The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  "Sic transit gloria honkeris." Harris said.

  "Honkeris?" But Audubon held up a hand before Harris could speak. "Yes, honker would be a third-declension noun, wouldn't it?"

  Little by little, the country rose toward the mountains. Cycads thinned out in the woods; more varieties of pines and spruces and redwoods took their places. The ferns in the undergrowth seemed different, too. As settlements thinned out, so did splashes of color from exotic flowers. The very air seemed different: mistier, moister, full of curious, spicy scents the nose would not meet anywhere else in the world. It felt as if the smells of another time were wafting past the travelers.

  "And so they are," Audubon said when that thought crossed his mind. "This is the air of Atlantis as it was, Atlantis before those fishermen saw its coast loom up out of the sea."

  "Well, almost," Harris said. That he and Audubon and their horses were here proved his point. In case it didn't, he pointed to the track down which they rode. The ground was damp —muddy in spots —for it had rained the day before. A fox's pads showed plainly.

  "How many birds has that beast eaten?" Audubon said. "How many ground-dwellers' nests has it robbed?" Many Atlantean birds nested on the ground, far more than in either Europe or Terranova. But for a few snakes and large lizards, there were no terrestrial predators —or hadn't been, before men brought them in. Audubon made another note in his diary. Till now, he hadn't thought about the effect the presence or absence of predators might have on birds' nesting habits.

  Even here, in the sparsely settled heart of Atlantis, a great deal had been lost. But much still remained. Birdsongs filled the air, especially just after sunrise when Audubon and Harris started out each day. Atlantis had several species of crossbills and grosbeaks: birds with bills that seemed made for getting seeds out of cones and disposing of them afterwards. As with so many birds on the island, they were closely related to Terranovan forms, but not identical to them.

  Audubon shot a male green grosbeak in full breeding plumage. Lying in his hand, the bird, with its apple-green back, warm cinnamon belly, and yellow eye streak, seemed gaudy as a seventeenth-century French courtier. But on the branch of a redwood, against the green foliage and rusty-brown bark, it hadn't been easy to spot. If it weren't singing so insistently, chances were he would have ridden right past it.

  At dusk, Harris shot an oil thrush. That wasn't for research, though Audubon did save the skin. The long-billed flightless thrush had more than enough meat for both of them. The flavor put Audubon in mind of snipe or woodcock: not surprising, perhaps, when all three were so fond of earthworms.

  Gnawing on a thighbone, Harris said, "I wonder how long these birds will last."

  "Longer than honkers, anyhow, because they're less conspicuous," Audubon said, and his friend nodded. He went on, "But you have reason—they're in danger. They're one more kind that nests on the ground, and how can they escape foxes and dogs that hunt by scent?"

  Somewhere off in the distance, far beyond the light of the campfire, a fox yelped and yowled. Harris nodded. "There's a noise that wasn't heard here before the English brought them."

  "If it weren't foxes, it would be dogs," Audubon said sadly, and Harris' head bobbed up and down once more. Atlantis was vulnerable to man and his creatures, and that was the long and short of it. "A pity. A great pity," Audubon murmured. Harris nodded yet again.

  The screech ripped across the morning air. Audubon's horse snorted and tried to rear. He calmed it with hands and voice and educated thighs. "Good God!" Harris said. "What was that?"

  Before answering, Audubon listened to the sudden and absolute silence all around. A moment before, the birds were singing their hearts out. As a lion's roar was said to bring stillness to the African plains, so this screech froze the forests of Atlantis.

  It rang out again, wild and harsh and fierce. Excitement tingled through Audubon. "I know what it is!" Despite the urgency in his voice, it hardly rose above a whisper. His gaze swung to the shotgun. Have to charge it with stronger shot, he thought.

  "What?" Harris also whispered, hoarsely. As after a lion's roar, talking out loud seemed dangerous.

  "A red-crested eagle, by all the saints!" Audubon said. "A rara avis itself, and also, with luck, a sign honkers aren't far away." Maybe the Atlantean national bird was reduced to hunting sheep or deer, but Audubon hadn't seen any close by. If the eagle still sought the prey it had always chosen before the coming of man… Oh, if it did!

