Terry Pratchett - The Long Utopia

Rocky had. ‘Mo Morris.’ One of the innermost group Stan called his ‘buddies’, and some of the jealous outsiders referred to as ‘superfans’ – if not by some more pejorative term – and who Martha called the ‘misfits’. Mostly young, mostly male, they were odd, needy characters, at least in Martha’s view, for whom Stan’s sudden charisma, revealed when he got back from the Grange, filled a hole in their lives they’d barely even known existed. Now here they were, lapping up every word, recording Stan on their phones and tablets, or just slavishly writing down every word he uttered, every lame joke. Certainly none of them had hung around with Stan before his secret journey. They were a growing flock from which Rocky, his oldest friend, the only one around him now aside from his mother who’d really known him before , was increasingly excluded.

And yet Rocky couldn’t walk away, any more than Martha could. For Rocky feared for Stan’s safety.

Stan was still talking. ‘And you know what I’d expect this smart person to say to me next?’ He stuck up the thumb on his right hand now. ‘The Rule of the Second Thumb. Be humble in the face of the universe . Of course if they were that humble they wouldn’t be laying down the law in the first place. Be humble . You got to be aware of your limits, right?’ He glanced up at the space elevator. ‘We all have meaningful jobs on this thing. But you do what you can do. Unless you can solve fourth-order differential equations you ain’t going to be much help in the design office, are you?’

‘I bet you could solve them, Stan,’ called up one of the buddies.

Stan shrugged. ‘Not beyond third-order. I told you I can only count up to three.’

Laughter.

‘ Be humble . Some of you are paramedics, first responders. The first thing they teach any medic is do no harm . Isn’t that right? Help if you can, but at least don’t make things worse in your ignorance. But to accept that limit you need to know your ignorance. Here we are building this mighty monument. We know what it’s designed to do, we’ve all seen the projections and the business models: the fruits of the sky brought down to this Earth. But none of us knows what effects it’s going to have, not in the short, medium or long term. We live in a reality that’s not just complicated, it’s chaotic. Unstable. So, be humble in the face of the universe . Know the limits of what you can achieve, what you can know. And in a chaotic universe, at least don’t snafu stuff even more than it already is snafued …’ He raised an arm and mimed flicking his middle finger at the cable. ‘You know, I have this fantasy that if I touch this big guitar string just right I could set up this huge oscillation … That’s one small pluck for a man, one giant twang for mankind—’ Hastily he stuck his hand in his pocket. ‘Best not take the chance!’

More laughter.

Roberta tapped Melinda’s arm. ‘That’s getting a response from the agitators.’

This was Melinda’s and Roberta’s term for a wider circle of ‘friends’ of Stan’s. Mostly older than the misfits, many of them blue-collar workers, men and women, they were union leaders, organizers, campaigners – some of them even disaffected middle management. From their circle had come the leaders of the most damaging down-tools strike the beanstalk project on this world had seen so far. They seemed to want to use Stan and his gatherings as a focus for discontent with LETC, the other contractors and the government.

Melinda murmured, ‘All Stan’s talk of hubris, of overreach. That’s been a common thread in their own talk. It’s a theme they can use to challenge the position of their corporate and political masters.’

Roberta nodded. ‘Stan may also have been unwise to speak of bringing the beanstalk down. Even to raise such an idea, however playfully, will ring alarm bells with the security agencies.’

Martha glared at the agitators, who were smiling and nodding at each other as Stan spoke. ‘Look at them. Such hard people. Troublemakers with their own agenda. I know that. And the cops know it from the way they keep an eye on them.’ She sighed. ‘If only Stan knew it too. He’s so innocent, for all his brains.’

Rocky knew there were real tensions here in Miami West 4, and had been long before Stan had begun his self-appointed mission. The beanstalk project was falling well behind schedule, and was eating its investors’ money. The problem had always been keeping hold of the workers. This was after all the Long Earth, and even Florida West 4 was pretty empty and wild and exotic. In the heads of the young elevator workers, old dreams were forever being subverted by the new. All of which forced the management to try to tie down their workers with restrictive contracts, or to reward them handsomely to keep them on side – which, of course, gave leverage to those who sought more.

Meanwhile the Next, as represented by Roberta and Melinda, had their own concerns about Stan and his message, and as he spoke on Rocky heard Melinda and Roberta exchange short bursts of quicktalk.

‘But you see,’ Stan said now, ‘I would want to ask this hypothetical person advising me to be a bit more active. Apprehend . Be humble in the face of the universe . Well, I could sit on my butt and manage that.’ He glanced around, as if in surprise to find himself still on his concrete plinth. ‘In fact I am sitting on my butt, but that’s by the bye. I think they’d sum up the rest something like this, with the Rule of the Third Thumb.’ He looked down at his own two thumbs. ‘Now, you see, I haven’t really thought this through. Because I ain’t got a third thumb.’ He looked down at his crotch, innocently. ‘Of course I could improvise.’

One of the buddies called, ‘Not with your mom standing in front of you, you won’t!’

Rocky saw Martha’s glare at that. She hated to be referred to by any of this bunch of inadequates, as she called them.

‘OK,’ Stan said, with a grin. ‘Take the third thumb as read. What’s important is the rule, which is: Do good .’ He looked down at his mother now. ‘That sounds a little bland, right? Kind of Mom-and-Pop instructions for when you’re about seven years old. But the question is, how should you do good? After all the right path isn’t always clear – everybody knows that, you face dilemmas about that every day.

‘Well, if you’re faced with some situation, some dilemma, remember the other rules of thumb. Apprehend . Try to understand the problem, the people involved, as much as you can. Be humble in the face of the universe . Make sure you don’t screw things up further, at least.

‘But you can do more. Do the good that’s in front of you. If somebody’s hurting, or about to be hurt, try to save them. Figure out who’s vulnerable, in any situation. Who’s got no power, no choice? It’s a good bet that you won’t go wrong if you help them . Even so, there may be situations where that’s not clear. So there’s a much older rule I came across, which some call – or versions of it – the Golden Rule: do as you would be done by. Would you want this done to you? Would you want to be saved from this situation? If so, do it. If you’re not sure, don’t.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re not going to get it right every time. It’s impossible to get it right every time. We live in a chaotic universe, remember? Be humble. But I figure it’s worth trying to get it more right than wrong …’

People started asking questions now.

Melinda sighed, listening absently. ‘Hear that? Some of them call him “Master”. Others are writing it all down. I think we just heard the Sermon Under the Beanstalk, delivered by a messiah called Stan.’