20 Million Leagues Over the Sea (47 page)

The crew's terror was tangible, a living
thing on its own. Many of them cried out in shock, knowing they
could not simply open a hatch to let in the light and warmth of the
sun. Gemma reached out for Nigel and Caroline, gripping her
friends' hands as if she would never let go.

"Hold on to something," she called out.

Maggie stirred again, moving gracefully with
her great bulk, almost swimming in the frigid air. Christophe held
on to the end of one waggling limb. Without a word spoken between
them, Maggie passed Dr. Pugh to his free hand. She reached for
another floating crewman, who squealed at her nearness and beat at
the air between them.

Christophe barked at the man. "Yeoman, take
her tentacle!"

A frisson rippled down Gemma's spine at the
steel in his voice.

This is it
, she thought.

This was when Captain Moreau would be made or
broken. It did not matter if they made it to Mars; it only mattered
that his crew finally, fully, trusted him in this awful moment. It
only mattered that they had the blind faith Nemo's crew had had in
their commander. It was the only kind of faith one could have out
here in the deep black. Would they trust him, or would they run
wild in their terror? Would the sailor obey, or would he give in to
madness?

"Not touchin' a bloody Martian!" the man
shrieked. "Never!"

"There are no Martians on this ship!" Gemma
cried, loud enough that Pritchard poked his head up over the power
station door to gawk at them. "Just us Terrans! She was born on
Earth, like the rest of us!"

Christophe said, "Take Maggie's limb, Yeoman.
That's a direct order."

The man cringed. He swallowed. Hard. Twice.
He reached out, hesitating and shaking, as one would when reaching
through fire to flip a switch that would extinguish the flames.
Finally, he took the end of the tentacle with both hands, eyes
closed, waiting for the attack that Gemma knew would never
come.

"Free one hand, Yeoman," Christophe said,
gently this time. "Get ready to pick up the next one."

The man peeled open one wary eye and gazed
down at his body, then up at Maggie. Seeing that he was still in
possession of all his limbs, he obeyed and reached out for the next
floater. They continued in that fashion for some minutes, adding
sailors one hand at a time. The only sounds were Pritchard's
accelerated cursing over at the power station. The great chain of
people, with Gemma and her friends at the bottom, made its way to
Maggie's former haven on the pipes.

"Everyone grab one," Christophe ordered.
"Hold on! When the power comes back on, we don't want anyone
falling!"

"Won't be on at this rate." Pritchard's
grumble rambled across the deck.

"What's that, Pritchard?"

"Begging your pardon, Cap'n," he replied,
"but I could really use a hand or three over here. My tools are all
over, I can't see worth a damn, and I can't get any torque 'cause I
can't stand up. And, dagnabbit, I'm a hair's breadth of bein' done
with the fool thing!"

"Mind if Maggie helps?"

"Hell, I don't care if she's from Mars,
Jupiter, or the Rational Dress Society. Long as she can hold me
still! If Miss Gemma says she's okay, then she's okay. Send her on
over!"

With a joyous trill, Maggie made her way
across the deck at a speed that astonished Gemma. Maggie had never
moved with such grace and swiftness in the short time she had known
her. She was like a penguin that waddled on land but soared like an
eagle beneath the waves. The scientist in Gemma asked: why would
such beings even need gravity plates in their ship designs?

The question rang in her head like the peals
of a bell as Maggie wrangled Pritchard's wayward tools for him. She
grasped the power station with two tentacles and wrapped another
around the tall man's waist. In her remaining limbs, she held his
tools, including an electric torch to give him the light he so
desperately needed. She handed him each tool as he called for it,
like a nurse assisting a very exhausted surgeon.

"Now that's what I'm talkin' about,"
Pritchard said. "Good help is so hard to find, y'know."

"The captain's got some explaining to do,"
Nigel said, his voice tinged with the same steel as Christophe's.
She could barely see the Boolean in the darkness. Shadows veiled
his face. "And if you knew about this, so do you."

Caroline grasped Gemma's hand and squeezed
her fingers. "Oh, it's one of them top science secrets, ain't it?
She's nice, ain't she, Gemma? She won't hurt Ron? You promise?"

