Alternate Americas Read online

  What Might have Been

  Volume 4

  Alternate Americas

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  Gregory Benford

  REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE

  Harry Turtledove

  INK FROM THE NEW MOON

  A.A. Attanasio

  VINLAND THE DREAM

  Kim Stanley Robinson

  IF THERE BE CAUSE

  Sheila Finch

  ISABELLA OF CASTILE ANSWERS HER MAIL

  James Morrow

  LET TIME SHAPE

  George Zebrowski

  RED ALERT

  Jerry Oltion

  SUCH A DEAL

  Esther M. Friesner

  LOOKING FOR THE FOUNTAIN

  Robert Silverberg

  THE ROUND-EYED BARBARIANS

  L. Sprague de Camp

  DESTINATION: INDIES

  Brad Linaweaver

  SHIP FULL OF JEWS

  Barry Malzberg

  THE KARAMAZOV CAPER

  Gordon Eklund

  THE SLEEPING SERPENT

  Pamela Sargent

  INTRODUCTION

  Columbus was certainly not the first European to “discover” the New World as a reality. But he did discover—perhaps invent is a better word—the New World as an energetic metaphor.

  Scholars have pretty well decided that the famous Leif Ericson landed as far south as Cape Cod around A.D. 1003. His brother Thorvald followed him, to the place they called Vinland, about 1007. (Naming the land for vines suggests they got fairly far south.) There is some evidence of later expeditions from Iceland and even settlements that struggled along for generations on the coast of Canada. They finally failed, probably from a chilling dip in the already harsh climate.

  There have been dozens of other suggested sites. Stone ruins in New Hampshire that might be from the Bronze Age. Coins from Carthage turning up on mid-Atlantic islands. Phoenician inscriptions on rocks in Pennsylvania. Roman coins in Venezuela. Iron nails buried in Virginia. Legends like those about Quetzalcoatl, which may have sprung from a visit by Europeans in the century before Cortez.

  All quite possible indeed. The New World was a huge place, consistently underestimated by map makers for centuries after 1492, and it was hard to make any impact on such vastness. Clearly the earlier adventurers didn’t “take”—Europe did not rush to follow up these brave voyages.

  Why not? Maybe the word didn’t get to the right people, because the explorers were marginal types themselves, as far as most of Europe was concerned. Leif Ericson was a legend in Iceland, but nobody had heard of him in Spain. Then, too, the Little Ice Age made much of North America a tough place to start out for several centuries after the Icelanders ventured forth.

  More generally historians mutter about the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. Europe wasn’t prosperous and expansive enough, before 1492, to seize its opportunities. Perhaps that contributed to the curious inertia that earlier discoveries met.

  Columbus was the right man at the right time. He was quite wrong about the size of the earth, but by determination and sailing skill he discovered what nobody anticipated—a paradigm of why we do research today. Others quickly followed up his epic voyages, wealth poured forth, vistas opened. Quite quickly, truly global trade began. Thus the Spanish hunger for gold, for that was just about all they could trade for the exotic treats of the Orient, such as silks and spices.

  Columbus died moderately well off, though not rich. He did not know how great a change he had brought. Much recent talk has stressed the great damage done to native cultures by the Europeans, but it seems quite plausible that such destruction was inevitable, no matter how the Europeans behaved. (And indeed, many of them were quite awful.) Simple, low-level technologies crumble before advanced ones. Cultures built on stratification and order dissolve. Ideas worm their way in—and some native practices, such as human sacrifice, were forcefully ended.

  That opening to fresh perspectives has brought the most far-reaching change possible. The Europeans exploded onto the world stage, and five hundred years later their curious scientific-technological culture, with its great stress on individual rights, stands astride all others.

  But what if it had played a bit differently? History looks so inevitable in the hands of most historians. Few convey the fragile tissue of events, the way the past might have been altered. Indeed, the past keeps changing as we look at it, as Kim Stanley Robinson suggests in his story. Could the whole Vinland idea turn out to be shaky? It seems rock solid today. But imagine the changes in our attitudes if it proved wrong.

  We have collected in this fourth volume of the What Might Have Been series a set of commissioned stories that look at ways the discovery and opening up of the New World might have been different. There are novel ideas here, both amusing and sobering, resulting in worlds that seem distinctly alien. Some are better, some worse. Settings range from our present, back to times shortly after the assumed changes have occurred. In sum they convey some sense of the many paths that grand human adventure might have followed.

  —GREGORY BENFORD

  3 DECEMBER 1991

  REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE

  Harry Turtledove

  30 November 1491

  To: Their Hispanic Majesties Fernando II and Isabella From: The Special Committee on the Quality of Life Re: The environmental impact upon Spain of the proposed expedition of the Genoese navigator Cristóbal Colón, styled in his native Italian Cristoforo Colombo

  The commission of learned men and mariners, established by Your Majesties under the chairmanship of Fr. Hernando de Talavera, during the period 1486-90 studied exhaustively the proposals set forth by the Genoese captain Colon and rejected them as being extravagant and impractical. In the present year a second commission, headed by the Grand Cardinal, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, has also seen fit to decline the services of Colon. The present Special Committee on the Quality of Life finds itself in complete accord with the actions of the previous two bodies of inquiry. It is our unanimous conclusion that the rash scheme advocated by this visionary would, if implemented, do serious damage to the finances and ecology of Spain; that this damage, if permitted, would set a precedent for future, more serious outrages of our environment; and, most important, that the proposed voyage would expose any sailors engaged thereon to unacceptable risk of permanent bodily illness and injury and even death.

