Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (20 page)

Elinor welcomed this knowing comment as an opportunity of weakening her mother’s dependence on the attachment of Edward and herself, that the shock might be less when the whole truth were revealed. She now said, as calmly as she could, “I like Edward Ferrars very much, and shall be glad to see him whether below surface or above; but as to the rest of the family, it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, whether I am ever known to them or not.”

Mrs. Dashwood smiled, and said nothing. Marianne lifted up her eyes in astonishment, and Elinor conjectured that she might as well have held her tongue.

It was settled that the invitation should be fully accepted. Mrs. Jennings received the information with a great deal of joy. Sir John was delighted; for to a man, whose prevailing anxiety was the dread of being alone, and who had developed during his years of island roving a lingering terror of angry tribal gods demanding virgin sacrifice, the acquisition of two, to the number of inhabitants in Sub-Marine Station Beta, was something. Even Lady Middleton took the trouble of being delighted, which was putting herself rather out of her way; and as for the Miss Steeles, especially Lucy, they had never been so happy in their lives. Marianne’s joy was almost a degree beyond happiness, so great was the perturbation of her spirits and her impatience to be gone.

Their launching took place in the first week in January, in Mrs. Jennings’ personal submarine, a charming, thirty-six-foot cigar-shaped vessel with a periscope detailed in the latest fashionable colours. They pulled away from the dock, and as the submarine began its slow descent under the surface of the cove, Elinor glimpsed her sister Margaret in the upstairs window, looking steadily back at her, grim-faced and piteous.

“Please,” Margaret mouthed helplessly, as the submarine disappeared beneath the surface of the water. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

T
HE DASHWOOD SISTERS
had never been to Sub-Marine Station Beta, but of course they had known all their lives about the city of wonders planted upon the ocean’s floor, England’s greatest achievement in its ongoing defense against the forces unleashed by the Alteration. The Station was a fully functioning human habitation, with all of its many residences, churches, offices, and famous shopping esplanades securely contained within a massive Dome of reinforced glass, seven miles long by three miles high.

The Dome itself, the greatest engineering triumph of human history since the Roman aqueducts, had been constructed over a decade and a half at the shipyards in Blackwall and Deptford, and transported in pieces down the Thames and out to sea, to a carefully selected spot some miles off the Welsh coast, just beyond the Cardigan Bay. There, upon the decks of vast battleships, the Dome had been assembled; and then down, down, she was lowered by teams of expertly trained British marines in float-suits and breathing apparatuses; down, guided by the first minds in British engineering; down and down and down, pushing all water out of the way as it went—until the Dome was landed gently into place, triple-anchored to the floor of the sea. When all was made ready, the Beta-Station Turbines were switched on—and they had sat humming away ever since, the crown jewels of His Majesty’s Corps of Aquatic Engineers, constantly sucking in the ocean water that surrounds the Station and churning it out as pure freshwater—which, once pumped inside, was channeled into a series of interlocking canals and sluices that form the “roadways” of Sub-Marine Station Beta, by which its residents travelled from docking station to docking station as they went about their business.

THE DOME ITSELF, THE GREATEST ENGINEERING TRIUMPH OF HUMAN HISTORY SINCE THE ROMAN AQUEDUCTS, HAD BEEN CONSTRUCTED OVER A DECADE AND A HALF
.

And thusly was implanted, four miles below the ocean’s surface, a thriving city of some five and seventy thousand souls. Here were the living laboratories, where teams of hydro-zoologists worked to perfect new techniques of marine animal domestication and control; here were munitions experts and shipwrights, designing more effective vessels and armaments to wage war against the sea-beasts; and here, for those having the means, was a place to live and work and be diverted by numerous undersea pleasure gardens and aquatic exhibition halls. All in the total safety provided by a fortress in the very heart, as it were, of the enemy camp.

Mrs. Jennings and her charges were three days on their journey, their anticipation building with each passing hour. They plowed the dark undersea currents, plotting a rough southwesterly course along the Devonshire coast, and then bearing starboard, up around the Cornwall peninsula, then due north, parallel to the western coast and towards Sub-Marine Station Beta.

Their passing was unremarkable, except for two terrifying hours during which the ship was piloted through a school of lantern-fish. These were slow-moving, lurking creatures, as big as houses, each with a single gigantic, glowing eye affixed to the end of a tentacle springing out from above its mouth.

“Ach, these are but like minnows, in’they?” growled the submariner at the helm of the craft, an old accomplice of Sir John’s with a bushy black beard and a steely expression. “Less’n you should plant ya right in their peeper-grasp, in’it?”

Mrs. Jennings cheerily translated his mariner’s argot to Marianne, who eagerly attended to every detail relating to these fascinating monsters. One was safe from the lantern-fish if one avoided crossing their field of vision, which trick the submariner and his crew performed by weaving slowly, for two terrifying hours, through the vast herd.

They reached Sub-Marine Station Beta at three o’clock; the sturdy leaden hull of the submarine drew up against the Pipe, as it was known— this was the steel tunnel, a half mile in circumference, that jutted up from the lip of the Dome like an enormous stovepipe. At half-mile intervals the Pipe was dotted with circular entrances, which swung open by a system of winches, to allow submarines to be piloted inside and discharge their passengers for Descencion into the Station.

One by one, beginning with Mrs. Jennings, the three passengers emerged from the submarine and stepped into a spotless, glass-walled welcome chamber, where they were politely searched for outside organic material; none-such being found, the travellers were lowered together on a hydraulic lift down, down, and farther down—the shift in atmospheric pressure offset by the calibrated speed of their Descent, and the handfuls of guar beans they were given to chew on—until at last they landed with a gentle
pfffft
onto the sea floor, in the vast welcome garden of Sub-Marine Station Beta.

