Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Holding his bread, his bottle, and his umbrella, he stepped outside and drew a deep fresh breath. He strode out with his long legs, determined to reach a quiet spot on the Seine at the northern edge of the Latin Quarter, where he could ruminate while he ate his lunch.

  Before he could move down the block, the bundled stranger turned and raised a hand. “Jules!” came an astonished voice. “Jules Verne, is it you?” Verne stopped and looked around, but saw no one else on the street, no place he could hide. He became wary, afraid that this might be some beggar or cutpurse . . . though he had no money for either.

  But as the stranger came forward, Verne stared at the dark hair and dark eyes, the changed shape of the face, now drawn and weathered . . . but still with a hint of boyhood familiarity. Verne opened and closed his mouth, yet could not force words to come out. He was unable to believe what he was seeing. The man came forward and embraced him.

  Nemo had returned.

  PART V

  P ARIS IN THE

  20 TH C ENTURY

  I

  Nantes, 1852

  Standing on the quay, Nemo looked across the Nantes shipyards, shading his dark eyes. It had been more than a decade since he’d departed on Captain Grant’s ship, three years since he’d returned—and so much had changed, both in the world and in himself. He was a man now, though surrounded by boyhood memories that haunted this place—the best of times and the darkest of nightmares.

  In the drydock shells and launching ramps at Ile Feydeau, he heard loud voices talking, mallets pounding. Someone with a squeezebox sang out a ribald tune to keep his mates moving as they strung rigging on a new ship. His heart grew heavy as he thought of his kind-hearted father working on the doomed Cynthia. How many ships and sailors had gone in and out of this port since Nemo had left as a cabin boy aboard the Coralie ?

  The tall ships were still here. A few clippers and brigs continued to sail up the Loire bringing in cargo from the Atlantic, though the main business of the city now centered on shipbuilding. The future of Nantes lay in that industry, and now—by the command of Napoleon III himself—it was Nemo’s job to modernize the old shipyards, to prepare them for the next century.

  As a young man, André Nemo had left home penniless and fatherless, with no future. Now, with a commission from the emperor of France, rebuilding the shipyards of Nantes would be but one of Nemo’s complex projects.

  Since his return from far-off Iceland three years ago, Nemo had attracted some attention because of his extraordinary adventures, but he had tried to maintain a low profile. Instead, he had used his modest fame to arrange for a formal education—something he could not have achieved as a mere orphan who’d served on a lost sailing ship (and a British-commissioned one, at that).

  During his time on the island he’d already learned how to put his imagination to practical use. Before, he’d had access to nothing more than the knowledge in poor Captain Grant’s small library. Now, his engineering studies at the Paris Academy opened a new world of resources, and he excelled in public service by using his own skills combined with the raw materials and budget of the country.

  The elected president of France, Louis Napoleon, had settled the unrest after the Revolutions of 1848 and recently declared himself emperor. To shore up his public image and continue the illusion of working to benefit everyday lives, Emperor Napoleon III undertook numerous construction projects. The work had shaken the revolution-scarred populace toward a grudging optimism.

  “The empire means peace,” Napoleon III had said in one grand speech. “We have immense tracts of uncultivated lands to clear, roads to open, ports to create, canals to finish, our railway network to complete. These are the conquests I am contemplating, and all French people are my soldiers.” Napoleon wanted Paris to make great strides ahead of the rest of Europe. France would lurch into the future, advancing toward the 20th century, years before its time.

  So André Nemo worked to design bridges and towers, and, because of his successes, he was also chosen to redesign the shipyards in his hometown of Nantes. He would improve its capabilities as a port and industrial center, and increase its commercial value for foreign trade. The future looked very bright indeed.

  Now, Nemo stood on the docks and made a mental list of proposed changes—dredging the estuary to accommodate larger vessels, widening and reinforcing the quays. He would suggest adding two more dry-dock facilities on either side of the river, and he would recommend that the shipyards concentrate on building new clippers, which were in heavy demand for passengers as well as perishable cargo. The first merchant to bring a new harvest to market always commanded the highest price, and clippers could deliver tea from China or delicate spices from the Indies faster than any competitor.

