The First Heroes

by Harry Turtledove

  But what I saw today in the ruins . . .

  Now I will not report this to the Great King. I may not ever speak of it to any man. But men do say that the golden figure of the goddess stolen by Paris was never recovered from the ashes of Priamos’s citadel. Agamemnon had the palace searched before it was put to the torch, and all the city, but the golden goddess was never found.

  Yet today in the ruins of Troia, I came upon a woman, one who had survived the sack of the palace, or so at first I supposed. A golden woman, with burnished hair and skin that glowed with softness, as a man would imagine a goddess. Before I could think, I blurted out her name: “Helene?”

  The woman smiled at me, and though I am an old man, I felt the sap stirring in my veins at the sight of her. “You call me Helene? But Menelaos already has his wife again. She sits in his ship, weeping for dead Paris, sailing back to his palace in Sparta.”

  I had to take a breath before I could speak. “I did not mean Helene who is the wife of Menelaos.”

  She beckoned me closer, and her face glowed with her beauty. No man could fail to desire her. No man could not want to carry her away. Her voice, so compelling . . .

  “My name is Eris. I used to belong to Paris, but I can be yours now. Will you carry me away with the rest of your captive women to Hattusa?”

  It may be that it was my old age which let me resist her temptation. If so, I am glad of it. “No, Lady. I will not.”

  I left the ruins. I went back to my house and gathered my possessions to depart that place without looking back.

  For I know her. Even before I knew her name, I knew her. And now I know how poor dead Paris was deceived, the real reason the citadel of Priamos was doomed to destruction.

  I only pray to all the gods that the Land of Hatti is never likewise visited by Strife.

  For the ancient Greeks, the bronze Age was the third generation of humanity: the first was the golden. Literature too has its golden ages, science fiction being no exception. During the golden age of science fiction the motifs, themes, and conventions of the genre, in forms seminal or conclusive, flourished: the imaginations of these authors, blossoming in the 1930s and ‘40s, were like the earth in the days of the Greek golden race, bearing fruit “abundantly and without stint.” But they are, and were, science fiction’s first generation, and only the gods are deathless.

  At about midnight on July 31, 2001, one of the great heroes of the golden age passed away. Poul Anderson had enjoyed a life of seventy-four years and a writing career of more than fifty. In that half century Poul’s works ranged from hard science fiction to high fantasy, exploring technological and social implications on the level of society and, especially, of the individual. He did so with a wit, sincerity, and insight that we deeply miss.

  But eras rarely end with a definitive period. They tend to transform gradually, as what follows them comes from them. Poul knew this as well as any of us can.

  The Bog Sword

  POUL ANDERSON

  For a moment I hesitated, suddenly half afraid. Sunlight played in the crowns of trees along this quiet residential street and spilled warmth across me. A neighboring lawn lay newly mown, not yet raked, and a breeze bore me the scent. In a few hours Jane would be through work and bring Myrtis home with her from day care. Next month we’d vacation by the sea. Just planning it was joyous. Did I really want to risk any of that?

  I’d been warned, I’d signed the waiver, but it was still possible to turn away.

  No. I straightened my shoulders, strode up the walk to the porch of the big old house, mounted the steps, and rang the bell.

  Rennie himself opened the door. “How do you do, Mr. Larsen,” he said. “Welcome. Please come in.” His formal courtesy had struck me a little strange at first, something out of another, more gracious age, coming as it did from an explorer on the frontiers of reality; but it had helped me trust him. Well, of course he was quite old by now. He led me to a living room lined with full bookcases and offered me a seat. A smile made further creases in his face. “Let me suggest we relax a bit first and get slightly better acquainted. If you don’t think the hour is too early, would you care for a glass of wine?”

  “Why—” I realized that I would. “Yes, thank you.” His tall form moved off. “Uh, can I help?”

  “No, no. I like to play host. Take your ease. Smoke if you wish. I’ll be right back.”

  Not even a maid? I wondered. And him a full professor.

