She was gone when he awakened. And his wants and haunts were strangely quiet.

Where would they go from here? he wondered.

Twelve: 3047 AD

The Olden Days, The Mother World

Perchevski shuffled from foot to foot. He was too nervous to sit. He had not realized that going home would unleash so much emotion.

He glanced around the lounge. The lighter would be carrying a full load. Tourists and business people. The former were mostly Ulantonid and Toke. They huddled in racial clumps, intimidated by Old Earth's xenophobic reputation, yet determined to explore the birth world of Man. The Toke nerved themselves with bold talk. Their every little quirk or gesture seemed to proclaim, "We are the Mel-Tan Star Warriors of the Marine Toke Legion. We are the Chosen of the Star Lords. The delinquents of a decadent world cannot frighten us."

But they were scared.

No enemy could intimidate the Toke. The Toke War had proven that. Only the stroke of diplomatic genius that had made a place for them in Service, and a place for Toke in Confederation, as equals, had saved the Warrior Caste from extinction.

It's a pity we can't work something like that for the Sangaree, Perchevski thought.

But there had been no hatred in the Toke War. It had been an almost clinically unemotional contest for supremacy in the star ranges of the Palisarian Directorate.

The Ulantonid were less bellicose than the Toke. Their war with Confederation had been unemotional too. Another blood-flavored wrestling match for supremacy.

These looked like a Catholic group headed for Rome, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem.

"Shuttle Bravo Tango Romeo Three One is now ready for boarding for passengers making a Lake Constance descent. Passengers for Corporation Zone will please assemble at Shuttle Bay Nine."

"I'd like to meet her," said a stranger near Perchevski.

"Who's that?"

"The woman who does the announcing. She can put her shoes under my bed anytime."

"Oh. The voice." It had been a soothing, mellow, yet suggestive voice. Similar voices did the announcing in every terminal Perchevski had ever visited.

The tourists and business people boarded first. Luna Command made a habit of doing little things that avoided irritating civilians. The individual Serviceman was supposed to remain unobtrusive.

Only one check on Luna Command's power existed. The operating appropriation voted by a popularly elected senate.

The Toke Marines stood aside for Perchevski, who had come in his Commander's uniform.

It was a long, lazy twelve-hour orbit to Lake Constance and Geneva. Perchevski read, slept, and pondered the story he had recently begun. He tried not to think about the world below.

The holonets could not begin to portray the squalid reality that was Old Earth beyond the embattled walls of Corporation Zone.

The shuttle dropped into the lake. A tug guided it into a berth. Perchevski followed the civilians into the air of his native world. He had come home. After eight years.

Geneva had not changed. Switzerland remained unspoiled. Its wealth and beauty seemed to give the lie to all the horror stories about Old Earth.

It was a mask. Offworld billions cosmeticized the Zone, and Corporation police forces maintained its sanctity at gunpoint. The perimeters were in a continuous state of siege.

There were times when Luna Command had to send down Marines to back the Corporation defense forces. The excuse was protection of Confederation's Senate and offices, which were scattered between Geneva, Zurich, and the south shore of the Bodensee.

Once there had been a social theory claiming that the wealth coming into the Zone from the Corporations headquartered there would eventually spread across the planet. A positive balance of trade would be created. And the positive example of life in the Zone would act as a counter-infection to the social diseases of the rest of the planet. Change would radiate from Switzerland like ripples in a pond.

The theory had been stillborn, as so many social engineering schemes are.

No one here gives a damn, Perchevski reflected as he entered his hotel room. All that kept Earth going was trillions in interplanetary welfare. Maybe the whole thing should be allowed to collapse, then something could be done for the survivors.

The motherworld's people still played their games of nationalism and warfare. They loved their Joshua Jas. And they flatly refused to do anything for themselves while Confederation could be shamed into paying support.

The too often told tale of welfarism was repeating itself. As always, provision of means for improvement had become an overpowering disincentive to action.

Perchevski spent his first day at home doing one of the guided tours of the wonders of Corporation Zone. With his group were a few native youngsters who had been awarded the tour as contest prizes.

They surprised him. They were reasonably well-behaved, moderately clean, and not too badly dressed. A cut above the average run, and not unlike kids elsewhere. The Security guard was not called upon to practice his trade.

The tour group lunched in the restaurant at the Nureyev Technical Industries chalet atop the Matterhorn.

"Excuse me, Commander."

Perchevski looked up from his sausage and kraut, startled. A girl of sixteen, a tall, attractive blonde, stood opposite him. He was eating alone. His uniform had put off everyone but two Toke Marines, who were still trying to explain their need to a cook who was appalled at the idea of permitting raw meat out of his kitchen. He suspected the Marines wanted to stay near him for a feeling of added security. The Toke were a strongly hierarchical people, and among them warriors were the most respected of castes.

"Yes?"

"May I sit here?"

"Of course." He was stunned. She was one of the prize winners. Most Old Earthers so hated the Services that even the best intentioned could not remain polite.

Is she a prostitute? he wondered.

Whatever her pitch, she needed time. She was so nervous she could not eat.

She suddenly blurted, "You're Old Earth, aren't you? I mean originally."

"Yes. How did you know?"

"The way you look at things. Outworlders look at things different. Like they're afraid they'll catch something, or something."

Perchevski glanced at the other prize winners. Disgust marked their faces. "Your friends don't... "

"They're not my friends. I never saw any of them before yesterday. How did you get out?" Words tumbled out of her all strung together, so fast he could hardly follow them.

"Out?"

"Of this. This place. This world."

"I took the Academy exams. They accepted me."

"They didn't stop you?"

"Who?"

"Your friends. The people you knew. I tried three times. Somebody always found out and kept me from going. Last time three men stopped me outside the center and said they'd kill me if I went in."

"So there's still hope," Perchevski murmured. He knew what she wanted now.

"Sir?"

"I mean, as long as there's somebody like you left, Old Earth isn't dead. You've made my trip worthwhile."

"Get me out. Can you get me out? Anything is better than this. I'll do anything. Anything you want."

She meant it. Her desperate promise was so obvious it hurt.

He remembered his own desperation at an even younger age. When you chose the unpopular path you had to cleave to it with fanatical determination. He was moved. Deeply.

"I entered every contest there ever was just so I could get this far. I knew they wouldn't keep me from coming here, and I thought maybe I could find somebody... "

"But you were too scared to do anything when you got here."

"They were all outworlders."

"You leave Earth, you won't meet anyone else. I've only run into two or three Earthmen in twenty years." He eyed the group with which the girl had been traveling. The youths seemed to have caught the drift of her appeal. They did not like it.