1632 Snippets

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 19 Chapter 11 In the morning Stephane found a sunny place on the dock to idle, waiting for an opportunity to present itself. Thomasville was an active port -- there was a lot going on, between fishing and mining…it was just a matter of finding a way off the island. Learning to wait was a part of one's nature as a spy. There was always something to wait for: means, motive, opportunity…it was something else Père Montségur had taught him: it was not merely what you did, but also when you did it that...

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 18 The second thing he noticed was the eyes: deep set, around a small nose; dark and piercing, as if they took in every detail. "Ah," the man said, gesturing to the table. "I see you have not partaken of refreshments." He turned to the guard who had opened the door for him. "Leave us, s'il vous plait," he said. "But, Monsieur --" The man held up one of those long-fingered hands. "Leave us," he repeated. "Do not make me repeat myself." The guard withdrew quickly, dismissed like a misbehaving hound....

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 17 Chapter 10 Paris was a long way from hilly Alsace where he had grown up, but it called to him from his youth. Youngest of eight children, there was nothing on the family farm to keep him there -- not working in the vineyards nor cultivating hops (his papa used to say, "wine and beer -- everyone drinks at least one") nor herding goats. He was not made out to be a monk, and there was no money to do much else. So, when he was seventeen, he left home and set out for the city. Nothing motivates quite like...

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 16 Chapter 9 They got the Cook's tour. In the two and a half years the Danes had been in Newfoundland, they'd done a great deal, establishing a thriving colony that could keep itself fed while exploiting the mineral resources of the island. The Abrabanel brothers had prepared Roe and his men very well, providing them with up-time maps of mineral resources -- iron, nickel, copper, even a few veins of gold in the north at Baie Verte. It was just the sort of industrial development that would make Christian...

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 15 * * * Dockside, Gordon expected to hear mostly Danish, but there was quite a mix of languages: English, German, even some French. The town, which was called Thomasville, had been here less than two years; the buildings were all new, with none of the weather-beaten look of every harbor in Europe. Feels like a movie set, he thought. Captain Johanssen and his men escorted Gordon and Peter along the dock, directing them toward a building with a clock tower, set back from the wharf. "Sir Thomas should be at...

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 14 PART II May 1636 The grinding waters and the gasping wind Wallace Stevens, "The Idea of Order at Key West" Chapter 8 Thomasville, Newfoundland Gordon wasn't sure what he expected to see when Challenger came in sight of land. He had a notion that the New World would look like an untamed wilderness, with settlements clinging to the coasts -- the slightest breeze capable of dropping them into the sea, palisades facing inland against attacks from hostile Indians. Movie stuff, or what boys read in their...

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 13 After a fair amount of cursing and ordering by Maartens, Challenger turned into the wind, keeping the ship relatively motionless. Jaeschke stepped back inside his sanctum, where the dials and instruments were already glowing. Maartens, for his part, leaned against the taffrail and squinted at the sky, which had gone from mostly sunny to mildly cloudy in a matter of minutes. "I don't like this, Chehab," he said, spitting over the side. "Not at all." "You wanted to make sure our patron agreed with the...

1636 The Atlantic Encounter - Snippet 12 Chapter 7 The North Atlantic A thousand years before Gordon was born, and more than six hundred years before the date on the calendar, people had made the crossing that Challenger was undertaking now. Their boats were even shallower draft and their instruments were far more primitive. They had not possessed an ephemeris or twentieth-century maps. Gordon also knew that they didn't have helmets with big horns, either: that was just in the movies and the comic books. But horny helmets or no, the Vikings...