Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (51 page)

“Ach!
 
They are fighting another battle at Sevastopol,” Liedenbrock said, furrowing his broad brow.
 
Nemo nodded.
 
Stony-faced, Cyrus Harding just stared into the distance, imagining the unseen battlefield.

With the major armies occupied with the fighting, Caliph Robur and his guards surrounded their prisoners.
 
They marched the men past the colorful pavilions, beyond the now-empty camp of Turkish soldiers and smoldering cook fires.
 
Next, the men began trudging across country toward the Crimean Mountains and the coast.

Nemo’s feet grew sore, but he drove back any thought of complaint with a dour resistance.
 
Encouraged by his comrades, Conseil staggered along, muttering unintelligible complaints.
 
When the little man stumbled, Cyrus Harding draped the French meteorologist’s arm over his shoulders and helped him to keep going. . . .

In two days the ragtag group reached the gravelly shoreline, where the Black Sea spread out in front of them, calm and dark.
 
White clouds rode in the sky, distant storms that would pass far to the south.
 

Far from the busy anchorage of Sevastopol -- and prying eyes -- a large and low-slung Turkish dhow had anchored off the rugged shore.
 
There, no one but a few fishermen and farmers would see its triangular lateen sails or the armed men waiting on board like corsairs.

At dusk, longboats came ashore and took the twenty-seven prisoners out to the dhow.
 
The guards and sailors helped them aboard, seating the captives on benches under flapping shades and striped awnings.
 
Liedenbrock said in disgust.
 
“Ach!
 
We are being converted into miserable galley slaves.
 
We will be forced to row across the sea.”

“No, no, no,” Conseil said, his eyes round.
 
“We can’t do that!”

Nemo shook his head and spoke with harsh assurance.
 
“Caliph Robur would not have spent so much effort on us if he meant to use us for such a menial job.”
 
He drew his dark eyebrows together as stormy thoughts continued to kindle his temper.
 
“He’s got something else in mind for us.”

“Wish I knew what the crazy bloke wanted,” Harding said gruffly.
 
He found a spot to sit, hunched down against the low-slung boat’s poop deck, and scowled in silence.

Instead of being asked to row, they were all given water and extra rations after the long march.
 
The dhow raised anchor and sailed into the night across the rippling Black Sea. . . .

Next morning the triangle-sailed ship was far from land as it crossed the water.
 
Nemo looked at the sun and tried to determine their course, drawing on the knowledge of maps in his mind.
 
Conseil commented on the weather, relieved that the storms had passed far to the north of them; Cyrus Harding remarked on the construction of the dhow, rapping the deck boards with his knuckles and studying the way the prow of the Arabian boat cut the water.

Within days they had crossed the Black Sea and reached the narrow Bosporus Straits.
 
Without stopping, they glided past Constantinople, where huge mosques with gilded domes and pointed minarets towered over the waterway.
 
The dhow crossed the shallow Sea of Marmara to the Dardanelles, where the Trojan War had been fought more than three thousand years earlier.

Under favorable winds, they sailed into the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea while hugging the shore of the Aegean.
 
They cruised among a rocky kaleidoscope of Greek islands -- Khios, Samos, and Rhodes -- then turned southeast again, along the mountainous coast of Turkey.

Robur’s sailors followed a hilly coast covered with olive groves, brown grasses, and vineyards.
 
But as they proceeded, all signs of population faded.
 
Nemo and his companions found themselves in a wasteland, far from any port or city.
 
The craggy shoreline folded, creating a deep cove surrounded by tall cliffs between which the dhow navigated.
 
The curious prisoners watched, certain that they were close to their destination, where perhaps they would receive their answers.

Farther into the cove, out of sight from passing ships, stood an entire industrial city.
 
Rock quarries and ore smelters marked the mountains.
 
Docks extended into the deep channel, and lines of barracks rose up the slopes.
 
Nemo blinked at the astonishing site.
 
Everything looked so modern -- austere but efficient.
 
Newly built.

Like a performer playing his audience to increase suspense, Caliph Robur stepped to the bow of the ship.
 
He turned, placing his hands on his hips.
 
Ocean breezes whipped his shimmering pantaloons.
 

“This is my city of Rurapente,” Robur said.
 
“With the guidance of the Sultan, I have spared no expense to make resources available.
 
You men will receive every allowance to complete the work I give you.
 
In the Sultan’s name, I expect great things from you.
 
You will be made comfortable and therefore productive, for you will spend years here -- perhaps the rest of your lives.”

In a babel of languages, the captives cried out in indignation.
 
“We are not slaves!”
 
“We do not belong to the Turks.”
 
“We are citizens of our own countries.”
 

The caliph’s face remained stony as he stared at them, unaffected by their complaints.
 
Nemo held his tongue and studied the man, keeping the dark wings of anger at bay.
 
Robur was without question his enemy.

When their clamor had died down, the caliph spoke again.
 
