Harry Turtledove: Opening Atlantis

He was likely right. No wonder Francois Kersauzon had led them here. This bank had more fish than any one boat could handle. Radcliffe thought it had more fish than a hundred boats could handle, or a thousand. In exchange for the secret, the canny Breton got an extra third of the catch for no extra work. It struck Radcliffe as a good bargain for both sides.

Whether it would strike Kersauzon the same way five or ten years from now, Edward wasn't so sure. The St. George would keep coming back, and next time around would owe nothing to the other boat. I can sell the secret, too, if I want to or need to, Radcliffe thought. It wouldn't last. A secret this big, this rich, couldn't last long by the nature of things.

The wind shifted. Radcliffe's eye automatically went to the rigging, though of course he knew the sail was furled. The breeze had been coming out of the west. Now it swung about so that it blew toward the clouds fixed in the mysterious distance there. Maybe it would shift them at last. He hoped so-he wanted a look at what they hid. He'd heard Kersauzon's stories about Atlantis, and he'd seen one enormous smoked leg of fowl. All that whetted his appetite, both literally and figuratively.

As soon as he was sure the swing portended no danger to the cog, he plunged back into the unending labor of gaffing and gutting and salting fish. Some time went by before he looked up again, startled, and realized he'd forgotten to do anything of the kind for much too long.

Dripping knife in his hand, he stared and stared. Green as England in springtime was his first thought after he finally got a glimpse of…Atlantis. Yes, the name seemed to suit more than well enough. A longer look said his first thought wasn't quite true. This green was darker, more somber, than that of his native land. But that didn't mean he didn't want to see this new countryside up close. Oh, no. It didn't mean anything of the kind.

Oars creaked in the oarlocks as the St. George's boat neared the shore. Edward waved to Francois Kersauzon-the Morzen's boat was going ashore, too, only a short bowshot away. The Breton skipper waved back. "Is it not as I told you?" he called, his voice thin across the waves.

"Seems that way." Edward looked over his shoulder, toward the two fishing boats anchored in eight fathoms of water. He didn't believe in taking chances; he wanted plenty of ocean under his keel. Plainly, Kersauzon felt the same way. That surprised the Englishman not at all-you didn't get to be a captain if you were reckless. Or, if you did, you didn't stay a captain long.

He and his sons and Hugh Fenner and two other fishermen had a longer pull than they would have if he'd brought the St. George into shallower water. So did the Bretons from the Morzen. So what? Edward thought. Anyone who minded work had no business going to sea in the first place.

He wondered whether Kersauzon and the Bretons would race to the shore. Sensibly, they didn't. Anyone who gave himself extra work when so much wasn't extra had to be a fool. Francois Kersauzon might be a lot of things, but Radcliffe would have sworn on Christ's holy relics that he was no fool.

The boat fought through the breakers and grated to a stop on a beach half sand, half mud. "You go out first, Father," Richard said. "You brought us here. I never would have-I thought the Breton was cozening us." The rest of the Englishmen in the boat nodded.

"I thank you," Edward said. His back creaked as he straightened. When he stepped ashore, his boot squelched in mud. He knew he ought to come out with something grand, something people-or at least he-would remember for a long time. But he was no traveling player or glib peddler, to find fancy words whenever he needed them. "Well, we're here," wasn't what anyone would call splendid, but it was true.

Kersauzon hopped out of the other boat and trotted toward him. The Breton took the new land for granted. It wasn't new to him, not as a whole, even if this stretch might be.

"What do you think?" he asked, as proud as if he rather than God had shaped the ground on which they stood.

"It's…different," Edward answered. The murmur of waves going in and out, the wind's sigh, the smell of sea in the air-all those things were familiar enough. So were the grasses and shrubs just beyond the beach. Past that, familiarity broke down. Radcliffe pointed to a strange plant. "What do you call that?"

"I don't know its right name. I don't know if it has one," Kersauzon said. "But I've been calling those barrel plants."

Radcliffe nodded. Right name or not, it fit well enough. The trunk-he supposed it was a trunk-looked like a stout, bark-covered barrel. From the top sprouted a sheaf of big, frond-filled leaves like the one Will had netted from the Atlantic.

More barrel plants, some bigger, some smaller, dotted the landscape. Their leaves were of varying sizes and shapes and of different shades of green, but they all seemed built on the same plan-a plan Edward had never seen before. Farther inland, the woods were of conifers, but not of the sort of conifers he knew. "Have you a name for the trees, too?" he asked.

"I do-I call 'em redwoods," Francois Kersauzon replied. "Cut down a small one and you'll see why-the lumber is the color of untarnished copper. And Mother Mary turn her back on me if I lie, Englishman, but some of them are bigger than any trees I ever set eyes on back home."

"Are there men here?" Richard Radcliffe asked. "Moors or Irishmen or other savages?"

"I've not seen any," Kersauzon said. "I don't swear I'm the only fisherman ever to find this shore. Basques or Galicians who don't get their salt at Le Croisic-or maybe even those who do, for the Basques are close-mouthed bastards-may come here, too. But I've yet to run across a native. It's a new land."

Edward spied a flash of motion-motion on two legs-behind a tall barrel plant. "Then what's that?" he demanded, wondering if the Breton was tricking his son and him.

Kersauzon only laughed. "Bide a moment, friend, and you'll see-and hear."

"Honnnk!" The note was deeper than a man could have made it. Edward gaped at the curious creature that came out from behind the barrel plant. It walked on two legs like a man, but it was some sort of enormous bird. Its neck and head were black, except for a white patch under its formidable beak. The shaggy feathers on its back were dun brown, those on its belly paler. The legs were bare and scaly, like a fowl's-but what a fowl it was!

When the honker-the name flashed into Edward's mind-spread its wings, the fishermen laughed. Those tiny appendages could never lift it off the ground. He wondered why the bird had them at all.

It reached down with its beak and pulled up a mouthful of grass, then another and another. "So that's where you got your great drumstick, is it?" Edward said.

"It is indeed," Kersauzon replied. "The poor, foolish things have no fear of man-another reason I think there are no natives here. You can walk up to one and knock it over the head, and it will let you. It will lie dead at your feet when it should be running or kicking."

"I'll do that right now, then," Hugh Fenner said. Half apologetically, the master salter turned to Radcliffe. "You get tired of even the best fish after a while. If we roast that overgrown goose, we've got a feast for the whole crew."

When we come to a new land, do we mark it by our first kill, the way Cain did? Edward wondered. But his stomach growled at the thought of meat, too. "Go on if you care to," he told Fenner.

The master salter advanced on the honker. Fenner's confidence grew with every step. Sure enough, the monster bird seemed curious at his approach, but not afraid. He had a stout bludgeon on his belt. One good wallop with that ought to shatter the stupid thing's skull…

A flash in the air, a harsh screech, a shriek from Fenner, and then he was down and thrashing with a great hawk or eagle clinging to his back and tearing at his kidneys with a huge, hooked, slicing beak. The honker might not fear men, but the sight of that eagle sent it running back for the shelter of the-redwoods, Kersauzon called them.