Tides From the New Worlds

by Tobias S. Buckell

  “Hey,” I cried out, seeing where this was going. We were located in a similar location, in the middle of nowhere.

  “Yes. Their ancestors are here. We, the starship guild, have identified the remains of ‘Seed of Hope’ lodged in the inside of the toenail of the left little toe. The inhabitants aren’t really habitants.”

  Thomas leaned back in his chair. I leaned back in mine.

  “Would you be willing to make a public statement?” Thomas asked.

  Evergror nodded.

  “For a small fee, or course.”

  “Of course.”

  As we all knew, mining rights to the pubic area were worth quite a bit. We weren’t even sure if this chap was telling the truth, but it provided the perfect opportunity we needed to undermine the bleeding heart environmentalists that claimed we needed to leave her body untouched…

  • • •

  I was silent on the flight back from the press conference at the tip of the left breast. We flew over the ribs briefly, and I could see the rows of fertile valleys and gentle rolling hills, patchworks of green agriculture and food production.

  Then onto the foundries set between her breasts, belching fire into the air.

  I squelched the feeling that we’d done something wrong and took a nap.

  • • •

  When Jo got back I took her sailing in the right corner of the right eye. Salt filled the air as a slight wind crossed the large sea of the agate pupil. We were on a delightful little ketch made out of hairplank, and it tracked into the wind just beautifully.

  The ropes snapped as I dodged us around other traffic and sailed out in no particular direction.

  Somewhere out there we paused to eat lunch, a fruit basket I’d put together. In the far distant north great eyelashes curved up into the sky, blocking out the harsh sunlight of the distant sun we orbited.

  “Do you ever wonder about her?” Jo asked.

  “About who?”

  “All this.” She made a gesture. I shrugged and ate a turkey sandwich.

  “But… what about it all? What will happen when the inhabitants get assimilated, what will we do when we use it all up?”

  “I think about that sometimes,” I said. “But it won’t happen anytime soon.”

  Jo smiled and reached down in the water, cleaning her face. The sea glistened on her cheeks as she lay back, in repose, and looked up at the sky.

  “The old Earthers, some of them used to believe, before they became advanced, that it was Mother Earth.”

  “Earth is a dump,” I told her. “I went there once.”

  Jo unwrapped a sandwich. “But it didn’t used to be.”

  “I know.”

  After the sandwich we hoisted the sails and headed for shore. Later that night I even managed to seduce her.

  The next morning, of course, Thomas and I drew up plans for putting a new rail system down the gentle curve of the stomach and down between the legs. Already new skyscrapers were going up on the inner thighs.

  There was a lot to be done.

  In Orbite Medievali

  Old Christopher Columbus is a complicated figure. He discovered a world that had already been discovered by the people sitting right on it. Yet there is no denying the sheer ballsiness of crossing an ocean in a trio of creaky wooden ships, and changing the world in the process. It’s always odd to see that continued veneration of Columbus instead of a more gray and nuanced position, and seeing humankind’s move into space compared to Columbus’s ocean voyage always makes me feel sad for any potential aliens we might ever one day meet.

  Mixed feelings aside, reading Columbus’s journals and the history of the time leaves me fascinated. And the comparison between the exploration of space and exploration of the Americas left me, one night, with the idea that maybe turning that idea upside down would be a lot of fun: let’s turn Columbus into an ancient astronaut. After all, if you fell off the edge of the world, you’d be falling in freefall, much like astronauts in orbit, falling perpetually around Earth.

  As a result, this became another one of my stories that combined science and fantasy, which I wrote while at the Clarion workshop

  In a letter to Queen Isabella:

  “Whereas, Most Christian, High, Excellent, and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year 1492, after Your Highnesses terminated the war with the Moors reigning in Europe…

  “Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and Princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Cristóbal Colón, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone.”