“You men are all officially
dead
.
 
The proper paperwork has been completed.
 
Your governments believe you were killed in battle.
 
For those few of you who had families, they have already received letters of notification and posthumous medals.”
 
His voice was harsh and utterly confident.
 
“No one will look for you.
 
No one will find you.
 
You are mine
.”

The prisoners gasped in disbelief, but Nemo knew the caliph could easily have done as he said.
 
The tangled bureaucracy and confused ineptitude of the Crimean commanders would have made such a trick pathetically simple to achieve.

Robur smiled at them.
 
“The Ottoman Empire is falling apart.
 
Your own European press calls us the ‘sick man of Europe.’
 
We were one of the greatest empires in the world, and now Britain and France see us only as the spoils of war.
 
They dicker over how to divide the fallen corpse when Turkey falls.”
 
Beneath his jeweled turban, the caliph’s eyes blazed.
 
He scratched at the jagged scar on his cheek.

“But I am an enlightened military ruler.
 
I look ahead, and I act for myself.
 
I know that the old Ottoman ways are doomed to failure -- but I must have experts.
 
I need engineers, metallurgists, meteorologists, boatbuilders, chemists, opticians.
 
You men are my technological advantage.
 
You shall work together to create invincible machinery of war, ingenious new defenses that will help the Ottoman Empire draw a fresh breath and return to life.”

The caliph strode down the deck, looking at them all.
 
He saw anger among the prisoners, and defiance, but his gaze did not waver.
 
“I have selected
you
, the best and brightest minds that were senselessly wasted on the battlefield.
 
You should thank me.
 
I will allow you to be creative and use your talents.”
 
His next words hung like a heavy weight over them.
 
“You will cooperate -- or you will be executed.”

He stopped in front of Nemo, who glowered at him, but kept his angry words in check by clenching and unclenching his fists.
 
During his time among the prisoners, Nemo had already bound the men together.
 
Though he had no aspirations of grandeur or power, the prisoners looked to him with respect, as their nominal leader.
 
Robur had noticed him and singled him out.

Someday, Nemo vowed to lead his companions out of here.

“I consider myself a learned man,” the caliph said.
 
“I will allow you certain freedoms and certain rewards -- but I expect much in return.”
 
He looked down at Nemo.
 
“In your Latin language, my name Robur translates as ‘
powerful
.’
 
I intend to live up to my name.”

Nemo looked back with a bland expression that masked his anger.
 
“And I am called Nemo.
 
In Latin that name means ‘
no one
.’”
 
Now he allowed himself a smile.
 
“But I don’t put too much stock in a name.”

vii

Writing by candlelight in Paris, Jules Verne sent letter after letter to his parents, explaining his daily work and his dreams.
 
Even with nothing more than a cold attic room and little to eat, he badly wanted to remain here.
 
Knowing the quaint country life of Nantes, he felt he could not survive anywhere but in the vibrant bustle of the City of Light.
 

After all this time, Verne had achieved only the most modest success with his writing, and no fame whatsoever.
 
In the letters he downplayed his poetry, plays, and theatre work, knowing what stern Pierre Verne would think.
 
The older man would be baffled, incapable of understanding why his son would brush aside predictable security.
 

But even after graduating with his law degree, he had dawdled and made excuses to stay in Paris.
 
Despite his father’s plans, Verne did not want to settle into the dull attorney’s office on Ile Feydeau.
 

Now, though, as he finally returned home to Nantes, fresh plans brewed in his mind.
 
He needed to put forward his own case in a way that would make even the greatest lawyer proud.

#

Pierre Verne and his son sat in silence together in the withdrawing room after an exquisite dinner his mother had prepared.
 
They each drank a glass of tawny port, each puffed on a cigar.
 
Nothing would ever change, and the elder Verne seemed to prefer it that way.

Scratching his sideburns, the elder Verne sat shrouded in a contented, peaceful silence of routine as he read the Nantes newspaper.
 
With his son beside him, the gruff older man enjoyed the luxury of making pointed and opinionated comments about the news of the day.
 
He read the headlines aloud -- “Treaty of Paris signed” -- and grumbled his appreciation.
 
“It’s about time this whole Crimean debacle ended.”
 
He jabbed the paper with a fingertip.
 
“I knew that once Tsar Nicholas died, his son Alexander II would prove more reasonable.”

Verne perked up.
 
“Is it true then?
 
The war is at an end?”

“What an awful mess for three years.”
 
The older man shook his head.
 
He continued to read as if he hadn’t even heard his son’s questions.
 
“Ah!
 
Here’s another triumph for France.”
 
While Verne waited, his father took a long puff on his cigar and exhaled a heady-sweet cloud.
 
“Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French diplomat and engineer, has been selected to undertake the largest excavation project in the history of mankind.”

“Greater than the pyramids of Egypt?” Verne asked, as he was expected to.
 
He knew all the rules of conversation with his father.