The Boat of a Million Years

by Poul Anderson

  Think about pleasanter things, then. Faring out again among the stars— No, that cut too near. That was what divided the house of the Survivors against itself.

  You couldn’t blame those who wanted to stay. They’d toiled, suffered, wrought mightily; this had become home for them, it was the cosmos for their children. As for those who wanted to quest, why, Minoa with its multitudinous realms was only one continent on an entire world. For those who would liefest dwell near nonhumans, a whole new race of them was coming. What more dared you wish?

  Dismiss it for now. Lose yourself in this day.

  The sea opened before Ariadne, eunmetal whitecaps, surge and brawl, wind abruptly southeast and stiff. She leaped, leaned, ran happily lee rail under. It throbbed in deck and tiller. The wind sang. Spindrift blew salt kisses. Hanno closed his jacket and drew up its hood against the chill. Fingers brushed the gas cartridge that would at need inflate it. Tricky sailing, and nis muscles not yet fully retrained to bear his weight. He couldn’t have singlehanded -were it not for the servos and computer. At that, he must pay constant heed. Good. So did be wish it to be.

  A native ship was inbound, beating across the wind, a bravery of sails. She must have lain out, waiting for the tide to turn. Now she would ride the flow upstream, doubtless to Xenoknossos. Probably she would have to take shelter in one of the bays .the Ithagene had dug along the banks, while the bore went rumbling by. It would be especially dangerous today; the moon was both full and close.

  Northward, some five kilometers off the mainland, water churned and jumped white, black forms reared up—the Forbidden Ground, a nasty patch of rocks and shoals. A current from the south swept strongly around it. Hanno trimmed his sails. He wanted to be well clear before the incoming tide reinforced that rush.

  Tacking, he made for the nearest of three islands that lay dim in the eastern distance. He would scarcely get that far before midafteraoon, when prudence dictated he turn back, but it was something to steer by.

  A goal, he thought. A harbor I won’t make. Odysseus, setting forth from ashy Troy for Ithaca, lured by the Lotus Eaters, bereaved by the Cyclops, at strife with winds and wild men, seduced by an enchantress who took away humanity, descending to the dead, raiding the fields of the sun, passing through the gate of destruction, made captive by her who loved him, cast ashore at Phaeacia—but Odysseus came home at last.

  How many ports had he, Hanno, foiled to make in his millennia? All?

  Tritos climbed to a breach hi the overcast. Light flamed. He sailed on the Amethyst Sea, and it was strewn with diamond dust and the manes of the waves blew white. It was as lovely and wild as a woman.

  Tanithel, her black hair garlanded with anemones, who whispered her wish that she had not had to sacrifice her virginity in the temple before she came to him; Adoniah, who read the stars from her tower above Tyre—twice he cast anchor, the lights of home glimmered through dusk, and then ebb tide bore that country off and he lay again on empty waters. Afterward—Merab, Althea, Nirouphar, Cordelia, Brangwyn, Thorgerd, Maria, Jehanne, Margaret, Natalia, O Ashtoreth, the dear ghosts were beyond counting or remembering, but had they ever been much more than ghosts, belonging as they did to death? To men he felt closer, they could not bear the same thing off with them— Baalram, Thuti, Umlele, Pytheas, Ezra, rough old Rufus, yes, that hurt, somewhere inside himself Hanno had forever mourned Rufus. Stop sniveling!

  The wind skirled louder. Ariadne heeled sharply. The sun disappeared behind gray, beneath which wrack began to fly. CLoud masses bulked mountainous, drawing closer. Lightning sprang about in their blue-black caverns. The islands were lost in scud-haze, the mainland aft lay low and vague. “What time is it?” Hanno asked. He whistled when the computer told him. His body had sailed for him while his mind drifted awash hi the past, longer than he knew.

  He’d grown hungry too without noticing, but would be rash to trust the helm to the machinery even to duck below and fix a sandwich. “Give me Hestia,” he ordered the communicator. “Summoning.”

  “Hello, hello, is anybody there? Hanno calling.”

