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The Fata Morgana


Doomed Paradise

The ancient tales of European Man, carefully recorded by pious monks and hedge wizards alike, are insistent about the Western Isles. One of the tales of Doubting Thomas, the apostle, has it that he Christianized these islands and stayed there until the end of his days. The Arthurian legends clearly state that Arthur's father, Uther, came from the Western Isles.

Ancient and Medieval maps agree in showing them as being off the Western Coast of France. Lyonnesse was a part of the Western Islands, as was the City of Ys, Avalon, and the Land of Dahout.

Up until the time of the First Crusade, there are records of pilgrims visiting the Holy sites of the Western Islands. The remains of mercantile records of those days hint of trade with the islands of the west. Irish records and legends, which are generally regarded as reliable back to preChristian times, have many references to great floating islands being pushed by ocean currents and winds alike past the Emerald Isle, and sometimes becoming snagged there for a time.

The Icelandic Eddas make similar references.

Modern sailors and travelers sometimes sight great, many tiered cities near the ocean's horizon, but these people are rarely believed. It is easier for modern, technocentric man to believe in an optical illusion, the Fata Morgana.

This book is about two modern, hardheaded engineers who find the Western Islands.

"When I teach science fiction, I use Frankowski's books as an example of how to do it right."
—Gene Wolfe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leo Frankowski is widely known for the extremely popular "Cross-Time Engineer" series, which has gone through six novels to date, with translated editions in Italy, Spain, and Poland. He is also the author of Copernick's Rebellion, a novel of a future based on a revolution in the biological sciences, of which The SF Site writes, "I have never read anything as original as Copernick's Rebellion . . . [it's] on my top 10 list." His most recent novel is A Boy and His Tank (Baen). Frankowski was nominated for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer. He has held more than a hundred different positions, ranging from scientist in an electro-optical research lab to chief engineer to company president. His work in chemical and optical instrumentation has earned him several patents. Currently a writer and consulting engineer, he lives in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

Illustration by Gary Ruddell.
Cover design by Carol Russo Design
.


Hardcover
Paperback

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First paperback printing, July 2000

Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 0-671-57876-6

Copyright © 1999 by Leo A. Frankowski

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com

Typeset by Windhaven Press
Auburn, NH

Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com


DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my father,
Leo Stanley Frankowski
1921-1965

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A lot of good people helped me out by proofreading this book, and by giving me many valuable suggestions. Special thanks go to L. Warren Douglas, Alan G. Greenberg, Gilbert Parker, Tom and Jane Devlin, and Mike Hubble, who has a habit of quoting my books back at me, chapter and verse.

PUMMEL IN THE TUNNEL

I first noticed that something was definitely wrong when somebody hit me in the back of the head with a club.

I went flying down on my knees and elbows, slapped the ground, yelled, and came up on the bounce, smashing someone's testicles in the process.

A whole platoon of thugs was pouring out of a small doorway in the side of the tunnel. I caught a wall with one hand while swinging with the other, and then there were other things to do. It seemed like I was surrounded by dozens of the bastards!

In the movies, the hero can take on vast numbers of bad guys because the stunt men have the courtesy to come at him one at a time. That way, he only has to fight one opponent at a time, ten times in a row. If your enemies have any brains and coordination at all, they will mob you, all of them at once, and then you will go down, no matter how good you are. At best, you might take out one or two before you are deleted.

My opponents seemed to have neither brains nor coordination, but they did have enthusiasm, and there were an awful lot of them. Also, even waiting in line takes a certain amount of coordination, and for these idiots, fighting seemed to be a series of random events. Once, apparently by accident, four of them came at me at once, and I had to drop and roll. Fortunately, they weren't bright enough to know what to do to me once I was down. I was up again in a hurry, and dancing around.

I swear that there were at least fifteen of them on me alone. Against odds like that, you fight to win, without thinking about the damage, jail time, or lawsuits you might be generating. I've always been partial to knees. Knees are low and easy to get to without the flashy, dangerous, high kicks that some of the other good targets require. Also, knees break easily, they put your opponent down fast, and barring modern surgery, they generally don't heal properly for years, if they heal at all.

I guess I broke a lot of knees that night.


BAEN BOOKS by LEO A. FRANKOWSKI

A Boy and His Tank

The Fata Morgana

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