by Brian Daley
The Inca Trail lay behind him as well as before. Old when Terra's space age had begun in humanity's First Breath, it was still passable. He'd descended to Machu Picchu through the Inca Gate, down decayed and tilted stone steps. He planned to leave over Huyana Picchu.
Alacrity resettled the Earth-style shoulder bag that contained the few personal articles he'd brought with him, none of them of off world origin. He wore clothes a Terran history buff would favor for the visit: serape, jacket and trousers of imitation llama and vicuna, and rope-soled sandals.
Under the scrape, though, he wore a hooded shirt, the hood pulled up. A pair of polarized wraparound glasses covered his eyes as well; he was trying his best to pass as an Earther for very good reasons.
Now he set his foot on the first step toward the laborious, rather dangerous trail up Huyana Picchu. Behind him, a harsh voice called out in badly pronounced Interworld Tradeslang.
"You! Alien!"
The spell had been broken. Earth was no longer the place of racial origins; it was only a hostile, almost closed world. Alacrity pivoted slowly, so as to give no provocation. Earthers were quick—even avid—to take offense, resentful of outsiders.
An Earthservice Peaceguardian stood there, and from the looks of him, the blood of the region ran strong in him. In those rugged mountains, one of the last habitable wild places on the globe, a few people had managed to avoid mass housing, forced emigration, and cultural assimilation. But the Earthservice was still in control. The short, thickset, barrel-chested man wearing lieutenant's tabs on his shoulders looked very much the trained Peaceguardian, humorless and severe, his holstered weapon and other equipment gleaming from harness carriers. The brassard on his helmet shone.
The Peaceguardian stepped up to him, pointing a white-gloved finger. "You're the offworlder, Spacer-Guildsman Alacrity Fitzhugh."
Little point in denying the statement. The lieutenant was glancing now from Alacrity to a hand-held screen, undoubtedly comparing the offworlder's long, pale face to that of his visa registration ID. Alacrity gazed down at him from his lanky 197 centimeters. He answered as cooly as he could, "That's correct, officer," in clear Terranglish. "How may I be of service to you?"
The peacer glared up at him through his tinted helmet visor. Here in Machu Picchu no antioffworlder slogans flashed from holoprojectors or blared from PA systems. But the fortress was itself a reminder of a greatness gone by and of the fact that Earth was avoided by all but a few extraterrestrials and derided by most.
Two more Peaceguardians appeared from behind massive stones. The lieutenant continued to address Alacrity in barbarously accented Tradeslang, ignoring the fact that they had Terranglish in common. "You're to leave here now. Your visa has been voided. You will return to the spaceport and leave Earth."
Alacrity responded carefully. He was only twenty-two Standard-Terran-years old, but he'd been through tight situations on dozens of worlds, and in between. He knew better than to show anger.
"Why? I've done nothing wrong. This has to be a mistake."
"Negative! Witnesses saw you at old sites. You climbed the stelae and broke off pieces. You poked around sacred places with instruments. You desecrated; you vandalized."
Alacrity did his best to keep his temper; if he lost it now, the feces would really hit the flywheel. But he couldn't stop himself from snapping, "That's not true!"
The cop only scowled harder. "The testimony has been sworn. You will leave." He pointed to the Urubamba, far below, where there was a tiny village and a tubeway station. "The next cartridge leaves in just over an hour," he growled. "Be on it."
Thinking, How would you like a face-ectomy, you little shit heap? Alacrity stared at the lieutenant. But one of the other peacers had his palm on the butt of his pistol, and his partner was hopefully fingering a pair of nunchaka; the offworlder didn't voice the proposal.
Alacrity was, of course, unarmed, and had no desire to have his skull cracked or a kneecap burned off. The spacer spoke with the self-restraint he'd learned over a relatively short but singularly eventful life as a breakabout—a star rover. High movers, those who followed his trade were sometimes called, or go-bloods.
"There was no desecration. Earthservice visa briefings warned against it. I complied."
"The witnesses gave testimony."
Lines appeared around Alacrity's mouth. "What witnesses? I want to speak to them."
