International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1997 Views and Commentaries The Tide of History Donald H. Keith,1 Toni L. Carre 11,1 Denise C. La key,1 Joe J. Simmons III,1 and Jerry Goodale1 Two stories are told simultaneously: one that may have been, and one that yet might be. The story of the voyage that might have been is based on archaeological evidence provided by the earliest shipwreck discovered in the New World. These two stories are set in different eras to demonstrate certain constants in the human drive to explore the unknown, in the methods used, and in the consequences encountered. KEY WORDS: voyages of exploration; process of discovery; patterns in exploration; frontiers; prediction. /'// make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive. (Le Guin, 1964, p. 17) There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves Or lose our ventures (Shakespeare, 1992, p. 1052—Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3) 'Ships of Discovery, Corpus Christi Museum, 1900 North Chaparral, Corpus Christi, Texas 78401, USA. 57 l092-7697/97/0300-0057$12.50/0 O 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation 58 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale INTRODUCTION Archaeologists would like to believe that their discipline contributes to understanding the past. If, as has been suggested, the future is the past happening over and over again now, then archaeology has the potential to play a very important role in understanding the future as well. Perhaps it is easier to see the changes that have taken place over the last 500 years than to see what has not changed. The effects of improved technology have altered the cultural and physical landscape irrevocably. But certain constants in human nature either are immutable or are so slow to respond that an interval of 500 years is insufficient to reveal detectable change. Almost two centuries ago, flush with the apparent successes of scientific theories in explaining observable natural phenomena, scientists reasoned that the universe might be completely deterministic. Perhaps, they thought, there is a set of natural laws that, once discovered, would enable scientists to predict everything—even human behavior. There was only one problem, finding a starting place. The principle could not work unless it were possible to know the exact state of the universe at one point in time (Hawking, 1988, pp. 57-58). More recently, this caveat has been recognized as a fatal flaw. First, the uncertainty principle and, then, the broad-ranging chaos theory were used to explain science's apparent inability to understand or predict complex microphenomena, such as the position and velocity of subatomic particles, and macrophenomena, such as the weather. Most anthropologists would reject the proposition that human behavior is predictable in any but the most general sense. Hence, mainstream anthropology carries little currency among practitioners of economics, political science, urban planning, insurance, marketing, and futuristics. In apparent contrast to this view, Isaac Asimov, in his speculative fiction classic Foundation (1951), describes a universe of the future in which psychohistorians have reduced human behavior to mathematical functions that can be used to predict—and even to steer—the future of humanity. Using nonmathematical concepts, psychohistory is defined as "that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli" (Asimov, 1951, p. 17). But in the story Asimov also recognized an irreducible element of uncertainty in the future, unpredictable even to the sophisticated and complex mathematical models of psychohistory. While predicting the future with precision is beyond the capabilities of modern science, recognizing principles and patterns is not. One such set of principles is that by which large-scale exploration of physical space is accomplished. A pattern can be discerned in the events leading to the mari- The Tide of History 59 time exploration of the world half a millennium ago and those of the present day verging on the exploration of space. There are striking similarities between the world of 1492 and that of 1992. Five hundred years ago Spain embarked on the maritime exploration of the Ocean Sea. Today it is the exploration of the final frontier, space, that confronts us. The Spain Columbus knew had just emerged from the reconquista, a centuries-long military territorial contest with the Moors. The world we know has recently seen the sudden conclusion of the Cold War and a dramatic shift toward a new world order. In both worlds the end of constant military conflict left industries and individuals built and bred for war looking for alternative employment. At the end of the fifteenth century, meeting the challenge of the new frontier was not so different from meeting the military challenges once faced by the reconquistadores. A realistic appraisal of what drove maritime exploration in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has been proposed elsewhere (Keith et al, 1989). The objectives were simple: find something worth taking, take it, get it back to the parent economy, convert it to wealth and power, and ensure that places where things of interest were found could be relocated and claimed. If this appraisal seems cynical, it should be remembered that strong incentives are needed to entice explorers to undertake missions during which they may be required to risk death as well as financial ruin. Operating outside their culture and realm of influence, explorers may be out of communication for extended periods during which they can be neither regulated nor protected by the parent culture. Faced with these conditions, it is not surprising that explorers become aggressively acquisitive. For these driving forces to come into play, it is necessary for the parent society to create an incentive for exploration, to build a permanent presence and secure base of operations, and to regulate exploration and exploitation. These factors in Spain's exploration of the New World constitute a pattern that are important considerations in the exploration of space. Archaeology is fortunate indeed to occupy a pivotal position in the here and now, squarely between past and present. Archaeologists and historians are obliged to uncover and interpret the past. Occasionally they attempt to extrapolate the past's lessons into the future. The problem is to decide what really happened in the past. One such problem arose in 1976 when salvage divers first saw the shipwreck on Molasses Reef. At the time, they did not realize what it was. There, in a pocket of the reef only 6 m deep, lay what they at first took to be sewer pipes—but what would sewer pipes be doing on a reef over 24 km (15 mi) from the nearest inhabited island? Mildly intrigued, they raised some of the objects and carried them back to Miami. Years later, an historian happened to see the artifacts and immediately recognized them 60 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale as the gun tubes and breech chambers of old-fashioned wrought-iron breechloading artillery. Armed with this knowledge and hoping to turn a quick buck, the salvors announced that they had found one of the three ships used on Columbus' first voyage to the New World in 1492. Because it did not contain any treasure, the shipwreck's only value was historical, and as the salvors soon learned, much to their disappointment, historians do not