  For a moment I thought that it fit the pattern. An emeritus should have the use of more university facilities than just the library, if he was still doing research. Certainly people throughout academe did who pushed ideas more controversial than his—sometimes harmful or downright crazy. Besides being a good teacher, Rennie had done respected studies of brain electrochemistry. But soon after he commenced on his psychophysics, he moved that work to his home, where it had continued ever since. I suspected pressure quietly applied. Not only did most scientists look askance at it, but a few of his subjects reported findings that didn’t sit well with true believers in several creeds, especially political. And, of course, any administration would be afraid of legal liability. Thus far the dangers had been subtle, and nobody who suffered had sued, but you never knew.

  Widower. He’s got to have a housekeeper who comes in and maybe cooks most of his dinners, at least. And he does apparently have friends in town, and sees the children and grandchildren once in a while. But otherwise a lonely man. Also in his work. Yes, very much so in his work. Nobody else has ever managed to replicate his experiments with any consistency, no peer-reviewed professional journal has accepted any paper of his for decades, and he wants no part of the crank publications.

  He returned carrying a tray with two glasses, set it on a coffee table before me, and lowered himself into the chair opposite. “Are you Danish, Mr. Larsen?” he asked.

  “My father’s parents were,” I said, “and I’ve explained that I’ve been over there quite a bit, and hope for more.”

  His white head nodded. “A charming country.” He lifted his glass. “Let me therefore propose ‘Skål’ and request that you forgive my pronunciation.”

  We clinked rims and sipped. It was a good Beaujolais. His manner, though, did more to loosen the cold little knot of fear in me.

  We chatted for maybe ten minutes, then: “Let’s be honest,” he said. “This is a gamble on your part, with nothing whatsoever guaranteed. Do you really want to take it? You have a family.”

  “Not much of a personal risk, is it?”

  “No, no physical hazard, and nobody’s suffered a nervous breakdown or anything like that. However, I trust it was made quite clear to you that some of my subjects have found the experience . . . disconcerting. In a few cases, almost shattering. They’ve been haunted for weeks afterward, depression or nightmares or—Frankly, I suspect one or two never entirely got over it. The past is, for the most part, no more pleasant than our world today, often less. Or—emotional involvements—I respect their privacy and haven’t tried to probe. But it’s not like being a tourist, you know.”

  “I do, sir. Generally, your people have come through all right, haven’t they? Shaken up, sure. I expect to be, myself. However, the odds are, it should be well worth whatever it’s likely to cost. My wife and daughter are prepared for having me broody a week or two.”

  Rennie chuckled, turned serious again, and said, “And you hope to advance your career as a promising young archaeologist. You certainly will, if you come back with priceless clues to what to look for and where. But—I’m staying stubbornly honest, albeit perhaps boring—you do understand, don’t you, the odds strike me as being against it? Hasn’t Scandinavia been thoroughly picked over?”

  Eagerness stirred in me, the same that had made me apply for this. “You never know what’ll turn up. Anyhow, way more important than physical objects, some insight into how people lived, thought, worshipped, everything. We have written records from southern European and Near Eastern countries
, sort of, but nothing from the North.”

  Rennie raised his brows. “I fear your colleagues won’t necessarily take your word for what you witnessed. What proof will you have that it wasn’t a hoax or, at best, a delusion? On the whole, mainstream science finds what I do no more acceptable than psionics in general.”

  “I know that, too.” I took a full swallow of the wine and leaned forward. “Sir, I didn’t come in blind. I asked around, got in touch with several of your people, and—I think you’re on to something. So maybe all I come home with is just an, an experience. Okay. I’ll nevertheless have been there, lived it. I’ll have interpretations of the evidence to offer; and what that might lead to, who can say?”

  “Ah, yes. Your application and our interviews, official though they’ve been, have certainly roused my interest. The Scandinavian Bronze Age, centering in what’s now Denmark, was rich, extraordinarily creative, and generally fascinating, wasn’t it?”

