Free Demon (GAIA) by John Varley

it’s a good idea to trust psychopaths. Anybody who
can
get away from the Earth right now and
doesn’t
is saying she believes it’s okay to lie down with a mad dog. Those ellfivers are the sane escaping the asylum. And maybe the grave.”
    ***
    When he had the time, Conal liked to hang around the Portal just outside Bellinzona, improving the breed.
    The Portal was just what the name implied: the port of entry for all the wretched refuse who flocked to Gaea’s shores. On Gaea’s outer surface was the catcher that retrieved Gaea’s returning eggs or the now-infrequent human ships seeking refuge. From there the people were taken to Gaea’sequivalent of Ellis Island, far down in her bowels, where they were processed. The immigration procedure had once been complex and time-consuming. Now it was simplicity itself: holy people to the left, mortals to the right. Messiahs, priests, preachers, pastors, shamen, gurus, juju men, dervishes, monks, rabbis, mullahs, ayatullahs, vicars, necromancers, prelates, and popes all were taken directly to an audience with Gaea. The rest were loaded into capsules with what they could carry on their backs. There was a short ride through Gaea’s circulatory system to a sphincter valve that squeezed them out, twenty at a time, into a small cave that Cirocco called “the asshole of the world.”
    Since all the refugees came out at the same place, the Portal attracted a certain element that hoped to prey on weakness or ignorance. Like pimps standing sentry in a big-city bus station, these people were on the lookout for immigrants who had something that could be sold at a profit. Sometimes it was their meager material goods. Sometimes it was a lot worse than that.
    It was a strange game Conal played. He had played it many times, though Cirocco said he was a fool to do so. He would have kept doing it even if he thought she really meant that, but he knew she didn’t, and Hornpipe had confirmed it.
    “It is a worthwhile foolishness,” the Titanide had said. “It is a Titanide thing to do.” Titanides didn’t care if a cause was lost, and it didn’t worry them that they could not stamp out all the evil in the world. If they saw a chance to do some good without getting themselves killed, they did it, and so did Conal.
    Which was not to say he went about it rashly. Some of the Portal layabouts ran in gangs, and took a dim view of anyone interfering in their activities. Conal would hang back, out of their way, and look for the chance to stalk the hunter as he led his prey to a dark, private place. When that chance came, when he had come in behind a Portal Rat and taken him by surprise, Conal killed him. Murderer, thief, slaver, or babylegger—it was all the same to Conal. There were no jails in Bellinzona, no middle ground between the quick and the dead.
    More often he would have to watch as people got the living shit beat out of them and were strippednaked and left bleeding. Then he would take the victim to one of the jack-leg medicine men who served the function of hospitals in Bellinzona.
    Today seemed like a good day. Looking around, he spotted a group of four Vigilantes wielding clubs that bristled with rusty nails. There were also three Free Female archers standing well away on high ground. With any luck at all, he would not have to do anything. The mere presence of these protective societies had driven many of the vermin away.
    Increasingly, the pickings had been small at the Portal. More and more people arrived without so much as a stitch of clothing, wearing a vacant look: the walking corpses of Graveyard Earth. Most had been at the edge of death when rescued, some after suffering horribly for years. Gaea healed their bodies, but either could not or would not do anything about their minds.
    Today’s group was different. Fully half of them were not only clothed, but carried packs and suitcases brimming with booty. Conal could, hear the jackals start to murmur. A Free Female bow twanged