  Certain people may perhaps suggest that the sea program of this kingdom is essential to its future growth. To this uninformed view we may only offer our wholehearted opposition. The Atlantic sea program demands extremely high expenses and hazards in both men and materiel, for gains at best speculative but more likely nonexistent. Now more than ever, the kingdom’s resources need to be concentrated at home, to bring the long war against the heathen Moors of Granada to a successful conclusion. At such a crucial time, we should waste no money on a program whose returns, if any, will not be manifest for some decades.

  If funds must be committed to the sea program, they should be earmarked for national defense goals in the Mediterranean Sea, not spent on wild-eyed jaunts into the trackless and turbulent Atlantic. Until and unless we succeed in overcoming the corsair gap now existing, our southern coast will remain vulnerable to attacks from Algeria and Morocco even after the Moors of Granada are brought under our control. Moreover, if we fail to move against the heathen states of Africa, they shall surely fall under the aegis of the expansionist Ottoman sultanate, with potential profound consequences to the balance of power in the area, as strong infidel forces will then be enabled to strike at our routes to our Italian possessions.

  It may be argued that shipbu
ilding will aid the economy of those areas near ports. This view is superficial and shortsighted. True, jobs may be provided for lumberjacks, carpenters, sailmakers, etc., but at what cost to the world in which they live? Barring reforestation projects, for which funding does not appear to be forthcoming, any extensive shipbuilding venture will inevitably result in the denuding of significant areas of the kingdom and the deformation of the long-established ecological patterns of the wildlife therein. In any case it is questionable whether shipbuilding represents the ideal utilization of our limited timber resources. The quantity of wood required to construct an oceangoing vessel could better be employed to provide low-income housing for whole villages of peasants, or to furnish even larger numbers of underprivileged citizens with firewood sufficient for an entire fiscal year.

  Further, especially for long voyages such as that urged by Colon, ships must carry extensive stores (this point will again be alluded to later in the report). The question must be posed as to whether our agricultural industry is adequate even to care for the current needs of the population of Spain itself. Surely an affirmative answer to this question, such as cannot with assurance be given at present, is necessary before expansion can be contemplated and resources diverted for it. We must put a halt to these environmentally disadvantageous programs before they become so ingrained in our lifestyle that their removal presents difficulty.

  There is yet another factor to be considered, one closely related to that referred to in the previous sentence. Even if Colon precisely fulfills his expectations, what will the consequences of this “success” be for Spain? Many substances about which we know little, and which may well prove hazardous, will begin to enter the kingdom in large quantities, and control over their sale and distribution will be difficult to achieve. We run a substantial risk of seeing the nation filled with addicts to toxins now unknown. Nor is it possible to discount the dangers of ideological contamination, which is as much to be feared as is the physical. It is doubtful whether the inhabitants of the distant lands the Genoan plans to visit share our religious and cultural benefits. Yet it is also probable that certain of their number may settle on our soil and attempt to disseminate their inadequate but perhaps seductive doctrines among our populace. As we are now on the point of expelling the Jews from our state and have nearly overcome the Muslim Moors, why should we hazard the homogeneity we have at last achieved after almost eight centuries of sustained effort?

  The sudden influx of new goods will also disrupt our traditional economic organization. There can be no doubt that there will be an increase in the monetary supply because of the profit made by reselling Eastern goods throughout Europe, but can a corresponding increase in the volume of goods and services be predicted? If the answer to this question is in the negative, as all current economic indicators would imply, then the “success” of Colon would seem to bring with it a concomitant inflationary pressure that would tend to eat into the profits derived from that success and would make life more difficult and expensive for the average Spaniard. Also, any substantial increase in the sea program would force the diversion of labor from its traditional concern to maritime activities. Such a shift could not help but further disjoint our economy, and cannot be anticipated with anything but trepidation. The dislocation could even be so severe as to cause emigration to the Eastern lands, which would of course entail a draining of the best of the kingdom’s populace from its shores.

  Finally, if the government of Spain is to approve, fund, and provide manpower for the Colon expedition, it must have some assurance that it is not dangerously imperiling the health and future well-being of the members of that expedition. The dangers of the seaman’s trade are notorious and he performs his labors on a nutritionally inadequate diet of what can only be described as “junk food”: hardtack, salt meat, and dried peas, with perhaps a bit of cheese. This regimen is manifestly unhealthful, and Colon and the men under his charge would be unable to supplement it except through fishing. They would not enjoy the advantage, as do sailors of the Mediterranean Sea and also the Portuguese in their journeys down the coast of Africa, of replenishing their supplies at relatively brief intervals, but would be compelled to make do once having departed the Canary Islands. Nor is the situation in regard to potables much better, these being restricted to casked water and wine. The probability is extremely high that at least some of the former will go bad; the latter faces not only this danger, but, if drunk to excess, has the potential of severely compromising the efficiency of ship’s operations and thereby reducing an already low margin of safety. Ships are designed so that only the captain enjoys the luxury of a cabin with a bunk, and even this private space is scarcely more than might be found in a closet ashore. Sailors and underofficers are compelled to sleep wherever they are able to find room, in the same clothing they have worn during the day. Thus the life-support systems of any Atlantic sea expeditionary force at the current level of technology must be deemed inadequate.

