Terry Pratchett - The Long Earth

‘Yes,’ said Lobsang. ‘Slowly but surely heading towards the Datum. And surely she is the reason for the stampede of the trolls, and perhaps other life forms. I am incubating the hypothesis that she has the same effect on pre-sapient species such as the trolls as does a large congregation of humans. Imagine the thunder of her thinking…’

‘So, behold the migraine monster,’ Sally said. ‘No wonder the trolls are fleeing.’

‘She doesn’t mean any harm,’ Joshua said. ‘She only wants to know them. To embrace them.’

‘You know, Joshua, you make this thing sound almost human.’

‘That’s how it felt.’

‘But that is only a partial perception,’ Lobsang said. ‘There is more. The entity you have encountered is only … a seed. An emissary of the integrated biosphere from which she originated. Her absorption of local life forms, even of higher mammals like trolls, is only an interim step. Her goal is, must be , to transform each Earth’s biosphere into a copy of her own. The entirety of it, enslaved. With every resource dedicated to a single purpose. That is to say, her own consciousness. This is not a malevolent phenomenon, or in any way wrong . There is no villain here. First Person Singular is simply an expression of another kind of sentience. Another model, if you like. But—’

Sally’s face was ashen. ‘But for the likes of us she represents a termination. She brings the end of individuality, ultimately, to every Earth she touches.’

‘And the end of evolution,’ Lobsang said gravely. ‘The end of the world, in a sense. The end of world after world as she works her way along the chain of the Long Earth.’

Sally said, ‘She is a destroyer of worlds. An eater of souls. If the trolls sensed any of this, no wonder they were terrified.’

Lobsang said, ‘Of course there is the question of why she hasn’t already reached the inhabited worlds. Why she has not already consumed the Earth. Destroyed it, with curiosity and love.’

Joshua frowned. ‘The Gap. It can’t be a coincidence we found her so close to the Gap.’

‘Yes,’ Lobsang said. ‘She can’t cross the Gap. Not yet, at any rate. If not for that she might already have reached the inhabited worlds.’

‘We can cross the Gap,’ Sally said. ‘The trolls can. Surely she’ll learn. And then there are the soft places. If she could use them — my God. It’s like a plague, consuming the Long Earth world by world.’

‘No,’ Lobsang said firmly. ‘This is no plague, no malignant virus or bacterium. This is a conscious entity. And there, I believe, lies hope. Joshua, how did she speak to you in the first place? You heard your own voice in your head, yes? That doesn’t sound like telepathy — a species of communication for which I have yet to find one single reliable piece of evidence. This sounds like something new. It asked you what a nun was! If I may hazard a guess, it accessed the information then currently at the top of your thoughts. Thinking of Sister Agnes, were you? As an engineer I find it all hard to believe. But as a Buddhist, I accept there are more ways to think about the universe than one can imagine.’

‘I sincerely hope we are not going to start talking religion,’ said Sally sharply.

‘Open your mind, Sally. It’s only another framework for understanding the universe, just another tool.’

‘So what does that make Joshua?’ she snapped back. ‘The chosen one?’

The two of them looked at Joshua.

‘In a way,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Or at least, she seemed to recognize me. If she hadn’t actually been expecting me.’

Sally scowled, evidently jealous. ‘Why you?’

Lobsang said gently, ‘Perhaps it is because of the circumstances of our hero’s miraculous birth, Sally. Your first instants of life, Joshua, when you were entirely alone on another world. Your cries echoed, evidently, across the Long Earth. Or your loneliness, perhaps. And you and First Person Singular, similarly lonely, make up a kind of dipole.’

This bewildered Joshua. Not for the first time he wished Sister Agnes were here so he could talk it over with her. ‘Is this why you brought me here, Lobsang? I keep finding you anticipated all we’ve experienced… Did you know this would happen?’

‘I knew you were special, Joshua. Unique. Yes, I thought that facet of you would be — useful. But I didn’t know quite how, I admit that.’

Sally stared at Joshua, stone-faced. ‘How does it feel to be so manipulated, Joshua?’

Joshua looked away, hot with anger, at Lobsang, at the universe for singling him out.

Lobsang said now, ‘Evidently we need to learn more about First Person Singular.’

Sally said, ‘True enough. And we need to find a way to stop her panicking the trolls. Not to mention eating the Datum Earth.’

‘Tomorrow we will go and see her again. I suggest we have a decent night’s rest, and prepare for another encounter with the ineffable in the morning. But this time, with Joshua having made initial contact, I will lead.’

‘Huh! The ineffable meets the intolerable! Oh, I’m going to bed.’ Sally stormed off the deck.

‘She’s got a short fuse,’ Joshua said.

‘But you understand why she is angry, Joshua,’ Lobsang said mildly. ‘You were chosen. She was not. She’ll probably never forgive you.’

It was a strange night for Joshua. He kept waking, convinced that someone had spoken his name. Somebody desperately lonely, but he didn’t know how he knew that. Then he would get a bit more sleep, and the cycle would start all over again. It didn’t stop until the morning.

In silence they gathered in the observation deck once more. Sally was bleary-eyed too, and Lobsang, in his soberly dressed and hastily repaired ambulant, was unusually quiet. Joshua wondered how their nights had been.

And the first surprise was that First Person Singular was no longer there. She could be seen about half a mile out to sea, moving so slowly there was hardly even a wake. First Person Singular was clearly not one for hurrying, but on the other hand you had to remind yourself that what was doing the not hurrying was twice the size of Manhattan Island.

There was no discussion about whether to follow her. They all took it as a given that they would have to. But the Mark Twain , still capable of stepping from world to world, no longer had the means to move across this world.

Joshua said, ‘Lobsang, don’t you have another marine unit? I know what you are like when it comes to backups. There’s hardly any wind, and we’ve got more ropes than a circus tent. Our big friend over there is hardly racing. Maybe your marine unit could tow us?’

It did work, but only just. The Mark Twain , aloft, had a great deal of drag to overcome. Sally remarked that it was like the Titanic being towed by a motorboat engine — but an engine devised by Lobsang and built by the Black Corporation, which was why the solution worked at all.

Generally the wheelhouse was Lobsang’s private domain. But today it was open house, and the three of them watched the barely visible wake of First Person Singular. Most of the traveller was underwater now. ‘Only heaven knows what her propulsion system is,’ Lobsang said. ‘And while it’s about it, heaven might like to hazard a guess as to why the seas around her are suddenly teeming with fish.’

It was true, Joshua saw. The water was bright with fins; there were even dolphins somersaulting through the air. First Person Singular was travelling with an honour guard. Joshua was used to seeing rivers vibrantly alive across the worlds; in the absence of humanity the seas everywhere seemed to be as crowded as the old Grand Banks off Newfoundland, where, it was said, a man could once have walked on the water, so heavy was it with cod. People who’d never left Datum Earth didn’t know what they were missing. But probably even the Grand Banks at their zenith couldn’t have been as alive with fish as the waters behind the traveller.