The Long Earth

the farmer who brought him into the hospital. The farmer protested to the police that the man had just stood there in the middle of the field, as if he’d never seen such a vehicle before, and the farmer had been unable to stop in time.

‘Despite the efforts of the hospital staff, Percy died of wounds from the collision. An ironic end! But not before one of the nurses who spoke English heard him say something like, “In the end I told the Russians that I wanted to go back, to see how the war was getting on. They were good lads, found me a way home. Good lads, loved singing. Very kind…” And so forth.

‘The fact that the man was wearing the remains of a British Army uniform and mentioned the word “Russians” raised sufficient security concerns to cause the gendarmerie to be called to investigate. Well, according to the British Legion, there was indeed a Percy Blakeney involved in the fighting on Vimy Ridge, who was reported missing after the opening bombardment. There appears to have been no attempt at an official explanation as to why his pay-book should show up decades later in the hands of a mysterious itinerant now buried in a graveyard in central France.’

‘But you have an explanation, I take it.’

‘I’m sure you can see it, Joshua.’

‘He stepped there? Into the forest with his Russians?’

‘Possibly,’ said Lobsang, ‘or perhaps one of the trolls found itself in the trenches by accident, and helped him away.’

‘ “Trolls”?’

‘That seems the mythological term that best describes these creatures, extrapolating from legends that must derive from even older sightings: creatures glimpsed in our world only to vanish again, entirely misunderstood, the seeds of legend … a term that already has become current in some parts of the Long Earth, Joshua. Percy’s wasn’t the only sighting.’

‘So you anticipated finding these — stepping humanoids, did you?’

‘From logical extrapolation. And I anticipated the singing from Percy’s own account. Consider: humans can step; chimps can’t — there have been experiments to establish that. But perhaps our hominid relatives of the past, or rather their modern descendants, were, or are, able to step. Why not? To have encountered such beings so early in our journey is of course the achievement of a major goal. And we must expect, we must hope at least, to meet many more such groups as we continue. What an intellectual thrill this is, Joshua!’

‘So they kept Percy alive, all those years?’

‘It seems so. These “Russians” found Percy wandering in a France which had no Frenchmen living in it, and they were kind to him, for decades. Over several of their generations, perhaps. Remarkable. As far as I know, he never understood the truth about his friends. But Percy probably had never seen anybody from another country before being shipped to France, and, of course, being English and unlettered, was probably half prepared to believe that a foreigner could look like just about anything. Why shouldn’t a Russian look like a big hairy ape?

‘For much of the rest of his life Private Percy travelled with his “Russians” across a calm, well-wooded, well-watered world where they kept him fed with meat and vegetables, and were in all respects considerate in their treatment of him, right up until the day when he made it clear — and I must say that I don’t know how he communicated this to them — that he wanted to go back to the place where he had come from.’

‘Songs can be very expressive, Lobsang. You can sing your homesickness.’

‘Perhaps. And, as we’ve experienced ourselves, they learned those songs well, and remember them. They must have been passed between generations of trolls, perhaps even from group to group… Intriguing. We must learn something of the social lives of these creatures. Well — in the end the trolls took him home, as good fairies should, back to France, but fortunately not in an era when man was disassembling man with high explosives.’

Now the ambulant unit strolled through the blue door at the rear of the deck, and seamlessly, and rather eerily, took up the conversation from its disembodied counterpart. ‘You have further questions, Joshua?’

‘I’ve read about that war. It didn’t last all that long. Why didn’t he go back earlier?’

The ambulant unit put a cold hand on Joshua’s shoulder. ‘Would you have done? It was a terrible, inhuman conflict, a war that had become a machine for killing young men as efficiently, if as horribly, as possible. How keen would he be to walk back into that? And don’t forget he didn’t really know he was a stepper. He thought that he had been blown into another part of France. Besides, his “Russians” were happy to know him. I suspect it was the songs that clinched it. He says they loved hearing him sing. He taught them all the songs that he knew — and you, Joshua Valiente, heard one of them today.

‘So — our first field trip. Perhaps we need an operational debrief. You thought I’d put you in harm’s way, didn’t you? Please believe me, I would not do that. It would not be in my own interest, would it?’

‘You know a hell of a lot about what we’re encountering, even before we’ve encountered it. You might have warned me what was coming.’

‘Yes. I accept that. We must work on our communication. Look — we have barely begun our epic journey; we barely know each other. What would you say to some quality time together?’

Sometimes, the only thing you can do is stare blankly. Quality time, said the artificial man! Joshua knew the term, of course, if only because Sister Agnes went into a rage every time she heard it. As rages went they were not volcanic: few bad words were said — apart from ‘Republican’, which was an extremely bad word to Sister Agnes — and certainly nothing was ever thrown, at least not very hard, and never anything that could hurt. But terms like ‘me time’ and ‘quality time’ lit her fuse. ‘Terms cut out of fog! Watering down the currency of expression, causing anything to mean whatever you want it to mean, until nothing is meant and nothing is precise!’ He remembered the day when someone on the television used the fatal term, ‘Think outside the box.’ Some of the kids went and hid in advance of the explosion.

Quality time, with Lobsang.

Joshua looked at the ambulant’s simulated face. He looked oddly weary, or stressed, in as much as his expression could be reliably read at all. ‘Do you ever sleep, Lobsang?’

Now that face assumed an affronted expression. ‘All my components have a downtime cycle, with secondary systems taking the load as required. I assume this could be considered sleeping. I see you frowning. Is the answer not sufficient?’

Joshua was aware of all the subtle sounds of the ship, its organic creaking and groaning, its subsystems’ humming — Lobsang, constantly at work. How must that level of continual consciousness feel? As if Joshua had to control each individual breath he took, or regulate every heartbeat. Lobsang certainly had to control the stepping, an artifact of consciousness. ‘Is there anything specific bothering you, Lobsang?’

The visage broke into a smile. ‘Of course there is. Everything bothers me, especially the things I don’t know, and can’t control. To know is after all my job, my task, my reason for existing. My mental health is optimal, however. I think this needs to be said. I don’t know where I could even find a bicycle made for two, although I am certain that I could fabricate a reasonably speedy tandem within a couple of hours… You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? Tonight we will try out the cinema option, and 2001 will be the lead feature. We must complete your education, Joshua.’

‘Accepting for the moment that you are in fact human, with human weaknesses, is it possible you get stressed out? If so it would do you some good to get out of yourself every so often. Sure, let’s spend some “quality time” together. Just don’t tell Sister Agnes I said so.’ A bizarre thought occurred to him. ‘Can you fight?’

‘Joshua, I could lay waste to whole landscapes.’

‘No, no. I meant hand to hand.’

‘Explain.’

‘A bit of sparring every now and again tones you up. Back home some of us lads would spar just to keep our hand in, you know, on the street. Even having a workout with a punch-bag seems to pull you back together. Might be fun, too. What do you say? It’s a very human thing. And it would be a chance for you to explore the responses of this body of yours.’

There was no immediate reply.

‘Come on, how about it?’