Nemo Rising

by C. Courtney Joyner

Then, as if hearing a familiar voice, Nemo moved to the painting. He separated the cloth from the frame at the edges, lifting the fabric as if it were a lace veil.

  He always saw the eyes first, as if the rest of the face wasn’t even there. Their perfect blue, with the specks of green around the iris, had been captured better than any dull photograph. They were dancingly alive, and exactly as Nemo remembered them on their wedding day.

  * * *

  The painting fit exactly into the raised corners of the alcove above the desk in Nemo’s quarters.

  Hidden lights bathed it in white from the sides and below. Nemo took a step back from the image of his wife and toddling son in their linen blouses. He sat on the edge of his bed, his family smiling at him from the very desk where he’d designed his submarine.

  He choked back his feelings, swallowing an old scream.

  Nemo’s hand went to a wall-dial, rotating it once, shifting the color of the cabin lights from white to red, the cocoa-skinned faces of his wife and son fading with the color change. Numbered diagrams appeared across their portrait, like emerging tattoos.

  Still turning, the red lights became a deeper crimson. The family was now a large, multi-coded blueprint of the Nautilus’ inner workings. The secret plans for the heart of the ship.

  17

  WATERFRONT

  Sara was looking for the legless man.

  A cold, Atlantic gust picked up her cape, allowing her a shoulder glance for the man in the small-wheeled cart. He’d been following as she went from tavern to tavern, tacking up notices for a “submersible ship” crew.

  Propelling himself with wooden blocks in each hand, he pushed forward along the pier, his frock’s coattail dragging. Sara had caught only glimpses: tangled hair over a face, legless torso bent forward, long arms in motion as if he were swimming.

  He moved quickly, keeping tight to the shadows, then into a bit of light as Sara fast-stepped to The Cat’s Skull, left crew notices, then waited in the doorway. Looking. She couldn’t see him; just knew he was there.

  “Hello? Can you say something? Tell me your name?”

  No response. She started for Buzzard’s Seat, and heard the blocks against the pier again, the squeak of the wheels. Buzzard’s was the worst of the waterfront holes, shattered windows planked over, slits of light escaping along with sounds of broken glass and laughing screams.

  She tossed a handful of leaflets into the air, hoping the wind would scatter them against this man, the white papers giving him up in the dark.

  The leaflets blew across the pier, to nothing.

  The man in the cart had wheeled through the alley on the other side of Buzzard’s, found a place by the barrels stacked opposite its front doors. He drew one of two knives from a leather-tuck sewn into his coat sleeve, ready to throw, eyeing Sara as she went inside.

  “Ye mariners all, as ye pass by! Come in and drink if you are dry. Come spend, me lads, your money brisk, and pop your nose in a jug of this!”

  Sara tore old crew notices off the tack board, replacing them with the call for the Nautilus, as Whalers in the corner, passing a brown jug, bellowed to the rafters. Two of the Whalers, huge men with Maori tattoos mapping their faces, sang, and fixed on Sara.

  “You got no idea what the hell you’re about,” an old Sailor said, leaning in close to Sara from behind, stinking of sausage and turned rum.

  His words stuck to her cheek as a warm fog. “Me second sight’s going, so I know you’re holding some kind of secret about that boat.”

  She inched away. “Just putting up the notice.”

  “But there ain’t nothing saying nothing about the voyage. What aren’t you tellin’?”

  “Come for the call, then, and see.”

  The rest of the crew in Buzzard’s were made of stained leather, salt-hard rope, and low wages. Seafarers around the tables, having their drink, imagining Sara stripped. Or, wanting her to move from the board, so the barkeep could read the notice out loud, for those who never learned their letters.

  She turned, meeting the sick yellow of the old Sailor’s face. He pressed himself closer, hand vise-gripped around her arm. “Smile, and take joy in their song. Call me Jess, and pretend me your lover or your brother, just don’t let go.”

  “And when I’m in my grave and dead, And all my sorrows are past and fled, Transform me then into a fish, And let me swim in a jug of this!”

  The chorus of Whalers howled, with the two still watching. One slipped a straight razor from a pocket, letting the blade fall open against his decorated fingers.