  Coming up the Loire with demonic snorting and clanking, a tall-funneled steamer approached the docks. Gouts of smoke poured from its stack, while paddles churned the river. Nemo had seen only a few of these so-called pyroscaphes, named after the Greek for “fire ship.” With continuing progress, he suspected the vessels would become more common, and noisier and smellier.

  Nemo paced up and down the riverbank, lost in his own world. He had let his dark hair grow long, as was the fashion in Paris, and he sported a mustache and goatee. Every time he looked in the mirror, he still expected to see the imaginative boy who had left Ile Feydeau; instead, he saw an adult stranger.

  Out of practice for a decade, Nemo struggled to readjust to a modern life back among civilized men. After two years aboard an English exploration ship, after battling pirates, suffering hardships on his mysterious island, and exploring the catacombs beneath the Earth, Nemo no longer knew how to exist as part of calm French society with its intricate politics and convoluted social graces.

  Emperor Napoleon had entrusted him with a good many important projects. Yet, the more he worked on them, the more Nemo missed the challenge of constructing a simple counterweight elevator or excavating his cave dwelling. Despite its glamour and all the fineries, the availability of resources, this civilized life was dull and mundane. He had little patience for government bureaucracies and budgetary constraints, for deciding how best to widen roads in France’s rural departments.

  Now, he gazed back down the Loire, picturing in his mind where it drained into the sea at Paimboeuf. Far beyond, lay the Americas or Africa or the South Sea islands. Strange places to explore, mountains to climb, jungles to investigate. He sighed wistfully, then looked at the clock on a nearby church tower just as the bells began to ring the hour. It was time for the meeting he’d both longed for and dreaded.

  Caroline would be waiting for him.

  In new clothes and stiff boots, Nemo strode down the narrow streets of Ile Feydeau to the rowhouses at the water’s edge. He walked beyond the piers into the older, more expensive section of town until he reached the offices of Aronnax, Merchant, which had been owned by Caroline’s father.

  The gray-painted wooden doors were open to let in a fresh spring breeze and the smell of flowers. Inside the business offices at rows of varnished tables and desks, diligent clerks jotted down manifests in thick ledgers. Others pored over the financial records of various shipments, while one rail-thin man placed pins on a chart of shipping routes, presumably marking the estimated positions of the Aronnax fleet.

  Nemo paused in the tall doorway, a stranger, still uncertain of himself. Already, this seemed so strange. Because he had spent so many years without the need for speech, Nemo often found it difficult to begin a conversation. Two of the clerks looked up with questioning gazes, but before anyone could ask his business, Caroline emerged from a back room.

  When she saw him, the sun rose on her face. “André!” Caroline had grown beyond the pretty young girl he had fallen in love with—she was genuinely beautiful now, more filled out, taller, more self-assured.

  He’d seen her briefly several times since his return to France, but he hadn’t yet grown accustomed to how much she had blossomed. Instead of the barely contained rebellio
n that had always shown in her blue eyes, Caroline now carried a hard business sense, a sharp intelligence, and a resolve that had not been there before. She had fought hard to reach her place here, and she would not let anything budge her from her position.

  “I am so glad to see you.” She came forward, stopping close to him.

  “Bonjour, Madame Hatteras,” he said, though it hurt him to remind her of her husband, who still hadn’t returned from his polar voyage, even after four years. Nemo longed to kiss her, but instead forced himself to maintain his honor and his distance. After a brief, awkward pause, they shook hands like two business associates.

  After taking over her father’s shipping offices, Caroline had dispensed with the flowery colors and frills she’d worn as a young woman. Now she wore a gray woolen suit and a broad hoop skirt; she had more important things to do than bow to social niceties and expectations. Since her marriage to Captain Hatteras, Caroline had used her time and her intelligence well, carving her world into the shape she preferred, rather than the other way around. Nemo was proud of her.

