The Dancer from Atlantis

by Poul Anderson

  Once in open water they could rest. No other vessel was left afloat near the sea king’s home. Exhausted, they lay to.

  Wind was slowly rising afresh. By morning it would whip the fires in the city to a conflagration whose traces would remain when the ruins were dug up more than three thousand years hence. The next days would see many storms as the troubled atmosphere cleansed itself. But the ship could ride unattended till dawn. Reid would be the lookout. He wasn’t going to get to sleep anyway, he knew.

  He stood in the bows on the upper deck, where he and Erissa had been that morning. (Only that morning? Less than a single turn of the planet?) Aft, the dim forms of crew and fugitives stirred, mumbled, uneasily asleep. The hull rocked under always heavier, noisier blows. The wind whittered hot from the south. It still carried needles of volcanic ash – tossed back and forth between Greece and Egypt till finally they came to rest – but smelled less evil than before.

  Shielded by a strung scrap of sailcloth, a candle burned. Young Erissa lay on a straw pallet. Her older self had put clothes on her. She looked upward, but he couldn’t tell if she really saw. Her features were slumbrous. The woman knelt over her, hair and cloak tossing in the gusts, and crooned, ‘Rest, rest, rest. All is well, my darling. We’ll care for you. We love you.’

  ‘Duncan,’ said the half parted lips, which had been like flower petals but were puffed and broken from the blow of a fist.

  ‘Here is Duncan.’ The woman beckoned. Reid could but obey. How deny Erissa the creation of that which would keep her alive through the years to come?

  Strange, though, to hear her tell of days and nights which had never been and would never be. Maybe it was best this way. Nothing real could be so beautiful.

  Dagonas must not know the truth, and wouldn’t. Erissa would speak little about it. He’d assume that tonight she had merely been struck, and earlier on Atlantis she and the god called Duncan—

  The first light of dawn sneaked through scudding ash-clouds. Erissa left peace upon the girl’s slumbering countenance, rose, and said out of her own haggardness: ‘We’re not free yet.’

  ‘What?’ He blinked. His lids felt sandy as the wind. His being creaked with weariness.

  ‘She and Dagonas have to go off in our boat, you know,’ the woman said. ‘Otherwise Theseus might still find and use her. After that, we’ve paid our ransom.’ She pointed. ‘Look.’

  His gaze followed her arm, past the steeps of Crete on the horizon, across the sea which roiled black, west to that corner of the world whence the Achaean galleys came striding. At their head was a giant which could only be the work of Oleg.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Russian had built the closest possible copy of a Byzantine capital ship in his own century. Twice as long and thrice as high as Reid’s, it had two lateen-rigged masts; but today, with the wind foul, it went on a hundred double-banked oars. Its beak tore the waves as if they were enemy hulls. Decked fore and aft, it bore equally outsize catapults. Amidships a pair of booms extended, great boulders suspended at their ends for dropping on hostile crews. Shields were hung on frames at the waist, where the gunwale dropped low, to protect the rowers. Above those benches swarmed warriors.

  ‘Alert!’ Reid yelled. ‘Wake, wake!’

  His folk dragged themselves from sleep. Dagonas alone seemed to have kept vitality. He bounded to Reid and the Erissas. ‘What’ll we do?’ he cried. ‘They’re fresh, those dogs. They can raise sail if they choose. We’ll never outrun them. And when we’re caught—’ He stared down at the girl and groaned.

  ‘We head for the big vessel,’ Reid told him. ‘Its captain is my friend, who won’t knowingly fight against us. I hope.’

  The woman bit her lip. ‘You youngsters— Well, we must see. Stay close by her, Dagonas.’

  She drew Reid aside. ‘Something will go wrong,’ she said bleakly.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he agreed. ‘But we’ve no choice, have we? And … remember our hope. That time travelers, hovering somewhere about, will notice a ship that doesn’t belong in this age and come for a closer inspection. Well, here we have two. His is even more out of place than ours. We must get together with him.’

  He cast a glance upward but saw only clouds, gray, brown, and black, piling southward into lightning-shot masses that betokened a new storm. Of course, futurian observers might well have some device for invisibility.

  ‘If we’re not rescued—’ he began, and faltered.

  ‘Then we make our way together.’ Both their gazes strayed to the couple in the bows, the sleeping, smiling girl and the boy who crouched before her. ‘Or we die,’ Erissa finished. ‘But those two will live. In the long run, I’ve been lucky. I pray that you have been too.’

  The oars ground into motion. It was necessary to intercept the dromon before a lesser galley cut this one off. The Achaeans were widely strewn, in no particular formation – the idea of a real navy would not occur for centuries, now that the only one in the world was gone – but they were bound to notice the peculiar vessel and its obviously Minoan markings. Closing in, they would see that the people aboard were Keftiu, fair game.

  The deck rolled. Waves splashed over the rails onto near-naked lads, who rowing must push aside bewildered men, huddled women, wailing children. Wind shrilled and carried the remote sound of thunder.

  ‘You’re not afraid, Duncan, are you?’ Erissa asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, and was faintly surprised to note that that was true. He thought: Maybe I’ve learned courage from her.

  The dromon changed course. Evidently its captain was himself interested in contact. They were gesturing and hailing on that foredeck, but their voices blew away and as yet no individuals were recognizable.

  However— ‘My God!’ exploded from Reid. ‘They’re loading the catapults!’

  ‘That’s our disaster, then,’ Erissa said between clenched teeth. ‘They’ve seen our ram and are afraid.’

  A ball of flame, tow soaked in pitch and set ablaze, arced from the Athenian. Reid thought wildly: Must be the closest Oleg could come to Greek fire. ‘Forward!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got to close in – show him who we are—’

  The first two missiles hissed into the sea. The third smote the upper deck. No persons remained there except Reid’s party and the helmsman. The latter yelled and sprang below. Reid couldn’t blame him much. These tarred and seasoned planks were a tinderbox. Flames gushed. The American jumped down likewise, into chaos. ‘Row on, row on!’ he bawled. ‘And somebody help me!’ He grabbed a bailing bucket, filled it over the side, handed it up to Erissa the woman.

  She cast the water across the fire but called, ‘No use. Another has hit. The wind’s fanning them.’

  ‘Well, get the young ones to the boat!’

  ‘Aye. Erissa, awake. You, Dagonas, follow me.’

  They joined Reid in the stern. Amidst rampant confusion, only a couple of men noticed him draw the lifeboat in. Tylisson pushed close and said through the racket, ‘No room for more than a few in that, skipper.’

  Reid nodded. ‘Only these two will go,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘Me, desert you?’ Dagonas protested.

  Reid met his eyes. ‘You’re not doing that,’ he said. ‘You’re serving better than you’ll ever know.’ His right hand gripped the boy’s. His left arm went around the shoulders of the girl, who was coming out of her drowse into bewildered and terrified awareness. Overhead, the upper deck roared with its burning. Forward, folk crouched and wailed.

  ‘Erissa,’ he said to her, ‘go. Endure. Know that in the end I’ll call you back to me.’ He could merely kiss her on the brow. ‘Dagonas, never leave her. Farewell.’

  The woman briefly embraced her and the lad. They entered the boat. Dagonas stayed troubled at the idea of taking none else along. But before he could speak further, Reid slipped the tow line. Shoved by wind and wave, the craft fell quickly astern. It looked terribly frail and alone. Dagonas worked to step the mast. Before long, smoke off the blazing deck h
id him and young Erissa from sight.

  ‘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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  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 hi
s 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.’