Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds Read Free

years.
    Now, the Hawking Effect was bringing sundered humanity together, along with the other sentient races. The upwelling mentioned by Alacrity's father had been building for nearly eighty years. People across human space were beginning to feel that they had a real opportunity to seize a place in history, power, glory, riches-some great destiny or perfect fulfillment.
    And some of them might even be right.
    Alacrity drew Terran air into his lungs, tasting its strangeness, feeling the immense weight and timelessness of the Inca-carved stone. Several of the sacred llamas meandered through the deserted site, stepping delicately, dipping long necks to graze and coming erect again warily. The fog rose toward the city's ruins to disappear in the light and growing warmth.
    Alacrity was like any number of humans—though the Earthers would call him alien, he knew resentfully—who knew little more about their origins than that the human race had begun there, on that hard-luck, xenophobic little planet.
    The thin air two and a half kilometers above sea level was chilly, making him want to cough. He was more accustomed to the richer atmosphere of a starship than to any other. It had been so in his family for generations.
    In the eight days he'd spent crisscrossing the planet, Machu Picchu had brought him closest to something he'd been hoping for—a kinship with his species at large, the groping beginnings of understanding of his place in the scheme of things.
    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