by Adam Roberts
‘I’ll have a look through the periscope,’ Boucher announced. ‘Somebody go down to the observation room – open the shutters and see what you can see.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Billiard-Fanon. He stomped, scowling, down the corridor.
Boucher clambered up into the con. They heard the miniature whir of a servo, as the periscope deployed and began to rotate. ‘It’s dark,’ he called, a little superfluously. ‘But de Chante has a light on his helmet, doesn’t he? I should at least be able to see that.’
They waited.
‘He must be beneath the vessel. Le Petomain,’ Boucher called down through the open hatch, shortly. ‘There’s nothing up here – I ask you to roll the ship a little, and also to pitch her back and forth, so I can see more.
‘The vanes are stuck, Lieutenant,’ the pilot replied. ‘I can pitch by shifting air in the ballast tanks, but the manoeuvres will be a little stiff; and rolling the vessel is beyond me.’
‘Let’s start by pitching forward a little.’
Slowly, the Plongeur’s whale-shaped nose dipped forward in the water; and the men in the observation chamber braced themselves. The walls of the vessel groaned mildly. The floors slanted forward once more.
For a moment there was nothing. Then, abruptly, there was a clatter from below, and Billiard-Fanon clambered up the hill and into the bridge. His big face was sweating.
‘Light!’ he cried. ‘Below us – light!’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t see to begin with,’ said the ensign, gruffly. ‘It’s not visible when the ship is lying flat. I opened the shutters, turned the lights off and smoked a cigarette. Nothing to see. But then – the vessel pitched forward, and …’
‘You saw de Chante’s light?’
‘What?’ Puzzlement gave Billiard-Fanon’s long, jowly face an idiot look.
‘De Chante,’ said Castor. ‘You saw his helmet light?’
‘There’s no sign of him. I’m talking about the light! God has not abandoned us! Come and see!’
Billiard-Fanon led Lebret, Jhutti, Ghatwala and Castor down into the observation chamber. The angle of the corridor meant that they had to pick their way with some care.
‘There!’ said Billiard-Fanon, triumphantly.
At first – nothing. But then, slowly, unmistakeably, a mauve-blue gleam was nebulously but unmistakeably visible at the bottom of the viewing portal.
‘Light,’ breathed Billiard-Fanon.
‘We can all see that, I presume,’ said Lebret. ‘Yes? That rules out the notion of hallucination. There is something shining down there.’
‘But what?’ asked Castor.
The light possessed some strange aspect – a deathly, or more precisely a life-in-deathly quality to the hue. A chill blue. An antithetical blue – purple-black and uneasy.
‘We must inform the captain,’ said Billiard-Fanon.
‘Yes,’ said Lebret. ‘I think we must. When he sees this, he will understand – understand that we must go further down and investigate!’
Boucher tapped gingerly at the door of Cloche’s cabin and went inside. Four minutes later he re-emerged. The captain followed him. The old man had not, by the look of him, been sleeping. Indeed, his beard appeared even more massy and spread-out than before – almost as wide as his broad chest, covering three of the four brass buttons on his jacket, as thick as a beaver’s tail. Cloche had fixed it to his shirt with a tie-pin – of all things. Cloche’s eyes were fixed, stern, the signals of a set and implacable will. ‘My lieutenant says there is a light in the water.’
‘Indeed, Captain!’
‘Messieurs,’ he said. ‘I am also told that we have lost de Chante – lost at sea. Is it so?’
‘It appears so, Captain.’
‘A brave sailor,’ Cloche growled. He seemed to have forgotten that only hours earlier he had called the fellow a coward. Nor did he seem unduly distressed by the loss of one of his crew. ‘Did he fix the vanes first?’
‘No, Captain.’
Cloche tutted. ‘A malfunction with his apparatus,’ he said. ‘Clumsiness? An accident? Or perhaps there truly are dangerous currents in this sea. It is a great shame. And what of this light you say is below us?’
‘It is, I think, distant. Blue-white.’
‘Well! Well! Show me!’
Boucher led Cloche down to the observation chamber, with a half dozen others following behind. The captain peered through the broad porthole at the weird, vague illumination. ‘Very pretty,’ he announced. ‘And?’
