Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Verne stopped another businessman on his way out to the reflecting pond. “Where is Monsieur Dumas? I must speak with him.”

  The potbellied man just snorted. “We all want to speak with Monsieur Dumas, but he has made himself conveniently scarce. If you find him, send him back to the main house.”

  With a sinking heart, Verne strode across the beautifully kept grounds, past hedges and flower boxes, fountains that now sat quiet instead of spraying torrents of diamond-like droplets. A handful of droopy-eyed writers stood in the manicured orange grove; two sat on stone benches. No one spoke, all their conversation smothered by a pall of despair.

  Verne hurried up to them and repeated his questions, but got the same answers. They looked toward the tiny island where Dumas did his writing. Swans still drifted across the water, unconcerned about their future—although from the looks of Monte Cristo, there might not even be enough money left to feed the birds. No doubt they’d end up in someone’s oven.

  Even with his own dismal prospects, Verne found the moaning writers depressing. Dumas could pay none of them, not even for work they’d already done. Still, Verne found himself as much concerned for his enormous, good-natured mentor as he was filled with gloom about his precarious situation.

  He wandered around the grounds, past the now-empty servants’ quarters to the stables and the carriage house. There he heard people moving about with hushed whispers. Curious, Verne entered the carriage house and saw a footman lashing a harness to the single remaining horse.

  The great Dumas stood outside a closed carriage, looking sullenly at a few baskets and sacks of possessions he had snatched from his estate. The man’s generous lips were turned downward in an uncharacteristic frown. He had no room to store anything else inside the overloaded vehicle.

  “Monsieur Dumas!” Verne called in delight and relief. The footman jumped, startled. The broad-shouldered writer whirled, almost losing his balance as his girth swung around. His broad face carried a look of dismay, as if he was ready to flee into the forests on the outskirts of Monte Cristo.

  But when he saw Jules Verne, his face composed itself into a pale reminder of his former genial and welcoming expression. “Oh, ho, my friend Jules! Thank you for coming to see me, even in this dark hour.”

  Verne found himself at a loss for words. He had practiced the speech so many times, hoping to request work from Dumas. Now that the opportunity was gone, he had little hope left in his heart. “I . . . I am—”

  “Well?” The dark man rubbed his thick fingers together. He had loaded them with more rings than Verne remembered having seen before. “Did you pass your law exam? You had a great deal riding on that test, if I recall.”

  “Yes, sir,” Verne said with a groan. “I’m now licensed to be a practicing attorney.”

  “Delicious!” Dumas laughed at himself. “I myself could use a great deal of legal help. However, I’m unable to pay for it, at present.”

  “That’s what . . . what I was given to understand. I’m sorry to hear about it, Monsieur. I am afraid I have little experience and even fewer suggestions to offer you right now. Your situation is . . . beyond me.”

  “It is a good thing you have established your career. Unlike me, you have a solid future ahead of you, mmm?”

  “A dreary future,” Verne said bitterly. He bent to pick up a heavy box and helped to load it into the carriage, which already looked so stuffed the axles might bow to the gravel in the road. “I want to be a writer like you.”

  Dumas rumbled a great belly laugh. “Even now, when you see how my fortunes have fallen? Oh, ho!”

  “But I’ve read your work, Monsieur Dumas. Surely your fiction has created a treasure for humanity far beyond”—Verne gestured around the carriage house, but indicated the whole estate—“beyond all this.”

  Dumas frowned at him. “At the moment, I’d gladly give up my novels if I could only retain possession of my home.” The footman finished harnessing the horse and then climbed up to the buckboard. The great writer’s single faithful employee would also drive the carriage.

  Verne hung his head, astounded at the famous man’s misfortune. His dreams for success had shattered into even smaller pieces. “I just wish my own fictions were more in demand. I haven’t managed to capture the excitement as you have. My historical novels don’t have the spark of life or the sense of wonder that you portrayed in The Three Musketeers.”

  Dumas beamed at hearing the praise, even at such a moment. “Ho! And I will continue to write books like that, mark my words—though I may have to rely solely on my own imagination from now on, as it seems I’ll have considerable difficulty hiring other writers.”

