Philip Jose Farmer (20 page)

Since they could not hear yet, Fogg and Aouda communicated with pencil and paper.

Yes, Aouda wrote, there had been much running about and screaming. After a while, most of the passengers, chattering loudly but over their panic, had returned to their cabins. Some had stayed on deck; some had repaired to the bar, which was opened at their insistence.

The two series of clangings which had followed Fogg’s activation of the distorter to fool the Capelleans had brought everybody boiling onto the decks again. Some passengers had insisted that the center of the noise was in the cabins near Aouda’s. Yes, a passenger check had been made, and an officer had talked with her through the door. Yes, she had overheard the discovery of the shattered lock on Fogg’s door, and crewmen had been searching for him. But in this turmoil, who could find whom? The broken lock could be attributed to the efforts of a thief to get into Fogg’s cabin while the panic was on.

Fogg thought that it was unfortunate that this could not be kept out of the newspapers. Both Capelleans and Eridaneans, reading of the mysterious bell-like noises on the 
General Grant
 would know that the distorters had been used. They would be watching the ship when it discharged its passengers.

The reader is doubtless wondering why Verne did not describe the mysterious noises. The answer is that he would have if Fogg had been in any way connected with them by the authorities. Or, if there had been a logical explanation for the noises, Verne might have included them. But since the bell-like sounds were only one more of the many mysteries of the sea, Verne, as a disciplined novelist, did not see why he should 
include the incident. If he had included every interesting, but irrelevant, event, 
Around The World in Eighty Days
 would have been twice as long.

It is also possible that Verne never even heard about the clangings.

Late the next day, Passepartout met Mr. Fix on the promenade of the forward deck. Though somewhat pale and shaky, Fix had regained most of his strength. Nemo had told him all that had happened. Fix, Nemo said, was to continue to play innocent. He must say nothing of his sickness to Passepartout, who would guess that was why Fix had not accompanied Nemo.

Fix told Passepartout that he had been sleeping peacefully until the first of those terrible belling noises awakened him. What did Mr. Passepartout know about these?

The Frenchman said he knew no more than anybody else. After some small talk and some large drinks, he returned to Fogg. Perhaps, he said, Fix was only a detective.

Fogg replied that could well be. And now, would he sit down with Miss Jejeebhoy and hear what Fogg knew about Nemo? There was no sense in keeping it secret any longer, if, indeed, there had ever been any sense in it. They should understand what sort of man they were up against.

In 1865, Fogg had been summoned by the chief to a secret meeting. He, Fogg, had been on a long mission in the eastern Mediterranean. But he had been replaced by another and told to hurry to London. That he was to have a 
tête-à-tête
 with the chief and not get his orders via cards or other means indicated the seriousness of the situation. On a train to Paris, Fogg was surprised to see the chief enter his compartment. The chief said he had reason to believe that the proposed meeting place was under Capellean surveillance. So he had intercepted Fogg in France.

The chief had learned that the man called Nemo (no one knew his true name) was about to launch a very disturbing project. The word “launch” was used in a double sense, since this project involved a submersible vessel. After the vessel had been built, it would venture onto the seas on a pirating expedition.

“Ah, the 
Nautilus
!” Passepartout said. He, like most of the world, had read in 1869 Professor Pierre Arronax’s narrative, edited and agented by the everbusy Jules Verne.

Fogg continued. “This Nemo has an inventive genius which is, alas, not dedicated to the world’s good. It has been devoted to the good of the Capelleans, of course, who rationalized that the goal justifies the means.

“Nemo had almost completed the submersible vessel, which was far beyond anything else in its scientific advances. Part of the ingenious devices which enabled it to operate derived from knowledge handed down by the Old Ones. The rest was due to Nemo’s almost superhuman intelligence. The submersible would bring in an enormous amount of wealth, both from looting ships and recovering sunken treasure. With this at their disposal, the Capelleans could make much more effective war on us. For one thing, they could hire great numbers of criminals to use against us. These, of course, would not know the ultimate identity of their employers, but they would not need to do so.”

“I never suspected that the 
Nautilus
 was of Capellean origin!” Passepartout cried. “But Arronax’s account makes him out to be a hero!”

“Yes, for those who have not read the account carefully,” Fogg said. “A close reading soon evaporates the clouds of the Byronic hero which Nemo managed to gather about himself. He was, to put it simply, a pirate. A bloodthirsty money-hungry pirate who sent hundreds of the innocent to a watery grave. It is evident that he kept Professor Arronax, his valet, Conseil, and the harpooner, Ned Land, alive only because of his need for intellectual companionship and to feed his ego. Conseil and Land were not his mental equals, but if Nemo had killed them, Arronax would have refused to talk to him.

“Nemo, as I said, is a mathematical and engineering genius. But even he, if he were only an Earthling, could not have designed and built the motors to drive the 
Nautilus
 at fifty miles per hour or have created the metal alloys to withstand the pressure of the ocean at forty-eight-thousand feet. He told Arronax that it was electricity which propelled the submersible. Was it this or the power of the atom itself that he used? In either case, he must have had access to some information handed down by the Capellean Old Ones. From this he deduced the rest, though it took a great genius to do that.