The lieutenant spat at Alacrity's feet, missing by millimeters. "You see no one. You go back to the spaceport and leave Earth soonest." One of his subordinates sniggered.
"Do you have any idea what that visa cost me? In time and money and effort?"
Visas had to be available, at least theoretically, to keep up appearances. Even Terra had no desire to be branded a closed world. But obtaining one had been an expensive, frustrating ordeal, and time-consuming into the bargain. Still, drawn by tales of Old Earth and the urge to tour humanity's Homeworld, the breakabout had persevered when other offworlders had scoffed and Earthservice functionaries and bureaucrats had rebuffed him.
Perhaps that had had something to do with his upbringing, son of two starship officers, grandson of another, born in transit, with no birthworld. But his patience with the delay and the bleak life of the closely guarded spaceport enclave had been nearly exhausted when, almost miraculously, the visa had been granted.
Roaming the planet, he'd been alternately exhilarated and disillusioned, proud and ashamed, puzzled and thrilled by revelation. Only to come to this! Never to see the Forbidden City, the Serengeti, or Angkor Wat! Or the remains of an evolutionary climb millions of years long.
He sighed. "At least let me send for an aircar. It'll be faster than the tubeway; I'll be gone that much sooner."
The peacer's smirk was ugly. "You go by cartridge! Who d'you think you are, an Alpha Bureaucrat? Bad enough you'll ride beneath our Earth; you won't foul her skies!"
Transportation up and down the mountain was usually provided by a bucket railcar. But with malicious satisfaction, the attendant told Alacrity that line wasn't in operation, even though the breakabout had seen it running only a half hour earlier.
Nothing for it but to plod down the unpaved switchback road on foot. He balanced his shoulder bag from long practice, and panted along in the thin air. The Peaceguardians, used to the road, followed without discomfort. The single vehicle that passed, a surface-effect truck, sped downhill in a swirl of dust. Alacrity halfheartedly tried to flag it down; the driver and his assistant showed white, hating smiles as they left him in their wake.
Alacrity coughed and spat out dust, then resumed trudging. The peacers spoke among themselves, laughing coarsely at jokes shared in some language Alacrity didn't understand.
The young offworlder left off his silent cursing of Terrans and his own luck and began worrying about his dilemma. He could see little to do except obey the peacers; there was no other authority to which he could appeal at the moment. The truckers' reaction proved that word of the allegations against him had already spread. He began to feel better about the cops' presence.
He glanced at the proteus on his wrist. He'd been moving as quickly as he could; now he began to slow, not wanting to spend more time than necessary in the village.
He gradually descended toward the little bubble of the tubeway station, in the middle of the collection of angular, pressformed buildings that were the quarters of the locals. The station faced a plaza layered with windblown dust and debris. It was still murky down there.
A crowd had gathered, twenty people or so. Not many showed the strong racial characteristics the lieutenant did. Centuries of interbreeding and acculturation, emigration and immigration had seen to that. The majority of the men and women there might have been from any broad mixture of Terran genes.
Many of them were dressed in clothing like Alacrity's, modern reproductions of attire from the past, a custom encouraged by Earthservice. Others wore coveralls, work-suits, or the uniforms of the guide staff. Nudging one another an
d pointing up toward him, they watched the breakabout approach and muttered among themselves. None displayed weapons as such, but many had tools or equipment that would serve nicely: torque bars, energy probes, and heavy spanners. Alacrity approached them slowly.
Over the smooth white bubble of the tubeway station a luminous Earthservice Infoprop displayer flashed: earth is our mother—terra for terrans. Another, smaller displayer registered two minutes until the next cartridge.
The breakabout stopped and turned to the Peaceguardians. They were wandering away in different directions; the crowd showed no such inclination. Alacrity called out to the lieutenant, but the man entered the peacers' little HQ-barracks building and the door segments spiraled in, shuttering.
Alacrity took a step toward it, then stopped. He was unlikely to find any help there, and the displayer now read less than one minute to cartridge arrival. Settling his bag, preparing himself, he strode toward the station, unarmed but not defenseless.
