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

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.”

They landed at a town called Viiljkabamba for the night. Park tried to phone Kuurikwiljor to tell her where he was. After assorted clicks and pops, the call went through. When someone answered it, though, the connection was so faint that he could not make himself understood at all. Finally, swearing, he hung up.

They flew on the next morning. Below them, foliage grew ever more exuberant; jungle stretched ahead as far as the eye could see. To Allister Park, viewing it from above, it might have been a great green ocean. Only an occasional cleared patch or the glint of sunlight off a pond or river spoiled the illusion.

“How do you find your way when everything looks alike?” Park asked Waipaljkoon. For all he could tell, they might have been flying in circles.

“By the blessed sun, of course, and the lodestone.” The pilot tapped a compass on the instrument panel. In the profusion of other dials, Park had not noticed it. He felt foolish until Waipaljkoon went on, “And by keeping track of my air speed and guessing whether the wind is with or against me, and by a good deal of luck.”

“He hasn’t crashed yet,” Ankowaljuu said jovially, slapping the pilot on the back.

Eric Dunedin intoned, “Patjam kuutiin — the world changes,” in a voice so sepulchral that everyone stared at him, the two Tawantiinsuujans in surprise, Park in admiration. Monkey-face grinned. He sometimes showed unsuspected depths, Park thought.

He’d drunk aka with breakfast at Viiljkabamba. Now it began to have its revenge. He fidgeted in his chair. Soon fidgeting did not help. “How do I make water here?” he asked.

Waipaljkoon handed him a stoppered jug. “Make sure you put the plug back in tightly,” the pilot warned, “in case we hit choppy air.” Though relieved when he gave back the jug, Park reflected that Tawantiinsuuju still had a lot to learn about proper airline service.

The aka also left Park sleepy. He was wondering if he could doze in his uncomfortable seat when the airwain lurched in the air. “What the-” he began, while Ankowaljuu and Dunedin made similar dismayed noises.

Waipaljkoon, red-brown face grim, pointed wordlessly to the starboard engine. The steam plants’ exhaust usually scrawled a big vapor trail across the sky. Now, though, vapor was spurting from several places in the engine housing where it did not belong. Park watched the spin of the three-bladed wooden propellor slow, stop.

“Boiler tubes must have failed,” the pilot said.

The jungle, all of a sudden, seemed terribly far below and much too close, both at the same time. No, it was closer — the airwain was losing altitude. Park was glad he’d used the jug not long before. “Are we going to hit the ground hard?” he asked, not knowing how to say “crash” in Ketjwa.

Waipaljkoon understood him. “Unless we find a town or a clearing soon,” he said. “We can’t fly long with just one motor, that’s certain.”

The next few minutes were among the worst of Allister Park’s life. The slow descent of the airwain only gave him more time to think about what would happen at its end. The lower they got, the hotter it grew. Park would have been sweating just as hard, though, had the engine quit during their frigid passage over the Antiis.

Just as he was wondering when some high treetop would snag their landing gear and flip them into the forest, Eric Dunedin pointed off to the left. “Isn’t that a break in the trees?”

It was. Waipaljkoon fiddled with the controls. To Park’s amazement, the airwain climbed a little. “Now that I have somewhere definite to go, I can give my one engine full power,” the pilot explained. “Before, I had to save some to make sure it didn’t fail too, before we had a place to land.”

All four men cheered when the clearing proved to hold not only cultivated fields but also, snug against the riverbank, a small town. Farmers in the fields gaped up at the airwain. Park wondered if they’d ever seen one up close before.

“I’m going to set it down,” Waipaljkoon said. “Hang on tight, and pray Patjakamak is watching us.”

Cornstalks swished and rattled against the wings as the airwain bumped to a stop. Park’s teeth clicked together several times, but he’d been braced for worse. “Thank you, Waipaljkoon,” Dunedin said. That, Park thought, about summed it up.