The Choice
by
tallsunshine12
Chapter 1 Titanic
A/N: I've rewritten the story and hope you enjoy it!
How does one lose a sister, of the same blood, sinews, flesh? Even among ships, there had to be some ghostly feeling of 'loss.' There was the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic – two of these three sister ships, the Titanic and the Britannic, met unfortunate ends.
Wireless messages the night of April 14, 1912, concerning the dangers from icebergs, had poured in from other vessels in the area.
1:40 p.m. April 14, 1912
SS Baltic to RMS Titanic
Captain Smith, Titanic. Have had moderate variable winds and clear fine weather since leaving . . . icebergs and large quantity of field ice today in latitude 41.51 N, longitude 49.52 W . . . . Wish you and "Titanic" all success.
The Titanic sank at 2:20 a.m., April 15, 1912.
7:30 p.m.
SS Antillian to RMS Titanic
. . . latitude 42.3 N, longitude 49.9 W. Three large bergs five miles to southward of us.
9:30 p.m.
SS Mesaba to RMS Titanic and all eastbound ships
Ice report: in latitude 42N to 41.25 N, longitude 49 W to 50.3 W. Saw much heavy pack ice and great number of large icebergs, also field ice. Weather good, clear.
9:35 p.m.
RMS Titanic to SS Mesaba
Received, thanks.
11:00 p.m.
RMS Californian to RMS Titanic
Say, old man, we are stopped and surrounded by ice.
12:17 a.m. April 15, 1912
RMS Titanic to any ship
. . . SOS Titanic position 41.44 N 50.24 W. Require immediate assistance. Come at once. We struck an iceberg. Sinking.
At last, this message came from the sinking ship.
Between 2.15 a.m. and 2.25 a.m.
RMS Titanic to RMS Carpathia
SOS SOS . . . Titanic. We are sinking fast. Passengers are being put into boats. Titanic.
Seabirds wheeled overhead, free and flying above the waves. The Seaview, traveling on the surface, was making good time towards the coordinates of the seas' biggest concentration of blue whales, the world's largest mammal at up 200 tons.
Unlike the minke whale in these western Icelandic waters, the long-lived blue was dying off, and the Nelson Institute for Marine Research's current mission was to follow-up last year's research and find out why.
He had done all he could in his lab to prepare for the blue whales, and since today was April 14th, and tomorrow, the sixtieth anniversary of the night the Titanic hit the iceberg, he was in his cabin reading up on the luxury liner's sinking.
Using old photos from a volume on the sinking discovered in the Seaview's extensive library, he gazed at the Titanic's 1st class salons, cabins and promenades, while in his mind's eye, he conjured up the hundreds of 3rd class passengers, mostly women and children, belowdecks in steerage, draped in shawls against the sea-cold, and carrying their scant belongings in baskets. Forgotten, who mourned them?
Did Edward J. Smith, the Titanic's captain, know of their struggles to go to the land of freedom? Had he seen the hope that lit their faces when the Titanic at length pulled out of Cobh, Ireland—the Titanic's last landfall before heading out to open sea?
If Smith had known, or if he had seen, he gave no sign of it on the bridge. At sixty-two, he was retiring soon and was trying to beat a record crossing to New York. Even though he knew there were icebergs, he was going over twenty knots.
But this huge boat was truly the best, from bridge to keel. Smith bragged once that cut in half, each half of the Titanic would still float! Indefinitely. She would not give him any trouble. Nor would the icebergs.
12.25 a.m.
R.M.S. Carpathia to R.M.S. Titanic
Shall I tell my captain? Do you require assistance?
12.26 a.m.
R.M.S. Titanic to R.M.S. Carpathia
Yes, come quick!
12.32 a.m.
R.M.S. Carpathia to R.M.S. Titanic
Putting about and heading for you.
12.40 a.m.
R.M.S. Titanic to R.M.S. Carpathia
SOS Titanic sinking by the head. We are about all down. Sinking. . .
