Suddenly, the entire cavern was illuminated by bright fluorescent lights set into the rock walls.
"Cool," Kelly uttered in surprise. "Now we can see what we're doing."
Pitt walked over to where she and Giordino were searching through one of the boats. "I know another reason why your father kept this place a secret," he said slowly, deliberately.
Kelly seemed only mildly interested, but Giordino stared at him. He'd known Pitt too long not to recognize when he was about to spring a revelation. Then he saw the direction in which Pitt's eyes were aimed and he turned and did the same.
A long, cylindrical iron vessel was moored to a dock along the far side of the cavern. The hull was covered with a thin coating of rust. The only noticeable protrusion was a small hatch tower set several feet aft of the forward bow. The vessel had not been visible in the darkened cavern interior until Pitt had turned on the lights.
"What in God's name is that?" Kelly muttered.
"That," said Pitt, with a note of triumph in his voice, "is the Nautilus."
Their astonishment at standing on a dock that had been built by Dr. Elmore Egan and staring down at the legendary and fabled submarine was equal to what they'd felt with the discovery of the Viking ships. To suddenly find a marvel of nineteenth-century engineering that everybody had thought was fiction was like a dream turned real.
At the foot of the dock, rising along the rim of the rock ledge, was a pile of stones stacked in the shape of a sarcophagus. A wooden plaque with carved letters revealed it as the final resting place of the submarine's creator:
Here lie the mortal remains of Captain Cameron Amherst.
Made famous by the writings of Jules Verne as the immortal Captain Nemo.
May those who someday discover his tomb
honor him with the respect he deserves.
"My esteem of your father continues to grow," Pitt said to Kelly. "He was a man to envy."
"Knowing Dad built this monument with his own hands makes me proud."
Giordino, who'd lagged behind after exploring a side cave, approached the dock. "I found another answer to the mystery that'd been bothering me."
Pitt looked at him. "Which mystery?"
"If Dr. Egan had a hidden laboratory, where was the source of his electrical energy? I found it in a side cave. There are three portable generating units in there, connected to enough batteries to power a small town." He pointed down at the dock and the series of electrical cables running along the edge and through the hatch of the submarine. "Ten to one he used the interior for his laboratory."
"Now that I see the Nautilus close up," said Kelly, "it's much bigger than I imagined."
"She hardly looks like the Disney version," Giordino mused. "Her outer hull is simple and functional."
Pitt nodded in agreement. The top of the hull rose but three feet from the water, giving a bare hint of her mass beneath. "I estimate her length at about two hundred and
fifty feet, with a twenty-five-foot beam, larger than Verne described. She's close to the dimensions of the first Navy submarine with advanced hydrodynamic design that was launched in 1953."
"The Albacore," replied Giordino. "I saw her sailing down the York River about ten years ago. You're right. There is a resemblance."
Giordino walked over to an electrical panel mounted above the dock beside a gangplank leading to the submarine's deck next to the hatch tower. He pressed a pair of switches. The interior of the vessel was instantly bathed in light that beamed up through a series of ports along the roof and through larger view ports seen below in the water.
Pitt turned to Kelly and motioned down the open hatch tower. "Ladies first."
She placed her hands against her chest as if to slow her pounding heart. She wanted to see where her father had worked all those years, to see the inside of the famous vessel, but she found it difficult to take the first step. It seemed to her that she was entering a house of ghosts. Finally, with great force of will, she entered the hatch and climbed down the ladder.
The entry compartment was small. She waited until Pitt and Giordino joined her. In front of them was a door that looked like it belonged on a house more than in a submarine. Pitt turned the latch, opened it and stepped over the threshold.
Silently, they walked through an ornately furnished dining hall fifteen feet in length centered on a teak wood table for ten with beautifully carved standing dolphins for legs. At the far end was another door that led into a library, whose shelves Pitt guessed contained more than five thousand books. He studied the titles on the spines. One side held books on engineering and science. The opposite shelves were stacked with original editions of the classics. He picked one that been written by Jules Verne and opened it. The title page had been inscribed by Verne to "the greatest mind in the universe." He slipped it back carefully in its place on the shelf and continued the exploration.
The next compartment was quite large, stretching more than thirty feet. This area, Pitt was certain, was the grand saloon that Verne had described as filled with art treasures and ancient artifacts Cameron had gleaned from under the sea. But the saloon was no longer a museum and gallery. Elmore Egan had transformed it into a workshop and a chemistry laboratory. The room, twelve feet wide, was filled with counters holding a maze of chemical lab apparatus, a spacious workshop with compact machinery, including a lathe and a drill press, and three different computer stations with an array of printers and scanners. Only the organ was still there, having been too massive for Elmore to move. The instrument on which Amherst had played works from the great composers was a masterpiece of craftsmanship with beautifully finished wood and brass pipes.
Kelly walked over to the counter littered with chemistry equipment and tenderly touched the beakers and test tubes lying about in disorder, assembling and stacking them neady in racks and on shelves. She lingered in the laboratory, soaking up her father's presence while Pitt and Giordino moved on, passing through a long corridor and into a watertight bulkhead before entering the next compartment. This section of the Nautilus had once served as Captain Amherst's private cabin. Egan had converted it into his think tank. Plans, blueprints and drawings, along with a hundred notebooks, were stacked in every square inch of space around a large drafting table where Egan had worked out his designs.