Audubon in Atlantis

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?"