20 Million Leagues Over the Sea (11 page)

He must have felt her rumble, as she sensed a
subsequent chuckle in the man. "Have no fear, Miss Llewellyn. I've
done this before."

It was Pugh's turn to grunt. "Unfortunately,
he has," he said. At that moment, Shaw and Stanislav squawked
again, and he grumbled. "Good Lord! I'd almost rather be stuck in
the broom closet with a gaggle of Martians! At least they have the
virtue of silence."

"We normally don't have so many crewmembers
in this part of the Oberth deck at once," the captain said with a
hearty laugh that vibrated through her rib cage. "Perhaps we'll
rethink the closet size on the next refit. Or include one for the
ladies down here."

"
If
we have a refit." Pugh fidgeted
behind her as he spoke. "In case Mr. Wallace asks, Llewellyn, I
don't normally include the head in the Oberth tour."

Gemma finally found her voice. "Why are we in
here, of all places?"

"Flares, child," Alfieri responded. "Every
once in a while the solar disk reaches out with steaming tendrils
and sends powerful energies hurtling through the skies. We are
usually protected by Earth's atmosphere and magnetic fields--"

Shaw interrupted, "Well, except for that time
in '59! Remember the big one that Carrington saw, and all those
telegraph fires--"

"Yes, yes, but that was rather an extreme
one," replied the astronomer, "with aurorae you could read by! But
on Earth, we are protected from such things. Mostly. In space, we
surrender those protections. Like our fuel, we have to bring it
along with us. We humans need extra shelter during those
times."

"Well, that makes sense enough," she replied,
"but why not just shield the entire ship?"

"That is exactly what the Martians did," the
captain replied. "But they used simple cylinders. I don't know much
about Martian economics, but I'm certain that the cost of lining
those buckets is much less dear than lining a ship like ours."

"Please note that the
Fury
is a far
cry from a simple cylinder," said Pugh. "Being lobbed about like
tinned beef might be good enough for them, but to me that manner of
travel is just plain silly."

"And in the TIA, we don't do silly," the
captain muttered under his breath, so low that only Gemma could
hear. She could feel the vibrations of his words. "We copied their
means of space travel--"

"
Stole
, you mean," Pugh
interjected.

"I prefer
improved upon
," Moreau shot
back. "But you must admit that we did invent the state-of-the-art
water closet."

"Hrumph," Pugh retorted. "If the Martians had
actually had bladders, we'd have stolen their privies, too!"

"It's just as well," cried someone in the
back. "Can you imagine trying to take a wee with equipment designed
for a bundle of limbs when you've only got the two!"

"Lady present!" barked the captain.

Commentary in the back of the room
ceased.

Gemma craned her neck up to look at the young
man's face; she knew when she was being distracted. She had gotten
the idea that solar flares were nothing to trifle with; how long
would this one last, and how long would they be trapped?

"It makes a sort of sense," he explained,
beaming a smile down at her, "as people usually keep themselves
within easy distance of the head, and we have them on every deck.
We all know where they are, even when we can't find anything else.
Why bother creating two rooms when one would do? Although I admit I
did not expect to be chock-a-block with a clutch of scientists at
the time."

There was some pain behind that smile,
though, that would be difficult for anyone less trained than Gemma
to detect. She had just glimpsed a hard-won pearl of wisdom.

Cervantes' voice hissed from the speaking
tube. "Captain Moreau, this is the bridge. All departments have
reported in. All crew accounted for; they all reached the shelters
within two minutes. Is the Cohort with you on the Oberth Deck?"

Gemma could feel, rather than hear, the young
captain's inner sigh of relief at that report. He leaned his face
against the wall to reach the speaking tube just inside the
door.

"Aye, Mr. Cervantes, they are all here with
me. We'll work on the timing, but pass on my compliments to the
crew for their rapid response. Secure from panic stations."

Moreau managed to work his arm into a
position to open the door. They popped out of it like hot
chestnuts. Gemma hopped out of the way of the spilling Cohort. She
sucked in the cold air of the vast chamber and now felt grateful
for it. It had been frighteningly large before, but the wide-open
space was now welcome. The difference was not lost on her; it was a
matter of frame of reference, she supposed.

