Analog SFF, April 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Kansas but not Kansas. “Lieutenant Garret, Sergeant Tyndall, we have to make every effort to learn the language of these people, or teach them ours, well enough to find out where we really are and how to get home."

  * * * *

  The barracks to which the cavalry was led were clean and built of stone, as were the stables for their horses. Sergeant Tyndall, accompanied by the stout Amazon, actually seemed impressed. “Real nice quarters, sir, and they seem to know how to take care of horses. I got across to Belisa what our horses needed and she made sure it all showed up fast."

  "Belisa?” Benton asked.

  "Uh . . .” Tyndall indicated the stout Amazon. “She . . . uh . . . seems pretty capable, cap'n."

  After he explained with gestures to Odwan Freya that he wanted to stay with his men, Benton found himself and Lieutenant Garret offered private rooms, plainly but practically furnished. Before the men and Benton were even settled in their quarters some of the city folk were coming with large kettles filled with hot food. The dishes served, which seemed to be mostly a kind of beef mixed with grains and dried fruits, were unfamiliar, but none of the famished cavalrymen turned up their noses at the food.

  Odwan Freya came by to ensure the cavalry had been well taken care of just as the bugler reported to Captain Benton. “Sir, do I sound Taps?"

  Benton looked at Freya and nodded. “Yes. Let these people hear Taps."

  The bugler saluted, then marched out into the hallway and raised his instrument to his lips as Odwan Freya watched. When the last long, slow notes of General Dan Butterfield's tune had sounded, her face reflected astonishment and admiration. Turning to Benton before she left, Freya inclined her head and spoke in a quiet tone appropriate to the music she had heard. “Extos."

  The next morning, Benton resolved to send Lieutenant Garret out with a squad to collect the brass from the battle. He had yet to see any sign of gunpowder weapons here, and the inhabitants of the city regarded the cavalry's carbines and pistols with an undisguised awe that seemed to reflect total unfamiliarity and suspicious fear in combination. The cavalry might end up having to make their own reloads, and while lead was easy enough to form into bullets, the brass cartridge casings wouldn't be simple to replace.

  But Benton had barely eaten breakfast when Odwan Freya, along with the Amazon he increasingly thought of as “Sergeant” Belisa, and two men came by, Freya indicating they wished him to accompany them. Collecting Lieutenant Garret and Sergeant Tyndall, Benton followed the Asterans a short distance to a large room letting out onto what seemed to be a parade ground. A line of guards stood sentry outside, not watching the cavalry but facing outward to hold back the crowds of city people who were gathered outside the barracks.

  Freya pointed to the two men. “Decires Agani, Decires Costoni.” Decires was obviously a title of some kind, and both men appeared to be soldiers. Both also deferred to Freya, so the Odwan must outrank them.

  Agani and Belisa unrolled a large sheet of vellum onto a table filling the center of the room, pinning down the corners with polished stone blocks and looking at Benton expectantly. “Lieutenant Garret. What do you make of this?"

  Garret peered at the drawing. “It's a map, captain."

  "Very good. A map of what?"

  The lieutenant flushed slightly at the dry rebuke, then studied the beautifully hand-drawn map intently. “They're tapping that symbol. It must be this city. Yes, that matches the river and the hills, doesn't it?"

  Sergeant Tyndall, peering over Garret's shoulder, nodded. “Right, lieutenant."

  Encouraged by the sergeant's agreement, Garret spoke with more confidence. “Then this over here . . . sir, this is like some very old maps I've seen. It doesn't have a consistent scale. The area around the city is pretty clearly shown in large scale, but then this to the east must be the Missouri River and this the Mississippi River. The courses of those rivers are unmistakable."

  Benton ran his own hand across the map. “Once it leaves the vicinity of this city, the map shifts to small scale, showing large areas. No, here's some city on the Missouri, and they show detail around it. That must be their map rule, shifting scale around cities to provide more information while leaving open countryside in a different scale. Hell of a way to draw a map."