At 2:20 a.m., the Titanic sank at 41.46 N, 50.14 W, according to the Carpathia in a message to the Olympic. Many of the crew who went down that night, including her captain, had served aboard the Olympic, her sister ship, before signing onto the ill-fated Unsinkable. They were fated to prove that man is not invincible, and neither are his toys.
If he, Nelson had been her captain, it would have been different. He would have heeded warnings—those iceberg reports—and even the information of his own senses. Something would have been troubling him that night. He would somehow know that this was a doomed ship, a doomed night, and that, most of all, he was a doomed man.
Had Captain Smith any premonition of the impending disaster? He was a sound enough mariner, advanced in his career, or the charge of such an expensive new ship would not have been his. But nothing made him change his course and speed. The huge ship plowed on into the night to her doom.
"Truly sad," the admiral muttered to himself. "So many lives lost."
Nelson rubbed his tired eyes. He had just reached out to turn off the light on his desk when he sensed he was not alone. He stopped with his finger on the button and looked over at his cabin's bunk niche, which had a small light of its own. He started at the sight of the intruder.
There, sitting on the bunk was a man of a certain odd shape, a man more out of shape than odd, really. In a hound's-tooth check jacket, the portly, older man stood up and faced the tired reader behind the desk.
"Pem?" asked the admiral, measuredly. "Is that you? But you're—"
"Dead, dear Admiral?"
Nelson, despite himself, nodded. He was dumbfounded. The last he had seen of Pem was—the last he had seen of Pem! How had that born menace, that stab to the jugular vein, that irreverent time traveler come back now?
Pem had died in the reactor room months ago. Now there he was again, standing before Nelson in the admiral's quarters.
"Admiral, speechless?"
Nelson acted, or rather reacted. He pressed a button on his speaker-phone. "Master at Arms, this is the admiral. Come to my cabin right away. Three men, on the double, well-armed."
"Admiral," said the intruder, this thick, syrupy voice so condescending. "You know that in order for me to be here at all, I've had to perfect another time device."
"Is that what you're holding in your hand?" asked Nelson, nodding at it and feeling his gut twist. He was very wary of this evil bundle of genius.
"I am. Do you really think that before your men get here, I can't transport you back to the Paleolithic era?"
The admiral came to his feet and pushed the roll chair back. "Paleolithic may be beyond even your limits, Pem."
"You expected me to be, ah, dead, Admiral. Yet here I am. What limits do you think I have?"
"Perhaps none," said Nelson disagreeably, realizing the truth of Pem's statement. Pem, it seemed, could not die.
The intercom on the admiral's desk buzzed. Nelson hit the button.
"Admiral, this is Crane," came a taut voice. "I heard your call. What's the situation up there?"
"We have an old friend visiting us, Lee. It's Pem. He's made another time device."
Lee, in the control room, suddenly shuddered. It couldn't be real. Not Pem again. He clamped down on the mike button. "I'll be right up, Admiral. Wait for me."
"Lee, you'd better hurry. Pem is beginning to talk saber-toothed tigers!"
Lee didn't reply and Nelson knew he was on his way. He turned back to Pem, having kept one eye on the oily man the whole time. "What now, Pem?"
Suddenly there was a knocking at Nelson's door. Pem himself started, as if not expecting Nelson to receive help so soon.
"Shall I open it?" the admiral asked, now all confidence again.
Having taken a step back, Pem replied, "By all means, do, dear boy. But all that those men will find when they burst in on us is an empty cabin."
"What do you mean?" Confidence slipping, again.
"If you call them in, we will simply vanish to a place where we can have our little chat in private."
The knocking became louder when the admiral didn't answer. Lee's voice now added to the din.
"Admiral! Admiral! Can you hear me, are you alright?"
"I am, Lee," said Nelson, swallowing hard on the thought of doing battle with a dire wolf in some Stone Age scenario. He knew when he was beat. "I can't open the door right now."
"Is Pem with you?"
"He is."
"Be careful, Admiral."
"Thanks, Lee. I will. Stand fast, but hold off trying to get in for a while. Now, Pem," said Nelson, turning back to his cabin guest. "I suppose you have some sort of plan behind this visit?"
