The Long Earth

out for Hawaii. And you can bet your boots that’s one of the first places steppers would want to colonize. And after that, well, we’ll have to see, but where there are people there’s going to be a pub, and where there’s a pub there’s sooner or later going to be Wally!’

Joshua shook hands with Wally, wishing him bon voyage.

He found Sally back in City Hall, surrounded by friendly faces, as ever. She broke away when she saw Joshua. ‘People are starting to notice. Even here.’

‘What?’

‘About the trolls. That more and more of them are stepping off East. Wild bands come passing through, and even the local ones, what you might loosely call domesticated, I suspect some of them want to leave too, but they are being kind of polite. The locals are getting disturbed.’

‘Hmm. Ripples in the tranquil pool of Happy Landings?’

‘Is Lobsang finished playing at Dr Dolittle? It’s time we were airborne and heading West again.’

‘Let’s go see.’

Back on the ship, the observation deck appeared empty save for a pile of trolls, snuggling like puppies. Then the heap moved, and Lobsang poked his head out, beaming.

‘Fur is wonderful against the tactile areas, is it not? I feel like one blessed. And they speak! Extremely high- pitched, minimal vocabulary… Multiple ways of communicating, apparently; it does seem that communicating is what being a troll is all about. But I suspect the real exchange of information takes place in the songs.

‘I believe I now have learned terms for good/bad, approval/refusal, pleasure/pain, night/day, hot/cold, correct/incorrect, and “I wish to suckle now”, although I suspect the last will not be of much use to me. I will learn more when we continue our voyage, which by the way we will be doing with alacrity at first light tomorrow. I intend to take these trolls. I hope my new friends do not mind travelling by air. I believe they like me!’

Sally’s face was a carefully controlled mask. ‘Well, that’s just peachy, Lobsang. But are you doing any actual work in there?’

‘I am coming to tentative conclusions. These are evidently very flexible omnivores. No wonder they’re so widespread, across the Long Earth. They’re ideal nomads. And the product of a couple of million years’ evolution, probably, since the root habiline stock learned to step.’

Joshua asked, ‘Habiline?’

‘Homo habilis. Handy Man. The first toolmakers in the human evolutionary line. You see, I’m speculating that maybe the stepping ability evolved alongside the ability to make tools. One surely needs a similar imaginative capacity: to imagine how a bit of stone might become an axe; to imagine how one world might differ from another, and then to step into it. Or perhaps it is related to the ability to imagine alternative futures depending on one’s choices: to go hunting today, or to go back to that rich hazel clump again… Either way, once such an ability developed the species would split, between increasingly adept steppers who would drift away, and those less adept or unable to step at all, who would stay at home, and perhaps become actively resistant to the steppers, who would have a competitive advantage.’

‘A stay-at-home strand that gave rise to humanity on Datum Earth,’ Joshua guessed.

‘Possibly. My colleague Nelson’s archaeological searches would seem to indicate that. But this is just my guess. It may be the stepping ability evolved even earlier, during the age of the pre-human apes. One must describe these creatures as humanoid rather than hominid, until a proper study is concluded, evolutionary relationships established.’

Sally asked, ‘Have they told you why they are migrating?’

‘I have an idea… My conclusion has to be tentative, even though the alpha female is remarkably good at pantomime. Imagine a pressure in your head. Storms in the mind.’

And Joshua was aware of the gathering storm in his own head, that sense of pressure as they headed West, just as if the Datum itself with its billions of souls was up ahead of him. Yes, he thought. Bad weather for the psyche, coming this way. But what’s driving it?

Lobsang said no more. Amid the mewings of the troll pups, once again he was submerged in his heap of fur. ‘Ah. Tactile surfaces…’

And suddenly there was no more Lobsang. The physical presence of the ambulant unit was still here, but some subtle aspect of the ship had dissipated.

Joshua looked at Sally.

Sally said, ‘You feel that too? Is it something we can’t hear, or see any more? Where’s he gone? He can’t die, can he? Or — break?’

Joshua didn’t know what to say. The ship remained subtly busy, its myriad mechanisms whirring and clicking away as if nothing had happened. But inside this brightly lit complex Joshua could not detect the controlling element, could not detect Lobsang. Something essential was missing. It had been like this when old Sister Regina had died. She had been bed-bound for years, but she liked to see the children, and still, despite everything, had known all their names. They had filed in to see her, nervous of the smell, her papery skin. And then suddenly it had seemed that something that they hadn’t known was there … wasn’t any more.

‘I have been thinking he might be ill,’ he said, uncertain. ‘He hasn’t been himself since he got buried under troll cubs.’

The voice of Lobsang came over the loudspeaker: ‘Do not be unduly worried.’

Sally was startled, and laughed nervously. ‘Should we be duly worried?’

‘Sally, please bear with us. There has been no malfunction. You are being addressed by an emergency subsystem. Right now Lobsang is recompiling: that is, integrating vast volumes of new information. This will take a few hours. However, we subsystems are fully capable of fulfilling all necessary functions during the period stated. Lobsang needs his time offline; sooner or later every sufficiently sapient creature needs time to take stock, as we are sure you will understand. You are quite safe. Lobsang looks forward to the pleasure of your company around dawn.’

Sally snorted. ‘Somehow I was expecting him to add “Have a nice day”, but I suppose you can’t have everything. How much of that was true, do you think?’

Joshua shrugged. ‘He is learning a lot, I guess, and very fast, from the trolls.’

‘And now he’s absorbing their nightmares. So we have a free evening. How about one more trip down to the bar?’

‘Which bar?…’

At the end of a long round of farewell drinks, all of them free, he had to carry her back to the ship. He laid her gently on the bed in her stateroom. She looked younger when she slept. He felt an unreasonable stab of protectiveness, and was glad she wasn’t awake to notice it.

There was no sign of Lobsang, no sound of his voice.

And the trolls, it turned out, had left of their own accord. Joshua thought, troll see elevator button. Troll think about button. Troll press button. Goodbye troll… Lobsang had wanted to get more out of his contact with the trolls. But evidently the trolls had got all they wanted out of him.

Alone, Joshua lay down on his couch on the observation deck, looking at the stars.

At dawn, with all its passengers asleep, the ship rose gently, gaining height until it was above the tops of the highest forest giants, and then stepped, disappearing with a small thunderclap.

40

IN THE MORNING Lobsang was back. Joshua could sense him, sense that a kind of purposefulness had returned to the ship, even before the ambulant unit joined him on the observation deck, as he drank the first coffee of the day. Sally was evidently still asleep.

They were stepping gently, and worlds washed beneath them. As ever the Long Earth was mostly trees and water, silence and monotony. Joshua was glad to be free of the hard-to-pin-down oddness of Happy Landings, but