Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The caliph brushed the comment aside. “Your assumption is false, Engineer. Not every creation is driven by war—as you will see, once I rule the world. An enlightened leader can foster many wonders for the human race.”

  He gestured toward the gigantic Columbiad. “No, this cannon is not a weapon of war, but a device for scientific pursuits.” He smiled again. “With it, I will fire not an explosive artillery shell. . . . I intend to launch men to the Moon.”

  “I’d not want to ride in such a ship,” Cyrus Harding observed. Nemo refrained from comment, his brow furrowed as he considered the parabolic trajectory. Offhand, he did not know the velocity required for such a shot to escape the Earth’s gravity and reach outer space.

  “Everything is prepared,” Robur said, “and today we test the Columbiad. That is what you must see.” He swiveled to take in the group of captives. His flushed face held a passion that infused his words with a plea for understanding. “You, my technical experts, must understand what I can accomplish, what you can be a part of . . . even if the sultan himself does not yet grasp the concept.”

  Busy people moved in the outbuildings around the facility, making preparations for the exhibition. Nemo felt a sudden dread that the caliph would ask for a volunteer from among the prisoners, a test subject to ride in this fanciful projectile to the Moon . . . and if so, he planned to fight. Robur led them to the cliffside, his movements electric with enthusiasm. He remained on his horse and gestured for the others to enter a doorway and descend carved stone steps into chambers excavated from solid rock. After Nemo and the others had entered the complex, Robur dismounted, giving the stallion to one of his white-clad guards, then he followed.

  The stone-walled chambers held workers, supplies, and materials to fulfill the technical requirements of the purported moonshot. The base of the immense cannon nestled in an iron cradle mounted into the living rock.

  Dominating the echoing room stood a conical projectile that resembled an armored pavilion. Climbing ladders to reach the capsule’s hatch, slaves loaded crates of supplies, cages of chickens, cushioned chairs, and even a goat through the opening. Pudgy, well-dressed men in flowing robes inspected the operations from ground level, looking very important. The men turned toward the newcomers, then bowed deeply when Robur entered.

  “We are completing the final preparations, Caliph,” one of the men said, tapping his knuckles together with a clink of jeweled rings.

  “We are most gratified that you have given us this opportunity to prove the correctness of our calculations,” another said in a watery voice, more terrified than eager.

  “I would have it no other way.” Robur’s voice had a warning edge.

  By now, Nemo understood enough Turkish to deduce that these men must be court astronomers and perhaps an ambassador of the great sultan who ruled the Ottoman Empire. Caliph Robur had chosen them as his representatives to the Moon. Nemo considered them all fools.

  Robur stroked his pointed beard and straightened his turban. He continued to watch the preparations, explaining nothing to the captives. Judging by the glint in his eyes, he wanted the prisoners to figure everything out for themselves.

  Cyrus Harding spoke up. “Do you intend to send these men on a journey into space? They’re going to be launched in that capsule?”

  “I have chosen them as emissaries—in the sultan’s name, of course. They will take everything they need, including fresh food and water, supplies, even baubles for any Moon men they encounter. I intend to open the lunar world for trade with the Ottoman Empire. When he learns of our success, the sultan will be most pleased.”

  Nemo narrowed his eyes. So, the sultan did not know everything Robur intended. Several of the astronomers trembled with poorly disguised fear at the prospect. Though he resented the warlord, Nemo had to admire the grandeur of the man’s dreams and the lengths to which he would go to achieve them.

  “How long do you expect the flight to take, Caliph?” Nemo asked. “And how will the men return to Earth after they succeed in reaching the Moon?”

  His expression stony, Robur clenched his jaw. “Those questions remain to be answered.”

  As he watched the slaves loading the supplies, Nemo remembered the bustle of preparation before the Coralie had sailed from Nantes. This journey would be far different from a simple sea voyage.

  Conseil’s round, blinking eyes displayed his astonishment. “No one has ever been to space. No one knows if the Earth’s atmosphere extends to the Moon . . . or what strange air the Moon men might breathe.”

