Authors: Arthur Slade
Colette opened her mouth to say something, then pursed her lips. What had she meant by that “prisoner” comment? Modo’s legs were trembling. He tried to ignore his exhaustion.
“I—I wonder if I could be taken to Iceland,” Modo said, his voice shaky. “I would like to join my wife there.”
“That will not be possible at the moment,” Captain Monturiol answered. “We shall discuss the length of your stay at another time.” She paused, her eyes appraising him. “Comrade Cerdà informed me that you have some sort of deformity that causes you discomfort. I assume that is why
you wear the mask. I shall respect your wishes, but all people are welcome here, able-bodied and disfigured. In Icaria citizenship means equality for all. The old, the weak, the crippled. There are no poor and no rich in our country.”
“Thank you,” Modo said, though he wasn’t quite certain what land she could possibly be speaking about. The disfigured equal to everyone else?
He looked about—it was important to learn as much as possible about the vehicle. The more he knew, the better he would understand his situation. “About this ship, I must say I’m stunned! I’ve photographed many ships—even warships. This is unlike any of them.”
“Yes,” the captain said proudly. “It sprang like Athena fully formed from my father’s mind. Come!” She finally took her hand from the cutlass and led Modo to the largest porthole. It was disconcerting to know that water was only inches away.
“Why doesn’t the ocean pour in?” he asked. “The pressure must be overwhelming.”
“The glass is ten centimeters thick and tapered so that the pressure of the water wedges it into place.”
“Ten centimeters?” He had never learned metric measurement. Mr. Socrates considered it “foolish French nonsense.”
“It’s about four inches,” Colette said. “Metric is a much more efficient system, but I know you English are slow to adapt to new ideas.” Modo thought he detected a note of teasing humor in her voice.
“Yes indeed! Finally, Colette and I agree on something,” Monturiol said. “This is why we use the metric system in
Icaria. The old ways are dead.” She tapped on the large portal. “A solid system, a solid ship. The eyes of the
Ictíneo
will not crack or break, even at a thousand meters below sea level. Here, have a better look.” She turned a golden key and illumination blossomed outside the window. Fish scattered, shocked by the sudden appearance of an underwater sun.
“What kind of light is that? It can’t be gas,” Modo said.
“Ah, you are an inquisitive one. Good! Good! Perhaps that comes with being a photographer. Your questions will be answered in time.”
Modo stared out the porthole, trying not to gape, but it was amazing. A large squid floated by, its tentacles waving. Modo couldn’t see the surface of the ocean, and had no idea how deep the submarine was.
Modo stepped back and noticed, above the porthole, a bronze plaque etched with a star rising out of the water.
Plus Intra Plus Extra
was inscribed below it.
“The deeper the better,” Modo translated.
“Oh, an Englishman who can read Latin,” Colette said. “That’s rather rare.” Her intense eyes measured his reaction. Did she really hate the British so much, or was she just playing the part?
“Yes,” he answered, “and Greek. The
Ictíneo
. Well chosen. This really is a fish ship.”
Captain Monturiol laughed. “My father had a way with words.”
“He’s a brilliant man to have designed all of this.”
Her face darkened. “He
was
a brilliant man.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It is the past. And we must build upon the past, that is
something he often said. Enough of such talk. I want you to know that as a guest you are welcome to spend time on the bridge. And in your cabin, of course. The engine room at the aft of the ship is out of bounds, along with the crow’s nest at the bow. We have a library you are welcome to visit. Please remember to sign out the books.”
“A library?” Modo couldn’t hide his surprise.
“Icaria is a land of thought, philosophy, and spirit. True human spirit. You will be very comfortable and completely accepted here. Forgive me, there are matters I must attend to. I will leave you in the care of Miss Brunet. I am sure she will be only too happy to have new company.” Monturiol disappeared up the spiral staircase. Cerdà continued his work at the helm.
“So you’re English,” Colette said. “I forgive you for that.”
“What’s wrong with being English?”
She laughed as though the answer were obvious. “Were you working on that ship?”
“I was a passenger. With my wife.”
“Ah, that explains the ring. And why did the crew drop anchor at this location?”
