Down in The Bottomlands (32 page)

Tjiimpuu was in a towering fury when he arrived. The Tawantiinsuujan hurled two sheets of paper onto the desk in front of him, slammed his open hand down on them with a noise like a thunderclap. "Patjakamak curse the Muslims for ever and ever!" he shouted. "As you asked, we showed restraint—and here are the thanks we got for it."

"What's gone wrong?" Park asked with a sinking feeling.

"They like their little joke, making goodwains into bombs," Tjiimpuu ground out. "Here is one report from Kiitoo in the north, another from Kahamarka closer to home. Deaths, injuries, destruction. Well, we will visit them all on the Emirate of the Dar al-Harb, I promise you that. Nor will you talk me out of war this time, either."

Park sat down to do just that. After a couple of hours, he even began to think he was getting somewhere. Then a real thunderclap smote Kuuskoo. Tjiimpuu's windows rattled. Faintly, far in the distance, Park heard screams begin.

Tjiimpuu's face might have been carved from stone. "You may leave now," he said. "Your mission here is ended. When I have time, I will arrange for your transportation back to Vinland. Now, though, I must help the Son of the Sun prepare us to fight."

Seeing he had no chance of changing the foreign minister's mind, Park perforce went home. He was not in the best of moods as he walked along. Here he'd been called in to stop a war from breaking out, and it had blown up in his face. What with the Muslim zealots using trucks as terror devices, that was almost literally true. Even so, he'd failed his first major test. The other, more senior, judges on the International Court might well hesitate to give him another.

Dunedin gaped at him when he slammed the front door to announce his arrival. "Judge Scoglund! Why are you here so soon?" His servant's wrinkled cheeks turned red. "And why did you not rouse me when you got up this morn? It's my job to help you, after all."

"Sorry," Park said. He grinned at Monkey-face: "But you looked like such a little angel, sleeping there with your thumb in your mouth, I didn't have the heart to wake you."

"I do not sleep with my thumb in my mouth!" Park had never heard Eric Dunedin yell so loud.

"I know, I know, I know." When he had Dunedin partway placated, Park went on, "If you feel you have to make like a thane, why don't you run back into the kitchen and fetch me a jug of
aka
? I'm home early because it looks like Tawantiinsuuju and the Emirate are damned well going to fick a war regardless of what I think about it. Fick 'em all, I say."

Monkey-face brought back two jugs of
aka.
Park gave him a quizzical look. "You're learning, old boy, you're learning." Each man unstoppered a jug. Park sat down, half-emptied his with one long pull.

For the first time since he'd been named judge of the International Court, he gave some thought to visiting Joseph Noggle once he got back to Vinland. Maybe whoever was currently inhabiting his body hadn't made too bad a botch of things while he'd been gone. . . .

He put that aside for further consideration: nothing he could do about it now anyhow. He finished the
aka,
got up and walked over to the wirecaller. "Get me the house of Pauljuu, son of Ruuminjavii, please." If Tjiimpuu was going to kick him out at any moment, he might as well have a pleasant memory to take home. A servant answered the phone. "May I please speak to the widow Kuurikwiljor? This is Judge Scoglund."

"Tonight?" Kuurikwiljor exclaimed when Park asked her out. "This is so sudden." She paused. Park crossed his fingers. Then she said, "But I'd be delighted. When will you come? Around sunset? Fine, I'll see you then. Goodbye."

Park was whistling as he hung up.
Aka
made the present look rosier, and Kuurikwiljor gave him something to look forward to.

He was going through his wardrobe late that afternoon, deciding what to wear, when someone clapped outside the front door. "Answer it, will you?" he called to Dunedin. Before Monkey-face got to the door, though, whoever was out there started pounding on it.

That didn't sound good, Park thought. Maybe Pauljuu was worried about his sister's virtue. Even as the idea crossed his mind, Dunedin stuck his head into the bedroom and said, "There's a big Skrelling outside who wants to see you."

"I don't much want to see him," Park said. He went out anyhow, looking for something that would make a good blunt instrument as he did so. But it was not Pauljuu standing there. "Ankowaljuu!"

"Whom were you outlooking?" The
tukuuii riikook
fixed Park with the knowing, cynical gaze he remembered from the ship.

"Never mind. Come in. I'm glad to see you." Aware that he was babbling, Park took a deep breath and made himself slow down. He waved Ankowaljuu to a chair. "Here, sit down and tell me what I can do for you."

"You came here to stop a war, not so?" the Skrelling demanded.

