The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures (35 page)

“Ludovico!” the captain
exclaimed. Then, handing me the candle, he dashed to the figure and pulled him
upright. The man gave forth another moan. “Help me get him above,” the captain
ordered.

As best I could, I aided
him in dragging Ludovico Divenchy to the main hatch stair and struggled to
hoist him upwards, though the burden of the task fell onto the captain’s
strength, not mine. Once we got him on to the deck of the
Nautilus,
the
captain reached down and took a handful of seawater and flung it into his face.
It took several dousings before Ludovico began to stir. He opened his eyes and
squinted in the glaring sunlight. Seeing the captain, his face darkened. “You,”
he muttered.

“Yes, Ludo, it is I,”
the captain replied.

A look of rage came over
Ludovico’s face, and he attempted to lash out at Captain Nemo. Despite his
weakened condition, the blow could have done a good deal of damage, had it
connected. “You have come back to the scene of the crime, eh, Cesaré?” he said.

“What crime, Ludo?” the
captain protested. “The only crime that has taken place here was committed by
you. Your very presence here attests to that. To whom have you given Father’s
papers, Ludo?”

“Oh, that is rich,”
Ludovico spat, struggling to his feet on the deck. “First you lure me here, and
then —”

“I lure
you
here?”

“Yes, and I do not
appreciate being played for a fool, least of all by you!”

“Gentlemen, please!” I
called out in desperation.

“Who in hell are you,
whey-face?” Ludovico Divenchy demanded, giving me a vicious glare.

“He is my crewman,”
Captain Nemo said, “and while you are on board this vessel you are to treat us
both with civility. I will not countenance any of your —” He stopped suddenly
and appeared momentarily lost in thought, then said: “Ludo, are you under the
impression that I summoned you to the
Nautilus?”

“You know damned well
you did!” Ludovico roared. “I saw the letter!”

“What letter?”

“The one you sent to —”
Now it was Ludovico Divenchy who stopped mid-sentence as a realization dawned
upon him. He slapped a hand to his forehead and wailed, “Oh, my God, it was a
forgery!”

“What did this purported
missive of mine say?” Captain Nemo asked.

“It instructed me to
return to the
Nautilus
and raise it,” Ludovico answered. “Cesaré, it was
in your handwriting. I

recognized your
signature. That was the only reason I acquiesced. What a fool I was!”

“Agreed,” his brother
said, “but nothing can be done about it now. Come, we have work to do.”

Ludovico required only a
little help descending into the
Argonaut,
and no help whatsoever
consuming the three brandies his brother offered him in the vessel’s salon,
though they did not serve to put him in a more congenial mood.

“Now, Ludo,” Captain
Nemo began, as his brother finished his third drink, “it is imperative that I
know who has the secret.”

Looking with some
embarrassment at his brother, Ludovico Divenchy said: “A priest named Father
Saldana.” “A
priest?”

“He came to me and
claimed to know everything about Father’s notes, and said that it was the will
of God that the church be in control of the discovery before any government of
the world obtained it. He said that it was the only way to prevent worldwide
strife. You must admit, that is a reasonable argument. Then he presented me
with that letter purportedly from you, stating that I should trust and help
him. And when I had managed to bring that sunken coffin to the surface and
handed over the papers, I was offered a congratulatory drink for my efforts — a
poisoned one. Forgive me, Cesaré, but I assumed it was your doing all along.”

“Have things so
deteriorated between us that you would really think I would seek your death?”

A silence fell between
them, which I broke to say: “If, as you say, the drink was poisoned, why are
you still alive?”

Ludovico Divenchy’s
withering gaze reduced me to the status of a gnat. “I may be a fool at times,
boy, but I am not an easy man to vanquish.”

“That quality, brother,
can only aid us,” Captain Nemo said, “for we must get those papers back!”

My mind was still raging
with questions. “Forgive me, Captain, but I fail to see how a formula for
creating gold carries with it such dire consequences.”