  Harris didn't just look at his shotgun. He reached for it and methodically began to load. After a moment, so did Audubon. Red-crested eagles didn't fear men. They were used to swooping down on tall creatures that walked on two legs. People could die — people had died — under their great, tearing claws, long as a big man's thumb. Nor were their fierce beaks to be despised —anything but.

  "Where did the cry come from?" Audubon asked after loading both barrels.

  "That way." Harris pointed north. "Not far, either."

  "No, not far at all," Audubon agreed. "We have to find it. We have to, Edward!"

  He plunged into the undergrowth, moving quiet as he could. Harris hurried after him. They both carried their shotguns at high port, ready to fire and ready to try to fend off the eagle if it struck before they could.

  Call again. Audubon willed the thought toward the red-crested eagle with all his strength. Call again. Show us where you are.

  And the eagle did. The smaller birds had begun to sing again. Silence came down on them like a heavy boot. Audubon grew acutely aware of how loud his own footfalls were. He tried to stride more lightly, with what success he had trouble judging. Tracking the cry, he swung to the west just a little.

  "There!" Harris breathed behind him. His friend pointed and froze, for all the world like a well-bred, well-trained hunting dog.

  Audubon's eyes darted this way and that. He did not see… He did not see… And then he did. "Oh," he whispered: more a soft sound of wonder than a word.

  The eagle perched near the top of a ginkgo tree. It was a big female, close to four feet long from the end of its low, long bill to the tip of the tail. The crest was up, showing the bird was alert and in good spirits. It was the coppery red of a redheaded man's hair or a red-tailed hawk's tail, not the glowing crimson of a hummingbird's gorget. The eagle's back was dark brown, its belly a tawny buff.

  Slowly, carefully, Audubon and Harris drew closer. For all their caution, the bird saw them. It mantled on its perch, spreading its wings and screeching again. The span was relatively small for the eagle's size —not much more than seven feet—but the wings were very broad. Red-crested eagles flapped more than they soared, unlike their white-headed and golden cousins. Naturalists disagreed about which were their closer kin.

  "Watch out," Harris whispered. "It's going to fly."

  And it did, not three heartbeats after the words left his mouth. Audubon and Harris both swung up their guns and fired at essentially the same instant. The eagle cried out once more, this time a startled squall of pain and fear. It fell out of the sky and hit the ground with a thump.

  "Got it!" Harris exulted.

  "Yes." Joy and sorrow warred in Audubon. That magnificent creature —a shame it had to perish for the sake of art and science. How many were left to carry on the race? One fewer, whatever the answer was.

  This one wasn't dead yet. It thrashed in the ferns, screaming in fury because it couldn't fly. Its legs were long and strong—could it run? Audubon trotted towards it. It mustn't get away, he thought. Now that he and Harris had shot it, it had to become a specimen and a subject for his art. If it didn't, they would have knocked it down for nothing, and he couldn't bear the idea.

  The red-crested eagle wasn't running. When he came close enough, he saw that a shotgun ball from one of the two charges had broken its left leg. The bird screeched and snapped at him; he had to jump back in a hurry to keep that fearsome beak from carving a chunk out of his calf. Hate and rage blazed in those great golden eyes.

&nb
sp; Along with the shotgun, Harris also carried his revolver. He drew it now, and aimed it at the bird. "I'll finish it," he said. "Put it out of its misery." He thumbed back the hammer.

  "In the breast, if you please," Audubon said. "I don't want to spoil the head."

  "At your service, John. If the poor creature will only hold still for a few seconds…"

  After more frantic thrashing and another long-neck lunge at the men who'd reduced it from lord of the air to wounded victim, the eagle paused to pant and to gather its waning strength. Harris fired. A pistol ball would have blown a songbird to pieces, but the eagle was big enough to absorb the bullet. It let out a final bubbling scream before slumping over, dead.

  "That is one splendid creature," Harris said solemnly. "No wonder the Atlanteans put it on their flag and on their money."

