Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

The boat's keel scraped sand and mud. "Hop in, skipper," one of the fishermen said.

"Bide a moment." Henry turned back to wave to Bess and blow her a kiss. She waved back. Both rowers snickered. They were bachelors. They didn't understand how a woman could get under a man's skin and into his heart. He hoped they would find wives for themselves one of these days. More men than women came to Atlantis, so it wasn't a sure bet.

He wondered whether that was so for the Bretons and the Basques. If they had more girls than men…well, wouldn't that make a strange sort of commerce among the new settlements? But, from what he'd seen farther south, it seemed more likely to be the same with them as it was here.

"Ready to fare north this time?" the other fisherman asked as they started back to the Rose.

"Damned if I'm not, Sam," Henry answered. "We won't stew in our own juices sailing that way, anyhow. Only a couple of little settlements that anyone knows about north of New Hastings, too. Most of what we find will be new."

"That anyone knows about, yes," Sam said. "But who can guess whether there's a pirates' nest up there?"

"Not likely," Henry said. "We'd know if there were pirates, because they'd prey on us. We've lost a couple of boats since we came here, but nobody thinks it was on account of anything but bad weather and uncharted rocks. Plenty of both to go around, Lord knows."

"You're not wrong there," Sam admitted. "Still and all, though, what do we know about those other settlers? Maybe they fish part of the time and farm part of the time-aye, and steal part of the time, too, whenever they see the chance."

"Maybe they do," Henry said. Sam had a notion of what he was talking about. Henry couldn't swear he'd never turn pirate himself. If the chance for a big haul appeared out of nowhere, if he was sure he could get away with it and not start a feud that would hurt him and his for generations yet to come…Well, who could say what he'd do if something like that came along? The Rose carried swivel guns to ward off raiders, which didn't mean she couldn't turn raider herself.

He clambered up the nets stretched along her port side. Sam and Geoff-the other rower-came right behind him. The fishermen in the cog grabbed hold of their hands as they scrambled up over the gunwale and pulled them aboard. Then they brought in the boat, stowing it abaft the mast.

The mate was a broad-shouldered fellow named Bartholomew Smith. "Are we ready?" Henry asked him.

"Ready as we'll ever be," he answered. "Weighing anchor is all that wants doing-and then we find out what happens when we get colder instead of hotter."

"You're not old enough to remember fishing runs in the North Sea," Henry said. "Count your blessings that you're not. This could be something like that."

"Then why are we doing it?" Smith asked.

"If we don't, someone else will." For Henry, that was reason enough and more.

O cean. When you looked west from the Rose's bow, there was nothing but ocean. How far? Henry Radcliffe wondered. All the way to Cathay? All the way to the edge of the world, where it spilled off in God's waterfall? All the way to some land as unimaginable as Atlantis had been when Henry was a young man?

He didn't know. How could he? He wanted to, hungered to, find out. But that was a voyage for another time, with another ship. The Rose was a fine coasting vessel, and the best job a gang of amateur shipwrights could have done when they hacked her out of timber. For striking out across the broad, stormy Atlantic to shores unknown? Well, no.

"Where now, skipper?" Bartholomew Smith asked.

Whenever Henry heard that, he started to look around to see where his father was. But Edward Radcliffe stayed behind in New Hastings. He still put to sea, to fish or to go down the coast to one of the other settlements. Heading off to nowhere for the fun of it, though, was beyond his old bones and creaking muscles.

Or maybe he just thought the Rose didn't have much of a chance of coming back from nowhere. And maybe he was right. But if he was, he judged with an old man's sour wisdom. Henry hoped that kind of judgment passed him by. Yet if enough years piled onto him, it probably wouldn't.

"Where now?" he echoed. "West along the coast for a while, and we'll see what it does. If it goes straight, we do the same. If it tends south, we follow. If it tends north…well, we still follow, but I won't like it so well."

"Who would?" the mate replied. "Can't run all the way up to Iceland, though, or the squareheads would have found this country a long time ago."

Henry grunted. He hadn't thought of that, and he should have. "We won't go hungry, anyhow," he said. "Plenty of little fish to net out, and plenty of birds getting fat feeding on them."

Even as he spoke, a bright-billed puffin plunged into the sea and came out holding three or four sardines. Murres and auks and guillemots also preyed on the abundant fish. So did bigger birds that looked like auks but seemed unable to fly. They swam like small porpoises instead.

Smith must have been thinking of them, for he said, "Shame we can't render some of these birds down to oil, like the thrushes ashore. They'd yield tun after tun, Devil take me if they wouldn't."

"We ought to think about setting up a trying works here," Henry said. "Not just for the birds, but for the whales, too." He'd seen several of the big beasts blowing and breaching not far from the Rose. If one of them had risen right under her…There were all kinds of reasons why ships didn't come home.

"Far as the whales go, I'm surprised we didn't find the damned Basques up here ahead of us." Bartholomew Smith made some gabbling noises that were supposed to be Basque.

Henry laughed, even if the mate's imitation didn't sound much like the real thing. "They're whaling men, all right," he agreed. There were no more intrepid whalers than the Basques. They had their reasons, too. Like any other fish, whale meat was allowed during Lent and on Fridays. Henry himself was mighty fond of salted whale-craspoix, the French called it-and peas.

The big auklike birds were easy to catch. Like so many of Atlantis's creatures, they were ignorant of men. Some of the flying sea birds behaved the same way, but others were warier. Henry wondered what that meant. Did some of them stay in Atlantean waters all the time, while others flew to lands where men were liable to hunt them? Or were some simply stupider than others? A nice question, but one he had no idea how to answer.

Before the Rose got very far west at all, her progress slowed even though the wind remained favorable. The water through which she sailed changed color, too, turning lighter and bluer than it had been before. It was also noticeably warmer than the stretch of ocean from which they'd just come.

"Strong current," Henry remarked.

"Right strong," Smith agreed. "Seems to scoot along the shore here."

"It does. Might almost have been put here to make sure we don't get anywhere in a hurry," Henry said.

"You don't suppose-?" The mate sounded alarmed. Even by the standards of his age and trade, he was a superstitious man.

By the standards of his age and trade, Henry wasn't. "No, I don't think anything of the kind," he answered. "Old Scratch has better things to do than worry about the likes of us. Or I hope he does, anyhow." He crossed himself, on the off chance.

Bartholomew Smith did the same thing. "I hope so, too." His voice quavered a little.

Satan did seem busy elsewhere. Just as Henry hoped, the coast soon started tending southward. Strong breezes blew down from the north to push the Rose on her way. She didn't travel as fast as she might have, for the current coming up from the south fought against her, but she did travel.

And the warm current seemed to bring balmy weather with it as it came. They still lay far to the north of New Hastings, but the climate here in the west was far milder than it had been on Atlantis' eastern shore.