Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

by Harry Turtledove

  She smiled. “Why come see what the Bottomlands are like if he isn’t happy with what he finds?”

  “Toglo zev, some are like that in every group. It makes no sense to me, but there you are. If I had the money to see the Nine Iron Towers of Mashyak, I wouldn’t whine because they aren’t gold.”

  “That is a practical attitude,” Toglo said. “We’d be better off if more people felt as you do.”

  “We’d be better off if-” Radnal shut up. If we didn’t fear a starbomb was buried somewhere around here was how he’d been about to end the sentence. That wasn’t smart. Not only would it frighten Toglo (or worry her; she didn’t seem to frighten easily), but Peggol vez Menk would come down on him like he didn’t know what for breaching security.

  All at once, he knew how Peggol would come down on him: like the Western Ocean, pouring into the Bottomlands over the broken mountains. He tried to laugh at himself; he didn’t usually come up with such literary comparisons. Laughter failed. The simile was literary, but it might be literal as well.

  “We’d be better off if what, Radnal vez?” Toglo asked. “What did you start to say?”

  He couldn’t tell her what he’d started to say. He wasn’t glib enough to invent something smooth. To his dismay, what came out of his mouth was, “We’d be better off if more people were like you, Toglo zev, and didn’t have fits at what they saw other people doing.”

  “Oh, that. Radnal vez, I didn’t think anyone who was doing that was hurting anyone else. You all seemed to be enjoying yourselves. It’s not something I’d care to do where other people might see, but I don’t see I have any business getting upset about it.”

  “Oh.” Radnal wasn’t sure how to take Toglo’s answer. He had, however, already pushed his luck past the point where it had any business going, so he kept quiet.

  Something small skittered between spurges. Something larger bounded along in hot pursuit. The pursuit ended in a cloud of dust. Forestalling the inevitable chorus of What’s that?, Radnal said, “Looks like a bladetooth just made a kill.” The carnivorous rodent crouched over its prey; the tour guide pulled out a monocular for a closer look. “It’s caught a fat sand rat.”

  “One of the animals you study?” Moblay said. “Are you going to blast it with your handcannon to take revenge?”

  “I think you should,” Nocso zev Martois declared. “What a vicious brute, to harm a defenseless furry beast.” Radnal wondered if he should ask how she’d enjoyed her mutton last night, but doubted she would understand. He said, “Either carnivores eat meat or they starve. A bladetooth isn’t as cuddly as a fat sand rat, but it has its place in the web of life, too.”

  The bladetooth was smaller than a fox, tan above and cream below. At first glance, it looked like any other jerboa, with hind legs adapted for jumping, big ears, and a long, tufted tail. But its muzzle was also long, and smeared with blood. The fat sand rat squirmed feebly. The bladetooth bit into its belly and started feeding nonetheless.

  Nocso moaned. Radnal tried to figure out how her mind worked. She was eager to believe in night demons that worked all manner of evils, yet a little real predation turned her stomach. He gave up; some inconsistencies were too big for him to understand how anyone managed to hold both halves of them at once.

  He said, “As I remarked a couple of days ago, the bladetooth does well in the Bottomlands because jerboas had already adapted to conditions close to these while this part of the world was still under water. Its herbivorous relatives extract the water they must have from leaves and seeds, while it uses the tissues of the animals it captures. Even during our rare rains, no bladetooth has ever been seen to drink.”

  “Disgusting.” Nocso’s plump body shook as she shuddered. Radnal wondered how long her carcass would give a bladetooth the fluids it needed. A long time, he thought.

  Moblay Sopsirk’s son whooped. “There’s the lodge! Cold water, cold ale, cold wine-”

  As they had the evening before, the Eyes and Ears and the militiamen came out to await the tour group’s return. The closer the donkeys came, the better Radnal could see the faces of the men who had stayed behind. They all looked thoroughly grim.

  This time, he did not intend to spend a couple of daytenths wondering what was going on. He called, “Fer vez, Zosel vez, take charge of the tourists. I want to catch up on what’s happened here.”

  “All right, Radnal vez,” Fer answered. But his voice was no more cheerful than his expression.