have a lot of money. Eventually, they abandoned their plans to pull the ship up and tour it on a flatbed trailer and turned their attention to other schemes. Meanwhile, the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands, the tiny nation to which Molasses Reef belongs, sought a scientific evaluation from professional archaeologists. After visiting the site, the archaeologists reported that it appeared to be one of the earliest shipwrecks ever discovered in the Americas. More than a year passed before the government finally authorized excavation of the site in 1982. In their previous survey, the archaeologists had determined that the site was an early one from its small size and the type of ordnance present. However, as soon as they removed the sand and debris covering it, they began to suspect that they were dealing with a Spanish shipwreck from perhaps the earliest years of European maritime exploration of the New World. A reporter who was present dubbed it "the mystery wreck of Molasses Reef." The ceramics were types consistent with this diagnosis, as was a matched pair of haquebuts, or "hand cannons"—more characteristic of a fifteenth-century than a sixteenth-century date. Total excavation of the site took almost 6 months, spread over a 4-year period, but that was just the beginning. The real excavation took place more than 2600 km away, in a cleaning and conservation laboratory in Texas to which the artifacts were shipped. Most of the vessel's wooden hull had long since vanished. The objects that remained were heavily encrusted metals, many of which were in poor condition after five centuries beneath the sea. In most cases the smaller iron objects had completely disintegrated inside their calcareous cocoons. Years later, after cleaning, conservation, and analysis of the artifacts were complete, the archaeologists had a better idea of the ship's date and identity, but they still had more questions than answers. The ship's apparent early date and its location in the Turks and Caicos Islands hint at its involvement in the illegal trade in Indian captives. Sadly and somewhat ominously, the Lucayan Tainos, the first New World people to encounter Europeans were the first to become extinct. Could it be that the locked shackles the archaeologists recovered had been secured around the ankles of an unfortunate Indian being carried back to Espanola for sale? The Tide of History 61 But what ship was it? Did it belong to one of the explorers? Where was it sailing from? What was its destination? Who was on board? What was their mission? And how did this small vessel fit into history? The discovery of a ship wrecked on the iron-nickel asteroid M-8010 didn't exactly create waves of excitement that rippled throughout the Terran system. It was more like the plop of a Trantorian amoeba into a glass of what passed for potable water on the frontier. In fact, news of the discovery, made in earfy 2490, was summed up only in a brief memo from mining operations chief Mendez to the Intra-Galactic Archaeological Clearinghouse, I-G-A-C headquarters finally passed on the job of checking out the vague report to a team of shipwreck archaeologists stationed in the same sector as M-8010. Nearly 2 years later, on January 9, 2492, the archaeological team arrived on the mining asteroid just as it was in the midst of a characteristic bombardment by dust and coarse asteroid fragments. After a harrowing landing, the team leader remarked, "This is not an auspicious beginning." The archaeologists didn't really expect to find anything. Even the directions to the site were third-hand—the original discovers hadn 't really seen the ship, only caught a glimpse of it after viewing tapes from an unmanned probe scanning for valuable metals. But there it was—half-buried in the surface of the asteroid: its dull gray skin wrinkled and dented, a stabilizer broken off and resting nearby, but overall still recognizable as a ship. Initial reconnaissance of the debris field and ship's interior revealed little of note except the tattered remains of a cargo net snagged on the edge of a jagged wound in the hull. It wasn't until disassembly was well under way that the first hard evidence came to light that supported the team's initial dating of earfy twenty-first century Earth. There, among the debris in engineering, was a small optical disk once used to record information, images, and sound. Discovery of the 3-cm disk confirmed that the ship was from Earth's earliest period of sustained extraterrestrial exploration. Less than a handful of ships were missing from that period. Most were broken up for scrap centuries before. There was even some excited talk among the archaeologists that the ship could be from the Mars Lowell Colony, the planet's first. Needless to say, a second memo verifying the antiquity of the ship was received at I-G-A-C with a good deal more enthusiasm. In the meantime, the ship was dismantled piece by piece, each scanned, encoded, and carefully loaded into a freighter bound for the New Galicia station slowfy orbiting Callisto. Analysis in the lab provided few clues about the origin or mission of the ship. Later, the disk was positivefy identified as a superdensity micro type popular for about 10 years around the year 2000, and strictly Terran. Retrieving information from the ancient artifact proved problematic; whatever was once 62 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale recorded was now gone. Any hope of finding a clue to the identity of the ship or its crew lay with the archaeology team, who had more questions than answers. Who was on board? Where did they start their journey? What were they doing in the middle of the asteroid belt? Why did they crash? Were there survivors? Over the course of several years, the team followed the clues provided in the wreckage and in scattered and often incomplete archival data banks to piece together the puzzle of the M-8010 shipwreck. INCENTIVE Standing on deck, Miguel was relieved to find that his uncle's ship, Madalena, was larger than she looked from shore. Still, to a young man who was not born to the sea, the idea of spending 2 months on board was daunting. That was how long it might take to cross the Ocean Sea to reach the New World, he had been told, although in truth the voyage would be broken into two parts—from Palos to the Canaries and thence to Santo Domingo. Miguel recognized the uncertainties of the voyage as no great deterrent. All life was uncertain. He put his trust in God and that was that. What of the risks involved? Risk is a relative term. He had to evaluate the risk of a lonely, watery death that he now faced against the risk he incurred simply by staying home in Cadiz with little or no chance of rising above his status as third son of a lesser noble family. In Spain, his options were limited indeed, and the outcome very predictable. But in the New World were vast opportunities—and where there is opportunity, there is always commensurate risk. After stowing his meager belongings, Miguel mingled with the other passengers. Like him, they were excited at the prospect of the voyage. And their reasons for leaving home and seeking their fortunes in the New World were, like his, as simple as they were imperative: to seek their fortunes in a land of opportunity. It had been 20 years since the Genoese navigator Columbus discovered the islands west of Spain. Eventually, others had followed in his footsteps, tracing the outline of a