  “Nevertheless, our astronomers have no choice but to risk the journey,” Robur said. “I have ordered them to do this for the glory of their omnipotent sultan.”

  When the slaves finished loading the crates and animals and jugs of water, the astronomers climbed up and poked their heads into the capsule opening, one by one. Whispering among themselves, they finally agreed, then stepped back down, gesturing with ringed fingers and flowing robes. Robur climbed the ladder and peered inside the crowded shell. Satisfied, he climbed back down and bowed to his astronomers and ambassador.

  Servants bustled in and laid out colorful rugs for the astronomers. Each man knelt and prayed vigorously. Then they stepped off their rugs, rolled them, and tucked them under their arms before climbing into the capsule. Robur saluted them, and the men waved back before another slave sealed the hatch from the outside.

  Using a system of gears and pulleys, massively muscled slaves loaded the heavy artillery shell into the enormous breech of the Columbiad. With a clang, the endcap slammed shut and locked.

  At a signal from the caliph, the guards commanded everyone to evacuate the complex. Though the workers had little understanding of the experiment, they did not need to be told twice, having seen the huge amounts of black powder poured into the explosive chamber.

  Robur took one last look at his magnificent cannon, then gestured to the stone stairs that led out of the caves. His eyes glistened with a fire of anticipation. The prisoners followed him to the plateau, from which they could watch the Columbiad fire its shot.

  Nemo had seen much smaller cannons fired aboard ship, and from his engineering studies he knew all about dynamics and inertia. He did not envy the volunteer astronomers who sat inside the capsule. In fact, he wanted to be far from the mountain when the mammoth gun blasted its projectile to the skies.

  “Don’t know about you, but I’d watch out for the recoil,” Cyrus Harding said.

  After the prisoners emerged into the bright sun, they hurried along the cliffside paths. One of the slaves was commanded at swordpoint to return to the cave and light the cannon’s long fuse.

  Back on his stallion again, Robur galloped to a clear area on an elbow of land that had been designated as an observation point. The guards herded their European captives over to stand beside the caliph. “My best engineers made their calculations, and my best metallurgists completed this construction,” the caliph said, staring at the gun that protruded from the cliff. “I have every confidence that they did their jobs correctly.”

  The giant gun remained silent in the sunshine, its muzzle pointed upward. Seconds passed, and the waiting became an agony.

  The hapless slave came running out of the cave complex, his face filled with terror after lighting the fuse. His legs pumped as he dashed along the path; he tripped and sprawled on his face, but managed to gain his feet within an instant.

  With a thunderous roar and a belch of smoke like an iron dragon vomiting fire, the Columbiad spoke.

  An explosive clap hammered the observers like a physical force. Poor Conseil fell backward, and Nemo reeled on his feet. Caliph Robur’s horse reared in panic, but the turbaned warlord gripped the reins and viciously brought his stallion back under control without once taking his eyes from the spectacle. The projectile leaped from the muzzle of the 900-foot-long cannon, soaring into the sky with the speed of a bullet. Nemo couldn’t even imagine the horrendous forces that must be slamming the passengers agains
t the rear of the capsule. Within seconds, the artillery shell dwindled to a dot, arcing high into the Mediterranean sky, far beyond the stretch of the Aegean Sea and out of sight. . . .

  Then, an unexpected avalanche occurred at the breech end of the cannon. The Columbiad ’s recoil proved so terrific that the gigantic artillery weapon hammered back into the mountainside and broke free a chunk of the cliff.

  Huge slabs of rock sloughed off in a spray of powder and stone dust, then fell down the sheer precipice into the deep blue waters below.

  Fire burned from the rear of the cannon and slowly, slowly the muzzle broke from its iron strut-supports, groaning and drooping.

  Caliph Robur stared, his expression grim. The other captives, who had been amazed at the triumphant shot, now groaned as the Columbiad broke free of its mounts. With inexorable grace, the huge gun dropped away from the cliff with an excruciating shriek of torn metal and falling boulders.