The Dashwood sisters were happy to arrive in-Station, and were glad to be released, after such a journey, from the confines of the personal submarine, and ready to enjoy all the luxury of a good fire—though in this particular they were swiftly disappointed, as open flame was strictly limited within the carefully controlled atmosphere of the Dome. They travelled by gondola through a series of freshwater canals to Mrs. Jennings’s docking station, enjoying brief glimpses of some of the more adventure-some modes of transport available in-Station; dandies in bowler hats whizzed past riding on dolphins, whilst elderly women were ferried regally on the backs of dim-eyed sea turtles. Both sisters expressed delight at having arrived in a world where—thanks to hydro-zoology science, chemical desalination, and other scientific wonders passing common understanding—the water, and the beasts within it, had been so thoroughly brought to heel.

Mrs. Jennings’s docking in Berkeley Causeway was handsome, and handsomely fitted up. It had no back wall; or, rather, because it was an
outer-ring docking, the back wall was composed of the curving surface of the Dome itself. In essence, then, when standing in the rear rooms of Mrs. Jennings’s docking, one stood in a giant aquarium, looking out on the sea-life, treacherous and beautiful by turns, that went past the protected world of the Sub-Station. And so, once Elinor and Marianne were put in possession of their very comfortable apartment, they could gaze at their leisure from within the undersea paradise of the Sub-Station, and out into the inky depths of the ocean; there they saw magnificent formations of deepwater coral and floating varietals of which Elinor had read but never seen. As they stared, openmouthed, there came in view also a school of fearsome barracuda, prowling slowly past the glass, a reminder of the vast array of deadly creatures that lurked just on the other side of the divide, whose murderous intentions were thwarted only by the miracle of engineering in which all residents of Station Beta were cosseted.

The Dashwoods swiftly refreshed their wardrobes, making sure to don their Float-Suits over their new ensembles. The Float-Suits were composed firstly of arm-bands, one worn around each bicep, and a kind of waist-sash, all of which could be swiftly inflated by tugging on a cord tucked up one’s sleeve; and secondly of a reed worn under the nose, connected by a long snaking hose to a tiny tank at the small of the back, containing enough oxygen for four minute’s worth of respiration. The suits were cumbersome, to be sure, but they were required by law at all times in Sub-Marine Station Beta—most wisely, considering what happened to Sub-Marine Station Alpha.

Elinor determined to write immediately to their mother, and sat down for that purpose. In a few moments Marianne did the same. “I am writing home, Marianne,” said Elinor; “had not you better defer your letter for a day or two?”

“I am
not
going to write to my mother,” replied Marianne, hastily, as if wishing to avoid any further inquiry. Elinor said no more; it immediately struck her that she must then be writing to Willoughby; and the conclusion which as instantly followed was that they must be engaged.
This conviction, though not entirely satisfactory, gave her pleasure, and she continued her letter with greater alacrity, looking up only when one of the barracuda returned and rammed its snout against the glass. Marianne’s letter was finished in a very few minutes; in length it could be no more than a note; it was then folded up, sealed, and directed with eager rapidity. Elinor thought she could distinguish a large
W
in the direction; and no sooner was it complete than Marianne, ringing the bell, requested the gondolier who answered to get that letter conveyed for her at once.

Marianne’s spirits still continued very high; but there was a flutter in them which prevented their giving much pleasure to her sister, and this agitation increased as the evening drew on.

Dinner was a quick affair, as were all meals in-Station, fresh food and drink being nearly impossible to obtain for even the wealthiest of its residents. This dispiriting fact was due to the carefully regulated and pressurized atmosphere within the Dome, which did not allow for fires larger than those required for candlelight; and further to the Station’s remote location below the surface of the sea, which made the importation of fresh vegetation and livestock extravagantly expensive. Dining options were, therefore, largely limited to jerkies, gelatinous food-flavoured loaves, and packets of powder that—when mixed with imagination and chemically desalinated water—could approximate one’s favourite libation.

When the Dashwoods and their hostess returned to the drawing-room, Marianne seemed to be anxiously listening for the oar splash of every passing gondola.

It was a great satisfaction to Elinor that Mrs. Jennings, by being much engaged in her own room, could see little of what was passing. Already had Marianne been disappointed more than once by a rap at a neighbouring door, when a loud one was suddenly heard which could not be mistaken for one at any other docking, Elinor felt secure of its announcing Willoughby’s approach. Marianne smoothed her hair, adjusted her bodice, and even removed the unsightly nasal-reed of her Float-Suit, but
Elinor insisted she return it to its required position under her nose.

Marianne advanced a few steps towards the stairs, and after listening half a minute, returned into the room in all the agitation which a conviction of having heard him would naturally produce; in the ecstasy of her feelings at that instant she could not help exclaiming, “Oh, Elinor, it is Willoughby, indeed it is!” and seemed almost ready to throw herself into his arms, when Colonel Brandon appeared.

It was too great a shock to be borne with calmness, and she immediately left the room. Elinor was disappointed too, and all the more so to find that the months of separation had not eased her instinctive nausea and dread at the sight of him. At the same time her regard for Colonel Brandon ensured his welcome with her; and she felt particularly hurt that a man so partial to her sister should perceive that she experienced nothing but grief and disappointment and queasiness in seeing him. She instantly saw that it was not unnoticed by him, that he observed Marianne as she quitted the room, with such astonishment and concern, as hardly left him the recollection of what civility demanded towards herself. She also noticed that Brandon wore no Float-Suit; she was about to inquire, when she realised with a start that his quasi-fishiness, and in particular his ability to breathe underwater, had likely earned him a dispensation.