Terry Pratchett - The Long War

But great-grandpa had never had to deal with modern technology. Such as a diary system into which an appointment for this Joshua Valienté had got inserted, even though everybody with access denied putting it there. Even when Jackson managed to delete the entry, it got put back again . Evidently Valienté had some kind of support; Jackson, an old hand in DC, knew the signs.

And it would have to be someone like Valienté, who last time Jackson had seen him in person had been stonewalling a Senate board of inquiry about his spectacular but mysterious jaunt across the Long Earth, in an apparently pilotless ship . Driven by apparently covert technology , some of which was subsequently gifted by the Black Corporation to the nation, much to the silent fury of the nation’s political classes. Valienté, a walking talking symbol of the Long Earth, backed by some kind of hidden hand—Valienté, who had forced his way in here, more or less, to face a senator whose main support base despised the new colonies and everything about them. A clash of minds occurring just as the political situation vis à vis the colonies had never been trickier, what with the Valhalla declaration on top of all this crap about trolls…

In Jackson’s world this was a small incident, but one out of control and fraught with danger. Like a hand grenade rolling across the floor. If he just got the chance to smooth out the Senator’s more idiotic brain dumps into something that sounded like constructive dialogue, then everything would be fine. You just had to hope, in this business.

He gulped down one of his ulcer pills.

In fact Joshua Valienté and his buddy, both dressed in Bonanza -type dung-coloured pioneer gear, were a few minutes late when security finally showed them into the office. To Jackson they looked like an irruption from America’s semi-mythic past into the clutter of this mid-twenty-first-century office.

After a curt introduction, Valienté went straight on the attack. “Seven minutes late because of your security protocol. Are you afraid just of me, or all your voters?” Before Jackson had a chance to respond, Valienté looked around at the hunting trophies on the office walls. “And what decor. Looks like they’re all either inedible or from a protected species, or both. Nice symbolism.”

His companion guffawed.

Jackson hadn’t yet said a single word. He was struggling here; he felt as if he’d been hit by some primal force. “Why don’t you take a seat, Mr. Valienté, and Mr.—” he glanced at his briefing “—Chambers?”

At least they complied to that degree.

What was this Valienté? Jackson’s briefing had suggested some kind of retard with nothing more than a gift for stepping… He was evidently more than that. His very voice was strange, Jackson thought as he tried to size up this man, a voice which laid down words as a poker player laid down cards, with finality and decision. He seemed slow rather than fast, but relentless. As hard to stop, once he came rolling at you, as an oncoming tank.

As for the trophies on the wall, Jackson knew that the tiger head had been acquired by Starling’s grandfather who’d bought it from a dealer in Chinese aphrodisiacs, but most of the rest were the result of the Senator’s own efforts. All these trophies were a signal—Valienté was right to spot the symbolism—to inform any visitors that the Senator had an impressive and well-oiled armoury and was not shy of using it. But then, practically everybody who voted for him was a firearms enthusiast. Jim Starling was not a man to take any notice of latter-day eco-tards wetting their pants because they thought somebody was killing Bambi out in some dismal stepwise Earth. Which, of course, was the background to this whole business.

Anyhow this was not Jackson’s problem; he just had to get through the next hour or whatever until these guys were shown the door. “Coffee, gentlemen?”

Chambers said, “You wouldn’t have a cup of tea at all?”

Jackson made a call; the drinks arrived in a couple of minutes.

Then, to Jackson’s relief, he heard a flush from the bathroom. The door opened and the Senator came in with, fortunately, for once, everything safely stowed away.

Starling, a burly fifty-something in shirtsleeves, evidently in the middle of his working day, looked disarmingly welcoming. The colonists stood up, and looked a little less, well, bristling , as the Senator shook their hands. This was what Starling was good at, working people even from the first second he walked in a room.

And Jackson could see it shook Valienté up when Starling asked for his autograph, as they sat down. “Not for me, it’s for my niece. She’s a big fan.”

Valienté seemed to feel the need to apologize as he signed a card. “I didn’t vote for you. Postal votes don’t get out as far as Hell-Knows-Where.”

Starling shrugged. “But you’re still my constituent, according to the Aegis definition and the electoral records.” Joshua maintained a legal address at the Home in Madison West 5. “And you’re in politics yourself now, right?” He flipped through the paperwork on his desk. “A mayor in some pioneer-type community. How admirable.” The Senator flopped back in his big chair and said, “Well, now, gentlemen, you came all the way back from your distant Earth, you came all the way in to DC, you wanted to see me urgently. So let’s get to it. I believe the issue is game preservation in the subsidiary Earths, yes?”

“Yes, sir,” said the Irishman, Bill Chambers.

“No,” said Valienté, back on the attack again. “Trolls aren’t game . And there are no such things as subsidiary Earths; every Earth is an Earth, a whole world. That’s a very Datum-centric point of view, sir.”

Jackson drew breath to intervene at this point. But the Senator took this with good humour. “I stand corrected. But the Earths that interest me are the ones containing US citizens, under the Aegis. And my concern is to ensure that our citizens are allowed those liberties that our Constitution demands.” He shuffled his paperwork, glancing over it again. “I believe I understand why you’re here. But why don’t you put it in your own words?”

Valienté was no orator, evidently, Jackson saw, despite his own political experience. Haltingly, as best he could, he tried to summarize the concerns gathering across the Long Earth over the treatment of the trolls.

“Look—when I heard about this notorious case, of Mary and her cub at the Gap, I was dismayed. But it’s only the tip of the iceberg where the trolls are concerned. At Hell-Knows-Where, you know, we protect our trolls under a citizenship extension.”

“What? You’re serious? So how far do you take that? Oh, don’t answer that. Look, whatever hayseed laws you pass in Who-Knows-What—”

“ Hell -Knows- Where .”

“Don’t amount to a hill of beans back here, as your type might say. Let’s get to the point. These trolls are humanoids. Right? Humanoid, pre-human if you like, but not human , no matter what ordinances you pass in your hick Blazing Saddles -type town. They are animals, and, according to my best advice, dangerous animals. So we have these creatures out there, powerful and aggressive creatures, who, according to you, should not be killed or otherwise inconvenienced, yes? I have read the paperwork, even though my assistant probably thinks I haven’t,” and he winked at Jackson. “Powerful, aggressive animals, and now killers.”

Valienté said, “Powerful, yes. Even a female troll will weigh as much as a sumo wrestler and can punch like a heavyweight boxer… Aggressive? Only if they’re pushed. Mostly they’re helpful.”