Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [22]
Nemo and Verne stood disconcerted for several minutes before they walked together toward the docks. Each tied the precious hair-ribbon around his wrist, where he could see it every day. Verne sniffed it, trying to catch a scent of Caroline’s perfume.
Passing the dock guard and stating their business, they crossed a creaking gangplank onto the deck of the ship that would be their world for the next several years.
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At dawn the Coralie weighed anchor, cast off her mooring ropes, and sailed down the Loire toward the ocean.
x
Pierre Verne awoke as usual, breakfasted on croissants, berries, and soft cheese served by his wife, and then strode off with a long-legged gait to his business offices. Every day the same, all of life in its place.
At midmorning, though, his younger son Paul came running through town with an urgent message from Sophie Verne. Jules had disappeared. Pierre threw himself into the problem with all the forthrightness and sturdy determination reserved for his daily routine, his legal challenges, and any other business he conducted.
At first, he believed it was a false alarm, that Jules had gotten some crazy notion into his head. The young man was flighty and irresponsible, with his head in the clouds; he would have to buckle down and get serious if ever he was to become an attorney. Today, Jules must have climbed out of bed at dawn and gone to follow his imagination without bothering to let anyone know. He often skipped his breakfast.
Pierre didn’t doubt the scheme was some unwise idea concocted by that shipbuilder’s son. Despite Pierre Verne’s obvious disapproval, the two young men remained incomprehensibly attached to one another. And he understood even less why the daughter of Monsieur Aronnax chose to associate with such a pair. Jules, at least, came from a respectable home -- but that Nemo boy . . .
With a scowl and a sigh, he shut the doors of his law offices, though he still had much to do, thanks to the legal matters attending the Cynthia disaster. Pierre suspected he would be back within an hour, Jules dragged home from his absentminded truancy and punished for his own good. Then Sophie would be calmed again, and all would return to normal.
Scowling, he marched along the docks, brusquely interrogating sailors from one ship and another, asking if a red-headed young man, perhaps accompanied by a dark-haired boy of the same age, had been seen in the vicinity. Pierre Verne knew that the friends often played down here among the noise and the dirt and the smells.
Pierre shook his head as he strode along. Such activities made perfect sense for André Nemo, since his father had been a shipbuilder and the boy could hope for nothing better in his life. For Jules, though, there could be no benefit in understanding ships if he intended to practice law in Nantes.
Shielding his eyes from the hot sun and wrinkling his nose at the smell of fish and the sluggish summer river, he saw one of the sailors whose papers he had filed after the Cynthia disaster. This man had worked with Nemo’s father; perhaps he had seen the two. Pierre strode up and introduced himself briskly, while the sailor continued to repair frayed rope and lash heavy cords into knots.
“I remember ye,” the sailor said.
“And you certainly knew Jacques Nemo, who died aboard the Cynthia.”
“Aye. A good man, he was.”
“And his son. Do you know his son André, as well? André Nemo?”
The sailor turned his head, scratching tangled gray hair on a sunburned scalp, then he reached into his belt to withdraw a long dagger with which he trimmed the rope’s frayed end. “O’ course. I was there when André climbed his first ratlines, right to the top o’ the mast. Boy has spunk and a good head about ‘im. Even with the world against him, he’ll still make his way, that one. I wish ‘im all the best, now that he’s gone.”
“Gone?” The elder Verne