“Do you possess the
mental capacity to understand?” Ludovico challenged.

“How can I tell if I do
not even know what it is I may not understand?” I snapped back.

Captain Nemo gave a deep
sigh, and said: “What do you know of atomics, Louis?”

“Atomics? Nothing, sir.”

“You see?” Ludovico
said.

The captain stifled his
brother with a gesture. “Listen to me, Louis; the ability to create gold
carries with not simply the potential for economic havoc. When one element
changes into another, it is because its atoms move and regroup, but that very
atomic movement produces an extreme form of radiation. Father discovered ways
to control the process to minimize the danger. However, if used improperly or
ignorantly, the transmutation process could create a force of heat and fire
that could consume cities and destroy every living thing for tens, if not
hundreds, of miles. It could lay waste to entire countries, perhaps even
mankind itself.”

“Good God,” I muttered.

“The invocation of God
is more than proper, for in the wrong hands my father’s discovery could unleash
Armageddon.”

I studied the faces of
the two men, both of whom, I knew, were not given to levity. Their present
expressions confirmed the fact that Captain Nemo was not exaggerating the
danger of metal transmutation. “God help us,” I muttered, fearfully.

“We cannot wait for His
intervention,” the Captain said. “We must retrieve the secret and destroy it
ourselves. Ludo, do you have any idea where to find this M. Saldana, whom I
doubt very much is a man of the church?”

“None,” Ludovico said,
shaking his boulder-like head. “Wait . . . at one point he used a strange word
in such context as to indicate a place: Rakata, he said. Do you know where that
is?”

“That is the name of an
island in the Flores Sea, in Indonesia,” Captain Nemo replied. “There is very
little hospitable there, though.”

“Isn’t that area volcanic?” I asked.

Upon hearing my query,
the heads of both brothers snapped up. “Heat!” they cried in unison.

“With the heat of a
volcano, they could manufacture a ton of gold,” Captain Nemo said, “but at what
consequences?”

“We must get there at once,” Ludovico said.

“We can be there in less than two days.”

“If we only had a flying
ship, we could arrive there in one,” Ludovico mused.

“A flying ship?” the
captain retorted. “Come, Ludo, that is sheer whimsy. Even you cannot conquer
the skies.”

“What a pity, brother,
that your imagination does not match your intellect.”

After that, the two men
ceased conversation. Captain Nemo stood watch over the
Argonaut’s
control
instruments, never resting or even stopping to eat. Under normal circumstances
it was impossible to detect the sense of motion on board the submersible;
however, travelling at a constant maximum speed, as we were doing now, gave me
a slight sense of dizziness. Luckily, I had to endure only one more day of it
before we arrived at the captain’s coordinates of 9° 23’ longitude and 114° 49’
latitude. Calling both Ludovico and I into his private study, Captain Nemo
unveiled the glass panel set in the room’s ceiling. It was early evening in
this part of the world, and there remained enough light on land above us for us
to see the shadow of the ship a dozen or so fathoms overhead. “We will surface
immediately,” the captain said. “I wish to see the colours the vessel is
flying.”

We rose a fair distance
from the ship, which appeared to be a schooner, and once we had climbed onto
the deck, the captain took up his telescope to examine it. There have been
times when I felt that nothing on earth, and probably few things in Heaven,
could actually take Captain Nemo by surprise. But as he scanned the ship
through the glass, he appeared to be at a loss for words. “What country is it,
Cesaré?” asked his brother.

“See for yourself,” he
said, handing him the telescope. After a lengthy look, Ludovico said: “I have
never seen that flag in my life!”

I was permitted a look
next, and, like them, had never before seen the banner, which was half green,
half golden-yellow, surrounding a white diamond shape.

“We must get closer,”
the captain said, and ordered us below. Sinking just under the surface, we
proceeded over and through the jumble of levels formed by the underwater bases
of the volcanic cones. At last we were below the unidentifiable schooner. “We
will wait for darkness,” the captain instructed.

