The Legend That Was Earth (33 page)

A special evening meal was prepared for the occasion, consisting of a bean soup followed by meat, sweet potatoes, and a vegetable dish, with a plentiful supply of dryish red wine. It was held in a large, smoky room spanned by wooden beams and lit by oil lamps in one of the larger houses. There was nothing secretive or furtive. Just about the whole settlement, it seemed, from wide-eyed children and dark-braided women—several of them puffing pipes—to old men, squeezed themselves in around the walls and by the stove to take part, or at least be an audience. Maybe this was one of the things that passed for entertainment in these parts. It was clear that most if not all of them had never seen a Hyadean in the flesh before. Apart from curiosity that none tried to conceal, reactions were varied. Some, encouraged and not a little surprised by the alien's familiarity with Spanish, did their best to be polite to the guest in the ways they had been taught. Others seemed hostile, showing their feelings by glowering or staring sullenly from far parts of the room. Cade was unsure of the risk they might represent, but nobody else seemed unduly bothered. Maybe the closeness of these communities was such that betrayal was unthinkable. Hudro seemed to accept such variations without surprise.

Inguinca told of the intensive search going on everywhere for the two Americans who had been snatched from a military transport intercepted between Peru and Brazil. All the Andes passes were under close surveillance; air connections out of the region were being watched. Although it might have seemed at first glance that the Amazon system would offer a choice of routes impossible to police effectively, they all converged in a gigantic funnel through a few checkpoints that it would be risky to try passing through, especially with all the military activity in the region following the outbreak of sabotage attacks. Inguinca denied that MOPAN guerrillas were responsible for these. Their fight, he said, was against the operations to clear populations farther west. Other groups were being funded from somewhere, and MOPAN being made the scapegoat.

Inguinca's recommendation, therefore, was that Cade and Hudro should press on southward, even though their ultimate aim had not yet been agreed. Clearly, they had to get out of the South American continent. Poring over a map that Inguinca produced, Cade thought of getting past the Andes into Chile, somehow, and then south to Santiago. The Hyadeans were boring an outlet from the Uyali region through the Andes to the Pacific. If it was too risky to go over the mountains, with the kinds of friends he was collecting there might be a way to get himself and Hudro smuggled under them, through the tunnel workings. The idea became less crazy as he recalled the highway with its procession of robot trucks as a possible way of getting there. From Santiago it might be easier to get a commercial flight over the Pacific, perhaps to New Zealand, where Neville Baxter was, and then return on a regular flight into the Western Federation, avoiding the politically doubtful areas on the direct line between. Hudro could perhaps go on from New Zealand to join the Hyadeans with Krossig in Australia, and work out a new life from there.

That still left the question of how to get them through the populous area around Lake Titicaca and La Paz. Someone made a suggestion that brought laughter from some quarters and ridicule from others. Cade couldn't follow, although Hudro seemed to be able to. As the noise fell, an old man near the stove began speaking. Miguel moved closer and translated in a low voice for Cade's benefit. "He says the two of you can't travel together. The American is no problem. It's easy to make you invisible among the people, even if we have to darken your skin a little. But how do you hide a blue giant with a face like a rock statue?"

At that point, a man in a dark shirt, with straight hair combed forward and a thick mustache, rose and began talking loudly, pointing a denouncing finger at Hudro and making appealing gestures to the room. He was angry and had maybe taken a bit too much wine. The gist was that he wanted to know why they were talking about helping an alien at all. The aliens were behind the people who sent planes to destroy their villages, and soldiers who took their land. He had lost his farm and his son. Why was this alien here, eating their food and expecting them to save him? Heated words and admonishments followed, with Miguel getting involved and hence failing to keep Cade informed. It ended with the man in the dark shirt stalking from the room.

A clear-skinned boy with deep, dark eyes, probably around fifteen, brought them back to the subject by reminding everyone that next week would be a time of festivals and parades, with devil dancers in costumes designed to exaggerate their height, and masks that covered their heads completely. What better way could there be to disguise the blue giant?

