The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

THIRTY THREE The Nautilus

Listening to the recording in Nemo's stateroom, the members of the League looked at each other and recalled details of their interactions with Gray, as all the pieces clicked into place… like a bomb ready to detonate.

"Gray played like he was bored in his library, ready to turn us down, and then he claimed the battle with the Fantom's marksmen was just the spur he needed to change his mind." Quatermain put a hand to the aching shoulder wound. "He knew it was going to happen all along."

"So that was his plan if I hadn't shown up," Sawyer said, crossing his arms. "Shucks, I should have known better."

The gramophone recording continued to play. His voice sounded superior and dismissive. " — And all the while I would collect you, thanks to Mr. Gray. The parts of you that I need. Nemo's science… Skinner's skin sample."

Mina looked shocked as the realization dawned. "Magnesium phosphorus. Photographers' flash."

Nemos hands twitched as he remembered standing with Ishmael in the control room, sniffing samples of the powder they had found. "Yes, he must have photographed the details of my Nautilus."

Quatermain nodded, also remembering. "And in the ice room, where we kept Hyde chained, Skinner said that Gray had scratched him. Accidentally, he said. Must have used a little scraper to collect cells from the invisible man."

Jekyll blinked his saucerlike eyes, then swallowed hard in his scrawny throat. "That's what happened to the missing vial of elixir in my medical bag. Gray took it." He rubbed his temples, as if a massive migraine were growing behind his eyes. "He's stolen us. And we let him."

Then, with greatest triumph, Grays voice finished on the recording, "And, of course, dear Mina's blood."

She limited her reaction to a faint gasp as she recalled how he had handed her a glass of amontillado sherry, how the glass had so easily broken, slicing her palm, how Gray had been concerned and attentive, pressing his handkerchief to the oozing blood…

The League members remained stunned in the captain's stateroom, all of them exhibiting signs of dismay. Nemo summed up their reactions by announcing with cold threat, "And now we all have our sufficient reasons for wanting to kill him."

Bothered by his oversensitive ears and the incessant, increasing pain in the back of his skull, the fidgety Doctor Jekyll looked out a dim porthole; he saw much more than just deep water and the faint shadows of fish outside. He caught a reflection of Hyde's twisted and demonic face. In the image, his brutish alter ego clapped both spasming hands to his temples, pressing against his hairy ears, grimacing in agony. Inside Jekyll's head, Hyde roared. Turn it off, Henry. Turn it off

Lifting her head out of the feelings of betrayal and anger that Gray's words inspired, Mina noticed that Dr. Jekyll was standing away from the others, clamping his palms against his ears as if trying to keep his skull from flying apart. "Henry? Are you all right?"

Startled by her question, Jekyll turned away from the porthole, blinking. "My ears hurt. It goes through my whole skull." He tapped at his ears like a swimmer with water in them. "It's nothing," Jekyll said.

On the recording, the evil mastermind continued, "If you fail to save Venice, then I will get my war. And if you succeed — well, it's a small price to pay for giving Mr. Gray the luxury to go about his main task. War will come sooner or later, as inevitably as summer turns into autumn."

"M' sьre likes the sound of his own voice, doesn't he?" Sawyer said.

He continued, like a stern schoolteacher lecturing a group of disappointing students. "Now some of you— perhaps Quatermain, if he isn't dead, or maybe Skinner, who by all accounts is a sneaky, despicable chap — will pause to ask why I'm letting you know all this. What fool reveals his gambit before the game is over?"

His voice paused, as if giving them a chance to answer the gramophone disc. "Because, you see, it is over. For you. The alarm tone that revealed this recordings existence to you has automatically sounded when certain sensors determined that the Nautilus is now deep under the ocean."

"Under a great deal of pressure." Grays voice broke in. "Which is why I'll take the nautiloid, so that you'll follow and get yourselves into deep water. Perfectly predictable, perfectly boring."

Nemo and the others listened with dawning horror as M continued to relish his explanation.

"I'm sure you're aware, Nemo, how sound can affect certain crystals? Resonance frequencies? The pitch of this particular sound is higher than humans can hear. You wont even notice it. And all the while it continues to grow louder, out of range. More powerful… and more destructive."

Jekyll cringed from the reflection of an agonized Hyde in the porthole glass, can't bear it, Henry!Please!

"Dogs and lower animals can hear it with their base instincts. But not men. Hence, while I've rambled on and you all have given me your rapt attention, a secondary layer of inaudible sound is pounding against a sequence of delicate crystal sensors dotted about your vessel."

Gray's voice came again, sounding thoroughly entertained now. "Sensors that are attached to bombs. Bomb voyage!" The crude pun seemed incongruous from the erudite man.

Sawyer hurled the gramophone to the floor and stomped on the wax disk. But it was too late.

In the complex maze of ducts, conduits, pipes, and cabinets aboard the Nautilus, Dorian Gray had secreted three compact explosives, rigged to shimmering crystalline detectors. Without a complete overhaul, not even Ishmael would have found the bombs deep in the submarine's workings.

Now, although Sawyer had destroyed the player and the recording, the crystal sensors trembled, clicked — and activated the destructive devices.

A huge thunderclap of force, noise, and fire erupted from the rear midhull. The fireball split through the armored side of the Nautilus, punching out into the ocean and then imploding under massive water pressure. Metal and ceramic shattered and spewed from a huge hole in the curved wall.

A column of water hammered inward like liquid cannon fire, instantly filling the corridor. The shock wave wenched the underwater vessel back and forth like a piggy bank being shaken by a child. Glass shattered. Sparks flew.

Inside Nemo's stateroom, the members of the League were thrown off balance, careening into each other. The contour map that tracked the fleeing nautiloid was wrecked.

And then the second and third bombs exploded.