Demoted to Consul

Madame Wu returned eventually, and Authority gave her back the Embassy, demoted me to Consul, and set me up with a nice flat on Baker Street, near the park. Across the hall, there was a gentleman of one of the elder races...he looked pretty human, except for the long pointed ears, and the yellow eyes. We took to going down to the park every once in a while to play dice-and-ball at one of the tables located there for that purpose. While we chatted away, he was interested that I was from Earth. He said he had been there several times, but, in his opinion, it was now nothing more than an over-priced tourist trap, with nothing much to find there of any real interest anymore. I wondered if I could go back and see what he was talking about, and he said he would take me there sometime, if I liked. He couldn't take me back to the 20th century....he calculated that as close as we could get would be the 24th, due to the knotting of the superstring in the 5th-6th dimension matrix. So one morning we set off walking down the creek path in the park, and kept going into a tunnel or cave down in an area I had never explored before. We had backpacks with some food and whatnot, and water-bottles, and walking sticks. We wandered in and out of underground passages, over sandy desert, through tall forests, along ancient city streets, up and down staircases, into front doors and out the back, taking meals and catching some sleep as needed. After maybe three or four days, we came up out of a damp cellar and we were in Old London, near Piccadilly Circus, according to my guide. Everything on Old Earth is "Old"...you can go from Old London to Old Paris on public transportation, and then to Old Rome, or Old Berlin, or what-not, just so long as it is Old. It is pretty much just all a tourist trap for the millions of humans who want to come down from the stars now and then to dip into the ambiance of the Old Culture and the Old Heritage....eating overpriced simulations of Old Home-Cooking, and admiring bogus recreations of Old Vistas, and Old Entertainment. The whole friggin place is some sort of huge D-land. After a week I'd had enough, and we hiked back to the Wandering City.