Gemma squeezed back with some warmth,
remembering her own initial meeting with Maggie. "'Twill be all
right, Caroline. I promise."

"I think it would be best if we all came
clean," said Dr. Pugh.

Gemma watched the elderly scientist as he
rested his gnarled hand against his chest. Dr. Hansard had just
departed the cabin after leaving many admonishments for those that
Pugh now addressed: Christophe, Maggie, and Gemma. Christophe
perched on a stool next to the bed. Maggie rested on the floor
beside him with one tentacle draped over the captain's shoulder and
another one holding Dr. Pugh's other hand. Yet another one trailed
through the air and waved in Gemma's direction. Every few minutes
it would reach over and caress her knuckles.

Gemma shed the last blanket from her
shoulders. They all blinked in the bright lights that had finally
popped back on; Christophe was already sweating from the rekindled
heat. After the power had been restored, they had lost no time in
getting the unconscious scientist to sick bay, where he was treated
along with others that had suffered minor injuries with the sudden
reappearance of gravity.

While Gemma and Maggie hovered over the
ailing scientist, Christophe had seen to the organization of the
rest of the crew, giving orders and delegating tasks to damage
control teams. Still without rest, he had reconvened with them in
Pugh's cabin to check on his condition. Gemma wondered if the young
man ever slept.

"It wasn't just Brightman that got you onto
this ship," Dr. Pugh said. "I had a hand in it, too. I am rather
sorry for putting you in harm's way, Gemma, but in all honesty,
even with all that's happened, I think you are far safer here than
anywhere on Earth as long as Petunia is creeping about."

"You got me on board? Why? How? And how did
you even know I existed?" Gemma asked.

Pugh released Maggie's tentacle and retrieved
his pocket watch from the night table. He clasped it between his
hands, as if warming it. He finally popped it open and placed it in
Gemma's hands.

"Because of them," he replied.

She looked down at the image inside the watch
and found a woman and child staring back at her.

Dr. Pugh continued, "My wife and daughter.
Before the Invasion. Elizabeth died during the initial attack on
Woking, but my daughter--"

He halted, choking for a moment, never
uttering the girl's name.

Gemma picked up the dangling thread of his
thoughts. "You thought Brightman had taken her."

"Once I discovered what my mentor's former
assistant was up to, yes. It took years to even discover that much,
that Brightman had abducted so many survivors."

Christophe added, "I didn't know of any
connection between you two until we were under way."

"But you knew later," Gemma said in as
neutral tone as she could manage.

"Yes," he said, "but--"

"I asked him to say nothing," said Pugh. "I
wanted to know for certain before I troubled you with the
knowledge. I wanted to be the one to tell you, and I wanted to make
sure that you were ready to hear it."

"And if you turned out to be wrong, and I was
just another Brightman Girl, what would you have done with me?"

He stared down at his hands. "I don't know,"
he said gently. "I didn't know you then. I only had hope, a
desperate hope, that I had found my girl at last. At the very
least, I would have known you were still a victim of Brightman's
schemes. Still somebody's lost child. I hope I would have done what
I have already done: accepted you as part of my family."

"Even if I were not your child? Or Aronnax's
child?"

"That is my hope."

She turned to Christophe. "So, that is why
you tested my hair?"

"Yes," he said. "I know I should have allowed
Elias to test you in his own time, as he had intended. But things
were getting a bit dodgy--"

"Dodgy enough to shoot me," she growled.

"You got better!" he retorted. "Well, we did
cut it close. I wanted Elias to know something for certain before
we all snuffed it."

"You wanted to make sure you hadn't tried to
kiss your sister, you mean," Gemma growled again, but this time it
emerged through a playful curl in her lips.

"That, too."

"Kiss?" asked Pugh.

"But why me? Why did you gamble on it being
me? There are many other Girls--"

"I had eliminated all but two from the list,
either because they were the wrong age or because their Codes did
not match. I hired a Mr. Chapman to collect Code -- however he
could -- from the ones I thought might be a match. He managed to
narrow it down to two. One, by all reports, was deceased already,
with the location of her grave unknown. There was nothing available
to test." Images of her friend, once Philippa, now Jennie, flitted
across her mind as he then said, "The other was you, my dear."