  Wind tore Yukiko’s voice from the speaker, seas trampled its tatters underfoot. He barely heard: “—frightened for you ... satellite report ... weather moving faster and faster ... please—”

  “Yes, certainly, I’ll return. Don’t worry. This boat can take a knockdown and right herself. I’ll be back for supper.” If I catch the tide right. Got to keep well offshore till I can run straight down the slot- Well, the motor has plenty of kilowatts. Better that to claw off with than men rowing till their hearts burst.

  He didn’t want to use it unless and until he must. He needed a fight, wits and nerve as well as sinews against the wolf-gods. Coming around was a long and tough maneuver. Once a wave smashed clear across the deck. Ariadne shuddered, but still her mast swayed on high, an uplifted lance. Gallant girl. Like Svoboda—like all of them, Yukiko, Cor-inne, Aliyat, all of them Survivors in ways their men had never had to be.

  He did let the servos keep the tiller while he shortened sail. A sheet escaped his grasp and slashed his wrist before he captured and cleated it. Spume washed the blood off. The world had gone dark, driving gray, save for the lightning flashes southward. Water swung to and fro in the cockpit till the pump flung it overside. He remembered bailing Pytheas’ ship during a Baltic storm. As he took the helm back, a song abruptly lilted through his head. “Oh, hand me down my walking cane—“ Where had it come from? English language, old, old, nineteenth or early twentieth century, impudent, a pulsing, railroad kind of tune.

  “—Oh, Mama, come go my bail, Get me out of this God damn jail. All my sins are taken away.”

  Railroad, the West, a world that had seemed boundless but lost its horizons and itself in a blink of centuries and was one with Troy. Then some looked starward and dreamed of New America. The upshot ... machines, eight human beings, immensities as impassable and unanswering as death.

  “Oh, hett is deep and hell is wide, Oh, hell is deep and hell is wide, Oh, hell is deep and hell is wide, Ain’t got no bottom, ain’t got no side. All my sins are taken away.”

  Hanno showed the wind his teeth. Odysseus went there and won back. If the stars held no New America, they offered what was infinitely more.

  The noise rammed him. It was a monstrous rush and boom, pierced by a risen screech. To port the cloud wall had vanished behind a whiteness that overran waves and kilometers.

  “Strike sail!” he bawled. That was not merely a gale, that was a line squall come from behind sight and bound for him. Weather on Xenogaia heeded no law of Grecian Aeolus. Wind speeds were commonly low, but when they did go high, they bore twice the weight of violent air. His left hand took the switch that lowered the outboard. Point bows into seas and hold them fast!

  Trie fist smote. Rain flayed and blinded. Waves topped the rails. Ariadne climbed, swayed amidst cataracting foam, plunged into troughs. Hanno clung.

  Something snatched him.

  He was down in roaring black. He whirled and tumbled. At the middle of it rested a cold steadiness, his mind. I’m overboard, he knew. Inflate the jacket. Don’t breathe water or you’re done.

  He broke surface, gasped air full of rain and salt foam, threshed limbs against heaviness that tore. The hood swelled into a pillowlike collar, upbearing his head as the rest of the garment floated his body. He squinted about. Where was the boat? No sign of her. He didn’t think she’d gone under, not that staunch little lady, but wind and waves must have borne her from him, maybe not very far as yet— far enough, though, when he could see only the billows savaging him.

  What had happened? His brain cleared, shook off shock, became a computer programmed to calculate survival. Wind might have caught the unfurled loose mainsail, swung the hull around, shoved it so low that a broaching sea swept him out. Well, if he kept alert, he’d drift free till rescue came.

  That should be soon after this flaw of weather had passed. Yukiko was probably trying right now to call him. An aircraft— Those
carried aboard Pytheas were designed for Phaeacia. They flew on Xenogaia, but it was rather precarious; given conditions at all unusual, you needed a human pilot as well as the machine. Maybe the Hestia folk should have ordered modifications, but the job was big, they had so much else on hand, they could stay aground when in doubt.

  Pilots. Wanderer’s the best, I think that’s generally agreed. He’s out of touch today. Otherwise Svoboda; and she’s got her kid to think about. The colony is tiny, a beachhead on a shore not made for our kind. She has no right to risk herself needlessly. Of course, she will take off the moment it looks practical, which should be when this gust is over. High winds aren’t an unacceptable hazard in themselves, if they’re reasonably steady.