vast, hitherto unknown continent south of the islands. In the intervening two decades, thousands of Spaniards had crossed to the New World. Some decided to stay there. Some had returned to Spain, rich beyond measure. This was Miguel's dream: to earn his fortune in the New World, to return to Jerez, and to live in luxury on the estate he would purchase with his wealth. In some ways, Miguel was driven by the same perceived incentives that pervaded and drove his entire society; the reconquista had impoverished the country. When it was complete and Granada finally taken from The Tide of History 63 the Moors, residual inertia propelled men conditioned by centuries of aggression and military campaigning across the Ocean Sea, thirsting for new lands to conquer and wealth to amass. At the scale of nations, Spain's returns from the New World had not yet amounted to much, but already exploration and colonization were noticeably stimulating Spain's economy and vitality. Miguel was bound for Santo Domingo, the Spanish capital in the New World, where he expected to join his uncle, Don Ricardo Cabeza, who was already well established there. Don Ricardo had gone to the New World in 1502, and under the governorship of Nicolas de Ovando, he had flourished. Normally, Madalena did not sail without Don Ricardo at the helm, but before the last trip back to Spain, the uncle had taken ill at the last minute, so a fellow master had agreed to make the round trip. Miguel was a little hazy as to exactly what Don Ricardo did with his ships, but he knew it had to do with trade and quick profits. Almost everyone now recognized that the land the Genoese discovered west of Spain was not the real Indies—the fabled lands of silk, spices, and other riches; but it was a lot closer to Spain, and a fortune is a fortune, wherever it is found! PRIVATE ENTERPRISE The metal walkway bounced and clanged as passengers shuffled across to the space shuttle perched patiently on the launch pad. Keiko squirmed restlessly. They'd be strapped into their seats an hour or more before lift-off—if previous experience were any guide. They say pilots (not to mention copilots) always make the worst passengers. She would have to agree. Despite the excitement she felt at the prospect of a new assignment, being a mere passenger for the 4-hr flight to space station Freedom made her edgy. She was much more comfortable when occupied with the flurry ofpreflight checks and terse communications with the tower. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes (an old passenger trick), Keiko sat back to try to relax. Working in space was what Keiko really wanted to do. Both of her parents worked at Johnson Spaceflight Center, and from the time she was bom, she was surrounded by thoughts and images of space. But after listening to her parents talk for years about budget and personnel cuts, Keiko knew she didn't want to go the government route. She was only 4 years old when Challenger blew up, an incident that nearly ended the U.S. space program. It was 2 long years before the "old" NASA launched another shuttle and many more years before they recaptured the confidence of the public. Keiko didn't fool herself, she knew there were risks, but the irrepressible lure of space and the opportunities it afforded were worth it. 64 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale Keiko's employer, a conglomerate of manufacturing and mining enterprises, supported a small fleet of Seeker-class ships for commercial exploration of the nearby planets, moons, and asteroid belt. That meant good money for crews working for Space ExCo. In addition to a salary, they received generous bonuses for locating or identifying commercially viable resources. Keiko was sure that the bonuses would enable her to achieve a second dream, to have her home on a ranch in the cool mountains of Colorado, where she could indulge herself in raising horses. Keiko, like many of her generation, was capitalizing on the newest economic frontier—space exploration coupled with business ventures. The end of the cold war in the early 1990s and the decline in military spending set the United States and most of the industrialized nations on a recessionary course. Newly democratic, Eastern block and ex-Soviet countries were reeling under a combination of economic stagnation and inflation. NASA's vision of a space station was quickly fading as well until a cooperative agreement with private business set the dream back on course. When construction of Freedom started in 1996, it sparked increased activity in scientific and business circles worldwide. In exchange for investment, Space ExCo—along with several other major international conglomerates— was granted access to the station as a space port to conduct commercial exploration for mineral resources and industrial manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals, electronics, and alloys. To Keiko, Freedom was the single most exciting and interesting place to be. TAILORS, BAKERS, AND CANDLESTICK MAKERS Madalena descended the Rio Tinto with three companions, departing Palos on a falling tide that bright morning. Madalena was a swift caravel, square rigged to fly across the sea on canvas wings. Two others were also caravels, but the fourth was a sluggish nao, a storeship carrying passengers and supplies. Miguel cringed as he overheard the ship's boy, a lad of 12 or 13, bemoan the presence of the nao since it would certainly retard their progress. Twenty years ago, Columbus had made similar complaints about a certain Santa Maria. In spite of the dire predictions of the skeptics, Columbus and his crew had sailed from this very port into eternal fame by crossing the same Ocean Sea. Now, sailing to the other side of the sea was such a common occurrence that no one would admit to ever doubting that it could be done. Every sailor Miguel had encountered in the local wine shops during the 3 weeks he awaited the fleet's departure had told him that the importance of Christopher Columbus was highly overrated. No, it The Tide of History 65 was Palos's own Pinzon brothers who deserved most of the credit for the successful conclusion of that voyage. To be sure, strong personalities influenced the exploration of the seas every step of the way. Ever since Prince Henry of Portugal established a school for mariners at Sagres to make exploration by sea systematic, rapid progress had been made. Prince Henry established maritime exploration as a national imperative, but it was not until the successful completion of Vasco da Gama's voyage to India around the southern tip of Africa that the validity of the imperative was established. Spain and Portugal shared nautical designs, traditions, and technologies, so it was not surprising that they became competitors in the spice race. While any sailor would tell you that having the right ship is advisable, not one of them would ever consider that it was more important than the individual personalities that conceived and pursued the project. But if Columbus had not crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, someone else—perhaps the German cosmographer Martin Beheim—would have the next year or the year after. The time for transoceanic voyaging had come. Ship design, construction technology, rigging, navigation, armament, and on-board, longterm livability had evolved to answer the challenge of the sea, and it was inevitable that they would be used to do so. Now, everyone was doing it, even tailors