Harry Turtledove & L. Sprague De Camp - Down In The Bottomlands

Down in The Bottomlands

Table of Contents

Down in the Bottomlands

The Wheels of If

The Pugnacious Peacemaker

Down in The Bottomlands

(and Other Places)

by Harry Turtledove

and L. Sprague de Camp

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-57835-9

Cover art by Larry Elmore

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First printing, October 1999

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Typeset by Brilliant Press

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

From Harry Turtledove:

To L. Sprague de Camp,

with thanks for the inspiration

Down in the Bottomlands

Harry Turtledove

A double handful of tourists climbed down from the omnibus, chattering with excitement. From under the

long brim of his cap, Radnal vez Krobir looked them over, comparing them with previous groups he'd led

through Trench Park. About average, he decided: an old man spending money before he died; younger

folks searching for adventure in an overcivilized world; a few who didn't fit into an obvious category and

might be artists, writers, researchers, or anything else under the sun.

He also looked over the women in the tour group with a different sort of curiosity. He was in the process

of buying a bride from her father, but he hadn't done it; legally and morally, he remained a free agent.

Some of the women were worth looking over, too: a couple of tall, slim, dark Highheads from the eastern

lands who stuck by each other, and another of Radnal's own Strongbrow race, shorter, stockier, fairer,

with deep-set light eyes under heavy brow ridges.

One of the Highhead girls gave him a dazzling smile. He smiled back as he walked toward the group, his

wool robes flapping around him. "Hello, friends," he called. "Do you all understand Tarteshan? Ah,

good."

Cameras clicked as he spoke. He was used to that; people from every tour group wasted pictures on

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him, though he wasn't what they'd come to see. He went into his usual welcoming speech:

"On behalf of the Hereditary Tyranny of Tartesh and the staff of Trench Park, I'm pleased to welcome

you here today. If you haven't read my button, or if you just speak Tarteshan but don't know our

syllabary, my name is Radnal vez Krobir. I'm a field biologist with the park, doing a two-year stretch of

guide duty."

"Stretch?" said the woman who'd smiled at him. "You make it sound like a sentence in the mines."

"I don't mean it like that—quite." He grinned his most disarming grin. Most of the tourists grinned back.

A few stayed sober-faced, likely the ones who suspected the gibe was real and the grin put on. There

was some truth in that. He knew it, but the tourists weren't supposed to.

He went on, "In a bit, I'll take you over to the donkeys for the trip down into the Trench itself. As you

know, we try to keep our mechanical civilization out of the park so we can show you what all the

Bottomlands were like not so long ago. You needn't worry. The donkeys are very sure-footed. We

haven't lost one—or even a tourist—in years."

This time, some of the chuckles that came back were nervous. Probably only a couple of this lot had

ever done anything so archaic as getting on the back of an animal. Too bad for the ones just thinking

about that now. The rules were clearly stated. The pretty Highhead girls looked particularly upset. The

placid donkeys worried them more than the wild beasts of the Trench.

"Let's put off the evil moment as long as we can," Radnal said. "Come under the colonnade for half a

daytenth or so and we'll talk about what makes Trench Park unique."

The tour group followed him into the shade. Several people sighed in relief. Radnal had to work to keep

his face straight. The Tarteshan sun was warm, but if they had trouble here, they'd cook down in the

Trench. That was their lookout. If they got heatstroke, he'd set them right again. He'd done it before.

He pointed to the first illuminated map. "Twenty million years ago, as you'll see, the Bottomlands didn't

exist. A long stretch of sea separated what's now the southwest section of the Great Continent from the

rest. Notice that what were then two lands' masses first joined in the east, and a land bridge rosehere ."

He pointed again, this time more precisely. "This sea, now a long arm of the Western Ocean, remained."

He walked over to the next map, drawing the tourists with him. "Things stayed like that until about six

and a half million years ago. Then, as that southwest section of the Great Continent kept drifting

northward, a new range gradually pushed uphere , at the western outlet of that inland sea. When it was

cut off from the Western Ocean, it began to dry up: it lost more water by evaporation than flowed into it

from its rivers. Now if you'll come along . . ."

The third map had several overlays, in different shades of blue. "The sea took about a thousand years to

turn into the Bottomlands. It refilled from the Western Ocean several times, too, as tectonic forces

lowered the Barrier Mountains. But for about the last five and a half million years, the Bottomlands have

had about the form we know today."

