Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"Where did you find them?" Henry asked. "I didn't think Atlantis had any people of its own."

Before answering, the Basque talked with some of his countrymen. Then, a little reluctantly, he said, "No, they aren't from Atlantis."

"Well, then?" Henry said.

More confabulating on the other ship. At last, and even more reluctantly, the Basque spokesman pointed west. "There is another land, a new land, about ten days' sail that way. We thought we were the only ones who came to this side of Atlantis."

"A new land? With people in it? How can it have people in it when Atlantis has none?"

With a shrug, the Basque replied, "If you want to know how, ask God. I cannot tell you that. But I can tell you it is the truth, and here are these Pattawatomis to prove it."

The men in skins eyed him impassively. They had broad faces with high cheekbones and strong noses. One of them held a wooden club with a ball of polished stone in the head.

"I will tell you another thing. This new land is large-maybe even as large as Atlantis-so why not?" the Basque said. "If it had no folk of its own, it would be better to settle than Atlantis is."

"Why, when it is so much farther from everything?" Henry asked.

"Because the trees and the animals are more like the ones we know. There are oaks, with acorns growing on them. And there are squirrels in the oaks, too. Not red squirrels like ours, but gray ones. Still-they are squirrels. Where will you find oaks or squirrels in Atlantis?"

"Did you see honkers? Or red-crested eagles?"

"We saw eagles, but smaller than the ones in Atlantis. They have white heads and eat fish like our sea eagles. We saw no honkers, only ordinary geese-but they have black heads and white chins like some honkers. We heard wolves howling in the night."

Wolves were almost hunted out of England. "Your new land is welcome to them," Henry said.

"We have them at home. I used to hear them howling outside my village in the wintertime," the Basque said. "They would kill sheep. Once in a while, if they got hungry enough, they would kill men."

"What will you do with the Patta-whoever-they-ares?" Henry asked.

"I don't know yet," the Basque replied. "Maybe we'll trade with them and take them back to the new land one of these days. Maybe we'll just keep them and put them to work. They look strong, don't they?"

The two cogs had come close enough to give Henry a good look at the copperskinned men from the unknown country. They did look strong; they were taller than most of the Basques. Even so…"They look like warriors to me."

"They shoot bows, and they have those clubs, but we saw no iron among them," the Basque said. "No helms, no swords-they have knives, but they're made of chipped stone. We can beat them if we have to."

"Yes, but can you make them work if you keep them in Atlantis?"

"Like I said, it could be we'll find out. Where are you bound now?" The Basque changed the subject-not very smoothly.

"Back to New Hastings." Henry gave him the truth. He didn't have ten days' worth of supplies aboard the Rose-not this trip. "God keep you safe on your voyage back to Gernika." God keep you headed south of west. You won't spy Avalon Bay then-not if He's kind, you won't.

Again, the spokesman talked things over with other men before replying. Not too obtrusively, English gunners stood near their swivels. If the Basques wanted trouble, they could have it.

"And you-you go with God as well," the Basque said after a long, long pause. The two cogs passed each other. Men on the other vessel looked ready to shoot, too. The range lengthened, lengthened some more…and pretty soon it was too long for the guns the Rose carried. Only as the tension slid out of his spine did Henry realize how tight he'd been strung.

"More new lands," he murmured. "New lands beyond Atlantis. I wouldn't have looked for that. It seemed big enough by itself."

"There's land west of Iceland," Bartholomew Smith said. "You talk with some of the squareheads and you'll hear about it. But it's as cold as Iceland is, or maybe worse. They don't go there very often."

"I've heard some of those stories, too." Henry laughed. "I always had trouble believing them. And here we are in a new land of our own, and now with news of more new lands beyond. I ought to do penance for doubting."

"Well, skipper, if everybody did that who ought to, you'd have plenty of company," the mate said. "Me, I'm just glad we didn't have a sea fight on our hands."

"So am I. They were thinking about sinking us to keep their secret. If they thought they could get away with it, they would have done it, too."

Smith nodded. "Can't keep a new land secret forever, though. We're likely lucky those copperskinned fellows never sailed east and found Atlantis ahead of us. I think you're right-they looked like men who could fight."

"They did," Henry Radcliffe agreed. "But if they can't work iron…Even the Irish bog-trotters can do that. Turn your back on one, and he'll take a knife and let the air out of you like a boy poking a pig's bladder with a stick."

"No doubt about it," Smith said. "Well, between Avalon Bay and the miserable Basques, we'll have a deal of news when we get home."

Henry looked over his shoulder. The Basque cog was still sailing southwest, away from the Rose. That gave him a better chance of seeing New Hastings again-and it gave the Pattawatomis a better chance of seeing Gernika. He wondered what they would make of the Basque town. He wondered if he'd ever find out.

The pier didn't push out as far into the sea as Henry would have liked. But it was there, and it hadn't been when he sailed north from New Hastings. He was glad to be able to tie up at it instead of anchoring offshore and then rowing in, as he'd done more times than he could count.

A gull strutted along the planking. Plainly, it thought the pier had gone up for its benefit alone. It fixed him with a yellow stare and skrawked at him as he walked past. How dared he, a mere man, profane the timbers where its webbed feet had gloriously preceded him?

As soon as he was walking on solid ground and not on those gull-honored planks, his wife almost flattened him with a hug. After he untangled himself from her-which took a while, because he didn't want to-his father spoke dryly: "I'm glad to see you, too, Henry."

"And I'm glad to be seen." Not having seen Edward Radcliffe for some months, Henry wondered if he'd been that stooped for a while now or if it had happened all at once while he was gone. He didn't know.

"What's it like on the other side?" His father laughed. "Never thought I'd say that to somebody who hadn't died."

"If you want to talk to ghosts, that's your business," Henry retorted. "If you want to ask me…Well, the weather's better there, by God. Seemed like spring all the time."

"It was spring all the time you were there-or a lot of the time, anyhow," Edward reminded him.

"We stayed into summer, and it didn't get hot and muggy the way it does here," Henry said. "And there is a bay with the best harbor I've ever seen anywhere. Avalon Bay, we called it. If King Arthur had seen it, he never would have wanted to leave."

"Yes, but a harbor on a coast with no people on it is like a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear," his father said. "It may be there, but so what?"

"There will be people on that coast," Henry said. "And there are people beyond that coast. I know, because we saw them." He told his father and his wife and the rest of the people who were listening about the Basques and the strange Pattawatomis.

"A new land? Another new land? With people in it, this time?" Edward said.

"Funny-looking people, but people just the same," Henry answered. "And the Basques say the trees and beasts are more like England or their country than Atlantis. They talked about squirrels in oak trees and howling wolves."