The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures (74 page)

I saw what a lot of
people did with their money, and it didn’t disgust me, exactly, but I did
wonder why they bothered. They seemed to be scrambling through the here and now,
without any thought to the future beyond their kids’ inheritances. Perhaps it
was the fact that I didn’t have children that led me toward developing the
Shoal.

I don’t think I
consciously had Verne’s little museum in mind when I first started idly sketching
the blueprints. My Breton past had receded to a kind of hazy childhood vista:
rainy school-days, sunny summers on the beach. It had been happy enough and so
I rarely thought about it: I’m not much of a one for introspection. But what I
did know was that I wanted to leave something for the future, something
tangible, and something big. As soon as I thought of it, I knew that it was
going to happen: it was like a crackling in the air before a storm hits. Next
morning, I called an architect friend of mine and got him to put me in touch
with some of his contacts.

A year later, the Shoal
was beginning to become a reality. I’d got the financial backing, and we’d been
in talks with the Pakistani government for some months. Dealing with them
proved to be a steep learning curve for me, but we made it. In early autumn, I
took a boat out to the patch of sea that would one day become the building site
of the Shoal.

It was located just off
the mouth of the Indus, a calm stretch of rippling waves with the red bluffs visible
in the distance. There wasn’t much there, obviously: only a few sand-spits
rising above the shimmering water, but in my mind’s eye I could see the Shoal
rising above the waves, its great shell gleaming. I envied those who would be
its first guests, who would see it for the first time as they raced across the
sea, who would not have been privy to the long, laborious planning process.
Fascinating though I found it, I should have liked to have seen the Shoal in
its entirety, feel its impact without prior knowledge.

Within months,
construction had begun. I wanted to start in winter, as the climate was milder
then, the heat less fierce. It went too smoothly: the rigging arching up from
the dry-dock like a curling ammonite, growing day by day. The
under-structure, as I termed it, grew more slowly. This section,
the service part of the hotel — the malls and golf courses and restaurants and
gardens — would be towed out first, and then the shell would be attached. I
supervised the operation, and watched the Shoal grow day by day, until to my
slightly incredulous wonder, it was almost complete.

And then, one night, I
had a dream. I rose from the couch in my office in the Shoal, in which I had
fallen asleep, and walked through the silent, half-finished corridors to the
platform where my speedboat was docked. I knew that it had been night when I
fell asleep, but this looked like noon: a high, burnished blue sky and blazing
sun, glittering from the metallic hulls of the craft that surrounded the Shoal.
I gazed in wonder at all kinds of ships: huge clippers with crimson sails,
gleaming with bronze and gold; a spined iron vessel that churned the waves into
a froth of milk, and on the horizon, something huge and hulking, a ship that
must, from this distance, be close to a mile in length. I thought, with a burst
of joy:
I am seeing the future.

I wanted to see more,
but it was not to be: the dream ended, and I woke to find myself in the quiet
office, with the dawn coming up over the waves. But the exhilaration at seeing
that display of naval invention stayed with me throughout the day, and with it
the knowledge that perhaps I was contributing to that future, with the building
of the Shoal.

When the man first came
to see me, I was not unduly surprised. Initially I thought he was a local — yet
another of the clerics or politicians who had caused me no few difficulties to
date. He wore a turban, like a Sikh, and he was dark, with a close-cropped
beard and black eyes. To my surprise, however, he spoke excellent French. He
gave his name as Rashid, said that he was a local businessman, but did not
specify in what.

I had matters to see to,
and so I was reluctant to make time for him, but I did not want to antagonise
the commu
nity. We sat over coffee while he made small talk about the
weather and France, with which he seemed familiar. Impatiently, I waited for
him to get to the point of his visit, but then he asked me where I was from.

“Nantes,” I replied. “It’s
a small town, in Brittany. It —”

“But I know it well,
Monsieur Hoenec,” he replied in some surprise. “I used to visit it, often. I
had a close friend there.”

“Extraordinary,” I said, still being polite. “Whereabouts?” “In
the district of Mebec. A very elegant part of town.” I frowned. “It must have
been some time ago, then. Mebec hasn’t been elegant for many years.”

“Oh, it was a long time
ago,” Rashid said, smiling, although I would not have placed him much above
fifty. “But I can see that you are busy, Monsieur, and pleasant though it is to
reminisce about old haunts, there is something I must say.”

“Please do,” I said,
eager to terminate the interview and return to work. Through the window, I
could see the shell of the Shoal rising above me like a promise.

“You cannot build here.
I am sorry to have to tell you this, but these waters are too unstable to
support such a structure as you have in mind. You will have to tow your hotel
to a safer location. I would have come before, but I was detained.”

I sighed. I’d had to
take a great deal of advice from various local authorities: some of it good, of
course, but much of it simply irrelevant to the facts.

“Look,” I said. “I
appreciate your concern, but we’ve done a full marine survey. My architects
have taken immense care to test the seabed — obviously, this whole region is
prone to fault-lines. But you have to understand that the Shoal is,
essentially, afloat. It has in-built seismic testers which will give due
warning if there’s any shift in the earth’s crust, and can be moved out of harm’s
way.”

“That is not what I am
talking about,” Rashid said. He leaned forward, clearly in deadly earnest. “It
is not a question of location as such, but of time.”

“Time? I don’t
understand.”

“This is a very old
place, Monsieur Hoenec. One of the oldest locations of civilization on the
planet. It may not look so to you, but under these placid waters lies a great
rift.”

“The survey showed
nothing,” I said, with a slight shake of my head. “What evidence do you have
for such a thing?”

He conceded my point
with a smile of his own. “Let us just say that the knowledge has always been in
my family.”

