Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea by Adam Roberts Page B

mind,’ said de Chante, emboldened by the uncertain mood of the group.
    ‘Sailor – I shan’t warn you again,’ said Billiard-Fanon. ‘Keep your tongue behind the fence of your teeth.’
    ‘The fact that the captain believes we can return to Saint-Nazaire,’ said Lebret, ‘rather supports de Chante’s assessment of his mental state.’
    Boucher rubbed his face. ‘What has happened here? Moments ago the entire crew was cheering with delight – and now we’re in despair? Come! The captain is right – we can return home. Of course we can. More than that – we will! Let’s—let’s.’ He looked around; for he was unused to and uncomfortable with, command. ‘Let us try refloating the tanks, and … no, wait. We must first free up the vanes. De Chante – into your suit, please!’
    With a sigh, de Chante took hold of the suit, and clambered down the ladder to the airlock chamber. Billiard-Fanon went after him. ‘I’ll help him into his, into his …’ And before he pulledhimself through the doorway he added. ‘Monsieur Lebret, and Monsieur Indian – would you be so kind as to carry Pannier through to his cabin. I suppose we must, ah, remove him from the sources of his temptation.’



8
    THE CRACK

    The two men manhandled the cook’s unconscious body out of the kitchen with some difficulty. Lugging him along the corridor involved banging his flopping limbs awkwardly against the walls and the floor. Eventually they bundled him into his cabin, and shut the door on him.
    As they returned, Lebret noted. ‘Soon enough de Chante will sort out the vanes and we’ll have a more-or-less functioning submarine. It’s just a question of waiting. I think I shall have some coffee. Would you join me?’
    ‘By all means.’
    They made their way together into the empty mess hall. A steel urn was set into a rotating bracket in the wall. From this, Lebret poured coffee into two steel mugs. The fluid sloshed weirdly; he fitted lids over the top of each before handing one to Jhutti.
    ‘I wonder if you agree with me,’ Lebret said, looking slyly at the engineer, ‘that we ought to explore this new territory? Wherever we are, whatever this place is. I mean of course – once the vessel is fully repaired. Wouldn’t it be a foolishness simply to flee back to France. We must go a little deeper yet, surely! Who knows what’s down there.’
    Jhutti did not answer this directly. Instead, seating himself opposite Lebret, he asked, ‘So, M’sieur. Tell me truly. Do you think the diver experienced an actual whirlpool current?’
    Lebret shook his head slowly. ‘As to that – your compatriot’s points seemed irrefutable. Yet, isn’t it more likely that MonsieurAvocat suffered a momentary psychological breakdown? Some terror gripped his muscles and he found himself unable to swim out?’
    ‘I suppose that sounds more plausible,’ agreed Jhutti. ‘Still, there must surely be whirlpools and strange currents within your infinite ocean? If that is truly where we are.’
    ‘I suppose so – as to the currents, I mean.’
    ‘Tell me, my friend. Do you actually believe,’ Jhutti pressed, ‘that we have slipped from our natural dimension into such a place?’
    ‘We passed through something,’ said Lebret. ‘That is one thing of which we can be sure. And so we have travelled into something.’
    ‘But through what did we pass?’
    For some moments it appeared that Lebret was not going to answer. Then he breathed deeply. ‘I shall tell you what I suspect, my friend. There is a poem,’ he said, his voice slipping down a semitone. ‘A poem by the Irish Romantic poet, Alfred De Neeson. It is called “The Crack”.’
    In a singsong voice he recited the English words:
    Below the thunders of the upper deep;
    Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
    Its ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep,
    The Crack, it sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
    About its shadowy sides; above it swell
    Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
    And