‘Now, Jan, this is about the worst damage this universe can inflict: an extinction event that can span thousands of light years. But you mustn’t be scared of it. If the supernova hammers you, there’s nothing to be done about that. We must be humble in the face of the universe, as we Next say. But with time, and granted a lot of time, life rises, intelligence recovers, the building starts again. And if the world is Long, the recovery’s even quicker. In a few years, when it’s safe, people will be coming back, right here. Trolls too. Bringing animals, seeds. Restoring this Earth to life.’ She bent over, slightly, to face Jan, stiff, a little awkward. ‘And, Jan, now we’ve received the Invitation. A message from some kind of people far away. So you see, for all the horrors of things like supernovas, the universe is filled with life.’ She studied the boy with a rather forced smile. ‘It must be.’
Jan seemed to think this over. ‘Vega, though,’ he said at length. ‘That’s where Ellie Arroway went. I know it’s just a story. But I wonder what happened to the folks up there.’
33
ROD HAD DECIDED to stay on a few days. There was no rush to get back, he told his father, although Joshua wondered how true that was, given Rod had a pregnant partner out in the green – and given what Rod had told him about Lobsang asking for him. But Rod said he wanted to make sure Joshua’s leg was stable before committing him to what was going to be a long journey home, if an easy one inside the step-capable plane.
So they settled in.
The trolls took to Rod at once, Joshua observed. Of course his gambit of handing out sugar lumps hadn’t hurt. But Rod was young and healthy and evidently used to trolls, and he was also a hell of a lot more active than Joshua had ever been, even before he busted his leg and became a dependant. He played games with the youngsters, with Matt and Liz – throwing, chasing, racing, mounting mock-hunts. He was savvy enough not to try to join in the trolls’ favourite play activity of wrestling, as even a cub, as Joshua knew from experience, had a grip strong enough to crack a rib. He checked out Joshua’s traps and set a few of his own. And of course there was the fire that he and Joshua banked up every night, to deter the teeth and claws of the dark – and to produce the vast quantities of cooked meat that the trolls consumed with relish.
In the evenings they had long, slow, rambling conversations – as slow as Joshua’s healing process had been, it felt like sometimes, and maybe that wasn’t a bad analogy. A lot of healing to be done, between father and son. But Joshua was intrigued at Rod’s news of what was becoming a sensation across the Long Earth: the Invitation, some kind of SETI message from the sky, and rumours of a tremendous industrial project being managed by the Next, so the gossip went, out in the High Meggers – indeed, beyond the Gap. Always something in the Long Earth, Joshua reflected.
On the third day of his stay, Rod won even more fans among the trolls by helping out with a hunt.
It started with excitement as troll scouts, flicking back and forth between stepwise worlds, reported back in snatches of song that they’d come across a big old male elephant, wounded somehow, who had got left behind by his bachelor herd. Joshua sat with Rod and Sancho and listened as the trolls’ unending song absorbed their reports, and more scouts flickered across to investigate the find. Sancho kept up rough commentaries for Rod and Joshua through the troll-call.
And when the younger adult males and females got together to prepare for the hunt – arming themselves with stone knives, the song becoming sharper and ever more exciting – Rod picked up a couple of his own knives, and a spear Joshua had been idly whittling from a straight and smooth sapling trunk, and jogged over to join the band.
Joshua couldn’t resist going too. This would be by far the most spectacular kill the band had attempted in the time he’d been with them. So he had Sancho help him up, and they hopped between the worlds until they found the site of the kill, so they could watch.
The trolls had already surrounded the bull elephant. The beast had a huge tear at the top of one thigh, presumably inflicted by some big predator, and, distressed, was unable to move far. The ground under his feet was already stained with his own blood.
And now the trolls closed in.
The bull fought back. He trumpeted and tossed his head, using the big mask of armour plating over his face to keep out the hammer blows of troll fists, and swiping at his circling assailants with leading edges of sharp bone. Rod, Joshua was relieved to see, stayed well out of this close-range battle, as the trolls strove to beat and stab and club the bull into submission.