Under the sea the hour
of the day loses its relevance, but the passage of time does not. The next
three hours seemed endless. With nothing else to pass the time, I took to my
cabin, where I recorded notes in my journal until a knock on the door signalled
that it was time to make our move.

The
Argonaut
surfaced
close to the hull of the schooner. The evening was warm and the full moon
provided enough illumination for us to see, but cast an eerie yellow glow over
the sea and ship. Since the only weapon to be found on board the
Argonaut
was
a harpoon, we would board the ship as unarmed as we were uninvited. Attaching a
rope to a grapnel, Captain Nemo skilfully threw it and hooked it on to the deck
of the mysterious ship, permitting us to climb aboard.

No helmsman stood at the
wheel of the schooner; in fact, the deck of the ghostly ship appeared to be
deserted. “What do we do now, sir?” I asked the captain.

“We came for answers,
Louis,” he replied, “so let us waste no time in posing our questions.” He then
lifted his foot and stomped on the deck as forcefully as possible. Below, I
could hear a confusion of voices. Then various forms began to appear on the
deck. One of them approached us with a lantern, and when he saw Ludovico, he stepped
back. “Good Lord . . . Divenchy!”

“Well well, my friend,
the holy man!” Ludovico said, and reached for the throat of the man I presumed
to be the deceitful Saldana. Only the unmistakable sound of pistols being
cocked at close range stopped him. “There is no need for this,” a voice said. “Come
below, Signor Divenchy. The rest of you as well. God alone knows how you got on
board this ship, but now that you are here, no immediate harm will come to you
unless you invite it.” We were marched below and ushered into what normally
would have been the captain’s quarters on a ship, but in this case appeared to
be a meeting room, for seated around a table was a dozen or so men, each one
dressed in-the garb and hair fashion of a different nation. “This is why we could
not recognize the flag,” Captain Nemo commented.

At the head of the table
was a nondescript fellow whose nationality became clear only when he spoke: “We
fly our own flag,” he said, revealing an American drawl. “We represent each of
the major countries of the globe, though before long, our flag will be the only
flag, and there will no longer be separate nations.”

“And you will be in
control, I suppose?” Ludovico sneered.

“Yes, and who better? We
are the elite of the world,” the American replied. “We will provide the masses
with their basic needs, and they, in turn, will work to provide us with ours.
For the first time in history, there will be order in the world.”

“You cannot be serious,”
Ludovico said.

“Utterly serious,” the
man said, and despite the madness of his plan, his eyes betrayed a deadly
earnestness.

“You expect the nations
of the world to sit back placidly while you take them over?” Captain Nemo
asked.

“Come now, Captain
Divenchy . . . or do you still prefer Nemo? Yes, we know who you are. Our
agents are nothing if not thorough. Anyway, ninety-nine per cent of the world’s
population was born to be serfs and vassals. They are sheep constantly in
search of a shepherd.”

“May I ask the shepherd’s
name?”

“Collectively we are the
One World League, Captain. My name is Walker.”

“Walker, the oil baron?”
Ludovico Divenchy said.

The American smiled. “You’ve
heard of me, how gratifying,” he said. “Soon, my friend, I shall be President
Walker of the World, thanks to you. The League has been planning this venture
for some time, but we lacked one key ingredient for success: the means of
limitless wealth. You, Mr Divenchy, provided that.”

Suddenly the meaning of
the strange flag on the ship came to me: a diamond surrounded by gold and
green, which is the colour of American currency . . . the flag itself
symbolized wealth!

Pistols or no, Ludovico
Divenchy looked as though he was going to lunge for the man, but his brother
prevented him by placing a hand on his arm. Then he stepped forward and said: “I
have but one question for you, Mr Walker, for which I demand an answer: are you
the men who killed my wife, my children?”