  “It had to be. Copper and tin aren’t found there. So they had to trade widely across the known world, which means awareness of what was happening elsewhere. An aristocratic society, yes, like every society in its Bronze Age, but peaceful, to judge by what’s been uncovered—not like the Stone Age before or, absolutely, the Iron Age afterward. How’d that come about?”

  Rennie frowned slightly. “You do realize you’ll have only some hours, while your body lies unconscious for the same length of time here? Of course, the one yonder will have his or her own memories of earlier life, and many of those should come to mind. Please understand, too, that my control over the point and moment to which you return is quite uncertain. It could be off by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years. I’ve only groped my way gradually to any targeting at all. And, finally, under no circumstances will I ever send the same person back twice. Given the hazard in each single venture, ethics forbids.”

  Impatience almost snapped: “Yes, I’ve been through this often enough.”

  He leaned back, lifted his glass, and said ruefully, “And, no doubt, the rather far-out theory behind everything. I merely want to make sure. You’d be surprised at what surprises I’ve had along the way.”

  Yes, theory, I thought. I’ve tried to grasp it. General relativity. A world line as the path through space-time of a body, like for example a human individual. Except that it doesn’t commence at birth or end in the grave. At the moment of conception, it springs from the joining world lines of the mother and father, and when we beget our own children, their world lines spring from those moments. What Rennie’s discovered is that the mind—or the soul, or some kind of memory, or whatever; nobody, including him, knows—can be made (persuaded?) to go back down those branchings and for a while—not exactly be, but share the mind of an ancestor. Why we can’t go likewise into the future, he doesn’t know either. It suggests a lot about the nature of time, maybe even of free will. But his work isn’t scientifically respectable. Easy to see why. So complex, so tricky, so much in need of exactly the right touch.

  Maybe he can help me a little. And maybe afterward I can help him a little.

  We talked onward for a while. He mainly wanted to put me more at my ease, but how he did it was interesting in itself. At last we agreed to start. He took me upstairs and had me remove my shoes and loosen my clothing before I lay down. The pill he gave me was simply a tranquilizer, the meditationlike exercises through which he led me simply to establish the proper brain rhythms. Then he turned on the induction field and I toppled away.

  As the short, light night, that is hardly night at all, whitens toward day, my lady and I follow the trumpeters up onto the hillcrest. There I look past two plank-built crafts a dozen logboats drawn ashore, westward and outward. Already the water gleams like molten silver. Across it, Longland and, farther off on my right, Yutholand are still darkling. Clouds loom huge and murky beyond them. A stiffening wind whines and bites. It has raised chop on the straits. Even this early, the seafowl, gulls, terns, guillemots, auks, are fewer than I have formerly seen. Their cries creak faintly through the wind.

  Will a rainstorm drench the balefires—again?

  We turn around and take our stance, the trumpeters side by side, I on their right with a spear held straight, Daemagh on their left with fine-drawn gold wrapped about the holy distaff. Now I am looking east, widely over our great island, past the massive-timbered hall and its outbuildings, past the clustered wattle-and-daub homes of my folk, past their grainfields and hayfields and paddocks, on to the forest. Thus far the sky yonder is clear, a wan blue from which the few faint stars of midsummer have faded, and treetops shine with the oncoming light.

  Below the hill, the people stand gathered, not only those of the neighborhood but outlying farmers, herders, hunters, charcoal burners, and others, some with their women and small children along, come together for the blessing and the fair, the feasting and dancing, merrymaking and lovemaking and matchmaking that ought to be theirs. As yet I cannot make them out very well, but I feel their eyes. Several are my guests at the hall, the rest have crowded in with kinfolk; all, though, are Skernings, and today one with me.

  The sun rises above the forest. It sets the disc-shaped trumpet mouths ablaze like itself. My lady’s bronze beltplate shines as bright, her amber necklace kindles with its own glow, and my cloak of Southland scarlet becomes a flame. Kirtles, breeks, blouse, skirt, headgear, the best we have, taken from their chests at times such as this, lend their softer hues to the sunrise. The trumpeters set lips to mouthpieces; the deep tones roll forth, hailing the sun at her height of the year, overriding the wind.