  The big man opened the carriage door. “Every author is different, Jules. I have a flair for portraying historical charm, but if I were to devote my talents to the sort of stories that come from the pens of Voltaire or Balzac, I would fail miserably. Oh, ho! Jules, you have been working too hard to do what I have done. Perhaps historical adventure isn’t where your special ability lies.”

  “Then what should I write about?” Verne said with an edge of desperation. He still hadn’t heard any answers he could use.

  “Write what you know, what you have learned, what you have lived. Write what is in your heart.” Dumas looked at one of the laden sacks on the floor of the carriage house. With a grunt, he picked it up and tossed it onto the seat, the only clear spot wide enough for the writer’s enormous buttocks.

  Verne drew a heavy sigh. “But my life has been tedious and uninteresting. Not even my own mother would want to read about my experiences, alas. What am I to do?”

  With great effort, Dumas heaved himself into the carriage, grabbed the heavy sack, and subsided into the seat with the sack on his lap. Eager to help, Verne trotted across the dirt floor and opened the doors of the carriage house. The footman flicked the reins, and the horse stamped, impatient to be off. Dumas raised his eyebrows, looking out the carriage window. “What about your friend Nemo? When you told me about his adventures, there was excitement in your eyes—a fire. Delicious! You have the journal from when he was stranded on his island, correct? Certainly those are tales worth retelling?”

  As if struck by a thunderbolt from the sky, Verne stepped back and his face lit up. Of course! He needed only to tell the adventures—not necessarily experience them himself.

  Dumas swung the carriage door shut. “I hope to see you again someday, Jules Verne,” he said through the window. “But now I must be off on . . . pressing business as far away from here as I can get.”

  “But how am I to find you?” Verne said. “I’d like to send you a new manuscript. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

  Dumas leaned out the window of his carriage. “My dear man, at the moment my object is not to be found.” The footman snapped a whip at the horse, and the vehicle rattled onto the cobbled path and out a side driveway. They fled toward a winding forest road that would eventually meet the main thoroughfare.

  While his once-magnificent estate was ransacked, Dumas left Verne behind with his creditors . . . and his new ideas.

  IV

  Like a mythical air spirit robed in green, red, and blue, the immense balloon drifted across Africa for two more weeks.

  Fergusson spent the daylight hours in scientific ecstasy, documenting swamps and forests, mountains and plains never before seen by an Englishman (or any other European, for that matter). He considered himself a “geographical missionary” for the Royal Society. On maps and charts, most of Africa’s interior remained blank, but this expedition could fill in a swath of new territory. Caroline diligently sketched everything they observed.

  Nemo tended the recondenser cylinder that controlled the exchange of hydrogen gas between the two balloons, which allowed him to raise or lower the Victoria through thick clouds and above storms. In relaxed moments, Caroline withdrew her wooden flute and played quiet melodies, adding her songs to the African veldt.

  Comfortable against the wicker side of the car, s
he and Nemo talked about their lives, their hopes and disappointments, as well as simple matters of daily existence. “Did you ever think we’d end up here, in a place like this, André?” Caroline’s fingers twitched, as if she wanted to take his hand, but didn’t dare. Dr. Fergusson puttered with his instruments and his notes, oblivious to the attraction between them.

  “I always hoped I would be with you . . . but sometimes wishes don’t come true the way you imagine. Our lives haven’t gone the way we’d planned.”

  She drew a deep breath. “If only I had known you were still alive on the island, if only I could have—”

  Nemo stopped her. “Caroline, even if you had known, you would still have married Captain Hatteras, and he would still have sailed off to find the Northwest Passage . . . and we would still be here now, in this same balloon.” He smiled. “And there is nowhere I would rather be.”

  Leaving the Serengeti Plain behind, the Victoria crossed over a huge lake, but Caroline could not find the prominent inland sea on any of her charts. They gazed at the immense body of water, whose shore was dotted with small fishing villages like beads on a necklace. In the shallows, islands hosted numerous flocks of birds.