"Aye, I did, and a fat lot of good it's done me—or anybody else," Park said bitterly. "Tjiimpuu just gave me my walking papers." Seeing Ankowaljuu frown, he explained: "He told me my sending here was done, and that I would have to backgo to Vinland: the Son of the Sun would order war outspoken against the Emirate of the Dar al-Harb."

"That's sooth," Ankowaljuu said. "He's done it. But then, you never got a chance to set the whole dealing before Maita Kapak himself." He made the ritual eye-shielding gesture.

"Before Maita Kapak?" Park was too upset to bother with Tawantiinsuujan niceties—if Ankowaljuu didn't like it, too bad. "How could I go before Maita Kapak? The way the Son of the Sun is hedged round with mummery, it's a wonder any of his wives get to see him." He realized he might have gone too far. "Forgive me, I pray. I am not trying to wound you."

"It's all rick, Judge Scoglund. There are those among us who say the like—I not least. But as for getting the let to see him—remember, I am
tukuuii riikook.
I have the rick of a seeing at any time I think needful. I think this is such a time. A wain is waiting outside for us."

Park hadn't heard it come up, but that meant nothing, not with the silent steam engines this world used. He started for the door. "Let's go!"

"Nay so quick." Ankowaljuu sprang up, made as if to head him off. "You needs must pack first."

"Pack?" Park gaped as if he'd never heard the word before. "What the hell for? Are you shifting me into the kingly palace? Otherwise, what's the point?"

"The palace has naught to do with it. Maita Kapak"—again the eye-shielding, which had to be as automatic as breathing for Tawantiinsuujans—"left by airwain this morning, to lead our warriors to winning against the heathen who deny Patjakamak and slay his worshipers. I have another airwain waiting on my ordering at the airfield. I want us on it, as fast as doable."

Park wasted a moment regretting that Kurrikwiljor's bronze body would not be his tonight. Then he dashed for the bedroom, shouting to Monkey-face, "Come on, Eric, goddammit, give me a hand here."

Dunedin was right behind him. They flung clothes into a trunk. "Hey, wait a minute." Park pointed to a shirt. "That's yours. We won't need it. Take it out."

His thane shook his head. "Don't need it indeed. What do you reckon me to wear on this trip?"

"I didn't reckon you to wear anything—and I don't mean I thock you'd come along naked, either. I reckoned you'd let Tjiimpuu ship you home; that'd be easiest and safest both."

"So it would, if I meant to leave. But I don't. My job is to caretake you, and that's what I aim to do." He gave Allister Park a defiant stare.

Park slapped him on the back, staggering him slightly. "You're a good egg, Eric. All rick, you can come, but don't say I didn't warn you." He thought of something: this world's steam-powered planes were anything but powerful performers. "Will the airwain bear his heft, Ankowaljuu?"

"Reckon so," the Skrelling said. "I'm more afeared for all the books you're heaving into that case, Judge Scoglund."

"I need these," Park yelped, stung. "What's a judge without his books?"

"A lickter lawyer," Ankowaljuu retorted. "Well, as may be. I reckon we'll fly. Be you ready?"

"I guess we are." Park looked around the room at everything he and Dunedin were leaving behind. "What'll happen to all this stuff, though?"

"It'll be kept for you. We're an orderly folk, we Tawantiinsuujans; we don't wantonly throw things away." Having seen how smoothly Kuuskoo ran, Park suspected Ankowaljuu was right. The Skrelling watched Monkey-face wrestle the trunk closed, then said, "Come on. Let's be off."

Ankowaljuu not only had a wain outside, but also a driver. The fellow's face was a perfect blank mask, part Skrelling impassivity, part the boredom of flunkies everywhere waiting for their bosses to finish business that doesn't involve them. He stayed behind the wheel and let Park and Dunedin heave the trunk in by themselves.

"Go," Ankowaljuu told him.

The wain sprang ahead, shoving Park back in his seat. He was no milquetoast driver himself, but Ankowaljuu's man did not seem to care whether he lived or died. Eric Dunedin's face was white as they shot through Kuuskoo like a dodge-'em car, evading trucks by the thickness of a coat of paint and making pedestrians scatter for their lives. Park sympathized with his thane. Though he wasn't really Bishop Ib Scoglund, he'd never felt more like praying.

Ankowaljuu turned to grin at his passengers. "When Ljiikljiik here isn't swinking for me, he's a champion wain-racer."

"I believe it," Park said. "Who would dare stay on the same track with him?"