  "Yes, sir.” Garret pointed to the lower portion of the map. “This area would be down near New Orleans. They show a town of some sort there. But many of the cities east of here seem to be missing, and these political boundaries don't match anything I know of."

  "I can't make them out, either,” Benton agreed, tracing the way west. “And this is the west coast. California. Look at all of those cities. It's as if the continent was settled first in the west and then settlers moved east."

  Garret was following the west coast line north, then halted. “Sir? This goes into the new Alaska territory, but look. It just keeps going west up here. They show a broad strip of land going west until it reaches this other land mass. That's got to be Asia, captain."

  "A land bridge? That big?"

  The lieutenant had gone pale, his breaths coming rapidly. “Sir, sir, look. It is a land bridge. They're saying that North and South America are connected to Asia and Europe by this big isthmus."

  "They're not,” Benton said, wondering why Garret was getting upset.

  "The map seems accurate as to terrain, sir. As far as we know. Except there."

  "I'll grant you that."

  "Look at these people, sir! They're not Indians. They're like Central Europeans or something, maybe with more Asian in their blood. In our history, there wasn't any easy way from Asia and Europe to North and South America, so every human migration headed west from Asia and ended in Europe. But here they could go east from Asia on foot or horseback as well, to North and South America, and some of them did. Nothing we know is here. Instead there's the ruins we found, the language these people speak, the weapons and armor they carry, this city..."

  A terrible suspicion filled Benton. “Are you saying what I think you're saying, lieutenant?"

  "This isn't our world, captain.” Garret seemed ready to pass out. “We haven't just lost Fort Harker. We lost our entire world. History changed somehow while we were on that patrol, but it didn't include us. There's never been a United States of America. There's probably never been an England or a France. North America was never isolated from the rest of the world. People did colonize the west coast first, maybe thousands of years before Columbus found the Americas in our world."

  "Great God Almighty,” Benton murmured. He didn't want to believe such an outlandish thing, but Ellsworth and the fort were gone, ancient ruins rested where nothing had been before, and this city didn't belong to any history of which he had ever heard. Nor did Freya belong in the North America he knew, a woman wearing armor, leading her people and wielding a sword in battle, as if Joan of Arc had lived in Kansas of all places. How could such a thing have happened though? His mind seized on the memory of the moment after which nothing but the land had been familiar, and the land itself had undergone tiny changes. “That lightning during the storm. For an instant it felt as if it were tearing the world apart. Maybe it did. If you're right, lieutenant, what happened to the Indians?"

  "Probably the sort of thing that happened to the first inhabitants of places like England in our history, sir. They were either wiped out by waves of invaders or assimilated, with maybe a few survivors pushed into areas no one else wanted."

  The idea was impossible. But so was this city. So were these people. He wasn't an ignorant man. How could such a place exist anywhere on Earth and he not have heard of it? If it did, why did the land so closely resemble the land he knew, and how had the company of cavalry been transported there instantly without its knowledge?

  Lieutenant Garret's theory was impossible, but explained what they had found here. Every other explanation required ignoring the evidence of their senses.

  Freya had been watching Benton and Garret talk, and now gestured to the map and then
to Benton, clearly asking him to show where he was from.

  That should have been an easy enough question to answer, but as Benton gazed at the map he realized every possible answer had problems. Strictly speaking, if Lieutenant Garret was right, then he and his cavalry company weren't “from” anywhere that existed in this world.

  This city was near where Fort Harker had stood. That answer was probably as good as any other. So Benton pointed to the city.

  Freya shook her head patiently, pointing to herself and then the city symbol, then to Benton, Garret, and Tyndall before waving her hand over the map again with a questioning look.

  Benton pointed to the city once more, firmly, keeping his eyes on her.

  She looked annoyed, then something seemed to dawn on her and Freya spoke rapidly to the other Asterans. The two men, Agani and Costoni, spoke back just as fast, their faces lighting with enthusiasm.

