Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

Well, there goes the ball game, Park thought. Religious fanaticism had started this idiot war, and religious fanaticism would keep it going. Just when he was begi

Then Maita Kapak said, “Viiljak Uumuu, do you presume to expound the will of Patjakamak to me?” If his voice had been icy to Park, now it was somewhere around the temperature of liquid air.

The priest turned as pale as a Skrelling could. “N-no, Radiance, of course not. I–I only thought to remind, uh, to remind you of what you yourself always, uh, sometimes said.”

“Enough,” Maita Kapak said. “I am the Son of the Sun, and I am the instrument through which Patjakamak expresses his will. Do you doubt it?”

Viiljak Uumuu went down on his belly. “No, Radiance, never!” He sounded horrified. Arguing with the Son of the Sun wasn’t merely lиse majestй, Allister Park saw — it was a lot more like blasphemy.

“What is your will, Radiance?” Park asked into the ringing silence that followed Maita Kapak’s outburst.

“Let me think,” the Son of the Sun said, and silence stretched again. At last the Tawantiinsuujan ruler gave his decision: “The benefits that will come to us as a result of improving our standing with the Muslims outweigh, I think, the loss we suffer from restoring to the Emirate this land east of the Ooriinookoo. Therefore Patjakamak must be seeking our acceptance of the terms Judge Scoglund has presented. Should the Emir keep the promise he made the judge to honor those terms, Tawantiinsuuju will also cleave to them. Let there be peace.”

“Let there be peace,” his aides echoed, Viiljak Uumuu loudest among them. Park wanted to go over and shake the big-mouthed priest’s hand. If he hadn’t got Maita Kapak angry, the Son of the Sun might have come down the other way. On some different turn of the wheel of if Park thought, blinking, maybe he did. He deliberately turned his back on that thought. He liked the way things had turned out here just fine.

“No one will be waiting for us, Judge Scoglund,” Eric Dunedin said, a little wistfully, as the train pulled into Kuuskoo.

Park shrugged. “I didn’t want a brass band.” He wouldn’t have got a brass band anyhow; the Tawantiinsuujans greeted their returning heroes with reed pipes, flutes, and drums made from gourds. It wasn’t what Park liked in the way of music, but then it wasn’t for him, either.

“Well, you ock to have a brass band,” Dunedin said. “If not for you, all these warriors would still be out in the jungle, ficking and dying.”

“The International Court will know that,” Park said, “which is what counts to me. To these folk, I’m just some fu

Someone here would care, though, Park thought as the train, brakes chuffing, glided to a halt. He looked forward to explaining to Kuurikwiljor just exactly how exciting his adventures had been, and how important his role in making the peace. He wouldn’t really have to exaggerate, he told himself, only emphasize what needed emphasizing. Of course she would be fascinated.

And then, Park thought, and then… He’d been imagining “and then” in odd moments ever since Ankowaljuu started banging on his door. Soon, with a little luck — and he’d only need a little — he wouldn’t have to imagine any more.

The train stopped. Park leaped to his feet. “Come on, Eric,” he said when his thane was slower to rise. “Let’s head for our house. I want to use the wirecaller.”

“What of seeing to our trunk?” Dunedin said.

“Hell with it. The Tawantiinsuujans will make sure it catches up with us sooner or later. They’re good at that sort of thing: hardly a thiefly wick among ’em. We didn’t pack everything, you know — there’s still enough stuff to wear back at the place.”

Monkey-face looked dubious, but followed Park to the front of the car. As they went down the steps, the thane’s wrinkled face split in a big, delighted smile. He pointed. “Look, Judge Scoglund! Someone came to meet us after all. There’s the Vinlandish spokesman to Tawantiinsuuju.”

Osfric Lundqvist spotted Park and Dunedin at about the same time Dunedin saw him. He waved and used his beefy frame to push his way through the crowd toward his two countrymen.

“Haw, Judge Scoglund!” The ambassador pumped Park’s hand as if he were jacking up a wain. “Well done! I say again, well done! Without your tireless swinking on behalf of peace, the Son of the Sun and the Emir would still be bemixed in uproarious war.”

“The very thing I told him,” Eric Dunedin chirped. “The very thing.”

“You’re most kind, bestness,” Park murmured. He sent Monkey-face a glance that meant shut up. He had no interest whatever in standing in the railway station chattering with this political hack. What he wanted was to get to a wirecaller.

Dunedin, unfortunately, didn’t catch the glance. He said, “Singlehanded, the judge talked Maita Kapak and Hussein into ontaking peace.”

“Wonderful!” Lundqvist boomed. “Though as you said, Judge Scoglund, you came here as a forstander of the International Court and not of Vinland, still what you did here brings pride to all Vinlandish hearts.”

“It wasn’t as big a dealing as all that,” Park said. Where he’d intended to magnify his accomplishments for Kuurikwiljor, now he downplayed them in an effort to make Lundqvist give up and go away.

That, however, the ambassador refused to do. Park had picked off Amazon leeches with less cling than he displayed. Finally he said, “Isn’t that Tjiimpuu waving for you, Thane Lundqvist?”

Lundqvist looked around. “Where?”

“He’s behind those two tall wicks now.”

“Reckon I ock to learn what he wants of me. I’ll see you later, Judge Scoglund; I have much mair to talk about with you.” Lundqvist plunged back into the crowd, moving quickly in the direction Park had given him.

“I didn’t see the warden for outlandish dealings back there,” Eric Dunedin said.

“Neither did I,” Park told him. “Let’s get out of here before Lundqvist finds out and comes back.”

He and his thane hurried off, going the opposite way from Lundqvist. Soon they were standing outside the station. Park had hoped to flag a cab, but saw none. For one thing, they weren’t as common here as in Vinland. For another, as he realized after a moment, cabbies didn’t come swarming to meet a troop train, not in Tawantiinsuuju, where anything pertaining to military transportation was a state monopoly. As he watched, soldiers started filing onto government folkwains — by now, Park seldom thought of them as buses.

The station was a couple of miles from the house he’d been assigned. He was about to give up and start walking-though his lungs, newly returned to two miles above sea level, dreaded the prospect — when a familiar — looking wain pulled up nearby. Ankowaljuu stuck his head out. “Need a ride, Judge Scoglund?”

“Yes, and thank you very much.” Park and Dunedin climbed into the wain. Park shifted to Ketjwa. “Hello, Ljiikljiik,” he told the tukuuii riikook’s driver.

Ljiikljilk nodded, then set off at the same breakneck pace he’d used before. Ankowaljuu said, “You have a fine recall, to bethink yourself of the name of a man you met just for a brief while.”

“Thanks.” Park didn’t point out that any aspiring politician learned to remember people’s names. He also didn’t say that he wouldn’t forget Ljiikljiik’s driving if he lived to be ninety.

It had its uses, though. Faster than Park would have thought possible, the wain pulled up in front of his house. “I hope everything is still in there,” he said.

“It will be,” Ankowaljuu said confidently. “In the olden days, a Tawantiinsuujan who was going out put a stick across his door to show he was not home, and no one ever bothered his goods. We’re not so lawful now, worse luck, but I was sad when I got to New Belfast and saw lodging-room doors with three locks.”