Ankowaljuu laughed out loud. He translated the remark into Ketjwa for Ljiikljiik's benefit. The driver's face twitched. Park supposed that was a smile.

Soon they were out of town. That meant less traffic, but Ljiikljiik sped up even more, rocketing south down the valley at whose northern end Kuuskoo sat.

The airfield was just that: a grassy field. Ljiikljilk drove off the road. As far as Park could tell, he didn't slow down a bit, though everyone in the car rattled around like dried peas in a gourd. When Ljiikljiik slammed on the brakes, Park almost went over the front seat and through the windshield. The driver spoke his only words of the journey: "We're here."

"Praise to Hallow Ailbe for that!" Dunedin gasped. He jumped out of the wain before Ljiikljiik could even think about changing his mind. Park followed with equal alacrity. Still grinning, Ankowaljuu tipped the trunk out after them, then got out himself. Ljiikljiik sped away.

Only one airwain, presumably the one at Ankowaljuu's beck and call, sat waiting on the field. Next to a DC-3 from Park's world, even next to a Ford Trimotor, the machine would have been unimpressive. With its square-sectioned body hung from a flat slab of a wing, it rather reminded him of a scaled-down version of a Trimotor. It had no nose prop, though, and the steam engines on either side of the wing were far bigger and bulkier than the power plants a plane of his world would have used.

The pilot opened a cockpit window, stuck out his head, and spat a wad of coca leaves onto the grass. That did nothing to increase Park's confidence in him, but Ankowaljuu seemed unperturbed. "Hail, Waipaljkoon," he called to the man. "Can we still fly with another man"—he pointed at Dunedin—"and this big cursed box?"

Waipaljkoon paused to stick another wad in his cheek. "Is the box much heavier than a man?" he asked when he was done.

"Not much, no," Ankowaljuu said with a sidelong look at Park, who resolutely ignored him.

"We'll manage, then," Waipaljkoon said. "One of my boilers has been giving me a little trouble, but we'll manage."

Hearing that, Park thought hard about mutiny, but found himself helping his thane manhandle the trunk into the airwain. Monkey-face was chattering excitedly; Park decided he hadn't picked up enough Ketjwa to understand what the pilot had said. He did not enlighten him.

Takeoff procedures were of the simplest sort. The airfield did not boast a control tower. When everyone was aboard and seated, Waipaljkoon started building steam pressure in his engines. The props began to spin, faster and faster. After a while, Waipaljkoon released the brake. The airwain bumped over the
itjuu-
grass.
Just when Park wondered if it really could get off the ground, it gave an ungainly leap and lumbered into the air.

Used to the roar of his world's planes, Park found the quiet inside the cramped cabin eerie, almost as if he weren't flying at all. That was Kuuskoo flowing by beneath him, though. He wished he had a camera.

"Best you and your thane don your sourstuff masks now, Judge Scoglund," Ankowaljuu said, returning to English so Park and Dunedin could not misunderstand him. "You're lowlanders, and the air will only get thinner as we climb over the Antiis." He showed the two men from Vinland how to fit the rubber masks over their noses. "Bethink you to outbreathe through your mouths, and you'll be fine."

The enriched air felt almost thick in Park's lungs, which had grown used to a rarer mix. Before long, at Waipaljkoon's signal, the Tawantiinsuujans also started using the masks. Not even their barrel chests could draw enough oxygen from the air as the 'wain climbed higher and higher.

Tiny as toys, llamas wandered the high plateaus over which the airwain flew. Its almost silent passage overhead did nothing to disturb them. Then the altitude grew too great for even llamas to endure. The backbone of the continent was tumbled rock and ice and snow, dead-seeming as the mountains of the moon.

The cabin was not heated. Waipaljkoon pointed to a cabinet. Eric Dunedin, who sat closest to it, reached in and pulled out thick blankets of llama wool. Even under three of them, Park felt his teeth chatter like castanets.

He wanted to cheer when greenery appeared on the mountainsides below. The airwain descended as the land grew lower. The Tawantiinsuujans took off their oxygen masks. A couple of minutes later, Waipaljkoon said, "We're down to the height of Kuuskoo. Even you lowland folk ought to be all right now."

Park shed his mask, and immediately began feeling short of air. The pilot chuckled at his distress. "How well do you do in hot, sticky weather down by the sea, smart boy?" Park growled.

"That smelly soup? I hate it," Waipaljkoon said. Park laughed in turn. The pilot glared, then said grudgingly, "All right, you made your point."