Terrors (26 page)

“If we believed every report,” Dottore Verde said at last, “we would live in a world of chimerae
and of hobgoblins, every woods full of werewolves and ogres, every castle populated by a bevy of ghosts, every tomb the abode of a vampire or a ghoul, the sea filled with mermen and naiads, and the sky at night filled with visitors from the circling planets and the twinkling stars.”

Now White did smile. “You don’t believe in any of those things?”

“No.” Dottore shook her head. The pins and clips
had been removed now, and her russet locks fell in graceful waves about her oval face. “I do not say that none of those exist, the world is full of wonders and of mysteries. That is why we must investigate what lies beneath the Fleuve Triste. But until there is evidence, dear friend—I may call you that, I hope? For of all the members of our party, you seem the one to whom I am most attuned….”

“I am honored, Dottore.”

“Until there is evidence, we must reserve judgment. As for me, should I meet a merman or naiad, I should be delighted. But, alas, I do not expect ever to have that pleasure.”

She smiled wistfully and lifted her glass. She peered through the smoky liquid it contained, or appeared to Colonel White to be doing so. She tilted her glass to her lips, then lowered it to the
table and reached for her portfolio.

“Do you know the work of Herr Schwartz’s countryman, Herr Doktor Professor Roentgen, Colonel White?”

“Indeed. We use his wonderful invention in military medicine.
Thanks to the good professor I am here tonight, Dottore.”

“And how is that?”

The Confederate held a hand to his side. “I don’t like to talk about it much.”

“As you will, then.”

“Very well. It
was at the First Battle of Belize. I took a piece of shrapnel between my third and fourth rib. A bomb had exploded and sent our position sky-high. I was just a lieutenant then.” He smiled at the recollection.

“They say that I kept fighting, that I led my platoon through the rest of the battle before I collapsed. They say that I killed an entire squad of enemy troops with a bayonet held in one
hand while I held myself together with the other. I wouldn’t know about that, I don’t remember it.”

“Yet you received a medal for it, did you not?”

“The Order of Stonewall Jackson, yes.”

“Well, then.” There was a look of concern on the Tuscan’s face. She reached for White’s hand and steadied its trembling.

“You have not recovered in fullness, have you, Colonel?”

The Afro-Confederate shook
his head. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”

She held his hand in both of hers until the trembling subsided. “Please,” she smiled at him, “I would appreciate if you might call me Speranza.”

He nodded silently, tightening his grip on the hand he held in his own.

“And I may call you Dwight?”

This brought a small smile to the Confederate’s features. He relaxed his grip on the Tuscan’s hand, and she on his.
“I prefer David. My parents must not have been thinking when they named me Dwight White.” He managed a hint of a laugh. “It didn’t take me long to realize that it was better to use my middle name.”

“Sensible indeed.” Speranza Verde held her glass between them and the Confederate poured. A waiter appeared, placed a small brass platter of sweetmeats on the table and withdrew without speaking.

“You mentioned Professor Roentgen,” the Confederate said.

“Yes. And you said his work had saved you, did you not?”

“At Belize, yes.” A faraway look came into White’s eyes. He lifted his glass and drained its contents. “When I regained consciousness in the field hospital the doctors told me that I’d actually had a piece of
shrapnel in my heart. They couldn’t see what they were doing so they used
a Roentgen apparatus to guide their instruments when they took it out. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have lived a day.”

Speranza Verde nodded. She laid her portfolio on the table between them and took from it a heavy envelope. From this she extracted several heavy celluloid sheets. Lying flat upon the envelope from which they had been removed, the celluloid sheets appeared solidly black.
The woman lifted the top sheet from the stack and handed it to Colonel White.

He held it between himself and the flickering candle that stood on the table. After studying it for the better part of a minute he whistled softly and then extended it toward Speranza Verde. She took the sheet from him and handed him another. The procedure was repeated until White had examined all the sheets.

He said,
“Do you want to tell me what I’ve just looked at?”

