Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [104]
“But he did not survive,” Caroline whispered, her face pale and drawn. “André is gone.”
Fergusson gave her shoulder a paternal pat. “There, there, Madame -- that remains to be seen. We mustn’t underestimate our intrepid friend’s resourcefulness, must we?”
She forced a smile at that, realizing that Fergusson had a point. Nemo had been lost before, and still he had made his way back to her. She hoped he would do the same now.
As they bobbed on the end of the snagged anchor rope, Fergusson pored over his notes and charts, searching for an answer. A scrubby forest covered the ground around them, broken by grassy areas and standing ponds. Caroline could see no paths, no signs of even primitive civilization. She didn’t know where they were now, or how far they’d drifted from where Nemo had fallen into Lake Tchad.
Caroline drew a deep breath. His quick, impulsive kiss still burned on her lips. She knew why he had sacrificed himself, but she would rather they had all crashed in the African wilderness; that way they could have worked together to make it to the coast.
But if Nemo had done such a brave thing for her, then she vowed not to waste his sacrifice. By all that she loved in the world, Caroline would find a way to get them out of this -- and she would find him. Somehow.
Caroline looked up at the netting that enclosed the sagging silk envelope of the external balloon. “That outer fabric is doing us no good. If we strip away the cloth, we’ll get rid of a lot of dead weight.”
“Indeed!” Fergusson said with sudden eagerness. “The outer bag is over six hundred pounds of gutta percha-covered silk. Removing it might give us enough buoyancy to continue our journey, eh?”
Grim and numb, Caroline took one of their long hunting knives. “I’ll do it, Doctor. You go and find Nemo.” Her voice left no room for argument. Placing the knife between her teeth, she stood on the edge of the basket, then climbed the ropes to the outer webbing that held the balloon in place.
Fergusson took his rifle and a pack, then descended the ladder to the thorny acacia. Soon, whistling a tune to himself, he had disappeared into the tangled forest below. . . .
Caroline planted her feet in the squares of netting. The monstrous condors had torn a four-foot gash in the scarlet fabric and another in the green section. The outer balloon was irreparable, even if they’d had more hydrogen gas to refill it.
Since they had already discarded most of their heavy objects into the lake, regaining six hundred pounds of lift required them to take on ballast again. That would also enable them to retrieve Nemo, if ever they managed to find him.
She replaced the despair in the pit of her stomach with iron-hard determination. Caroline pressed her lips together and lost herself in work. She had to slice the silk into strips and pull wads through the gaps in the webbing, taking special care not to puncture the inner balloon with the dagger point.
She thought of when she’d been younger, how she had enjoyed talking with Nemo from her window late at night, how she had flirted with him and strung him along . . . and Jules Verne as well. Because of her father’s successful business and social standing, Caroline would never have been allowed to marry either of the young men, though she’d made her promises to a young Nemo, and had meant them with all her heart.
Yet now, with her father dead and her legal husband vanished somewhere in the Arctic . . . she knew she’d have been happier with Nemo after all. Angry, she tore strip after strip off the outer balloon, letting the tatters float away like colorful ribbons to adorn the top branches of the thorn trees.
She heard a gunshot and then a second, but even from her high vantage she could see nothing, could not tell what Fergusson was doing. Caroline imagined the English explorer fighting off ferocious beasts to rescue Nemo . . . though somehow she doubted that was true.
By the time she