  Jess had Sara even tighter, “Start for them doors, and don’t give nothing off with your eyes.”

  She looked to the bar, thinking she could grab a whiskey bottle with her free hand, and smash his skull. But she couldn’t reach. Instead, Sara nodded, arm numbing, as Jess pushed her through the batwings, to the waterfront pier.

  The Whalers leapt from their table, smashing whiskey jugs, and charged for the still-swinging doors. One with the razor, the other, bringing a revolver from his belt.

  On the pier, Jess pulled Sara along as he ran, charging for a row of docked fishing boats. She twisted back, yanking down her arm and bringing up her knee, square between his legs. Sudden move to the sack, bolting him to the ground.

  “Sweet Jesus’ tears!”

  Sara could see a throwing knife in Jess’ shoulder, blood spraying around flat steel, as he rolled to his feet, then ran for the next pool of light from the pier lamps, showing up a net-maker’s shed. Jess scrambled onto its falling-in roof, slipped, climbed over.

  A Whaler stopped running, drew down the revolver, and fired, slugs sparking off a weather vane, missing Jess as he fell from the shed roof to a heap of rotting sail cloth. Just a dark shape now, tumbling away and gone, with a hoot of laughter.

  The Whalers chased after, one of them yelling, “Whiore hume!”

  “Maori. Means ‘coward,’ and I wholly agree,” the legless man said, rolling toward Sara from behind the stacked barrels. “Any man who would use a woman as a shield.”

  Sara stepped back. He braked himself with his hands, then stood, stretching his long legs out of the false bottom of the cart. “You should retract your awe, Miss Duncan. You’re working on the most advanced submersible ship ever imagined.”

  His hair came back from his young face with his hands as he said, “This cart’s nothing but a sideshow trick, put to better use.”

  He opened his filthy overcoat, displaying the silver star of the Secret Service pinned to a leather inset by his waist, holding more knives and a small caliber weapon. “I am J. T. Maston, agent assigned to keep you from danger. Not an easy task, with your wanderings and attitude.”

  Sara said, “What—who sent you? You’ve been scaring me to death all night!”

  Maston nodded toward the Whalers still chasing down the pier, “More than that lot?”

  She spit her words, “So you’re some kind of a damn Pinkerton?”

  “A higher measure than that, Miss.”

  “An agent, is that a spy? What does that mean?”

  Maston took a padlocked case from his rolling cart, handed it to Sara. “From your father. And the knife that released you from the rum-pot, from me. Quite a difficult throw, actually, to release, not to kill.”

  She struggled with the heavy case, cape billowing behind her. “Am I supposed to be impressed with all this bizarre circumstance? I don’t believe a word of it!”

  He rolled his shoulders, neck cracking, to stand at full height. “If you’re thinking of chucking that into the ocean, I wouldn’t. Neither your father, nor the mission would benefit. At least you know there’s a protective eye on you. That should provide some comfort.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  Maston kicked the cart off the edge of the pier, heard the splash, and said to Sara, “You’re to install that device on the Nautilus immediately. Your father’s composed a letter of instruction.”

  * * *

  Sharp steel prongs w
ere inches from Sara’s face the moment she opened the stable door. It was deep-shadowed and dark when Nemo yanked her inside, bringing the pitchfork to his shoulder, a hand quickly over her mouth.

  His look was fierce, but aimed toward the other side of the barn. Sara nodded, and the hand came down. She kept completely still; he angled the pitchfork and launched. It arched precisely, missing the ceiling by an inch before coming down in the hayloft, piercing its target.

  Jess’ scream was a scalded cat’s as he crashed to the floor, his flailing hands grabbing for the prongs protruding from his shoulder blades. Cobwebs, hay, and dust from the loft rained after him.

  “I knew a man who was good with a harpoon,” Nemo said. “A bad-tempered fool, but he had abilities.”

  He yanked the fork from Jess’ back, twisting for just enough pain, and said, “Explain yourself!”

  Jess sat up. “Trying for some sleep, which ain’t possible! I already been stabbed once! What the hell’s all this? You a cop, or a stable boy?”

  Nemo held the prongs at the Sailor. “I am the Captain of the Nautilus.”

