let you off the ship in Avalon.'
'It's a nuisance, to open all my trunks for the sake of a stamp,' Audubon said. The purser shrugged the shrug of a man with right, or at least regulations, on his side. And he told the truth: the United States of Atlantis were fussy about who visited them. Do as we do, they might have said, or stay away.
Not that coming ashore at New Marseille was a hardship. On the contrary. Warmed by the Bay Stream, the city basked in an almost unending May. Farther north, in Avalon, it seemed to be April most of the time. And then the Bay Stream curled north and east around the top of Atlantis and delivered the rest of its warmth to the north of France, to the British Isles, and to Scandinavia. The east coast of Atlantis, where the winds swept across several hundred miles of mountains and lowlands before they finally arrived, was an altogether darker, harsher place.
But Audubon was in New Marseille, and if it wasn't veritably May, it was the middle of April, which came close enough. A glance as he and Harris carted their cases to the customs shed sufficed to tell him he'd left Terranova behind. Oh, the magnolias that shaded some nearby streets weren't much different from the ones he could have found near New Orleans. But the gink-goes on other thoroughfares… only one other variety of ginkgo grew anyplace else in the world: in China. And the profusion of squat cycads with tufts of leaves sprouting from the tops of squat trunks also had few counterparts anywhere in the temperate zone.
The customs official, by contrast, seemed much like customs officials in every other kingdom and republic Audubon had ever visited. He frowned as he examined their declaration, and frowned even more as he opened up their baggage to confirm it. 'You have a considerable quantity of spirits here,' he said. 'A dutiable quantity, in fact.'
'They aren't intended for drinking or for resale, sir,' Audubon said, 'but for the preservation of scientific specimens.'
'John Audubon's name and artistry are known throughout the civilized world,' Edward Harris said.
'I've heard of the gentleman myself. I admire his work, what I've seen of it,' the official replied. 'But the law does not consider intent. It considers quantity. You will not tell me these strong spirits cannot be drunk?'
'No,' Audubon admitted reluctantly.
'Well, then,' the customs man said. 'You owe the fisc of Atlantis… let me see…' He checked a table thumbtacked to the wall behind him. 'You owe twenty-two eagles and, ah, fourteen cents.'
Fuming, Audubon paid. The customs official gave him a receipt, which he didn't want, and the requisite stamp in his passport, which he did. As he and Harris trundled their chattels back to the Maid of Orleans, a small bird flew past them. 'Look, John!' Harris said. 'Wasn't that a gray-throated green?'
Not even the sight of the Atlantean warbler could cheer Audubon. 'Well, what if it was?' he said, still mourning the money he'd hoped he wouldn't have to spend.
His friend knew what ailed him. 'When we get to Avalon, paint a portrait or two,' Harris suggested. 'You'll make it up, and more besides.'
Audubon shook his head. 'I don't want to do that, dammit.' When thwarted, he could act petulant as a child. 'I grudge the time I'd have to spend. Every moment counts. I have not so many days left myself, and the upland honkers… Well, who can say if they have any left at all?'
'They'll be there.' As usual, Harris radiated confidence.
'Will they?' Audubon, by contrast, careened from optimism to the slough of despond on no known schedule. At the moment, not least because of the customs man, he was mired in gloom. 'When fishermen first found this land, a dozen species of honkers filled it: filled it as buffalo fill the plains of Terranova. Now… now a few may be left in the wildest parts of Atlantis. Or, even as we speak, the last ones may be dying-may already have died! -under an eagle's claws or the jaws of a pack of wild dogs or to some rude trapper's shotgun.'
'The buffalo are starting to go, too,' Harris remarked.
That only agitated Audubon more. 'I must hurry! Hurry, do you hear me?'
'Well, you can't go anywhere till the Maid of Orleans sails,' Harris said reasonably.
'One day soon, a railroad will run from New Marseille to Avalon,' Audubon said. Atlantis was building railroads almost as fast as England: faster than France, faster than any of the new Terranovan republics. But soon was not yet, and he did have to wait for the steamship to head north.