and biscuit bakers. It was hard to keep the interlopers out. The glory once associated with accomplishing the feat had been diluted by the ever increasing number of people doing it. The little fleet headed southwest, steering for the Canaries. From the port rail, Miguel watched as the coast of Spain gradually receded. Before the end of the day, land could be seen no longer and the fleet was alone in the immensity of the Ocean Sea. Miguel felt very bad, very bad indeed, and not only because he was leaving the world where he belonged. It would be a day or two before his body adjusted to the unfamiliar motion of the world of water, rising, falling, rising, falling. In the meantime, he would stay close to the rail. Victoria, an improved shuttle design used for transit between Earth and the orbiting space station, thundered as it lifted off. Keiko looked out the port on her left at the marshlands and smooth beach of Cape Canaveral as they began to recede. For a few years the space port had been called Cape Kennedy for the president who really launched the U.S. space effort. In those days not much was actually happening in space, not until the 1957 launch of Sputnik that threw America into a frenzy of one-upmanship, instigating a space race between the United States and the old Soviet Union. But it was Kennedy who gave the American program a goal in his 1961 speech to Congress, challenging 66 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale the nation to put a man on the moon before the end of that decade. Kennedy's speech rekindled the spirit of manifest destiny—a destiny that lay not westward across an ocean or a continent, but upward and outward, among the stars. That must have been quite a thrill, being the first human to walk on the moon. Keiko furrowed her brow, trying to recall the astronaut's name—Nick, no Neil Armstrong. As the Earth faded from her view, Keiko wondered if anyone would remember her name in 40 years. Probably not, there were so many people working and living in space now. Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn—all those guys with the "right stuff "—would always be remembered because they were the first. But the names and faces quickly became too numerous. Later, it wasn't the people who were remembered, it was the image of men riding plumes of fire and smoke into space. It was where they went. ENTREPRENEURS It was clear to Miguel soon after his arrival in Santo Domingo that his uncle's business was based largely on unsavory, perhaps even illicit activities. Miguel was not sure. He was certain they would have been illicit in Spain. But here, in Santo Domingo, lived another world altogether. Separated from authority in Spain, the colonists (a few thousand in number) made their own decisions. By the time an issue requiring a decision from the Crown could be drafted, sent to Spain, ruled on, and the decision returned to the colony, a year might pass. And that was if the Crown were in a position to decide. The current situation was hardly conducive to quick decisions. Queen Isabela had been dead 8 years, Ferdinand was king of Aragon, but the Indies belonged to Castile. That left Crazy Juana, queen regent for her 12-year-old son, Carlos, heir to Isabela's kingdom. The net effect was that isolation equals autonomy. Operating under the premise that it is easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, colonial entrepreneurs such as Don Ricardo did what they felt was in their best interests. With some amusement, Miguel noticed that while the colonists reveled in their independence and skirted the crown's attempts to govern them from a distance, they slavishly cherished the traditions and trappings of the homeland. It was easy to understand their need for gunpowder, firearms, swords, tool steel, and even paper to fuel the burgeoning bureaucracy, but their craving for wine, Venician glass, fine linen shirts, wheat bread, and olives belied their assertion of total self-reliance. Don Ricardo lifted the lid on the small chest. The velvet lining embraced a handful of pearls, lustrous pinks and whites, some as big as hazelnuts. Miguel gasped. It was all a matter of geography, his uncle explained. A matter of rolling back the frontier in stages. No place in the Caribbean The Tide of History 67 was more than a few days' sail from Santo Domingo ... or less than 2 months' sail from Spain. Almost daily, ships were setting out for destinations that were not on the most up-to-date maps in Spain. New lands, new peoples, and new fruits were being discovered. Some finds were shared openly, others kept only to a small circle; most were rumors. And while the prospect of finding gold and precious jewels fueled the imaginations of many, Don Ricardo confided, there was unbelievable profit in the mundane, in supplying what the mines, the pearl fisheries, and the farms required. A PERMANENT OUTPOST The shuttles turned out to be real workhorses during the construction of Freedom. Their improved reliability and fuel efficiency made them the perfect vehicle for trips between Earth's space ports and the station. Superbly adapted for two environments, the gravity and atmosphere of Earth and the weightless void of space, they carried everything those men and women needed to sustain life while accomplishing everything from scientific experiments to global photography. Though commonly called shuttles, these small, capacious ships were the first true round trip space-voyagers. But it is one thing simply to travel back and forth between the station and Earth, and quite another to travel among the planets. Seeker-class ships, designed specifically for exploration of deep space, were controlled by pilots who were largely autonomous. They could navigate their own course, rather than just orbit or be rocketed to a specific destination, and they could remain in space for months instead of days. The massive push to build Freedom brought the need for new ship designs, but more to the point for most people, spinoffs in computers and optics, not to mention everything from housing to recycling, revolutionized life on the planet. The announcement to prepare for docking snapped Keiko back to the present, the slight queasiness in her stomach an inconvenient reminder that she'd been weightless. As she gazed at the delicate and beautiful station, it seemed small against the vast expanse of space. As Victoria approached and maneuvered for docking, Keiko realized that the station was larger than she remembered. Shuttles from Earth, although frequent, these days brought more specialized equipment and personnel than basic supplies. Their arrival also meant the arrival of the little luxuries—some would say necessities—of life: beer, chocolate, and trinkets from home. Ship's crews, unlike the reasonably selfsufficient residents of Freedom, were completely dependent upon the station for even their most basic requirements. Needless to say, there existed a brisk, but essentially harmless, black market in luxury items. 