"Good drill, everyone, good drill," Moreau
said. He pointed to one of the men from the Engineering group.
"Good job, Chief Nesbitt. Expect more of those in the future. Want
to keep everyone safe."

The blue bulbs were now dark, and the normal
yellow-white ones were bright once more. Gemma had not noticed the
extra bulbs before the drill, but now she saw other bulbs in the
ceiling. Red and green bulbs flanked the blue ones. She wondered if
the red one meant
fire
. She hoped that if so, she would
never see it lit. She had no idea what the green one might mean.
She made a mental note to ask Pugh about the other lights
later.

Pugh led them over to the tank and the rows
of barrels and continued his lecture as if nothing at all had
happened. Gemma followed suit and pulled at her jacket to
straighten it. It was a convenient way to avoid the gaze of the
captain, who lagged behind their little group.

"As we were saying before we were so rudely
interrupted," Pugh said as he stared daggers at the captain, "the
argon in this tank is the fuel that provides the ship's working
mass. In order to create thrust, we inject the gas into a chamber
and superheat it to create plasma, which we eject out the nozzles
at the extreme end of the ship. Now, to heat that plasma, we use
radio waves, which in turn--"

"Dr. Pugh," Bidarhalli interrupted. "Please,
can you explain how radio waves can do such a thing?"

"With a prodigious great antenna," chirped
the captain.

"Of course, we have to have electric power in
order to generate said waves," Dr. Pugh continued.

"And run the rest of the ship, as well," the
captain said. "We don't just run the engines with that electricity.
We feed that power to motors and charge the batteries, in these
flywheels over here," he said, pointing to the rows of shining
barrels. "We keep these fellows charged up and then power the rest
of the ship off of them. If power production should be interrupted,
we can run life support off the batteries for quite some time."

"How long, Captain?" asked Shaw.

"Long enough to get the main power back
online and spin up the flywheels again. There are more of them
beyond that wall there." He pointed at the bulkhead through which
the tank passed, like a spirit disappearing into a wall. "The rest
of the Oberth Engine is there."

Including the tralphium and the radio
antenna
, Gemma thought. She could feel some finality about the
way the scientist and the captain were moving.
We've seen what
they wanted us to see. The tour ends here, I'll wager.

"And since we had the honour of participating
in a flare drill," Pugh growled with a meaningful jerk of his chin
towards the captain, "we have run out of the time allotted for the
tour. We will postpone the rest of it 'til later."

This last caused an eruption groans from the
Cohort, but the sudden turn of events was not lost on Gemma.

"We have yet to determine the effects of
using technology that we ourselves did not create," Pugh said,
motioning his flock back towards the door. "Who knows what gaps
there are in our knowledge? What else might we need to survive the
ravages of space? We discovered some of those gaps on the lunar
voyage, and our sailors paid the price. What price will we pay this
time?"

Gemma glanced back at the instrument panel
underneath the tank as he spoke. The professor was correct; this
ship was far more than a simple cylinder. It would have sent old
Ned Ludd's lads into conniptions. And yet all the instruments
seemed designed for humans with two hands, not for rotund beasts
with tentacles. Even if the
Fury
's mechanisms were not part
of her mission, she still wanted to know: who had designed
them
?