  —Cristóbal Colón, 1492

  The rim of the earth flashed past them as they fell. The edge of the world looked rather like the cliffs of Gibraltar—tall edifices of solid imposing rock. Only here the basalt stretched to the left and the right as far as the eye could see, and when looking up, ran what seemed like miles above them. Finally it disappeared into roils of mist and clouds.

  Once they had fallen past the edge it started to dwindle into the distance above them.

  Sheets of seawater still cascaded down with the ship.

  Pedro Yzquierdo used his knife to dig the bone out of the piece of meat in his stew. Already he’d made a mess, wobbling the bowl and causing its contents to ooze out into the air. He finally got the bone out. It spun away to hit the mast. Pedro retrieved it, throwing it out, away from the ship.

  “Caca.” Heavily salted meats, shriveled peas, stale water, and when he tapped his hardtack biscuit, weevils wriggled out into the air. The tossed bone passed the railing, and flew up past the ship’s masts as the flat side of the bone caught the wind rushing up the sides of the hull.

  Pedro noticed Rodrigo Gallego begin to shudder and heave.

  He’s seasick, Pedro thought. Or at least just sick. It had nothing to do with the sea, really. The seawater near them now just hung in curtains.

  Rodrigo threw up. The bland results of dinner floated out in pasty globules. Several members of the crew swatted at the liquid in disgust with empty plates, trying to redirect the nasty-smelling bile over the decks and out across the ship’s railing. It helped some. But if they hit it too hard it splattered and spread instead, making a worse mess.

  “Mierda,” someone muttered from inside steerage, the rear area of the deck covered by the quarterdeck. They started making similar sounds. Pedro sunk his knife into the mast and pushed off over to the sick man.

  “Rodrigo,” he yelled. The sound of the wind singing through the rigging and rails forced him to project his voice. “Stay near the edge. You’ll have everyone else sick at this rate.”

  Rodrigo shook his head.

  “No. I won’t go near the edge. Dios mío, no! Give me a sack, Pedro, but do not make me do that.”

  “We can tie you to the rails…”

  “It’s windy. It’s loud. Leave me here en la calma,” Rodrigo pleaded. Diego de Arana, master-at-arms, leaned over the quarterdeck.

  “What happens here?” he demanded. Rodrigo twisted in the air to look at him.

  “He’s sick.”

  “Put him in a hammock. He shouldn’t eat for a day.”

  “Señor Diego…”

  “No buts, Pedro. He will keep throwing up if we feed him. Do you remember what you were like the first time you put out to sea?” Diego de Arana smiled. “He will get accustomed to it, just like he got accustomed to being at sea. Some people get used to the sea faster. Eh, Pedro?”

  Pedro nodded.

  “Verdad, señor. But none of us have ever fallen off of the edge of the world before.” He tugged on Rodrigo gen
tly, towing him towards steerage. Here underneath the quarterdeck all the other men huddled, strapped into their hammocks.

  “Pedro,” Diego said. “Don’t say that; we have not fallen off of the edge of the world. Don’t be an ignorant peasant. Agilipollao!”

  Pedro guided them both through steerage, looking for an empty hammock and a sack for Rodrigo. Diego could call him an ignorant peasant, a stupid fool, but Pedro did not care. It still didn’t make sailing off of the edge of the world any stranger than it was.

  Rodrigo stopped gagging.

  “Do you really think we have fallen off of the edge of the world?” he asked. Pedro realized that Rodrigo was scared. Many of the men strapped into the hammocks were miserably sick, but they all tilted their heads towards Pedro to hear what he had to say.

  “Look around, no? It is obvious.” Someone moaned. Others swore and crossed their chests.

  “It is unnatural.”

  “We have been cursed.”

  “In Palos and Genoa, everyone says the world is round.” Rodrigo pulled himself into the hammock. “I believed them when they told me to look at the ships coming into port. I saw myself that the masts became visible first, then the hull. As if obscured by a curve.”

  Pedro shrugged.

  “Then maybe God made the world slightly curved.”

  “Sí. That makes sense.” Rodrigo started to dry heave, finding nothing left in his stomach but acid. Pedro remembered his first three days at sea.