The crowd gave way before him, and his hopes rose; he could see through the station's viewpanes that the tiny waiting area was unoccupied, as was the platform beyond. He willed himself not to break into a sprint.
But as he was about to step through the station's entrance, the displayer changed to read: next cartridge due in 1 hour 00 minutes.
Alacrity whirled instantly, without bothering to wonder how they'd rigged the displayer. The crowd was ringing him in. No cops were in sight.
An old woman came forward, her face gaunt and loose-skinned—smoothing collagen treatments were not for the Terran masses—but her eyes vigorous with hatred. As the lieutenant had, she spat at him, a pitifully weak attempt, the spittle barely clearing her lips. Somewhere behind her, a man yelled in vehement Terranglish, "You're not getting away that easily, alien!"
There were snarls of agreement, an unintelligible shout or two. Alacrity put his shoulders up against the wall of the station. On the peacers' HQ a displayer now read: temporarily unmanned—use emergency com-box. He wasn't surprised to see that the security monitors were dimmed and motionless, deactivated.
A snarley-ball sailed out of the crowd in his direction, as did a bottle. The bottle was no trouble to dodge; he'd been star-trained. But the snarley-ball, used by naturalists and hunters on many worlds to snare small game, exploded into a puff-sphere of wavering, sticky streamers.
Alacrity ducked as the blossoming, translucent strands drifted toward him, scooped up the fallen bottle, and underhanded it into the snarley-ball. Attracted by microfields, the adhesive streamers gathered around, enfolding it. The snarley-ball looked like a feeding anemone.
The cloud of strands was carried to the dust by the weight of the bottle, and Alacrity kept clear of it, as did the crowd, but still it hemmed him in.
They taunted and jeered him in the same language the peacers had used. He evaluated his chances of charging back up the road or plunging into the undergrowth, but decided that neither plan held much promise. The locals were used to the terrain and altitude. And even if they didn't run him down, he had nowhere to go.
So he stood erect, facing them. They froze, suspicious, hands curled into claws or balled fists, or clutching makeshift weapons. He swung his gaze around the arc of angry faces.
"I've done nothing wrong. Why would I want to come light-years and light-years just to desecrate your sacred places? And alone, and unarmed? Does that make sense to anybody here?"
They'd heard him out, but showed no belief or inclination to listen further. The tallest among them, a burly man with thinning, sandy hair, hefting an excavator in two huge hands, took a step toward him. Alacrity reconsidered running for it. He'd been in quite a number of hand-to-hand combats, had lost what he considered to be far too many of them, and hated the possibility of having that happen again.
The Earther gave an upswing of his head, pointing at the breakabout with his chin, to address him. "We have heard from … we've heard what you did. We know."
"Someone misled you. Who told you these lies?"
"You're the liar, alien!" the man grated.
"Alien? Alien?" Alacrity roared, as much for fury at the unbelievable stupidity of the word as in reaction to the danger of the moment. "I'm as human as you are! I paid a small fortune for this jaunt; I fought your hidebound Earthservice for weeks for my visa! Who would do that just to desecrate his own ancestors' birthworld?"
They still showed him their resentment and malice, but held back from attacking. He took a step away from the wall, then another. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane, and for a moment the breakabout and many others there thought that violence had been averted. Then a stone was hurled by someone to his left. Alacrity caught the forward sweep of the thrower's arm, just at the edge of his peripheral vision.
He threw himself sideways, and the missile glanced off the station. A wiry, crazed-looking Earther darted toward him and clawed at the breakabout's wraparound glasses. They went flying as Alacrity shoved the man away. His burning glare held the others at bay. "You blind, idiotic damned Earthers!"
A low sound of shock and amazement went through them; he realized that they could see his eyes.
The words were muttered: alien; offworlder. He gazed at them with wide, oblique eyes, their huge irises an unearthly, radiant yellow streaked with red and black. "Mutant!" he heard. "Freak!"
Then they were closing in on him. The excavator raised, the tall man advanced. "Earth is for humans!" he said harshly. The implement hissed through the air.
Alacrity bobbed, leaning away. The Terran's weight and the momentum of the swing carried him off balance; Alacrity helped him along with a shove.