Passengers left the Maid of Orleans. Beth got off, which made Harris glum. Others came aboard. Longshoremen carried crates and boxes and barrels and bags ashore. Others brought fresh cargo onto the ship. Passengers and longshoremen alike moved too slowly to suit Audubon. Again, he could only fume and pace the mercifully motionless deck. At last, late the next afternoon, the Maid of Orleans steamed towards Avalon.
She stayed close to shore on the two-and-a-half-day journey. It was one of the most beautiful routes anywhere in the world. Titanic redwoods and sequoias grew almost down to the shore. They rose so tall and straight, they might almost have been the columns of a colossal outdoor cathedral.
But that cathedral could have been dedicated to puzzlement and confusion. The only trees like the enormous evergreens of Atlantis were those on the Pacific coast of Terranova, far, far away. Why did they thrive here, survive there, and exist nowhere else? Audubon had no more answer than any other naturalist, though he dearly wished for one. That would crown a career! He feared it was a crown he was unlikely to wear.
The Maid of Orleans passed a small fishing town called Newquay without stopping. Having identified the place on his map, Audubon was pleased when the purser confirmed he'd done it right. 'If anything happens to the navigator, sir, I'm sure we'd be in good hands with you,' the man said, and winked to show he didn't aim to be taken too seriously.
Audubon gave him a dutiful smile and went back to eyeing the map. Atlantis' west coast and the east coast of North Terranova a thousand miles away put him in mind of two pieces of a world-sized jigsaw puzzle: their outlines almost fit together. The same was true for the bulge of Brazil in South Terranova and the indentation in West Africa's coastline on the other side of the Atlantic. And the shape of Atlantis' eastern coast corresponded to that of western Europe in a more general way.
What did that mean? Audubon knew he was far from the first to wonder. How could anyone who looked at a map help but wonder? Had Atlantis and Terranova been joined once upon a time? Had Africa and Brazil? How could they have been, with so much sea between? He saw no way it could be possible. Neither did anyone else. But when you looked at the map…
'Coincidence,' Harris said when he mentioned it at supper.
'Maybe so.' Audubon cut meat from a goose drumstick. His stomach was behaving better these days -and the seas stayed mild. 'But if it is a coincidence, don't you think it's a large one?'
'World's a large place.' Harris paused to take a sip of wine. 'It has room in it for a large coincidence or three, don't you think?'
'Maybe so,' Audubon said again, 'but when you look at the maps, it seems as if those matches ought to spring from reason, not happenstance.'
'Tell me how the ocean got in between them, then.' Harris aimed a finger at him like a pistol barrel. 'And if you say it was Noah's flood, I'll pick up that bottle of fine Bordeaux and clout you over the head with it.'
'I wasn't going to say anything of the sort,' Audubon replied. 'Noah's flood may have washed over these lands, but I can't see how it could have washed them apart while still leaving their coastlines so much like each other.'
'So it must be coincidence, then.'
'I don't believe it must be anything, mon vieux,' Audubon said. 'I believe we don't know what it is -or, I admit, if it's anything at all. Maybe they will one day, but not now. For now, it's a puzzlement. We need puzzlements, don't you think?'
'For now, John, I need the gravy,' Harris said. 'Would you kindly pass it to me? Goes mighty well with the goose.'
It did, too. Audubon poured some over the moist, dark meat on his plate before handing his friend the gravy boat. Harris wanted to ignore puzzlements when he could. Not Audubon. They reminded him not only of how much he-and everyone else -didn't know yet, but also of how much he -in particular-might still find out.
As much as I have time for, he thought, and took another bite of goose.
Avalon rose on six hills. The city fathers kept scouting for a seventh so they could compare their town to Rome, but there wasn't another bump to be found for miles around. The west-facing Bay of Avalon gave the city that bore its name perhaps the finest harbor in Atlantis. A century and a half before, the bay was a pirates' roost. The buccaneers swept out to plunder the Hesperian Gulf for most of a lifetime, till a British and Dutch fleet drove them