Before responding she replaced the sheets in their envelope and the envelope in the portfolio. She placed this in her lap. “These are imagistic plates. They were made by combining the technology of Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen with that of my countryman Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre. The Roentgen mechanism can look through solid material. The Daguerre
camera records that which the Roentgen machinery sees. What you have seen, David, is that which lies beneath the dressed rocks of the Marée de Fureur, the tidal bed that lies between the Isole de Crainte and Doute.”

“Impossible.”

“Not impossible.”

“But Dottore –”

“
Per piacere
, Speranza.”

“Speranza.”

She smiled.

“I saw living things. At least, I think they were living things. But things
not like any I have ever seen before. Were they alive?”

“No.” The russet waves moved as if with a will of their own as she shook her head. “They have not moved. They show no signs of life. But I believe they were once alive, David.”

“Creatures like that—mixtures of human and beast. They look like the product of the imagination of a madman.”

She shrugged.

“I saw things in the jungle of Belize
that I would never have imagined
at home in Creston, South Carolina. I spent half my childhood in the water of Lake Marion along with other children. We came to know every creature in that little aquatic world, from the smallest water-bugs to tortoises with the wisdom of eternity in their eyes to eels that could eat a dog in two bites if that dog was foolish enough to swim too close. But in Belize
I saw spiders that eat careless birds and plants that eat baby pigs. But still, the eels were eels, the spiders were spiders.”

“I did not make these up.” Speranza tapped a graceful fingernail on the portfolio containing the Roentgen-Daguerre plates. “The machine has no imagination, even if a madman might.”

Colonel White pondered in silence, then shook his head. “Those things,” he tapped a powerful
finger against the Tuscan’s portfolio, “those great star-headed, conical things, and that other, that incredible beast with tentacles like ropes, with legs like a giant beetle and with the mockery of a human face on its carapace—do they really exist?”

A rectangle of light broke the mood. Speranza Verde had reached toward the portfolio, perhaps to open it and remove the envelope of celluloid image
plates once again, perhaps to touch Dwight David White’s hand with her own, but instead she grabbed the portfolio and placed it protectively on her lap. The Tuscan hydrologist and the Confederate soldier turned to see a trio of silhouettes in the illuminated doorway of the lounge.

As Dottore Verde and Colonel White watched, the three newcomers advanced toward them. The latter trio halted beside
the table from which Colonel White rose, his military bearing giving him the appearance of a man taller than his actual stature.

“Herr Schwartz, Monsieur Rouge.” The Colonel raised his hand in suggestion of a military salute. The German archaeologist clicked his heels and bowed; the Frenchman bent over the white linen covered table, took the reluctantly offered hand of Speranza Verde in his own
and brushed his lips over it.

“We have a pleasant chat been enjoying, Monsieur Rouge and I,” Schwartz stated. “We had thought to share a—what I believe you call in your Confederacy a night hat, Colonel White?—before retiring for a few hours sleep.”

“A nightcap, Herr Schwartz. Won’t you join us?”

Monsieur Rouge bowed once again. “May I present Captain Alexandre, of the
Rosny
.”

The third newcomer
advanced to the table. She was as tall as a
man, like Colonel White she was attired in a uniform, its midnight blue color contrasting with the Colonel’s Confederate gray. Her features were strong but not masculine. Her hair was so dark that it appeared almost to blend with the blue of her jacket, flashes of candlelight seeming to be caught and thrown back from her coiffure. The door through which
the trio had entered was closed now, the sole illumination coming from the candle on the table. The Arab musicians had packed their instruments and retired.

Brass buttons on the woman’s tunic gave back the flickering light of the candle. The cuffs of the tunic were wrapped in wreaths of gold braid and on her chest the orders and decorations gave testimony of a distinguished naval career. A dark,
pleated skirt fell below her knees.

Herr Schwartz and Monsieur Rouge drew chairs from a nearby, unoccupied table. Rouge held one for Captain Alexandre before seating himself. A waiter brought a bottle of schnapps and placed it before Herr Schwartz and one of cognac which the French explorer and the naval officer would share; glasses were provided for all.

Shortly the quintet were engaged in
conversation. Colonel White waited for Speranza Verde to place her portfolio on the table again and share its contents with Schwartz and Rouge, but she gave no indication of doing so. In fact, at one point Jemond Jules Rouge asked if there was something she wished to share, but Speranza Verde brushed aside the obvious suggestion.

