Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea (30 page)

‘Ah!’ said Lebret. ‘Such as this suction ray, that can draw metals to it over immense distances?’

‘That? That is nothing. One of the Jewel’s precious
toys
, that is all. Of very limited use, down here, I might add, with metals so scarce.’

‘You mentioned him before. Who is this Precious Jewel?’

But Dakkar only said, ‘Please continue with your narrative.’

‘My? My history of?’ Lebret stroked his swollen jaw. ‘Well, well. I’ll say I am, Monsieur, I am
heartened
to discover that we share
similar humanitarian aims – even if we can debate, pleasantly, the best means of achieving them …’

‘There’s no debate on the matter,’ interrupted Dakkar. ‘I am right.’

Lebret waited, before continuing, ‘As I say, I am heartened. Because you will perhaps be able to understand my particular situation. Because after the First World War there was a second, even more destructive …’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Dakkar, impatiently. ‘And after that no doubt a third, and a fourth and …’

‘There have only been two,’ said Lebret.

‘So far!’

‘Well,’ Lebret agreed. ‘The point is that the Second World War was unprecedented in world history. Ostensibly it was fought between two mighty imperialist nations, on the one hand America-Britain, on the other Germany …’

‘Germany!’ exclaimed Dakkar. ‘Since when have they possessed an empire? They barely have a navy!’

‘As I was saying,’ Lebret explained, as patiently as he could. ‘Things have changed since you … since you
left
. And anyway, the war only appeared to be between these two imperial powers. In fact it was Russia who suffered the most – because the imperialists sought to destroy its revolution. This fact was proved by the way, as soon as Germany was defeated, the American powers attempted to press their advantage. The hot war, called Second, mutated into the First
Cold
War. Only with heroic effort has the Soviet Union kept the flame of revolution burning.’

‘The … ?’

‘Russia, I mean. This is my moment of honesty, M’sieur. If the others aboard the
Plongeur
discover what I am about to tell you, they will shoot me – plain and simple.’

‘Shoot you again,’ said Dakkar, ‘I suppose you mean.’

‘Well,’ said Lebret. ‘Yes. But you must understand. I am aboard the
Plongeur
as an agent of the French government. But whilst I am such an agent, I am also secretly an agent of the Soviet Union, a …’

‘A spy,’ said Dakkar, looking bored. ‘Yes. I see.’

Lebret gulped. ‘I tell you this, I
confide
in you with this information, because—’

‘Politics!’ interrupted Dakkar. ‘I am
entirely
uninterested in politics.’

‘Please,’ begged Lebret. ‘Your message – it was intercepted by …’

‘You adapted the vessel? You personally?’

‘The
Nautilus
was refurbished, yes. Fitted out with an atomic pile – a new form of energy.’

‘I am perfectly well acquainted,’ said Dakkar, haughtily, ‘with the principles of nuclear energy. How do you think the Jewel is able to bring such powerful energies to bear – the suction ray, for instance?’

‘That was
him
? I thought—’

‘The technology comes from him. I have merely utilised it here.’

‘And who is the Great Jewel?’

‘You do not want to have dealings with the Mighty Jewel,’ said Dakkar, sternly. ‘He is not well disposed to … your kind.’

‘My kind?’ repeated Lebret. ‘If he is not my kind, then what is he? And are
you
not my kind, Monsieur?’

‘Whatever I am, whatever I have become,’ said Dakkar, with dignity. ‘I have never been a spy.’

With a sinking sensation Lebret understood that, far from winning Dakkar’s sympathy, he had actively alienated him. ‘I wish the world were a different place,’ he urged. ‘I wish I did not have to act the traitor to my nation – and when world Communism has been achieved …’

‘Monsieur,’ said Dakkar, shaking his great head. His tentacular beard worked moisture in at his mouth as he spoke. ‘Your politics, and the politics of your crew, are of no interest to me.’

‘But—!’

‘The game is larger than terrestrial politics!’ boomed Dakkar.

‘You don’t understand!’

‘I understand that
my
message was intercepted by a spy! But from what you say, it seems the crew of the official vessel have seen through your disguise. They attempted to execute you for your
treason! Somehow you escaped, and stole a diving suit and came down here before them – but they are on their way!’

‘It is vital,’ Lebret urged, feeling the encounter slipping away from him, ‘that the technological advances of which you spoke – that they do not fall into the hands of the Western Imperial forces! Let me take you back to Moscow! My superior officers refused to believe the veracity of your message, it is true; but if I bring you back then they
must
believe! And the technology capacities you possess can help win the world for Communism.’ He put his hands together, pleading. ‘You lived your life as an anti-Imperialist; don’t abandon that principle now!’

‘There is nothing trustworthy or honourable about you, Monsieur,’ Dakkar announced. ‘Nothing! I am Prince Dakkar! I choose to speak to the legitimate authorities. I shall wait for the arrival of the
Plongeur
, and address myself to its Captain.’

‘The Soviet Union
is
a legitimate authority!’

‘Yet you yourself concede,’ Dakkar pressed, with a shrewd expression, ‘that you took my message to them and they refused to believe you?’

‘It,’ sputtered Lebret, pressing a hand to the numb, spongy swollen jaw. ‘It was complicated. My superior officers scoffed. It was hard for me to present the case without breaking my cover. I may not have done as good a job as I should. And there was a degree – I’m sorry to say it – a degree of
racism
in the reception of the news. You see, I had been based in India, and …’

‘India?’

‘I was supposed to be liaising with the British on behalf of the French. In fact I was working with the Soviets, with a view to destabilising Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Punjab. But the connection of your message with …’

‘Enough!’ boomed Dakkar. ‘You tell me that you have betrayed your nation and failed your true masters. Why should I trust you?’