The last map showed the picture familiar to any child studying geography: the Trench of the Bottomlands

furrowing across the Great Continent like a surgical scar, requiring colors needed nowhere else on the

globe to show relief.

Radnal led the tourists out to the donkey corral. The shaggy animals were already bridled and saddled.

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Radnal explained how to mount, demonstrated, and waited for the tourists to mess it up. Sure enough,

both Highhead girls put the wrong foot in the stirrup.

"No, like this," he said, demonstrating again. "Use your left foot, then swing over."

The girl who had smiled at him succeeded on the second try. The other balked. "Help me," she said.

Breathing out through his beaky nose in lieu of sighing, Radnal put his hands on her waist and all but lifted

her into the saddle as she mounted. She giggled. "You're so strong. He's so strong, Evillia." The other

Highhead girl—presumably Evillia—giggled too.

Radnal breathed out again, harder. Tarteshans and other folk of Strongbrow race who lived north of the

Bottomlands and down in themwere stronger than most Highheads, but generally weren't as agile. So

what, either way?

He went back to work: "Now that we've learned to mount our donkeys, we're going to learn to

dismount." The tourists groaned, but Radnal was inexorable. "You still have to carry your supplies from

the omnibus and stow them in the saddlebags. I'm your guide, not your servant." The Tarteshan words

carried overtones ofI'm your equal, not your slave .

Most of the tourists dismounted, but Evillia stayed up on her donkey. Radnal strode over to her; even his

patience was fraying. "This way." He guided her through the necessary motions.

"Thank you, freeman vez Krobir," she said in surprisingly fluent Tarteshan. She turned to her friend.

"You're right, Lofosa; heis strong."

Radnal felt his ears grow hot under their coat of down. A brown-skinned Highhead from south of the

Bottomlands rocked his hips back and forth and said, "I'm jealous of you." Several tourists laughed.

"Let's get on with it," Radnal said. "The sooner we get the donkeys loaded, the sooner we can begin and

the more we'll see." That line never failed; you didn't become a tourist unless you wanted to see as much

as you could. As if on cue, the driver brought the omnibus around to the corral. The baggage doors

opened with a hiss of compressed air. The driver started chucking luggage out of the bins.

"You shouldn't have any problems," Radnal said. Everyone's gear had been weighed and measured

beforehand, to make sure the donkeys wouldn't have to bear anything too bulky or heavy. Most people

easily shifted their belongings to the saddlebags. The two Highhead girls, though, had a night demon of a

time making everything fit. He thought about helping them, but decided not to. If they had to pay a

penalty for making the supply donkeys carry some of their stuff, it was their own fault.

They did get everything in, though their saddlebags bulged like a snake that had just swallowed a

half-grown humpless camel. A couple of other people stood around helplessly, with full bags and gear left

over. Smiling a smile he hoped was not too predatory, Radnal took them to the scales and collected a

tenth of a unit of silver for every unit of excess weight.

"This is an outrage," the dark brown Highhead man said. "Do you know who I am? I am Moblay

Sopsirk's son, aide to the Prince of Lissonland." He drew himself up to his full height, almost a Tarteshan

cubit more than Radnal's.

"Then you can afford the four and three tenths," Radnal answered. "Idon't keep the silver. It all goes to

upkeep for the park."

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Grumbling still, Moblay paid. Then he stomped off and swung aboard his animal with more grace than

Radnal had noticed him possessing. Down in Lissonland, the guide remembered, important people

sometimes rode stripehorses for show. He didn't understand that. He had no interest in getting onto a

donkey when he wasn't going down into Trench Park. As long as there were better ways of doing things,

why not use them?

Also guilty of overweight baggage were a middle-aged Tarteshan couple. They were overweight

themselves, too, but Radnal couldn't do anything about that. Eltsac vez Martois protested, "The scale at

home said we were all right."

"If you read it right," Nocso zev Martois said to her husband. "You probably didn't."

"Whose side are you on?" he snarled. She screeched at him. Radnal waited till they ran down, then

collected the silver due the park.