  Freya pointed to herself and tapped her city's symbol again, nodding anxiously to Benton. He tapped himself and then the same symbol as well, nodding resolutely in return. With a dazzling smile, Freya drew her sword and raised it overhead, shouting so loudly it echoed through the room. The other Asterans did the same, and outside Benton could hear the cries being repeated, followed by prolonged cheering from the crowds. Belisa turned to Sergeant Tyndall, hugged him, then planted a kiss on his mouth while Tyndall looked startled. The two Asteran men had grabbed Lieutenant Garret and were almost shaking him as they smiled and spoke quickly and incomprehensibly. Sheathing her sword, Freya stepped close to Benton, her eyes shining, reaching one hand to seize his upper arm in a comradely grip and squeeze so hard it hurt. “Achates! Cronun t'achates!"

  "Cap'n?” Sergeant Tyndall asked. “What did you just tell ‘em?"

  "I'm not sure, sergeant."

  "Whatever it was, it sure made ‘em happy."

  * * * *

  It took several days before Lieutenant Garret had learned enough of the Asterans’ language, and they had learned enough English, to be able to provide the answer. “We've been asked to a meeting, sir, to formalize our alliance with the city state of Astera."

  Benton gave Garret a questioning look. “Our alliance? Did you promise them something?"

  "No, sir. You did, sir. As best I can tell, these people think we're a wandering tribe of sorts, warriors who've been kicked out of our own lands for reasons they're too polite to ask about. When Odwan Freya asked where you were from and you kept pointing to this city on the map, they decided that meant we had decided to settle here, to join forces with them."

  No wonder the Asterans had been so happy. From what little they'd been able to learn so far, the cavalry company was like nothing in this world. Benton looked out across the parade ground. “That wasn't what I meant, lieutenant, but maybe that's not a bad idea."

  Garret nodded unhappily. “We don't seem to have anywhere else to go."

  "No. Here we have shelter, food, walls to protect us, and civilized people who need us.” He blew out a long breath. “Damn. Part of me says we should ride until we reach the east coast if necessary, confirm with our own eyes that Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth and St. Louis and Chicago and Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. aren't there anymore and never were there. But another part of me already knows the answer. This is the area around Ellsworth. We couldn't mistake the terrain. But there's never been an Ellsworth here, never been a Fort Harker. Instead there's sandstone quarries and salt mines dating back a thousand years."

  The lieutenant shook his head this time, his eyes haunted by worry. “I've been learning everything I can, captain, and I still haven't found anything the least bit familiar in the history of this place."

  "Me, neither.” There'd been assorted city-states over the last thousand years, empires rising and falling apart. The latest such empire had its capital where San Francisco should be and had covered most of the land between the west coast up to about where the Oregon Territory lay, south into Mexico, and as far east as the Mississippi. But that empire, which had built the watchtowers, had slowly disintegrated over the course of the last century, leaving city-states squabbling over the remnants. “I can't find out much about Europe, and they barely seem to know anything about Africa."

  "Yes, sir. They don't know much about either place. I'd wager there are settlements from Europe on the east coast, but these people don't have much knowledge of what's east of the Appalachians.” Garret looked around as if evaluating the city again. “The technology here is a millennium behind ours, captain. No gunpowder, no steam power, no printing presses. They seem just as intelligent as we are, I swear they're learning our language faster than we're learning theirs, so maybe people just got started later here somehow."

  "Or they didn't advance as fast for other reasons.” He recalled that the stirrup had come into the Roman Empire along with some of those barbarian invaders from the east. How many innovations, how much progress, had been because of those migrations all dead-ending in Europe? If some of them had gone east instead, would progress have been slower everywhere? “Or maybe a combination of those things. There doesn't appear to be any way home, though."

  "No, sir.” Garret squinted at the city around them. “We're actually already there, it's just not the same there."

  "Corporal Fuller is impressed by the local blacksmiths."

  "What about ammunition, captain?"

