Origins: Discovery

by Mark Henrikson

  “We all have endured enough of the unknown in these long months to last a hundred lifetimes,” Columbus countered in a calm voice. “We already know the direct way home, and my instincts tell me we must take it back, and those instincts have yet to lead me wrong on this voyage.”

  There was no nice way to say it, so Hastelloy just came right out with it as he clasped his hands together in a praying pose in front of his face. “You must be joking. Your instinct was to toss the cooper overboard, which would have starved the crew. Your instinct was to continue sailing at night well past the maps we had, which led to a mutiny.”

  “Are you finished?” Columbus asked with growing frustration.

  “I wish I were, but then I’d be leaving out the contact you made, despite my objection, with the natives on the third island we discovered. What did you name that particular stretch of water again?” Hastelloy asked.

  Columbus’ puffed-up chest deflated a bit before he lowered his head to answer. “The Bay of Arrows. What’s your point?”

  “The arrows from those angry natives provided the point. I am bringing to your attention that your instincts have actually been wrong quite often, and every time it was my counsel that righted the situation. I am asking you now to please trust my counsel on this matter.”

  “Moving on,” Columbus declared. “What do you think about the natives we encountered?”

  “You mean the ones who didn’t fire arrows at the sight of us?” Hastelloy asked in a veiled attempt to guide the conversation back to the topic of navigation, but Columbus was having none of it.

  “Yes,” Columbus confirmed. “The Lucavan, the Taino, the Arawak, all seemed to regard us as white gods of the sea, gracing their lands with our magnanimous presence. I think they ought to make good and skilled servants. In addition, they did not appear to have any sort of religion. They should easily be made Christians, a fact that should please Queen Isabella to no end.”

  Hastelloy offered an approving nod. “They certainly picked up the ability to communicate with us quickly with gestures, drawings, and even some words. They learn fast. I also observed that many of the men have scars on their bodies.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t noticed.”

  “I made signs to a few of them to find out how they were hurt, and they indicated that in recent years people from the nearby mainland have been coming there to capture and make slaves of them. Apparently they don’t like that much and defend themselves with vigor.”

  “Bah, they stand up for themselves against other rustics armed with spears and bows. I could conquer the whole of them with fifty musket-carrying soldiers and govern them as I please,” Columbus boasted.

  “You would run out of powder and bullets long before they ran out of warriors,” Hastelloy cautioned.

  Columbus shook his head at the notion. “You forget that they also revere us as living gods. A few examples of our might is all it would require.”

  “What about forces from other European powers?” Hastelloy asked. “Once word that a vast, unclaimed continent lies a few weeks’ voyage from their shores, England, France, Portugal, Venice, and the Nords will all be here. They’ll jump at the chance to yoke the strength of this rustic workforce waiting for them to exploit. Then there’s the gold and silver waiting for miners to extract from the ground. The land left unplowed and ready to yield crops. All the European powers will be here within a few short years once they hear of your discovery.”

  “It’s all mine,” Columbus insisted. “The king of Spain granted me ownership of everything we discover. This entire continent will all be mine.”

  “I highly doubt the sight of your flag planted in the ground will turn back an English settlement fleet or a tribe of Viking marauders. Do you?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Columbus conceded with a dejected sigh and looked to Hastelloy for a glimmer of hope. “Your mocking tenor suggests you have a solution to these foreign powers confiscating my lands.”

  “Don’t let them know about it.”

  “Hah! And how exactly do we make a hundred and fifty crewmen forget what they’ve seen?”

  Hastelloy took a moment to consider his next words very carefully. It was imperative for Spain alone to have a multidecade head start at settling the New World. That way Hastelloy could manage the contact made with native tribes and be able to inoculate them against European diseases. The alternative was a dozen nations making contact all across the two continents. At that point, it would be nearly impossible to prevent an outbreak of the plague or smallpox that would see tens of millions of natives wiped out.

  If averting a pandemic was not enough motive to keep Spain as the only nation settling the new continents, then avoiding war with other European powers provided the rest. Spain needed time to establish such a formidable beachhead in the vast territory that other European nations would not dare challenge them once the truth finally did come out. Otherwise, there would be centuries of endless wars fighting over the new lands. That would be a dreadful waste of valuable time and resources. All the while, the Alpha would be busy reestablishing themselves on Mars with the singular purpose of destroying Hastelloy, his remaining crew, and the Nexus. Much was riding on the next few minutes.

  “All the men know is that we reached a series of islands. I made sure to land us away from the mainland for that very reason,” Hastelloy began. “This could be the Indies for all they know. In their eyes, you just discovered a shortened trade route to Asia and that’s all; nothing to write home about.”

  Columbus, taken aback by the suggestion uttered, “I discovered a new continent! This is the greatest discovery of all time, and I will have my name associated with the glory that comes with that discovery.”

  Oh this man’s ego. It was all Hastelloy could do not to slap the arrogant bastard across the face until he knocked some common sense into him. Instead, he drew a deep, calming breath and took a different approach.