When the tourists had remounted their donkeys, the guide walked over to the gate on the far side of the

corral, swung it open, and replaced the key in a pouch he wore belted round his waist under his robe. As

he went back to his own animal, he said, "When you ride through there, you enter the park itself, and the

waivers you signed come into play. Under Tarteshan law, park guides have the authority of military

officers within the park. I don't intend to exercise it any more than I have to; we should get along just fine

with simple common sense. But I am required to remind you the authority is there." He also kept a

repeating handcannon in one of his donkey's saddlebags, but didn't mention that.

"Please stay behind me and try to stay on the trail," he said. "It won't be too steep today; we'll camp

tonight at what was the edge of the continental shelf. Tomorrow we'll descend to the bottom of the

ancient sea, as far below mean sea level as a medium-sized mountain is above it. That will be more

rugged terrain."

The Strongbrow woman said, "It will be hot, too, much hotter than it is now. I visited the park three or

four years ago, and it felt like a furnace. Be warned, everyone."

"You're right, freelady, ah—" Radnal said.

"I'm Toglo zev Pamdal." She added hastily, "Only a distant collateral relation, I assure you."

"As you say, freelady." Radnal had trouble keeping his voice steady. The Hereditary Tyrant of Tartesh

was Bortav vez Pamdal. Even his distant collateral relations needed to be treated with sandskink gloves.

Radnal was glad Toglo had had the courtesy to warn him who she was—or rather, who her distant

collateral relation was. At least she didn't seem the sort who would snoop around and take bad reports

on people back to the friends she undoubtedly had in high places.

* * *

Although the country through which the donkeys ambled was below sea level, it wasn't very far below. It

didn't seem much different from the land over which the tourists' omnibus had traveled to reach the edge

of Trench Park: dry and scrubby, with thornbushes and palm trees like long-handled feather dusters.

Radnal let the terrain speak for itself, though he did remark, "Dig a couple of hundred cubits under the

soil hereabouts and you'll find a layer of salt, same as you would anywhere in the Bottomlands. It's not

too thick here on the shelf, because this area dried up quickly, but it's here. That's one of the first clues

geologists had that the Bottomlands used to be a sea, and one of the ways they map the boundaries of

the ancient water."

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Moblay Sopsirk's son wiped his sweaty face with a forearm. Where Radnal, like any Tarteshan,

covered up against the heat, Moblay wore only a hat, shoes, and a pocketed belt to carry silver, perhaps

a small knife or toothpick, and whatever else he thought he couldn't do without. He was dark enough that

he didn't need to worry about skin cancer, but he didn't look very comfortable, either.

He said, "Were some of that water back in the Bottomlands, Radnal, Tartesh would have a better

climate."

"You're right," Radnal said; he was resigned to foreigners using his familial name with uncouth familiarity.

"We'd be several hundredths cooler in summer and warmer in winter. But if the Barrier Mountains fell

again, we'd lose the great area that the Bottomlands encompass and the mineral wealth we derive from

them: salt, other chemicals left by evaporation, and the petroleum reserves that wouldn't be accessible

through deep water. Tarteshans have grown used to heat over the centuries. We don't mind it."

"I wouldn't go that far," Toglo said. "I don't think it's an accident that Tarteshan air coolers are sold all

over the world."

Radnal found himself nodding. "You have a point, freelady. What we get from the Bottomlands, though,

outweighs fuss over the weather."

As he'd hoped, they got to the campsite with the sun still in the sky and watched it sink behind the

mountains to the west. The tourists gratefully descended from their donkeys and stumped about,

complaining of how sore their thighs were. Radnal set them to carrying lumber from the metal racks that

lined one side of the site.

He lit the cookfires with squirts from a squeeze bottle of starter fuel and a flint-and-steel lighter. "The

lazy man's way," he admitted cheerfully. As with his skill on a donkey, that he could start a fire at all

impressed the tourists. He went back to the donkeys, dug out ration packs which he tossed into the

flames. When their tops popped and began to vent steam, he fished them out with a long-handled fork.

"Here we are," he said. "Peel off the foil and you have Tarteshan food—not a banquet fit for the gods,

perhaps, but plenty to keep you from starving and meeting them before your time."

Evillia read the inscription on the side of her pack. "These are military rations," she said suspiciously.

Several people groaned.

Like any other Tarteshan freeman, Radnal had done his required two years in the Hereditary Tyrant's

Volunteer Guard. He came to the ration packs' defense: "Like I said, they'll keep you from starving."