“Just a few minor items, Monsieur, nothing of importance.”

“We
are all together,” Colonel White said, “except for our English colleague. Does anyone know where Sir Shepley Sidwell-Blue has disappeared to?”

“I am sure he is preparing for our expedition.”

Captain Alexandre drew an ornately engraved watch from a uniform pocket. Holding it close to the candle she announced, “We must be aboard
Rosny
in two hours, so as to depart in three.”

“So soon?” Speranza
Verde exclaimed.

“It is the tides,” Captain Alexandre explained. “The Mareé de Fureur is a tidal body the most unusual. It will offer sufficient draft for the
Rosny
today, and she can make faster headway using the electro-atomic power of her Curie engines than creeping along on the Wells track drive. Surely, Mademoiselle Verde, you are familiar with the behavior of the marée.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Have you studied the tide tables for this month, Mademoiselle Docteur?”

“I have. Of course we have only a limited record of tides. The creation of the Sahara sea in 1930 had unexpected results, creating tides in the Mediterranean where none had previously existed, and providing for my profession wondrous new food for thought. The northerly flow will begin at four o’clock in the morning.”

“Indeed.”
Captain Alexandre raised her glass, tested the nose of the cognac, sampled its flavor only with the tip of her tongue, then lowered her glass smiling. “
Bon
.” Her gaze flicked from face to face of her companions. “I trust you have all stowed your scientific equipment and your personal gear—Mademoiselle, Monsieurs?”

Speranza Verde said, “I prefer the title of Dottore alone.”

“Very well. As you
wish, Dottore Verde. My point, however, is that we must sail with the tide or we lose the opportunity. The French Republic has a great fleet but no nation’s resources are without limit. We do not wish to waste this time.”

“And Sir Sidwell-Blue?” the German asked.

“He will board
Rosny
on schedule or he will find only a sealed bulkhead or a vacant quay. We sail with the tide.”

The party dispersed,
some to gather such brief moments of slumber as they could, others to remain awake pending the time to board the submersible.

Rosny
was an example of the newest and smallest
Nautilus IV
class of submersibles. Barely sixty meters in length, the submersible carried a small crew. Propelled by her Curie engines, she could outspeed and outmaneuver any other known submersible craft on the planet. She
was also capable of crawling over dry or muddy terrain on extended tracks based on the designs of the Englishman Wells.

Her interior fittings, in the tradition of her kind stretching back to the original
Nautilus
, were of mahogany and polished brass. Her floors were carpeted. Her galley was filled with fresh viands and fine vintages produced by the enological artists of Metropolitan France and
her North African provinces.

Only in the department of weaponry might
Rosny
be deemed deficient. Outfitted as the submersible was for purposes of reconnaissance and exploration, she carried neither cannon nor torpedo nor submarine bomb. Her crew had been trained in riflery and such arms were
stowed in the submersible’s armory; her officers, also, were furnished with sidearms.

Colonel Dwight
David White of the Army of the Confederate States of America stood at the foot of
Rosny’s
gangplank. He held a single item of luggage, containing changes of clothing, necessary toiletries, and certain equipment with which he had been furnished by the technicians and planners of his nation’s embassy and military legation in Serkout.

The Colonel was of course thoroughly familiar with the courtesies
and ceremonies of both the military and diplomatic communities of the world. When he boarded the submersible he saluted the colors of the French Republic, offered his sidearm, a Harrington and Richardson .32 automatic, to Captain Alexandre and received permission to retain possession of the weapon.

The quay, of course, had been illuminated with spotlights to facilitate boarding
Rosny
in the hours
of the night. A crescent moon had been visible from Colonel White’s hotel room; from the quay its pale radiance was utterly obliterated by the brilliance of artificial illumination.

Once on board, Colonel White declined the assistance of a crew member in carrying his single item of luggage to his tiny but richly furnished cabin. Here he distributed his personal items, retaining only his firearm
and technical gear in a smaller case which he removed from his principle luggage and locked to his wrist with a specially designed handcuff.