Oak prows dividing moss-water. The stars above, newly-made. The longboats on their night-time career, thin knives, cutting the darkened waves.

This is the Cyclades, long ago. One of the great mysteries of the world. Long before Britain ruled the sea, long even before the Phoenicians, the people of the Cyclades plowed the deeps. They had to. Their little islands were a habitation only collectively. In each alone, much was missed. Some lacked drinkable water, some game. Some the material for tools. Who would live here?

This was not an expedition for food or water.

Up swing the oars—25 men, sometimes the whole population of an island, pull on the wooden handles together in time. The fastest crafts the world would see for another thousand years. Silence, the soft swish of the parting sea, the drip of the emerging oar. The stars wheel and wheel over an empty Earth, the morning of the world.

Soon other sounds, the plunge of other oars. Torches flare in dark groves, rushlight, the dance of shadows. Islands rise ahead. They are not going there. Pieces are breaking off of the night, more boats, they pour into the water, a tiny armada. Low, lower than the waves they crest with practiced hands. Each rearing wave forms a tunnel of night as it crashes down and lifts the boats of the first people.

No one speaks. All move together. The longboats, 15 of them now, surge towards the open sea. Where are they going? They stop. They form a circle of boats, riding up and down on the waves. No more than 10 miles from land, but a long way for them. A single boat detaches from the circle, sails its way into the center, stops.

A man stands in the center of the boat, knees bent, balanced on the balls of his feet. He points to the heavens, and a shaft of grey appears across the eastern sky. No one moves but the stars, which begin to fade. It is dawn.

The chieftain raises his palm to the first people and draws a knife across it. Drops fall on the ocean, which begins to boil. The people watch impassive.

A ray of light climbs over the long sea horizon. The sea is frothing next to the chieftain’s boat. In the first rays of dawn, it bubbles black. The people make no sound. A black spot is spreading in the ocean, small, like a patch of bitumen, then wider. Wider. It is a circle now, and growing, waves are spreading from it, rocking the boats of the people. The sea is growing wild.

The chieftains leans from the side of his boat, over the dark water. He raises his hand to the East. Then, like a stone, he drops in.

The dark water closes over him—and disappears. The sun raises its head on a circle of canoes in the pristine blue waters of dawn. The people raise their oars and begin the journey home.