Philip Jose Farmer (14 page)

Fix stayed in his cabin as much as possible. While there, he considered the addition to the party. Where had she come from? Who was she? Was she an Eridanean? The latter seemed more probable, since Fix could not conceive of the coldly inhuman, or inhumanly cold, Fogg taking a mistress.

Suffering from cabin-fever, and convinced that Passepartout might give him more information, Fix left his quarters. This was on the thirtieth of October; the next day, the 
Rangoon
 would stop briefly at Singapore.

Fix located the Frenchman, who was promenading on the first-class forward deck. Pretending to be surprised at finding him aboard, Fix greeted him. He explained to Passepartout that unexpected business at Hong Kong was responsible for his being on the ship. He had not been on deck before because seasickness had kept him in bed. He expressed astonishment on hearing from the Frenchman that a young lady was now with Mr. Fogg—though in a separate cabin, of course. Passepartout told the story of the rescue, their flight, their trial, and the bail. The woman, Fix discovered, was to be left at Hong Kong with a relative.

Fix, hearing this, thought that perhaps she was not an enemy after all. Disappointed, he gave up his plan to get Fogg arrested at Hong Kong on a morals charge. Fogg’s behavior toward Aouda was, according to Passepartout, irreproachable.

Fix invited Passepartout to have a drink of gin on him. Perhaps this time the Frenchman would drink enough to unlock the door of his discretion.

Later, Passepartout, having sent Fix reeling home to his cabin, reported to Fogg. This fellow, Fix, was undoubtedly trailing them. Whether he was just a detective or a Capellean remained to be seen.

Not much happened at Singapore, according to Verne. While the 
Rangoon
 coaled up, Fogg and Aouda took a long drive through the city and the surrounding country. Fix shadowed them so skillfully that they did not observe him. Passepartout, however, had shadowed Fix for a while, saw whom he was following, and went off to carry out some errands. At eleven o’clock, a half an hour ahead of time, the ship left the English-founded colony.

When Fix returned to his cabin, he discovered waiting in it a man whom he had met once before. We know this because it is recorded in Fogg’s secret log, though he was not aware of the meeting until much later.

The man was sitting in a chair, his long well-muscled legs extended straight out, the posterior edges of the heels of his expensive boots on the deck. Though he was about forty years of age, he had the physique of an athlete of twenty-five. His waist was narrow; his chest was broad and deep; his shoulders were wide. His nose was long and straight. His mouth was thin. His chin jutted out. His forehead was high and bulging. His eyes were a pale gray and set so far apart that they could cover one hundred and eighty degrees. He was smoking a long thin cigar the make and aroma of which Fix could not identify. It had a certain salty tang to it.

“Sit down, Fix,” the intruder said in Capellean. “Do you have anything of interest to report?”

Fix sat down as if he could not obey the man fast enough. His nervousness became even more manifest as he told what had happened from the day he met the 
Mongolia
 at Suez. While he talked, he could not keep from wondering if his guest was one of the Old Ones or an adopted human. Those widespread eyes and the superhuman and chilly intelligence in them! But he dared not ask. In any event, it made no difference. He was under the orders of this person, man or alien. And he was a deadly person. An utter lack of compassion emanated from him in an almost visible aura, if a negative quality could be said to radiate.

At the end of Fix’s lengthy account, the man straightened up in the chair. “You will continue to follow him, all the way back to London, if need be. And continue to make friends with this Passepartout. He is undoubtedly an Eridanean. That watch which he refuses to adjust to the sun sounds suspicious. It may contain a distorter. One of them is carrying a distorter.”

This man was the one whom Fogg had called Nemo when he had seen him in the rajah’s palace. Nemo knew that Passepartout was Fogg’s accomplice. He had not seen him during the raid, but the soldiers in the dome had described the Frenchman. That he did not bother to tell Fix this was a mistake due to his arrogance. Fix was only an underling and a not very competent one at that in his opinion. Why should he tell Fix that he knew for certain that Passepartout was Eridanean? He had stated that the Frenchman was Eridanean and that should be enough for Fix.

That, however, was not enough for Fix. He assumed that the man’s statement was based on suspicions only. As far as he was concerned, Passepartout could be just a human.

Fix had some questions and some suggestions, but he did not voice them. This man was evidently one who gave orders and did not care to have them questioned. Fix would be glad when he left.

“Both Fogg and Passepartout,” the man said, “are aware that you are probably not just a detective. I don’t know why they haven’t killed you or tried to extract data from you. They must know that you may try to eliminate them at any moment and that you can easily do so. Still, they may be waiting to act until their plans develop further. They are iron-nerved, intrepid, and intelligent—for Eridaneans. As I have good reason to know.”

He puffed on his cigar for a while. Fix wished he would tell him just why he had such good reason to know. He also thought that he had identified at least one of the elements in the odor of the tobacco. Seaweed? But, if so, it was a fine seaweed, for the smoke was certainly pleasant enough, even to a non-smoker.

The man, as if reading his mind, said, “This is the next to last cigar. Then I go back to the more easily procured.”

He puffed again and said, “I think I’ll save it for a special occasion. Such as the demise of Fogg, who, by the way, has something familiar about him. Where have I seen him before?”

Fix sweated even more heavily. If a superior talked too much to an inferior, it could mean that he no longer cared if the underling knew too much. The underling would soon be dead. But what had he done? Where had he failed? He had carried out all orders, and it was not his fault that London had not sent the warrant.

The man, whose expression had been unrelieved by any sign of emotion, unless coldness is one, now smiled.

“I can’t tell you what is going on. But I can tell you that never have affairs looked so good for us. There is a very important operation, perhaps the most important in our history, going on right now that will undoubtedly bring an end to our war with the Eridaneans.”