“One of our spies learned of the orders Nemo had placed with various industries all over the civilized world, including the States. After all, the Americans, whatever their other deficiencies, are splendid engineers. Nemo was bringing these specially made parts to a remote island and putting them together there. Our chief told me to get admitted into Nemo’s confidence and to sabotage the vessel. I obeyed the first and expected to be able to do the second. Through certain channels, I learned that Nemo was recruiting a crew from 
different countries. Most of these, poor deluded fellows, were patriots. They came from countries which lay under the heels of oppressors. Nemo told them that he would be waging a deadly war against the oppressors. He hinted that he himself came from a land which was suffering under British rule. To make it appear that he was an Asiatic Indian, he wore glass lenses which gave his eyes a black color, and he often talked as if he had been exiled from his native country after an unsuccessful revolt against the British.

“He even had a common ship’s language which he taught the crew to master enough to obey commands in this tongue. This, I believe, was the dialect of Bundelcund. Nemo had spent much time in Bundelcund, a good part of it as the aide to the rajah before the rajah became a traitor to the Capelleans. In fact, I would not be surprised to learn that Nemo had talked the rajah into becoming a renegade. Nemo’s motto should be, not 
Mobilis in mobili,
 the swift among the swift, but 
Aut Nemo aut nemo.
 Either Nemo or nobody.

“Be that as it may, I was enlisted as Patrick M’Guire, an Irishman who hated the English. I was part of the crew that terrorized the seas from 1866 through 1868. I was equally guilty of sinking all those ships, since I had to play out my role. I told myself that these would have been sunk anyway. I had to cooperate in this so that I could sooner or later stop Nemo’s nefariousness. In fact, without me aboard, the 
Nautilus
 might operate for decades. Nevertheless, I felt guilty.

“And imagine my state when I learned, after the affair was over, that I had participated in sinking a vessel on which my own father was a passenger. I was guilty of patricide.”

At this point, Aouda, tears coursing down her cheeks, put her hand on Fogg’s. He did not seem to notice it. At least, he did not withdraw his hand.

“That it was not intentional did not ease my conscience one bit.

“From the time that the 
Nautilus
 plunged into the sea on her maiden cruise, I looked for an opportunity to sink her and with her its commander. But in those crowded quarters, where a dozen eyes are always on you, I had no chance. After we rammed the U.S. 
Abraham Lincoln,
 we picked up Arronax and his companions. Events went much as the professor described them, though much happened of which he was ignorant.

“And then we were pulled into the maelstrom off the Lofoten Islands. Even that mighty whirlpool might not have defeated us if I had not had my first chance to act. While the others were occupied at their posts, and frozen with the terror of the maelstrom, I destroyed the circuits which controlled the steering.”

“Ah, then it was you who was responsible for sinking that accursed submersible!” Passepartout said.

He had completely abandoned his original concept of Nemo as a battler against evil, a tortured and lonely genius whose only mission in life was revenge against the oppressor.

“Yes. But I should have blown it up long before that, even though it meant that I, too, should die. Arronax, Conseil, and Land, as you know, escaped. So did I. So did Nemo. Perhaps others did. I do not know. I thought at the time that I was the only survivor. Several months later, I was back in London. The chief and I assumed that Nemo had died. Then I saw him on the second of October in the shade of that doorway near the Reform Club.”

“But,” Passepartout said, “is this man all bad? What about the portrait of the woman and two children which Arronax said hung on the wall of Nemo’s cabin? Did not the good professor see Nemo stretch out his arms to the portrait, kneel before it, and sob deeply? Does a man with no heart behave so?

“He undoubtedly does not lack all sentiment,” Fogg said. “It has been established that even the most hardened criminal may love his mother, his wife, his children, or his dog. I do not know the history of his familial connections. To tell the truth, I was surprised to learn that he had a wife and children. But I do not think that his marriage could have lasted long. His intellect is so lofty that he regards all others, man or woman, as mental pygmies. And he is an excessively imperious and moody man. Perhaps his wife left him, taking the children with her. That may be why he wept. His self-image was bruised; if anyone were to leave, it should be he.

“At any event, he did not always have the portrait on the wall. You may have noticed, in Arronax’s account, that he himself observed the portrait only after being on the 
Nautilus
 almost a year and a half. Surely, if he had seen it before, he would have commented on it? Now I, who was aboard from the beginning, only saw it put up twice. Both times were on July second; it was a second of July when Arronax witnessed the sad scene. This date must have some significance to Nemo, but of what only he knows.”

“Then, sir, if I understand you aright,” Passepartout said, “Nemo was not an Indian patriot who gathered a crew from all over the world to fight oppressors. He was a pirate.”

“Most of his crew were patriots, yes. But Nemo was using them. They believed that he was turning his treasures over to 
underground organizations to finance their revolutions. No such thing. Most of the wealth went either to the Capellean exchequer or into his own bank accounts.

“As for the portrait, the woman and children looked very European; they looked far more English than Hindu.”

“But Aouda looks European.”

“She could pass for a Provençal or an Italian, true.”

“Pardon me, if I persist, sir,” Passepartout said. “What about the professor’s final scene with Captain Nemo? Did he not hear Nemo sobbing, were not his last words, ‘God Omnipotent! Enough! Enough!’ Did not Arronax wonder if this was an outburst of sorrow or a confession of remorse?”