The Dancer from Atlantis (25 page)

‘You’re the captain,’ Tylisson said, ‘but may I ask why you let no others go free?’

‘I have my reasons,’ the American answered. He didn’t give his main one: that whoever might have traveled off was probably
better dead than doomed to a slavery from which only the boldest could escape.

The woman said, in a strange tone, ‘Now we are free.’

Reid thought: Free to die. We didn’t send those kids off just to play out a last act that is also the first, nor even to keep
them from becoming the talismans which give the barbarians the will to overrun what’s left of civilization. We sent them off
to make certain they’ll live. This ship is done for, and most likely we are ourselves. But I too will keep striving, Erissa.

‘Come,’ he ordered Tylisson. ‘Help me bring that panic under control.’

Shouting, cuffing, kicking, they restored a measure of discipline. The Knossians crowded on the midthwarts, the Atlanteans
took up oars which, secured by thongs, had not come adrift. The burning vessel picked up new headway.

‘Let’s go into the bows and show ourselves,’ Reid said to Erissa.

They were now not far from the dromon. Across the blustery
space between, blurred by smoke and spindrift, they could make out faces. Diores, yes, on the foredeck, overseeing a catapult
gang; and Oleg, by God, Oleg standing big and byrnied near him. Reid sprang onto the prow rail and clung to the stempost.
Heat gnawed at him from the fire behind. ‘Oleg!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t you know us?’

‘Bozhe moi!’
the Russian bawled back. ‘Duncan, Erissa – I wondered – hold off, fellows! Get a boat over there!’

Reid saw Diores shake his head. He could imagine the admiral’s words: ‘Too dangerous, them. Better we finish them while we
can.’

Oleg roared indignation and lifted his ax. Diores snapped a word. A pair of warriors moved to arrest Oleg. His ax whistled.
They retreated. Diores called to the rest.

‘Hang on, we’re coming!’ Reid shouted. Down the length of the hull, to his rowers and to Ashkel at the steering oar which
had been improvised to replace the tiller: ‘Our last chance. To disable that monster, board, seize their boats!’

Hoarse howls answered him. Muscles writhed under sooty, sweat-smeared skins. The galley plunged ahead. Reid pulled Erissa
back to safety.

Oleg, on the dromon, had fought his way to Diores. The Athenian drew blade and lunged at him. Oleg’s ax knocked the sword
free. A second, sidewise blow across the breastplate sent Diores over the side. Cased in bronze, he sank when he struck. Oleg
whirled to confront the warriors.

The lesser ship rammed, in a dreadful snapping of oars. Its beak sheared into planks. The fire upon it clutched at the hull
and rigging of the dromon. Reid seized a grapnel, swung it around his head, hooked a rail and went up the rope hand over hand.
The thought flitted through him: So both these anachronisms are finished. Nobody’s going to build more in this generation…
not till long afterward, when Achaeans, Argives, Danaans, Dorians have become Greeks and the blood of the old Keftiu seafarers
runs in all their veins—

A shining shape descended from the clouds.

The dark, kindly man had said:

‘No, we did not know about you. Our record of your being cast away here-now and eventually rescued lies in our own future,
you see. Time expeditions being so limited in number, none are wasted on doubling back into the near past. But your conjecture
was right that observers would be sent to the catastrophe – a geologically almost unique event – and its immediate aftermath.
Likewise was your hope that we would notice those outlandish vessels and guess what must have happened. Therefore, do not
feel that you have gone through a puppet routine. You survived, in the end you delivered yourselves, by your own efforts.
Weaklings would have perished, fools would have stayed marooned.

‘No, we regret the infeasibility of searching for that lifeboat. The region is too large and stormy, our capability too limited.
And when everything is reckoned together, good as well as ill: If it were possible, would you want to lose your past? Out
of it must come your tomorrows.

‘We have taken your Atlantean and Knossian friends back to Crete, to the hinterland where the conquerors will not soon arrive.
Their memories of the previous day have been blanked. The suggestion has been planted that they, fleeing, were wrecked. This
is only to spare them needless doubts and terrors that would handicap them in rebuilding their lives. Again, you castaways
have honor, for you were the means of their saving, and of the fact that archeologists will not find many bones under the
Santorini lava.

‘The enemy crew? They saw little; you recall that we rendered everyone aboard unconscious as we approached. Their Achaean
identity being obvious, we left them to awaken in a few minutes and be taken off by another ship before theirs sank.

‘Still, enough had been seen by the fleet – an apparition of angry gods – that Theseus on his return cast the
mentatór
into the sea. That is desirable. Still more desirable is the chastening you gave him when you pulled free from the teeth
of his victory that girl in whom he believed he had triumphed even over the
Goddess. Be consoled by the knowledge that now he will not simply spare the Cretan island colonies; he will on the whole become
a good king, and the Mycenaean civilization will be a worthy child of the Minoan and a leaven in the Hellenic.

‘We are, of course, grateful for your information about the stranded spatiotemporal vehicle. It can be repaired and returned.
Yes, you can yourselves be sent back. Precisely because the control fields failed and thus caused the original trouble, we
have (figuratively speaking) an energy lane where the machine passed through the continuum. Launched back along that, the
vehicle can carry you, can leave you off where and when you were first picked up, in an exact reversal of the original accidental
process.

