Condor, Machu Picchu, Lucifer, Judge Dredd, Gate Of The Sun, Hamlet

"The Year of the Ransom," 15 April 1610.

"A condor wheeled afar." (p. 720)

"Machu Picchu was mightiness in stone. What would the civilization that had created it have done, if fate had allowed it to live?" (p. 721)

There is an alternative history, if you like. Answers can only be speculative.

A Time Patrolman shoots an Exaltationist sentry from his hovering timecycle:

"The man dropped charred from his mount and fell as Lucifer fell." (ibid.)

See Isaiah 14: 12-14: a Biblical reference.

Motonobu says that, if the Patrol agents had come sooner, then they could have prevented any of the Exaltationists from escaping. Everard replies that they could not do what they had not done and reminds his colleague that, "'We are the law...,'" (p. 722) thus making himself sound like Judge Dredd. (Scroll down.)

When Motonobu asks how they will catch Castelar, Everard does not reply but sees:

"...the Gate of the Sun on its ridge, etched black against heaven." (ibid.)

Blackness against heaven symbolizes the obstacles to catching Castelar.

Earlier in the narrative (22 May 1987), there was a Shakespearean reference:

"What dreams may come..." (p. 710)

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause
-copied from here.