Serial Sunday: The Renaissance Man and the Strange New World, Part X
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
By Ryan Fleming.
Not for the first time, not even the first time that day, Charles Chance found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. As ever, the latest time could be the last time.
“I should have done this when I had the chance.” The hissed words of Frank Slate, first mate of the Visigoth and the man at the other end of that gun. His knuckles were white on the handle as his index finger twitched.
Chance blinked at the sound of a gunshot. Slate fell backwards.
Could not even handle the kick of his own gun, Chance thought, slightly amused that this would be his final thought. He hardly felt the bullet enter his body.
“Chuck,” a voice called. “Come on! Twenty-five minutes I said, not an hour.”
Chance patted himself down. No pain. No blood. He turned and looked behind him.
Benjamin Williams was slung over the bulwark of the Visigoth, from where he had vanished seconds earlier in a launch lowered by Chance. A smoking gun was held in Williams’ hand.
Chance hardly felt the bullet enter his body because Slate had never fired one.
He resumed the controls of the winch and continued lowering it until he heard it splash into the water. Chaos still reigned around the deck as the crew either fought amongst themselves or piled into lifeboats. Chance wondered what had become of Captain Curtis but did not want to linger long enough on deck to find out.
Chance climbed down one of the ropes holding the launch, with the rest of the Renaissance inside, and joined his comrades. He and Williams then cut loose those ropes, and Eileen Wong piloted their launch away from the doomed ship.
There were other boats in the water. The launch flew past them.
The explosion, from the dynamite set by Williams in the cargo hold, tore a hole in the side of the ship. Before long it had mostly vanished from sight.
Sailors were helping their shipmates that had leapt into the water into lifeboats, the acrimony that had defined their final minutes aboard the Visigoth forgotten as they had all become united in the struggle for survival.
All except one boat, the only one in the water aside from the Renaissance’s launch that was motorised.
Captain Curtis stood up in his own gig, an arm extended outwards, pointing towards the Renaissance. With what Williams assumed to be those crew members most committed to his mad scheme of colonising the new world in the Pacific, the boat gave pursuit.
That new world was in sight of both boats. The Renaissance had the lead, but not by much. Their lead seemed insignificant when they began hearing the first rifle shots coming from behind them.
***
High above the chase that was developing on the surface of the Pacific, the airship Rukh floated silently amongst the clouds. Inside, its surveyors were busy, as they had been for the past day or more, finding a suitable landing site on the new continent. They were the first to have been given a true idea of the extent of it, the crew of the Brunswick that had discovered it had only glimpsed the coastline from the water level, but the aerial view meant those aboard the Rukh saw its inland stretch all the way to the horizon.
Land, land everywhere, thought Maximilian Macmillan in his palatial stateroom.
Yet not a spot to land, he ruefully concluded.
His choice of travel had been a wise one, they had arrived a full day before the meddling Renaissance Man. They could land, plant their flag, secure their position, and be truly ensconced by the time that do-gooder finally made it ashore. Macmillan even had his telegram to the League of Nations, applying for membership, drafted and ready to be sent.
He salivated when they caught their first glimpse of the extent of the land. As big as Papua New Guinea, at least, he thought. It was shaped rather like a crab with its legs snapped off, was how Macmillan would have described it. A round, central landmass narrowed to two claw-like peninsulas that surrounded a large bay.
Perfect place for a few resort towns, his mind already seeing the possibilities.
Then the first survey reports started to arrive.
Swamp and rock. Nothing but festering, stinking marshland punctuated by the odd slimy rock outcropping. Even Madison Avenue would have trouble selling this as a resort.
His dreams of a paradise filled with natural resources dashed, Macmillan immediately began to think about the next best thing. There was still a massive chunk of land there for the taking, as he saw it. Swamps could be drained, rocks blasted, it might be the work of years rather than days, but he would still have his own corner of the globe free from the interference of any government.
His underlings had been set to work to find a suitable landing site for the airship. It was a case of finding either the largest patch of rock or the driest patch of swamp. Easier said than done.
“Sir?”
Macmillan looked up, it was Sidney, the ostensible captain of the Rukh but just another tool to the young oligarch.
“Yes?”
“An explosion was spotted on the surface of the water, rather a large one. It looks like a cargo vessel has gone down…” he hesitated before continuing. “There are survivors in the water.”
“Let them stay there.” Macmillan snapped immediately.
“Yes, sir.”
With that, Sidney saluted, clicked his heels, and wheeled about to leave the stateroom.
Macmillan turned his attention back to the first maps that his cartographers had drawn up of the new world. He was scribbling potential names next to prominent points, all around a single word written lovingly in a large cursive in the centre: ‘Pacifica’.
***
On the ocean’s surface, Chance and Williams had taken up positions at the stern of their launch and were returning the rifle fire of Curtis and his conquistadors in kind. They each knew hitting anything other than water at the speeds they travelled and the distance between them would be a miracle. Instead, they hoped that each shot they fired might deter their pursuers from firing one of their own as they ducked.
Alastair Eliott sat behind them both, waiting to reload either rifle should they run out of ammunition. Annie Thomas sat up front with Eileen, taking in every detail of the approaching land.
It reminded Annie of what she had seen of islands in the far north of Canada. Those that were too far south to be covered in ice year-round but too far north for anything to grow there. It appeared barren, yet at the same time it also seemed to be teeming with something hidden. Something unknown. Something unwanted.
She almost wanted to tell Eileen to veer off and let Curtis have the blasted thing. Let everyone who thought they could come in and claim this part of the Earth just because it had no one there to fight back. Most of them thought they could still do it even if there were people to fight back.
“Chance!”
Annie turned towards the sound of the voice. Curtis called out through a megaphone.
“Hold your fire!” This was meant for his lackeys but saying it through the megaphone ensured the Renaissance knew it too.
Chance and Williams lowered their rifles in turn. Only slightly.
“Should I slow down?” Eileen asked Annie.
“Not on your life.”
“Look at the size of this place!” Curtis continued. “Keep going, land wherever you like. We’ll pick another spot. No sense in fighting over this much land… yet.”
Annie pictured him grinning.
“After all—”
Annie turned again, wondering what had made Curtis finally at a loss for words.
His men were firing off the stern of their boat. Then off the port.
Then the first tentacle emerged from the water and snatched one of the shooters off the gig.
Curtis had joined in the firing as soon as his screaming henchman had been dragged beneath the waves. More tentacles emerged, some grabbed more men whilst others wrapped around the gig itself.
Curtis had abandoned his pistol and was chopping away at the tentacle wrapped around his boat with an axe. It was a futile attempt, and the boat began to descend beneath the surface in a churn of its own wake and the bubbles of whatever was at the other end of his tentacles.
The last anyone in the Renaissance saw of Captain Ferdinand Curtis was his right hand, gripped tightly around an impotent axe.
“He did want to celebrate the new world with something bubbly.” Annie remarked mirthlessly.
They were close now to the shore. What passed for the shore on this blighted land, Annie thought.
“Eileen…”
It was Williams, he and Chance were watching the same thing. Something very large snaking towards their launch.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Eileen called in response.
In front of the Renaissance was their destination, the new world that had appeared in the Pacific. Behind them, reaching out, was a local inhabitant ready to drag them beneath the ocean before they could get there.
Ryan Fleming is the author of SLP's Reid in Braid and various short stories for the anthologies, as well as editing The Scottish Anthology.
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