  “It’s large enough to be the source of the Nile,” Fergusson said with a touch of awe. For a century, one expedition after another had searched in vain for the headwaters of the great river. The Royal Society had given the mystery its greatest priority, but so far none of the conventional expeditions had found any answers.

  Unfortunately, Nemo could choose only the balloon’s general direction of travel, and the body of water was so vast they would have needed to travel to the northern end to see if its waters drained in the proper direction. “Someone else will have to verify it.”

  “Mark it on the map with great care, Madame,” Fergusson said with a smile that made his huge mustache bristle. “Indeed, if I may be so bold, I shall even name this lake—for future cartographers, of course.”

  Nemo had never sought credit for himself. “That is your right, Monsieur, as the leader of our expedition.”

  “Which name do you choose, Doctor?” Caroline asked.

  Fergusson looked up at the magnificent balloon over their heads. “Why not name it after the vessel that has carried us across such great distances and difficult terrain, eh? We shall call it Lake Victoria.”

  V

  At noon on the nineteenth day, Nemo used a sextant to measure the altitude of the blazing yellow sun and, through trigonometry, determined their position. “We’ve drifted north of the equator,” he said, pleased.

  Caroline marked the spot on their charts. “As near as I can tell, we have traversed fourteen hundred miles—almost two thirds of the way across Africa.”

  “Indeed!” Fergusson perked up. “On foot it would have taken us a year to get this far, my friends . . . if we survived at all in such inhospitable terrain, eh?”

  Caroline pointed out what the two men had not yet mentioned. “By drifting northward, we are heading across the widest part of the African continent. That will increase our time of travel.”

  “We can still make it in five weeks, my friends.”

  Nemo double-checked the Victoria ’s inflation gauges. “I hope so, since our hydrogen won’t last much longer than that.”

  Caroline ran a finger across the blank, unexplored section of map just waiting for her notations and observations. The balloon passed over rolling hills and then river lowlands as Nemo worked the recondenser, raising or lowering them to find an optimal stream of wind. Finally they came upon a second huge lake surrounded by swampland and villages of huts built upon stilts.

  Fergusson studied his map, comparing it with what he saw while Nemo took another set of positional measurements. The explorer’s heavy eyebrows shot upward, and he grinned so broadly that his bushy mustache looked as if it might fall off. “That is Lake Tchad! We’ve gone farther than I anticipated.”

  “We’ve also gone farther north than we should have,” Caroline said.

  But Fergusson would not be disappointed. He had already filled two journal volumes describing the landscape and recording the zoological specimens he shot. He’d also kept a careful log of how the wildlife varied with the terrain. Watching his diligence, Nemo recalled how Captain Grant had studied the various fishes and sea creatures they encountered on their ill-fated journey, also keeping detailed scientific records . . . now lost to the world.

  Fergusson fiddled with the recondenser controls to drop the balloon far enough to study the marshes and shoreline of enormous Lake Tchad. Nemo quickly intervened and operated the device himself. He knew they had to conserve their hydrogen gas to keep the balloon aloft for the remainder of the journey across the widest part of the continent.

  They drifted low over swamps with reeds growing out of the water like porcupine quills. Natives in long canoes paddled about the shallows, casting fish nets. Crocodile silhouettes slithered along, while storks and flamingos waded in the mud, probing for shellfish with their beaks.

  Caroline pointed out a group of large dark forms perched on gnarled mangroves bent over the lake marshes. “Are those birds? They are larger than any vultures I have heard of.”

  Fergusson snatched the spyglass out of Nemo’s hand. “Not just vultures, Madame—condors. Rare and magnificent birds, perhaps the largest in the world. We simply must have a specimen, eh?”

  He retrieved his sporting rifle and fired a shot at the clustered birds. One of the enormous condors dropped into the marsh with a splash of water and black feathers. The thunderous rifle blast startled the remaining birds, and they took wing with raucous, horrible cries. Each monstrous bird had a wingspan of fifteen feet, as big as the glider-kite Nemo had built on his island.

