'I guess not.'
'I see. I suppose mine have been asked whether it would practical to reinforce certain buildings. One more question, please, Marty, and it may be the last one. Would what they asked you about be feasible? Breaking up the plate we're going to hit like that?'
'I think so. Probably… Listen, I'm not supposed to talk about this, but I'd like to get it off my chest. First, I've had to assume that their plate's pretty much like ours. Ours is the only one we're familiar with.'
'Sure.'
'Assuming that it is, we'd have to drill into it and plant charges about a hundred feet down. I said the people there aren't going stand still for that, and they said they'd take them by surprise. It's not very big, okay? A thousand men, well trained and heavily armed. Hydrofoils that will launch when we're close. I'll probably be one of the men on the boats. Everyone else here is older, they'll be old men by the time it happens. I'm not much older than you are. I'll still be active.'
'What about somebody younger? Somebody who hasn't graduated yet?'
'There won't be anybody like that.' Sutton's voice went flat, stripped of all emotion. 'I might as well tell you this, too--it's the kind of thing that can't be kept secret. The university's dropped geology. They've closed the whole department, effective immediately.'
That night, over wieners and sauerkraut, he told Mona. 'I promised a person who trusted me that I wouldn't talk about this, but you're going to have to know.'
When he had finished outlining the situation, she said, 'But won't it work? This man you talked to said it would.'
'Probably not.' He paused, listening to the trees murmur in the wind that would soon become a years-long gale: the wind of the city's swift descent. 'They must surely see us coming at them, just as we see them in our path. They'll start preparing, and both sides have ten or fifteen years to prepare in. They can arm everyone who's willing to fight, and put up obstacles to keep our people from landing. I think we can count on both those.'
'They could break up their plate for us.'
He nodded. 'Yes, they could. We could break up ours, too. Do you think the government will?'
For a long moment Mona stared at him. At last she said, 'How horrible! No. Of course they won't.'
'But we could do it ourselves.' The idea had come to full flower during his long call to Sutton; he had seized it eagerly, and hoped now to inspire her to an equal acceptance. 'We could plant charges that would exploit known weaknesses in our plate. The force of the explosions would start our piece moving away from the city, and out of the collision path the city's on now.'
'But, darling--'
'Adrian would have a future. Don't you see, Mona? We wouldn't take just this residential neighborhood, but a piece of the infrastructure big enough to be economically viable. We could make things for ourselves then, make things to trade, grow gardens, and fish. That town the city's going to hit--French or Belgian or whatever it is-- people survive there. They even prosper. I've bounced this off of a man over on the next street, a geologist. He agrees it might be possible, and he's coming over to talk about it.'
'Bumpers! We could build bumpers, things with springs in them. Or--or big sacks full of air.'
He shook his head. 'Nothing we could build would have much effect on a mass as great as the plate's, and if we succeeded in slowing it down much--we wouldn't--the wave would break over us and drown everybody.'
'But…' Mona looked desperate. 'But, Honey--'
He glanced at his watch. 'Sutton's coming at eight. You won't have to feed him, but coffee and cookies might be nice. Or cake. Something like that.'
'Okay.' Mona's voice was scarcely audible.
An hour later she said, 'Won't you please stop combing your hair with your fingers like that? And pacing up and down and up and down?'
For the twentieth time he looked at his watch. 'Sutton could be here right now.'
'He could,' Mona conceded, 'if he'd come at least ten minutes early. Honestly, I'm going to get hysterical. Sit down and relax. Or--or go outside where you can see his headlights as soon as he turns onto the street. Please? If I start screaming I'll wake Adrian. Won't you, pretty please, Honey, for me?'
He nodded, suddenly grateful, and discovered that he had been on the point of running his fingers through his hair again. 'Okay. I'll do that. I won't come back in until he gets here.'
The wind had turned the night cold. He walked out to the street. How many charges would they need, and how big would each have to be? Would they have to enlist a chemist to make the explosives? Dynamite, or whatever? To his right, looming white above the treetops though far more distant, he could only just glimpse the boiling crest of the wave. Those trees were wrongly slanted now. Come morning, they would find themselves pointed away from the sun. He chuckled softly. It could not be often that smug suburban trees received such an unpleasant surprise.
When he returned to the house to sit on the stoop, Mona had drawn the blinds. She was being overly cautious, he decided, but he could not find it in his heart to blame her.
Out at the curb again and still nervous, he held his breath as headlights turned off Miller Road. They crept up the sloping street as though the driver were checking house numbers, and then--incredibly, miraculously--swung into the driveway.
Sutton climbed out, and they shook hands. 'I hadn't forgotten where you live,' Sutton said, 'but this new angle has me a little disoriented.
He nodded. 'All of us are. I think that may work in our favor.'
'Maybe you're right.' The wind snatched away Sutton's baseball cap. Sutton grabbed for it, missing by a foot or more. 'Help me find that, will you? I'd hate to lose it.'
They had searched the bushes for a minute or more when Sutton straightened up and said, 'Something wrong? What's the matter with you?'
He had straightened up already. 'Sirens.' He pointed east, northeast, and after a momentary hesitation, north. 'Don't you hear them?'
Sutton shook his head. 'No, I don't.'
'Well, I do. Three or four cars, and they're getting closer.'
One by one, the sirens grew louder--and abruptly fell silent. For almost the last time, he ran nervous fingers through his hair.
'What's up?' Sutton began. 'If you--'
Before the third word, he had turned and sprinted for the door. It was locked. His key turned the lock and the bolt clicked back, but the night bolt was engaged. Once only, his shoulder struck the unyielding wood.
By that time the first police car had turned the corner on two screaming wheels, and it was too late to hide.
Audubon in Atlantis by Harry Turtledove
From Gardner Dozois - The Year's Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection (2006)
Although he writes other kinds of science fiction as well, and even the occasional fantasy, Harry Turtledove has become one of the most prominent writers of Alternate History stories in the business today, and is probably the most popular and influential writer to work that territory since L. Sprague De Camp. In fact, most of the current
