The Long War Read online

  22

  THE GOLD DUST and its accompanying fleet crept through the Low Earths, the last couple of dozen stepwise worlds before the Datum. The skies were pretty crowded over these relatively heavily developed worlds, and as the ships were stepped through collisions were a real threat. In the last few worlds they actually had to follow a scout on the ground, who would step forward, check out the route, and then come back when the way was clear.

  But even the clutter of West 3 or 2 or 1 was as nothing compared with what they found when they finally crossed over to the Datum. They looked down on the landscapes of West 1, and then with that last step it was as if somebody had exploded a daisycutter bomb, scything away the greenery for miles around and replacing it with concrete, tarmac and steel, staining the shining river a turbid grey and penning it in with reinforced banks and bridges, all under a grubby, colourless sky. Joshua thought you couldn’t have had a better demonstration of what humanity could do to a world, given a few centuries and a lot of oil to burn.

  The Gold Dust herself seemed diminished as she settled gingerly towards her docking apron. And the very first detail Joshua saw as he disembarked, on the wall of an old brick warehouse, was a giant portrait of President Cowley, standing there glaring with his arm held out and palm upraised, as if to say: Keep Out!

  Sally, following Joshua, glared around dismissively. She was back with them, however briefly, from her latest jaunt. Long as he’d known her, Joshua still knew little of the various channels through which she kept in touch with what was going on out in the Long Earth, a vast domain which, in some sense, she seemed to feel responsible for policing. Now she said grimly, ‘Welcome home.’

  The disembarked passengers were decanted into an immigration hall, a huge processing area full of snaking lines and checkpoints and screening booths, Homelands goons visored so you couldn’t see their faces, threatening instruction posters on the walls, enigmatic banners:

  GENESIS 3:19

  Like what he recalled of airports, Joshua saw now, this twain station had brightly signed links to other transport networks: planes, trains, buses, cabs. Transport had been one of the few big growth industries on the Datum since Step Day. To make a long-distance journey across a Low Earth, it was still generally easier to jump back to Datum Earth, catch a bus or plane, and step back once you’d reached your destination. But to access those services you had to get through immigration. Joshua checked over his little party as they waited in line. Dan, who had never had an experience like this in his life before, was confused. Helen looked stoically patient, as ever. Bill was still paralysed by his latest hangover, after his send-off by the crew of the Gold Dust. Sally just rolled her eyes at the endless stupidity of humanity.

  And as they waited in their line a man approached them, small, intense, dressed in a black cassock, dog collar and crested hat. Dan flinched back as he drew nearer. The guy carried a Bible, and a small brass globe on a chain from which the rich scent of incense wafted. He was evidently working the waiting crowd.

  Coming right up to them he pressed a leaflet into Sally’s hand. ‘In the name of the Lord, now you have returned home, stay here, on the Datum Earth – the one true Earth.’

  Sally glared at him. ‘Why should we? Who are you?’

  He said earnestly, ‘There is not a shred of evidence, either scientific or theological, that the discarnate soul can travel crossways through the worlds. Let your children die there, out in the wilderness, and their souls will never find their way to the bosom of the Lord.’ He crossed himself. ‘And as you know the Day of Judgement is approaching. Even now, on all those so-called stepwise worlds, at the heart of all those godless copies of the true America, fire and brimstone are spreading sulphurous fumes across Yellowstone—’

  Sally just laughed, and told him in crisp Anglo-Saxon to go away, more forcibly than Joshua would have dared. The man shuffled off in search of easier targets.

  ‘Well, he was a bit mad,’ Bill said.

  At last they reached the front of the line. Here their bags were opened and searched meticulously, and each of the party was put through a whole-body scanner. Joshua and Sally were first through. On the other side they were both issued with wristbands, brightly coloured and no doubt studded with tracker technology, that they would have to wear at all times until they left the Datum.

  As they waited for the others Joshua murmured, ‘I don’t get this. All this processing and screening – all new since the last time I came back. But what’s the point? I know there are stepwise hazards for the Datum: infectious diseases, invasive species. But all these barriers – the Long Earth is an open frontier. Here we are obediently riding in on a twain and arriving at a transport hub, but we could step back anywhere on the Datum, with a backpack full of long-horned beetles. There’s no logic.’

  Sally rolled her eyes. ‘It’s all symbolism, Joshua. You never do get stuff like this, do you? This is President Cowley saying to his voters, look how I’m protecting you. Look how terrible these travellers are, what a threat they are.’ She glanced at the banks of security processing gear. ‘Also there’s a lot of federal money to be earned by the companies that manufacture gear like this. Fear generates big profits.’

  ‘You’re very cynical.’

  ‘Joshua, cynicism is the only reasonable response to the antics of humanity. Especially on the Datum.’