Dr. Pugh's remark about the Martians having
the virtue of silence came back to her. She hoped that he had not
brought any pickled specimens of the beasts with him. That would
truly be beyond the pale.

~~~~

Christophe

She is lovely, lovely indeed
,
Christophe thought. He strode down the corridor to his stateroom.
His long strides covered the distance in short order.

Captaincy had its privileges, but it had its
downside, too; it was often a lonely position. Command of a space
ship was doubly so. He was thankful for Cervantes. They had been
together for so long that Miguel often anticipated Christophe's
commands before he thought of them himself. But there were some
empty places that even his foster brother could not fill.

The Cultural Officer was outside the normal
chain of command, but the thought of confiding in Wallace made him
cringe. The man meant well, but he was a walking bundle of rules
and etiquette. Christophe liked Nigel Davies, and his assistant
Yeoman McLure was attractive in her own fashion; but fraternizing
with the Booleans was against protocol. The Knopfs had been family
friends for many years, but they had kept to themselves since the
loss of their son during the maiden voyage. Sometimes he felt that
the mourning cameo that the good Frau wore was more than just a
token of remembrance. He felt a jab in his ribs every time he saw
it.

But Miss Llewellyn... she was new. The Cohort
was outside the chain of command, so the fraternization rules did
not apply. Here, perhaps, was a female with whom he could connect.
He was happy enough when he was on-duty, which was most of the
time; but in his rare down time, he was lonely for the company of
the fairer sex, especially one that was so ship-shape and in
Bristol fashion. It relieved him to know that he had an entire case
of Men-T-Fresh Tonic in his storage locker.

Overall, he was satisfied with his crew. Hard
workers, all, not a snobbish bone in their bodies, not even the
officers. He remembered Mr. Wallace's look of horror when he
learned that there would be no Lords at his outer-space teas, and
that memory made him smile. He bore no malice towards the Cultural
Officer, who was only trying to do his job. It wasn't easy keeping
a boatload of sailors from degenerating into savages with ladies on
board. It was a responsibility that the two of them shared, though
Christophe did enjoy tweaking him with a bit of harmless
impropriety from time to time.

Miss Llewellyn! Now there is a lady!
He had met many women in his time, from the maids at Tesla's estate
in New Zealand to the girls he had encountered whilst he had plied
the seas of the South Pacific. They had been warm and happy girls
who had been sad to see him go. He could never stay in one place
for long. He had been training to lead a crew to another world. He
had always been moving from port to port, never staying anywhere
long enough to form lasting friendships outside of his crew and
Pugh's colleagues.

He had known no other goal. Mars had danced
in front of him since his nursery days. He had spent his youth
traversing the globe in order to learn how to leave it. He had
worked his way up through the ranks on every manner of vessel --
with Miguel as his shadow -- from tall ships to tramp steamers to
dirigibles, earning his command. Many of his former crewmates
served under him now.

The TIA had done more than teach him how to
command. They had shown him the devastation of the Invasion. They
had tried to build in him the same anger and hatred that they had,
so that he would be the perfect commander for a mission of
revenge.

Instead of fury, though, he felt -- well, he
wasn't sure if there was any word at all for what he felt. On many
days, he was a bouillabaisse of sentiments, though he tried to
conceal it. His crew needed a strong, solid captain, and that's all
he allowed them to see. These villains had trampled the world with
their tripods, and he should hate them with all the burning fire he
could muster, like all the posters and bills told him to; and yet,
and yet, if not for them, Dr. Pugh would not have met Maggie. And
then he, Christophe Moreau, simply would not exist.

He dragged his hand across the top of a book,
the one that always sat on his desk: the journal of his mentor's
mentor, Professor Aronnax. The cover was soiled and rippled from
decades of salt air and dirty fingerprints. Dog-eared and wrinkled
pages clung together in a binding that was near-broken in a few
spots. He was surprised that the words had not fallen out. The book
had traveled farther than most people. Pugh had trained Christophe
to take it with him, everywhere he went, and to read from it every
day, like some sort of nautical devotional. He already knew it,
word for word, but there was still something invigorating about
seeing the words in Aronnax's own hand. Christophe had even read
parts of it aloud to Maggie from time to time. She always enjoyed
his tales of the wide ocean. He had whiled away many hours with
her, recounting the sunsets reflected in the world's many horizons.
She had shivered when he had spoken about the terrifying squalls
that he had sailed through, and she had applauded the tales of the
beautiful girls waiting for him on the other side of those
tempests. She loved it when he read to her, especially the stories
of Mark Twain. Even though he had them memorized, he had still
hauled them up from the
Kiwi Clipper
. They were as much
friends to him as the brass spyglass nestled amongst them. It was
as useless here as the old pirate shirt hanging in his closet, but
he needed that little drop of seafaring life close by.