Terry Pratchett - The Long Utopia

The settlement was quickly lost in the greying forest as the ship lifted higher and sailed smoothly through the sky, heading north-east.

Oliver Irwin said gloomily, ‘Everything’s dying, isn’t it? And what isn’t dying is burning. Or both.’

Bowring said, ‘Pretty much. The serious die-back began, just as we predicted, when the local day dropped below twenty hours or so. This is a world of forest, and all those dead trees are very combustible.’

Margarita Jha, spruce in her Navy uniform, said now, ‘Funnily enough, you know, Ken, as the spin-up approached the current twelve hours, we saw something of a tentative recovery of the wildlife. The local critters seemed to be able to adapt somewhat, treating two half-days as a single day, if you see what I mean. The same for some of the flowering plants. We observed a similar effect at sixteen hours, though clearly the resonance wasn’t so simple.’

‘Interesting,’ Bowring said. ‘There’s probably a paper in that—’

‘You’re so damn cold .’ That was Marina Irwin, her words blurted out. ‘That’s our home out there. A world is dying. And you call it “interesting”.’

Marvin and Stella Welch, the two Next, reacted to that. They turned to each other and exchanged a short burst of their strange, incomprehensible quicktalk. Joshua was reminded of the high-speed data exchanges as the two copies of Lobsang had synched.

Lobsang, the Traverser-world version, spoke now. ‘You must not condemn the scientists for their attempts at detachment. There appears to be nothing we can do to save this world. We must try to ensure that the beetles’ activities do not spread beyond this Earth. And we can best do that by studying these phenomena, by observing, analysing, speculating.’

‘You’re right to pick us up on our tone, though,’ Bowring said to Marina. ‘I apologize. I didn’t mean any disrespect.’

‘And in fact the best way to honour this dying world is to cherish it in its mortal agony.’

Sally pulled a face at Joshua. ‘Strikes me that this Lobsang’s time in the wilderness has burned all the fun out of him, and left behind all the bits I could never stand. All that cosmic destiny stuff. Pompous ass.’

Joshua shrugged. ‘Lobsang is Lobsang.’

They rose now into a layer of murky grey air, so that their view of the fire-scarred green below was obscured. Joshua heard the engines’ tone shift, adjusting.

Bowring said, ‘We’re rising into a layer of volcanic ash. The air’s full of it now.’

Jha said, ‘There’s no need to be concerned about the ship. Since Yellowstone all Navy twain engines have been fitted with ash filters. We could fly in this crap for weeks.’

Bowring said, ‘We calculate that the bulge at the equator is now around fifty miles, which is the thickness of the crust under the continents. So now we’re seeing quakes, volcanoes, on land as well as under the sea.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘Oddly enough the local version of Yellowstone hasn’t gone up, not yet. But the San Andreas gave way on a massive scale, and the Cascades are letting rip—’

Oliver asked, ‘How far is this all going to go?’

‘Well, we can’t tell. This isn’t some natural phenomenon we’re studying. Everything we observe is a consequence of the purposeful action of these creatures, the beetles. And the end state of this world will be determined, not simply by natural processes we can predict, but by the beetles’ intentions.’

Marina snapped, ‘But what do you think those intentions are? You’re supposed to be the experts. You must have some ideas. Do we just watch as they smash everything up?’

Ken Bowring reached over and touched her arm. ‘We have tried, to do something. At New York. We’re going there; you’ll see. But you might not find it much consolation.’ He spoke more widely. ‘Folks, we’ll take our time on this trip. We’ll be monitoring, surveying as we go, but not setting down unless absolutely necessary. We expect to be over the New York City footprint in twelve hours, no earlier – that is, about this time “tomorrow”, given the truncation of this world’s day.’

Jha gave them a professional smile. ‘Which makes my announcement of a cocktail reception in the Captain’s cabin at sundown seem a little flat, because that’s just four hours away. In the meantime, please make yourselves at home. The yeoman will show you to the cabins we’ve allotted you. You may stay here, or visit the science areas, but please don’t wander around without an escort. If you need anything just ask any of the crew …’

‘Christ,’ Sally snarled. ‘A cocktail reception. What is this, the Love Boat?’

Joshua said, ‘Come on, Sally. Relax for once. Even you can’t step away from mid-air. Have a bath. Drink a cocktail.’

She glared at him. ‘Maybe I’ll make a cocktail of your face, Valienté. Hey, you, Ensign Crusher! You have a gym on this tub? I feel like pumping some iron …’

THE SHORT DAY ended quickly.

When the dark came, Joshua skipped the cocktails and tried to nap. But everything felt wrong, out of step.

Before the dawn, still in the dark, he returned to the observation lounge. A group had gathered before the window, George and Lobsang, Agnes, and the two Next, Marvin and Stella Welch. Or perhaps they’d just stayed here.

Stella smiled at Joshua. ‘Restless, your friend Sally, isn’t she?’

‘You got that right. Always been the same. But then she grew up stepping.’

‘Yes. With a remarkable native ability.’

Joshua looked at Stella curiously. Somehow he hadn’t expected the Next to be interested in any of the individual people around them – the non-Next, the ‘dim-bulbs’, as Paul Spencer Wagoner and his buddies had always called them. Next always seemed far more interested in each other. Yet here these two were.

As if reflecting that thought, George said now, ‘It’s good of you to have come here. It was my idea to summon you.’

Joshua had been surprised about that, considering how Lobsang seemed to feel about the Next’s supposed abandonment of him. Maybe he wanted to use this situation to make some kind of contact. But his argument had been strong, as he’d explained it to Joshua. ‘What if these silver beetles do find a way to spread across the Long Earth? The Next, as inhabitants of the Long Earth, are just as vulnerable to the consequences as the rest of us …’ Of course the Next had come.

But Joshua was curious. ‘How did you summon them, umm, George?’

‘I just spread the word. I posted news on Low Earth sites. Sent messages to locations associated with the Next – for example the naval base on Hawaii where several of the Next children were held for studying. Nelson helped with that. Oh, and I also used the prison facility where the ringleader of the rogue group who hijacked the airship Armstrong is still being held – David?’ He turned to Marvin and Stella. ‘I suspected I only had to raise awareness of this issue and you would notice. For, although you claim to have withdrawn to your enclave hidden somewhere in the Long Earth – and I myself was responsible for sealing off Happy Landings to help cover that trail – I never had any doubt that you would keep watch over the human worlds. How could you not?’

Stella said, ‘Of course it is in our interests too to resolve this situation safely. But, as far as I know, this issue of the silver beetles is the first time any human agency has actively asked us to intervene, to help.’

The older Lobsang grinned, and Joshua saw that his control of his facial expressions had improved drastically in the time since he and Sally had brought this unit home. He said, ‘Of course it is ironic that your first call from humans should be from an individual whose own humanity has always been in question. Whose nature has, in fact, been tested in law.’