"I have, Admiral. You see I've been here in the dark for some few moments, listening to you."
"To me! I haven't said a word!"
"Oh, but you have, Admiral. You don't realize it, but you talk to yourself. You spoke of the Titanic, and how sad it was that so many lives were lost."
Pem stepped closer to the desk and Nelson took a short step back—into the framed schematic drawings of the Seaview on the wall. He could plainly see Pem's features now and didn't like to admit it, but Pem looked like the very devil in the single, spectral light of the small desk lamp, which the admiral had failed to turn off.
"So you have been curious about the lost ship. This weighty tome is from your sub's library?"
Nelson nodded again.
"Then why are you curious about where we're going?" Pem asked, with an elfish smile decorating his bleak and wrinkled face.
"Going?" echoed Nelson, rather hoarsely. "Not the Titanic. You don't have the nerve."
"I do have the nerve, Admiral," said Pem, acting hurt. "You constantly underestimate the force of my hatred for you. Twice, you've nearly buried me. And I thought the last time you had!"
"I wish I had," said the admiral, choking on something that felt like a chicken bone in his throat. "I won't fail again, Pem, to dispose of you and your menace, once and for all." Pem usually made the admiral hot under the collar and Nelson's voice had risen in pitch.
Lee spoke up again from outside the door. "Admiral, what's going on in there? is Pem really aboard?"
"Poor, dumbfounded captain," said Pem. "Such a realist. He knows I'm aboard, because you told him so, but still he has his doubts. Well," said Pem with the same unctuous smile he always used with Nelson, "he won't for long!"
"Pem!" yelled Nelson, before he felt a familiar whisking-away feeling.
Out of the blue, he felt lighter than air, and almost airborne, floating above the ether, in the clouds, into space. He wanted to cry out, but his voice wouldn't come. He could not shout or call out in any way, but then gradually a heaviness, an earthy weight, began to return to him and he felt himself gently lowered. He was no longer in space—no longer floating. Again, he was on solid ground.
Yet, when he opened his eyes and looked around, he realized that 'ground' hardly described where he was. A cabin, surely, but not his own. He lay on a bed, and when he arose after the numbing, floating experience, he found that he had traded a sterile, functional set of submarine quarters for a lavishly wooded and wainscoted captain's cabin.
The Titanic! He had been transported back to her. Now he was in Captain Smith's own cabin. He made sure by crossing over to the writing desk. A small paperweight bore the captain's name, Edward John Smith. Nelson picked up a piece of White Star writing paper and turned it about in his hand, marveling.
He walked about. A wardrobe stood off to one side, one of the finest antiques Nelson had ever laid eyes on. It was almost as big as the Titanic itself. The bed was fitted with curtains and luxuriously sized. A huge desk, a leather easy chair, and a heater. A room fit for a king—or for the Master of a floating palace.
"Pem, you've done it again," he murmured aloud to himself. Pem was right—he did talk to himself! He heard a sudden laugh and whirled around. "Pem!"
"That's right, Admiral. I'm here, too, though not indeed for long," said the buttery-voiced man. "I don't intend on going down with the ship, though you will. Tonight." He smiled and tilted his head to one side just to watch the admiral's reaction.
"Take us back to the Seaview. I demand it!" said Nelson. Putting one finger down inside his tight collar to loosen it, he knew he didn't fancy the watery grave waiting for him aboard this ship!
"Would you rather I sink the Seaview for you—for you will drown tonight, Admiral."
"You're as mad as ever!" Nelson spat out. "As mad as ever." He made a quick dash forward to seize the time device out of Pem's fat, dove-shaped hand.
Pem, who had been sitting in the captain's armchair, suddenly disappeared. He had pushed the winder button on that small, old-fashioned chronometer—he liked making time devices out of watches—and he was gone, just like that.
"Pem!" Nelson stood in the room calling for the man, but got no response. He heard a knock on his door, or rather Smith's door. Hoping to see Lee Crane on the other side, he moved to answer it.
Lee, dark-eyed, younger than Nelson, would fix him with a stare to see if the admiral had been hurt in any way, or had simply popped his cork in claiming to see Pem's ghost!
