20 Million Leagues Over the Sea (27 page)

He waited a moment, listening to his first
mate's slow and laboured breathing, looking for any sign of
movement. When he saw none, he cleared his throat and adjusted the
cloth-covered privacy wall behind him.

"There is some news from back home, as well.
In Paris, they're protesting at the local Ministry of Culture. Some
nonsense about dress patterns. Some corset-burning going on down on
Rue de Passy. What a sight that must be! The Rational Dress Society
is behind that one, I'll wager."

Christophe looked up from the paper. Had
Miguel stirred? He waited for a few heartbeats to see, but the
injured man did not budge.

"Admiral Thorvaldson has wired more serious
news. He sends his regards to you, by the way, and wishes you a
speedy recovery. The next captain in the fleet needs to be in top
shape!"

Christophe's forced cheerfulness tasted sour
in his mouth, but he pressed on.

"The Tsar and the Kaiser have put their heads
together -- they're cousins, you know -- and are registering a
joint protest against the TIA. They want the Science Division to
release their research on Martian technology to the general public.
Apparently, they are a bit chagrined that the French got to keep
what they salvaged. The Alliance is pushing back, though. They've
bottled up both straits around the Sea of Marmara -- remember those
beautiful beaches on Gallipoli? -- and only TIA-owned ships make it
through. Shipping is piling up in the Black Sea
and
the
Aegean. I don't have your head for politics. I have no idea how
that one's going to end up. But that needn't concern us now.
There's nothing we can do from here, anyway. So long as the crew
doesn't take sides, we should be fine."

Dr. Hansard appeared at the foot of the bed
with an orderly, who was bearing a tray laden with fresh bandages
and a syringe.

"Begging your pardon, Captain," he said.
"Time for his next treatment. We need a little space."