The packs—mutton and barley stew, with carrots, onions, and a heavy dose of ground pepper and

garlic—weren't too bad. The two Martoisi inhaled theirs and asked for more.

"I'm sorry," Radnal said. "The donkeys carry only so many. If I give you another pack each, someone

will go hungry before we reach the lodge."

"We're hungry now," Nocso zev Martois said.

"That's right," Eltsac echoed. They stared at each other, perhaps surprised at agreeing.

"I'm sorry," Radnal said again. He'd never had anyone ask for seconds before. Thinking that, he glanced

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over to see how Toglo zev Pamdal was faring with such basic fare. As his eyes flicked her way, she

crumpled her empty pack and got up to throw it in a refuse bin.

She had a lithe walk, though he could tell little of the shape of her body because of her robes. As

young—or even not so young—men will, he wandered into fantasy. Suppose he was dickering withher

father over bride price instead of with Markaf vez Putun, who acted as if his daughter Wello shat silver

and pissed petrol . . .

He had enough sense to recognize when he was being foolish, which is more than the gods grant most.

Toglo's father undoubtedly could make a thousand better matches for her than a none-too-special

biologist. Confrontation with brute fact didn't stop him from musing, but did keep him from taking himself

too seriously.

He smiled as he pulled sleepsacks out of one of the pack donkeys' panniers. The tourists took turns with

a foot pump to inflate them. With the weather so warm, a good many tourists chose to lie on top of the

sleepsacks rather than crawl into them. Some kept on the clothes they'd been wearing, some had special

sleep clothes, and some didn't bother with clothes. Tartesh had a moderately strong nudity taboo: not

enough to give Radnal the horrors at naked flesh, but plenty to make him eye Evillia and Lofosa as they

carelessly shed shirts and trousers. They were young, attractive, and even well-muscled for Highheads.

They seemed more naked to him because their bodies were less hairy than those of Strongbrows. He

was relieved his robe hid his full response to them.

Speaking to the group, he said, "Get as much sleep as you can tonight. Don't stay up gabbing. We'll be

in the saddle most of the day tomorrow, on worse terrain than we saw today. You'll do better if you're

rested."

"Yes, clanfather," Moblay Sopsirk's son said, as a youngster might to the leader of his kith

grouping—but any youngster who sounded as sassy as Moblay would get the back of his clanfather's

hand across his mouth to remind him not to sound that way again.

But, since Radnal had spoken good sense, most of the tourists did try to go to sleep. They did not know

the wilds but, with the possible exception of the Martoisi, they were not fools: few fools accumulated for

an excursion to Trench Park. As he usually did the first night with a new group, Radnal disregarded his

own advice. He was good at going without sleep and, being familiar with what lay ahead, would waste no

energy on the trip down to the Trench itself.

An owl hooted from a hole in a palm trunk. The air smelled faintly spicy. Sage and lavender, oleander,

laurel, thyme—many local plants had leaves that secreted aromatic oils. Their coatings reduced water

loss—always of vital importance here—and made the leaves unpalatable to insects and animals.

The fading campfires drew moths. Every so often, their glow would briefly light up other, larger shapes:

bats and nightjars swooping down to take advantage of the feast set out before them. The tourists took

no notice of insects or predators. Their snores rang louder than the owl's cries. After a few trips as tour

guide, Radnal was convinced practically everyone snored. He supposed he did, too, though he'd never

heard himself do it.

He yawned, lay back on his own sleepsack with hands clasped behind his head, looked up at the stars,

displayed as if on black velvet. There were so many more of them here than in the lights of the big city:

yet another reason to work in Trench Park. He watched them slowly whirl overhead; he'd never found a

better way to empty his mind and drift toward sleep.

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His eyelids were getting heavy when someone rose from his—no, her—sleepsack: Evillia, on her way to

the privy shed behind some bushes. His eyes opened wider; in the dim firelight, she looked like a moving

statue of polished bronze. As soon as her back was to him, he ran his tongue over his lips.

But instead of getting back into her sack when she returned, Evillia squatted by Lofosa's. Both Highhead

girls laughed softly. A moment later, they both climbed to their feet and headed Radnal's way. Lust

turned to alarm—what were they doing?

They knelt down, one on either side of him. Lofosa whispered, "We think you're a fine chunk of man."

Evillia set a hand on the tie of his robe, began to undo it.

