Terry Pratchett - The Long Utopia

‘I know, Sally. I was there, remember? And if the selection isn’t natural, you lend it a hand, right?’

She glared at him. ‘Somebody has to, now that even Maggie Kauffman and her flying Navy gunships are rarely to be seen.’

Joshua knew Sally was earning a living these days as a kind of professional survivor. In return for a pre-agreed fee she’d stay a few months, maybe a year, with a new community of settlers, helping them endure the most obvious dangers, avoid the first few booby-traps. For a woman who never suffered fools gladly, Joshua knew this was a tough career choice; the physical challenges would be easy for her, but it was hard for Sally to be supportive as opposed to judgemental.

But Joshua had his own contacts out in the Long Earth, and he’d heard a lot of rumours about what Sally was really up to. She was gathering a growing reputation for vigilantism. He was concerned for her, that she was losing her way. For now, however, he said nothing.

They walked into a world where the animals were comparatively thick on the ground, and drawn to the lake. Maybe there was some kind of drought on in this particular footprint. The travellers paused, sipping their own bottled water. The air felt dusty and hot. A herd of what looked like deer lapped watchfully at the water, and a giant sloth raised itself up to nibble at the curling leaves of a dying tree. Things like big opossums clustered without shyness at the sloth’s feet, browsing on the litter it dropped.

‘You know, Joshua, you and I are different from the rest. We’re not townsfolk, not Datum urbanites. But we’re not pioneers either. We’re not settlers, like your little mouse Helen.’

‘Oh, she’s no mouse. And she’s not mine any more—’

‘We’re loners. Loners just survive, they move on. They don’t build things, like the pioneers. The Long Earth is always going to have room for the likes of us. We don’t need any kind of definition. We don’t have a role . Not even to the extent that the combers have, that self-conscious lifestyle they’ve developed of deliberately walking on and on, taking nothing save the lowest hanging fruit. We’re just – us. Detached from humanity.’

‘And detached from human values? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

‘I’m saying I have my own values – and so, I think, do you.’

He studied her, trying to read her, and failing, as he always had in the twenty-plus years he’d known her. ‘Sin or not, you’re no avenging god, Sally. You need—’

‘I don’t need you to tell me how to conduct myself.’ She hefted her pack. ‘We’ll come to a glaciated sheaf soon. We need to get to higher ground so we’re above the ice when we step.’

‘I have done this before, you know …’

And here they were bickering, just as Helen had said they would. Sally walked away from the water, stepping as she moved. Joshua had no choice but to follow her, always just a little behind her flickering, stepping presence.

SALLY BROUGHT HIM to Earth West 30. On this particular Earth, here on the Madisonian isthmus, there stood a waterfront development with sodium lights glaring in the light of early evening, and golf carts parked up in rows. It turned out to be a sports lodge, a tourist facility. You got this kind of outfit on ‘significant’ worlds, such as worlds with round numbers: West 30, East 20. And, evidently, volcano winter or not, there were still enough rich folk to support such places.

Nelson Azikiwe, dressed in boots and sensible Low-Earth-type outdoor gear, was waiting for them at the designated spot, just outside the car park.

Sally hitched her pack and looked around disdainfully. ‘ Tourists . Outta here. Keep safe, Nelson, Joshua.’

Joshua replied, ‘You too—’

But of course she had already gone, in a pop of displaced air.

Joshua shook hands warmly with Nelson. ‘Thanks for this, buddy.’

‘Well, any friend of Lobsang is a friend of mine – and you and I have known each other a fair time now. It is my pleasure to be your companion on this, the last leg of your long walk. One should not be alone on one’s birthday.’

Nelson’s accent was soft, pleasing, a clipped South African overlaid with crisper British consonants. He seemed unchanged since, Joshua had last seen him, at Lobsang’s memorial, save that at around sixty years old he had perhaps a little more grey in that black hair.

Electronic music began to blare from the lodge, half a mile away. Nelson winced. ‘I think that’s our cue. Shall we take our first step?’

The lodge was whisked away. In Earth West 29 the lake shore was happily virginal.

As he took the impact of the step Nelson managed to stay upright – many poor steppers doubled over with the nauseous reaction, controlled by drugs or not – but Joshua could see discomfort contort his face.

‘Hey, are you sure you want to do this? It’s only a stunt, after all.’

‘Well, Joshua, this is the last stage of your descent from heaven. First you flew like the Holy Spirit through the sky – or like Lobsang’s disembodied soul between incarnations, perhaps. Then you strode boldly with Sally Linsay, a super-powered human. And now for these last few steps you must limp along beside an old man like me, a mere mortal. We will complete our remaining twenty-nine Stations of the Cross before midnight, I assure you. Of course we cannot linger in the radioactive ruin of Datum Madison itself, but I am told that the Sisters at the Home have arranged a small celebration for you, back in West 5. Think cake rather than champagne, however.’

‘That’ll be very welcome.’

‘I think I am recovered. Shall we take another step?’

In West 28 it was raining softly, and though the isthmus itself was empty Joshua could see the lights of a township a couple of miles to the south.

Another step, ten minutes later, and on the rise on which, in Datum Madison, stood the Capitol building – or, since 2030, its ruin – a stone pillar had been erected, with plaque affixed.

Nelson said, ‘In England – where I had my parish, you know – after the Romans had gone, the first Christian missionaries who attempted to convert the pagan Saxons would raise stone crosses in their sparse villages, as tokens of the churches that would one day be built there. Many of the crosses survive, even today. And thus, in the great days of the Aegis, the US administration has scattered its symbols across significant sites like this, in otherwise largely empty worlds. An echo of the future communities to come.’

‘You do see something of the stepwise worlds, then.’

‘Oh, yes – though I have never enjoyed stepping myself. I made one journey into the far Long Earth with Lobsang … But I do enjoy my jaunts into the Low Earths – to be precise the Low Britains. Even today, even after the great emigrations from the Yellowstone winter, those worlds remain largely wild. The lowest dozen or so worlds, to West and East, soaked up the outflow of an estimated half the pre-eruption Datum population, but even West 1 has a population only about the size of the Datum’s around the year 1800. Give us a few centuries and we’ll fill it all up, no doubt. But for now even the Low Earths are echoing halls.

‘And the Low Earths are as the Datum used to be before humans – as they were in the last interglacial, perhaps, before the final Ice Age. Because the trolls and other humanoids stay away from the Datum, even those spin-offs of humanity haven’t affected things much. So Low Earth Britain is a place of oak wildwood, grassland and heathland, a place of water and light, where elephants, rhinos and bears mingle with badgers, deer and otters … Full of wonders from humanity’s lost past. I don’t feel the need to go much further.’