  Three crocodiles moved in to feast on the feathered carcass floating in the swamp. The other giant birds moved together like sharks of the air. Their naked heads were covered with skin that looked like sunburned flesh around black eyes, and a horny plate rose rudderlike from each horned beak. The condors headed toward the Victoria, as if they saw it as prey.

  “Now they are coming for us, Doctor,” Caroline said, frowning at the explorer. “Why must you shoot everything?”

  Fergusson blinked his hazel eyes at her, as if he’d never considered there might be another way to document scientific discoveries. “Don’t worry, Madame. Condors are carrion birds. They’ll have no interest in us.”

  Then the gigantic creatures fell upon them.

  “Give me the other rifle, Doctor!” Nemo said. “We’ll both have to shoot now.”

  His first shot nicked the closest bird, severing a clump of feathers from its outstretched wing. Fergusson, with better aim and greater practice, felled another creature.

  Caroline searched in the basket and came up with a boat hook they used to snag branches. She jabbed at one of the condors and struck its outstretched claws. The carrion bird flew away, only to circle around and come back.

  The other condors rose higher to attack the Victoria from above. With razor talons they slashed at the balloon, ripping huge wounds in the colorful silk outer skin. The balloon began to leak gas, and dropped toward the swamp.

  Nemo’s second gunshot hit one of the condors. Then he turned desperately to the controls of the recondenser cylinder. He had to withdraw the hydrogen into the intact inner balloon before it all leaked out. “Caroline, help me! Get rid of all the ballast you can.” He threw out the remaining sandbags, which briefly counteracted their descent.

  Fergusson reloaded his rifle. “We’ll be lost if they tear the inner balloon as well, eh?” He shot again, and another giant bird fell from the sky.

  Caroline began tossing out everything she could find: spare clothing, cooking utensils, pots, empty containers . . . then full ones. With a satisfied expression, she jettisoned the heavy elephant tusks into the sky. Nemo decided they could do with only one of the two grappling-hooks, so he sawed at the cable and threw the heavy anchor overboard.

  The Victoria re
mained aloft, but now the colorful outer skin flapped like flesh sloughing from a leper’s back. Fergusson shot again and again, with Caroline frantically helping to reload, until only two of the condors remained. Still, the sinking balloon careened toward Lake Tchad. If the balloon crashed, they would all be trapped in the middle of unexplored Africa.

  In desperation, Caroline picked up their largest water tank. She hesitated, knowing how much they needed the supplies, but judging by the rate at which they dropped, they would never make it across the vast lake . . . unless they could increase their buoyancy. Nemo looked at her, struck by how beautiful Caroline appeared even in extreme distress. He nodded sharply to her, and she threw out the water tank.

  Nemo studied what remained of the wounded Victoria. He felt guilty that his ambitious dreams had tempted Caroline into this disastrous trip—though he would not have traded the past weeks with her for any treasure in the world.

  Finally, with a grim sense of determination, Nemo knew what he must do: the only chance for the balloon to continue, the only way to keep Caroline safe. Down there, he could survive on his own resources, for as long as it took—he had done it before on the mysterious island. But he didn’t dare tell her what he meant to do.

  “Goodbye, Caroline.” Unable to resist, he kissed her soft lips, startling her. The look in her eyes made his heart ache so that he almost lost his resolve . . . but if he did, he knew they would all die.

  She moved forward to kiss him again, but Nemo slipped away to grasp the edge of the basket. Moving before his anguish and regret caught up with him, he stared at the approaching waters of Lake Tchad and the swamps that extended to the horizon.

  Now Caroline saw what he meant to do. “André!”

  She reached for him, but he did not allow himself to be swayed. He took one last glimpse of her beautiful, heart-shaped face . . . and then decreased the weight of the balloon by one hundred forty pounds—his own weight.

  Nemo dropped through the air and into the water with a huge splash. Coughing but treading water in the murky shallows, he looked up in time to see Fergusson fire a final shot. The remaining two condors flew away, back toward their nesting trees.