"Bothof you?" he blurted. Lust was back, impossible to disguise since he lay on his back. Incredulity

came with it. Tarteshan women—even Tarteshan tarts—weren't so brazen (he thought how Evillia had

reminded him of smoothly moving bronze); nor were Tarteshan men. Not that Tarteshan men didn't enjoy

lewd imaginings, but they usually kept quiet about them.

The Highhead girls shook with more quiet laughter, as if his reserve were the funniest thing imaginable.

"Why not?" Evillia said. "Three can do lots of interesting things two can't."

"But—" Radnal waved to the rest of the tour group. "What if they wake up?"

The girls laughed harder; their flesh shifted more alluringly. Lofosa answered, "They'll learn something."

Radnal learned quite a few things. One was that, being on the far side of thirty, his nights of keeping

more than one woman happy were behind him, though he enjoyed trying. Another was that, what with

sensual distractions, trying to make two women happy at once was harder than patting his head with one

hand and rubbing his stomach with the other. Still another was that neither Lofosa nor Evillia carried an

inhibition anywhere about her person.

He felt himself flagging, knew he'd be limp in more ways than one come morning. "Shall we have mercy

on him?" Evillia asked—in Tarteshan, so he could understand her teasing.

"I suppose so," Lofosa said. "This time." She twisted like a snake, brushed her lips against Radnal's.

"Sleep well, freeman." She and Evillia went back to their sleepsacks, leaving him to wonder if he'd

dreamed they were with him but too worn to believe it.

This time, his drift toward sleep was more like a dive. But before he yielded, he saw Toglo zev Pamdal

come back from the privy. For a moment, that meant nothing. But if she was coming back now, she must

have gone before, when he was too occupied to notice . . . which meant she must have seen him so

occupied.

He hissed like an ocellated lizard, though green wasn't the color he was turning. Toglo got back into her

sleepsack without looking either at him or the two Highhead girls. Whatever fantasies he'd had about her

shriveled. The best he could hope for come morning was the cool politeness someone of prominence

gives an underling of imperfect manners. The worst . . .

What if she starts screaming to the group?he wondered. He supposed he could grit his teeth and

carry on.But what if she complains about me to the Hereditary Tyrant? He didn't like the answers he

came up with;I'll lose my job was the first that sprang to mind, and they went downhill from there.

He wondered why Moblay Sopsirk's son couldn't have got up to empty his bladder. Moblay would

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have been envious and admiring, not disgusted as Toglo surely was.

Radnal hissed again. Since he couldn't do anything about what he'd already done, he tried telling himself

he would have to muddle along and deal with whatever sprang from it. He repeated that to himself

several times. It didn't keep him from staying awake most of the night, no matter how tired he was.

* * *

The sun woke the tour guide. He heard some of the group already up and stirring. Though still

sandy-eyed and clumsy with sleep, he made himself scramble out of his sack. He'd intended to get

moving first, as he usually did, but the previous night's exertion and worry overcame the best of

intentions.

To cover what he saw as a failing, he tried to move twice as fast as usual, which meant he kept making

small, annoying mistakes: tripping over a stone and almost falling, calling the privy the campfire and the

campfire the privy, going to a donkey that carried only fodder when he wanted breakfast packs.

He finally found the smoked sausages and hard bread. Evillia and Lofosa grinned when they took out the

sausages, which flustered him worse. Eltsac vez Martois stole a roll from his wife, who cursed him with a

dockwalloper's fluency and more than a dockwalloper's volume.

Then Radnal had to give breakfast to Toglo zev Pamdal. "Thank you, freeman," she said, more at ease

than he'd dared hope. Then her gray eyes met his. "I trust you slept well?"

It was a conventional Tarteshan morning greeting, or would have been, if she hadn't sounded—no,

Radnal decided, she couldn't have sounded amused. "Er—yes," he managed, and fled.

He knew only relief at handing the next breakfast to a Strongbrow who put away a sketch pad and

charcoal to take it. "Thank you," the fellow said. Though he seemed polite enough, his guttural accent and

the striped tunic and trousers he wore proclaimed him a native of Morgaf, the island kingdom off the

northern coast of Tartesh—and the Tyranny's frequent foe. Their current twenty-year bout of peace was

as long as they'd enjoyed in centuries.