But when the bull scattered his troll tormentors with a particularly vigorous effort and stood briefly alone, trumpeting and raising his trunk, Rod hurled Joshua’s spear. The point slammed into the bull’s cheek, at a vulnerable spot just behind the facial armour. The elephant shrieked, and blood gushed from his mouth and trunk. As Rod stood back and watched, the trolls closed in once more, clubbing the dying animal to the ground.
Sancho, watching impassively, used the troll-call. ‘Good throw.’
‘That’s my son.’
Sancho looked Joshua up and down. He asked, witheringly, ‘True? Yours? Ha!’
By the end of the day the trolls were replete with elephant steak, and were relaxing. Mothers suckled their infants, the males inspected their armpits and other orifices for fleas and other parasites, the cubs rolled around languidly mock-wrestling, and some of the younger adults patiently knapped tools, practising the skill and adding to the litter on the floor that was their endlessly replenished storehouse. One or two couples had the usual noisy, explosive, blink-and-you-miss-it sex. And the unending song hung like a cloud over the group, a comforting murmur.
Joshua sat with Sancho as usual, with the big troll wrapped in the silver blanket he had made his own. And Rod was with them tonight, still splashed with some of the blood of the elephant he’d helped kill and butcher.
Joshua ventured, ‘I know I said it before, but I wish I’d known how well you got on with trolls.’
‘That’s because you’ve never seen me out in the green, Dad. Me and my family. This is how we live. We encourage our kids to do this. Be with the trolls. I mean, you have to make sure the children stay safe – trolls are big heavy animals and can be clumsy . . . But the benefits outweigh that. Trolls are pretty different from people, and to get along you have to discover what you have in common and build on that. It clarifies the mind.’
‘Hmm. You’re learning what it is to be a sapient, in this complicated universe. While all the time you think you’re knapping a blade or building a fire.’
‘That’s it. And our kids just soak up the lessons. Such as, clear up your mess.’
Joshua smiled. ‘I can play that game. How about – learn from your mistakes?’
‘Don’t steal.’
‘Don’t take – in fact it helps if you can give.’
‘Know yourself.’
That one surprised Joshua. ‘As deep as that?’
‘Why not? The treatment of trolls in the Long Earth has got a lot better since your day, Dad.’
‘My day? I’m not out to pasture yet, son.’
‘Didn’t you once petition President Starling about cruelty to trolls?’
‘Yes, but he was plain Senator Jim back then. Still, perhaps it made a difference in the end.’
‘We ought to turn in. I’m thinking of preparing the plane tomorrow, for a launch possibly the day after.’
‘What’s the urgency?’
Rod grinned. ‘Only that we’re running out of beer now that your pal Sancho has the taste for it . . .’
As it happened, that plan never worked out.
34
LONG BEFORE ROD had shown up in the plane, Joshua had been walking, every day a little further.
For most of the winter he’d used crutches – branches brought in from the forest clumps by Sally or Patrick and then shaped with his own knives. It had taken some work to get them to the right length, and to make them reasonably comfortable to use he’d sa
crificed one of his shirts to make cushions stuffed with moss to ride under his armpits. He’d also fire-hardened the flat tips of the crutches where they hit the ground, but even so they wore rapidly.
Still, every day, further.
He would walk around the bluff, and to the forest clumps, and along the bank of the river, trying to restore the strength in his good leg, his arms, his back. His best recourse in the case of most threats remained just stepping away, which would put him out of range of all predators save humanoids, such as elves. But, he’d figured, if he was ever going to attempt to step his way back to the more inhabited Earths he was always going to need some mobility, just to escape from threats like floods, and avoid geographical shifts like the rise of the Valhallan worlds’ inland seas. Hence the crutches and the determined hiking.
