Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online

said again.

    Before long, Hastings bubbled with the name of Atlantis. If you wanted to go and settle someplace, you couldn’t very well keep where you were going a secret. Word spread fastest among fishermen and merchants, who had the ships to get to the new land. But others heard, too: the smiths and potters and carpenters who sold them the things they would need on the distant shore, and after that those in authority.
    Edward Radcliffe was dickering with a farmer named George Tree over several laying hens and a rooster when a black-robed priest strode up to him. “I would have speech with you, Master Radcliffe,” he said importantly.
    â€œWhat do you need, Father John?” Radcliffe asked.
    â€œStep aside, if you please.” The priest made it plain he wanted no one else to overhear.
    â€œWhatever you like, holy Father.” Edward nodded to the farmer. “I’ll be with you in a bit, George.”
    â€œThem birds won’t fly away while you’re gone,” Tree said.
    Father John had the smooth pink complexion and double chin of a man who’d seldom known hunger. He also had a blade of a nose and shrewd black eyes. “Do I hear rightly?” he asked after leading Edward down the muddy street till they could talk in reasonable privacy. “Do you purpose sailing off to the edge of the world and leaving the holy mother church behind?”
    â€œI do want to sail off, yes, Father,” Radcliffe said, and the priest’s mouth tightened. Quickly, the fisherman went on. “But I never dreamt of leaving the church behind. If a priest would come with us, we’d count it a blessing. There should be a chapel in Atlantis—why not?”
    â€œI…see,” Father John said slowly. Edward hoped he hid his own tension; he didn’t want every clergyman in town preaching against his venture. If anything could ruin his plans, that could. If people decided God was against them, they wouldn’t go. Father John tapped a forefinger against the side of his leg. “If a priest did come with you, you would give him proper support?”
    â€œWe’d be glad to have him, as I said. We’d give him what we could. I can’t say he wouldn’t have to work some on his own, though,” Radcliffe answered. “It’s a bare shore, you understand. We’ll all be working hard, at first, hard as can be. How can we have a drone among us, meaning no offense?”
    â€œPriests are not drones. Drones toil not, nor do they spin.” Father John’s voice was as stiff as his spine. Radcliffe thought priests fit the definition more than well enough, but saying so wouldn’t do. Sure enough, Father John went on, “Who would intercede with God, but for priests? Who would baptize, who hear confession, who give unction at the end of life?”
    â€œNo one,” Edward said, as he had to. He didn’t want to go out of life without unction, the way luckless Hugh Fenner had. But he was a stubborn man in his own right. “A priest who is respected among men is better than one who is not,” he insisted. “Anyone who pulls his own weight in this world will be better liked than a man who expects to be waited on hand and foot. Holy Father, you know there are priests like that. We both wish there weren’t, but there are. We don’t need one like that where everyone else is bending his back like a beast of burden.”
    Maybe his earnestness got through to Father John. “What sort of priest do you need then, eh, Radcliffe?”
    Edward calculated for a heartbeat and part of another. As if he hadn’t, he answered, “Why, one much like yourself, holy Father.”
    Had he read his man aright? “Me?” Father John rapped out. “Why would I want to sail to the back of beyond—beyond the back of beyond?”
    â€œWhere would you find a better chance to be your own man?” Edward asked. “You’d