68 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale The still relatively compact size of the station meant that it could accommodate fewer than 200 people at any one time. Until recently, having limited room was manageable. Crews of both scientific and commercial ships rotated through on a regular schedule. Most crews were away on missions that lasted weeks to months, effectively doubling the station's capacity. Unanticipated delays, early arrivals, and increased general traffic, however, were putting an energy, housing, and supply strain on the station. Because the planets, moons, and asteroids of the inner system were more readily accessible from space than from Earth, use of the station was growing steadily. Expansion during Freedom's 12 short years of existence, although continuous, was simply proceeding too slowly. The directors agreed that obtaining raw materials from both the moon and asteroids to enlarge the station was a priority. Captain Nikolas Burin and his crew—science technician Ethan Snow, engineer Manik Voran, and navigator Vince Reid—were selected for the first task in obtaining raw materials for this new priority. Keiko would be joining as their new copilot. Their assignment would take them on a 10-month journey to a little traveled area of the Belt. This would not be Keiko's first long space voyage. In fact, she was selected for the job of copilot for her experience. Being out on the frontier suited Keiko and, presumably, her four crew mates. She liked the independence it afforded and self-reliance it required. When instructions from the company representative were inconvenient or simply regarded as ridiculous, it was easy to feign poor communications. In point of fact, communications were often poor, and the 15-sec time lag for round-trip transmissions made for some unusual conversations. This means that the company needed people who could deal with problems without help, although their self-sufficiency was often at odds with the control desired by company bureaucrats. Still, it was a relationship that worked. The spacefarers often pushed the limits and discovered resources or ways of accomplishing tasks that benefited the company. In return, bonuses at the end of a particularly successful—or difficult—mission made the job worth doing. Little did Keiko and her crewmates realize just how difficult this particular mission would prove to be. SOMETHING WORTH BRINGING BACK Miguel hurried to keep up with his uncle Don Ricardo as they raced to an agreed-upon meeting place. It was obvious that the elder Cabeza was anxious to confirm arrangements with Juan Lobina, the representative of a group of island officials and leading citizens who often joined together to finance various business and trading ventures. Too long in port with no activity was costly—not only was he not earning money, but the family in- The Tide of History 69 vestment, their caravel, rotted away with each passing week. Quick supply runs eastward from Salvaleon to the island of San Juan offered some occupation, but the truly profitable voyages lay further afield. In the last 3 years, Cabeza's caravel Madalena had departed Puerto Plata repeatedly to navigate the treacherous shallows of the Lucayas for a cargo that brought excellent returns in this, a suppliers' market. And a suppliers' market it truly was. The labor—or energy—supplied by native workers was absolutely essential to the extraction of gold and production of foodstuffs on Santo Domingo, and now demand was being further escalated by the fishing of rich pearl beds to the south. Potential for wealth aside, Miguel soon sensed that his uncle would have preferred to be the inactive partner in the ownership of the vessel, like his father Antonio back in Cadiz. Instead, Don Ricardo was part owner and full-time commander. He had little stomach for the activity he was now earnestly seeking to engage in yet one more time. But just a few more voyages, and he could sell Madalena for what little she would have left in her, take passage in a returning fleet, and invest his substantial profits with his brother in a vineyard outside Jerez. Lately, though, he had been forced to search farther and farther out for healthy, substantial populations. But just before Miguel's arrival, reports had begun to circulate of islands far to the north with suitable Indians. After completing special preparations for the mission, Keiko and the rest of the crew departed on what was an uneventful outbound voyage. During the layover at Freedom, their Seeker-class ship, Traiga, was equipped with specially designed towing equipment and an upgraded computer navigation program for the task at hand. Traiga's new assignment was to locate an iron-nickel asteroid in the Belt, bring it back, and maneuver it into a complimentary orbit with Freedom. It seemed simple enough. But some of Space ExCo's engineers and the station's project planners were a bit nervous about this operation. This was the first time that collection of such a massive, unwieldy object was being attempted, and the potential for accidents and problems was high. Things could get hairy if the asteroid got loose during the tow. Although all bureaucrats are cautious, just how cautious depends upon who is taking the risk, how much money it will cost, and how much profit will be made. Space ExCo stood to make a substantial profit, so their crews would take the risk. Juan Lobina's arrival intruded into Cabeza's reflections. The man's manner of greeting bespoke of kinship to a fish. Nevertheless, his extensive 70 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale familial network gave him contacts with most important men in the community, both the faction that had cast its lot with the Crown's representatives and those still loyal to the Columbus family. Such contacts could be expedient when Lobina wanted to help you, lethal if he didn't. Right now Lobina represented a group of men willing to finance an expedition in return for one-third of the profits—a standard arrangement. Since Indian hunting was requiring longer and longer voyages—some expeditions had recently returned empty-handed—the suppliers were seeking to spread their risk among more investors. Additional investors in the expedition notwithstanding, Cabeza and his brother would still carry the risk of their vessel in return for a third of the gains, and there would be no difficulty recruiting a sufficient crew who would share the final third of the proceeds. Hopefully, Anton de Alaminos, Cabeza's long-time compadre and a seasoned pilot, would join the voyage. His uncanny ability to read the waters in places he had never been was increasingly in demand, so much so that one expedition had actually delayed departure until Anton's return from another mission. But a pilot of Alaminos's ability was not always available and most ship masters, crews, and financiers were more than willing to the run the risk of life and property for any potentially high return. With supplies low and demand high, competition for native labor was keen. The only crewman Cabeza was not sure he could get, and the only one that really mattered, was a perceptive pilot experienced in Lucayan waters. Navigator Reid agreed with the station's engineers: retrieving an asteroid and hollowing it out to serve as a nuclear reactor casing was the best possible solution to Freedom's impending energy crisis. The others weren't so sure. True, increased levels of commercial and scientific activities would outstrip the capacity of the station's solar panels within 2 years. Expansive arrays of the delicate panels were also a navigation hazard to the heavy ship traffic in the area. It was obvious, according to Reid, that the most acceptable alternative for the short term was the addition of an auxiliary nuclear power source, especially since problems of discarding the by-products were solved by recycling: Disposable carriers filled with radioactive waste were