Then of course Rod had shown up. Now Joshua had decent crutches of Valhallan manufacture, fold-out lightweight affairs from the plane’s medical stores, and he had a much easier way to get back home, in the plane, than by stepping out of here. But still he walked, every day, building up his strength. After all, you never knew; he and Rod were a long way from home, and if the plane failed them they might still need to rely on their own strength to survive.
This particular day Joshua was stumping along the bank of the river, idly listening to the wash of the trolls’ song, its casual beauty all around him as usual. This remained a dangerous world, and wherever he walked he always carried a selection of weapons: his knives, his bronze handgun. And he tried to make sure he was in sight of plenty of trolls. Glancing around now he saw Sally playing with Liz by the bluff, and some of the males further away, flickering as they stepped in and out of the world, maybe scouting out a hunt. There was old Sancho sitting cross-legged on top of the bluff, wearing Joshua’s silver survival blanket like a cape. Joshua had to smile at the sight: a hairy Superman. Rod was visible in the middle distance, working on the plane.
And then, as he worked his way down the river bank, trying to stay clear of the clinging river-bank mud which could swallow a foot or so of his crutches, Joshua saw young Matt, alone, crouched by the water, singing and idly drawing shapes in the mud with one forefinger. Nobody else was close to him. Nobody to come running if the worst happened, with a choice of options for ‘worst’.
Which was odd.
How had Matt got himself so isolated? Troll cubs had good instincts for that kind of thing – and, as Sally Linsay had always said, if you didn’t develop good instincts you didn’t last long out in the High Meggers. Something must have made Matt think he was still close enough to the others that the usual alarm bells hadn’t sounded.
Joshua reached Matt and stood there, breathing hard, his bad leg a dead weight. Swivelling on his crutches, Joshua searched the empty landscape nearby, the river bank, the water. Save for the troll cub at his feet he was alone – no other trolls in sight from here. Matt didn’t even look up. He was just a troll by the river, playing in the mud, singing softly, joining in with the group’s ongoing song, drawn into the music . . .
The song. That was it, that was what didn’t fit. The song was too damn loud. That was why Matt hadn’t been alarmed; he’d been listening to the song and, consciously or not, he’d read its volume as signifying plenty of trolls close by. But they weren’t. And if the trolls weren’t singing the song he heard, who was? Or what—
As if on cue, at that moment the animal burst from the water. And all Joshua could see was teeth.
The river beast was nothing like the gator-like river hunters Joshua had seen, and studiously avoided, before in this world. This was some kind of humanoid in fact, a kind unfamiliar to Joshua, with a massive body, over-muscled and sleek with streamlined fur, and a mouth, yes, a mouth that looked like it was full of alligator teeth. Joshua would never have believed that a thing like an otter on steroids could ever have evolved a way to sing so beautifully.
But in retrospect, when Joshua had a chance to think it over, the development of this kind of predator was obvious.
Predators evolved to attack the weaknesses of their prey, and one stratagem was to lie, to deceive the credulous. Thus carnivorous flowers lured insects into their lethal maws with colourful but mendacious promises of nectar.
What characterized the trolls above all was their song. An individual troll was drawn into the song, was immersed in it, was distracted by it. The song was an expression of the identity of the group, within which an individual, especially a cub like Matt, felt as safe as he ever could be. So, if you as a hopeful predator could mimic the song . . . You didn’t need to capture the full richness of it; you didn’t need to relate the history of every troll back to the primeval Datum Earth savannah. You just needed to capture whatever essence of it entranced a young troll and caused him to lose that natural caution, to make him feel safe when in fact he was in lethal danger.
Just a few heartbeats of distraction: that would be enough.
For Joshua, time slowed to a crawl.
Matt hadn’t moved, even now, even as the singing killer raced up the beach at him, its mouth gaping blood-red. An adult troll would just step away from such a danger, but juvenile trolls tended not to step if they were separated from their parents, for fear of getting lost. So Matt would keep on sitting there, just long enough . . .
‘Not on my watch, damn it!’