  “Por supuesto.” Of course he made sense. “Mira. Get some rest, try to sleep.” Unlike the rest of the crew Pedro could move around, not affected by their sudden predicament.

  “But what will become of us? What madness have we been tricked into, coming on this voyage? We will die horribly, no doubt.” Rodrigo shuddered.

  “If you pray,” Pedro said, “then ask our Lord to deliver us from this strange event.”

  As Pedro made sure that Rodrigo was tied into his hammock, he glanced past the varnished tiller arm. Useless, it vibrated madly from the rush of wind. Through the hole in the back to allow the tiller in, Pedro could see the two other ships. Two tiny caravels maybe half a mile away, floating suspended in the air, just like Pedro was. A light mist obscured them.

  It was the eighth of Octubre, anno Domini 1492. The nao Santa María and her two escorts, along with tremendous amounts of ocean, fish, and floating weeds, had been falling off of the edge of the world for almost a day.

  • • •

  Pedro Yzquierdo pushed his way forward out towards the forecastle. The quarterdeck had steps coming down from either side, but steerage opened right onto the main deck between the raised forecastle and quarterdeck. Underneath the forecastle ship’s boy Pedro de Terreros tried to bank the cooking fire. The teenager, frustrated by a lack of progress, struck at the sand and ashes with a curse. The spherical flame, fueled by blackened pieces of wood nailed to the deck, refused to be quenched.

  “Caray!”

  “Paolo, easy.” Pedro pulled the boy down from the end of his makeshift tether. “Don’t strike things so violently. You’ll push yourself out away from the boat.”

  “The fire, it doesn’t work right. Even cooking is almost impossible.”

  “I’ll take care of the fire, you should go now.”

  Paolo’s thatch of midnight black hair floated like a halo of seaweed about his face.

  “Gracias, Pedro Yzquierdo. Perdóname.”

  “Bueno.” Pedro looked at the ship’s fire. Sand scattered on the deck, as well as the damp state of the deck, prevented a ship fire. The iron pot, ingeniously lashed above the fire by Pedro, had been redesigned to allow cooking in the constant floating. Pedro suspected the ship’s cooper had done it.

  “Mire esta,” he said to himself. Look at that.

  The sides of the bulbous pot now had latches to snap the top on. The two holes drilled into opposite sides, Pedro guessed, allowed steam to escape and food to be fed in. One hole had a piece of cloth tied on to prevent any food from blasting out, but allow steam through. A simple bellows stuck out of the other hole, allowing ingredients to be fed in without floating back out.

  Cooking had now turned into something rather more complicated than the ship’s boy had anticipated.

  Juan Sánchez, the ship’s physician, watched him with an owl-like eye from the railing of the forecastle. He had lashed himself there.

  “Pedro Yzquierdo. You seem to grasp some of the aspects of our situation.”

  Pedro shook his head.

  “I am just another traveler in God’s world,” he said. “I live where he puts me.”

  The cooper, Viscaino, usually made sure all the casks in the hold stayed watertight and stout. Doubtless a frustrating job. Now the cooper’s job took a turn for the interesting. What an ingenious mind, Pedro thought.

  “I do not pretend to understand the world around me,” Pedro continued, realizing that Juan waited for more conversation. “I only accept it.”

  Pedro took a sack of water and circled the spherical fire. He squeezed the sack slowly and started kicking himself around the fire in a circle. As he planned, using more and more force in his squeeze, all the water arrived at once. It quenched the flame satisfactorily.

  “But look, Pedro.” Juan wobbled until he lay in the air only inches away, parallel to the deck. His tiny pointed beard just scraped the musty deck. Juan dramatically extended only a finger, and pushed off upwards.

  He slowly began to rise from the deck, inch by inch.

  “It is incredible, Pedro. Think about it. Once I have pushed away, nothing will stop me from moving like this.”

  Pedro reached out and stopped him.