‘Repairs will take a while, given our scanty facilities. Furthermore, you have been through terrible experiences. We are based
at the Black Sea, well away from the stricken area. Would you not like to be flown there, to rest, recover, and decide just
what you want to make of the lives you have gained?’

Oleg had said, sentimentally and rather drunkenly: ‘Last night together, eh? I won’t spoil it for you two, any more than I’ve
been bothering you much these past weeks. I’ll miss you, though, however glad to come home.’ He gave them each a bear hug
and wandered off to bed.

Reid and Erissa were alone. The futurian expedition housed itself not in a tent but in a building whose arches soared airy,
iridescent, and indestructible as rainbows. From the terrace where they stood, a hillside dropped in forest that was sweet
with summer, hoar with moonlight, to broad and quiet waters. Overhead were many stars. A nightingale sang.

‘I almost wish we could stay,’ he said in awkwardness.

She shook her head. ‘We’ve talked this out, darling. Exile would not be well for either of us. Worse would be knowing how
much love we betrayed in our homes.’

‘It seems so hollow,’ he said in the pain of tomorrow’s loss. ‘We did nothing but come full circle, except that you learned
the core of your life was a lie.’

‘Oh, but we did far more!’ she exclaimed. Laying hands on his shoulders, she regarded him gravely and tenderly. ‘Haven’t you
understood? Must I tell you anew? We lived that half year, and if we met grief, we also found joy in each other which will
dwell with us till we die. And we have our victory – for it was a
victory, that we and those in our care outlived the end of a world and even saved much of it for the world which is to follow.
If we had only a single road to walk, that twisted back on itself, still, we walked it. I see now that we never were slaves
to fate, because our own wills were what made that destiny for us.

‘I gave myself a myth. But the young and wounded need myths. Lately I have outgrown the need, and truth is better. Oh, it
hurt for a while, Duncan, hurt bitterly. I have you to thank for showing me that Deukalion is truly my beloved oldest son,
that his life is a pledge of an end to hatred. And my man Dagonas, why, I’ll never lie in his arms again without remembering
the sight of how he watched over that girl. You are no longer my god, you are my dear friend, which is more; and he is my
life’s man.’

She paused; then, slowly: ‘No, there is no pure happiness. But I am going to be happier than I was. I hope you likewise will
be, Duncan.’

He kissed her. ‘I believe that,’ he said. ‘You healed me of a lameness I didn’t know I had.’

She smiled. ‘Tonight is ours. But my dear whom soon I must bid goodbye, first tell me once more of what is to come.’

‘A thousand years hence, Athens shines in a glory that will gladden the rest of mankind’s time on earth. And its secret seed
is that heritage it got from your people.’

‘There is comfort to live by: that my country was, that theirs will be. Now let us be only us two.’

He stumbled, fell, and lay a minute on the pulsing deck while the dizziness of his flight passed away.

But I’d better rise, he thought, and get into our cabin before somebody comes by. In spite of the shave and haircut and imitation
of twentieth-century clothes they gave me, I’ll have trouble explaining some changes in my appearance.

He lifted himself erect. Strength returned, and calm. The North Pacific shimmered and murmured around him. He tried to summon
Erissa’s image out of the moonlight, but already that was hard to do, as if he sought to recall a dream.

And yet, he realized, she helped me win everything. She taught me what it is to be a woman, and so what it is to be a man.

He went below. Pamela lay propped in her bunk, alone with
a softcover mystery novel. The lamplight glowed on her hair and on the picture of their children. She glanced up. ‘Oh,’ she
said timidly. ‘You’re back sooner than I expected.’

He smiled at her. It came to him that earlier this night he had been recalling a man who died young of senseless causes, but
who first Jived more than most. Among the words he left:

Pamela looked closer at Reid and sat straight. ‘Why, you’ve a different coat on,’ she said. ‘And—’

‘Well, you see, a crewman and I got talking, decided we liked each other’s coats better, and swapped,’ he replied. ‘Here,
inspect.’ He slipped the garment off and tossed it onto her lap. She couldn’t help staring at it, feeling the unfamiliar material.
Meanwhile he scrambled out of the rest and, under cover of donning a bathrobe, dropped the pieces in a drawer. He’d toss them
overboard later.

She raised her eyes again. ‘Duncan,’ she said. ‘You’re suddenly thin. And those creases in your face—’

‘Do you mean you hadn’t noticed?’ He lowered himself to the side of her bunk, cupped her chin in his hand, and said: ‘It’s
past time we stopped drifting apart. Break out your oars, mate, and if you’re not sure how to use them, let me show you.’

I must distract her, he thought. Someday I’ll tell her the whole truth. But not yet. She couldn’t believe. Anyhow, we’ve more
important business first.

I feel the new thing in me, the knowing what is needed, the spirit that does not surrender, the courage to be joyful.

‘What do you mean?’ she pleaded.

He answered: ‘I want to make my woman happy.’

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1971 by Trigonier Trust

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-4976-9426-2

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