"Of course. Please keep me informed."
Christophe unfolded himself from the chair and tucked the sheaf of
papers beneath his arm. He leaned down and whispered to Cervantes,
"And Maggie sends her love, as always."

~~~~

Gemma

Over the next week, Gemma saw very little of
Dr. Pugh. The morning after her late conversation with Christophe,
she had slept right through the morning duty alarm. She had skipped
breakfast and made straight for Pugh's office, only to find the
door locked.

"In a meeting, Llewellyn," he had called
through the door. "I'm afraid we'll be in here for some time.
You'll find your notes in your laboratory workspace. I'll call
should I need you."

When she had tried to ask a question, the
only answer she received was a dismissive "Good day!"

She received the same "Good day!" for the
next few mornings, until she decided to wait for his call, after
all.

Every night, visions of Aronnax's giant squid
haunted her little patches of sleep. One night, after discovering
the armoire door had been left unlatched in another of Frau Knopf's
mystery inspections, she had dreamed that it danced round her room
and poked its tentacles into Old Dependable. Another night it
rifled through her volume of Lyell. She blamed it on the captain's
tattoo.

The early morning solar flare drill a few
days later did not help, either. At least this time she was in
Ladies' Country, and she only had to share the space with Caroline.
Frau Knopf and her assistants were already on breakfast duty in the
galleys. Gemma took advantage of the quiet moment to inquire about
the Lister's Towels in the storage cabinet.

"Aw, them's just for redundancy," Caroline
explained. "This is what you want." She bent down and retrieved one
of the smaller boxes on a low shelf. Handing it to Gemma, she said,
"This is brand new! Well, the idea's been around for a while, but
Frau Knopf redesigned it so it really works. I think she's applied
for a patent, actually."

"What is it?"

"A cup. Takes care of your ladies' days needs
with less than half the trouble of those Lister things. Reusable,
even. It'll work for years if you treat it right, but we brought
four for each of us girls, just in case. Less to bring, nothing to
throw away. You know, it's another reason why they didn't want us
on the ship. I reckon the Quartermaster thought we'd have a cargo
bay full of them towels!" She snorted. "But Frau Knopf wasn't
having none of that. She said it was downright silly to let
something natural get in the way of us going to space." She pointed
to the box. "There's a tract inside that tells you all about
it."

"Impressive," Gemma said as she scanned the
discreet label on the side of the box. "Perhaps we'll see them at
Selfridge's someday, and Frau Knopf will join the ranks of the
wealthy."

"Under the counter, most like, but yeah. But
now they'll have to think of some other excuse to keep us
Earthbound."

Pritchard's voice crackled over the speaking
tube to check in on them, and the blue alert light above the
latched door faded.

"C'mon," said Caroline, "let's take this box
to your cabin and go have some chips and eggs. We have a little
time before my shift begins."

Breakfast with the Booleans, and Mr.
Pritchard more often than not, was a welcome respite, although the
daily Wireless News did little for her appetite. The steel worker
strikes continued back on Earth, and the Socialists were calling
for a general strike. The Kaiser had renewed his annual demands for
access to the TIA's Martian research, this time with the backing of
the Tsar. Chips and eggs were served with a side of tension as the
crew debated the news, although the French and German sailors had
made a pact to leave the matter of Alsace and Lorraine up to their
respective governments, for now.

That Saturday came and went, and the Knitting
Circle of Doom was cancelled by Frau Knopf, as she was assisting in
the care of Cervantes.

During the day, having no other work to do,
she reviewed the journals Pugh had given her. She finished
Aronnax's in due course, and she felt a delicious frisson of
sympathetic terror as he described the frightful last moments of
the
Nautilus
in the famous maelstrom near the coast of
Norway. It was even more thrilling to read it in the original
author's spidery handwriting. 1868 had not been a good year for old
Nemo.

For as little as she saw Dr. Pugh, she saw
Christophe enough to make up the difference. He was always late for
tea, as he spent much of his off-duty time at his first mate's
bedside; but when he did arrive, he sought her out. One day, he
handed her his copy of
Following the Equator
. He had read
the rest of it to the sleeping Cervantes and decided that she could
use some light reading.

Every day, once tea was over, Christophe
would find some excuse to walk in whatever direction she happened
to go, which was usually the Gardens. He kept trying to take a turn
with her along those winding paths, to point out the patches of
growing beans and chives. She allowed it, as it was part of her
mission. In fact, Brightman's messages demanded more and more
detail about the man, his attributes, and his habits. However,
there was nothing more exciting to report than that he had a keen
fascination with Mark Twain, hairy green fruit, his sailing vessel,
and his injured first mate. There was nothing worth the electricity
it would take to transmit it back, yet she encoded it anyway.

Moreau never mentioned the name that lurked
upon his arm, and she dropped that particular detail from her
reports. She did not know if the captain had a woman, and she did
not care, except for the fact that Maggie might tie in to whatever
Orion was. Gemma was a computer at heart, and she needed data to do
her work. She only had tiny pieces, and not nearly enough to churn
out any sort of solution. Leads were few, but she had time. She
waited. She would report the name when she had something to
report.