Nobody said anything for several long seconds.
‘Perhaps we ought to investigate, Captain,’ said Jhutti, eventually.
‘Just so,’ agreed Lebret. ‘We must descend further, and see what is causing this light.’
‘No,’ said the captain, without hesitation. He pointed a finger at Boucher. ‘I gave orders that we were to ascend. Why have we not done so?’
‘The forward vanes remain to be fixed,’ said the lieutenant, in a tremulous voice.
‘If they cannot be fixed, then we must ascend without their help. Fill the ballast tanks fully with air. Angle the propellers. The ascent might not be as smooth as we would like, but ascent is the order.’
At these words, Lebret laid a hand on the captain’s arm. Cloche glowered at him, and he removed the hand. Lebret smiled with his usual supercilious insouciance.
‘Surely, Captain,’ he drawled. ‘Surely we could spare a few hours – to descend a little deeper through this strange medium, and discover the cause of this light? Science would honour you as its discoverer …’
‘I am not interested in the accolades of Science,’ replied the captain, abruptly. ‘Science can conduct its own investigations. I am interested only in returning my command to port.’
‘But to have come so far – to within touching distance of a mystery hitherto unsuspected by …’
‘When we have returned to the surface,’ interrupted the captain, forcefully, ‘I shall submit a full report. I have no doubt that the French Academy of Science will sponsor a – properly equipped – scientific expedition. It will surely be a simple matter to retrace our steps. But this – Monsieur Lebret – this – messieurs all – is not our business.’
He took hold of his magnificent, immense beard with two hands, and gave it a mighty tug – as if, by this emphatic physical gesture to forestall any and all disagreement.
Lebret, though, persisted. ‘No, Captain, I must register my disagreement. After everything we have been through – to miss this opportunity? It would be like a nineteenth-century explorer travelling through immense hardship to within two hundred yards of the North Pole and then giving up and going home.’
Cloche turned his steel eye towards Lebret. ‘You must register your disagreement, must you Monsieur?’ he said, in a level, voice. ‘Consider it registered. Consider it simultaneously disregarded. We return – as soon as the vanes are fixed.’
‘Monsieur Captain …’
‘No, Monsieur! No! The Plongeur suffered triple malfunctions simultaneously … either through sabotage, or perhaps through some design flaw. It is not safe, not a safe vessel to embark upon further exploration. We must return to port, sir. I order it.’
Lebret persisted. ‘What if the light and de Chante’s disappearance are connected? What if he is down there? Ought we not at least to investigate?’
‘Monsieur,’ said the captain, addressing himself to Lebret. ‘Speak again, so as to contradict my order, and I shall confine you to your cabin. Monsieur de Chante is dead. He is a hero of France, and shall be honoured – when we return to port.’
The scientist in Ghatwala spoke up for Lebret’s suggestion. ‘One hour, Captain!’ he pleaded. ‘Delay the ascent by one hour – to give us time at least to observe this phenomenon!’
‘And to give de Chante a little more time to return to the airlock,’ put in Boucher. ‘If he is able.’
Cloche glared at them, one after the other. ‘I sniff insubordination,’ he
said, in a steady voice.
‘No sir!’ Boucher yelped. ‘We follow your orders, sir! It is only a question of whether we do so immediately, or whether you can permit us one hour to prepare for …’
‘Half an hour,’ said Cloche, thunderously. ‘That is all!’
10
AN INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN CLOCHE
The captain returned to his cabin. The Indian scientists retrieved such scientific instrumentation as they had in their cabins, and returned to the observation chamber. Le Petomain was in the pilot’s seat and Boucher in the captain’s chair. With de Chante gone, and Avocat and Pannier locked into their cabins, the boat felt deserted.
Lebret lit another cigarette and loitered for a while in the bridge. According to the depth gauge, augmented by the notches in the panel, the submarine had sunk to something approaching 100,000 kilometres (it was hard to be precise). ‘A remarkable depth!’ he murmured.
Le Petomain ignored him.
