Terry Pratchett - The Long Earth

The plane took off, making about as much noise as would Sister Agnes’s sewing machine in an adjacent room. During the flight Joshua watched the first episode of Star Wars , sipping gin and tonic, wallowing in boyhood nostalgia. Then he took a shower — he didn’t need one but just for the hell of it — and tried the enormous bed, whereupon the young lady followed him in and asked him a couple of times if there was anything else he wanted, and seemed disappointed when he only asked for a glass of warm milk.

Some time later he awoke to find the attendant trying to strap him in. He pushed her away; he hated being restrained. She remonstrated with the sugar-coated steeliness bequeathed by her training, until a phone chimed. Then: ‘I do apologize, sir. It would appear that the safety rules have been temporarily suspended.’

He had expected Siberia to be flat, windy, cold. But this was summer, and the plane descended towards a landscape where gentle hills were coated with dark shoots of grass, and wildflowers and butterflies were splashes of colour, red, yellow and blue. Siberia was unexpectedly beautiful.

The jet did not so much touch down as kiss the tarmac.

The phone rang. ‘Welcome to No Such Place, Joshua. I do hope you’ll fly with No Such Airlines in the future. You will find thermal underwear and appropriate outdoor clothing in the wardrobe just inside the door.’

Joshua refused, with a red face, the attendant’s suggestion that she should help him on with the thermal underwear. However, he did accept the offer of her assistance with the bulky outer clothing, which he thought made him look like the Pillsbury Doughboy, but was surprisingly light.

He climbed down from the plane to join a group of men dressed as he was. Joshua immediately began to sweat in the mild air. One man grinned, called ‘West!’ to Joshua in a distinctly Bostonian accent, pressed a switch on the box strapped to his belt, and vanished. A moment later his companions began to follow.

Joshua stepped West, and arrived in an almost identical landscape — save that he emerged into a blizzard and realized why he needed the winter gear. There was a small shack nearby, with the Bostonian beckoning to him from a half-open door. It looked like a halfway house, a travellers’ rest stop of the kind becoming common in the stepwise worlds. But it was utilitarian, just a place out of the wind where a man could upchuck in something like comfort before stepping on.

The Bostonian, looking queasy, shut the door behind Joshua. ‘You really are him, aren’t you? Feeling fine, are you? I don’t suffer from it too bad myself, but …’ He waved a hand.

Joshua looked towards the back of the shack where two men were lying face down over the edge of narrow beds, each with a bucket under his face; the smell told it all.

‘Look, if you really feel OK, go on ahead. You’re the VIP here. You don’t have to wait for us. You need to take three more steps West. There are rest stations in each one — but I guess you won’t need them… Are you for real? I mean, how do you do it?’

Joshua shrugged again. ‘Don’t know. Kind of a knack, I guess.’

The Bostonian opened the door. ‘Hey, before you go, we like to say here: you’re stepping, wait for it, on the steppe!’ When Joshua tried but failed to summon up a laugh the Bostonian said apologetically, ‘You can imagine we don’t get too many visitors here. Best of luck, fella.’

The three further steps brought him out into rain. There was another shack near by, and another pair of workers, one of them a woman, who shook him by the hand. ‘Good to see you, sir.’ Her accent was richly Russian. ‘Do you like our weather? Siberia’s two degrees warmer in this world, and nobody knows why. I must wait a while for the rest of the gang, but you can just follow the yellow brick road.’ She pointed to a line of orange markers on sticks. ‘It’s a short walk to the construction site.’

‘Construction? Construction of what?’

‘Believe me, you won’t miss it.’

He didn’t, because he couldn’t. Acres of pine woodland had been cleared, and hovering over a circle of denuded land was what looked at first glance like a floating building. Floating, yes; through the rain he made out tethering wires. It was vast, an aerial whale. The partially inflated body was a bag of some toughened fibre plastered with transEarth logos, over a gondola like an Art Deco fantasy, several decks deep, all polished wood and portholes and plate glass.

An airship!

As he stared, yet another worker hurried towards him flourishing a phone. ‘You are Joshua?’ This man’s accent was European, Belgian perhaps. ‘Pleased to meet you, very pleased! Follow me. Can I help you with your bag?’

Joshua pulled his pack away so quickly that it would have burned the man’s hand.

The worker stepped back. ‘Sorry, sorry. By all means keep your bag; security is not an issue, not for you. Come with me.’

Joshua followed him across the soaking ground and under the formless envelope. The gondola, fashioned like a wooden ship’s hull, appeared to be anchored to a metal gantry, presumably constructed of locally manufactured steel, at the bottom of which was a skeleton elevator cage. Cautiously, his guide climbed into the open cage and, when Joshua had joined him, pressed a button.

It was a short ride up to the underside of the gondola, and through a hatch and out of the rain. Joshua found himself in a small compartment, suffused by a rich smell of polished wood. There were windows, or possibly portholes, but right now they showed nothing but the weather.

‘Wish I was leaving with you, young man,’ said the worker cheerfully. ‘Going wherever this thing is going — none of us need to know, of course. If you get a chance, look around the engineering. Non-ferrous, of course, aluminium airframe… Well. We’re all proud of her. Bon voyage, enjoy the journey!’ He stepped back into the elevator, and as it descended out of sight a plate slid across to seal the polished floor.

The voice of Lobsang sounded in the air. ‘Once again, welcome aboard, Joshua. Such dreadful weather, isn’t it? Never mind, I will soon have us above it or, should I say, away from it.’

There was a jolt and the floor rocked. ‘We’ve detached from the gantry. Are we airborne already?’

‘Well, you wouldn’t have been brought here if we weren’t ready to go. Below us they will be breaking camp already, and then this site will suffer a minor version of the Tunguska event.’

‘Security, I take it.’

‘Of course. As for the workers, they are a mixed lot: Russians, Americans, Europeans, Chinese. None of them the kind of people who like to talk to the authorities. Clever folk who have worked for many masters, so very useful, and so commendably forgetful.’

‘Who supplied the plane?’

‘Ah. Did you enjoy your ride in the Lear? It is the property of a holding company who rent it out occasionally to a certain rock star, who tonight is fretting that the jet is unavailable because of an overhaul. But she will soon be distracted by learning that her latest album is two places higher in the charts than it was last night. The reach of Lobsang is great. Now that we are under way …’

An inner door opened smoothly, revealing a corridor of panelled wood and subtle lamps, leading to a blue door at the end.

‘Welcome to the Mark Twain . Please make yourself at home. You will find on this corridor six staterooms, all identical; choose whichever one you like. You can shed your cold-weather gear. Notice also the blue door. That leads to a laboratory, workshop and fabrication plant, among other things. You will find a similar door on each deck. I would prefer if you do not go beyond unless invited. Any questions?’