  At last Dan, Helen and Bill came through. Dan was wide-eyed and bewildered, but not actively scared, Joshua was relieved to see. Reunited, they picked up their luggage and moved through a crowded outer hall, looking for a cab rank. Joshua noticed a feature that was new since he’d last come through a place like this: small patches of the crowded sidewalks marked off by yellow hatching, reserved as stepping areas that you otherwise tried to keep clear, so as to allow an unimpeded flow-through. Only on the Datum would you need such controls; he felt an uncomfortable claustrophobia just thinking about it.

  And now another man approached them, this one in a smart-looking business suit, carrying a plastic shopping bag. Evidently they weren’t to be left alone for a minute. Aged maybe thirty, this guy had thinning hair, spectacles, and a winning smile.

  He stood directly in their path, so they had to stop. Joshua thought he was probably another religious nut. Then the man said, clearly and calmly, ‘Welcome to Earth, mutants.’

  And he reached into his bag.

  Joshua lunged forward, putting his body between the man and his family. From the corner of his eye he saw Sally pick up Dan and step away in an instant with a pop of imploding air. And the man pulled out a blade, short, heavy, wicked. In one movement he hurled it.

  The knife hit Joshua above the right breast. He was thrown back, pain flooding him.

  He saw Helen charge forward and ram her fist into the man’s face. She was a midwife, and strong in the upper body; he was laid flat out. Cops and other security people came running.

  For Joshua, the world greyed and fell away.

  23

  ‘YOUR WOULD-BE killer is called Philip Mott,’ Monica Jansson said, as she poured Joshua’s coffee. ‘A junior attorney working for one of the big railroad combines. No previous record, no significant contact with the police. He’s not a phobic, as far as we know, and he’s not a home-alone – that is, never dumped by a family stepping away, a common trigger for this kind of behaviour.’

  Joshua knew all about that syndrome. Helen herself was the sister of the Madison-bomb accomplice Rod Green, a home-alone gone rogue.

  ‘But,’ Jansson said, ‘Mott doesn’t own a Stepper box. He’s hardly ever stepped at all as far as any of his character witnesses testify. He has been running with President Cowley’s Humanity Firsters for years, some of the more rabid elements, which even Cowley now officially disowns . . .’

  Joshua shifted in the sofa, which was a little too deep for him to feel comfortable. A couple of days after the attack his shoulder was healing, but was still strapped up, and was prone to deliver stabs of fresh pain if he didn’t favour
it. Sally sat beside him, cradling a coffee mug, perched on the edge of her seat. As ever she looked as if she was about to bolt through the door, or out of this reality altogether. Dan, meanwhile, was outside, playing basketball with Bill, using a rusty old hoop fixed to the wall of Jansson’s house. Joshua could hear them running around in the sunshine, Dan jabbering out some imaginary commentary.

  And Helen, incredibly, was in custody, on assault charges.

  They were staying with Joshua’s old sparring partner, former MPD Lieutenant Monica Jansson. Jansson’s house, here on the outskirts of Madison West 5 – to which the residents of Datum Madison had been rezoned after the nuke – was typical Low Earth architecture, a massive structure of wood of a quality that would once have been impossibly expensive on the Datum. Jansson’s personal past showed in the way the place was studded with bits of high-tech gear: a widescreen TV, cellphones, a laptop.

  Jansson was in her fifties now, but looked older, to Joshua’s inexpert gaze. She was thinner than he remembered too, her hair greyed and cut short. And he’d noticed a line of medicines, in small white plastic bottles, on the mantelpiece over the big fireplace – and just above the mantlepiece was Joshua’s sapphire ring on its leather loop, hanging in pride of place from a picture hook on the wall. Encouraged by Helen, he’d brought the ring here with the vague intention of showing it, one of his few impressive trophies of his travels, to a few discreet friends.

  On the TV, some geologist was crawling around a bubbling mud pool in a copy of Yellowstone, on some Low Earth or other. Apparently there had been similar disturbances at Datum Yellowstone and at some of its Low Earth footprints. The jokey commentator was talking about geysers failing, wildlife fleeing and such, and how it was actually good for business at the National Park, with people coming in to rubberneck the latest chthonic turmoil in the stepwise copies. Maybe that religious nut at the twain port had been right about the fire and brimstone at Yellowstone, even if he made the wrong interpretation.

  Sally said now, ‘So this Mott guy has never pulled a stunt like this before?’

  ‘Not on the record, no. But a lot of the Firsters are like that nowadays. Their strategies have evolved. They soak up the propaganda, they stay quiet, under the radar, they take to carrying around stakes—’

  Joshua asked, ‘Stakes?’

  ‘That’s their jargon for the weapon he carried. Like staking a vampire, you know? A stake of iron, for a stepper. Very hard to police. And then, out of the blue, they find themselves in some situation where they’re presented with a target of opportunity. Such as near a twain terminal, but outside the security barriers so nobody knows what he has in the bag – where this guy met you, Joshua.’

  ‘And recognized your face,’ Sally said dryly.

  ‘And – bang. He would have been aiming for your heart, by the way. Even if he missed the heart, he might have caused you problems if you tried to step away with a chunk of steel sitting in your chest.’