  “Holdin’ that sticker, you’re lookin’ like the Poseidon on my belly.”

  He pointed to Sara, who lit a shielded candle. “Perfect! More pain from that girl! She said there was some crewin’, and got me cut tonight! Twice!”

  “And I was almost killed, thanks to this creature!” Sara said.

  Nemo pulled Jess up by the scruff. “Your chance to speak.”

  “A pair of humpers tried a robbery, and I took the young lady out of harm’s way.”

  “Put me in it, you mean!”

  “I imagine you’re both culpable.” Nemo regarded the Sailor. “Name your skills.”

  “Ship’s carpenter since I was a pup, and know my riggings like nobody’s business. Right? I need a doc, and strong drink.”

  “Step out that door, you’ll likely be skinned.” Nemo relaxed his grip. “And myself, shot. How many times have you been jailed?”

  Jess was doubled over, blood lacing his side from his sliced arm, the prong wounds spotting his back. “Jail, or prison? And what countries do you count?”

  “I’ve worn the chains myself. Sign on, your history on land is erased, but you’ll obey the laws of the Nautilus. Break them, and punishment will be severe.”

  “Oh, I been keel-hauled,” Jess said.

  “I have no doubt. How many times shot or stabbed?”

  “Shot three times, in Singapore mostly. I can’t count about stabbed, but got cut anew tonight, and now, that damn pitchfork! Second time with a pitchfork, actually.”

  “What do you call yourself?”

  He looked to Sara, then to Nemo. “Usually I go by Jess.”

  “The Nautilus is my creation, and the crew will be totally obedient to her needs. You prepared to accept these conditions? I need sailors, not dock rats.”

  “Paying off in gold?”

  “You will be rewarded,” Nemo said.

  “Call the tune, and I’ll be dancin’ to it.”

  Nemo was in the far stable, saying to Sara, “I approve this man. Sign him on, patch his injuries.”

  Jess said, “Hold up, where’s your ship at, this Nautilus?”

  Nemo cranked open the stable floor to the dock ramp. Jess backed onto a hay bale, pain-wincing, but hooting a laugh. “There’s your secret, girl! I knew somethin’ like a bad dream would come out of tonight!”

  * * *

  The mirrors behind the curved lens spun pinwheel-fast, while Jess’ voice blurted, scratchy and dim, from the small audio-horn: “I ain’t never been in no goddamned iron turtle a-fore!”

  Electricity glowed around the lens edges of the Phono-tele-Photo, a special communications device mounted on Duncan’s desk. He sat before it, adjusting the power of the currents and jotting notes as Sara’s face took shape on the mirrors from streaks and scrambles to a crisply defined image behind the lens.

  He spoke into the microphone-horn. “You’ve always followed instructions well, daughter.”

  Sara’s voice was clear in response: “We both know that’s not true.”

  Nemo, standing beside Sara on the bridge of the Nautilus, looked directly into the sister device, its small electrical charges dancing erratically on the spinning mirrors, making the image of Duncan it was receiving from the White House a moving jigsaw puzzle, battling to come together.

  Jess, on the stairs to the belowdecks, said, “Cap, I don’t know how much more I can take in! This turtle’s like somethin’ from the moon!”

  “Another world, indeed,” Nemo said, then leaned into the jittering Duncan on the screen. “This device, my prototype, given to Arronax’s secretary Conseil before my arrest. Mine!”

  Duncan’s image cleared, and he said, “Actually ours, after Monsieur Conseil’s heart failure. Your plans, modified with my technology, and installed by my daughter. This is a true collaboration, Captain.”

  “On a device to use against me, for espionage,” Nemo said. “Implanted on my ship, without my permission.”

  “Your mission demands constant communication. To that end, the Nautilus must sail by tomorrow morning.”

  “Or, we face our dual place on the gallows?”

  “Don’t think it can’t happen!” Grant’s voice was thunder through the speaker. “You’ve been given all you need, Captain! If you’re not underway by sunrise, your ship’ll be stormed, and you, taken!”

  “Orders are forthcoming. Congratulations on your design, Captain. It will change the world,” Duncan said, before the Phono-tele-Photo’s curved screen blackened.

  Nemo turned from his invention. “The voice of tyrants.”

