kind o’ hard, unless ye’ve grown up with the notion as I have. But it’s true. The Miskatonicks rogered and was rogered by certain of them fishes, giving birth to various halfbreeds, some o’ which lived on land, some in the sea.
“Now, one day in 1629, Clem Doliber was kicked out o’ Salem, just down the road from the Miskatonicks. Clem was a mean cuss, bound by neither conventions nor fear. He was booted out, in fact, for havin’ congress with a neighbor’s prize sow, then shootin’ the owner when the affronted fella politely asked Clem to disengage, lest he make the taste o’ the bacon go off. Well, with no place else to go, Clem sets out for the Miskatonick village.
“When he gets there, he finds it empty of all humans or animals or halfbreeds, with kettles still on the boil and blankets warm to the touch. There was no sign of a ruckus or massacree. Alls he could find was a wide trail of slime leadin’ into—or outta—the sea. So Clem settles into an empty teepee, and that was the beginnin of the white man’s occupation of Marblehead.
“The followin’ years seen an influx of refugees and desperadoes of every stripe. Marblehead became the dumpin’ grounds for the whole Thirteen Colonies. Why, it was worse than Rhode Island, and that’s sayin’ a lot! We had outcasts of any kind you could name, from all over the globe. My own ancestors, for instance, were Manxmen who worshipped Manannan mac Lir, God o’ the Sea. Persecuted by the Archbishop of Canterbury hisself, they lit out for the haven of the New World.
“And I’m plumb ashamed to admit it, but these bad white folks had morals as lax as those of the Injuns. They was not immune to the fishy charms of the merfolk, and continued to intermingle their vital essences with them.”
Agassiz lifted a hand wearily. “Stop right there, Captain Stormfield. Do you seriously expect me to believe this tall tale? It’s absolutely, scientifically impossible for men and
fish to interbreed.”
“Impossible, is it? Then what do ye make o’ this?”
Captain Stormfield pushed back one sleeve of his greasy sweater and showed the underside of his muscled arm.
It was patterned with coarse green scales from the wrist on up. As he twisted it for Agassiz’s inspection, the scales sparkled in the candlelight.
“It ain’t no razzle-dazzle, Louie. I’m at least one-eighth fish myself, jest like everybody else in Marblehead. If ye be a ’header, ye can’t avoid callin’ some tuna ‘Uncle.’”
Cezar spoke up. “I believe him, Louie. Dey didn’t name der Marblehead boys during der Revolution der ‘Amphibious Regiment’ for noding! How do you dink dey vere able to get Vashington across der Delaware zo easily? Vhy, Danny dells me dot dey chust jumped in der vater und pulled der boats like der drained porpoises!”
Agassiz finally found his voice, although it was but a shade of its normal booming imperiousness. “Please roll down your sleeve. . . . Thank you. That is a sight no man of science should be exposed to. All right now. Suppose I grant you this incredible tale as prolegomenon. How can you be sure that T’guzeri is planning to carry out his scheme in your absurd town?”
“Why, I was told directly so by them as should know. Ye see, there’s always been two factions in Marblehead. There’s them mostly human men and women who live side by side with the fishfolk without thinking twice one way or the other about them. They gen’rally give them wide birth, ’cept when a seaweed-draped cousin comes callin’, friendly-like. They knows enough to steer clear of certain reefs and shoals, makin’ the proper salutes and obeisances when passin’ certain bays and suchlike.
“But then there’s the other ones, the bent and twisted humans, those with thinner, colder blood than most. They associate with the worst of the fishfolk as often as they can. These are the ones who actually worship the same gods the fishfolk do, gods like Dagon and Pahuanuiapitaaiterai. These rogues collaborate with the mermen in their obscure and diabolical schemes.
“One of these types—not the worst, I’m happy to say—is my cousin, Howard Phillips. He told me jest this mornin’—in general terms, ye understand—about what T’guzeri and his fellow conspirators have got planned for tomorrow night. Needless to say, I wasted no time in gettin’ over here with the news.”
Captain Stormfield now folded his (scaly) arms across his chest and waited proudly for Agassiz’s reaction.
Agassiz surveyed the expectant trio before him. Did they really expect him to give credence to this cockamamie tale? Baron Munchausen himself had never concocted anything half so wild. Were they playing him a for a fool, only to leave him caught with his pants down, so to speak, at the last moment?
Captain Stormfield said, “Excuse me a moment.” He picked up a ladle and scooped water from a bucket near the porthole. Pulling back the high neck of his sweater, he then anointed his highly visible gills.
Agassiz’s eyes assumed the proportions of those of a slow loris (Nycticebus tardigradus). When he was partially recovered, he said, “The Coast Guard has put a large armed cruiser at my disposal. I shall requisition it for tomorrow night.”
9
MOBY DAGON
AGASSIZ STOOD RESPLENDENTLY outside the door to Temple Place No. 10, the luxurious residence known as “the Court,” home to the chaste and lovely Lizzie Cary. He was dressed in the closest thing to a uniform that he possessed: the red coat and trousers of the Burschenschaft, the student club he had belonged to twenty years ago at Heidelberg. A trifle snug, he had thought, gazing at himself in the cheval-glass at home. But he still cut an imposing figure in his old school colors, and he needed all the confidence he could summon up today.
