Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [129]
Upon seeing his arrival, the other prisoners stirred. Most scowled in frustration, though a few of the French captives looked at him with barely restrained excitement.
Robur stroked his pointed beard and turned his angular face from the camp prisoners toward Nemo. “You will remain here and recover, Engineer. I promise we shall treat you well. We have important work for you, far beyond this mere squabble among nations.”
“But why did you bring me here?”
“Everything will be explained to you in time -- when you need to know.” Dismissing him, Robur rode off as the guards hauled Nemo through an opening in the fence.
Bound by their common predicament, the other prisoners welcomed him and introduced themselves, explaining their backgrounds and how they had come to be in Robur’s camp. Like Nemo, none of the prisoners understood why they were here. Each man had been taken under bureaucratic pretense, then abducted for some unknown purpose.
An Englishman named Cyrus Harding was a professional boatbuilder by trade. Harding had square-cut brown hair and a large chin that sported a crater-sized dimple in the center. Though his flinty eyes watched his surroundings, Harding kept his mouth shut in a grim line unless he was forced to speak.
Conseil, a mousy man from Marseilles, had been brought to the Crimea as a meteorologist, of all things. Months earlier, after storms in the Black Sea had severely damaged the French fleet, Conseil had been assigned to collect regular weather reports from the war zone, which he then telegraphed to a central station. The meteorologist had an amusing habit of withdrawing his simian head in a cringe. His eyes were wide and round, as if on the verge of popping out of his head; he kept his gray-brown hair scraped close to his skull, but when it grew longer, the short strands stood out like bristles on an old brush.
Liedenbrock, an odd member of the group, claimed to be Sardinian but spoke with a strong German accent. Trained as a metallurgist in Salzburg, he had found work with industrial investors in Sardinia. Unfortunately, he had gambled away all his money, lost his home and his mistress, and would have gone to prison -- unless he volunteered to join the Sardinian forces in the Crimea. Liedenbrock was rail thin with a curly fuzz of gray hair like a cloud that had settled on his cranium. His heavy brow extended like a shelf over brown eyes, casting his face into shadow.
Some of the other prisoners had worked as craftsmen or mechanics, others as lathe-turners and glassmakers. What could Robur possibly want with an outcast metallurgist, a timid weather scientist, a stoic boatbuilder -- and himself? None of the men were officers or important political prisoners . . . few even had families or obligations back in their home countries. The caliph seemed to have chosen the least significant men as hostages from the battlefield. Nemo thought no one would even notice their disappearance. . . .
After his initial anger, he studied the camp objectively. Knowing the hospital conditions he had just endured, and having experienced daily life in military camps, he noted with surprise that Robur’s war prisoners were treated better than most troops in the Crimea. The men had grass bedding and awnings to protect them from the sun. They received regular meals, usually lamb or goat stew; at other times they ate fresh vegetables, olives, bread, and wine. In fact, they ate better than the loyal Ottoman troops fighting on the siege lines.
For days as he pondered the problem, he circulated among the captives, learning their names and their situations. As a point of survival, Nemo had long ago learned to assess available resources -- and these men and their diverse skills comprised his only resources in this strange situation.
The quietude was marred only by the constant presence of mounted guards who rode the camp perimeter. Glowering bald guards stood