Fix sat up. “Incredible!”

“Not if I say so,” the man said,

“Pardon me, sir. But an end!”

“Yes, an end.”

“But they would never make peace with us!”

The man quit smiling.

“You think strangely, perhaps too strangely. Did you really imagine that we would make a treaty with those demons? Or”—he stabbed the cigar as if it were a knife—“do you 
hope
 that we will? Peace will be declared only when every Eridanean is peaceful. That is, with the peace of death.”

“Pardon me,” Fix stammered, the sweat running down into his eyes. “I was so taken aback by your news!”

“Yes? Well, this near-total isolation, this secrecy, this noncommunication, is correct for soldiers in the field. But it has had a deleterious effect, too. How can you keep a community of interests, a secret nation, together if the members lose their sense of community, of communion, of commonness, as it were?

“The truth is that if it weren’t for one thing both Eridanean and Capellean would have become extinct long ago. Most of the Old Ones are dead. Even they, with one or two possible exceptions, are second or third generation. All the females of the 
Old Ones have been killed during the war or are sterile. Some trace element necessary for conception seems to be lacking in the soil of Earth. This is no secret, so don’t look so surprised. The original ships only contained five females apiece, and both we and our enemies chose the females as the prime target in our war. But you know this. Or has this secrecy been carried so far that no one has told you?”

Fix thought that the man, however hard he looked on the surface, and doubtless was, was still human. He was “visiting,” trying to re-establish some sense of being Capellean. On the other hand, he might just be testing him or softening him up for something unpleasant.

Fix felt lonely only because he had been away from home so long and was in a country he did not like at all. In London, he had a wife (a Capellean, of course) and three children. The children had been conditioned from the time they started to talk. They were now listening to stories from him and his wife of far-off planets and space flight and galactic war. They thought these were fairy tales now, but in a few years they would, if they passed certain tests, be admitted into the blood brotherhood. An Old One would contribute some of his blood to be mingled in their veins.

Fix loved his wife and children. He liked to come home to them after a hard day or night of tracking down criminals, arresting them, and occasionally beating them up in the interrogation cells. Only, of course, if he was absolutely certain they were guilty and they had committed some terrible crime such as murder, child abuse, or sodomy. If the mundane life of a policeman got dull, and it often did, it was relieved enough 
by the sudden secret codes, the esoteric messages, the missions against the evil Eridaneans. But he liked his missions to be on home soil. After all, he was English.

“Two things only have kept us from disintegrating,” the man was saying. “One, fear of death if we should defect. Two, the strongest by far, is the possibility of living for a thousand years. Most men and women would sell their souls—if they had any—for this gift. But, of course, being brought up as a Capellean or Eridanean is the glue that holds us together. And we do have ideals. We do intend, once the enemy is out of the way, to steer the world into peace, prosperity, freedom from disease and pain, and brotherhood.”

He puffed again, sending out thick green stormclouds, smiled like lightning, and said, “This world will be ruled by the only ones who have the ancient knowledge to do it. Us. And our grandchildren may be among the aristocracy, Fix.”

“Yes, sir.”

“In any event, you are now forty years old and won’t become any older, physiologically speaking, for about eight hundred to nine hundred years. But you can be killed, Fix. And our enemies want to kill you. So we must kill them first. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But it is better to take them alive first so we can find out who the others are and so catch them, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you will play your role. And Fogg and Passepartout will play theirs until we lower the curtain on them. Meantime, what are your thoughts on this woman?”

“Possibly an Eridanean,” Fix said.

Since Nemo’s conversation indicated an uncertainty about Aouda’s true identity, it may safely be presumed that he had never seen her before. The rajah of Bundelcund had evidently kept her hidden in his seraglio, and Nemo had left Bundelcund immediately after the rajah’s death.

“It seems unlikely,” he said, “that the two Eridaneans would have risked their lives for anyone besides another of their kind.”

“I don’t know about that, sir, if I may be so bold,” Fix said. “That Fogg is a strange one. No fear there, if I may say so, sir. And he is an Englishman, sir.”

“Would you have rescued her?”

“Yes, sir. As an Englishman, sir. As a Capellean, no, sir, not unless I had orders to do so.”

“And which do you think is the most human action, Fix?” the man said with a hint of a sneer.

“Most human, sir?”

Fix was silent for a moment, then smiled.

“Being human, sir, if I do say so myself, and capable of both of the actions you mentioned, I’d say neither is more human than the other. As for a question of heart, sir, what is the word for that... cumpass...?”

“Compassion, Fix. I can quote you its dictionary definition, as I can every word in the dictionary and in the Encyclopedia Brittanica of 1871.”

But I doubt if you really 
know
 the word, Fix thought. The word is the shadow, but what about the substance? His mind knows, but it’s not connected to his heart. And that’s where the only knowing worth knowing is.

What the man had said about the millennium medicine, 
as Fix called it, made sense, though. He wanted to live for a thousand years. He wanted desperately for his children to share in that long life. But there was a chance that at least one of his children might not be permitted to do so. If the chiefs decided that the child was too emotionally unstable, that he or she might blab to the world, then that child would share neither in the Blood or the elixir. And his little Annie, his beloved little Annie, showed signs of hysteria.

The man suddenly stood up. He was very tall, at least six feet five inches tall. And, now that Fix considered it, under that cultured English voice was the faintest of brogues. Was this man of Irish descent?

“I shall be out of sight,” the man said. “But I shall be close. When the time is ripe, you’ll hear from me. Meanwhile, play your part. And delay Fogg as much as possible without being obvious about it. Let’s hope that the warrant will be waiting for you in Hong Kong. If it is, we’ll attempt to keep him from arriving in America on time or at all.”