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“Senseless and terrible,” one of the other shepherds said. “The men enjoyed the killing very much.”

Nemo listened with a heavy heart. Smoke from the cookfire stung his eyes and nose.

“When it was discovered that Auda was a spy, she and several others loyal to Barbicane took a boat and tried to escape across to the Aegean Islands. But on the way they were attacked. Their boat sank. All aboard were killed.”

After that, Nemo heard little else as anger and despair clamored in his head. He didn’t care about the changing politics in the Ottoman Empire, or the Sultan’s current advisors, or plans for the site of the industrial compound. In a daze, he finished his coffee with the shepherds and thanked them, but refused their offer of a full meal.

At dusk, he wandered across the plateau into the deepening night. He felt as destroyed inside as the entire city of Rurapente.

vi

Aboard the Nautilus, the crew sank into a heartsick silence. The men from a hodgepodge of countries and cultures drew closer together than ever, unified by their circumstances and their losses. They performed their duties like the walking dead, all hope of happiness lost in one cruel stroke of fate.

Feeling hollow, Nemo stood at the bridge, gripping the metal rail. Finally, out of desperation, he gave the order to depart from the Turkish coast, taking painful memories with him and leaving nothing else behind. With engines at half power, the Nautilus cruised away from the ugly scar of Rurapente.

He vowed never to return. Never. He’d had enough of warfare, suffering, and death. He wanted nothing to do with humanity’s bloodshed and cruelty.

As the ocean folded over the underwater boat, he stared into the blue-green wilderness. Every time he encountered people, every time he tried to make peace with society and live with his fellow man, the results were disastrous.

He thought of the pirates attacking the Coralie. . . . They had killed Captain Grant and stranded him for years on the desert island. Then he’d traveled across Africa and been captured by slavers. Next, he’d experienced the horrors of the Crimean War, and then lived as the prisoner of a murderous caliph . . . which caused him to lose Caroline in the bargain. And he’d just seen what had happened to Rurapente, to Auda and Jules.

Fate hadn’t claimed their wives and children: People had. Warmongers.

For years Robur had extolled dreams of benign technological superiority for the benefit of his people. But the Nautilus had been designed for no purpose other than war. The caliph had meant to terrorize peaceful sailing vessels and extort a ransom for all trade entering the Red Sea.

After so much time, Nemo remained appalled at the ability of men to cause pain and suffering. Certain men were bred to be bloodthirsty killers, and they brought crimson shadows to the entire world. Violent conflict had always been abhorrent to him, and now his hatred of it grew even worse.

He had lost so much already.

The sub-marine boat cruised through the Mediterranean, as if in a daze itself. The crew remained withdrawn for days, eating just enough food to keep themselves alive. They had no goal now, no destination. Their dreams of utopia with their families had died along with Rurapente. . . .

Nemo considered abandoning the sub-marine boat, returning to Paris, and trying to recapture peace in the arms of Caroline. Surely she would welcome him again, though it had been so long, so many years. Jules Verne had said she still refused to remarry.

But in his moments of solitude he could imagine only the death cries of Auda and his young son. He could not bear to rush back to Caroline as if nothing had happened, as if he intended to forget his wife and boy. The thought of trying to fit in with French society terrified him.

Nemo tried to salve his grief by staring for hours upon end at the bliss beneath the seas. He never wanted to leave here, never wanted to face any aspect of war again. But even as he hid under the sea, warmongers continued