Terry Pratchett - The Long War

“Not a world for humans, then.”

“No chance.”

“But the combers come here.”

“Of course. And to survivable refuges in other Jokers. Joshua, a Joker is a whole world, and it isn’t going to be the same all over; there are always going to be safe places, refuges like this. You get to know them.”

“How?”

“Through other combers. There’s a whole subculture that people like you, and even Lobsang, know nothing about. And we like it that way.

“ You think the story of the Long Earth is about colonies like Hell-Knows-Where, or Helen’s Reboot, or cities like Valhalla, and wars of independence and whatnot. All the mad old stuff from Datum history projected into the new worlds. Well, that isn’t the story, Joshua. It’s about a new way of living—or maybe a very old one. The combers haven’t colonized the Long Earth, Joshua. Nor have they adapted it to suit themselves. They just live in it, as it is.”

This lecture surprised Joshua, who had grown up with Bill, and now shared a town with him, and thought he knew him. “How do you know?”

“Oh, you know, you have your sabbaticals. I take off for a bit of an old stroll meself from time to time. I always come back. Too fond of my home comforts, that’s my problem. And of the odd drink. But it’s always a grand vacation. Anyhow I know how these fellas think.”

Joshua thought that over. “And we need comber thinking now to find the trolls, right?”

“Because trolls live in the Long Earth too. And they know the secret places, the places to hide out, like combers are learning… It’s getting dark.”

“I noticed.”

“Joshua, you’re happy down there for the night? There are various exotic horrors lurking, needless to say.”

“But you’ve got infrared sensors, sonar motion sensors. You’ll spot any moving bodies, hot-blooded or cold-blooded. Right? Wake me if you need to.”

“No worries. Sleep tight, buddy.”

“And you.”

He woke up in a grey, moist dawn.

Even before he opened his eyes he was aware of an uneasy prickling at the back of the neck, the product of a million years of animal sensitivity trying to kick its way past the doorkeeper of the cerebrum.

He was being watched.

And he heard words: “ Path-less-ss one …”

Still in his sleeping bag, he sat up.

The elf was leaning against a tree trunk a few yards away, blending into the shadows so perfectly that Joshua might never have noticed it if it hadn’t turned its head and grinned. Low dawn sunlight fell on two rows of perfectly triangular teeth.

Then the elf stepped out into the open light, reaching the sleeping bag in a couple of strides.

It was no more than four feet tall, and was squat and strong, with a face that owed something to a solemn baboon and a punk-rock hairstyle that owed everything to a cockatoo. It wore a sort of leather loincloth, and carried a leather pouch at its waist. It was bootless, showing feet that were quite human except for the talon-like toenails. Joshua looked for other weapons and couldn’t see any.

He was oddly reminded of a mole, its paws equipped for digging. This was like nothing so much as an overgrown, vaguely human-shaped, upright, clothes-wearing mole. An upright mole wearing sunglasses . The lenses were cracked and scarred, and the creature’s ears, folded flat against its blunt skull, didn’t look up to the job of support, so the shades were fixed in place with a band of grubby elastic.

The elf grinned again. Joshua could smell its breath from here.

His gun was inside the sleeping bag. Joshua got a distinct impression that attempting to reach it would be the single most stupid thing he could possibly do.

At such times, thought Joshua, there had to be a more useful opening than: “A star shines on the hour of our meeting.” But that was what crackled out of the radio on the ground by the sleeping bag. Bill was evidently watching.

The elf grinned again and said, “I wish-sh you a good death-th.”

English. It spoke English! It was an elf, obviously, a member of one of the many slim, gracile species of humanoids that had come to be known as elves across the Long Earth. But though he’d never seen one before, Joshua immediately knew what subspecies this must be.

“He’s a kobold.”

“Evidently,” murmured Bill from the radio. “Some folks call them ringtails. Or ‘urban foxes’, according to the fecking English.”

“I thought they were a comber legend.”

“Don’t tell him that, he might get the hump. I have him on infrared,” said Bill. “I see his weaponry. He won’t harm you. Well, probably not. Tell me how you’d describe him.”

“Can you imagine Gandhi meets Peter Pan?”

“No…”

The kobold grinned, showing those sharp teeth. “Not worry, little mann. I protect. Be ss-safe. Be friend.”

“Great. My name’s Joshua.”

He nodded gravely. “Know. Lobsang ss-send you.”

“Lobsang? You know about Lobsang?… Why aren’t I surprised?”

Bill said, “You’re all over the kobold grapevine, Joshua. Especially since I started putting out feelers about Sally on your behalf.”

“You got ss-tone that sing-ss?”

“The stone that sings?”

“Yah. Stone that eats soul of mann, sings. The holy music. Menn that ss-sing after death.” The kobold paused, moving his lips as he thought hard, and added, “Like Buddy Holly.”

“Say yes,” said Bill.

“Yes.”

“Flip, Joshua, do I have to spell it out to ye? Give him the cassette.”

“Oh—the ‘stone that sings’. I get it.” Joshua reached for his jacket, which he had been using as a pillow, found the battered old cassette tape in the pocket, and handed it over.

The kobold reached across and took it like a devout worshipper handling a relic. He sniffed at it, held it to his ear and shook it gently. “Bill was-ss here before. We talk. He give me mus-ssic. He give cof-ffee. He give machine that drinks-ss sunlight and plays-ss holy mu-ssic.”

“You mean a cassette machine?”

The kobold turned the tape over in his long fingers. “Kinks-ss?…”

“It’s the album you wanted,” Bill said from the radio. “ The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society .”

“Good…” The kobold dug a battered old tape-drive walkman from the pouch at his waist, held up a glittering solar-cell surface to face the sunlight, pulled ancient-looking headphones around his neck, and pushed the tape into a slot. “Extra-ss?”

“You’ve got the twelve-track mono version released in Europe, and then the fifteen-track UK edition in stereo and mono, and some rarities. An alternate mix of ‘Animal Farm’. An unreleased track called ‘Mick Avory’s Underpants’…”

But the kobold was no longer listening. He backed up against a tree, the worn foam of the headphones pressed against his ears.

Bill said softly, “That’s it. He’s out of it for a couple of hours while he checks that out. Joshua, if you need breakfast, now’s a good time.”

“The Kinks, Bill?”

“A great 1960s band from the UK, who made it big in the US with—”

“I don’t care. No disrespect to the Kinks. What’s with the tape?”

“Trade goods, Joshua. Kobolds like human culture. Some of ’em are big on music. This one was hooked when he first heard ‘Waterloo Sunset’. He’s a kind of snitch. An informant. I get him the music he wants; he gives me—information.”

“Yeah, but who uses a cassette machine?”

“Well, he’s older than he looks, Joshua. He’s been doing trades like this for years. And he’s a humanoid with an evolutionary path that split off from mankind’s millions of years ago. He’s not likely to be a technology early adopter, is he?”