Her questions were so probing and her stare so fierce that he stepped back. “I—I was inspired by the way the light reflected off the water. It was the perfect slant for portraits. I couldn’t capture the effect if the ship was moving.”
“You must have a golden tongue to have convinced your captain to stop.”
“If you must know, I greased his palm.”
She chuckled. “Ah, money! The ultimate motivator. You will find yourself wishing you could bribe your way off this
ship. The
Ictíneo
is hospitable, if you enjoy living like a sardine.”
“How big is this ship?”
“It’s about fifteen meters wide and tall. As for the length, there’s no way to tell. Neither forward nor aft is accessible to us good guests of Icaria. Shall I show you the library, or take you back to your prison cell?”
“Are we really prisoners here?”
“As the hours turn into days, then weeks, you can make up your own mind about it.”
Modo didn’t like her answer. Even here, in this large chamber, the walls were beginning to close in around him. Sweat trickled down his neck. The humidity made the mask cling to his face. “Well,” he said with forced jauntiness, “if it’s going to be a long stay, I’d better have something to read. I’d love to see the library.”
He followed Colette down a second spiral staircase, into a room where three chandeliers illuminated thousands of volumes. He perused the shelves and found books in Latin, Greek, Spanish, and French; all manner of histories, novels, collections of songs, and scientific manuals. “This is remarkable!” He ran his hand along the spine of a book titled
Geosophy
. “And what is this Icaria she spoke about?”
“A dream inside her head. She is quite mad, but of course you have likely come to that conclusion yourself.”
“I don’t know enough about her yet,” he said. “How long have you been here?”
“Twenty-eight days and four hours, not that I’m counting. I hope you like reading books and looking at fish.”
“I do like reading, though not every hour of every day.
Captain Monturiol said that there were soldiers on your ship. Was it a military vessel?”
She narrowed her eyes and Modo suddenly felt like an insect under a magnifying glass. “You may be a photographic artist, but you have a detective’s mind.” She let her gaze linger on him for a moment before continuing. “Like you, I was just a passenger. My father is back in the United States. He’s an attaché to the French ambassador. I was returning home to visit my mother.”
“I assume you sailed out of New York. Wasn’t there a more direct route?”
“We were traveling to Iceland for diplomatic reasons. And smoked cod, of course.”
“And what happened?”
“The
Ictíneo
rammed our ship below the waterline. The
Vendetta
, which was two thousand eight hundred tonnes, went down in under five minutes. To my knowledge, I am the only surviving passenger.”
Modo noted that she knew the exact tonnage. “It must have been a frightening experience.”
“Frightening?” She huffed. “No. I reacted to the situation as it unfolded. I was with two seamen in a lifeboat. It had been damaged, though, and it sank. The men were taken by sharks, and the
Ictíneo
rescued me because I was a woman. At least, that’s what our dear Captain Monturiol said. She thought she’d found another downtrodden comrade, but quickly discovered I had teeth. I’ve been trapped in this metal coffin ever since.”
Colette had delivered her story without a trace of emotion. Modo, trained to detect emotion in the slightest
twitch, saw nothing. “A horrible, horrible experience,” he ventured.
She shrugged, and Modo couldn’t help feeling respect for this woman. In the briefing, Mr. Socrates had said she was eighteen years old. The tension in her face made her look older.
“Do you know how they attack the ships?” Modo asked.
“Well, I believe they have some sort of pincers to cut anchor chains. And there must be a battering ram at the bow of the ship that is used to puncture hulls. Who knows how many vessels lie at the bottom of the ocean because of this madwoman.
Sacre bleu!
”
“It does sound very unsportsmanlike, not to mention illegal, to sink ships without warning.”
“Indeed. Bloody rude, as you English might say.”
Modo grinned. “I must admit that I’m stunned by all of this.” He touched a gold statue of Poseidon used as a bookend. “The likely cost of this vessel astounds me. I have so many questions. Where was it constructed?”
“You may have better luck with the captain than me. I’ve learned little. The men and women who run this ship—the comrades—are tight-lipped. Tell me a bit more about you and your employment, Mr. Walkin?”