  Sally grunted. ‘I’m hearing that there are countries on the Datum where governments are doing that kind of thing purposefully. Surgically fixing iron clips to your heart, or an artery.’

  Jansson said, ‘Yeah. They call it stapling. Look, don’t worry. Mott’s still in custody; he’ll be charged. Datum law-enforcement isn’t what it was in my day, but you don’t get away with attacks like that.’

  ‘And nor does my wife, it seems,’ Joshua said bitterly. ‘I can’t believe they charged Helen with assault.’

  ‘Well, she did lay the guy out. Quite a haymaker. She’ll get off with a reprimand, it was self-defence—’

  ‘She’s still in custody! They took away her Stepper, won’t even give her bail. How long will we have to wait to get her out?’

  ‘That’s the policy now with non-residents of the Low Earths or the Datum, I’m afraid.’

  Sally shook her head. ‘The Datum’s become a world full of paranoids, run by paranoids. No wonder we never come back.’

  ‘Well, you came back this time for a reason,’ Jansson said to Joshua. ‘Your meeting with Senator Starling, right?’

  ‘To talk about this issue of the trolls, yes.’ He shrugged, making his shoulder ache anew. ‘Thanks to you, Jansson – I know you opened a few doors to set that up. But now I’m doubting the wisdom of coming here at all.’

  ‘You have to try,’ Sally snapped. ‘We went through this back at Hell-Knows-Where.’

  He said tiredly, ‘Sure. But now we’re here it’s obvious that the issue of the welfare of trolls isn’t going to be at the top of the Datum political agenda.’

  Jansson nodded. ‘You may be right. But the case of Mary out at the Gap has made the news even on the Datum. It’s such an exceptional case, such obvious cruelty and injustice, in the middle of a space programme, for God’s sake. It couldn’t be higher profile, and presents an opportunity for change. Which is why I did what I could to help set up your meeting with Starling.’

  Sally said, ‘Exactly. Joshua, what’s the use of your having a famous face if you don’t use it for good?’

  He grunted. ‘All my “famous face” has done for me so far is get me stabbed, my wife put in custody, and my kid scared out of his wits.’

  Jansson glanced out the window at Dan. ‘Oh, I think that little pioneer’s tougher than that.’

  Joshua grimaced. ‘President Cowley would say he’s a little mutant.’

  Jansson smiled sadly. ‘Also a sinner.’

  Sally nodded. ‘Genesis 3:19. We saw the posters.’

  Joshua closed his eyes, remembering Bible classes at the Home. ‘What God told Adam and Eve after the expulsion from Eden. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Jansson said. ‘God has put us on this world, or worlds, to work. You comber types, happy to just wander around – or at least that’s how you’re painted here – are a bunch of slackers. Without work mankind can’t progress . . . and so on.’

  Joshua sighed. ‘And so, pushed by such madness, we slide into war, or something.’

  Jansson sipped her coffee. Joshua thought he saw her shiver, though the day wasn’t cold.

  He asked gently, ‘And how are you, Monica?’

  She looked up. ‘Best to stick to Lieutenant Jansson, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re settled here in West 5?’

  ‘Well, nobody’s allowed to stay long back in Datum Madison even now. They might let you back for a while, Joshua, if you want to see it. I could pull a few strings. It’s an eerie place to see. The wildlife is flourishing. Prairie flowers sprouting in flash-burned rubble. America’s Chernobyl, they call it. It’s slowly healing, I guess.’

  He said carefully, ‘And are you?’

  She looked at him tiredly. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s leukaemia. My own stupid fault. I was too eager to go hopping back and forth to the Datum after the blast. But it’s manageable with drugs, and they’re talking about gene therapy.’

  ‘You always tried to put things right,’ Joshua said abruptly. ‘That’s what I always recognized in you.’

  She shrugged. ‘That’s a cop’s job.’

  ‘But you took it a bit further than most. I always responded to that.’ He reached over, wincing as his shoulder ached, and touched her hand. ‘Just don’t give up yet. OK?’

  Sally stood up impatiently. ‘If you two are going to get all mushy on me I’m out of here.’

  Joshua turned. ‘You’re not going already?’

  She winked. ‘I always have chores, Joshua. You know me. I’ll be back. So long, Lieutenant Jansson.’ And she disappeared with a soft pop.

  Jansson raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ll make some more coffee.’

  24

  MARLON JACKSON, Senator Starling’s aide, was determined to take the meeting with this bizarre Valienté pioneer-type character on the chin.


  Jim Starling was mostly manageable, in Jackson’s experience. Regrettably the Senator had a good if erratic memory, which could make him devilishly difficult to steer in the way a decent aide should be able to. But at least the Senator’s tantrums were generally short and futile, and in that the man was not unlike Jackson’s great-grandfather’s description of Lyndon B. Johnson: ‘A goddamn tornado until he ran down, and then you could get the work done.’ Jackson’s forebears had been behind-the-scenes toilers for democracy for generations.

  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.