  Navigational instruments are also crude in the extreme. Quadrant and astrolabe are so cumbersome, and so likely to be grossly impacted by ship’s motion, as to be little more useful than dead reckoning in the determination of latitude; dead reckoning alone serves in estimating longitude. For a voyage of the length anticipated by Colon, these factors, in combination with the stormy nature of the Atlantic and the likelihood of meeting unanticipated hazards with no support facilities upon which to fall back, give the Genoan’s proposals a degree of risk so high that no merciful sovereign could in good conscience allow his subjects to endanger themselves in the pursuit thereof.

  Therefore, it is the determination of the Special Committee on the Quality of Life, appointed by Your Hispanic Majesties as per the environmental protection regulations of the realm, that the proposals of Colon do in the several ways outlined above comprise a clear and present danger to the quality and security of life within the kingdom, and that they should for that reason be rejected once more. Respectfully in triplicate submitted by

  Jaime Nosénada

  Chairman of the Special Committee on the Quality of Life

  INK FROM THE NEW MOON

  A.A. Attanasio

  Here, at the farthest extreme of my journey, in the islands along the eastern shores of the Sandalwood Territories, with all of heaven and earth separating us—here at long last I have found enough strength to pen these words to you. Months of writing official reports, of recording endless observations of bamboo drill-derricks and cobblestone canals irrigating horizons of quilted fields, of interviewing sooty laborers in industrial barns and refineries roaring with steam engines and dazzling caldrons of molten metal, of scrutinizing prisoners toiling in salt-canyons, of listening to schoolchildren sing hymns in classrooms on hill-crowned woods and in cities agleam with gold-spired pavilions and towers of lacquered wood—all these tedious annotations had quite drained me of the sort of words one writes to one’s wife; but, at last, I feel again the place where the world is breathing inside me.

  Forgive my long silence, Heart Wing. I would have written sooner had not my journey across the Sandalwood Territories of the Dawn been an experience for me blacker than ink can show. Being so far from the homeland, so far from you, has dulled the heat of my life. Darkness occupies me. Yet this unremitting gloom brings with it a peculiar knowledge and wisdom all its own—the treasure that the snake guards—the so-called poison cure. Such is the blood’s surprise, my precious one, that even in the serpent’s grip of dire sorrow, I should find a clarity greater than any since my failures took me from you.

  You, of course, will only remember me as you left me—a sour little man for whom being Third Assistant Secretarial Scribe at the Imperial Library was more punishment than privilege; the husband whittled away by shame and envy, whom you dutifully bid farewell from our farm’s moon gate on the avenue of chestnuts in the cloud-shadowed bowl of the grasslands. All so long ago, it seems. What a humiliation that the only way I could support you was to leave you. And for such an ignoble tas
k—to examine the social structure of rebel provinces that have repudiated our finest traditions. I was so embittered that for most of my journey I referred to the region as the Sandalwood Territories of the Dawn, as if their secession from the Kingdom had happened only in their minds, two hundred years of independence from us an illusion before the forty-five centuries of our written history. Even their name for themselves seemed sheer arrogance: the Unified Sandalwood Autocracies. As if there could be any true autocracy but the Emperor’s. Still, I had been selected to regard them as if they were genuine, and I had to humble myself or face the ignominy of losing even this menial job.

  I never said any of this to you then. I could barely admit it to myself. But I need to say it clearly now—all of it, the obvious and the obscure—to make sense of my life and yours. Yes, I do admit, I was ashamed, most especially in your eyes. Only you, Heart Wing, know me for who I truly am—a storyteller hooked on the bridebait of words, writing by the lamp of lightning. Yet my books, those poor, defenseless books written in the lyrical style of a far-gone time!—well, as you know too well, there was no livelihood for us on those printed pages. My only success as a writer was that my stories won you for me. After our blunderful attempt to farm in the Western Provinces, to live the lives of field-and-stream poet-recluses, which defiance of destiny and station cost us your health and the life of our one child, all my pride indeed soured to cynicism and self-pity. I felt obliged to accept the Imperial post because there seemed no other recourse.

  From that day eighteen moons ago until now, the shadow of night has covered me. I was not there to console you in your grief when our second child fell from your womb before he was strong enough to carry his own breath. By then the big ship had already taken me to the Isles of the Palm Grove Vow in the middle of the World Sea. There I sat surrounded by tedious tomes of Imperial chronicles about the Sandalwood Territories, while you suffered alone.