Behind the hum of the functioning submarine – the whirr of the propellers, the hum of the electrics – a distant moaning noise could just about be heard. It rose and fell.
‘Do you believe, Lieutenant,’ Lebret asked, offhandedly, ‘that we will be able simply to retrace our steps and return home? Even if we could locate whichever portal granted us entrance in all this vast quantity of alien water – and even supposing it permitted us to go back through – then the sudden pressure differential would surely tear us to shreds …’
‘Monsieur,’ Boucher interrupted him. ‘Please do not continue speaking. You cannot persuade me to listen to you. The captain has given his orders, and I intend to follow them.’
‘Commendable loyalty,’ said Lebret. ‘I’m sure.’ His tone of voice was not wholly respectful.
The background moaning noise rose in intensity, and Lebret suddenly realised what was causing it. It was Pannier, locked in his cabin, crying aloud his complaints. ‘Be quiet!’ bellowed Boucher.
The moaning ceased. But shortly the cook began banging at the inside of his door.
‘What does that old soak want?’ growled Le Petomain.
‘I’ll try to quieten him down,’ said Lebret.
He made his way along into the corridor behind the Bridge to Pannier’s door. Pannier presumably heard somebody moving outside his cabin, for he redoubled the force of his hammering. There Lebret stood, waiting for a pause in the noise. Eventually he called out, ‘Monsieur, please cease this clamour! It will do you no good.’
‘Let me out.’ Pannier’s voice sounded muffled, by the door, or by drink, or by both.
‘No, Monsieur,’ said Lebret.
‘Is it you, Monsieur Observer? Monsieur Vichy? I can’t expect comradeship from you, I suppose! Well, if you won’t let me out, at least fetch me a bottle from the kitchen. One bottle!’
‘I don’t think so, Monsieur.’
‘Come! You can’t stand on your honour to refuse me – you have none.’ The words were slightly slurred. ‘We’re all going to die – you can’t expect a man to face that fate sober? I’ll strike a deal with you, Monsieur Vichy – fetch me a bottle and I’ll stop banging and shouting. But leave me here to sober up and by the sacred colour blue I’ll bash this door off its hinges! I swear it.’
‘Monsieur,’ Lebret began, wearily. There was motion behind him, and he looked away from Pannier’s door to see Captain Cloche approaching.
‘Pannier,’ boomed the captain. ‘Be quiet! You are in enough trouble already – silence your mutinous racket. I am giving you a direct order.’
Without waiting for a reply he turned and moved ponderously back up the sloping corridor. Lebret danced after him.
‘Captain!’ he called. ‘Captain – might I have a word?’
Cloche’s broad back disappeared into the captain’s cabin; but he did not close the door behind him, and Lebret – tentatively – followed him inside.
The captain’s cabin was a sparely furnished, blue room. The captain sat himself heavily on the edge of his bunk, and looked up at Lebret. ‘Yes, Monsieur?’ he said. The inner lining of his eyes was red; the eyes themselves exhausted, lunar, distant.
Bang! Bang! Bang! came with clattering regularity from Pannier’s room.
‘You look tired, Captain,’ Lebret said, a little stab of compassion starting up in his breast.
Cloche said nothing at first; but then he sighed. ‘You have not come here to discuss whether I am tired or not, Monsieur.’
‘No, Captain’ Lebret agreed. ‘I have not.’
‘I believe you have come to try and persuade me to take the Plongeur further down, to sink us deeper into these strange waters, so as to investigate this faint light.’
‘That is exactly why I am here, Captain,’ Lebret agreed. He tried a smile.
‘I won’t do it,’ said Cloche, simply. ‘That’s all.’
Lebret took a breath, and began to say, ‘An opportunity for scientific discovery of quite literally unprecedented …’ But his heart was not in it, and his sentence petered out.
‘We have never served together before, Monsieur, you and I,’ said Cloche, with a certain smugness. ‘But I think you understand me well enough to know that I am not a man to go back on a decision, once I have made it.’
‘No,’ said Lebret, mournfully. ‘Of course, you understand that the journey back might kill us all!’