  Nemo watched with hidden satisfaction as the rest of the tumbling cliffside accompanied the cannon in its plunge. Once it struck the water, the enormous black gun barrel took several seconds to become completely submerged. It sank without a trace into the churning froth.

  After a long moment, Caliph Robur turned to his European experts, who stared in disbelief at the disaster. His voice was cold. “As you can see, I needed better engineers.”

  IX

  When the group returned to Rurapente the following day, Caliph Robur summoned them to the center of the compound. The sun crackled through the air, making them all restless and uncomfortable. The independent warlord had brooded throughout the tedious journey across the plains and back down to his secret industrial city.

  During their absence, the miners and smelters had continued to produce raw materials and metals. Slaves and indentured workers awaited the orders of their master. Everything was prepared . . . but the engineers still didn’t know why they had been brought here.

  Robur stood on a platform, ready to give instructions to his engineers. “You have seen a demonstration of my ambitions. The sultan rules the Ottoman Empire, and the caliphs are his military advisors. Others whisper conservatism and cowardice in his ear, but only I have the vision, and so I must act on my own, to prove I am right. I intend to provide the sultan with everything he needs—including weapons and my own wisdom as his primary advisor.”

  He drew a deep breath. “You men were brought here for one purpose. In Egypt, Pasha Mohammad Said has given his permission for the construction of a massive canal across the Suez Isthmus. When completed, this waterway will bring a flood of European trade through the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. If unchecked, this Suez Canal will mean the destruction not only of the Ottoman Empire, but of Egypt as well.

  “I, however, intend for my Turkish people to use this to our advantage,” Robur said, his voice rising. “Just as we control the bottleneck of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, we must also maintain an iron grip on the Suez. For that, I require an unprecedented weapon. A vessel that can raid and hold for ransom any ship that passes through this canal.”

  The emerald in his turban gleamed in the sunlight like an evil green eye. He looked at the Europeans, then squarely met Nemo’s eyes. “You men will invent, construct, and test a powerful warship—but not just any warship. I must have one that can travel unseen under the water, like an armored fish, so that I can strike at all who defy our tolls.”

  “Ach! An underwater boat?” Liedenbrock said. “This is impossible.”

  “Your word impossible does not translate into my language,” Robur said.

  Cyrus Harding maintained his silence, but his brow furrowed as if his mind were already imagining solutions to the problem the Caliph had posed.

  Nemo remembered the drawings Captain Grant had shown him of the prototype sub-marine boat that Robert Fulton had designed and built for Napoleon Bonaparte. That idea had always intrigued him. “We can do it,” he said in a low voice, already calculating how he could turn this task against the caliph.

  Robur made an instant decision. “You, Engineer—I place you in charge of the project.” Nemo couldn’t tell if the caliph had planned this assignment all along, or simply rewarded the young man for his quiet confidence.

  “You shall have all the resources you need. Any calculations you desire, any raw material, any assistant. We expect you to work and to cooperate. Once my underwater boat is functional, you will all be given the greatest riches you desire. Perhaps you will even be allowed to go home.”

  The captives grumbled, still uncomfortable to be assisting a man who—though ostensibly an ally to their European countries—had already proven his complete disregard for the rights and freedom of so many people. The caliph could well become a tyrant . . . especially given such a weapon.

  But this was not the moment to challenge him. Nemo would bide his time.

  “The Suez Canal will take many years to complete,” Robur continued. “You must succeed in your task before that time.” He turned to descend the raised platform, but stopped and spoke again as if in an afterthought, stroking his beard. “If you fail me, or if I sense your work is progressing too slowly, I will execute you— all of you —and find myself another group of engineers.”

  Then, leaving them stunned, he mounted his stallion and rode off down the streets of Rurapente to his ornate pavilion.