  “Shall we go, André?” She slid her arm through his and allowed him to escort her out of the merchant offices. He felt a cold sweat break out down his back. “I’m sure Jules is already at the café waiting for us.” She turned a hard gaze to the clerks, who still seemed disconcerted at having a strong, independent woman as their boss. “The employees can do without me for a short while. They know who pays their salaries.”

  Caroline’s father had died in 1849, mere weeks after a terrible altercation with his office manager. At the height of the argument, M. Aronnax had fired the man on the spot; thereafter, indignant, he proceeded to work himself to the bone, refusing to hire a replacement.

  Without revealing that she had secretly studied the workings of the shipping business for years, Caroline stepped in to assist her father as a surrogate office manager. M. Aronnax brooded over how his supposed successor had betrayed him, while inadvertently continuing his daughter’s training. When he’d died suddenly, the master merchant had appointed no official replacement, which left the business operations in turmoil.

  Caroline, bearing the name and fortune of Captain Hatteras, stepped in to take over the business. The daughter of M. Aronnax marched into the offices with a vengeance, sat at her father’s big mahogany desk as if marking her territory, and began issuing orders. This had scandalized the conservative clerks, and she released two of them at once when they refused to follow her orders.

  The former office manager, who had been discharged by her father, fought Caroline, insisting that a married daughter with an absent husband was not fit to run a great shipping company. He attempted to buy Aronnax, Merchant at a low price that would have devastated the family.

  Caroline’s bereaved mother understood nothing of the work, had never bothered even to know the names or trade routes of the Aronnax ships. After a long, tear-filled evening Caroline had convinced her mother not to sell, and suggested that she herself should acquire the rights to the company, ostensibly in the name of Captain Hatteras. But there would still be a legal fight.

  Because of her long friendship with Jules Verne, Caroline had gone to his father as an attorney to challenge the contested ownership. Instead, the dour man with bushy gray sideburns had shaken his head. “I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do, Madame Hatteras. A woman cannot run a business. You must sell.”

  Frustrated, she realized that M. Verne had only enough legal knowledge for filling out ordinary wills and property deeds, and very little fire in his belly. She had long ago learned from Nemo never to give up, and so she continued to press the issue on her own. Caroline had taken a train to Paris, where she found an ambitious and vociferous attorney, who handily won her case. So, for three years, she’d been the owner and manager of Aronnax, Merchant—and she reveled in the challenge.

  Now, Nemo and Caroline walked together under the sunshine toward their favorite bistro, and he looked at her, proud of what she’d accomplished. Her other options had been to sit at home or become a society lady—neither of which fit Caroline at all. The gossips still talked about the scandal of the female merchant (but then, they always would), even though Caroline had been extraordinarily successful in rebuilding the family business according to her own instincts. She had uncanny luck in choosing paths and cargoes.

  At home, alone, she wrote her own music as she had always dreamed of doing, maintaining the fiction of the nonexistent composer “ Passepartout,” to whom she gave all the credit . . . though few people questioned her about it any more. Even her loyal maidservant Marie had married a tradesman and had left service.

  Strolling along, he enjoyed Caroline’s company. “I wish we could be alone,” Nemo said. “It’s so difficult, and I have so much I want to say.”

  Caroline shook her head. “We can’t—and you should not.” Then she smiled. “But I know what you must be thinking, even after all this time.”

  The two of them arrived at the open-air coffee shop next to the flower stalls and pastry vendors. Jules Verne, still tall and thin but sporting a new beard, waved at them. He had already ordered pots of dark coffee and chocolat chaud and munched on a gooseberry tart while he waited, wiping sticky jam from his lips. During his visits home from the Paris Academy, Verne made every effort to replenish himself in preparation for his fourth and final year at law school.