It was noon of the day he was to confront the Hottentot sorcerer in the fishing village of Marblehead, and Agassiz had come to make his goodbyes to the woman he loved and coveted. Although he fully expected to return unharmed to her—after all, what chance did primitive superstition stand, once the blazing light of science was turned upon it?—he could not resist the chance to make a florid declamation of his impending sacrifice.
Within minutes, Agassiz was kneeling beside his beloved, holding both her small hands as she sat on the chaise-longue in the Cary parlor. The long dark curls framing her face trembled with the emotions besetting her, as Agassiz explained—in a carefully edited version, of course—what he had learned and what he was about to undertake.
“Oh, Louis, I’m so frightened!”
“Don’t be, my dear. I am brave enough for both of us.”
“I can’t let you go alone, Louis. If anything were to happen to you, I would surely die of shock. Better for us to perish together in the jaws of some piscine horror than for me to live a moment without your presence!”
“Do you really mean that, my dear?”
“Yes, Louis, I do—with all my heart.”
Agassiz came to a quick decision. “Then you shall come with me, darling Lizzie. You shall stand by my side, like a true mate, under the strong shelter of my loving protection. Can you don some suitable rough clothing quickly?”
“I’ll wear the outfit I wore when we went butterfly hunting, and tell Daddy that we’re going on another such expedition. I’ll only be an hour or two.”
Good as her word, Lizzie was ready within the stipulated time. Before long, they were descending from a carriage outside East Boston headquarters.
“Our transportation should be arriving momentarily, dear. Let us wait inside.”
In the house, Agassiz found a party underway. Dogberry, Pourtales, Girard, Burckhardt, Sonrel, Maurice, and Edward Desor were uniting their voices in a chorus of “Black Lulu,” glasses full of champagne hoisted high. Chief Snapping Turtle shuffled around them, uttering wordless war whoops.
“What’s the meaning of this?” thundered Agassiz.
“Our latest monograph has been delivered from the printers,” explained Desor.
Agassiz snatched up a copy of the publication. The title page read:
AN INQUIRY INTO THE DIET OF THE
BATHYPTEROIDAE
BY
EDWARD DESOR
AND
HIS ASSISTANT,
LOUIS AGASSIZ
A veil of rage hung before Agassiz’s vision like the Aurora Borealis. He prepared to loose the full might of his fury upon the impudent Desor.
Totally unconcerned, Desor merely glance significantly at Lizzie and said, “Had any buttons sewn on lately, Agass?”
Agassiz collapsed like a pricked balloon. “Touché, Edward. We shall discuss this later. Right now, I must be going.”
“Oh, have no fear, we’re all coming with you. Did you seriously think I’d let you hog all the glory? No, your loyal co-workers fully deserve to be with you at this historic moment, so that our names shall redound with yours throughout the history of natural philosophy.”
Chief Snapping Turtle, evidencing a new talent for civilized speech, now flourished his bow and arrows and declared, “Chief Snapping Turtle wantum fight Wishpoosh with Great White Father Louis. Giant Beaver God needum good licking.”
Realizing the futility of argument, Agassiz merely said, “Very well, then. Let us see if our ship has arrived.”
The party paraded out onto the greensward with a view of the busy bay.
Drawing nigh like one of the indomitable Viking ships that had visited Newport long before Columbus sailed was the Coast Guard Survey ship the U.S.S. Bibb.
The Bibb was actually a small clipper ship, built by the firm of Kennard and Williamson in Baltimore. One hundred and forty-three feet long, four hundred and ninety-four tons, triple-masted, drawing eleven feet forward but seventeen feet aft, she was small compared to the 2500-ton behemoths McKay was currently building. Still, she was an awesome sight. Surely she would strike dread into the hearts of T’guzeri and his Marblehead confederates.
One aspect of her even now struck fear—or at least distaste—into Agassiz: the figurehead, which was cast in the shape of a buxom, gaily painted mermaid.
Anchoring some distance offshore, the Bibb lowered a small boat from its davits. Soon it grounded, and the Bibb’s captain stepped ashore.
A young man of stalwart bearing, the captain strode decisively toward the waiting crowd. Agassiz was immediately impressed with his quiet competence.
“Lieutenant Charles Henry Davis, sir, at your command. May I just mention that I’ve read all your works, Professor Agassiz, and consider it the highest honor of my short career to accompany you on this mission.”
The words of praise slightly recompensed Agassiz for the vile treatment he had been forced to swallow from his assistant. He puffed up visibly. “Rest assured, Lieutenant, that your services will earn you immense credit in the annals of your nation and your race. We sail today for the greater glory of white American science and culture.”
At that moment, the disreputable figures of Jacob Cezar and his Hottentot paramour made their appearance on the deck of the Sie Koe. Both were only partially dressed.
“Ahoy, der Bibb! Vee are almost ready! Vun minute!”
Lieutenant Davis looked quite puzzled. Agassiz sought to explain. “They’re, um, experts on the enemy we are about to face. I thought they should accompany us. . . .”
Now Captain Stormfield poked his head out of the cabin of the Dolly Peach, which had remained berthed overnight. The Marbleheader was combing his hair with what appeared to be a fresh specimen of the three-spine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus).
The Steampunk Trilogy Page 18