Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"I haven't seen a squirrel in years," Edward said, at the same time as Bess was going, "I miss squirrels." His father added, "They're welcome to the wolves, though."

"I said the same thing, or near enough," Henry answered.

"And who are the strangers?" his father asked. "Did the Basques find the court of the Great Khan of Cathay?"

"I asked them the same thing, and they thought it was funny. It didn't seem that way to me, and it didn't sound that way from what they said."

Edward Radcliffe chuckled grimly. "Believing what Basques say is a fool's game. By Our Lady, sometimes understanding Basques is a fool's game."

"The one who talked to me spoke pretty good French," Henry said. "He said the strangers didn't know the use of iron. One of them carried a club with a stone ball for a head-that argues the Basque was telling the truth. They wore hides. They had no gold or silver ornaments. If they come from the Great Khan's court, ruling Cathay isn't what it used to be. Easier to think this new land lies between us and Cathay, wherever Cathay may be."

"Your children may go to the new land-I expect they will," Edward said. "I might like to see it before I die. But I think my bones will end up here in Atlantis-and that won't be so bad."

He sounds like Moses, wanting a look at the Promised Land, Henry thought, and then, No-for him, this is the Promised Land. He really has got old.

But after a moment, he realized Atlantis was the Promised Land for him, too. He was curious about what lay to the west. He wanted to see it, and more than once. But, having pulled up stakes in England to settle here, he wasn't eager to do it again. As his father said, maybe one of his boys would be, if they didn't find Atlantis roomy enough. Or maybe his brother would…

"Where is Richard?" he asked.

"Out in the woods," Bess said. "As usual."

"He was talking about going over the mountains," Edward added. "I half wondered if you would see him when you came ashore on the west coast."

"So did I. That would have been funny," Henry said. "I wonder which of us would have been more surprised."

More people were coming off the Rose and telling loved ones and friends what they'd done and what they'd seen on the journey around the northern coast of Atlantis. Henry heard several sailors trying to pronounce Pattawatomi. Every man said it differently. Henry couldn't very well complain-he wasn't sure he was saying it right himself. He wasn't sure the Basque had pronounced it very well. Any people that gave itself such an outlandish name probably spoke a language as bad as Basque, too. Henry hadn't thought there was any such creature, but maybe he was wrong.

Then Bess put her arm around his waist and gave him an inviting smile. He suddenly and acutely remembered how long he'd been at sea. "I'm going to have a look at the house, Father," he said. "We'll talk more later."

"Send the children out to play before you look too hard," Edward answered. "Lord knows I had to chase you and your brother and sisters out the door after a few fishing runs-yes, just a few."

Henry remembered that. He'd been puzzled when he was small, puzzled and hurt. Why wasn't Father gladder to see him? Well, Father was, but he was glad to see Mother, too. And Henry was very glad to see Bess. They walked off side by side. In a little while, he thought, he would be gladder still.

P retty soon, Richard Radcliffe would reach the downhill slope. That was what he was waiting for-proof he'd made it into the western part of Atlantis, proof he'd got through the mountains at last.

If only I'd done it last year! He'd been exploring in the Green Ridge then. He hadn't got to the crest and over. And so his brother, sailing around, got to the far side of the new land ahead of him. Richard muttered under his breath. In a way, you hardly mattered at all if you weren't first.

But only in a way. The Radcliffes hadn't got to Atlantis first. By all accounts, though, New Hastings and Bredestown and the other settlements that sprang from their first visit were growing far faster than Cosquer. Richard didn't know for a fact whether that was true; he'd never gone down to the Breton town. The more he traveled through the heartland of Atlantis, the less patience he had for his fellow human beings, even the ones who happened to be Englishmen and-women.

Oh, he was glad to see, glad to touch, his wife when he came back from one of these jaunts. But even rutting palled sooner and sooner nowadays. Before long, he itched to be gone again. Other people were a stench in his nostrils, and the more of them there were, the worse the stench got. They lived with it all the time, so they didn't even know it was there. Richard hadn't himself, not till he was able to go away into the woods here for days at a time.

"How did I stand the stinks on a fishing boat?" he wondered aloud. He often talked to himself when he was out alone. Why not? And the answer was easy enough to find: he'd stood it because he'd known no better, the same way he'd stood getting jammed together with the other fishermen on the St. George, jammed almost as tight as the gutted slabs of salt cod they made.

Here in the wilderness, his words seemed to take on an importance they wouldn't have back in New Hastings, or even Bredestown. They echoed back from the boles of the trees that leapt skywards the way cathedral spires dreamt of doing. Some of the trees he'd seen rose higher than any cathedral spire-he was sure of that.

Only birdcalls-honkers' loud, nasal notes and the more melodious songs of smaller birds-had ever disturbed the stillness in these mountain passes before. Richard smiled. No, that wasn't quite true. There was also the chirping of the big green katydids that scurried and hopped through the undergrowth. They were as long as his thumb, and twice as fat. They couldn't fly; like the honkers, they had useless little stubs of wings. They didn't even hop particularly well. But, like mice back in England, they came out at night to nibble at whatever they could find.

And sometimes, here in the mountains, they came out by day, too, or what passed for day. Fog lingered long in the valleys here. Sometimes, as it thinned, Richard could see the green slopes above and to either side of the pass he was trying to get through. That was when he came out into the open; under the trees, mist might linger all through the day.

He knew he'd gone astray a few times, just because of the mist. Few trails wound through these forests. There were no deer or wild boar here to make them. Nor had men tamed these woods, as they had England's. Honkers made some paths, but honkers didn't care to go deep into the woods. Most of them were by choice creatures of the meadow and the forest edges. They sheltered under the trees to save themselves from the savage beaks and tearing talons of red-crested eagles. Without the birds that slashed down from the sky to slay them, they would have spent their time in the open.

The constant moisture made the air seem thick and textured in Richard's lungs. It also made the spicy scents of sap and needles even stronger and sweeter than they would have been were the weather drier. Of course, in drier weather the redwoods that gave the forest its upper story could never have grown.

Somewhere not far ahead, a stream gurgled. Richard came up to it, dipped up a cup, and drank. The clear, cold water that ran down his throat seemed as sweet and almost as strong as wine. It wasn't the greenish, nasty stuff that came out of the butts when you'd stayed at sea too long. It wasn't the vile stuff that came down to Hastings, either, already foul with inlanders' shit and piss and the leavings from tanneries and breweries. This was water, the way God intended it to be.

A frog stared at Richard out of golden eyes. That single singing sac under its throat still seemed strange to him. But so much of Atlantis was strange by English standards; why should that one small thing stand out? He couldn't have said why, but it did.