Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [183]
“Seaweed, my good fellow? Most ingenious, I’d say,” Fogg said, showing not the slightest desire to the matter any further. “Well, we do what we must for good tobacco.”
Nemo sat forward in his chair. “Tell me about this mysterious wager of yours, Monsieur Fogg. What have we cost you?”
“You and your infernal machine have caused me to lose a very ambitious race, sir.” Fogg pointed with his seaweed cigar, deftly tapping ash into a receptacle beside his chair. “At one time I belonged to a rather prestigious, formal, and -- yes, let us admit it -- stuffy gentleman’s club in London. A group of bored, wealthy men, who sat and read the newspapers, had afternoon tea, played whist, and . . . and did little else. Pompous asses, if you ask me -- and I fit right in with them.
“One day, after pondering the world-wide commercial implications of the new Suez Canal, I calculated that it would be possible for a man with sufficient resources and careful attention to scheduling to travel around the world in eighty days.” Fogg smiled, as if expecting Nemo to disbelieve him, but the captain of the Nautilus maintained an expression of polite interest.
“My colleagues in the club treated such a suggestion as preposterous. So, with my honor at stake, I made them a wager -- a very large wager -- that I myself could actually perform such a feat. I would attempt the impossible. We do what we must in the name of honor, do we not?”
Nemo brooded. “You might say that.”
Fogg took a long drag from his cigar, as if he were attempting to siphon thick oil from a container. “Well, naturally, I had the schedules and timetables before me and the utmost confidence in my own abilities. I departed that very evening, and I have made nearly a complete circuit of the globe. That is, until you sank the ship on which I was traveling. Most inconvenient.”
He drew on the seaweed cigar again and savored the smoke. Nemo lit a cigar of his own, though he usually did not indulge. He motioned with the glowing tip for the man to continue.
“I began by crossing the English Channel and took a railway to the south of France, where I caught a ship that carried me across the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, and into the Red Sea. From there, we sailed to India, which subcontinent I crossed using a train and an elephant. No time for tedious sightseeing -- just rapid motion westward. From Singapore I traveled to Hong Kong, then Japan, across the Pacific to San Francisco, and finally by rail across North America.
“Alas, due to an unforeseen scheduling mishap in New York Harbor, I was forced to book passage upon the only vessel that could take me to England in time -- a warship with orders to cruise the oceans in search of the notorious sea monster in all the papers.” Fogg raised his eyebrows and turned his gaunt face to study Nemo. “I presume that monster is your own ship? Rotten luck.”
Nemo nodded. Fogg pursed his lips in acceptance.
“I had to use the last of my monetary resources to bribe the navy captain. If the Invincible had indeed kept to schedule, I would have been a very wealthy man . . . and, more importantly, I would have been proved correct in my convictions.” Fogg stubbed out his cigar, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Now, however, I am ruined. I believe Hell must be a place where no schedules are ever kept.”
With growing disappointment in himself, Nemo listened to the fastidious Englishman’s account. Phileas Fogg had survived the Nautilus’s attack on the American naval vessel, but all others aboard had died. How many civilians had drowned, mere innocents who’d had the misfortune of booking passage aboard a ship marked for war, as Phileas Fogg had? As he and Caroline had done, with Dr. Fergusson, in order to return from Africa? How many people had been attempting to go from one place to another, and never had violence or bloodshed in their hearts?
Nemo had killed them all. That, he was forced to acknowledge, made him as bad