TW05 The Nautilus Sanction NEW (10 page)

“
Merde,”
said Land. “I understand none of this. What’s this about your being adversaries? How do you know this man?”

Lucas sighed. “Ned, you’re going to think you’ve fallen into a nest of raving lunatics after you’ve heard my explanation, but there’s no way around it. You’re going to have to know exactly what this is all about if we’re going to get out of this, so here goes. Brace yourself ...”

Land wouldn’t have any of it. If he was unwilling to accept Verne’s theory that a gigantic narwhal could exist, he wasn’t about to listen to any nonsense about time travel. He was not a scientist. He wasn’t even literate. Unlike Verne, he couldn’t look about him and realize the brilliant feat of engineering that was a nuclear submarine could not possibly have been accomplished in the 19th century. If an Englishman and an Austrian could devise a self-propelled torpedo, why then it made perfect sense to him that Drakov could construct a submarine. Lucas tried explaining to him gradually and patiently, with Land listening attentively at first, then scowling and squirming in his chair, then interrupting angrily to demand Lucas stop treating him like a fool and tell him the truth and finally threatening to bust his skull.

Exasperated, Lucas was about to try another tack when Finn put a hand on his shoulder and took over.

“All right, Ned, we’ll tell you the truth. It’s clear you’re nobody’s fool. The fact is, Drakov was a brilliant scientist, a professor on the faculty of Miskatonic University, where Lucas and I were teaching courses in Creative Apathy and Rubber Physics. Andre, here, was a graduate student at Miskatonic at the time, taking her degree in Electronic Onanism. Drakov managed to convince the university officials he could prove a theory first advanced by the eminent acrocephalic, Dr. Nicholas Gambrinous, namely, that interlocutory foreplay, properly applied, could achieve a state of labial penetration of normally recalcitrant subjects. To this end, he was awarded financial backing in the form of a grant and he proceeded to set up his laboratory, staffed with young graduate assistant; eager to help in his experiments. Lucas, Andre and myself were working on a competitive project, and we were able to convince the university its funds would be better spent in supporting our research, instead. Drakov lost the funding for his project and left the university, vowing to revenge himself upon us. And there you have it.” Verne sat staring at Finn, stunned into speechlessness. Land grunted, then looked at Lucas and said,

“Now why couldn’t you say so in the first place? That makes a lot more sense than that other nonsense you were spouting.”

“
It does?”
said Lucas.

“Just because I never went to a fancy university, don’t think I’m a fool,” he said.

“Of course not,” Lucas said.

Verne made a whimpering sound.

“You all right, Jules?” Land said, concerned.

“Oh, yes, quite, quite,” Verne said, not daring to look him in the face. He cleared his throat several times. “I must have caught a bit of a chill, that’s all.” They were escorted to the wardroom at the appointed time and entered to find most of the crew, save those on duty, already sitting down to dinner. Neither Verne nor Land had any reference for the scene they were confronted with, but for Lucas, Finn and Andre, it was not at all what they expected. On one level, there was an atmosphere of order to the mess. The men sat at their tables, dining in a reasonably quiet manner, enjoying the food provided by the huge stores of a nuclear submarine. Yet, on the surface, an element of the surreal had intruded. The bulkheads of the wardroom were obscured almost entirely by fabulous Chinese and Persian tapestries and the tables were set with fine china and real silver on ornate cloths. Wine was in evidence, as well as vodka, beer, rum and even mulled ale. Chamber music filled the wardroom.

As for the crew, the, spartan Soviet military veneer had slipped considerably. Beards and moustaches were in evidence, some quite elaborate. Hair was longer. A few of the men wore earrings.

Many of the jumpsuits bore marks of individual ornamentation; gold brooches and jeweled clasps, silver pins and hammered bracelets, emerald and ruby necklaces of inestimable worth worn over the shoulders as aguillettes. Some of the men had their sleeves rolled up or cut off entirely, exposing intricate tattoos, blazing with color. It was a bizarre combination of a medieval feast and a pirates’ mess. The only element lacking was a cadre of buxom serving wenches.

They were conducted to the captain’s table and Drakov rose to greet them. Four men were seated at the table with him and they rose to their feet as well.

“Gentlemen, and lady, please be seated,” Drakov said, indicating the places set for them. He had changed his jacket for a 17th-century British naval admiral’s coat, festooned with gold braid, heavy gold epaulets upon the shoulders. Lace showed at his throat and cuffs. “Allow me to introduce you to my senior officers.”