  “There, you are at rest.”

  “Exactly,” Juan floundered excitedly. “And anything at rest should stay at rest. Unless pushed by some force. I never thought of these things. But why do you stay on the Earth? Why do things fall?”

  “God wills it.”

  “Maybe he does,” Juan nodded. “But there must be a force, a great attracting force that is pulling everything down to the ground, an outside force. A something falling out of a building should stay there, but it is pulled down. I wonder what all this is…”

  “You tire my imagination, Don Sánchez.” Pedro started to swim away. “I’m a sailor. I know of many things, but mostly boats. I’m sure you could talk further with others.”

  Pedro made his way towards the edge of the deck where the wind howled. He looked out.

  The Pinta and the Niña fell with them in varying heights, not more than a mile away. The Niña leaned a bit to her starboard. Then as wind hit her staysail, still up, her masts shivered and she leaned towards the port.

  Pedro craned his neck along the edge of the ship, the wind tugging his cheeks back. He looked down past the stern at the cascade of water and mist in the distance, the waterfall at the edge of the world, miles upon miles wide. Down, he could see nothing but a haze. Far above, hidden in the clouds around the distant rim of the world, he guessed the sun still blazed away. Here though, light seemed to filter in from all sides equally. The gray haze would fluctuate all the way to darkness, still in keeping with the cycle of the sun.

  Pedro, not a fanatically religious man, found himself offering prayer on the behalf of his crewmates. May they all receive the mercy of his Lord, he prayed, for now their predicament lay well outside of the hands of men.

  • • •

  On the second day, after the dark gave way to the gray haze, El Almirante Cristóbal Colón himself came out of the cabin and looked around the ship. Pedro looked at their leader and admired his aquiline nose, massive build, and fair skin.

  “There. It is Colón,” Rodrigo muttered from the iron pot. “I would give my right eye right now to be back in Cádiz. Pedro Yzquierdo, I should not have joined on this journey. I could be home with my María.”

  Pedro ignored his complaints.

  El Almirante found the loose stores and general tidiness of the ship lacking, and wished to
somehow bring the ships together. He charged Diego de Arana with making it happen then retired into his cabin once more.

  “Do you think maybe he’s sick from the falling?” Rogrigo asked.

  “Maybe. ¿Y qué?” So what?

  Diego de Arana pulled himself down the stairs and pointed out at one of the seamen floating carefully around steerage.

  “You, take a rope, and jump out between the ships.”

  “No.”

  “If you fall, we can pull you back in on the rope,” Diego assured him. The ship creaked and groaned. The wind still howled.

  “You cannot make us, it’s suicide.”

  “Restless men,” Diego yelled. “You disobey my orders?” He pointed out Juan Sánchez. “This man of science assures me you will make it across.”

  “We are paid sailors. We are not soldiers,” they replied. “Even if there were a holy man aboard we wouldn’t jump.”

  Diego let it drop.

  Juan Sánchez saw his opportunity, as he floated closer in from his perch on the forecastle.

  “We can use canon and rope,” he said. “It’ll reach.”

  “Then do it,” Diego said. “But aim over their heads.”

  Pedro helped Juan moved the canon around to face the Niña. They coiled rope next to the small weapon. Juan placed a brand to the touchhole and it fired; the pulleys took up the recoil. The coiled rope whipped out of the port, burning as it rubbed against the wooden sides. Juan Sánchez looked triumphant.

  “It’s curving up,” Diego shouted. Juan, puzzled at first, turned, then struck his forehead with the flat of his palm.

  “Mierda. The wind. I didn’t think it would affect the thin rope and cannonball.”

  They both pushed out to the rail just in time to see the cannonball strike the topmast of the Nina.

  “Ah,” Juan said with satisfaction. “But it still works.”

  They fired another cannonball, this time at the Pinta, and then slowly pulled the ships together. The two distant caravels got larger and larger as they were pulled out of the haze. The hulls creaked and splintered when all three ships finally roped to each other.