The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

THIRTY ONE The Nautilus

The Nautilus's engines thundered to life, and the propellers churned sediment from the canals. At the urgent steam whistle that signaled imminent departure, Nemo's crewmen jumped back aboard, ready to go. They ran across the decks, scrambled down metal rungs into the hold, sealed the hatches overhead.

With every moment, the Fantom drew farther away.

Captain Nemo went to the control room, which seemed ominously empty without his first mate, and stood directing the operations. "Enough. We must be off." His voice was cold and flat, diamond hard, with deliberate determination.

Clattering and straining under heavy gear-turnings, the cable moorings retracted automatically, tearing the tow-path stanchions from their mounts in a shower of old brick and rusted anchor-spikes. Creating a foaming wake, the undersea ship backed away through the narrow canal, working itself around debris from the collapsed bridge.

"Check all systems," Nemo said into his voice tube. "Verify our repairs. I need this ship running and ready to submerge as soon as we are away from Venice."

The uniformed men worked together in a grim blur, calling readings to each other, running through test results, patching a last few leaks. They checked vital systems and rerouted to secondary equipment where necessary to keep the Nautilus alive and increase its speed. The ship cruised like a plump crocodile though reeds as it navigated out of the maze of narrow canals.

Daylight began to tinge the sky, illuminating the shaken Carnival revelers who were still abroad in the streets. Some of them watched the armored hulk churn along, dragging the torn stanchions like trolling fishhooks behind them. The engines increased their output, and the vessel stirred up a thunderous foaming wake, as if a dragon had just passed by. The few bleary-eyed witnesses assumed the strange ship was merely a part of the Carnival, one more amazing spectacle.

Behind them, the world leaders finally stepped outside, free of their death trap. Breathing the open air, they looked as bedraggled as the battered city buildings. But they were smiling.

As the morning brightened, the people of Venice— many of them nursing a variety of injuries, as well as hangovers — began to pick up the pieces.

Finally submerged and heading back out into the Adriatic Sea, the Nautilus powered into deep water. Its engines and propellers drove it forward at maximum speed.

But the stolen nautiloid had a substantial head start.

Nemo called the remaining members of the League into his stateroom. While they watched, he slid back a large panel to reveal a contour map of the ocean floor; he had drawn it personally, based on data he and Ishmael had collected over the years and their many thousands of leagues journeying under the sea. Two spidery mechanical pointers drifted across the contour lines, a large N signifying the Nautilus, and a lowercase n.

Nemo gestured to the smaller pointer, upon which the larger one was slowly gaining. "That's the nautiloid. We'll be upon it soon."

Tom Sawyer was eager for the hunt, but he noted Mina Harker's sadness. She seemed paler than usual, quiet and withdrawn. "Are you all right, Ma'am?"

"I'm a little shaken. Just… Dorian. I can't believe what he did."

"Not all fellows wear two faces, you know," Sawyer said, clearly meaning himself. "Some are perfectly honest and upstanding people."

Mina looked into the young man's blue eyes, then turned away. Private gloom hung around her like a pale burial shroud.

Then, while they were all intent on the undersea map, a high-pitched whistle resonated through the stateroom chamber. Nemo looked up, puzzled. The sound seemed to be coming from far-off, but somewhere inside the vessel.

"Nemo?" Quatermain said. "What is it?"

"It is nothing of mine. I know all the sounds on my ship."

A crewman named Patel raced down the outer corridors, urgency written on his face. Patel dodged other uniformed men, pushing past them to get to the captains stateroom. The noise followed him, growing louder at first, then higher in pitch and harder to hear.

Nemo opened his cabin door just in time for the crewman to rush up. He carried a flat leather case, which he held out in front of him, as if afraid it might explode at any moment. Thankfully, though, the high-pitched sound had grown so thin and weak it could no longer be heard.

Patel came to a breathless halt and spluttered his report. "Captain! The noise came from this." Nemo took the leather case from him, and the crewman seemed glad to be rid of it.

Inside the stateroom, he gingerly opened the case to reveal a wax disc. He picked it up and studied it in the light. "It is a recorded disc. Someone has left us a message."

"But, don't recordings come on cylinders?" Sawyer asked.

"It is a gramophone disc, of the type invented by Emile Berliner," Nemo said. "I adopted the technology in my vessel some time ago. The Fantom — M—knows that." He placed the disc on a player that rested on the small bureau in his cabin and started the machine.

As he listened, Sawyer tried to imagine the gloating man who had recorded the words specifically for them to hear…