Terran hatred of non-Earthers had been nurtured by Earthservice psychprop and by the hardships and deprivations of the two centuries following the Human-Srillan War. Earth, which had only remained livable by accepting the charity of other worlds, was humiliated by their condescension. And so the Homeworld had withdrawn into galled isolationism and brooding nostalgia for its vanished glories.
With an assortment of shrieks, gnashing of teeth, and various obscenities, the crowd closed in on Alacrity, fanning out to forestall his escape. They inched toward the breakabout warily, having seen that he was quick.
Alacrity straightened all at once and, ripping open a compartment in his bag, jammed his hand in, groping. He plucked out a metallic object, a thing of tarnished metal with a tubular barrel and bell-like mouth.
"All right, just get back," he ordered menacingly, "or I'll blow the whole sad lot of you into dog fodder, or whatever the phrase is!"
They wavered, intimidated by his tone and manner, and the lethal, dull shine of the object he held. But the wiry man yelled, "They told us he wouldn't be armed! It's a trick!" and whipped a jimbo-wrench at the offworlder, who managed to evade it. Alacrity's hand squeezed convulsively on the object it held, which filled the air with a soulful honk!
Alacrity smiled in a sickly fashion, lowering the antique automobile horn he'd managed to persuade an old woman on Pitcaim Island to sell to him. He'd hoped to be able to take it offworld with him. The wiry man charged Alacrity, as did his neighbors, bashing and belaboring the offworlder. Many of them got in one another's way, and one even became entangled in the strands of the fallen snarley-ball.
The remainder, though, swung and kicked at him, reaching for handholds, dragging at him. He bucked and spun, hammered and kicked, trying to plunge free. One of the villagers landed a blow squarely to his back, a young woman of considerable beauty with heavy, blue-black hair and high cheekbones. She wielded a forced-air excavating tube with some skill. He lurched, nearly falling.
Two more tried to pile on to bring him down. They only succeeded in pulling away his shoulder bag and serape and ripping down Alacrity's hood.
Seeing his hair, some of them cried out in surprise and even greater wrath. It was long and thick, growing in slate-gray waves, shot through with silver strands. It grew halfway down his spine, like a mane. The mob took it as further proof of his nonh
umaness, and redoubled its zeal.
The wiry man ran at him again. Alacrity somehow freed a hand to keep the fellow at bay with a fistful of his own uniform. Fumbling, the Terran, brought up a force-probe, its tip crackling with a full charge. The breakabout chopped at the wrist holding it, missed, and spun as he was borne to the ground by the combined weight and efforts of the Earthers. The writhing mass turned as it went down; the force-probe spat and sizzled as it struck the left side of a tall, sandy-haired man.
He screamed as the probe flared and blazed. Alacrity struck the plaza's surface with a thud, but heard the sounds. Then a fist struck his cheek a glancing blow, and another skimmed by his right ear. Boots, sandals, and bare feet thumped at him as he did his best to protect himself. People threw themselves across his legs to immobilize him, and then he heard the faraway chirpers of the Peaceguardians jarring the air.
The wiry man was still trying to reach Alacrity's chest with the force-probe, but the breakabout yanked a hand free and slammed the heel of it up under his chin, then chopped at his throat. As the Earther fell aside, the chop missed and the black-haired woman came into view again, raising her forced-air tube high. The peacers' chirpers were nearer, sounding at ear-splitting intensity.
Alacrity somehow deflected the woman's blow, and she lost her footing, toppling toward him. Through the gap in the melee, he saw for an instant part of the station's displayer: terra for terrans. These less-than-animals were welcome to it, as far as Alacrity was concerned.
When the young woman clawed at his face, he gripped her to him in a clumsy headlock, causing her neighbors to relent in their attack, fearful of hitting her. He took the opportunity to knee the wiry man in the jaw.
Then, as if by divine intervention, the peacers were at the outskirts of the brawl, breaking it up, pulling people away. But before they could work their way in to Alacrity, a youth, practically a boy, brought a millennia-old mean stone pestle, a smooth stub of rock, down on the breakabout's head.