  Radnal dismounted and walked over to Liem vez Steries. He was not surprised when Peggol vez Menk fell into step with him. Their robes rustled as they came up to the militia subleader. Radnal asked, “What’s the word, Liem vez?”

  Liem’s features might have been carved from stone. “The word is interrogation,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow.”

  “By the gods.” Radnal stared. “They’re taking this seriously in Tarteshem.”

  “You’d best believe it.” Liem wiped his sweaty face with his sleeve. “See those red cones past the cookpit? That’s the landing site we laid out for the helo that’s due in the morning.”

  “But — interrogation.” Radnal shook his head. The Eyes and Ears’ methods were anything but gentle. “If we interrogate foreigners, we’re liable to touch off a war.”

  “Tarteshem knows this, Radnal vez,” Liem said. “My objections are on the wire up there. I have been overruled.”

  “The Hereditary Tyrant and his advisors must think the risks and damages of war are less than what Tartesh would suffer if the starbomb performs as those who buried it hope,” Peggol said.

  “But what if it’s not there, or if it is but none of the tourists knows about it?” Radnal said. “Then we’ll have antagonized the Krepalgan Unity, Lissonland, and other countries as well, and for what? Nothing. Get on the radiophone, Peggol vez; see if they’ll change their minds.”

  Peggol shook his head. “No, for two reasons. One is that this policy will have come down from a level far higher than I can influence. I am only a field agent; I have no say in grand strategy. The other is that your radiophone is too public. I do not want to alert anyone that he is about to be interrogated.”

  Radnal had to concede that made sense as far as security went. But he did not like it any better. Then something else occurred to him. He turned to Liem vez Steries. “Am I going to be, uh, interrogated, too? What about Zosel vez and Fer vez? And what about Toglo zev Pamdal? Are the interrogators going to work on one of the Hereditary Tyrant’s relatives?”

  “I don’t know any of those answers,” the militiaman said. “The people I spoke with in Tartesh wouldn’t tell me.” His eyes flicked to Peggol. “I suppose they didn’t care to be too public, either.”

  “No doubt,” Peggol said. “Now we have to act as normally as we can, not letting on that we’ll have visitors in the morning.”

  “I’d have an easier time acting normal if I knew I wouldn’t be wearing thumbscrews tomorrow,” Radnal said.

  “After such ordeals, the Hereditary Tyrant generously compensates innocents,” Peggol said.

  “The Hereditary Tyrant is generous.” That was all Radnal could say while talking to an Eye and Ear. But silver, while it worked wonders, didn’t fully make up for terror and pain and, sometimes, permanent injury. The tour guide preferred remaining as he was to riches and a limp.

  Liem remarked, “Keeping things from the tourists won’t be hard. Look what they’re doing.”

  Radnal turned, looked, and snorted. His charges had turned the area marked off with red cones into a little game field. All of them except prim Golobol ran around throwing somebody’s sponge rubber ball back and forth and trying to tackle one another. If their sport had rules, Radnal couldn’t figure them out.

  Moblay Sopsirk’s son, stubborn if unwise, kept his yen for Evillia and Lofosa. Careless of the abrasions to his nearly naked hide, he dragged Lofosa into the dirt. When she stood up, her tunic was missing some of its big gold buttons. She remained indifferent to the flesh she ex
posed. Moblay had got grit in his eyes and stayed on the ground a while.

  Evillia lost buttons, too; Toglo zev Pamdal’s belt broke, as did Nocso zev Martois’. Toglo capered with one hand holding her robes closed. Nocso didn’t bother. Watching her jounce up and down the improvised pitch, Radnal wished she were modest and Toglo otherwise.

  Fer vez Canthal asked, “Shall I get supper started?”

  “Get the coals going, but wait for the rest,” Radnal said. “They’re having such a good time, they might as well enjoy themselves. They won’t have any fun tomorrow.”

  “Neither will we,” Fer answered. Radnal grimaced and nodded.

  Benter vez Maprab tackled Eltsac vez Martois and stretched the bigger, younger man in the dust. Benter sprang to his feet, swatted Evillia on the backside. She spun round in surprise.

  “The old fellow has life in him yet,” Peggol said, watching Eltsac rise, one hand pressed to a bloody nose.