“It’s Warkin,” Modo corrected, wondering if she wasn’t trying to catch him out. “I have worked as a photographic artist for three years now, with my wife as my assistant. I’ve captured scenery from the Arctic to Egypt to England. We want to preserve glorious man-made monuments and nature in stereoscopic images.”
“It sounds
très excitant.
”
He smiled, then remembered his mask. She couldn’t see his reaction. “It’s rarely as exciting as today was. Imagine the pictures I could take through the portholes.” He paused. “I do hope my dear wife is well.”
Modo heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to see Cerdà stopping at the bottom step. “You are both invited to dine with Captain Monturiol at nineteen hundred hours, Icaria time.”
“That is very kind,” Modo said. “What time is it now?”
“Sixteen hundred hours,” Cerdà said, pointing at a wall in which a clock had been embedded. Its hands were two lightning bolts and there were twenty-four hours on its face. Modo had heard of this style—it was called an Italian clock. “There are clocks in every room; they were my idea,” Cerdà said. “I will have a comrade bring you. Until then, please relax.”
After Cerdà had gone back up the stairs, Modo asked cheekily, “Is Icaria time a real measure of time, or is it imaginary?”
“Ha! Icaria may be imaginary, but the time here is real. It’s Greenwich mean time minus one hour.” Colette grinned and Modo noticed that her dark hair was carefully combed and knotted up on her head. Even though she had been here for weeks, she kept up her appearance. If Monturiol suspected Colette of being a spy, Modo wondered what her fate would be.
“I must say I find it very curious to be talking to a masked man,” she said.
“I—I have a rash.”
“I hope it’s not too forward, Mr. Warkin, to mention that
you have soulful eyes. I suppose a photographer needs them.”
“Uh … I suppose so.”
She laughed, her eyes trained on his. “Well, I shall retire and prepare for
le bon repas
. One does not get to dine with the captain every day. Remember, a good Icarian is never late.”
Modo watched her wind her way up the stairs until the last of her long skirts disappeared.
A
fter spending some time in the library, Modo climbed the stairs to the bridge. Several men and women in blue uniforms stood at various stations. One man was looking through a brass-plated viewing device that had been lowered from the ceiling. A periscope, of course. One woman was at the helm, and another read numbers aloud from a dial. He was fairly certain she was speaking Spanish—it was a language of which he had learned only a few words.
Modo searched his brain for the little he knew about submarine ships. There would have to be some sort of ballast tanks to control buoyancy. He assumed some of those levers emptied or filled the tanks. Mr. Socrates would want to know. And, at some point, such knowledge might be necessary to his own survival.
Modo climbed to the top of the stairs and went down
the passage. The door to his room was open a crack. He was certain he had left it closed. He slowly pushed it open. His tiny cabin was empty, the cot still unmade, the drawer on the dresser pulled out an inch. Someone had been through his room, clearly not caring if he knew it. He closed the door, patted under the mattress, and found the wireless telegraph. At least that was safe.
In a code Mr. Socrates would recognize he typed:
Agent Modo stop aboard submarine ship stop
. There was no way for him to receive a message. And this would only work if the
Ictíneo
happened to be passing by one of the transatlantic cables. What chance was there of that? He typed the message again, and a third time, then slid the wallet under the mattress.
Mr. Socrates would be pleased to learn of the
Ictíneo
’s existence. An underwater ship such as this would make Britain the master of the world’s oceans. The Germans, the French, and the Russians wouldn’t dare cross swords with an empire that could sink ships with such stealth.
The
Ictíneo
thrummed and sat perfectly balanced in the water. Modo’s only complaint was the humid heat, probably caused by the buildup of human expelled air.
Feeling stifled and tired, Modo decided that a short nap would restore his energy—maybe then he’d be able to shift his face. Since there was no lock on the door, he turned his back to it and removed his mask.
He heard a gasp. With his heart racing, he slipped the mask on again. The door was closed, the room empty. Perhaps there was a pinhole and someone was watching him
through it. He searched the walls from floor to ceiling, then climbed onto his cot, looking in every corner, shielding his eyes from the light. Nothing.