  "No wonder at all," Audubon said. He waited a few minutes, lest the eagle, like a serpent, have one more bite in it. Even then, he nudged the bird with a stick before picking it up. That beak, and the talons on the unwounded leg, commanded respect. He grunted in surprise as he straightened with the still-warm body in his arms. "How much would you say this bird weighs, Edward?"

  "Let me see." Harris held out his arms. Audubon put the red-crested eagle in them. Harris grunted, too. He hefted the eagle, his lips pursed thoughtfully. "Dog my cats if it doesn't go thirty pounds, easy. You wouldn't think such a big bird'd be able to get off the ground, would you?"

  "We saw it. Many have seen it," Audubon said. He took the eagle back from Harris and gauged its weight again himself. "Thirty pounds? Yes, that seems about right. I would have guessed something around there, too. Neither the golden nor the white-headed eagle goes much above twelve pounds, and even the largest African eagle will not greatly surpass twenty."

  "Those birds don't hunt honkers," Harris said. His usual blunt good sense got to the nub of the problem in a handful of words. "The red-crested, now, it needs all the muscles it can get."

  "No doubt you're right," Audubon said. "The biggest honkers, down in the eastern lowlands, would stand a foot, two feet, taller than a man and weigh… What do you suppose they would weigh?"

  "Three or four times as much as a man, maybe more," Harris said. "You look at those skeletons, you see right away they were lardbutted birds."

  Audubon wouldn't have put it that way, but he couldn't say his companion was wrong. "Can you imagine the red-crested eagle diving down to strike a great honker?" he said, excitement at the thought making his voice rise. "It would have been like Jove's lightning from the sky, nothing less."

  "Can you imagine trying to hold them off with pikes and matchlocks and bows, the way the first settlers did?" Harris said. "Better those fellows than me, by God! It's a wonder there were any second settlers after that."

  "No doubt that's so," Audubon said, but he was only half listening. He looked down at the red-crested eagle, already trying to decide how to pose it for what would, for all sorts of reasons, undoubtedly prove the last volume of Birds and Viviparous Quadrupeds of Northern Terranova and Atlantis. He wanted to show it in a posture that displayed its power and majesty, but the bird was simply too large even for the double elephant folios of his life's work.

  What cant be cured… he thought, and carried the bird back to the patiently waiting horses. Yes, it surely weighed every ounce of thirty pounds; sweat streamed down his face by the time he got to them. The horses rolled their eyes. One of them let out a soft snort at the smell of blood.

  "There, there, my pets, my lovelies," he crooned, and gave each beast a bit of loaf sugar. That calmed them nicely; horses were as susceptible to bribery as people — and much less likely to go back on any bargain they made.

  He got to work with the posing board—which, though he'd brought the largest one he had, was almost too small for the purpose —and his wires. Watching him, Harris asked, "How will you pose a honker if we find one?"

  "When we find one." Audubon would not admit the possibility of failure to his friend or to himself. "How? I'll do the best I can, of course, and I trust I will enjoy your excellent assistance?"

  "I'll do whatever you want me to. You know that," Harris said. "Would I be out here in the middle of nowhere if I wouldn't?"

  "No, certainly not." Again, though, Audubon gave the reply only half his attention. He knew what he wanted to do now. He shaped the red-crested eagle with wings pulled back and up to brake its flight, talons splayed wide, and beak agape as if it were about to descend on a great honker's back.

  He found a stick of charcoal and began to sketch. No sooner had the charcoal touched the paper than he knew this would be a good one, even a great one. Sometimes the hand would refuse to realize what the eye saw, what the brain thought, what the heart desired. Audubon always did the best he could, as he'd told Harris. Some days, that best was better than others. Today… today was one of those. He felt almost as if he stood outside himself, watching himself perform, watching something perform through him.

  When the drawing was done, he went on holding the charcoal stick, as if he didn't want to let it go. And he didn't. But he had nothing left to add. He'd done what he could do, and…

  "That's some of your best work in a long time, John —much better than the woodpecker, and that was mighty good," Harris said. "I didn't want to talk while you were at it, for fear I'd break the spell. But that one, when you paint it, will live forever. It will be less than life-sized on the page, then?"

