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

“It’s a herd of humpless camels,” Radnal said quietly. “Try not to spook them.”

The herd was a little one, a couple of long-necked males with a double handful of smaller females and a few young ones that seemed all leg and awkwardness. Unlike the donkeys, they ambled over the crust around the Bitter Lake. Their hooves were wide and soft, spreading under their weight to keep them from falling through.

A male stood guard as the rest of the herd drank at a scummy pool of water. Golobol looked distressed. “That horrid liquid, surely it will poison them,” he said. “I would not drink it to save my life.” His round brown face screwed up in disgust.

“If you drank it, it would end your days all the sooner. But humpless camels have evolved along with the Bottomlands; their kidneys are wonderfully efficient at extracting large amounts of salt.”

“Why don’t they have humps?” Lofosa asked. “Krepalgan camels have humps.” By her tone, what she was used to was right.

“I know Krepalgan camels have humps,” Radnal said. “But the camels in the southern half of the Double Continent don’t, and neither do these. With the Bottomlands beasts, I think the answer is that any lump of fat — which is what a hump is — is a liability in getting rid of heat.”

“In the days before motors, we used to ride our Krepalgan camels,” Evillia said. “Has anyone ever tamed your humpless ones?”

“That’s a good question,” Radnal said, beaming to hide his surprise at her coming up with a good question. He went on, “It has been tried many times, in fact. So far, it’s never worked. They’re too stubborn to do what a human being wants. If we had domesticated them, you’d be riding them now instead of these donkeys; they’re better suited to the terrain here.”

Toglo zev Pamdal scratched her mount’s ears. “They’re also uglier than donkeys.”

“Freelady — uh, Toglo zev — I can’t argue with you,” Radnal said. “They’re uglier than anything I can think of, with dispositions to match.”

As if insulted by words they couldn’t have heard, the humpless camels raised their heads and trotted away from the Bitter Lake. Their backs went up and down, up and down, in time to their rocking gait. Evillia said, “In Krepalga, we sometimes call camels desert barques. Now I see why: riding on one looks like it would make me seasick.”

The tourists laughed. So did Radnal. Making a joke in a language that wasn’t Evillia’s took some brains. Then why, Radnal wondered, did she act so empty-headed? But he shrugged; he’d seen a lot of people with brains do impressively stupid things.

“Why don’t the camels eat all the forage in Trench Park?” Benter vez Maprab asked. He sounded as if his concern was for the plants, not the humpless camels.

“When the herds get too large for the park’s resource, we cull them,” Radnal answered. “This ecosystem is fragile. If we let it get out of balance, it would be a long time repairing itself.”

“Are any herds of wild humpless camels left outside Trench Park, Radnal vez?” Toglo asked.

“A few small ones, in areas of the Bottomlands too barren for people,” the tour guide said. “Not many, though. We occasionally introduce new males into this herd to increase genetic diversity, but they come from zoological parks, not the wild.” The herd receded rapidly, shielded from clear view by the dust it kicked up. “I’m glad we had a chance to see them, if at a distance. That’s why the gods made long lenses for cameras. But now we should head back to the lodge.”

The return journey north struck Radnal as curiously unreal. Though Peggol vez Menk rode among the tourists, they seemed to be pretending as hard as they could that Dokhnor of Kellef had not died, that this was just an ordinary holiday. The alternative was always looking over a shoulder, remembering the person next to you might be a murderer.

The person next to someone was a murderer. Whoever it was, he seemed no different from anyone else. That worried Radnal more than anything.

It even tainted his pleasure from talking with Toglo zev Pamdal. He had trouble imagining her as a killer, but he had trouble imagining anyone in the tour group a killer-save Dokhnor of Kellef, who was dead, and the Martoisi, who might want to kill each other.

He got to the point where he could say “Toglo zev” without prefacing it with “uh.” He really wanted to ask her (but lacked the nerve) how she put up with him after watching him at play with the two Highhead girls. Tarteshans seldom thought well of those who made free with their bodies.

He also wondered what he’d do if Evillia and Lofosa came into his cubicle tonight. He’d throw them out, he decided. Edifying a tour group was one thing, edifying the Park Militia and the Eyes and Ears another. But what they did was so edifying… Maybe he wouldn’t throw them out. He banged a fist onto his knee, irritated at his own fleshly weakness.

The lodge was only a couple of thousand cubits away when his donkey snorted and stiffened its legs against the ground. “Earthquake!” The word went up in Tarteshan and other languages. Radnal felt the ground jerk beneath him. He watched, and marveled at, the Martoisi clinging to each other atop their mounts.

After what seemed a daytenth but had to be an interval measured in heartbeats, the shaking ceased. Just in time, too; Peggol vez Menk’s donkey, panicked by the tremor, was about to buck the Eye and Ear into a thornbush. Radnal caught the beast’s reins, calmed it.

“Thank you, freeman vez Krobir,” Peggol said. “That was bad.”

“You didn’t make it any better by letting go of the reins,” Radnal told him. “If you were in a motor, wouldn’t you hang on to the tiller?”

“I hope so,” Peggol said. “But if I were in a motor, it wouldn’t try to run away by itself.”

Moblay Sopsirk’s son looked west, toward the Barrier Mountains. “That was worse than the one yesterday. I feared I’d see the Western Ocean pouring in with a wave as high as the Lion God’s mane.”

“As I’ve said before, that’s not something you’re likely to have to worry about,” Radnal said. “A quake would have to be very strong and at exactly the wrong place to disturb the mountains.”

“So it would.” Moblay did not sound comforted.

Radnal dismissed his concern with the mild scorn you feel for someone who overreacts to a danger you’re used to. Over in the Double Continent, they had vast and deadly windstorms. Radnal was sure one of those would frighten him out of his wits. But the Stekians probably took them in stride, as he lost no sleep over earthquakes.

The sun sank toward the spikes of the Barrier Mountains. As if bloodied by their pricking, its rays grew redder as Bottomlands shadows lengthened. More red sparkled from the glass and metal and plastic of the helos between the lodge and the stables. Noticing them made Radnal return to the here-and-now. He wondered how the militiamen and Eyes and Ears had done in their search for clues.

They came out as the tour group approached. In their tan, speckled robes, the militiamen were almost invisible against the desert. The Eyes and Ears, with their white and gold and patent leather, might have been spotted from ten thousand cubits away, or from the mountains of the moon.

Liem vez Steries waved to Radnal. “Any luck? Do you have the killer tied up in pink string?”

“Do you see any pink string?” Radnal turned back to face the group, raised his voice: “Let’s get the donkeys settled. They can’t do it for themselves. When they’re fed and watered, we can worry about ourselves.” And about everything that’s been going on , he added to himself.