  “So he does.” Radnal watched Benter. He might be old, but he was spry. Maybe he could have broken Dokhnor of Kellef’s neck. Was losing a game of war reason enough? Or was he playing the same deeper game as Dokhnor?

  Only when the sun slid behind the Barrier Mountains and dusk enfolded the lodge did the tourists give up their sport. The cones shone with a soft pink phosphorescent glow of their own. Toglo tossed the ball to Evillia, saying, “I’m glad you got this out, freelady. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much — and so foolishly — in a long time.”

  “I thought it would be a good way for us to unwind after riding and sitting around,” Evillia answered.

  She had a point. If Radnal ever led tourists down here again — if the lodge wasn’t buried under thousands of cubits of sea — he’d have to remember to bring along a ball himself. He frowned in self-reproach. He should have thought of that on his own instead of stealing the idea from someone in his group.

  “If I was thirsty before, I’m drier than the desert now,” Moblay boomed. “Where’s that ale?”

  “I’ll open the refrigerator,” Zosel vez Glesir said. “Who else wants something?” He cringed from the hot, sweaty tourists who dashed his way. “Come, my friends! If you squash me, who will get the drinks?”

  “We’ll manage somehow,” Eltsac vez Martois said, the first sensible remark he’d made.

  Fer vez Canthal had the coals in the firepit glowing red. Zosel fetched a cut-up pig carcass and a slab of beef ribs. Radnal started to warn him about going through the stored food so prodigally, but caught himself. If people fell into the interrogators’ hands tomorrow, no need to worry about the rest of the tour.

  Radnal ate heartily, and joined in songs after supper. He managed to forget for hundreds of heartbeats what awaited when morning came. But every so often, realization came flooding back. Once his voice faltered so suddenly that Toglo glanced over to see what had happened. He smiled sheepishly and tried to do better.

  Then he looked at her. He couldn’t imagine her being connected with the plot to flood the Bottomlands. He had trouble imagining Eyes and Ears interrogating her as they would anyone else. But he hadn’t thought they would risk international incidents to question foreign tourists, either. Maybe that meant he didn’t grasp how big the emergency was. If so, Toglo might be at as much risk as anyone.

  Horken vez Sofana, the circumstances man from the Trench Park militia, came up to the tour guide. “I was told you wanted Benter vez Maprab’s saddlebags searched, freeman vez Krobir. I found — these.” He held out his hand.

  “How interesting. Wait here, Senior Trooper vez Sofana.” Radnal walked over to where Benter was sitting, tapped him on the shoulder. “Would you please join me, freeman?”

  “What is it?” Benter growled, but he came back with Radnal.

  The tour guide said, “I’d like to hear how these red-veined orchids” — he pointed to the plants in Horken vez Sofana’s upturned palm-“appeared in your saddlebags. Removal of any plants or animals, especially rare varieties like these, is punishable by fine, imprisonment, stripes, or all three.”

  Benter vez Maprab’s mouth opened and closed silently. He tried again: “I–I would have raised them carefully, freeman vez Krobir.” He was so used to complaining himself, he did not know how to react when someone complained of him — and caught him in the wrong.

  Triumph turned hollow for Radnal. What were a couple of red-veined orchids when the whole Bottomlands might drown? The tour guide said, “We’ll confiscate these, freeman vez Maprab. Your gear will be searched again when you leave Trench Park. If we find no more contraband, we’ll let this pass. Otherwise — I’m sure I need not paint you a picture.”

  “Thank you — very kind.” Benter fled.

  Horken vez Sofana sent Radnal a disapproving look. “You let him off too lightly.”

  “Maybe, but the interrogators will take charge of him tomorrow.”

  “Hmm. Compared to everything else, stealing plants isn’t such a big thing.”

  “Just what I was thinking. Maybe we ought to give them back to the old lemonface so they’ll be somewhere safe if — well, you know the ifs.”

  “Yes.” The circumstances man looked thoughtful. “If we gave them back now, he’d wonder why. We don’t want that, either. Too bad, though.”

  “Yes.” Discovering he worried about saving tiny pieces of Trench Park made Radnal realize he’d begun to believe in the starbomb.