  Suddenly—it has happened before—I am not altogether Havakh, son of Cnuath, nor is Daemagh altogether my wife and mother of my children. These are not altogether Saehal and Eikbo between us, who have been taught and hallowed to play at the holy times but are otherwise a farmer and a boat-owner. As they stand here with the trumpets curling mightily over their shoulders, one left, one right, and above their heads, the gods take us four unto themselves.

  The sun swings higher on the tide of the music.

  It ends, ringing off to silence. I lift the spear, Daemagh the distaff. We cry the words that were cried at the beginning of the world.

  The wind seems to scatter them.

  And then we are merely the lord and lady of the manor and two men. We start back down to carry out the rest of the day and the following night.

  By now the light overflows, though somehow it is as unseasonably bleak as the air. I see all too clearly how thin the millet, emmer, and barley stand in the fields, the grazing kine and sheep not fat; and I know all too well that the pigs have lean pickings in the woods. Let the weather hold till tomorrow, only till tomorrow, I pray. But I do not promise an offering if it does, for such vows have done little if any good in the past score or worse of years.

  Maybe it will. At least this isn’t as bad as the spring equinox. Then, when I plowed the first furrows, wind, rain, and sleet lashed my nakedness, I could barely control the oxen, my left hand shook so, holding the reins and the ard. Leaves were scant on the green bough in my right hand. After I came home, I shuddered between sheepskins for a long while.

  Fears ill become the lord of the Skernings. I straighten my shoulders and my heart and stride downward with my companions.

  Men mill around and greet me. I reply to each by name, and ask those whom I seldom see how they have been faring. There is more to being a lord than leading the rites, taking the levies, judging disputes, sustaining the unfortunate, going armed against dangerous wild beasts or the rare evildoer, and otherwise upholding the peace and honor of the domain.

  Savory odors drift to my nostrils as I near the hall. Now my lady and I shall provide the morning feast. Afterward come the giving and receiving of gifts. Both will be meager, set beside memories of past holy days. Even the king’s yearly procession around Sealland is less showy than it used to be, and no longer lavish. Still, no one is in dire want, my own coffers and storerooms are far from empty, and—at least t
his year—the folk need not crowd inside out of the rain but can spread themselves over the grass in the sunshine, freely mingling while they enjoy the meat and ale.

  “Happy morning, Lord Havakh.”

  The hoarse voice jars me to a halt. There stands Bog-Ernu. How long since he last trudged the weary way here to take part in anything? I reckoned that a sullen pride kept him away. He was too poor to bring more than a token gift. When I gave him something better in return—which I must, of course, not to demean myself—it would lower his standing further yet. Men might not openly mock him, but their eyes would. So he, his woman, his children, and a few others like them have stayed apart. Three or four times a year, a trader or two comes by for the peat they have cut and dried, and maybe dickers for some pelts they have taken; else they are mostly alone. They hunt, trap, gather, and herd pigs in the forest, they grow a little grain in grubbed-out plots, and whatever Powers they offer to are not likely our great gods.

  It has not always been thus with him. A tide of memory rises in me.

  My words seem to come of their own accord. “Happiness to you, Ernu—old crewmate—” They break off. Another man has thrust forward from behind his broad back.

  A snaggle-toothed grin stirs Ernu’s unkempt, greasy beard. “You know Conomar too from those days, nay?”

  How could I forget? Conomar the Boian says nothing, only stares straight at me, but the hatred in that gaze has not changed.

  “Well—well, he shall partake, since he’s with you,” I answer lamely.

  Glee throbs. “You’ll be glad, my lord.”

  They stand there in their stinking wadmal and birchbark leggings like a clot amidst clean, well-clad, well-groomed people—these two, and three more, younger, whom I suppose must be Ernu’s sons. Flint knives at the belt are common enough among commoners, but theirs are crudely homemade. Despite the ban on killer weapons at folkmeets, the staves they grip could easily shatter skulls. Nevertheless they are Skernings, with that much claim on my hospitality and justice—except for their captive wolf—and once Ernu fared and fought at my side.