  "It turns out Private Merrick worked in a powder mill as a boy. He even remembers the right proportions for the ingredients. These people have a lot of livestock, so getting saltpeter won't be a problem, and charcoal is easy enough to come by. We just have to explain what sulfur is and see if the locals can provide that. Our saddlemaker is busy showing the Asterans how to make stirrups. We'll have to see how long we can keep the advantages of stirrups and gunpowder confined to Astera."

  Lieutenant Garret looked impressed and concerned. “You seem to have thought out what we need to do, to stay here a long time."

  "It's my job to think things out, lieutenant.” Benton sighed. “And we both have to assume that we're going to be here quite a while. A few of the men were married. I still haven't worked out how to tell them we're on permanent campaign."

  "Maybe we'll be like Odysseus, sir, and have some strange adventures but make it home eventually."

  "Maybe."

  * * * *

  The negotiations were hard, rendered difficult both by the still limited language both sides shared and by the Asterans’ apparent insistence on driving what they thought a fair bargain. At one point, as Garret and Costoni spent an extended conversation trying to figure out what the other meant, Benton saw Odwan Freya giving him a hard look and comprehended that he had been gazing at her for a while without realizing it.

  Now Freya said some things, and Costoni said some things, and Garret went back and forth with them for a while before turning a worried glance on Benton. “Captain, I'm pretty certain that they're insisting that Odwan Freya is not part of the deal."

  "What? What does that mean?"

  "Ancient treaties were often sealed by marriages or, uh, other arrangements, sir."

  Benton's reaction must have showed, because the Asterans seemed to lose some of their tense watchfulness. “Tell her—no, I have to say this directly to her. Odwan Freya, please accept my apologies for any implied inappropriate interest on my part. I would never . . . make your person a part of any agreement. You are the leader of these people and a free woman, and I would not so insult you as to barter for you. My country recently fought a terrible war, one which only ended five years ago, and in which many thousands of men died in order to establish the principle that no human being should ever belong to another, ever be bought or sold or treated as property. I am sworn to uphold those principles in my professional duties, and I personally believe deeply in them."

  He had no idea how much of that Odwan Freya and the other Asterans had understood, but enough seemed to have gotten across. Freya nodded to him, then surprised Benton by rendering him a passable
imitation of a regulation salute. Benton returned the gesture, knowing neither of them had made it in a subservient way, but as mutual gestures of respect among equals.

  * * * *

  The people here did not campaign in the cold season, so the company settled in to wait out the frigid fury of the plains winter in a degree of comfort unheard of for them. The men remained baffled as to where they were, but content to be living in comparative luxury among a citizenry who almost worshiped them. Benton continued to apply himself to learning the Asterans’ language, but found that, just as Garret had said, the Asterans seemed more adept at learning English. Aside from getting home, the security situation concerned Benton the most, so he questioned Freya about it as her grasp of his language improved.

  "The army that was attacking Astera, the Wikosans.” Wikosa occupied roughly the same location as Kansas City had in Benton's world. “Do you know why they attacked us without talking first?"

  "Bad people, Wikosans,” Freya responded.

  "But why did they assume we were enemies? Why did they try to ride us down?"

  Freya seemed to think about the question this time before answering. “You get off horse. All walk, make long, thin line. Not many of you. They think, ride over you. Easy. Then bwam, bwam! Smoke and fire, like demons."

  Of course. Like the British infantry square, troops armed with pikes or spears would have had to be tightly packed, shoulder to shoulder, in order to defend against a mounted charge. Modern firearms changed that, but the hostile horsemen hadn't known of such weapons. To them the thin line of dismounted cavalry must have looked extremely vulnerable.

  The more they learned about Astera the more Benton realized that whichever fate had led them here had at least sent them to a people deserving of rescue. Astera had grown large and fairly well-off during the period when the last empire kept the peace on the plains. Trade had flowed along the road running east and west, and there had been major routes going north and south accessible through Wikosa. The surrounding area had boasted numerous farms and fields with a variety of livestock. But since the collapse of the empire, Astera had suffered from the loss of trade and the unstable security outside its walls. Nonetheless, the city had remained a bastion of learning, order, and civilization in a region where such things had become all too rare.