  A disappointed frown crossed his face when he saw Caroline on Nemo’s arm. She released her light touch as they both walked toward Verne’s table. He stood halfway up to greet her, and she kissed the young man on his red-bearded cheek. “Thank you for waiting, Jules.”

  Blushing, Verne pushed one of the pastries toward the chair she had selected, then self-consciously wiped crumbs from his lips with a stained napkin. “I’ve ordered us some cheese, and I chose a currant pastry for you, Caroline. I know that’s your favorite.” Verne busted about, full of energy and attempts at charm, eager to please.

  Before Nemo could say anything, Verne turned to him, bursting with news. “I’ve received a letter from one of the ships that went searching for your island, André. There’s been a volcanic eruption in the vicinity of the coordinates you gave. What a pity for the poor pirate scoundrels. Maybe your island has sunk.”

  “Like Atlantis,” Caroline said, her blue eyes shining.

  Nemo nodded sadly. “That could well be. The volcano was restless when I entered its caves.”

  “It’s a good thing you left when you did. What an adventure!” Verne scratched his curly hair, then took a bite of the nearest pastry, licking his fingers. Nemo poured a cup of chocolat chaud for Caroline and himself. Verne continued to watch them from across the table, as if keeping track of how often they looked at one another.

  “And for you, Caroline, I’ve asked one of my lecturers at the Paris school.” When Verne awkwardly cleared his throat, he looked very much like a lawyer. “I can draw up the papers if you like. In three more years, with no word from the Forward, it—” He hesitated, then forced himself to go on in a somber voice. “It is possible to begin proceedings to have Monsieur Hatteras declared lost at sea, if . . . if you should wish to get on with your life, that is,” he added in a rush.

  Startled, Caroline unconsciously glanced over at Nemo. “Seven years . . .”

  “You are still a young woman, Caroline,” Verne pressed, “with a great deal to offer—”

  Nemo took her hand. “Your suggestion is premature, Jules. Let’s wait the proper amount of time first, then let Caroline make her decision. Remember, I was gone for more years than that—and I am most certainly still alive.” His voice was stern, alarmed at his friend’s impropriety and at Caroline’s obvious distress. “We’ve had enough on the subject for now.”

  “Running Aronnax, Merchant requires all of my energy, Jules. I am quite content with my life and not anxious to take another husband just yet,” Caroline said, but the troubled look on her face and the quick glance she sent Nemo suggested otherwise. “I never
gave up hope on you, André.”

  Verne saw the look and tried to cover his frown, suddenly flustered. “There’s no hurry.”

  Though he continued to dabble at writing plays and poetry, along with his stage-manager’s job at the theatre, Jules Verne still had too little success to justify any career other than to follow in his father’s footsteps. It looked as if it would be an attorney’s grave for him. “I’ll be required to return home in another year or two after I finish at the Academy. And André, you’ll be here at Nantes working on your engineering projects.” Verne forced a bittersweet smile. “It could be like old times for the three of us. A world of adventure is waiting.”

  Nemo heard a ship’s bell clanging on the distant quays, sailors shouting to each other as they cast off mooring ropes. His heart felt heavy again, and he looked across at Verne. “I’m not sure we can ever go back to those days.”

  II

  The old stone bridge had been damaged by cannonfire during the Revolutions of 1848, but moss, water, and time had weakened the supports long before.

  Intent on his work, Nemo stood in knee-deep slimy mud beneath the pilings, searching for cracks, rapping with a steel hammer to listen for soft spots. Waving his hand in front of his face to scatter biting flies, he waded deeper to assess which repairs might be needed.

  On the shady bank sat his designated work party, chewing on grass blades. Pieces of wooden scaffolding lay all around them, unassembled; a stonemason mixed a new batch of mortar, though it would probably dry before Nemo came back and told the laborers what to do. . . .

  While his plans to modernize the Nantes shipyards ground through the endless bureaucracy, he had been recalled to Paris. His sketches and ideas fought for notice among hundreds of worthy projects while the Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, juggled proposals to make Paris the most magnificent capital in Europe.