Manaus’ airfield was smoother than Kuuskoo’s. Park’s teeth rattled only a couple of times before the airwain climbed off the ground. Below, he could see the Black River’s clear dark water flowing side by side with the red-brown stream of the Great River; only after some miles would they fully mix together.
“Where now?” Waipaljkoon asked as he swung the airwain northward.
“The Son of the Sun flew to Mavaka, near the head-waters of the Ooriinookoo,” Ankowaljuu said. To Park, that meant they were heading for southern Venezuela. Here, though, it was a town in the province Tawantiinsuuju had wrested from the Emirate after their last clash.
Waipaljkoon gradually shifted course to the northwest. “This would be a faster, easier flight if we hadn’t had to sail halfway down the Great River to find another airwain,” he grumbled.
“When next you tell Patjakamak how to order the universe, I suggest you take that up with him,” Ankowaljuu said. Waipaljkoon grunted and shut up.
The flight was as boring as the earlier one had been — until that plane’s engine went out, Park reminded himself. He too hoped this leg of the trip would not be so strenuously interrupted. He sat back and watched jungle go by below, now dark green, now yellow-green. Again it reminded him of the sea with its unending not-quite-sameness.
Then, suddenly, not long before Waipaljkoon expected them to reach Mavaka, they saw a great cloud of smoke rising high into the air from below. The pilot scowled, pursed his lips. “I’ve seen big fires before, aye, but seldom one that size,” he said.
“That’s no fire!” Ankowaljuu said as they got closer. “That’s a cursed battle, is what that is!” He got the words out only an instant before they burst from Allister Park. He too had seen the flashes from exploding shells down there. Men were too small to spot from several thousand feet, but goodwains and machine-gun-carrying warwains were visible in clearings carved from the jungle.
Waipaljkoon needed no urging to steer wide of the battlefield. As the airwain was approaching from the southeast, he chose to fly more nearly due north, saying, “We’ll cross the line in a quieter place, then swing west to Mavaka.” That sounded good to Park, who had no desire to catch antiaircraft fire from either side in a war not his own.
Unfortunately, though, airwains rushing up to the front to add their pinpricks to the fighting spotted the intruder. Two peeled off to give the strange aircraft a once-over. In a quavering voice, Eric Dunedin said, “They have the star and sickle moon on their tails.”
Waipaljkoon turned west with everything his airwain had. That was not nearly enough. The Emirate’s fighters would have been sitting ducks for a Messerschmitt or Spitfire, but they were like sharks against a fat ocean sunfish compared to the slow, lumbering transport the Tawantiinsuujan was flying.
One zipped past the airwain, so close that Park could see the pilot’s grinning, bearded face in the cockpit. The other came alongside, fired a burst from its air-powered machine gun. That fighter’s pilot made a come-with-me gesture, then fired his gun again. What he meant was depressingly obvious.
“Slavery,” Waipaljkoon groaned as he followed the fighter eastward. The other one stayed on his tail, to make sure he didn’t try anything tricky. “They’ll sell us into slavery if they don’t kill us on the spot for following Patjakamak. That’s all we are to the stinking Muslims, fair game.”
“They won’t kill us, and they won’t sell us either,” Park said confidently. “Remember, you’re with Judge Ib Scoglund of the International Court of the Continent of Skrelleland. If they harm me, they have an international incident on their hands.”
“Let’s hope they bother to find that out,” Ankowaljuu said. “Or that they care.”
“They’ll find out,” Park promised. He left the other half of Ankowaljuu’s worry alone; he didn’t much want to think about that himself.
The fighter in front of them landed on a strip hacked out of the jungle. Waipaljkoon followed it down. Moors who had been standing around or working on other airwains came trotting over at the sight of the unfamiliar craft bouncing to a stop.
“Some of them have pipes, Judge Scoglund,” Dunedin said. He didn’t mean the kind from which tobacco was smoked.
“Of course they have pipes, Eric. They’re warriors, for God’s sake.” Hoping he sounded braver than he felt, Park unbuckled his safety harness. “I have to get out first,” he said. Shrugging, Waipaljkoon opened the door. Park ducked through it and scrambled onto the wing.
The bearded fighter pilot was already out of his airwain and running toward the craft he had forced down. “These are my captives!” he yelled, brandishing a large knife. “They’re mine to keep and sell as the pagan dogs they are!”
Park did not follow all of that, but he caught enough. He hoped the Moors would be able to understand his self-taught Arabic — Ketjwa, at least, he’d been able to practice over the past weeks. “Not captives!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Not pagans either!”
The pilot understood, all right. “What do you mean, you’re not a captive? You’re here, lying fool, at our base, the Emirate’s base, at Siimaranja. And that’s a Tawantiinsuujan airwain, so you’re a filthy Patjakamak-worshiping pagan!”
“I’m no Tawantiinsuujan,” Park said. His fair skin, sandy hair, and light eyes told the truth of that better than any words.
“Well, who in Shaitan’s name are you, then?” someone called from the ground.
Park sternly suppressed a sigh of relief. If nobody asked that question, he would have had to plunge in cold. As it was, he had the perfect chance to give them his name and impressive title. Then, into abrupt silence, he went on, “I am a citizen of the Bretwaldate of Vinland, and a Christian by religion. You will treat me as Muslim law requires you to treat a Person of the Book.”
The Moors started arguing among themselves. That was as much as Park had expected. The pilot’s voice rose above the babble, loud with outrage: “Well, what if he does belong to the Ahl al-Kitab, the People of the Book? Those other three I see in there don’t. They’re pagan Skrellings, and they’re mine!” When no one argued with him, he started toward the downed airwain again, still clutching that knife.
“One is my servant from Vinland, and a Christian like me,” Park said. The pilot shook a fist at him. He continued, “The other two men are of Tawantiinsuuju, yes. But they fly me — I ask them to fly me — to help make peace between the Son of the Sun and your Emir. You should let us go on our way, free from harm.”
He didn’t expect that to happen. He figured, though, that if he only asked for what he wanted, he’d end up with less. One thing he’d never been short on was gall. He stood on the wing, trying to look as impressive as possible, while the Moors kept on arguing. Finally, when they seemed about to come to blows, one of them said, “Let’s take it to the qadi.”
“Yes,” Park said at once. “Take us to the qadi. He will judge the truth.”
“They’re mine, curse it!” the frustrated fighter pilot said again, but most of the Moors on the airstrip shouted him down.
“Come down,” one of them said to Park. “By Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, you will all stay free and unhurt till the qadi lays down his judgment.”
“Agreed.” Park stuck his head back into the airwain. “Come on out. One of their judges is going to figure out what to do with us.”
Despite the Moor’s promise, men crowded close to Park and his companions to make sure they did not break and run. He wondered where they could run to, but on second thought was just as glad to have a lot of bodies around — the pilot never had put away that knife.
The qadi’s tent was at the edge of the jungle, close by several dozen man-sized rugs spread on the ground: the airfield crew’s worship area, Park realized. “Excellency!” a Moor said.