  The trick will be to stay alive till then. Exposure is the enemy. This water isn’t too cold, it’s a warm current from the south. However, a few degrees below skin temperature will suck the heat out in time. I remember— But that was on another voyage, and besides, the men are dead. I also know some ancient Asian ways of controlling blood flow; at dire need, I can call up my ultimate reserves, while they last.

  Swim. Save your strength, but do not let yourself be rolled about and smothered. Find the rhythms. Who was it, what goddess, who lived at the bottom of the sea and spread her nets for sailormen? Oh, yes, Ran of the Norse. Shall we dance, my lady Ran?

  Wind screamed, seas crashed. How long had this gone on? No telling. A minute could amount to an hour, reverse time dilation, the cosmos flying away from a man. He’d been mistaken about the blow. It wasn’t any quick squall. Though rain had thinned, the wind raved wilder. Unforeseen, unforeseeable, as ignorant as men and, yes, their smug machines still were. The universe held as many surprises as it did stars. No, more. That was its glory. But someday one of them was bound to kill you.

  Thunder ahead. Hanno rose onto a crest. He saw black teeth, the rocks and skerries, the Forbidden Ground. Water seethed, geysered, exploded. The current had swept him to this. Flashingly, he hoped Ariadne remained free, for her people to recover. He readied himself.

  It was hard to do. A sense of warmth hi hands and feet crept treacherously toward his breast. He knew that consciousness was dimming; he couldn’t tell which lights had by now gone out.

  A comber took him along.

  He smashed into the white.

  White. ... He lay on stone. Weed wrapped him, yellow-brown ropes. Waves roiled and roared under a low, flying sky. Oftener and oftener, water rushed over the roughness beneath him. He would inhale it, choke, cough, reach for air.

  He scarcely noticed. Cold, pain, struggle were of the world, the storm. Impersonal, he watched them, like a man drowsy at his hearthside watching flames. The rising tide would claim him, but he would not be here. He would be— where? What? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

  So this is how it ends. Not too bad a way for an old sailor-man. I do wish I could lie remembering. But memory slips from me, wishing does, being does. Farewell, farewell, you ghosts. Fare always well.

  A whickering whine through wind and surf, a shadow, a shape, a jolt that awakens awareness.

  You fool! he raged dimly. Go back! You could lose your life!

  The aircraft bucked and rocked, fell, climbed, did battle. From its teardrop snaked a tine. The cord passed half a meter above Hanno. His hand tried to reach and grab it, but couldn’t. It whirled on past. Again. Again.

  It withdrew. The engine overhead snarled louder. The line descended afresh. A loop was at the end, for the feet of a clinging man.

  Tu Shan hit the reef. He took the impact in his muscles, got his foothold, stood while a surge ran ankle-deep around him. With his left hand he kept hold of the tine; and he advanced step by gripping step.

  The strongest among us, thought Hanno bewilderedly. But I’ve been all this time with his woman.

  Tu Shan’s right arm wept under his shoulders, raised him, held him fast. The aircraft winched the line in. They swung like a bell clapper. “Proclaim Liberty throughout the world—”

  They were aboard. Svoboda gained altitude and made for snore. Tu Shan laid Hanno out in the aisle, which shivered and banged. He examined him with rough skill. “Slight concussion, I think,” he growled. “Maybe a broken rib or two. Mainly a bad chill, uh, hypothermia. He’ll live.”

  He administered initial treatment. Blood quickened. Svoboda brought the aircraft slanting down. “How did you know?” Hanno mumbled.

  “Yukiko called the Alloi,” Svoboda said from the controls. Rain dashed across the viewscreen before her. “They couldn’t enter atmosphere themselves. Even their robots have trouble in bad weather. But they sent a spaceboat on low trajectory. Its detectors registered an infrared anomaly in the rocks. That was where you might well be.”

  “You shouldn’t have, you shouldn’t—”

  She made a near-vertical descent. Contact jarred the machine. She snapped off her harness and came to kneel beside him. “Did you think we’d want to be without you?” she asked. “Did we ever?”

  33

  Seldom was a day this brilliant. Sunlight spilled from a sky in which clouds were blue-shadowed white, tike enormous snowbanks. It gleamed off wings cruising aloft; glimpses of river and sea shone molten. The eight seated around a plank table were thinly clad. From the top of their knoll vision ranged between Hestia, at its distance a toy box, westward to where Mount Pytheas rose pure beyond the hills.

