Terry Pratchett - The Long Utopia

Martha almost snarled, ‘He’s just a kid.’

Roberta said gently, ‘With respect, Mrs Berg, I don’t think that’s fair. His message is simple but contains great depth – a depth which I am sure will be revealed by contemplation and exegesis in the months and years to come. Apprehend : one could take that as a mandate to achieve full awareness, indeed full self-awareness. To master the passions, for example – not to eliminate them, but to ensure they don’t control you. Be humble in the face of the universe : hidden in there may be a mandate for our management of the world, of all the worlds. We should embrace diversity, for example, for we can never know the consequences of our interventions in a maximally complex system like a biosphere.’ She glanced at Martha. ‘You’ve said you are not religious. You did not raise Stan in that tradition. His sermon sounded free of religion, humanist, perhaps even atheist. Yet buried deep in its implications there was even a guide as to how to approach God – any god, or gods. Consider that every moment you’re alive and aware in this glorious world is a moment of awareness of that god – and to live in that moment is the only way you can be aware of your god … That’s the basis of a creed that even the Next could embrace. And all of it packed into just eleven words, delivered by a man just nineteen years old.’ With liquid-bright eyes she looked around, at the crowd, the young man on the plinth. ‘This is not a trivial moment. This is the birth of a movement. Potentially a religion. A new force in the affairs of humanity.’

Rocky felt his temper flare. ‘By which you mean, dim-bulb humanity. It wouldn’t be the first time we “dim-bulbs” have dreamed up a new religion, even without your help.’

Roberta said, ‘But, you see, the problem is these “rules” of Stan’s have come from a Next , not a dim-bulb. For that’s what Stan is, whether he wants to admit it to himself or not – for all he’s rejected our own tentative thinking so far. He’s trying to build a bridge between Next and humanity, clearly. But his teaching could be profoundly destabilizing.’

‘Good,’ Rocky snarled.

Melinda frowned. ‘You need to keep your voice down.’

‘In fact, Rocky, I need you to come with us.’ A woman’s voice, speaking quietly.

Rocky turned, startled. Standing there was a woman Rocky didn’t recognize: late middle-aged, in traveller’s gear, with greying blonde hair under a sun-bleached hat, she was stern, silent, intimidating.

Roberta nodded. ‘It is time, then. We need you to help us save him, Rocky. And to get him out of here.’

‘Save Stan?’ Rocky asked wildly. ‘Save him from what?’ He turned on the middle-aged woman. ‘And what the hell do you want?’

She looked like she wanted nothing more than to just light out of here. And yet she held his gaze. She said, ‘I’m one of you – not a Next. And I hate this as much as you’re going to. But I came to help convince you they’re right, Rocky. And you, Martha. Stan must come with us, for he has a duty to perform. In a place called New Springfield.’ She smiled, oddly sadly, wistfully. ‘He’s going to be a hero, Rocky. I’ll tell you as much as I understand myself, I promise.’

This was the beginning. When Rocky began to learn for the first time that the Next intended to take Stan away from this place. And that they needed Rocky to help.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Sally Linsay.’

ROCKY, INCREASINGLY APPREHENSIVE, was taken, with Sally and Roberta, to the local corporate headquarters of the Long Earth Trading Company.

From the outside the LETC HQ was nothing exciting, a single-storey block of timber and concrete – like a Cape Canaveral bunker, built for safety as with all human-habitable structures anywhere near the beanstalk site. But its pale concrete walls bore the LETC name and logo picked out in chrome: a line of stylized figures carrying a huge tree trunk on their shoulders, crossing between shadowy stepwise worlds. This was how the company had started out, hauling Long Earth timber to the Datum on human backs. Now it was building a space elevator.

Once inside, Rocky was led to a kind of conference room, with a big, slanting picture window facing the construction site, the beanstalk itself. Massive metal blinds were poised to roll down over the windows in case of any disaster.

Sally Linsay, still wearing her traveller’s hat, grinned at Rocky and sat down. ‘Come on, kid, you sit by me. You want some water?’

‘What are we doing in here?’

Roberta said, ‘Mr Russo of LETC loaned us the facility, so we could talk in private, about our plan – about Stan. And without surveillance.’

‘What does Mr Russo care?’

‘Frankly, Rocky – and I’m sure you know this already – the corporation don’t want him around here. He’s too much trouble. And so when Sally Linsay and I turned up saying we wanted to take him away—’

Sally glared at her. ‘We never met before today, before we were both sent here. But I know you. Roberta Golding. Originally from Happy Landings. Just fifteen, you were the only western student to travel with the Chinese on that mission to Earth East Twenty Million. Before Yellowstone you were invited to the White House as some kind of intern, and next thing you know you’re a guest on the President’s Science Advisory Council. And since then—’

‘Since then,’ Roberta said, ‘I have joined my own people. No, Sally, we never met before. But we did work together before, through Joshua Valienté. Saving hundreds of Next children from their internment on Hawaii. Whatever you think of us, we will always be grateful to you for that.’

Sally didn’t look to Rocky like she did gratitude very well. ‘And here we are working together again. Funny old world.’

‘But you understand why, Sally,’ Roberta said. ‘ You have from the beginning, more clearly than any of us. That’s why you sent Lobsang to New Springfield. You sensed something wrong there. And why you offered to help now—’

‘You say he’s a problem.’ Rocky glared at Roberta. ‘Stan. For you maybe, for LETC. He’s no problem for me.’

‘But he is your problem, Rocky,’ Roberta said gently. ‘I know it. I’ve seen you with him, remember. You’re the same age. You’ve known him since childhood. You came all the way to the Grange with him, and back. And you’ve stuck with him, while this – circus – has blown up around him and his teachings, and his other old friends have faded away. That’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Only his mother, and me. Even his father won’t see him any more.’

‘For you it’s personal. And that’s why you’re here, why we need your help. You want to protect him – I can see that – from these acolytes who are attracted to him, who want to use him for their own purposes.’

Sally snorted. ‘Just as you want to use him, for your purposes.’

Roberta showed no irritation. ‘What we want above all is for Stan to find his true destiny. That’s the best way we can help him. And that is not by letting him rabble-rouse the workers here. The authorities are growing concerned about the situation here, Rocky. I mean the government, state and federal. Homelands Security. Also the police. Here you have an agitator threatening the stability of the industrial operation, and the security of the high-energy, high-risk facility at the centre of it – not to mention jeopardizing the tax revenues to be garnered from it, now and in the future. If LETC has him shipped out of here they’ll find a sympathetic ear in government.’