They sat down and Drakov turned to the man on his immediate right, a thin, dark-eyed, evil-faced Sicilian with coarse black hair and the manner of a Medici poisoner. “This is Santos Benedetto, whose name will be known to you three àcademicians.’ Santos, aside from myself, is the last surviving member of the Timekeepers. After our last meeting, in Zenda Castle, I encountered Santos in one of our old rendezvous places. He helped me to begin this venture.”

Benedetto gave them a dark stare and nodded. He wore 27th-century black base fatigues and a warp disc on his left wrist.

“Santos knows you three only too well,” said Drakov, smiling. Then he introduced Verne and Land to his second-in-command. “The gentleman beside Santos is Barry Martingale, late of the 20th-century American Special Forces. When I met Sgt. Martingale, he was pursuing a career as a mercenary soldier and being terribly underpaid. I offered to remedy that situation and he graciously accepted.” The beefy, sandy-haired Martingale twitched his lips in what might have been a smile and said, “How do?” His muscular frame was sheathed in khaki—sharply creased trousers and an African bush jacket.

He had a pencil-thin moustache, a square chin and foggy gray eyes.

“The man on my left,” said Drakov, “is General Count Grigori von Kampf, late of the famed Imperial Black Hussars of Czar Alexander. Count Grigori comes of a colorful lineage. His father was a Russian aristocrat and his mother a Kirghiz Gypsy. We are old acquaintances and I could not embark upon my venture without him.”

Count Grigori was huge, with shoulders like a Goliath and a chest like a wine cask. A former cavalry officer, it was a wonder a horse could have been found anywhere large enough to support him. His hands were easily twice the size of Finn Delaney’s, and Delaney was not small. The lower half of Count Grigori’s face was hidden by a square, luxuriant beard and large handlebar moustaches curled out from beneath his nose. His hair, both on his head and on his face, was gray and curly and his eyes looked Oriental, dark as anthracite. He still wore the uniform of an officer in the Black Hussars, a jet black tunic with ornate buttons and a stiff, high collar.

“
Otchen priyatno,”
he said, his voice a basso profundo.

“He says he’s very pleased to meet you,” Drakov translated. “Count Grigori has received the benefit of implant education, but he refuses to speak English. He considers it a barbarian tongue. He is, however, perfectly willing to converse in French, as well as Russian.” Drakov turned to the last man. “And this is Toshiro Kamakura, Shiro, as we call him.” The tiny Japanese gave a little bow. He looked like a boy in his early teens, but his eyes were infinitely old. It was impossible to guess his age. “Shiro’s father was assassinated along with his wife for a transgression against the Yakuza, of which he was a member. Shiro survived by running away with his sister. He could not save both her and his parents, you see. To atone for the shame of running away, Shiro cut off the little finger on his left hand. To prevent himself from ever revealing where he had hidden his sister, he cut out his tongue. He then systematically tracked down each of his parents’ killers and dispatched them, quite efficiently and brutally. He was only fourteen at the time. He is seventeen now. I know what it means to grow up an orphan.

When I found Shiro, I took him in and educated him, so he could write and tell me where his sister was. She is now being well taken care of. Shiro is my most loyal and trusted aide. Do not let his youth deceive you. He is quite ruthless. I advise you to be polite to him.” Shiro studied each of them in turn, gazing at them long and hard with an unblinking stare. His slight frame, his long, straight black hair hanging to his shoulders and his delicate features gave him an androgynous aspect, but those eyes were chilling. When he looked at Lucas, Priest suppressed an urge to glance away from that ophidian gaze. This child prevailed over Yakuza assassins, Lucas thought. Quite a group Drakov had gathered.

Finn echoed his sentiments aloud. “Looks like you’ve found a hell of a crew, Drakov.” He glanced around at the others, then at the Soviet submariners. “However, discipline seems a little lax.”

“On the contrary,” Drakov said. “These men are more efficient now than they were under their previous commander. They are more efficient because they have more freedom, because their initiative is rewarded and they are happier.”

“Thanks to re-education conditioning,” said Andre.

“Not entirely,” said Drakov. “It is true most of them needed to be, shall we say, deprogrammed from a lifetime of a different sort of conditioning, but you might be surprised to learn that a great many of them, far more than I expected, went along with me quite willingly. After all, I offered them far greater opportunities. Do not be misled by their appearance. There is a great deal more to military efficiency than uniformity, precision drill and polish. Look at history. The mighty empire of Rome fell to wild barbarians.