More often than not, their promenade did not
get as far as the central gazebo before someone came to fetch him,
usually in Dr. Pugh's name. She would finish her stroll alone along
paths lined with angelica, savory, and lemon verbena. She knew of a
botanist or two that would have sold their mother's eyeteeth to
trade places with Herr Knopf. He waddled through every so often,
loaded down with baskets of orange and lemon peels from the
galleys. Their entire conversation consisted of nods and grunts as
he passed by before disappearing behind a triple-locked door on the
side of the Gardens, tucked away behind blackberry briars.

One day she came upon Caroline, looking
forlorn amongst the cabbages. She gripped a notebook -- similar to
one of Pugh's except considerably more rumpled -- to her chest and
greeted Gemma with a glum expression.

"It was here. I know it!" Caroline said.

"What was here?"

Caroline stepped over some crushed cabbage
heads and stopped next to Gemma. The Boolean leaned in close and
whispered, "The ghost."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, haven't you heard? The
Fury
is
haunted."

"You don't say," replied Gemma. She swallowed
the laugh that threatened to burst forth and nearly hiccoughed from
the strain. "Is that what the notebook is for?"

"Yes! Ask anybody. We've heard it creepin'
through the halls at night. Sometimes I can hear people walking in
the corridors, sometimes right next to me, but there ain't nothing
there!" She shoved the book into Gemma's hands. "This is for the
Psychical Society. I told them about the ghosts, when we were
ramping up for this mission, and they asked me to take notes for
'em. They might let me publish a paper. I might even get a
photograph or two, if I can use the Cohort's camera."

Gemma paged through the handwritten notes and
scanned a few, more out of politeness than actual curiosity.
"Camera?" she asked.

"They've got one for the telescope. It can
take normal pictures, too. It doesn't need flash powder, so maybe
it won't scare the ghost."

The wreck of the heat ray flared across
Gemma's mind. Pugh had asked about a camera. She wondered if they
had found any flash powder in the debris, or if he had remembered
this little fact about the Cohort's own camera. At this rate,
Caroline knew more about Gemma's department than she did.

"Whose ghost, do you think?" Gemma asked,
hoping for more unexpected news.

"Some of the others thinks it's the ones what
died on the lunar voyage."

"You don't agree?"

"No, no. And here's why. I heard it on the
trip out,
before
the flare. Whatever it is, it's been in the
ship since she launched the first time."

"Don't you mean,
on
the ship?"

"Nah.
In
."

"And you aren't afraid of it?"

"Not as much as I am of the Martians." As she
took the book back from Gemma, she added, "Oh, don't be afraid,
love. It just walks round the ship. This ghost ain't hurt nothin'
nor nobody, except for smashing some vegetation in the Gardens from
time to time." She jerked her thumb in the direction of the ruined
cabbages.

"You sure it's not just the goats from the
stable deck?"

"I checked. They've not been up here since
day before yesterday. And the cabbages were fine when I took my
walk yesterday."

"Ever thought of going into real science? You
have a keen eye for observation."

"It is real science!" she protested. Then her
face fell. "It's also the only thing I could get. Being a girl and
all."

Gemma nodded, as it was a tale she had heard
before, another stanza of Brightman's song. She took Caroline's
elbow and steered the despondent Boolean along the path towards the
more relaxing air near the chamomile patch.

"Is Informatics considered a science?" Gemma
asked.

"More like a trade, the way we do it. I want
to do research. Find stuff out. Like you do."

"Well, then, I would be interested in reading
your paper when you're finished."

It wasn't just tea and walks with Christophe.
In fact, sometimes Gemma wondered if there was more than one of
him, he turned up so often. He had visited the laboratory a few
times while she was reading the Aronnax journal. Most officers
visiting the lab finished their business quickly, but Christophe
poked, prodded, and sniffed everything that the scientists would
let him, along with a few things that made them squawk. He
keypunched cards with restless energy, fiddled with the pneumatics
settings, and flipped through every book he could get his hands on.
He checked in with Hui, who was surrounded by a mountain of
wireless messages and the guts of some sort of cannon. He discussed
the G-bombs with Stanislav and Shaw. He even got a word or two in
with the taciturn Berndsen, who rarely looked up from his
microscope.

As a computer, Gemma had spent many hours
churning out numbers in cramped warrens stuffed behind
laboratories. In the past, she had transmitted the formulas and the
steps for calculating them, the computing plans, back to the
College, using whatever means might be at hand, even carrier pigeon
once upon a time. Most of the time it was tedious, dull work; on
one mission she had computed cube roots until spots danced before
her eyes, but at least it had been useful. She felt useless now,
just reading, though Pugh had tried to convince her that reading
was a significant part of scientific research.

This far in, she could tell that her "pet
project" had nothing to do with the elusive Orion. Now she had
little hope of reading the one document she had seen in Dr. Pugh's
office, though she had wired back an encrypted message indicating
she had seen the name there. She even included a helpful tidbit
about Frau Knopf's miraculous invention, which she had the
opportunity to use in the meanwhile; it would make field work far
more comfortable for the other Girls. She hoped that those
breadcrumbs of news would buy her a little time. She cursed herself
for not taking a closer look while she had had the chance.