She knew the rest of this tale. Could she
bear to hear it fall from his lips? Could she -- should she -- tell
him her truth?

"The last time I saw him, he was departing
for Shanghai, to search you out. But someone killed him before he
reported back. Getting access to you after that was well nigh
impossible. But when I discovered that Brightman was trying to
plant one of her people on the
Fury
, I saw my chance. And I
took it."

"His name was Chapman," Gemma replied in a
quiet voice.

The ghost that had haunted her for years had
a name. Would he leave her in peace now, if she confessed? Even if
that peace was short-lived?

She heard Christophe's sharp intake of
breath. He knew. She had told him before that she was a monster,
and now he had put the pieces together. Even though he now regarded
her with sadness and pity in his eyes, there was no way he could
tell her she was anything else now.

Maggie rolled over to her and wrapped a
couple of tentacles around her in a gentle embrace. Gemma felt a
coolness on her face; she touched her cheek and stared at the tears
dancing on the tips of her fingers.

There was no thunder here, no rain outside a
gray window to weep for her. The storm had broken loose inside of
her at last.

"Did you see him, child?"

"I thought he was there to kill me," she said
with a crack in her voice.

With every heartbeat, she could feel the
promise of the stars slipping away with her confession. She could
not look at him, at that kindly face. She stared at the wall
instead. It was covered with images of a younger Pugh with his
mentor, a man she now knew to be her father, a man known to her
only through her reading of his journals. She tore herself away
from that kindly stranger's gaze as well. Surely Pugh would loathe
her after this, no matter who her father had been. Any hope that
she had had of making a true life for herself out here was slipping
like sand through her fingers.

"It was in a dark alley. I thought I was
alone until he came upon me. He got too close. I reacted. It was
instinct. He was dead before he could speak. If I had known--"

"Oh, my dear child," Dr. Pugh sobbed. "I
warned Chapman to be careful. I warned him how Petunia had
brutalized
her pupils. I warned him not to approach you so
directly. Hair strands stolen from a brush would have done. But he
was stubborn. I should have guessed."

He passed a shaking hand across his eyes; she
was not the only one weeping. "Oh, Gemma. My darling little Gemma.
That I sent him, that I pushed you into such a corner. That you
endured that burden alone! I should have gone myself, instead of
sending a stranger. Oh, can you ever forgive me?"

"Forgive
you
?" she stammered. This was
more surreal than meeting Maggie. "How could you forgive
me
?"

"It was self-defence," Christophe broke in.
He tried to reach for her, and then something in him forced him to
withdraw and sit back down. "How were you to know any differently,
with a strange man coming upon you, in the dark, alone and so far
from home?" He turned to Dr. Pugh, and a sense of relief flooded
his voice. "Elias, you would have been as much a stranger to her as
Chapman."

"But I would have been more careful with
her," Pugh said. "I would not have ambushed someone who was trained
to--"

A knock at the door made them all jump. At
Pugh's word, it opened to reveal the weary visage of Ron
Pritchard.

"Pardon the intrusion, Cap'n, ladies," he
said as he flashed a wide smile at Maggie. "Dr. Pugh. Thought I'd
check in with you."

"Of course, Mr. Pritchard," Christophe
replied as he got to his feet. "What's our status?"

"Power's back up in all sections and has been
stable for a few hours now. Engines don't look any worse for wear
and should be fine when we restart 'em. Dr. Bidarhalli is crankin'
through the calculations to see when we should fire 'em up. Because
we're a little off our acceleration schedule, we'll have to adjust
Braking Day. He figures we should just cruise along as we are for a
while and then just fire 'em up for braking to begin, instead of
speedin' up to just slow down again. We're behind, but not by too
much."

"And has everyone reported in about how the
power outage affected their systems? How about our provisions?"

"Oh, I think Frau Knopf has that well in
hand, sir. Herr Knopf reported that there's some frost damage in
the Gardens, not to mention the mess created when the artificial
gravity gave out. Thankfully, a lot of stuff in there is pretty
well nailed down, but not everything. He sure was cussin'. Stable
deck is a disaster, though. There'll be no shortage of cleanup
details 'round here, I'm thinking."