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

“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 funny-looking outlander. That’s all rick. I did what I did, whether they care or not.”

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.”

“You’d have been sadder yet if you hadn’t used them,” Park said. Still, despite the years he’d spent in the DA’s office battling crime, he found slightly inhuman the idea of letting the world know a house was standing empty. If anywhere, though, it might have worked in Tawantiinsuuju.

As Ankowaljuu had predicted, the inside of the house was untouched. The tukuuii riikook clasped his hand. “I wish I could stay, Judge Scoglund, but I have dealings elsewhere that will not wait.”

“It’s all rick,” Park said. “But I thank you again — for everything. Without you, no one would have had the chance to listen to me up there in the jungle.”

“You were the needful one. No one would have listened to me.” The tukuuii riikook nodded one last time, hurried out the door and back into his wain. Ljiikljiik zoomed off.

“At last!” Park said. He fairly ran to the telephone. “Get me the house of Pauljuu, Ruuminjavii’s son, in the district of Puumatjupan.”

The phone rang and rang. Just as Park began to lose patience, a servant answered: “Yes? Who is it?”

“This is Judge Ib Scoglund,” Park said grandly. “I’d like to speak to Kuurikwiljor, please.”

“Oh! Judge Scoglund!” the woman exclaimed. “Just one moment, please.” She set down the receiver. Faintly, Park heard her calling someone. He preened while he waited; just hearing his name, he thought, had been enough to impress the servant.

A voice he knew came on the line: “Judge Scoglund! How are you today, excellency?”

“Fine, thanks, Pauljuu,” Park answered, frowning a little. “But I asked to speak with your sister, not with you.

“Kuurikwiljor — is not here.”

“When should I call back, then?”

“Judge Scoglund-” Pauljuu hesitated, as if unsure how to go on. “Judge Scoglund, the last time you called here, some weeks ago, you made arrangements to see my sister that evening — and then never came.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Park said. “I was called away — I was almost dragged away — on the mission to make peace with the Dar al-Harb. The mission that succeeded, I might add.”