Hudro said something that brought laughs from all around. "What was that?" Cade asked Miguel.

"He says does that mean he has to learn to dance too?"

A woman pointed out that seeing devil dancers in a parade was one thing, but how would you explain one out on the highway or halfway across the Altiplano? Eventually it was conceded that ingenious though the idea was, it had too many difficulties.

As Cade watched and listened, he contrasted the company to the kind he was used to at his own parties. These were just simple, self-sufficient people, asking no more than to live as they chose and be left alone. Nobody was coerced or robbed to provide their needs. Dee had said something to him once about the people who did the really important things, but he hadn't understood what she'd meant. Now, he did. The people he had known were as incapable of turning wilderness into food, rocks into a home, plants into a coat, or a dead tree into a table as they were of levitating. They depended for their very survival on the knowledge and skills of others. Told that their comfort and affluence arose from their innate excellence and the free interplay of market forces, they were happy to accept it. But Cade had seen what really went on.

As the debate continued, Cade remembered how Vrel had concealed him and Marie in St. Louis. Seizing a moment, and using Miguel again as translator, he told everybody, "If somebody is that conspicuous, then instead of trying to hide him, the thing to do might be to put him out in the open as something everyone would be expecting to see."

"Such as what?" Miguel asked.

"Would it be possible to get hold of a Hyadean military uniform somehow? Miguel and I dress as Bolivian army. We ride through openly in a jeep or something—a Hyadean officer and two Terran troopers." Cade looked around. The idea seemed to have merit.

"The uniforms might take some time...." Inguinca said finally. He sounded dubious. "And then a suitable vehicle?... I don't know. That might be more difficult still. You would need papers to get gas...."

More debate followed. Then a girl that Inguinca had introduced earlier as Evita, wearing jeans and a red shirt, her hair woven in braids, said, "Let me be the guide who will take them through. There is no problem with the vehicle. I drive a van for the telephone company, which passes everywhere. Hyadeans work with the telephone people sometimes when they put in special equipment. So he can wear his own clothes." Evita nodded toward Cade. "The American's idea is good. Let the Hyadean ride up front with me where everyone can see him. Hiding him in the back would look suspicious if there was a check. Miguel and the American come as workmen. When a pretty girl drives, the soldiers want to be nice guys. It is the best plan."

Nobody came up with any objection.

"Is this van of yours here?" Cade asked Evita.

She hesitated for a moment. "Yes...."

"And I assume it would have a phone in it too?"

"Sure. All the regular phone company equipment."

It was the first prospect of being able to use trustworthy communications since Cade and Hudro were shot down. "Maybe we could call Baxter ahead and see how it looks," Cade suggested. "Get him started on making arrangements at his end."

"I guess...."

At that point Rocco raised his hands. "This, I will leave to you. It is no longer our concern. It is time for us to be leaving now. So, we will say farewell and good luck, my friends."

A gaggle from inside came out to get some of the night air and watch as Cade and Hudro walked with Rocco to where the truck was waiting behind the Hummer, which was already filled with figures, engine running, ready to go.

"Remember to piss on body-scent detectors that they drop from the air when you find them," Hudro said. "And wear fresh flowers in hat. Works pretty good too."

Rocco's smile showed against the black of his mustache in the feeble light. "I'll remember. And the other thing I'll remember is that who are the good guys and who are the bad guys is more complicated than people think. But they have to learn it if this kind of thing is ever going to stop. That's the most important thing to learn."

He shook hands with Cade, then Hudro, and turned to heave himself up onto the tailboard. Somebody banged on the roof of the cab, and the truck started up. It flashed its lights for the Hummer ahead to move, and then followed twenty yards behind. Cade and Hudro stood watching, their arms raised, until the tail lamps disappeared, and then turned to go back to the houses.

Afterward, Evita took Cade to the van, where he used its phone to call Neville Baxter in New Zealand. Baxter was surprised and delighted. "What the hell gives?" he demanded, ever indomitably jovial.