Normally, Radnal would have been cautious around a Morgaffo. But now he found him easier to

confront than Toglo. Glancing at the sketch pad, he said, "That's a fine drawing, freeman, ah—"

The Morgaffo held out both hands in front of him in his people's greeting. "I am Dokhnor of Kellef,

freeman vez Krobir," he said. "Thank you for your interest."

He made it sound likestop spying on me . Radnal hadn't meant it that way. With a few deft strokes of

his charcoal stick, Dokhnor had picked out the features of the campsite: the fire pits, the oleanders in

front of the privy, the tethered donkeys. As a biologist who did field work, Radnal was a fair hand with a

piece of charcoal. He wasn't in Dokhnor's class, though. A military engineer couldn't have done better.

That thought triggered his suspicions. He looked at the Morgaffo more closely. The fellow carried

himself as a soldier would, which proved nothing. Lots of Morgaffos were soldiers. Although far smaller

than Tartesh, the island kingdom had always held its own in their struggles. Radnal laughed at himself. If

Dokhnor was an agent, why was he in Trench Park instead of, say, at a naval base along the Western

Ocean?

The Morgaffo glowered. "If you have finished examining my work, freeman, perhaps you will give

someone else a breakfast."

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"Certainly," Radnal answered in a voice as icy as he could make it. Dokhnor certainly had the proverbial

Morgaffo arrogance. Maybe that proved he wasn't a spy—a real spy would have been smoother. Or

maybe a real spy would think no one would expect him to act like a spy, and act like one as a disguise.

Radnal realized he could extend the chain to as many links as his imagination could forge. He gave up.

When all the breakfast packs were eaten, all the sleepsacks deflated and stowed, the group headed over

to remount their donkeys for the trip into Trench Park itself. As he had the night before, Radnal warned,

"The trail will be much steeper today. As long as we take it slow and careful, we'll be fine."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the ground quivered beneath his feet. Everyone stood

stock-still; a couple of people exclaimed in dismay. The birds, on the other hand, all fell silent. Radnal

had lived in earthquake country his whole life. He waited for the shaking to stop, and after a few

heartbeats it did.

"Nothing to get alarmed at," he said when the quake was over. "This part of Tartesh is seismically active,

probably because of the inland sea that dried up so long ago. The crust of the earth is still adjusting to the

weight of so much water being gone. There are a lot of fault lines in the area, some quite close to the

surface."

Dokhnor of Kellef stuck up a hand. "What if an earthquake should—how do you say it?—make the

Barrier Mountains fall?"

"Then the Bottomlands would flood." Radnal laughed. "Freeman, if it hasn't happened in the last five and

a half million years, I won't lose sleep worrying that it'll happen tomorrow, or any time I'm down in

Trench Park."

The Morgaffo nodded curtly. "That is a worthy answer. Carry on, freeman."

Radnal had an impulse to salute him—he spoke with the same automatic assumption of authority that

Tarteshan officers employed. The tour guide mounted his own donkey, waited until his charges were in

ragged line behind him. He waved. "Let's go."

The trail down into Trench Park was hacked and blasted from rock that had been on the bottom of the

sea. It was only six or eight cubits wide, and frequently switched back and forth. A motor with power to

all wheels might have negotiated it, but Radnal wouldn't have wanted to be at the tiller of one that tried.

His donkey pulled up a gladiolus and munched it. That made him think of something about which he'd

forgotten to warn his group. He said, "When we get lower into the park, you'll want to keep your animals

from browsing. The soil down there has large amounts of things like selenium and tellurium along with the

more usual minerals—they were concentrated there as the sea evaporated. That doesn't bother a lot of

the Bottomlands plants, but itwill bother—and maybe kill—your donkeys if they eat the wrong ones."

"How will we know which ones are which?" Eltsac zev Martois called.

He fought the urge to throw Eltsac off the trail and let him tumble down into Trench Park. The idiot

tourist would probably land on his head, which by all evidence was too hard to be damaged by a fall of a

mere few thousand cubits. And Radnal's job was riding herd on idiot tourists. He answered, "Don't let

your donkey forage at all. The pack donkeys carry fodder, and there'll be more at the lodge."

The tour group rode on in silence for a while. Then Toglo zev Pamdal said, "This trail reminds me of the

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Harry Turtledove & L. Sprague De Camp - Down In The Bottomlands

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