Terry Pratchett - The Long War

“Helpful?”

“Senator, humans and trolls work together. It happens all across the Long Earth, even in the Low Earths—hell, you must be aware of that, the economic value-add of troll labour…”

The trolls had become an ever-present in the worlds colonized by mankind. To pioneers bereft of heavy machinery, trolls were willing and clever workers who would clear your field, tote your bales of hay, even help you put up the schoolhouse. Nowadays, in the more developed societies in the Low Earths and beyond, trolls were put to work on the vast sheep farms that covered many parallel Australias, even shearing and spinning the wool, and in the tremendous rubber plantations of stepwise Malaysias. They even worked in the assembly lines of factories in some Low Earth Americas.

“That’s as may be.” Starling riffled the paperwork. “But here I have a sheaf of reports of attacks by these trolls of yours on humans. In one case leading to a man being paralysed, in another a small child traumatized and its mother left lying dead. And so on. What do you say to that?”

“Senator—trolls are only dangerous in the way that bears in a national park are dangerous. I mean, every so often some dumb tourist wants to get a picture of his toddler sitting nicely with a cute little cub… That kind of ignorance is bad enough back in the original USA, but it’s deadly on the stepwise Earths, which are all more or less wild. We tell people this all the time. In most stepwise worlds, being dumb is a prelude to being dead.

“And the situation’s going to get worse, Senator. The trolls have something called the long call, which means that eventually every troll in every world gets to know what every other troll knows. It takes a while to permeate. But sooner or later, if humanity treats trolls as ferocious animals, then our relationship with them everywhere will be fundamentally altered—”

Starling laughed out loud. “And that, sir, sounds like a lot of wu-wu tree-hugger bull hickey to me. The long call ? You’ll be warning me about the wrath of Eywa next. Bottom line, Mr. Valienté: our citizens must be protected, even from being dumb, which is not a crime. Good heavens, if it was, the jails would never empty. Especially here in DC. Ha!”

Valienté pressed his point. “All I am asking for, sir, is some kind of declaration that the United States gives the trolls the status of a protected species throughout the Aegis.”

“That’s all, is it?” Starling spread his hands. “But you must know that the situation regarding animal protection is complicated in this country as it is. We have federal laws, but a lot of legislation is at state level. Who exactly is it you want to define these laws, let alone enforce them? And in any event, as with so much concerning the so-called colony worlds, there’s endless debate about how our Datum laws extend out there.” He glanced again at his briefing. “I see you’ve floated the idea that these trolls of yours could be considered an exotic species. If so they would fall under the Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection service. But there’s a counter-argument that they aren’t exotic at all, but endemic—I mean, they’re native to all the other Earths, aren’t they? So the old categories don’t necessarily apply, legally or morally, it seems to me.

“As regards the specific case of this base at the Gap, if it was under the US Aegis they would need a Department of Agriculture permit to justify the trolls’ use in research. They should have gone through a process of obtaining such a permit, and maybe there’s some control to be applied through that route. But you see, Mr. Valienté, though US citizens are involved in this work, as I understand it this Gap base isn’t even in the US footprint. Somewhere in England, right? Maybe you should be arguing your case in London, not here.” He shrugged and pushed away his paperwork. “Look, the legal position is vague, and the issue lacks moral clarity to me. I am listening, gentlemen, but I don’t consider the case made. At best, all I could do is bring your concerns to the Senate. But I don’t believe I’m minded to do that. And besides you’re missing the wider issues.”

“What wider issues?”

“Whether you like it or not, Mr. Valienté, there are questions of national security involved here. This isn’t about animals, for cripes’ sakes. I’m talking about threat . That’s what concerns my constituents, here on the Datum. The threat of the unknown. It wasn’t so bad when all we had to think about was aliens coming at us from another planet, like in the movies! Shit, at least we’d get warning, you’d think. At least we’d have a chance of shooting them out of the sky. But now we have open borders, it seems to me. Now the aliens could just walk in!”

The Irishman—Jackson had to check the name again, Bill Chambers—spoke for the first time, all but. “Senator, you’re talking about these mad military twains you’ve sent out all over the place, aren’t you?”

Starling leaned forward.

Jackson tensed, ready for trouble; he knew the warning signs when his lord and master was getting pissed.

“Yes, sir,” said Starling. “That’s one response. Somebody must plan for the worst eventuality. That’s the job of a responsible government.”

To Jackson’s horror, Chambers actually blew a raspberry. “Ah, come off it, Senator. Are you kidding? This is just another boondoggle, a spending free-for-all, like the missile gap after Sputnik, like 9/11, like Madison. The vaguer the threat the more money you get to chuck at it, right? Look, I live out there, and here’s what I say. I say you can’t have one government for a million Americas, and this proves it. It just can’t work, it would be one god-awful bureaucracy. Well, so it is already. Hell, after all those centuries the fecking English never even managed to run Ireland properly. How are you lot going to manage this ?”

Valienté laughed. “You’d better not go repeating that when those Navy airships show up over our town hall, Bill.”

“Yeah. Maybe you should hold that thought, pioneer guy.”

But Chambers wasn’t quite done. “You know, before Step Day one world was enough for you characters. Because you didn’t even know the rest existed, did you? Now we’ve gone out there and made something of it all, and you lot who stayed at home want a piece of the fecking pie. Suddenly one world is no longer enough for you. Can’t you just leave us alone?”

Starling just looked at the man, steadily. Then he sat back and turned to Valienté, to Jackson’s relief; at least it didn’t look as though there’d be any actual physical violence, not this time.

“You know, Mr. Valienté,” Starling said now, “I have nothing to say to your companion here. I’m kind of disappointed in you , however. I understand you are known to be a truthful man, a careful man. I have seen depositions commending you for valour when you were younger, on Step Day. Quite a number of young people owed their lives to you. Then came that episode when you went charging off into the Long Earth—going where no one had gone before, right? All very admirable. Now you come in here with these ridiculous demands, this bullshit about these animals… I’d have thought you’d see a bigger picture. Ah, what the hey.” Then he grinned, unexpectedly. This was often Starling’s way, Jackson knew, to become good-old-boy expansive having mauled his opponent to his satisfaction.

“Listen. Let’s not part on bad terms. I believe you to be brave but naive, just as you probably believe that I am a mere tool of the military-industrial complex. Nevertheless you have spoken your piece and done it well, and I enjoyed disputing with you. I suspect your Sister Agnes would be proud of you, if I may say so.”