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

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.”