The Long Earth

jammed.

Once down, Joshua clambered on top of a bluff for a look around. Under a sunless, clouded-over sky, a dense green ocean lapped reluctantly at a muddy beach. Inland, a bare landscape stretched away to folded hills, far in the distance. But, just to the south of here, there was a tremendous crater, like Meteor Crater in Arizona. Without warning a huge pterosaur-like creature swept out of the crater, utterly silent, heading over Joshua’s head and out into this world’s version of the Pacific. Silhouetted against a darkening sky, it was like a nuclear bomber heading for Moscow.

And something moved in this remote version of the Pacific. Something vast, like a living island. Joshua’s headache had gone. Cleared utterly. But the sensation he had always called the Silence had never been more profound.

The voice of Lobsang chattered crisply from a small speaker in Joshua’s backpack. ‘We are back on the Washington State coast of this planet… My aerial drones are no longer functional; my view is limited. The object appears to be twenty-three miles long and approximately five miles wide. It’s a creature, Joshua. Without a clear analogue on the Datum. I have noticed several appendages along its flank that are changing size and shape — you might think it is a technology park; I see what appear to be antennas, telescopes, but the instruments are morphing one into the other, extraordinary — and a certain amount of movement along the carcass as a whole. I can’t estimate threat. I can’t imagine that something like this could make a sudden movement, but for all I know right now it might develop wings and fly…’

There was a steady rippling along the thing’s upper surface. It was slightly white, slightly transparent. Its movements affected Joshua somehow, viscerally, a sensation seeming to arrive in his consciousness by no discernible pathway.

‘Sally, have you ever seen anything like this before?’

She snorted. ‘What do you think?’

Lobsang said, ‘I have just shaken hands with it.’

Sally snapped, ‘What the hell are you talking about now?’

‘Communications protocols, Sally. We are in contact… It is evidently a remarkable intellect; I can tell that immediately from the sheer information-theoretic complexity of its communications. So far I’ve learned one thing from it. Its name—’

‘It has a name?’

‘Its name is First Person Singular, and before you shout at me about that, Sally, I know that because it has now told me as much in twenty-six different languages of Earth. Including, I’m proud to say, Tibetan. I have been beaming information at it, and it’s learning fast; it has already downloaded much of the ship’s data store. I believe that it’s harmless.’

‘What?’ Sally growled. ‘Something alive and the size of a small reservoir de facto can’t possibly be harmless. What’s it for? Above all, what does it eat?’

Joshua slipped his packs off his shoulders and dropped them on the beach. There was no noise here, he realized. No animal cries, not even the distant honking of the pterosaur fliers. Only the soft, oily spilling of small waves on the shore. Nothing but the Silence. What he had been hearing all his life, in the gaps between people. Huge thoughts, like the echoes from some tremendous brass gong. Now here it was, before him.

More than two million worlds from Earth, he felt oddly as if he had come home.

He walked towards the ocean.

Sally called, ‘Joshua. Take it easy. You don’t know what you’re dealing with…’

He kicked off his boots and pulled off his socks. Barefoot, he walked into the water until his ankles were covered. He could smell salt, and the sweetly rotten stink of seaweed. The water was warm, and thick, dense, almost syrupy. And it swarmed with life, tiny creatures, white and blue and green and mobile. Some were like tiny jellyfish, with pulsing sacs and trailing tentacles. But there were things like fish in there too, with huge, strange eyes, and things like crabs with clever-looking claws.

And, a little further out, the thing. Joshua waded out, towards its tremendous edge. The voice of Lobsang chattered in his ear, but he ignored it. The flanks of First Person Singular were translucent, like inferior glass, and if he squinted he could just about see what was inside. And what was inside was … everything. Fish. Animals. A troll? It was embedded in glutinous fluid, swathed in some kind of frond, like seaweed, eyes closed. It looked asleep rather than dead. At peace.

Walking right up to that misty hull, he touched it with the tip of a finger. There was a slight sensation, nothing painful.

A voice in his head said, ‘Hello, Joshua.’

And information poured into his mind, like a sudden awakening.

47

ONCE, LONG AGO, on a world as close as a shadow:

A very different version of North America cradled a huge, landlocked, saline sea. This sea teemed with microbial life. All this life served a single tremendous organism.

And on this world, under a cloudy sky, the entirety of the turbid sea crackled with a single thought.

I…

This thought was followed by another.

To what purpose?

48

‘TIS A HISTORIC moment,’ Lobsang babbled. ‘First contact! The dream of a million years fulfilled. And I know what this must be. Shalmirane… Didn’t you read The City and the Stars? It’s some kind of colony organism.’

Sally said archly, ‘Behold the alien! So what now? Are you going to set it mathematical puzzles, like Carl Sagan and those SETI guys?’

Joshua ignored them both. He spoke to First Person Singular. ‘I didn’t tell you my name.’

‘You didn’t need to. You are Joshua. I am First Person Singular.’ The voice in his head sounded like his own.

Inside the translucent skin, the creatures. He recognized fish, birds, and, he realized after a while, a very definite elephant, moving slowly through whatever was in there, half walking, half swimming, eyes closed. And trolls, and elves, and other humanoids.

The tide was coming in. Very carefully, so as not to give offence or cause alarm, Joshua walked backward. ‘What is First Person Singular … for?’

‘First Person Singular is the observer of worlds.’

‘You speak good English.’ It was a dumb thing to say, but what was the right thing to say to a miles-wide slug? Sister Agnes would have known, he thought.

The reply came back immediately. ‘First Person Singular does not know what “Sister Agnes” is. I am still learning. Can you define for me a nun?’

On this bleak shore, Joshua’s jaw dropped.

First Person Singular said, ‘Cross-reference, yes — a nun is a female biped who refrains from procreation to service the needs of others in the species. Comparison with eusocial insects, perhaps? Ants and bees… More. Also rides large vehicles propelled ultimately by the remains of ancient trees. More. Is dedicated to the contemplation of the numinous. This is acknowledged as an interim description pending further investigation of relevant details… I myself would appear to be a nun, by some definitions. I perceive the world of worlds in their entirety. I believe I understand what is meant by breathless with adoration… You should move back on to the