The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

THIRTY FOUR The Nautilus

Although the lower chamber was on fire, cold sea water rolled into the rear engine room like a wall. Smoke gushed from the site of the first explosion and poured through ruined turbines. Sparks flew, crackling in the pools and spray.

The metal-walled room filled rapidly with the pounding water. Engineers died screaming, some trying to flee, some giving their lives in attempts to save the undersea vessel.

Two crewmen dashed for the aft bulkhead door. They leaped through the door and tried to swing the heavy hatch shut, but the force of inrushing water swept the door open and smashed the men backward.

Responding together, the League members rushed onto the bridge, where crewmen struggled with the controls. More than ever, Nemo wished Ishmael were here.

"Midhull sealed, Captain. But the doors aren't holding!" a redheaded crewman shouted. "The water keeps rushing into the breach."

The Nautilus shuddered and began to sink. The deck; tilted at a steep backward angle. Charts and tools clattered off of shelves and tables, pitched aside as the wounded, tail-heavy submarine vessel sank.

"Nemo, we have to surface!" Quatermain stumbled, fetched up against a bulkhead, and then grimaced at the renewed pain in his shoulder wound. "Get back up to the air."

"We've taken in too much water. The controls are no longer responding." Despite his own words, Nemo worked with the vessel's control panels, but the systems remained dark and inoperative.

The Nautilus sank through the water, like a shot pheasant tumbling out of the sky. Three jagged holes had been blown out though its stem. Oil trails and fire spilled out; fragments of ceramic armor flaked off like broken bits of eggshell.

Drenched and battered, Crewman Patel — the provisional replacement for the murdered Ishmael — rushed to the bridge, looking about for Nemo. "Primary engine room almost full, sir, and the aft bulkhead is still open! Pump valves are jammed."

"Seal it off," Nemo said. "That is the only way we can stabilize our descent."

"But there are crewmen inside there, Captain!" the acting first mate said. Patel's eyes were sunken, his face frantic. "We never let a man—"

"For the greater good, you must seal it! The pressure will crush us within minutes, if we don't all drown first."

Squaring his shoulders, Patel rushed out, past a shaken Jekyll who huddled in the corridor.

On the bridge, sparks sprayed, panels groaned, water spurted. Quatermain, Sawyer, and Mina hung on as the vessel pitched even further. The room was already thick with smoke, and the pressure outside squeezed the walls harder, like a giant crushing them in his fist.

"It'll be fine, Mina," Sawyer said, sidling closer, as if he could comfort her.

Mina Harker, though, was not interested in such reassurance. "I'm a scientist, young man — that makes me a realist." She turned to Nemo. "Can nothing save us?"

"Only a miracle," Nemo said.

The haggard Jekyll wrestled with his fears. He had already proved completely useless in Venice, and now he damned himself for not understanding the problem swiftly enough; Hyde's bestial senses had heard the deadly high-pitched tone, but his rational mind had not understood the treacherous sabotage in time. He could have prevented this disaster.

And now he meant to do something about it.

Inside him, the snarling presence of Hyde agreed. We can do it, Henry! Just let me! Let me!

In the corridor outside the control bridge, Jekyll whirled, saw Hyde's reflection in polished metal on the wall. "What are you on about?"

You know, Henry. We can do it. Together.

Shaking with inner turmoil, Jekyll raced from the bridge. Inside his mind, Edward Hyde roared with impatient glee.

When he finally reached the hatch of the primary engine room, Jekyll fought his way through spraying water and desperate crewmen. The corridor was almost vertical as he reached acting First Mate Patel, who was struggling to close the hatch.

"I'm going inside there." Jekyll's voice was a mere squeak amid the chaotic noise.

"But I've orders to close it!" said Patel. "You won't get back out!"

"Then do it! Don't worry about me." With surprising energy, the skinny doctor sprang into the waist-deep water filling the engine room. Three mangled crewmen were already dead inside, floating up against the walls. Sparks showered from the controls. Oily black smoke clung to the large pumping pistons.

"You'll never survive!"

"Maybe not." Jekyll still sloshed forward. "Or maybe we all will."