  Twice before have we met this way, in open air, remembered Hanno. Do we have some unknown need? Yes, the reasons are practical, be undistracted, leave the children in care of the robots for these few hours, and hope that fresh surroundings will freshen our thinking. But do our souls be-tieve that when we most want wisdom, we must seek it from earth and heaven?

  They are not ours, even now. This close-knit turf that is not grass, yonder squat trees and serpentine bushes, somber lues of everything that grows, sharp fragrances, the very taste of spring water, none came from the womb of Gaia. Nor can any of it ever truly become hers, nor should it.

  The looks upon him were expectant. He cleared his throat and sat straighten The motion hurt, his injuries were not yet entirely healed, but he ignored that. “I won’t ask for a vote today,” he said. “We have years ahead before we must commit ourselves. But my news may change some minds,”

  Unless that had already happened. Certainly it had done so as regarded him. He didn’t know whether his near death had been necessary to snuff out the last rancor. Maybe that would have faded away in time; but maybe it would have smoldered on and on, eating hearts hollow. No matter. The fellowship was whole again. Little had been spoken outright; everything had been felt. He had an intuition, moreover, that in typical irrational human fashion, this was in turn catalyzing another oneness.

  We’ll see, he thought. All of us.

  “As you know,” he went on, “Yukiko and I have been communicating a lot with the AUoi these past few days. They’ve reached a decision of their own.”

  He raised a hand against anxiety. “Nothing radical, except in what it can mean for the long haul. They will stay on till the new ship arrives, and for several years afterward. There’ll be an unforeknowably great deal of information to exchange and, well, rapport to build and enjoy. In due course, though, the Alloi are going elsewhere.

  “What’s new is—if we, at that time, leave for Phaeacia, they will come with us.”

  He and his partner smiled into the amazement, savored it. “In God’s name, why?” exclaimed Patulcius. “What have they to gam there?”

  “Knowledge, to start with,” Hanno answered. “A whole different set of planets.”

  “But planetary systems are common enough,” Wanderer said. “I thought that what interests them most is intelligent life.”

  “True,” Yukiko told them. “At Phaeacia, that will be us; and for us, they will be.”

  “They want to know us better,” Hanno said. “They see tremendous potential in our race. Far more than in the Ithagene, much though they’ve gotten from them in the
way of scientific discovery and artistic inspiration. We are spacefarers too. The odds are, the Ithagene never will be, none of diem; at best, in the remote future.”

  “But the Alloi need only stay here, and they can observe both races, and interact with that other set of travelers to boot,” Patulcius argued.

  Yukiko shook her head. “They do not expect we can or win remain. Certainly our numbers could only grow slowly, and never become large, on Xenogaia; and therefore what we, humans in space, were able to do, or at last cared to do, would be hopelessly limited.”

  “You six—no, we eight have been like the English Puritans on Earth,” Hanno said. “Looking for a home, they meant to settle in Virginia, but weather drove them north and they ended in New England. It wasn’t what they’d hoped for, but they made the best of it, and that’s how the Yankees came to be. Suppose New England had been all there ever was for them. Think of such a country, stagnant, poor, narrow and narrow-minded. Do you want that for yourselves and your children?”

  “The Yankees put down strong roots,” Tu Shan responded. “They did have America beyond.”

  “We have nothing like that,” Macandal said. “Xenogaia belongs to its people. We have no right to anything but this Ktde patch they gave us. If we took more, God ought to strike us down.”

  Wanderer nodded.

  “So you have often said, dear,” Patulcius demurred, “and I have tried to point out that as a practical matter—”

  “Yes, we have our investment here,” Svoboda interrupted, “sweat and tears and dreams. It will hurt to scrap that. But I always believed, myself, that someday we must.” Her voice clanged. “And now we’ve been given this opportunity!”

  “That’s it,” Hanno chimed in. “Phaeacia has no natives for us to harm. It seems to be almost a reborn Earth. Seems. Maybe it’s a death trap. We can’t know till we’ve tried. We understood the risk of failure, extinction. Well, with the Altoi at our backs, that won’t happen. United, we can over-pHtpo anything. You see, they want us to live, to Sourish. They want humans among the stars.”