Read Online Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove - Free Book Online Page B

be sure he had the salt to preserve enough cod to get the settlers through their first winter on the new shore.
    He didn’t worry about having enough cod. The banks off the east coast of Atlantis were abundant beyond anything he’d ever imagined, and he knew the great fisheries in the North Sea as well as any man alive. “Maybe the North Sea was like this when fishermen first started going out there,” he said after the St. George ’s boat brought in load after load of huge, plump gutted fish. “No more, though. We’ve taken the very best out of it, and that best is still here.”
    â€œIt is,” Henry agreed. “The fish we don’t salt down, we’ll be able to use to manure the fields.” He held his nose. “The smell will be bad, but the crops will be good.”
    â€œYes.” Edward Radcliffe nodded. “So much to do all at once, but this goes so well, it frightens me.”
    His son frowned. “Frightens you?”
    Edward nodded again. “By Our Lady, it does. We work. We sweat and swink and toil. We build. And what if some sea wolves—Bretons or Basques, say—swoop down on us with swords and spears, and steal all we’ve made by our labor? I know what I want to buy when we see England again.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” Henry asked.
    â€œSome fine iron guns, by God, and powder and shot for ’em,” Edward said. “A couple here ashore, and a couple on the St. George, too. I want to be able to fight if I have to, not to be raiders’ meat.”
    After pursing his lips in thought, Henry also nodded. “I do like that notion. And if we’re not the only ones putting down roots in this new soil…”
    He let the words hang. “What then?” Edward prompted.
    His son’s grin was wide as the ocean between them and Hastings. “Why, we could turn wolf ourselves! I could stay at sea!”
    â€œI didn’t come here to go warring, asea or ashore. I came here to get away from all that,” Edward said. “With the peasants up in arms, with the damned Frenchmen roaring across the Channel, with Lancaster and York glaring at each other and both ready to swoop, there’s war and to spare back home if you’re so hungry for it.”
    Henry looked down at his feet. “You shame me, Father.”
    By God, I hope so, Edward thought. But he didn’t want to leave Henry with no pride, so he said, “I didn’t mean to. But think on what you’re talking about, that’s all. War usually looks better to the fellow who brings it than it does to the poor buggers who have it brought to them.”
    â€œMm, something to that, I shouldn’t wonder,” his son said, to his deep relief. But then Henry pointed a half-accusing forefinger at him. “Who was just talking about buying fine iron guns?”
    â€œI was,” Edward said. “But I didn’t talk about raiding with them, only about standing off raiders. There’s a difference.”
    â€œNo doubt,” Henry said, and Edward beamed. Too soon—Henry hadn’t finished. “The difference is, after a while you want to try out the guns, no matter why you got them in the first place.”
    Edward Radcliffe winced; that held too much of the feel of truth. “It won’t happen that way while I have anything to say about it,” he insisted.
    â€œAll right, Father,” Henry said. “I hope it doesn’t happen for many, many years, then.” Edward noticed he didn’t say he hoped it never happened at all.

    They did call the settlement New Hastings. The houses they made were of wood, not stone, because those went up faster. Cutting back saplings and clearing away the undergrowth were easier than they would have been back in England: no berry bushes or wild roses full of thorns and no stinging nettles. Plowing under the ferns that grew in the shade was even easier than dealing with