Free Atlantis and Other Places by Harry Turtledove

It seemed like forever before what he set down on paper bore any resemblance to the specimen that was its model.
    When he was finally satisfied, he held up the sketch to show it to Harris, only to discover his friend had gone off somewhere and he’d never noticed. Painting took far less concentration. It left room for artistry. This . . . This was a craft, and one in which he knew himself to be imperfectly skilled.
    He’d just inked his pen for the first time when Harris’ shotgun boomed. Would that be supper or another specimen? I’ll find out , Audubon thought, and set about turning his shades of gray into black and white. He had to turn the pelvis to compensate for the way shadows had shifted with the moving sun while he worked.
    Harris fired again. Audubon heard the blast, but didn’t consciously register it. His hand never twitched. A fine line here, shading there to show a hollow, the exact look of the gouge the eagle’s claw had dug before piercing the pelvis where the bone thinned . . .
    “We’ve got supper,” Harris said. Audubon nodded to show he heard. Harris went on, “And here’s something for you to work on when you’re done there.”
    That made Audubon look up. Along with a plump oil thrush, Harris carried a small, grayish, pale-bellied bird with a black cap. “An Atlantean tit!” Audubon said. The bird was closely allied to the tits of England and Europe and to Terranovan chickadees. Naturalists disagreed about which group held its nearest kin. At the moment, though, he was just glad he would be able to sketch and paint; to feel; to let imprecision be a virtue, not a sin. “Yes, that will be a change—and a relief.”
    “How’s the drawing coming?” Harris asked. Audubon showed him. Harris looked from the paper to the pelvis and back again. After a moment, he silently lifted his broad-brimmed felt hat from his head, a salute Audubon cherished more than most wordier ones.
    “Bones are all very well,” the artist said, “but I want the chance to draw honkers from life!”
     
     
    Audubon began to despair of getting what he wanted. He began to believe Harris’ gibe was right, and he’d come along just in time to find the last honker in the world moldering in the meadow. Could fate be so cruel?
    Whenever he started to fret, Harris would say, “Well, we’ve got something, anyway. We didn’t know for sure we’d get anything at all when we set out.” Every word of that was true, and it always made Audubon feel worse, not better.
    He spent several days haunting the meadow where his friend found the dead honker, hoping it was part of a flock or a gaggle or whatever the English word for a group of honkers was. No others showed up, though. He found no fresh tracks in the mud by the rill. At last, sorrowfully, he decided the dead bird must have been alone.
    “What if it was the last one?” he said. “To miss it by a few days . . . Why couldn’t we have shot the eagle sooner? Then the honker would still be alive!”
    He waited for Harris to be grateful again for what they had. But Harris surprised him, saying, “No use worrying about it. We don’t know that eagle got that honker, anyhow.”
    “Well, no,” Audubon admitted upon reflection. “Maybe it was some other villainous eagle instead.” He got most affronted when Harris laughed at him.
    Even though he was forced to admit to himself that honkers weren’t going to visit the meadow, he was loath to leave it. He knew at least one live bird had frequented it up until mere days before. About what other spot in all Atlantis—in all the world—could he say the same?
    He kept looking back over his shoulder long after he and Harris rode away. “Don’t worry,” said Harris, the optimist born. “Bound to be better land ahead.”
    “How do you know that?” Audubon demanded.
    Harris surprised him by having an answer: “Because as best I can tell, nobody’s ever come this way before. We’re on a track now, not a road. I haven’t