  Jess said, “Somebody’s got a tit in the wringer! Apologies, miss.”

  “It’s how I’d describe it,” Sara said.

  Nemo looked at her. “I’m not fool enough to believe your father and Grant aren’t listening still. You have a lot to make up for, Miss Duncan.”

  * * *

  Grant was half in the office doorway as Nemo’s last words came over the device, the speaker inches from Duncan, transcribing every word: “You and the dock rat are to the rudder cables, then to the crewing.”

  Duncan took off his glasses, rubbed the sleep away, “You heard it from our electric ears: final preparations. Nemo’s a man of the sea, he’s got to return, and mission accomplished, as planned.”

  Grant said, “The mission’s gotten a hell of a lot tougher.”

  He looked out a corner window, frosted glass tilted, at cannons moved onto the White House driveway, shells stacked alongside, new troops riding in.

  “There never was a time when there wasn’t some way to prevent the drawing of the sword.”

  “I recall that speech.”

  “It’s surely haunting me now—blood’s been spilled not a hundred yards from here. And now, New York, the Bishop. These countries think we’re slaughtering their own, and I can’t blame them. If Nemo’s mission fails, the gates of hell are wide open.”

  Duncan said, “I know that, sir.”

  Grant asked, “Does your daughter?” then placed General Sigel’s damaged Union Army ring on the desk, beside the Phono.

  18

  INVADERS FROM ALL QUARTERS

  The etched letters of the Remington Arms Company circled Fulmer’s head like a crooked halo as he backed against a rifle case, thumbing a small roll of bills he’d just pulled from a denim front pocket.

  A whiskey-voice hollered, “No American Confederate trash! Don’t be tryin’ that again!”

  “It ain’t as if you don’t know where I am,” Fulmer said, finding some Federal notes. “I’m good, I’m in.”

  The crates of repeating rifles and cases of ammunition were eight high and five deep against the cargo hold’s rust-bucket walls, strapped and canvassed in, with narrow ways between them leading to the center of the hold, and the nightly poker game.

  Fulmer snaked the crate-maze to the barrelhead, and the three players seated around it. Their face
s, all pulped and scarred, were stories of sea voyages crewed, and battles continents away.

  Red, nicknamed for the blood permanently swimming across his eyes, made room for Fulmer, slapping the young man on the back as he dropped money into the sparse kitty, then perched on some boxed handguns.

  Red grinned. “From the young’un, all Union scrip.”

  He picked up the deck, and tried to shuffle with fingers that had been broken too many times, bending the cards. Fulmer took the deck, started to deal, peeling cards off around the barrel, the last landing in front of Tim, a toothless sot, shreds of an old front page slopping from his jacket.

  Tim checked his poker hand, smacking his black gums. “A few years ago, we’d a been a sittin’ duck for Nemo, and his underwater contraption, ain’t that right, boy? A ship full of weapons? And you, alongside him, making us a target? Right? Did you aim the guns?”

  Fulmer said, “The Nautilus didn’t use guns.”

  Red dropped two cards, drew two. “How long you goin’ to beat that horse?”

  Tim’s whiskey voice didn’t let up: “They say Nemo’s just hung in some Virginia shit-hole, is all. Must make our boy sleep easier, the man he turned over, finally gunnysacked.”

  Red said, “Pitched in as much as run your mouth, you’d be a damn sight better sailor.”

  “I just want to know what kind of man helps put his own captain in irons.” Tim took his draw from Fulmer, saying, “You sided with a pirate, then went coward.”

  Fulmer fanned his cards, kept his voice level. “My reasons are my own, just like I kept my own for shooting any son of a bitch who approached when I was riding for the Pony Express. Why don’t we bust open one of these cases, see if I’ve lost my aim.”

  “Been at the rum since breakfast, makes friends into enemies.” Red threw down an ace-high straight. “But also, back again, so let’s all have a little pull, and play right, since I’ve drawn the winnin’ hand.”

  Tim swept the cards aside. “No point, because this Fulmer can’t be trusted by nobody,” then laid a curved Arab blade, with ivory handle, on the barrel.

  “I’m callin’ you a milkin’ bitch of a coward, boy.”