"A long story that I'm not even going to try to get into, Neville. Look, I need help. I might be taking you up on that offer to visit you there sooner than you thought."

"You sound like you're in some kind of trouble."

"You could say that."

"Something to do with that documentary you did with your ex? We saw it here. It was dynamite." There was a pause, as if Baxter were putting the pieces together. "You were in South America when you made that. Is that where you still are now?"

"Right. And we need to get out."

"Who's we? You mean the ex? What was her name... ?"

"No, I told you it's a long story. I'm with a Hyadean—not one that you know. Heading directly north might have problems. The easiest way might be to come out your way. We're trying to get to Chile, and then down to Santiago."

"Where are you now, exactly?" Baxter asked. "We've got associates in a number of places down there. Maybe they can help."

For a second, Cade was unsure whether to answer. But then it was he, a moment ago, who had said he needed help. "Bolivia," he said. "Should be arriving in La Paz sometime tomorrow."

"Leave it to me. We might be able to come up with something."

Next, Cade called Luke at the house in California. To his surprise he learned that Julia was still there—acting about as normally as could be expected after a secession, and with war breaking out. Cade cautioned Luke to be careful of her. There was reason to believe she wasn't what she said. Until he got back, Luke shouldn't trust Julia with anything confidential. That, of course, included any mention of the fact that Cade had been in touch.

THE CITY OF NUESTRA SEñORA DE LA PAZ, Our Lady of Peace, had seldom lived up to its name since its founding in 1548 by the envoy to whom the King of Spain had entrusted the rule of the empire seized from the Incas. It was supposed to mark the peace after the original Conquistadors, their companions at arms, sons, brothers, and heirs finally wiped themselves out after sixteen years of senseless civil war. Then, revolts plagued the nearly three centuries of Spanish rule. Aymará Indians besieged La Paz for six months in 1781, when latter-day Inca uprisings extended from Peru to Argentina. In 1825, Simón Bolívar, the liberator after whom the country was named, became the first national leader, only to resign the next year and be succeeded by six presidents in the next three years. Over the following two hundred years, sixty-odd men held the top spot, many lasting only days or weeks, tumbled by one another in more than 150 uprisings during the period. Twelve were assassinated.

Cade's first view of the world's highest capital city came as he, Hudro, Evita, and Miguel drove down off the Altiplano along a concrete boulevard of wide, sweeping curves overlooking an immense, tightly packed labyrinth of streets and terraces sprawling across the slopes of a river-gouged canyon cutting into the edge of the tableland. In front of them as they descended, dwellings, business premises, and office buildings clung to the steep, red, slide-prone slopes, while beyond the plateau line above, the snow-capped triple peaks of Illimani rose to 21,000 feet. Cade was taking a stint up front in the cab with Evita and Hudro. Miguel was in the rear. The drive southward had passed without incident, although news of sabotage attacks in the Uyali area and consequent tightening of security made the prospect of journeying farther in that direction worrisome.

* * *

The chief inspector in the city's police headquarters had received instructions to contact military security immediately if anything was heard concerning the American man and woman who were being hunted, and the two missing Hyadeans, again a male and a female, believed to have been involved. Hence, the oaf responsible for sifting intelligence reports had been looking for
couples
, and a whole day had slipped by before it occurred to someone else that the tipoff from a disaffected rebel in a remote village to the north might refer to the two males in question. If so, then what had happened to the females was anyone's guess. But it appeared that half their quarry might be on its way to the city right now.

"My information is that they are traveling in one of your vans," the chief inspector said over the phone to the general manager of the telephone company. "The driver is known as Evita. I don't know if that is her correct name, but I have a description...."

* * *

"You can never get lost in La Paz," Evita said as she swung the wheel first one way, then the other to negotiate the series of downward bends. "Just keep going downhill. The whole city is a funnel that comes together onto one big main street that runs out the bottom." She lifted a hand momentarily to indicate two boys doing something to the wheels of an upturned coaster wagon. "They can go twelve miles without a break in that. Twenty-three hundred feet drop vertically. Good sport for boys, yes?"