Philip Farmer - The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

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.”