simply dispatched toward the sun. From Reid's comments, it was obvious that he was a company man. There was always one in a crew, or that's the way it seemed. The attitude and the haircut should have been sufficient clues to warn Keiko that this guy would bear watching. Data from long-range probes from numerous Seeker-class ships pinpointed a segment of the Belt in which there were a number of likely asteroid candidates. After what seemed like an eternity cooped up with Reid, they ar- 71 The Tide of History rived in the high-probability area. The ease and speed with which they located an asteroid of the proper dimensions, mass, and composition proved too good to be true. Handling problems in taking it under tow reduced fuel reserves aboard the craft to near critical levels. When the minimal acceleration burn signaled the start of the return leg of their ground breaking journey, Traiga had just enough fuel to get back to Freedom, with only a small allotment for contingencies. THE USELESS ISLES Miguel was certain that if his future lay in the Indies, it did not lie on board a pitching, rolling hijo de puta vessel. Don Ricardo had assured him that in 2 days, at most 3, he would be able to the leave the rail. A false promise. Since their departure from Puerto Plata, Madalena had spent 3 weeks skimming the Lucayas vainly tracking the elusive rumor of surviving Indian populations. Miguel had been singing the guacara over the rail all the way. They had provisioned for a 2-month voyage, more than ample time to search and return, but now Juan Lobina was pushing for laying in a northwesterly course to attempt the land rumored still farther north. Juan had shipped out on Madalena as a sort of investors' watchdog, charged with making sure the objective of finding something worth bringing back was not forgotten. His was an absurd assignment really, given that the crew itself and the owner/master had equal stakes with the financiers in the results of the enterprise. Anton de Alaminos had been able to join the crew, and now Ricardo and Juan sought his opinion in a discussion of the risks—as well as the fabulous possibilities—attendant in striking out beyond their original intentions. On a voyage such as this, all participants having a stake in the outcome were entitled to at least a discussion of the direction of the endeavor, should it depart from what they originally signed on to accomplish. Not one of the crew declined to ratify Lobina's suggestion. To Miguel the possibility of a different objective was far more appealing than the expedition's original purpose. His discovery of his uncle's true source of income had been a blow to his sense of prestige and piety. The further revelation that on Santo Domingo human property was as valuable as any precious gem or metal was—simply put—unbelievable to the credulous young man. But this decision to seek an undiscovered country—What if they actually found gold or pearls! What if they located the still illusive passage to the Orient! 72 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale The return voyage for the crew of Traiga was boring—long periods of tedium seasoned by instances of hectic activity when course corrections were necessary or the cable to their tow needed repair. As was the normal custom, the ship's scanners operated continuously while in the vicinity of the Belt. All the while, they searched for potentially lucrative resources—concentrations of iron- or platinum-rich asteroids or particularly promising veins of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen compounds. Although Traiga's crew didn't think of themselves as explorers, Captain Burin realized that their fates were inextricably linked to exploration. Discovery was often a consequence of commercial activity. Important finds were made by men like himself in ships like his, pushing the limits, and extending the possibilities. In the wee hours of January 9, 2012, the high-pitched wail of a scanner alarm punctuated another mind-numbing shift, jolting Traiga's crew into action. Scanners were detecting a sizeable accumulation of frozen water in a cluster of small asteroids in the midbelt region. Reid condescendingly explained what everyone there knew: the discovery of accessible water in any form was extremely valuable. Retrieving water from planetary bodies—whether in the outer system or from the water planet itself—was costly. The reason: overcoming gravity. Chasing water-rich comets around the solar system also burned too much fuel. Water-rich asteroids, iceroids, were the best source, but most were in the outer belt and expensive to recover. This unexpected discovery of water ice in the midbelt region could be quite lucrative for them all. CABO CANAVERAL It seemed odd to Miguel that Anton should be spending so much time on deck making so many entries in his journal, that leather bound volume that he never allowed anyone else to touch. Braving a rebuff, Miguel inquired of his uncle's dear friend the reason for the sudden change in his activities. "Currents" came the preoccupied reply, but then, taking young Miguel into his confidence, Anton proceeded to reveal to him a few of the secrets of the inner brotherhood of the navigators. The change in wave patterns from long rolls to short, choppy peaks since they had left the last of the sandy Lucayan cays in their wake, the drifting tree trunks and the floating sea hearts they'd seen, but most importantly, the speed with which Madalena was approaching the headland protruding into the distance. This current was carrying them rapidly northward, further and further from Santo Domingo. The Tide of History 73 Landlubbing Miguel, of course, could see none of these things, but accepted Anton's assertions and swore, as he had been compelled to do, to tell no one about it. But from the corner of his eye, he noticed pasty-faced Juan Lobina lounging by the ladder, casting furtive glances at the pilot. Captain Burin quickly brought the excited crew back to Earth, so to speak. Although the discovery could be worth a very fat bonus—possibly even company shares—they were on a dedicated mission for Space ExCo. More to the point, their fuel reserves did not now permit a close inspection of the deposit. They would have to return later to establish the company's legal claim to the discovery. Once the initial euphoria—then disappointment—faded, Keiko and the others laughed about the irony of the situation. A substance so common on Earth was, in space, more valuable than Tokyo real estate—or the gold so many ancient, Earthbound explorers had once sought. By the time the command came to alter course to a westerly heading, Madalena was almost abeam of the headland which now jutted far into the sea. They were near enough to see acres of cane stalks yielding to the stiff wind, a Canaveral. It seemed to Miguel that Anton intended to run the vessel straight in to the Canaveral, but then he altered course again and bore away south. Anton would later reassure Miguel that he did know what he was doing. Such a strong current as they had experienced might have a lesser, countercurrent running along shore. It was vital at the moment that they try to find one. Voran suggested that they radio Space ExCo about the find, but Reid immediately pointed out there was no way that they could insure the secrecy of their discovery. Not only would every ship's mechanic and sanitation engineer at the space station know about it, but it was necessary to bring in a sample to the company's assayers and claims registration representatives in order to have any legal protection for their find. So they decided to keep the discovery to themselves. They would have to deliver the asteroid to the station, reduce their turnaround time to a bare minimum, and promptly return to the iceroid group. Then, with proof of their discovery safely in Traiga'j cargo bay, they could return to the station, accumulate their well-deserved megacredits, and begin the fulfillment of their individual fantasies. 