Joshua threw aside his crutches and, even as he toppled, reached for his weapons with two free hands, and hurled a hunting knife. He managed to lodge the blade in one big cold eye. ‘Yes!’ Then he fired his electric handgun right into that gaping mouth, aiming for a dangling organ at the back of the throat that burst like a balloon, splashing blood.
The beast turned its wounded head, roaring. And, driven on by its own inertia, it came crashing to the ground, just missing Matt, who scrambled out of the way, and Joshua too, who fell and rolled aside.
Thwarted, the beast wriggled on its belly and slid smoothly back into the water, trailing a stream of blood.
Joshua struggled to sit up, and looked for Matt. The cub was staring around, bewildered. They needed to get out of here. The beast had been injured but hardly disabled, and Joshua had to expect its return any instant, with a grudge – but his crutches were out of his reach—
Strong troll hands grabbed him under the armpits, and he was hauled away from the water. His bad leg clattered over the ground, and he howled in agony. But he saw that Patrick had picked up Matt and was hurrying away with him. The cub was safe.
More of the adult trolls came running now, hurling boulders the size of Joshua’s head into the river, yelling and beating their chests. The singing beast surfaced again, blood trailing from its mouth and a clear liquid dripping from its broken eye. It faced a bunch of angry, wary trolls. Even so, Joshua could see it tensing for another spring. The trolls gathered closer, their shouts ever more defiant.
Then Rod came running through the group. Wearing his orange flight suit – evidently he’d come straight from the plane – he was yelling, and he brandished a kind of fat, bright red pistol.
‘Rod! No! Get back!’
But Rod surely never heard his father over the shouting of the trolls and the roar of the singer beast, and he wouldn’t have obeyed him in any case. He ran past the trolls and right up to the singer, dwarfed by its bulk. He held up that pistol – now Joshua recognized it as a flare gun – and fired it at point-blank range into the singer’s jaw.
The result was spectacular. The flare burst inside the beast’s huge mouth; the animal vomited smoke that was illuminated from behind by glaring orange light. The trolls scrambled back, as scared by the flare as by the singer.
But the singer, though howling with pain, wasn’t finished. Smoke still pouring from between its jaws, it bent down, effortlessly scooped up Rod like a doll in its small forelimbs – and vanished.
Joshua, still calling for Rod, struggling to stand without his crutches, saw it all. It had stepped! Of course it had; it was a humanoid; Long Earth humanoids stepped. Now Joshu
a himself frantically stepped into the worlds to East and West, one step, two; he couldn’t stand, he was sprawled on the ground, but he could step – Joshua Valienté had always been able to step. But there was no sign of them in the worlds next door, though a few trolls huddled there, having instinctively stepped away from trouble. No sign of the singer beast, or of Rod. And though he called until he was hoarse, and stepped over and over again, somehow Joshua knew that wherever Rod was, it was further, much further away than this.
At last he returned to the trolls’ base world. As soon as he arrived back, Sally came running over, Matt’s mother. Weeping, she wrapped her arms around Joshua’s chest and held him close.
His mouth full of black hair, he struggled against her, struggled to speak. ‘You’ve got to help me. I lost Rod, I lost my son. You must help. Sancho! Get me Sancho . . .’
35
AS THE NAVY twain USS Charles M. Duke made its final stepwise approach to Earth West 3,141,592, Admiral Maggie Kauffman, standing in the observation lounge at the prow of the ship, was aware of the craft’s deliberate reduction of its stepping rate. And she could see why the Duke was slowing, for though the mid-American landscapes of these last few worlds seemed uninhabited, the skies were full of traffic: big cargo-carrying twains that flickered in her view as they made their own steps towards the destination. Some of them hauled engineering components so big they had to be carried outside the holds of the craft themselves, slung in cradles beneath the gondolas. Hence the caution. You couldn’t step into a place already occupied by another solid object, such as a twain, and it played hell with your steering if you tried, and you didn’t want problems with that given the size and complexity of some of the loads being shipped in here. Maggie refused to be impressed by the scale of the operation, however, as ships and cargoes flickered in and out of existence above the barren ground.
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