The Dancer from Atlantis by Poul Anderson Page A
Authors: Poul Anderson
Tags: Science-Fiction
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disarming
mask over a sophisticated intelligence. The Kievan state was not the slum that most of its Western contemporaries were. Eight
million peope dwelt in a territory as big as the United States east of the Mississippi, a realm stuffed with natural resources
cannily exploited. Trade with the Byzantines was steady and heavy, bringing back not just their goods but their arts and ideas.
The Russian upper classes, more capitalists than noblemen, were literate,
au courant
with events abroad as well as at home; they lived in houses equipped with stoves and window glass; they ate with gold and
silver spoons, off plates set on sumptuous tablecloths, the meals including delicacies like oranges, lemons, and sugar; dogs,
never allowed indoors, had shelters of their own, and customarily a Hungarian groom to care for them and the horses; Kiev
in particular was a cosmopolitan home for a dozen different nationalities; the monarchy was not despotic, rather the system
granted so much freedom that popular assemblies, in Novgorod especially, often turned into brawls—
The point was that Oleg could place himself exactly in space and time: the eastward bend of the Dnieper, early June, 1050
A.D.
Uldin, vaguer, had spoken of recently taking over the land of the East Goths, after having first crushed the Alans, and of
greedy speculations about the Roman Empire to the west. From his dippings into history (thank fortune for a good memory!)
Reid could delimit the Hun’s scene of departure: the Ukraine, one or two hundred miles from the Crimea in a more or less northwesterly
direction; time, the later fourth century A.D.
Erissa posed the trickiest problem, for all her eager cooperation. The name of the island whence she had been seized, Malath,
was that bestowed by its largely Keftiu inhabitants. The English equivalent did not automatically come to Reid, any more than
he would have known Christiana and Oslo were identical if he had not been so informed.
He set aside the riddle of her former home, Atlantis. A continent that sank? Pure myth; geological impossibility, in any period
less than millions of years. And yet the name as used by her bore such a freight of the same meaning, the fair and happy realm
which the sea took back unto itself, that it had come through the helmet as more than a label. … Well she said her Atlantis
was gone. Where had she lived afterward? Might a clue be found in what that other folk whose language she also knew called
the place?
‘Rodhos,’ she told him, and all at once he understood. A few queries about its exact location
vis-à-vis
the mainland clinched the matter. Rhodes.
He shut his eyes and visualized, again, a terrestrial globe. It was reasonable to assume the space-time vehicle had followed
the most nearly direct geographical course it could. The assumption was strengthened by the fact that Hawaii, the ship’s position
in the North Pacific, the bend of the Dnieper, the southern Ukraine, and Rhodes did lie approximately on a great circle.
Okay, Reid thought in rising, tingling excitement. Extrapolate. What’s the next shore you hit?
Western Egypt or eastern Libya. A seacoast desert, if I remember aright.
He opened his eyes. Erissa’s hazel gaze was waiting for him. Briefly, he almost drowned in it. He yanked himself back from
beauty and said, ‘I think I have reasoned out where we are.’
‘Oh, Duncan!’ She rose to her knees and hugged him. Tired, thirsty, hungry, in mortal trouble, he felt her breasts press,
her lips touch.
Oleg coughed. Erissa let Reid go. The American sought to explain. It took a minute, because the woman called Egypt ‘Khem,’
which she said was the native as well as Keftiu name. When she grasped his intent, a little of the happiness went out of her.
‘Yes, the Achaeans say “Aigyptos.” Does so scant a recollection of my poor folk remain in your world?’
‘Egypt.’ Oleg tugged his beard. ‘That fits, gauging by
mask over a sophisticated intelligence. The Kievan state was not the slum that most of its Western contemporaries were. Eight
million peope dwelt in a territory as big as the United States east of the Mississippi, a realm stuffed with natural resources
cannily exploited. Trade with the Byzantines was steady and heavy, bringing back not just their goods but their arts and ideas.
The Russian upper classes, more capitalists than noblemen, were literate,
au courant
with events abroad as well as at home; they lived in houses equipped with stoves and window glass; they ate with gold and
silver spoons, off plates set on sumptuous tablecloths, the meals including delicacies like oranges, lemons, and sugar; dogs,
never allowed indoors, had shelters of their own, and customarily a Hungarian groom to care for them and the horses; Kiev
in particular was a cosmopolitan home for a dozen different nationalities; the monarchy was not despotic, rather the system
granted so much freedom that popular assemblies, in Novgorod especially, often turned into brawls—
The point was that Oleg could place himself exactly in space and time: the eastward bend of the Dnieper, early June, 1050
A.D.
Uldin, vaguer, had spoken of recently taking over the land of the East Goths, after having first crushed the Alans, and of
greedy speculations about the Roman Empire to the west. From his dippings into history (thank fortune for a good memory!)
Reid could delimit the Hun’s scene of departure: the Ukraine, one or two hundred miles from the Crimea in a more or less northwesterly
direction; time, the later fourth century A.D.
Erissa posed the trickiest problem, for all her eager cooperation. The name of the island whence she had been seized, Malath,
was that bestowed by its largely Keftiu inhabitants. The English equivalent did not automatically come to Reid, any more than
he would have known Christiana and Oslo were identical if he had not been so informed.
He set aside the riddle of her former home, Atlantis. A continent that sank? Pure myth; geological impossibility, in any period
less than millions of years. And yet the name as used by her bore such a freight of the same meaning, the fair and happy realm
which the sea took back unto itself, that it had come through the helmet as more than a label. … Well she said her Atlantis
was gone. Where had she lived afterward? Might a clue be found in what that other folk whose language she also knew called
the place?
‘Rodhos,’ she told him, and all at once he understood. A few queries about its exact location
vis-à-vis
the mainland clinched the matter. Rhodes.
He shut his eyes and visualized, again, a terrestrial globe. It was reasonable to assume the space-time vehicle had followed
the most nearly direct geographical course it could. The assumption was strengthened by the fact that Hawaii, the ship’s position
in the North Pacific, the bend of the Dnieper, the southern Ukraine, and Rhodes did lie approximately on a great circle.
Okay, Reid thought in rising, tingling excitement. Extrapolate. What’s the next shore you hit?
Western Egypt or eastern Libya. A seacoast desert, if I remember aright.
He opened his eyes. Erissa’s hazel gaze was waiting for him. Briefly, he almost drowned in it. He yanked himself back from
beauty and said, ‘I think I have reasoned out where we are.’
‘Oh, Duncan!’ She rose to her knees and hugged him. Tired, thirsty, hungry, in mortal trouble, he felt her breasts press,
her lips touch.
Oleg coughed. Erissa let Reid go. The American sought to explain. It took a minute, because the woman called Egypt ‘Khem,’
which she said was the native as well as Keftiu name. When she grasped his intent, a little of the happiness went out of her.
‘Yes, the Achaeans say “Aigyptos.” Does so scant a recollection of my poor folk remain in your world?’
‘Egypt.’ Oleg tugged his beard. ‘That fits, gauging by
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