It was indeed a young officer there, but not Lee Crane. He looked very worried in his own kind of dark way.
"Yes?" asked the admiral, holding the door open only slightly, afraid that if the visitor got a good look at him, he'd sound the alarm. "Can I help you?"
"Moody here, sir. We've got a disturbing radio report. Icebergs on our general heading. First Officer Murdoch would like you to come to the bridge, sir."
First Officer William McMaster Murdoch, the admiral knew from his reading, would go down with the ship, his watery grave the North Atlantic.
"I'll be right there, thank you—Moody." Nelson remembered something out of the dim recesses of his mind. Moody was the name of the sixth officer, James Paul Moody. His body was not recovered by the Carpathia crew, who came to the Titanic's rescue.
For now, Nelson closed the door on Sixth Officer Moody, presuming he'd go back to the bridge.
"Well, Admiral," said Pem, visiting the captain's cabin again, "you handled that deplorably well. Now are you going to the bridge, too? And if so, what will you wear?"
Nelson looked down at his regular uniform, plain tan pants and shirt, and thought about it. "I guess the captain wouldn't show up in a submarine uniform."
"I doubt he would, Admiral." Pem, sitting in Smith's sizable armchair again, clapped his hand on his knee. "You see, dear Nelson, you're already beginning to think like a sailor. I thought you'd be shouting, Get me off this ship! But no, you're thinking of going up there on that bridge. Do you think the crew will wonder what happened to the real Smith?"
"What did happen to him?"
"He's safe. He's you. Or rather, you're him. The officer didn't see through you. He thought you were Smith, from what he saw of you. You can fool the others."
"But why should I have to?"
"You are in the position of captain on one of the greatest ships ever afloat. You cannot stay in our cabin all night, Admiral. You must go."
"You mean, Pem, that I look like Smith?"
"No, of course not, Admiral. He was older, more grandfatherly than you. Although there may be just a touch of gray in your red, my good fellow."
Pem laughed that cloying laugh of his again, smiling broadly in a broad face. His eyes twinkled in the dim electric light of the cabin. "But you have taken his place in the minds of the crew," he said. "It's a new feature of my latest time device. I had to work extra long nights at it. Nobody will be able to tell you aren't their captain. They will all think you're him."
"You are mad. I can't go up to that bridge, even in the captain's own uniform, and fool those trained observers!"
"Sure you can. I'm banking on it. You will fool them, or else they will pitch you off the side of the boat and I'll have to go back to long hours of work on that aspect of my time device, the hallucinatory effect."
"Pem, why don't you just leave me alone?"
"That's hardly a question to ask of me, Admiral, seeing as how you've killed me twice. Couldn't I repay you, at least once?"
The admiral thought about it, saying, "If they already think I'm Smith, then I won't need to change!"
"Ah, but you must, Admiral. You must 'feel' the part, as actors say. If you look like Smith, you'll behave like Smith. The crew will surely not doubt you then. Mind you, Admiral, the ability of my time device to create hallucinations in the crew is only rudimentary. You'll need all the acting ability you possess to fool them."
"Why should I bother? Why not just tell them about you?"
"Admiral, think. In a few hours, the crew will have enough to do just pumping water out of the bilge and dispensing lifeboats, without worrying what happened to their captain."
"I hadn't thought of that," the admiral agreed. "Well, at any rate, I don't plan to go through with it. I'll stay in the cabin and let 1st Officer Murdoch handle the ship—he probably would have done a better job originally than Smith."
"Don't be too hard on Smith, Admiral. He was only striving to retire a famous man, by getting his wondrous ship to port in New York City in record time."
Again, there was a knocking. Sixth Officer Moody must have been waiting to escort the Admiral—or Captain Smith—to the bridge.
"Sir? Are you coming, sir?"
The admiral gave a quick glance around the room, seeking an avenue of escape. He might as well have been at crush-depth on the Seaview for all the options of escape he could see. Pem had gone again. He turned to the door, wondering how he was going to 'fake' this.