‘But,’ said Lebret, a feeling akin to despair swelling inside his chest, like ink poured into a vase of clear water. ‘But – you don’t understand the pressures …’

‘You could not persuade the Russians, yet you persuaded the French?’

‘We,’ said Lebret, ‘we came to them with your old submarine. The Indian authorities had discovered it – a museum piece. But a friend of mine had been involved in the Soviet nuclear programme; and he defected – or appeared to defect – to the West, and fitted it with an atomic pile …’

‘This story wearies me,’ Dakkar pronounced, his writhing beard jabbing accusingly at Lebret. ‘All these betrayals and double-betrayals! What has happened to honour? I shall speak to your captain.’

‘Captain Cloche is,’ said Lebret, feeling sick in his stomach, ‘dead; he is dead.’

‘Dead?’ With a squirting sound, like a child blowing a raspberry, Dakkar moved through the air towards Lebret, his huge head looming larger still and accusation in his eyes. ‘Did
you
kill him?’

‘He refused to bring the
Plongeur
down!’ Lebret squealed, startled by the combination of hideousness and proximity. ‘He was stubborn – but I didn’t kill him,’ he added, too late. ‘He died in an accident. He, he.’ Lebret was hypnotised by the snake-like wrigglings of Dakkar’s beard. He could see detail in the mare’s-nest of it – not just the coating of tiny water-bead, but myriad soft-looking thorns that lifted and laid themselves flat against each strand. And at the end of each individual tentacle was a miniature stoma, opening and closing as if breathing, or perhaps tasting the air.

‘What? What?’

‘He had an accident in his cabin,’ Lebret concluded, weakly. ‘His death was a tragic accident.’

Dakkar glared at him. ‘You’re lying,’ he announced. ‘A traitor, a liar
and
a murderer! Why should I have anything to do with you?’

The monstrous form reached out two of its legs, connected with the white walls and pushed off, spinning himself about. Then, darting like a fish, he shot straight towards the bulb of water.

‘Wait!’ Lebret cried. ‘Don’t leave me – what about the Jewel? What manner of being is he? Where is he from?’

Dakkar ducked his head into the water, and for a moment Lebret thought he was going to vanish entirely. But then, his four paddle-shaped feet planted on the side, he drew himself back into the air. ‘The Pearl of Great Price,’ he said, slowly, not looking at Lebret. ‘The Multi-Faceted One.’ He turned his huge head, and laid one eye on Lebret. ‘I am Prince Dakkar, of a noble and honourable lineage. It is no arrogance in me to describe myself as a great man. But the Great Jewel is an entity incomparably greater than I.’

‘Is he a man?’ Lebret pressed. ‘An alien? Was he born in this place, or did he come here – like you and I?’

‘Do not,’ Dakkar barked, ‘juxtapose yourself and
myself
in any sentence your mouth may form!’

‘Is he, you know, an actual crystalline life-form, a
sentient
jewel, or is he …’

But Dakkar dived into the bulge of water and vanished, leaving a scattering of droplets behind him to hang in the air.

25

THE PRODIGIOUS EMERALD

Lebret emptied his lungs in a great sigh. ‘Well,’ he told himself. ‘That didn’t go so well.’

He looked about the chamber. The walls appeared to be made of a similar material to the gigantic scallop shell above – dense but yielding. There were a number of shelves and some items of what looked like advanced technology – a white cube with blue curving lines incised into it; a series of tubes that did not seem to open or otherwise respond to Lebret’s investigations. There was a flat rectangular sheet fixed to the wall and a number of squirls like dry white pasta arranged in what might have been a pattern. None of this appeared to be of any immediate use to Lebret.

‘Am I trapped here?’ he wondered

He went back up into the corridor that led to the scallop shell and retrieved his air tanks. But fitting the mouthpiece and trying to breathe the contents made him cough. The air was almost exhausted. ‘So I cannot use these to swim away,’ he thought to himself. ‘Unless I can somehow recharge them? But no – what would be the use? Where would I go?’

He floated back through to the main chamber, bringing the empty tanks with him. The thought of simply waiting, helplessly, for the
Plongeur
to arrive – to be denounced by the weird monster that Dakkar had become, and to face once again the violent animosity of Billiard-Fanon. The passivity of it was obnoxious to him. But what else could he do?

His ripped-up diving suit was floating where it had been
discarded. He pushed himself over to it and found the pocket with its knife. Looking at it in the bright light of that place he was surprised by how small it seemed: a small iron blade, a Bakelite handle. With so small a weapon had he truly fought off ocean monsters of nightmare?

Well, it felt better to be armed, even if armed with something so tiny. And the air tanks, even empty, were solid tubes of metal. He dragged them over to the bulb of water and left them there.

Floating about in his undergarments struck him as demeaning. He tried to cut a pair of make-shift shorts from the remnants of his diving suit, but the material was too tough for it. So instead he crossed his legs, floating in mid air about a metre from the bulb of water, and spent a half hour carefully sharpening the little blade against the metal of the empty air cylinder.

Tucking the knife into the elastic band at the top of his underpants, Lebret thrust his head into the bubble of water. Weightlessness gave his gesture the disorienting action of turning the world about – he pushed his head
down
into water, but it seemed to him his head was now poking
up
into a large watery space, illuminated with a string of bubble-lights stretching away into the murky distance. It was not immediately obvious whether this was open to the general ocean, or was a water-filled chamber of large dimensions. A number of shadowy shapes were visible in the middle-distance, but it was not possible to determine exactly what they were. If Dakkar was there, Lebret could not see him.