Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"In my grandfather's day, I am told, you would never have seen such a thing. Settlements then were smaller and stuck closer to the coast," Roland said. "Since those days, we have brought in more plants and animals that suit us. Deer and foxes roam the forests now. Rats and mice infest our homes and barns. Cats hunt them-and whatever else they can find. Dogs run wild, too. So do chickens and our ducks and Terranovan turkeys."

"So you believe the native productions will vanish?" Montcalm-Gozon asked. "A pity to see sameness imposed on the world."

"I am, I hope, a modern man, your Excellency," Kersauzon said. "If that which comes from Europe or from Terranova serves our needs better than Atlantis' native productions, why should we not have it? In the early days here, men feared to go outdoors, because red-crested eagles might slam into them from behind and chew at their kidneys as the vulture chewed at Prometheus' liver. Now those flying monsters are few and far between, and I confess I miss them not a pin." He remembered how horrified he'd been when an eagle attacked one of his settlers.

"Once, lions hunted in Greece. Not so long ago, wolves prowled everywhere in France," Montcalm-Gozon said. "Now the lions are gone, the wolves grown scarce. I agree: this is better. But will the innocuous go by the wayside along with the dangerous? That, I believe, would be unfortunate."

"It could be so," Roland said. "Will you eat beef or mutton at supper tonight?"

"Either will do," the Frenchman replied. "Why do you ask?"

"The cattle and sheep are imports, too. So are the horses we ride," Roland said.

"As you observed, they are useful." Before Montcalm-Gozon could go on, several muskets barked from the-mostly native-woods. A French regular yelled. A profane lieutenant ordered a troop of men to go after the ambushers, and not to come back without the degenerates' tripes on their bayonets. The soldiers charged in amongst the trees.

"They won't catch them," Roland predicted mournfully.

"And why are you so sure? They are excellent men," the marquis said.

"They are excellent men standing in a battle line and beating down another battle line," Roland Kersauzon answered. "Unless some of them were poachers or robbers before they put on the uniform, what do they know about chasing woodsmen through the forest?"

Montcalm-Gozon only shrugged. "What do these Atlantean rats know about getting chased by Frenchmen?"

They knew enough to get away. The regulars came out of the woods without any enemy soldiers, alive or dead, in their grasp and with hangdog expressions on their faces. Their worst casualty was a sprained ankle. Two of them supported the man, who proved to have tripped over a root. The injured soldier went into a casualty wagon, along with the regulars the English settlers had shot. The interrupted march resumed.

"Not a good business," Montcalm-Gozon grumbled.

"Certainly not, Monsieur." Roland could hardly disagree with that. Adding I told you so would have been rude. A slightly superior manner conveyed the message just as well: they were both French, after all.

Another rider came up with more news of devastation from the south. Montcalm-Gozon heard him out, stony-faced. Roland tried to match the noble's dispassion, but it wasn't easy. To the man from across the sea, the plantations destroyed and the people killed or dispossessed were only pieces on the board. To Roland, the estates belonged to kinsmen and friends and acquaintances. The losses were personal.

"It could be, your Excellency, that I might have to detach my native soldiers to pursue this marauding salaud of a Radcliff," he said.

"That would disturb the primary goal of this campaign, which is to seize Freetown," Montcalm-Gozon said with a frown.

"Ensuring that the French settlements in Atlantis are not destroyed is also an important goal, n'est-ce pas?" Kersauzon returned.

"Feh." The French general raised a hand. "The English attempt a nuisance raid, nothing more. If we weaken our striking force to contain them, we play into their hands."

He had a point, and Roland knew it. Nevertheless, he quoted Matthew: "'For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'"

Montcalm-Gozon aimed an unfriendly look his way. "I have to think of this struggle as part of one that goes on all over the world. We fight England in Europe, and in India, and in Terranova, as well as on these shores."

"France fights England all over the world," Roland Kersauzon said. "I fight England here. I have to think of what is best and what is worst for the French settlements in Atlantis."

"What is best for them is what is best for France," the marquis insisted.

"Not necessarily," Roland replied. Now they aimed glares at each other. Montcalm-Gozon looked ready to aim a pistol at Roland as well. The Atlantean did not want to fight the French commander, and not only because he had no idea what would happen in a duel. Even if he won a duel against Montcalm-Gozon, he lost. So it seemed to him, at any rate.

In icy tones, Montcalm-Gozon said, "You had better explain yourself."

"If we take Freetown, you win a grand and glorious victory for France," Kersauzon said. "Then, very likely, you and your regulars sail away. If the English destroy everything we've built up farther south, what good does your grand and glorious victory do us?"

"They cannot," the French nobleman said, but with an uncertain edge to his voice.

"If my soldiers accompany yours, marching away from the enemy invasion, what the devil will stop them?" Roland asked.

"You are a difficult man."

"Only to my enemies…Monsieur." Roland bowed in the saddle.

"Will half your men suffice to deal with these raiders?" Montcalm-Gozon inquired after a sour sigh.

They spent the next twenty minutes haggling, as if Roland were trying to squeeze a few extra sous from the nobleman at the fish market. Montcalm-Gozon finally consented to let Roland have two-thirds of the soldiers he thought his by right anyway. Kersauzon wanted more-he wanted all of them. But he took as many men as he could without pistols at dawn. As you got older, you learned that sometimes you had to be satisfied with less than everything you wanted from life.

Roland's men burst into cheers when he told them that most of them would be heading south. They knew as much as he did about what was going on down there-rumors spread like wildfire. He wondered how long it would have been before they started deserting. Not very, unless he didn't know them. He said nothing to Montcalm-Gozon about the cheers. The young marquis wasn't deaf. He could hear them, and draw his own conclusions.

What those conclusions were, he didn't discuss with Roland. And Kersauzon didn't ask him, either.

Messages took their own sweet time traveling from the English and local forces in front of Freetown and Victor Radcliff's raiders. He was on his own down in the French settlements. By the time he got news and reacted to it, it was badly out of date. And so he didn't worry-too much-when he heard that the locals and redcoats had fallen back into Freetown. What good did worry do?

The English lieutenant-colonel in charge of the defense had energy. Remembering another of Victor's suggestions, he sent a schooner full of men-mostly Atlanteans-down the coast to land behind the French force and waylay the supply wagons coming up to it. For a little while, his letters boasted of the havoc that little band was wreaking. A fine piratical band, he called them, perhaps not knowing that Victor's branch of the broad and spreading Radcliff(e) tree found nothing fine in piracy.

Then the English officer's tone changed. I have not heard from the men sent south for some little while, he wrote, and fear they may have suffered a misfortune. God grant I be wrong.