Terry Pratchett - The Long Utopia

She didn’t take her eyes off the farmhouse below. Her hair was brushed back tightly from her lean face, giving her an intense, predatory look; the wrinkles around her eyes were deep. She was over sixty years old now, he reminded himself.

She said, ‘What about Lobsang?’

‘He needs us. You. He said you’d probably be expecting the call.’

‘Would I? Why so?’

‘Because you took him and Agnes to New Springfield in the first place. You set him up. So he says. Now he says you owe him.’

‘I don’t owe anybody anything. I never did.’

Joshua sighed. ‘Well, he’s giving up playing happy families with Agnes. Now he wants us to do something for him. “I need you to go find me,” he said. He wants himself back. The old Lobsang.’

‘Isn’t that impossible? When he “died”, he burned out all his iterations, so I was told. All his backup stores, in space, stepwise. Even those probes he had out in the far solar system, the Oort cloud.’

‘There’s one copy he couldn’t reach. You know the one I mean. From The Journey.’

‘Ah. Yes, of course. The ambulant unit we left behind to converse with First Person Singular, at the shore of a desolate sea, more than two million worlds out … God, that’s nearly thirty years ago.’

‘Maybe even then he was thinking of it as an ultimate backup. And now he wants it back. One more journey, you and me. Just like the old days.’

She grunted. ‘You and I don’t have “old days”, Valienté. How did you find me?’

‘Come on, Sally. You always did leave a breadcrumb trail. You want to be found, just in case … This time I started at Jansson’s grave, in Madison. The flowers you left there—’

‘I don’t need to hear about your brilliant detective work.’

‘Also there have been rumours, of the setup you’ve got yourself trapped in here. This stake-out. You know how it is. Combers spread gossip like a contagion. And you’ve been here a long time.’

‘The bad guys are trapped, in that farmhouse. I’m not trapped.’

He kicked at the heap of animal bones. ‘Oh, really?’ He squatted down beside her, opened his pack and pulled out a plastic bottle of water and a strip of jerky. Sally refused the water but took a bite of jerky. ‘It’s impressive you’ve managed to pin this place down alone like this, for so long. But you need to hunt, collect water. And sleep. Even Sally Linsay needs to sleep.’

She shrugged. ‘I mix up my hours. No set routine, so they never know where I am.’ She lifted the rifle and without warning cracked off a shot; Joshua, looking down, saw splinters fly up from the porch of the farmhouse. ‘Even when I sleep I set up automatic fire, random timing.’ She slapped the rifle. ‘This is one smart gadget. Sure they could rush me. I’d get some of them, but the rest could reach me. They haven’t the guts. If they had any guts they wouldn’t be here in the first place.’

‘Who are they?’

‘What do names matter, out here? It’s what they’ve done that counts.’

‘How many?’

‘Five. All male. I think they’re related, a father with sons, or maybe cousins. A pack of them.’

‘Why don’t they just step out of there?’

‘Because I went in and smashed their Stepper boxes.’

‘Tell me why you’re here. What these guys did.’

‘Look at the place,’ she said bitterly. ‘You can figure it out for yourself.’

‘The pioneers. Just one couple?’

‘Yeah. I found a journal that the bad guys threw out the door, with other trash. They grew up on the Datum, survived Yellowstone, ended up in a Low Earth refugee camp – that’s where they met – and spent the next few years watching their parents cough their lungs up from the ash. When they were free of that they came out here, with all their parents’ savings used up on a twain delivery of the tools they needed, a few chickens, a pregnant sow. They hammered together their farmhouse, planted their crops and their flowers, raised their pigs and their chickens. She got pregnant. They always hoped others might follow, that some kind of township would grow up here.’

‘But these characters showed up first.’

‘Joshua, they’d done everything right. They had a stockade, they had a cellar as protection against stepping raids. None of it was any use, not against enough force, not against men like these who will use that force without hesitation. They might have had a chance, a window, if they’d just gunned down these guys as soon as they showed up here. But good people always hesitate. Stupid, stupid.

‘I figured out some of what happened. They killed the husband immediately. When I found the place a few days later the woman was still alive. You can imagine. She was pregnant, Joshua. I tried a raid of my own, hoping to get her out. They killed her pretty quick, hoping to get rid of a witness, I guess. And then—’

‘And then you took your position up here. And, what? You’ve contained them ever since?’

‘It will take them a while to starve. I drove off the animals in the stockade, but there’s plenty of dry store in there, salted meat. The farmsteaders were careful to guard against a bad season. And there’s a water supply, a clay pipe from the river. I haven’t been able to cut that, there’s not enough cover for me to reach it.’

‘You’re hoping that the hunger will drive them out.’

‘No. I’m hoping they’ll starve to death, and save me the trouble.’ She said this levelly, glaring down at the house. ‘Or maybe they’ll kill each other. I hear arguments sometimes. Even a gunshot, once, inside the house. They’ve been calmer since the corn liquor ran out.’

Joshua studied her. ‘You won’t kill them yourself. Right? I mean you could. You could step in there and blaze away. You could torch the house. You’ll let them die this indirect way, but—’

‘I don’t kill, Joshua. I have killed.’

He knew this about her.

She said, unprompted, ‘Sometimes it’s necessary. But it’s not a policy.’

‘Why not?’

She didn’t take her eyes off the farmhouse. ‘Because I don’t trust myself. Because once I start, I may not stop. At times I feel rage …

‘People like this, Joshua, they’re the worst of mankind. Predators. Parasites, preying on the labour of others. Consuming decent lives for the sake of a few hours’ fun. How many times have this band pulled a stunt like this before? Because, believe me, it looks to me like they’re practised at it. And they foul up the Long Earth, the way humans were doing on their own planet long before. You want to know how I found this set-up? From the trolls.’

‘What trolls? … Oh.’ He realized that he hadn’t heard a note of a troll-call, sighted a single one of the otherwise ubiquitous humanoids, since arriving in this world.

‘I go where the trolls aren’t . That’s how I know how to find trouble, humans screwing up the place even more than usual.’ She blinked, shook her head. ‘When I was on Mars I had a long talk about this, with Frank Wood, the astronaut guy – remember him? He accused me of being the conscience of the Long Earth. Not what I want to be called, but it made me think.’

‘After you told him where to shove it, no doubt.’

‘When I find something like this – I can’t stand it, Joshua. I can’t stand by and let this happen.’

‘Yet you’re reluctant to kill. Not in cold blood.’ He thought he understood. ‘And so you’re stuck, aren’t you? You’re caught between conflicting impulses – to destroy these bandits on the one hand, not to kill on the other. Just as you’re contradictory about concealment; you hide yourself away, but leave clues so you can be found. You’re like a computer program stuck in a loop. Lobsang would understand.’