74 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale Occupied with lofty dreams of success, Keiko and the others noticed too late the subtle changes in one of their own. SHIPWRECK! They were headed home. No gold, no passage to the Orient, no Indians, nothing of value at all. Nothing of monetary value anyway. Not that they hadn't tried. They had anchored offshore of a river mouth, and Don Ricardo had led a party ashore to refill the water casks and ascertain the land. But a welcoming committee of Indians had attempted to seize the ship's boat and in the ensuing fracas Don Ricardo had been grievously wounded. Miguel insisted they return to Espanola; Anton concurred. Only Juan Lobina demanded that the ship master was dispensable, the investment in the voyage was not. In the end Lobina lost out, and Anton set them on a course for home. That afternoon, the usual peace that enveloped the ship when chores were done and sailors sat back to spin a yarn or two was shattered by the roaring outrage of Anton de Alaminos. He had found Juan Lobina spying in his rutter, copying his secrets of the brotherhood. He demanded the offending agent be clapped in irons. Don Ricardo, lying ill from his wounds, was loathe to oblige his companion. Juan could and would wreak revenge the moment he was set free in Espanola. With Lobina's retaliation, accompanied by the financial failure of the voyage, Don Ricardo—should he survive—might well find himself banished from the colony. But he was physically too weak to deter Anton, so Juan Lobina's ankles were unceremoniously locked in irons. Reid appeared to be dallying over verifying the location of the iceroid, claiming problems with the computer nav program. Without verification, he argued, the iceroid would be difficult to relocate. Reid was adamant. They should detach the useless rock they were constantly having to monitor and go after the ice immediately. The crew howled in exasperation, but Burin patiently reminded him that even without an asteroid in tow they now had insufficient fuel to pursue any course but a direct one back to Freedom. But Reid insisted. He was monitoring the scanners at the moment the ice deposit was detected. It was his find. With such an important discovery—his discovery—he would be important within Space ExCo. He would no longer be just the son of the CEO. Reid refused to budge from the control panel. The Tide of History 75 The passage was arduous; both current and wind ran against them. The channel between the Cuban cays and the Lucayan bank was narrow, but Anton's experience kept them on course, passing both Cayo Guinchos and its chattering seagulls then Cayo Lobos to port. Late in the afternoon a storm blew up, driving them northward, off course. Anton brooded. Though he had an idea of their position, he was not certain. He sighted a small group of rocks peeking above the surface off the port bow. Mira por Vos. It's Looking for You. Those must be the reef called Mira por Vos. First a short stretch of open deep water and then they would have to run the gauntlet of islands and shoals lying north of Espanola before heading into safer, deeper waters to the south. But the rocks were not Mira por Vos. Voran cursed in dismay as proximity warnings blared in the control cabin. Shoving a distracted Reid aside, Burin rapidly attempted to override the computer program that was sending Traiga and its charge dangerously close to a moderately sized asteroid. Scrambled commands and desperate overcompensation sent the ship and its tow tumbling out of control. Traiga and its asteroid smashed together, severely damaging the ship's maneuvering thrusters. The towing rig parted violently slinging the ship directly into the path of the oncoming object. By the time the lookout spotted the reef, it was too late to save Madalena. They tried. They tried desperately. But the bow anchors did not hold. The sheet anchor, the anchor of salvation, was stowed below, atop the ballast. There was no time to retrieve it. Madalena rammed broadside onto the reef and heeled to port. Tons of ballast and stores shifted. Now there was no hope. Despite their skill, Burin and Voran were incapable of preventing imminent collision with the asteroid they were frantically attempting to avoid. Crash warnings blasted through the small ship. Everyone scrambled for a pressure suit. The impact breached the hull; three were killed outright. Only Reid and Keiko survived. Scrambling over the slanted deck, the crew hastily collected their few personal possessions and navigational instruments. Anton snatched his pre- 76 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale cious rutter. Two sailors hefted Don Ricardo over the side and into the small ship's boat. Weak and delirious, he could not order the crew to make sure they retrieved the swords and crossbows. But they were a seasoned, level-headed lot, the kind of crew one needed in a desperate situation. They grabbed their weapons as well as whatever stores they could and loaded the boat, for no one knew how long their ordeal would last, and many of the Lucayan cays and islands had no water. Badly shaken and bruised, Keiko knew immediately that their ordeal was just beginning. The crash had shattered the hull and destroyed the life support system. The ship had made life possible. Without it, they were at the mercy of the cosmos, adrift in a lifeless ocean. Miguel was terrified but able to function. A screaming Juan Lobina, his red face exploding in anger, cursed the stupidity of the pilot. His ankles still shackled, he fell to the deck, so full of outrage that he fought off all efforts to help him by removing the leg irons. As he attempted to leap over the side and into the boat, he fell thrashing into the water. Anton moved to help him, but Lobina's fury kept all aid at bay, and helpless, the crew watched him drown. Keiko methodically assessed Traiga's damage. Navigation, communications, the telemetry units, even their emergency transponder—all were beyond repair. Their only hope was the small escape pod, standard equipment for Seeker-class vessels. The distraught Reid was little help during the systems check. To Keiko's dismay, she discovered that the collision had critically damaged the pod's communications equipment and navigational computers; luckily its homing beacon was still functional. The pod's oxygen, water, food, and fuel supplies were undamaged, but limited. Although designed to hold the entire complement of five, the pod's life support system could sustain that number for only 3 months—15person months, possibly 18, if they really stretched it! Keiko cursed the company's safety engineers for their unrealistic optimism and noted wryly that if—no, when— they got back, she would insist on increased emergency supplies in the pods. Over Reid's anxious objections, Keiko meticulously entered an account of the wrecking and a record of their intentions in the ship's log—an indestructible