Harry Turtledove - Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

“A tough job, this tour guide business must be,” Peggol vez Menk said, sounding like everyone else who thought a guide did nothing but roll on the sleepsack with his tourists.

Radnal grunted. This tour, he hadn’t done much with Lofosa or Evillia but roll on the sleepsack. It’s not usually like that , he wanted to say. He didn’t think Peggol would believe him, so he kept his mouth shut. If an Eye and Ear didn’t believe something, he’d start digging. If he started to dig, he’d keep digging till he found what he was looking for, regardless of whether it was really there.

The tour guide and Zosel dug out breakfast packs. By the time they came back, everyone was up, and Evillia had succeeded in distracting some of the males from Lofosa. “Here you are, freelady,” Radnal said to Toglo zev Pamdal when he got to her.

No one paid her any particular attention; she was just a Tarteshan woman in a concealing Tarteshan robe, not a foreign doxy wearing nothing much. Radnal wondered if that irked her. Women, in his experience, did not like being ignored.

If she was irked, she didn’t show it. “I trust you slept well, freeman vez Krobir?” she said. She did not even glance toward Evillia and Lofosa. If she meant anything more by her greeting than its words, she also gave no sign of that — which suited Radnal perfectly.

“Yes. I trust you did likewise,” he answered.

“Well enough,” she said, “though not as well as I did before the Morgaffo was killed. A pity he’ll not be able to make his sketches — he had talent. May his Goddess grant him wind and land and water in the world to come: that’s what the islanders pray for, not so?”

“I believe so, yes,” Radnal said, though he knew little of Morgaffo religious forms.

“I’m glad you’ve arranged for the tour to continue despite the misfortune that befell him, Radnal vez,” she said.

“It can do him no harm, and the Bottomlands are fascinating.”

“So they are, fr-” Radnal began. Then he stopped, stared, and blinked. Toglo hadn’t used formal address, but the middle grade of Tarteshan politesse, which implied she felt she knew him somewhat and didn’t disapprove of him. Considering what she’d witnessed at the first night’s campsite, that was a minor miracle. He grinned and took a like privilege: “So do I, Toglo zev.”

About a tenth of a daytenth later, as he and Fer carried empty ration packs to the disposal bin, the other Trench Park staffer elbowed him in the ribs and said, “You have all the women after you, eh, Radnal vez?”

Radnal elbowed back, harder. “Go jump in the Bitter Lake, Fer vez. This group’s nothing but trouble. Besides, Nocso zev Martois thinks I’m part of the furniture.”

“You wouldn’t want her,” Fer replied, chuckling. “I was just jealous.”

“That’s what Moblay said,” Radnal answered. Having anyone jealous of him for being sexually attractive was a new notion, one he didn’t care for. By Tarteshan standards, drawing such notice was faintly disreputable, as if he’d got rich by skirting the law. It didn’t bother Evillia and Lofosa — they reveled in it. Well , he asked himself, do you really want to be like Evillia and Lofosa, no matter how ripe their bodies are? He snorted through his nose. “Let’s go back inside, so I can get my crew moving.”

After two days of practice, the tourists thought they were seasoned riders. They bounded onto their donkeys, and had little trouble guiding them out of their stalls. Peggol vez Menk looked almost as apprehensive as his henchman who’d gone to search the stable. He drew in his white robe all around him, as if fearing to have it soiled. “You expect me to ride one of these creatures?” he said.

“You were the one who wanted to come along,” Radnal answered. “You don’t have to ride; you could always hike along beside us.”

Peggol glared. “Thank you, no, freeman vez Krobir.” He pointedly did not say Radnal vez . “Will you be good enough to show me how to ascend one of these perambulating peaks?”

“Certainly, freeman vez Menk.” Radnal mounted a donkey, dismounted, got on again. The donkey gave him a jaundiced stare, as if asking him to make up his mind. He dismounted once more, and took the snort that followed as the asinine equivalent of a resigned shrug. To Peggol, he said, “Now you try, freeman.”

Unlike Evillia or Lofosa, the Eye and Ear managed to imitate Radnal’s movements without requiring the tour guide to take him by the waist (just as well, Radnal thought — Peggol wasn’t smooth and supple like the Highhead girls). He said, “When back in Tarteshem, freeman vez Krobir, I shall stick exclusively to motors.”

“When I’m in Tarteshem, freeman vez Menk, I do the same,” Radnal answered.

The party set out a daytenth after sunrise: not as early as Radnal would have liked but, given the previous day’s distractions, the best he could expect. He led them south, toward the lowlands at the core of Trench Park. Under his straw hat, Moblay Sopsirk’s son was already sweating hard.

Something skittered into hiding under the fleshy leaves of a desert spurge. “What did we just nearly see there, freeman?” Golobol asked.

Radnal smiled at the physician’s phrasing. “That was a fat sand rat. It’s a member of the gerbil family, one specially adapted to feed off succulent plants that concentrate salt in their foliage. Fat sand rats are common throughout the Bottomlands. They’re pests in areas where there’s enough water for irrigated agriculture.”

Moblay said, “You sound like you know a lot about them, Radnal.”

“Not as much as I’d like to, freeman vez Sopsirk,” Radnal answered, still trying to persuade the Lissonese to stop being so uncouthly familiar. “I study them when I’m not being a tour guide.”

“I hate all kinds of rats,” Nocso zev Martois said flatly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Eltsac said. “Some rats are kind of cute.” The two Martoisi began to argue. Everyone else ignored them.

Moblay said, “Hmp. Fancy spending all your time studying rats.”

“And how do you make your livelihood, freeman?” Radnal snapped.

“Me?” Flat-nosed, dark, and smooth, Moblay’s face was different from Radnal’s in every way. But the tour guide recognized the blank mask that appeared on it for a heartbeat: the expression of a man with something to hide. Moblay said, “As I told you, I am aide to my prince, may his years be many.” He had said that, Radnal remembered. It might even be true, but he was suddenly convinced it wasn’t the whole truth.

Benter vez Maprab couldn’t have cared less about the fat sand rat. The spiny spurge under which it hid, however, interested him. He said, “Freeman vez Krobir, perhaps you will explain the relationship between the plants here and the cactuses in the deserts of the Double Continent.”

“There is no relationship to speak of.” Radnal gave the old Strongbrow an unfriendly look. Try to make me look bad in front of everyone, will you? he thought. He went on, “The resemblances come from adapting to similar environments. That’s called convergent evolution. As soon as you cut them open, you’ll see they’re unrelated: spurges have a thick white milky sap, while that of cactuses is clear and watery. Whales and fish look very much alike, too, but that’s because they both live in the sea, not because they’re kin.”

Benter hunched low over his donkey’s back. Radnal felt like preening, as if he’d overcome a squadron of Morgaffo marine commandos rather than one querulous old Tarteshan.

Some of the spines of the desert spurge held a jerboa, a couple of grasshoppers, a shoveler skink, and other small, dead creatures. “Who hung them out to dry?” Peggol vez Menk asked.