  The tourists began going off to their sleeping cubicles. Radnal envied their ignorance of what lay ahead. He hoped Evillia and Lofosa would visit him in the quiet darkness, and didn’t care what the Eyes and Ears and militiamen thought. The body had its own sweet forgetfulness.

  But the body had its own problems, too. Both women from Krepalga started trotting back and forth to the privy every quarter of a daytenth, sometimes even more than that. “It must have been something I ate,” Evillia said, leaning wearily against the doorpost after her third trip. “Do you have a constipant?”

  “The aid kit should have some.” Radnal rummaged through it, found the orange pills he wanted. He brought them to her with a paper cup of water. “Here.”

  “Thank you.” She popped the pills into her mouth, drained the cup, threw back her head to swallow. “I hope they help.”

  “So do I.” Radnal had trouble keeping his voice casual. When she’d straightened to take the constipant, her left breast popped out of her tunic. “Freelady, I think you have fewer buttons than you did when the game ended.”

  Evillia covered herself again, an effort almost undermined when she shrugged. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Most of those that didn’t get pulled off took some yanks.” She shrugged again. “It’s only skin. Does it bother you?”

  “You ought to know better than that,” he said, almost angrily. “If you were feeling well-”

  “If I were feeling well, I would enjoy feeling good,” she agreed. “But as it is, Radnal vez-” At last she called him by his name and the polite particle. A grimace crossed her face. “As it is, I hope you will forgive me, but-” She hurried back out into the night.

  When Lofosa made her next dash to the privy, Radnal had the pills waiting for her. She gulped them almost on the dead run. She’d lost some new buttons herself. Radnal felt guilty about thinking of such things when she was in distress.

  After a game of war with Moblay that was almost as sloppy as their first, Radnal went into his cubicle. He didn’t have anything to discuss with Liem or Peggol tonight; he knew what was coming. Somehow, he fell asleep anyway.

  “Radnal vez.” A quiet voice jerked him from slumber. It was neither Lofosa nor Evillia bending over him promising sensual delights. Peggol vez Menk stood in the entryway.

  Radnal came fully awake. “What’s gone wrong?” he demanded.

  “Those two Highhead girls who don’t believe in wearing clothes,” Peggol answered.

  “What about them?” Radnal asked, confused.

  “They went off to the privy a while ago, and neither of them came back. My man on watch
woke me before he went out to see if they were all right. They weren’t there, either.”

  “Where could they have gone?” Radnal had had idiot tourists wander on their own, but never in the middle of the night. Then other possible meanings for their disappearance crossed his mind. He jumped up. “And why?”

  “This also occurred to me,” Peggol said grimly. “If they don’t come back soon, it will have answered itself.”

  “They can’t go far,” Radnal said. “I doubt they’ll have thought to get on donkeys. They could hardly tell one end of the beasts from the-” The tour guide stopped. If Evillia and Lofosa were other than they seemed, who could tell what they knew?

  Peggol nodded. “We are thinking along the same lines.” He plucked at the tuft of hair under his mouth. “If this means what we fear, much will depend on you to track them down. You know the Bottomlands, and I do not.”

  “Our best tools are the helos,” Radnal said. “When it’s light, we’ll sweep the desert floor a hundred times faster than we could on donkeyback.”

  He kept talking for another few words, but Peggol didn’t hear him. He didn’t hear himself, either, not over the sudden roar from outside. They dashed for the outer door. They pushed through the Eyes and Ears and militiamen who got there first. Tourists pushed them from behind.

  Everyone stared at the blazing helos.

  Radnal stood in disbelief and dismay for a couple of heartbeats. Peggol vez Menk’s shout brought him to himself:

  “We have to call Tarteshem right now!” Radnal spun round, shoved and elbowed by the tourists in his way, and dashed for the radiophone.

  The amber ready light didn’t come on when he hit the switch. He ducked under the table to see if any connections were loose. “Hurry up!” Peggol yelled.

  “The demon-cursed thing won’t come on,” Radnal yelled back. He picked up the radiophone itself. It rattled. It wasn’t supposed to. “It’s broken.”

  “It’s been broken,” Peggol declared.