Patel realized that there was no time to evacuate anyone else. He cursed, then used all his strength to shoulder the hatch closed after the doctor had entered. He knew that the Nautilus itself had only a few more minutes before it imploded in the depths. He didn't suppose Jekyll would die much sooner than the rest of them…

Inside the engine room, only a hellish air-pocket of steam and fire remained above the water. Drowning crewmen splashed and struggled for last gasps. Only one man still worked at trying to restart the unsalvageable machinery.

Jekyll dragged himself along the riveted wall. With his free hand, he reached into his shirt pocket to remove a glass vial and yanked out the stopper with his teeth. For a split second he hesitated, wondering if this was worse than a simple death of drowning. His hand trembled. If he dropped the vial into the water, everything would be over…

Come on, Henry! Hyde was like a caged animal throwing himself against the bars. They need me. You need me!

Jekyll faltered a moment more, but the men kept screaming, the water continued to pour inside, and the Nautilus sank ever deeper. More people would die if he didn't do his part. Many more. He gulped the bitter potion.

Without waiting for the elixir to work, he took a deep breath, swelling his narrow chest. He dove under the murky water and swam down through floating debris, grabbing handholds on machinery to drag himself against the rush of water. His muscles were weak. His arms started to shake.

Then his body began to change: Bones lengthened and thickened, muscles swelled and bulged. His hair coarsened and sprouted black from his hands, knuckles, and neck. His head grew larger, more apelike. He convulsed and spasmed, clamping his lips shut to hold in the air. Each time he suffered through this, the transformation brought him more and more agony.

Finally, Jekyll could not help himself. He screamed underwater, but let out only a mouthful of bubbles as his back arched and limbs thrashed. His eyes began to bleed.

When his form bulked up to twice its normal size, his prim clothes tore apart and floated in rags from his body. Yet all the while, his determination held. He kept going downward, handhold to handhold, until at last he reached the bottom of the flooded engine room. The submarine vessel tilted at an ever steeper angle, sinking fast.

He had to reorient himself, looking through the watery gloom to find his destination.

Deep under the swelling cold water, when he reached the wide-open aft bulkhead door, it was Edward Hyde who grabbed hold. With a silent, slow-motion stroke, he swiped aside two drowning crewmen who were still struggling to seal the bulkhead with their last breaths.

Driven by instinct now, Hyde would have preferred to rip things apart, bend pipes and girders, smash open windows. But he knew that he had to close the breach and seal off the flood.

The hatch was heavy, forced aside by the continuing rush of water from the explosions gaping hole. The beast-man's gnarled and hairy hand gripped the edge of the metal door, and he strained to swing it shut, groaning and spitting bubbles from between his cracked and uneven teeth. Hyde strained to push the hatch, and finally slammed it shut like a man closing a door against a brisk wind. He twisted the wheel to seal the sturdy hatch in place. Safe.

But he could not go back to the surface yet. Dimly, he realized the Nautilus would continue sinking as long as its tail section was full of water.

Hyde found the jammed pump valves, tried to turn them so the pistons and gears could work again. The valves remained stuck, as if welded shut. That didn't stop him.

He roared, and the last trickles of air escaped from his mouth in a cloud of bubbles. His muscles bulged as he tried again. He hammered with his fist to loosen the valve, but the thick, cold sea water stole much of his strength. Hyde's vision grew dark, his anger increased, and he forced himself to think of the pump valve as an enemy to be defeated.

Then slowly, inch by inch, the valve wheel started to move, cranking clockwise. Snarling silently, dizzy from lack of oxygen, Hyde gave the lever another shove.

Suddenly the valve came free, spinning loose, as the undersea vessels huge vents opened, hurling the massive man away. Screaming turbines began to evacuate water from the chamber. He hooked his hands around a sturdy pipe and clung to it with all his remaining strength to keep from being sucked out.

Hyde worked his way upward as the water level inside the sealed chamber dropped. High above, he could see the silhouettes of struggling crewmen splashing about on the surface. He needed air.

Higher and higher he climbed, until finally his shaggy, misshapen head burst out into the air above the water. He spat spray and heaved a huge breath to fill his starved lungs.

Heard only inside his head, Jekyll's thin voice yelled over the sound of the rushing water. "Bravo, Edward! Bravo!"