  "Yes. It will have to be," Audubon said. When he spoke, it also felt like breaking the spell. But he made himself nod and respond as a man would in normal circumstances; you couldn't stay on that exalted plane forever. Even touching it now and again seemed a special gift from God. More words came: "This is right. If it's small, then it's small, that's all. Those who see will understand."

  "When they see the bird like that, they will." Harris seemed unable to tear his eyes away form the sketch.

  And Audubon descended to mundane reality, drawing ginkgoes and pines and ferns for the background of the painting yet to come. The work there was solid, professional draftsmanship; it seemed a million miles away from the inspiration that had fired him only minutes before.

  Once he finished all the sketches he needed, he skinned the eagle and dissected it. When he opened the bird's stomach, he found gobbets of half-digested, unusually dark flesh. It had a strong odor that put him in mind of… "Edward!" he said. "What does this smell like to you?"

  Harris stooped beside him and sniffed. He needed only a few seconds to find an answer, one very much in character.

  "Steak-and-kidney pie, by God!"

  And not only was the answer in character. It was also right, as Audubon recognized at once. "It does!" he exclaimed, though the homely dish wasn't one of his favorites. "And these bits of flesh have the look of kidney, too. And that means…"

  "What?" Harris asked.

  "From everything I've read, honker kidneys and the fat above them were—are — the red-crested eagle's favorite food!" Audubon answered. "If this bird has a belly full of chunks of kidney, then somewhere not far away, somewhere not far away at all, there must be —there must be, I say—honkers on which it fed."

  "Unless it killed a deer or some such," Harris said. In that moment, Audubon almost hated his friend —not because Harris was wrong, but because he might not be. And dropping a brute fact on Audubon's glittering tower of speculation seemed one of the crudest things any man could do.

  "Well," Audubon said, and then, bucking up, "Well," again. He gathered himself, gathered his stubbornness. "We just have to find out, don't we?"

  Two days later, two days deeper into the western foothills of the Green Ridge Mountains, Audubon's sense of smell again came to his aid. This time, he had no trouble identifying the odor a breeze sent his way. "Phew!" he said, wrinkling his nose. "Something's dead."

  "Sure is," Harris agreed. "Something big, too, by the stink."

  "Something big…" Audubon nodded, trying without much luck to control
the electric jolt that coursed through him at those words. "Yes!"

  Harris raised an eyebrow. "Yes, indeed. And so?"

  "There aren't many big creatures in Atlantis," Audubon said. "It could be a dead man, though I hope not. It could be a dead deer or horse or cow, perhaps. Or it could be… Edward, it could be…"

  "A dead honker?" Harris spoke the word when Audubon couldn't make himself bring it past the barrier of his teeth, past the barrier of his hopes, and out into the open air where it might wither and perish.

  "Yes!" he said again, even more explosively than before.

  "Well, then, we'd better rein in, hadn't we, and see if we can find out?" Harris let out a creaky chuckle. "Never thought I'd turn bloodhound in my old age. Only goes to show you can't tell, doesn't it?"

  He and Audubon tied their horses to a pine sapling by the side of the track. Audubon didn't worry about anyone coming along and stealing the animals; he just didn't want them wandering off. As far as he knew, he and his friend were the only people for miles around. This region was settled thinly, if at all. The two men plunged into the woods, both of them carrying shotguns.

  A bloodhound would have run straight to the mass of corruption. Audubon and Harris had no such luck. Tracking by sight or by ear, Audubon would easily have been able to find his quarry. Trying to track by scent, he discovered at once that he was no bloodhound, and neither was Harris. They cast back and forth, trying to decide whether the stench was stronger here or there, in this direction or that: a slow, nasty, frustrating business.

  And then, from the edge of a meadow, Harris called, "John! Come quick! I've found it!"

  "Mon Dieu!" Audubon crashed toward him, his heart thumping and thudding in his chest. "Is it, Edward?" he asked. "Is it a — "

  "See for yourself." Harris pointed out to the curved lump of meat that lay in the middle of the grass and weeds.

  "Mon Dieu," Audubon said again, softly this time, and crossed himself. "It is a dead honker. It is. And where there are dead ones, there must be live ones as well."