  “Fame and fortune, it’s funny how one is so often associated with the other,” Hastelloy observed. “Kings are famous, but are always indebted up to the very tip of their crowns. The holders of that debt are little-known noblemen who live like kings off the royalties and payments.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “In your lifetime you can have the fame of being the great discoverer, or you can harness the vast riches of these lands in anonymity. You can’t have both. At least not right away, though I suspect history will eventually come to revere you as the great visionary explorer that you are,” Hastelloy concluded.

  Columbus opened his mouth to deliver a reply but had his words drowned out by a titanic screech of timbers groaning and snapping under immense pressure. An instant later, the boat beneath them lurched to a stop and sent both men careening toward the cabin door. The brass hinges posed little resistance as their bodies crashed through the door and landed on the main deck near the steering wheel.

  Hastelloy scampered to his hands and knees and made ready to stand when the boat lurched again, only this time to the side with a deafening crash that carried with it enough force to snap all three masts. He tried to reach the steering wheel stand in time, but gravity took hold too fast.

  Hastelloy’s body slid down the deck at a forty-five-degree angle and slammed shoulder first into the side railing. He grabbed hold with both arms and interlocked his wrists as his feet flipped over the railing. His momentum was such that the rest of his body followed his legs over the railing until he hung over the side of the listing vessel looking down at a coral reef hidden only a few feet beneath the water’s surface.

  “Goddamn it!” Hastelloy heard the normally pious Admiral Columbus bellow at the top of his lungs while clinging to the thoroughly shipwrecked vessel’s steering wheel. “Goddamn it to hell.”

  **********

  A week after running aground, Hastelloy found himself aboard the Niña sailing away from the dismantled wreckage. Behind the twisted hulk, on a nearby island, stood a hastily constructed fortress made of timbers sa
lvaged from the Santa Maria. It was by no means ideal, but considering that not everyone could fit aboard the remaining two boats, it was the best alternative.

  In all, thirty-nine crewmen remained behind with the promise of Columbus returning to rescue them within the year. To demonstrate his sincerity, Columbus had the ship’s surgeon, and the cousin of his mistress back in Spain, remain with the marooned men on the island.

  “It’s not a total loss, I suppose. La Navidad will go down in history as the first Spanish settlement in the New World,” Columbus observed before asking with genuine concern, “They’ll be fine, won’t they? A year is not that long, plus the natives on that island were quite friendly as well as open to trade with us. More than friendly actually, they almost worshiped us. They wouldn’t harm emissaries of their god would they?”

  Hastelloy debated the virtues of keeping quiet, but he saw an opportunity to get his way. “I’m sure they wouldn’t dare to try and harm a god, but I doubt they truly view us in that divine light any longer. You see in my mind I assume that god is infallible, and I bet those natives share that view. Do you really think them witnessing us make a colossal mistake like running a vessel aground won’t tarnish some of that divine luster?”

  “Our men still have cannons and guns,” Columbus countered.

  “And how much ammunition?” Hastelloy took the admiral’s silence as acknowledgment of his point. With Columbus’ fallibility now firmly established, he revisited their prior discussion. “Are you ready to take my counsel now?”

  “We are backtracking and heading north aren’t we?”

  “And what will you report to the world when we reach home?” Hastelloy asked.

  “I will proclaim until my dying breath to all who will listen, which shouldn’t be too many, that we reached the Indies and nothing more.”

  “Wise words that will see you grow rich,” Hastelloy commended.

  “Wise counsel,” Columbus replied with a friendly slap to his navigator’s shoulder.

  Chapter 15: Appeal to the Explorer

  “WE’LL HAVE TWO more beers, please,” Juan said to the barmaid with a calculating smile. He did not particularly want another mug of the warm piss water this tavern sold, but he needed to shoo her away from the table. He added the please because the wench was cute, and he found that being even a little bit polite often made for less lonely bedtimes. That could wait, though; more pressing matters demanded his attention.

  “You were saying,” Juan prompted his rugged companion seated across the table nestled in a quiet corner of the tavern.

  “I was telling you that there is nothing to tell,” the man with a deep scar across his left cheek responded. “It’s as if the man didn’t exist until four years ago. I visited a dozen port cities, where I questioned hundreds of trading consortiums, shipping operators, boat captains, and lowly crewmen.”

  “Through all that, I did manage to locate two former shipmates of this Paolo Toscanelli fellow you’re so interested in,” the ruffian went on. “Their stories gave an account of his whereabouts over the past four years, but nothing before then.”

  Juan clasped his hands in front of his face and exhaled into his clenched fists. “My inquiries didn’t find even that much on the man. I don’t get it. World-class navigators don’t just matriculate from nowhere. We learn and refine our skills at universities and then serve aboard vessels as apprentices.

  “On paper this navigator looks the part,” Juan went on with frustration growing in his hushed voice. “Documents show Paolo Toscanelli hails from Florence, Italy, received his formal education at the University of Padua, and apprenticed aboard numerous Medici-operated vessels.”

  “Sounds legitimate,” the companion said into his mug as he tilted it back to finish the last drop.

  “I spent two months in Florence and failed to find a single person who knew of him or the family name. I visited the university’s hall of records only to find that nobody with the surname Toscanelli had ever attended, let alone graduated, from Padua.”