The greatest armies in the world crumbled before the onslaught of Genghis Khan. Ragtag armies of colonials prevailed over the dress parade regimentation of the British.” He smiled. “My men may look somewhat piratical, but they know what they’re about.”

They were served their food and Verne gasped at the sumptuous repast. Roast beef, baked potatoes, yams, corn, cranberry sauce, ragout of pork, fruit preserves, fresh baked bread and steaming coffee.

“Amazing!” Verne exclaimed. “I cannot believe these miracles I am assaulted with! However can you keep such food supplies fresh, Captain?”

“Freezing and refrigeration, Mr. Verne,” said Drakov. “This submarine is well stocked with food supplies. On board at present, we have some four thousand pounds of beef, two thousand of chicken, fourteen hundred of pork loin and one thousand of ham. We carry roughly three thousand pounds of sugar, twelve thousand pounds of coffee, one hundred fifty pounds of tea, eight hundred pounds of butter, twenty-two hundred of flour and some six hundred dozen eggs. There is also a considerable quantity of wine, vodka, whiskey, beer and ale on board, though my crew does not overindulge. I allow them all they wish to drink, but the penalty for being drunk on duty or incapacitated by the aftereffects of drink is twenty lashes, which Shiro administers quite adroitly. In addition to our supplies, we look to the sea for sustenance. Those are dolphins’ livers in that ‘pork’ ragout you are devouring, and that which you assume to be fruit preserves is derived from sea anemones.” Land stopped spreading the preserves on his bread and looked at it with horror.

“Your vessel is a marvel, Captain,” Verne said. “I have a thousand questions to ask of you.”

“I have a few questions myself,” said Lucas.

“Yours shall have to wait, Mr. Priest,” said Drakov. “Mr. Verne, kindly ask anything you wish.” Verne was flustered. “I don’t know where to start! I want to know everything!”

“And so you shall,” said Drakov. “This submarine is constructed of titanium, with double hulls, and it displaces almost twenty thousand-tons. It is some five hundred sixty feet long and its hull diameter is forty-two feet. It is capable of attaining speeds over sixty knots.”

“Impossible!” said Land.

“I assure you, Mr. Land, it is not only possible, it is effortless,” said Drakov. “We submerge by means of employing water as ballast, held in tanks between the hulls. Wings or diving planes, such as those you saw on the sail, enable us to dive or to ascend. Two rudders, one above the propellers, one below, control direction. We are equipped with two periscopes which can be raised when near the surface to allow us to observe without being seen and we are capable of going more than four hundred thousand miles without refueling, which would be sixteen trips around the equator.”

“How can that be?” said Verne. “How can you maintain an air supply allowing a trip of such duration? What manner of propulsion could achieve such a feat?”

“The
Nautilus
manufactures its own oxygen from seawater,” Drakov said. “Unwanted gases such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are disposed of overboard. As for our propulsion, Mr. Verne, our engines are steam turbines driven by the power of the universe, a power humanity will not discover in this century.”

“I’ve not heard such nonsense in my life,” said Land.

“Then how do you explain where you find yourself, Mr. Land?” said Drakov.

“What is this power of the universe?” said Verne. He had forgotten his meal.

“It is called nuclear fission, Mr. Verne,” said Drakov. “The sun is powered by a nuclear reaction process called fusion. Nuclear fusion powers stars. Nuclear fission is similar, in a manner of speaking. It is the process by which the atom is split.”

“But . . . that’s contrary to the laws of physics!” Verne said. “There is no power on earth which can split the atom!”

“Say rather that such power has not been discovered in your time,” said Drakov. “Even the men whose work led to the discovery believed as you do. Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Fermi, even they were not sure it was possible. Or, should I say, none of them
will be
sure it is possible? For that time has not yet come. Please, Mr. Verne, do eat. Your food is growing cold.” Verne started to pick at his food. His hand was shaking. For Land, it was all incomprehensible. For Lucas, Finn and Andre, it was all familiar, yet frightening. They had become part of a temporal contamination which seemed to be beyond their ability to adjust. They could only sit and listen in mute fascination as a man born in the 19th century, but educated in the 27th, explained the concept of nuclear energy to an author who had foreseen—or would he foresee as a result of what was now happening?—the very vessel they now sailed in beneath the sea.