A mystic, I thought, or
perhaps even mad. “Even if what you say is true,” I said, “I cannot simply
cancel the project without evidence. As I say, we’ve had exhaustive surveys
carried out.”

“I see that I cannot
persuade you,” Rashid said. “Only show you. May I come again to your hotel,
tomorrow evening, and do so?”

I sighed. “Very well.” I
wanted to keep on the right side of the local community: animosity could go a
long way in affecting good relations — not to mention prices. I already knew
that we had been cheated on some of the local goods, but I had factored it into
the profit margins.”Shall we say seven?”

Rashid paused for a
moment, then nodded. “Thank you, M. Hoenec. I appreciate your courtesy in
humouring me.” There was a flash in the dark eyes that told me that he was
quite well aware of my unease. Embarrassed, I coughed to hide it.

“I shall see you at
seven, then,” I said.

But next day, the storm
came.

It began just after
noon, a darkening of the distant horizon: a grey line between the blue. I
noticed it out of the window of my office and for a moment, the shadow of the
Shoal’s shell seemed to fall across me. I blinked and it was once more back to
its glittering arc. I thought to myself that it was probably nothing more than
a tropical monsoon and would hurl itself out over the waters before it reached
the coast, with only a swift lashing of raindrops across the bay. I devoted
myself to some legal documents and when I next glanced up, some two hours
later, I realized that it had become quite dark.

The phone rang. When I
answered it, the foreman’s voice echoed through my office. “Looks like a
typhoon. You want me to evacuate?”

I was confident of the
Shoal’s ability to ride out any storm, once complete — but it was as yet
unfinished. It was best to be on the safe side. Cursing under my breath, I told
him to get the men to shore.

“What about you?”

“I’ll sit it out for a
while,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”

It was perhaps foolish,
but I could not bear to leave the Shoal to the mercy of the storm. We would
confront it together. I reassured the foreman and a few minutes later, I saw
the boats speeding toward the bluffs. Then I sat staring out of the window at
the oncoming storm. It did not look like a typhoon to me. It looked like a wall
of mist, at once barely substantial and completely solid.

There was a knock on the
door of my office. Frowning, I rose and opened it. Rashid was standing on the
other side. I gaped at him.

“I am sorry,” he said,
and I could see horror in his dark eyes. “My calculations have not been
correct. We have no more time,” — and at that moment the whole Shoal lurched
violently to one side as if it had been struck a blow by a giant hand. Rashid
and I fell against the wall. I think I cried out. The Shoal righted itself with
as much violence as it had shifted and then we were plummeting downward, as
though the whole structure had been placed within some gigantic elevator. The
breath was ripped from my lungs. I tried to scream, but could not. Staring in
horror through the window of my office, I saw at first only water, but then I
realized that I could see other things through the straining glass: startled
faces lining the decks of a great-sailed ship, the configuration of the red
bluffs along the shore shifting and changing, becoming wooded, then bare of
trees, then wooded once more. The images became dream-like. My fear ebbed like
a tide.

“I am sorry,” I heard
Rashid say softly into my ear. “I was too late. I thought I knew when it would
be, but I was wrong.”

“What’s happening?” I
said.

“This was a journey that
was meant for me, and me alone. I hoped to show you just the beginning of it
but it started more swiftly than I ever imagined.”

“I don’t understand,” I
said again, but suddenly I remembered my dream, that shining future of glorious
ships and a strange hope leaped in me.

He sighed. “Soon you
will.”

The shifting, changing
landscape was slowing now I felt a bump, as when the landing wheels of an
aircraft are released. The Shoal sighed as it settled. We were on dry land.

“Come,” Rashid said,
sadly. “I will show you.”

He led me through the
tilting corridors to the outer doors of the Shoal, which in its natural
environment led to one of the docks. Numbly, still unable to take in what had
happened to me, I followed him out on to the platform.

The bluffs, the storm,
and even the sea itself had disappeared. The arc of the Shoal listed above me
as it perched on a rolling plain. Before us, stretched the city: massive walls
made of ochre earth, sloping up to high ramparts with gilded domes of temples
visible above them. A flock of immense birds flapped slowly overhead, with the
glitter of metal collars clearly visible. Far in the distance, I saw a
waterfall cascading down a crag, contained within the city limits themselves.

“This is Indec-Herat,”
Rashid said. “This is my home.”

“When are we?”
I heard myself say. “Is this the future?”

“Alas, no. It is the far
past. Many thousands of years before your own time, when the cities of the
coastal plains of Earth held sway and the great maritime civilization of the
Indus ruled the world. A far more civilized time than your own, full of science
and learning and peace.”

“Atlantis?” I murmured,
shocked, and he gave a bitter laugh.

“Atlantis is the memory
of a myth. There was no great island in the midst of that ocean, but all around
the shores of the continents were cities. We were —” he looked briefly
exultant, fleetingly sad, “— the greatest seafaring nation that this world has
ever known. And then the waters rose, and swallowed it. Everything — gone in a
span of years: We saved those we could, sending the ordinary folk into the
mountains, and for those of us of the elite — time-bending, sent into the
future to preserve what knowledge we could. But time wears thin, Monsieur Hoenec.
It frays, like elastic. It snatches us back again. I knew my time was coming. I
have been in your world for several centuries. I felt myself growing faint.”

“You spoke with him,
didn’t you?” I said. “With the writer, with Verne?”

“Of course. He wove a
few of my stories into a dream, but he did not really believe what I had to
say. In that regard, I failed.”

“And your
Nautilus?”

“Is real. It was my
ship, of course. It’s gone now, long gone. I searched for a while for another
vessel, but I did not have the resources to rebuild it, and anyway, what was
the point? I knew I would be coming back, if I lived.”