optical disk. She made a copy and stored it, along with her deceased crewmates' ID tags, in the pod. As their last duty on board Traiga, Keiko and The Tide of History 77 Reid bound the suited bodies of their comrades in a cargo net in the hope that they would be recovered when a salvage ship returned. The little boat hoisted sail; the wind and current would carry them west and away from home. But perhaps they could land and regroup on one of the myriad spits of sand that dotted the area. Anton realized now, by the vast expanse of water, shimmering sea green over a shallow sand bottom, that they were on the Incaio bank. Not far from home. Not far at all. But with 17 men in a small boat, a successful trip was far from assured. And if they didn't make it, how long before another pilot would realize the value of that strong current that would launch ships north and beyond the shallows and passages to the open ocean and the way home to blessed Spain? Damage to the pod's navcomps meant that though Keiko and Reid had a rough idea of the direction they needed to go to get picked up, they did not know the exact course to take in order to get back to more traveled areas of the inner system. It would be very close, yet they had no choice but to attempt it. This time, the risk they had taken in leaving the blue-green cradle of planet Earth might not pay off. But if they survived, it was a risk they would take again. While Reid closed the pod's hatch, Keiko busied herself with a brief preflight check. After one last look, she detonated the explosive bolts that separated them from Traiga and fired the rockets, sending them on their odyssey of survival. EPILOGUE If Anton de Alaminos was indeed shipwrecked on Molasses Reef, he not only escaped the foundering Madalena—as did his fellow crewmen— but made it back to the colonies, for in March of 1513, he departed Aguada on the north coast of Puerto Rico with Juan Ponce de Leon. Their voyage took them across the Gulf Stream to Florida. Within a decade, the seldom praised Alaminos pioneered a new return route to Spain, using the Gulf Stream to propel him through the Bahama Channel and up the coast of Florida before bearing east for the Azores then home. Not long after, he ran afoul of the powerful Hernando Cortes. Ostracized in the Indies, he returned to Spain and then disappeared from history. Don Ricardo died not long after landing in Puerto Plata. There he received a proper Catholic burial in consecrated ground, a kindness fate 78 Keith, Carrell, Lakey, Simmons, and Goodale did not grant Juan Lobina. Miguel, so recently arrived in Santo Domingo, was unprepared to handle his uncle's business and was unable to organize an expedition to Madalena's wreck site in sufficient time to salvage the ship's artillery. Submersion would have damaged the wrought-iron beyond all use. The loss of the ship and its equipment—as well as the loss of Uncle Ricardo—exacted a terrible hardship on Miguel. Being now financially unable to leave the colony, he was forced by circumstances to persist until he became an established supplier to discovery and colonizing expeditions launched from Santo Domingo and later Cuba. He never left the Indies, but died in Santo Domingo, a very old and very wealthy man. Unfortunately Keiko and Vince, the two survivors from the Traiga crew of five, did not fare as well as Anton and Miguel. A year and a half after the loss of the space craft, a ship returning from the asteroid belt happened upon the drifting space pod. Its discovery unleashed a flurry of rumors and stories: near-legends of harrowing deprivation, dogged determination, and miraculous survival. In a pod equipped to sustain a crew of five for a maximum of 3 months, a lone man had tenaciously clung to life for 18. His physical health was wrecked; his memory of recent events flawed by lapses. He carried no copies of the ship's log, and his mental deterioration made piecing together the story of the wrecking and the deaths of the four crew members impossible. With little more than Vince Reid's vacillating memory to go on, salvage crews could not pinpoint the exact location of the loss of Traiga. But on one point Reid remained resolute, unshaken: Fortuneyielding deposits of precious water-ice lay waiting for his return to the asteroid belt. And return he did, again and again and again, an interplanetary Ahab obsessed with a futile quest. But this is not the end of either story. Five hundred years after the fact, what was lost is found and another story told. Someone found what he thought was sewer pipes. Someone else recognized the wrought-iron gun tubes for what they were. Another decade and scores of someones, and now the Molasses Reef Wreck displays its story to any who would pass through the Turks and Caicos National Museum on Grand Turk. And in the last exhibit, on the wall by the exit, hangs a badly degraded pair of locked leg irons—leg irons which the scientists say "may have been used for the immobilization of captives." Of course, no one will ever know just whom this particular pair of leg irons held in a watery death. But the name of one individual human being is not the point. One individual ship is not the point. What that human being and that ship represent—what they teach us—is the point. What they are and where they are teach us about a deep-seated human drive—the drive to discover new worlds, to explore new lands, to learn about new life and new civilizations, to expand into the unknown. 79 The Tide of History Thus, with archaeology we learn what we otherwise would not know. It is a final irony that had these ships not been lost in their time, they would have been lost to us. Had Madalena and Traiga reached port safely, only a trail of words and numbers would remain to sketch out their lives, their passages, their roles in humanity's ceaseless journey beyond the boundaries of the known. But words and numbers have a way of disappearing. Warfare, inhospitable climates, voracious insects, overzealous or indifferent custodians, systematic revisionism, and disastrous acts of God whittle away the accumulated records of the past. The flow of time, the evolution of languages, the changes in recording technology, and the transitory nature of worldviews render what is left enigmatic or indecipherable. Challenged with decoding ancient symbols, then teasing meaning from cryptic references and sketchy details, many an analyst of history has focused on the traditionally perceived great individual, pivotal event, or first occurrence. The finding of a nameless wreck, lacking in treasured cargo, ordinary from mast top to keel, from nose to tail, barely ancient, impels us to challenge the judgment of insignificance. What matters are the questions archaeology raises, not the answers it may provide. REFERENCES CITED Asimov, I. (1951). Foundation, Doubleday, New York. Hawking, S. (1988). A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, London. Keith, D. H., Lakey, D. C, Simmons, J. J., III, and Myers, M. D. (1989). Ships of exploration and discovery research. In Arnold, J. B., III (ed.), Underwater Archaeology Proceedings from the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference, Society for Historical Archaeology, Tucson, pp. 87-100. Le Guin, U. K. (1964). The Left Hand of Darkness, Ace Books, New York. Shakespeare, W (1992). Julius Caesar. In Bevington, D. (ed.), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, 4th ed., HarperCollins, New York, pp. 1025-1059.