  Juan tapped his own empty mug on the table out of frustration. Half a year had gone by, and here he was back in Lisbon no wiser about Paolo Toscanelli’s identity than the day he left. Most likely he bore no connection to the original navigator from that first voyage to the new territories, maybe a brother or cousin to this Toscanelli fellow. Still, there was something about the timing of his appearance. It fell too perfectly in line with Juan’s return from the new lands and murder of the crew, including his navigational teacher and mentor. This notion tickled a sliver of Juan’s mind to consider if this was indeed the same man.

  Was there any way to survive a stab wound through the chest in addition to abandonment in shark-infested waters a hundred miles from shore? Certainly not. Nobody could survive such physical trauma on his own, but there were numerous legends of those saved by supernatural interventions.

  Juan knew from his studies that Egyptian texts were littered with the ankh symbol, which denoted eternal life. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote about waters granting healing and longevity; he even pegged the location somewhere in northeastern Africa. Legend even held that Alexander the Great discovered those healing waters, which helped his armies. Then there were the Muslims who believed al-Khidr had eternal life, and, of course, Christians maintained that Jesus rose from the grave.

  The more Juan thought about it, history contained numerous legends surrounding healing and eternal life. He knew the notion was childish and silly, yet could there be something to it?

  “What now?” his companion asked.

  “Now we wait. It seems the only man able to tell us who Paolo Toscanelli really is, is the man himself, and he is still at sea,” Juan growled back.

  “Well then, it looks like I bring you some good news after all. Your wait for their return will be a short one,” the man said with a smile attempting to stretch the scar tissue on his left check. “One of Columbus’ ships, the Niña, dropped anchor this morning alongside a harbor patrol vessel and awaits approval to dock.

  “Not in our lifetime,” Juan protested. “The Portuguese fleet chased them all the way to open waters. The last port Columbus would visit upon his return is the capital of Portugal.”

  “From what I heard, they didn’t have much choice. You remember the storm two days ago that sank an entire fleet of caravels? Apparently, it damaged their ship to the point that they were lucky to reach any port, even Lisbon. The king is probably still debating what to do with them,” the man went on while the barmaid approached with their drinks and set them on the table.

  God’s grace continues to abound, Juan thought as he got to his feet. He handed the barmaid a handful of coins and said on his way to the door, “Another time, my dear, but be sure and treat my companion well. He’s earned it.”

  An hour later, Juan found himself standing outside an interior room inside the king’s palace waiting for His Majesty to beckon him forth. His escort made every effort to obstruct Juan’s view into the room as he conversed with the interior guard through a narrow crack between the door and its frame. Even through that tiny sliver, Juan could tell that this was no ordinary room. The walls featured maps rather than tapestries, while dozens of lamps lit the room in a bright glow as opposed to the dim, fault-concealing illumination level that shrouded the rest of the palace.

  “Let the boy in,” a gravelly voice ordered from the other side of the door. “I could use some firsthand information from the Spanish court on this matter.”

  Nothing further needed saying. The king’s order prompted the door to open wide. As Juan stepped through the threshold, his eyes surveyed the room in its entirety. These were not just geographic maps on the walls; these were war room maps complete with fleet locations, nationalities, and size indicators. There were also production timetables from shipyards all around the European and African coastlines complete with lists of promising young officers under consideration for command commissions and crew assignments.

  This windowless
interior room was the culmination of every espionage asset Portugal had in play throughout the known world. The information contained within these four walls was beyond value, and Juan’s chest grew with pride that King John II trusted and valued him enough to share in it.

  Juan found the king and two of his advisors leaning over a central table evaluating two maps. The first was an extremely detailed rendering of the southern trade route around Africa to reach Asia. The second was Juan’s hand-drawn map of lands discovered to the west across the Ocean Sea.

  “Well, what news?” the king asked without looking up from his studious review of the maps before him.

  “They’re back,” Juan reported while barely managing to contain his elation at being the one privileged to deliver the news. “Columbus and his crew are back from the new lands. They’re anchored a mere stone’s throw away in this very harbor.”

  “Yes, I am well aware of what goes on in my own harbor,” the king sighed before looking up at his bastard son with a cloud of disappointment darkening his mood. “When I heard it was you standing outside my door, I expected to hear something useful come out of your mouth.”

  “If you knew Columbus was back, then why are they still at anchor and not docked to let his crew start spreading word of the new lands they discovered across all of Europe?” Juan asked. “We’ve waited four years for this.”

  The king was unwilling to address a question he deemed beneath him to answer, so the advisor to his right took up the cause. “Admiral Columbus is adamant that he’s charted a new trade route to the East Indies and nothing more.”

  “What?” Juan exclaimed. “They were over there for eight months. They must have explored enough to realize the territories have nothing in common with the Indies.”

  “All the same, Columbus is steadfast in his story,” the king’s other advisor added before the king himself explained his solution.

  “That leaves me with no choice but to have Columbus killed and bribe his crew to spread the story I want told. It would be more convincing coming from the admiral himself, but I can only work with what I have.”