  PART VIII

  M ASTER

  OF THE WORLD

  I

  Amiens, France, 1857

  By the age of twenty-nine, Jules Verne had resigned himself, and so he finally married. Someone other than Caroline Aronnax.

  While spending two weeks in Amiens for a friend’s wedding, he met a sturdy woman named Honorine Morel, a widow whose husband had died of consumption a year earlier. She was pretty enough in a plain sort of way, though encumbered with two young daughters, Valentine and Suzanne.

  Drowning in the celebratory atmosphere of the friend’s wedding, swept along with the joy and love and well-wishes, Verne convinced himself that he could make a life with the widow Morel. While she wasn’t Caroline, he had decided to be pragmatic. Thanks to the inheritance from her first husband, Honorine had a solid dowry, and Verne was weary of being a bachelor.

  Having few other prospects, he decided to give as much of his heart to her as he could spare. So long as she allowed him to continue writing his stories, even if in secret. . . .

  Years earlier, Verne had joined a bachelors’ club, les Onze Sans Femmes, sanguine young men who had declared their total independence from female company. Together, they shored up each others’ beliefs, convinced each other of their continued bliss without the encumbrances of a spouse and children. But recently many of his “bachelor society” friends had finished university, settled down in marriage despite their earlier smug protestations of disinterest in feminine company, and started their own lives. Some seemed quite happy with their new situation—and Verne felt restless again.

  Gloomy and impatient, he convinced himself that Caroline would never accept the obvious. Although Captain Hatteras could have been legally declared lost at sea years before, she vowed not to make any such decision until Nemo returned from the Crimean War. But their friend’s last letter had been dated a year before the peace treaty, and they had heard nothing from him since. . . .

  Verne had a decent job at the Bourse, the Paris stock exchange. Once married, he would settle into a normal existence, without adventures and without anxiety. Over the years, much to Pierre Verne’s satisfaction, his redheaded son had grown more serious toward life. Though he continued to write plays that were never produced and scientific articles that never got published, Jules Verne no longer talked about becoming a famous writer like Dumas or Hugo. He kept those dreams to himself, but they did not vanish entirely.

  For his wedding, Verne managed little more than a meager ceremony and a sparse dinner for the dozen attendees, including his parents. Honorine’s lacy wedding gown emphasized her broad shoulders, her wide hips, and the dark brow
n hair that curled against her skull. Stoic and placid, she had pale eyes and a wide mouth that rarely showed any expression: not a scowl or pout or smile of joy. Still, she had a steady keel, and Verne welcomed the stability she would bring to his life. Though not particularly exciting, at least Honorine was quiet. And he could still work on his stories to his heart’s content.

  Verne lived in a small flat a few minutes’ walk from the Bourse. He’d found the place comfortable enough as a bachelor, but it was unsuitable for a man, a wife, and two young girls. He was married now, with new responsibilities. Valentine and Suzanne were shipped off to spend several months with the parents of Honorine’s first husband, while Verne and his new bride settled in.

  Though she was a devoted wife who did everything society required of her, Honorine spent little time in conversation with her husband. She showed no interest in Verne’s stories and did not share his creative needs. But Verne didn’t mind. After all, what wife did know about her husband’s interests and activities?

  Instead, Honorine supported him in her gentle, sturdy way. Verne rose at five o’clock every morning and retreated to a small room where he closed the door and spent hours reading newspapers and magazines, scribbling notes, and writing drafts of manuscripts.

  Honorine brought him freshly brewed coffee or tea and a small breakfast.

  Most importantly, she left him in peace. He appreciated it and asked nothing more of her. When her two daughters stayed with them, making the place oppressive and crowded, Honorine did her best to keep them silent until ten o’clock came around and Verne emerged from his writing study to dress. He would then leave for an early lunch and spend the remainder of the day in the stock exchange.

  Although Verne was not happy, he could not ask for more. His wife did not intrude on the time he spent in his writing room. He read scientific journals voraciously, clipping articles for his folders—though he spent far more time in research than in actually putting words on paper.