‘It might,’ conceded the captain. ‘De Chante is dead already. Better, then, to die attempting to get home, rather than to throw our lives away chasing some blue-light chimera. Let us at least be men. Warriors of France. Not kittens distracted by … by a spot of sunlight on, ah!, on the floor reflected by … eh, by a shaving mirror.’ He looked pleased with himself, in a severe sort of way, with this metaphor.
Outside, Pannier’s banging had fallen into a regular rhythm. The captain shook his head. ‘I may have to shoot that drunkard,’ he growled.
It was evident to Lebret that there was no changing the captain’s mind. He dressed his face in a smile – an unconvincing expression, even for him. ‘Good-day Captain,’ he said. He turned to leave the cabin, but instead of stepping out into the corridor he shut the captain’s door.
‘Monsieur?’ said Cloche. ‘There is more you wish to say? Rest assured, you will not change my mind.’
‘The blue light, Captain. What if it is the sky?’
Cloche looked dully at him. ‘What?’
‘I am serious. The blue colour of the sky! What if, by ordering the Plongeur to ascend, you were actually taking us away from the surface?’
Suddenly the captain laughed – one, two, three bark-like noises. ‘This is your latest surreal theory, Monsieur? First you claimed we had all died and gone to a watery heaven. Then you said we had entered an infinite sea! Now you are saying that all that has happened is that we have flopped upside down?’ Ha! Ha! Cloche’s laugh was a peculiar thing – machinic, perfectly empty of warmth. ‘If it is so, wouldn’t we all be standing upon the ceiling?’ he asked.
‘Captain, listen for a moment, permit me to …’ said Lebret, fishing through the pockets of his trousers.
Thud, thud, thud went Pannier’s fist against his door. Then he paused; then he banged again. Thud, thud, thud.
Cloche’s strange smile fell away. ‘You really believe it, don’t you? You are insane, Monsieur. I see it now – insane.’
‘Ah!’ said Lebret, finding what he was looking for in his left pocket. He pulled it out. It was a small pistol – a tiny gun, looking rather like a cigarette lighter with a spout.
Cloche saw at once what it was. ‘Oho!’ he snorted. ‘You think to intimidate me with that lady’s pistoletta?’
‘What choice do you leave me, Captain?’
Cloche’s sneer fell away. Without getting to his feet, he reached his right hand round to his left hip where his own, much more substantial weapon was holstered.
But the flap of his holster was, as always, buttoned up. It was this that gave Lebret time to act.
He did so w
ithout haste. With an almost leisurely motion, he stepped over to where Cloche was sitting. As he came, he held out his left, empty hand, keeping the right, with the gun in it, pointed at the floor. The cabin was small; it took only two steps to cross the floor.
What occurred next happened rapidly. Lebret slipped his left hand out and up, underneath Cloche’s beard, grasping his throat. His hand looked small, almost feminine; but the effect on the captain of its grip upon his windpipe was pronounced. His eyes popped open. His own right hand gave up its fumbling at the flap of his holster, and seized Lebret’s left wrist.
Thud, thud, thud went Pannier, striking the inside of his own door.
The captain’s left hand joined his right, clutching at Lebret’s arm; but even with both he was unable to dislodge Lebret’s grip. The slightness of the fellow’s frame belied what was, evidently, a considerable muscular strength in his arm.
Lebret and Cloche locked eyes. Cloche’s lips parted. A hiss emerged; a gasping and rasping sound.
Then – thud, thud, thud went Pannier, out in the corridor. Lebret brought up his pistol. Even a small gun, like his, would make an unmissably loud report in the close confines of the Plongeur, and the closer confines of the captain’s cabin.
Lebret looked past the captain to the pillow at the head of his bunk, to muffle the gunshot. It was out of reach. To get it, Lebret would have to relinquish his grasp – and that would allow Cloche to retrieve his own weapon. The captain’s eyes followed Lebret’s gaze. He choked, rasped, and kicked out with his leg. His cheeks and brow were dark.
Lebret met the captain’s bulging gaze. With a rapid twisting motion he rolled his gun up in Cloche’s long white beard, twisting it over once, and over again, until it was swaddled in the old man’s face hair. The tip of the little barrel rested against the underside of the captain’s chin.