The Long Mars

by Pratchett, Terry; Baxter, Stephen

  Joshua said, ‘That’s an extreme position. Even if they were hostile to us, why should it go so far?’

  ‘Fair question,’ Mac said. ‘But the genetic, linguistic, cognitive evidence all points to one thing – that this is indeed a different species, emerging in the midst of our worlds. And because of that there’s going to be conflict between us – that’s inevitable. A conflict that must, must, end in the elimination of one side or the other. And I’ll tell you why.

  ‘The Next aren’t human. But the most damning argument I have against them is actually how close to human they are. They may be smarter than us, but they’re the same physical shape, they eat the same food, they will need to live in the same climates. This is a Darwinian conflict, between two species competing for the same ecological niche. And Darwin himself knew what that meant.’ He flipped over his tablet. ‘I read all this stuff in med school, back in a different age . . . Never thought it would apply to me. Chapter 3, On the Origin of Species, 1859: “As species of the same genus have usually, though by no means invariably, some similarity in habits and constitution, and always in structure, the struggle will generally be more severe between species of the same genus, when they come into competition with each other, than between species of distinct genera.”’ He put down the tablet. ‘Darwin knew. He could have predicted this. It won’t be war. It won’t be civilized. It will be much more primitive than that. It will be biological. It’s a conflict we can’t afford to lose, Maggie. Only one of us can survive – us or them – and if we lose, we lose everything. And the only way we can win is for you to act now.’

  Joshua said with some heat, ‘We aren’t talking about biology here, but about conscious beings. Even if they could destroy us, there’s not a shred of evidence that they ever would.’

  ‘Actually there is,’ Mac said.

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘The very fact that we’re willing to sit here debating whether to wipe out an evidently sentient, human-like species. We’re setting a kind of precedent just by talking like this, don’t you see? And if we can conceive of such an act, why not them in the future?’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Joshua said. ‘That’s the kind of thinking that could have turned the Cold War hot and killed us all off decades before Step Day. Nuke the other guy just in case he ever gets the ability to nuke you.’

  ‘Actually, no,’ Maggie intervened. ‘The thinking isn’t as crude as that, Joshua. Over the last few decades mankind has got better at dealing with existential threats – which are usually low likelihood but with extreme consequences. We didn’t see Yellowstone coming particularly well. But we are planning to push rogue asteroids away, for instance – well, we were before Yellowstone anyhow. I’d say the basic philosophy is that you should act on such threats, ideally with public consent, investing resources at a level you somehow judge to be proportionate to the likelihood of the event and the severity of the outcome.’

  ‘And in this case,’ Mac said heavily, ‘we’re weighing the risk of annihilation by these Next – or indeed a range of lesser horrors, such as slavery at their hands – against the cost of a single nuclear weapon, and some kind of campaign of rooting-out and extermination to follow. That, and the deaths of an unknown number of innocents. Regular humans, I mean to say. Although I suppose the Next children are innocent too.’ He looked at Maggie, and Joshua. ‘I think that’s all I have to say.’

  For a while there was silence in the sea cabin. Then Maggie said, ‘Shit, Mac. You put up a good fight. Joshua, please tell me he’s wrong.’

  Joshua looked at Mac. He said, ‘Well, I can’t tell you about Darwin. Never knew the guy. Or Columbus, or Cortés, or the Neanderthals. I don’t have any great theories. All I can tell you is about the people I know.

  ‘I guess the first Next I got to know properly, in retrospect, was a kid called Paul Spencer Wagoner. As you know, you have it in your files. I met him here, in fact, in Happy Landings. He was five years old. Now, all these years later, I’ve brought him back here. He’s down there on the ground, sitting on your damn bomb. Nineteen years old . . .’

  He spoke about what he’d seen of the growing-up of Paul Spencer Wagoner. The parents who grew uncomfortable in a turbulent Happy Landings. How the emotional stresses caused by the very nature of Next children had shattered the family. How a lost little boy had found sanctuary in the Home where Joshua himself had been brought up. How the traumatized young man he’d become, as institutionalized as any life prisoner, was yet full of life, leadership, compassion when among his own.

  ‘These are our children,’ he said sternly. ‘All of ours. So they’re brighter than us. So what? Would a father kill his son just because the son is smarter than him? You can’t eliminate difference, just because you fear it.’ He glanced at Maggie. ‘I can tell that you wouldn’t, Captain. Not with trolls and a beagle in your crew, for God’s sake.’

  Not to mention a robot cat, Maggie thought.

  ‘I mean – tell me why you brought these non-humans on board.’

  Maggie thought about that. ‘To make a point against the small-minded and the naysayers, I guess. And . . .’ She remembered what Snowy had said as they had puzzled over a nation of sentient crab-like creatures, a very long way from home: Your thought, my thought-tt, always at mer-hhrcy of blood, of body. Need other blood, other bodies, to p-hhrove thought. My blood not you-hhrs. My thought not you-hhrs . . . ‘For diversity,’ she said. ‘A different point of view. Not necessarily better, or worse. How else are we going to see the world properly, save through the eyes of others?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Joshua said. ‘The Next represent something new, however challenging we might find them. Diversity. What is life for if not to embrace that? And – well, they are of us. I’ve no more to say, Captain. I hope that’s enough.’

  ‘Thank you, Joshua.’ She thought she could feel the decision coalescing in her head. Best to be sure. ‘How about a closing statement? One more line from each of you. Mac?’

  Mac closed his eyes and sat back. ‘You know, my own worst fear isn’t slavery, or even extinction. It’s that we’ll come to worship them. Like gods. How does the commandment have it? “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus, chapter 20, verse 3. We have a biological, moral, even a religious mandate to do this, Maggie.’

  She nodded. ‘Joshua?’

  ‘I guess my final point is a practical one. You can’t get them all, here today. Doctor, you say you can hunt the rest down. I doubt it. They’re too smart. They’ll find ways to evade us we haven’t even thought of. You won’t kill them all. But they’ll remember you tried.’

  And Maggie felt a chill, deep in her soul.

  Mac sighed, as if all the tension had gone out of him. ‘So is that it? Are we done? You want we should leave you alone for a while?’

  She smiled. ‘No need.’ She tapped the screen built into her desk. ‘Nathan?’

  ‘Yes, Captain?’

  She hesitated one more second, reconsidering her choice. Then she said to Joshua and Mac, ‘The logic is clear to me. Morally and strategically it would be wrong to attempt this extirpation. Even if it worked, which it might not. We can’t save ourselves by eliminating the new. We just have to learn to get along with them – and hope they forgive us.’

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘Sorry, Nathan. Go down there with Captain Cutler, and get that damn bomb out of the ground. I’ll disarm it from up here, right now. Take care of it personally, son.’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  With a grimace, she fetched Cutler’s briefcase from the floor and opened it up. ‘Mac, while I do this, why don’t you pour a drink? You know where the glasses are. Joshua, will you join us?’

  Mac stood. ‘Getting to be a habit, Maggie.’

  ‘Just pour the damn drinks, you old quack.’

  But as he did so, she saw the downturn of his mouth, the tension in his neck, the emptiness in his eyes. He had lost the argument, though he had done his damnedest to win it. And she though
t she knew how he was feeling now. What if he’d won? How could he have lived with that? What had she done to him – at what cost to her old friend had she won this day?

  She met Joshua’s gaze. There was understanding in his expression. Understanding, and sympathy – for her, and Mac.

  Shi-mi emerged, out of nowhere. Maggie hadn’t known she was in the room. She leapt on to Joshua’s lap, and he welcomed her with a stroke. ‘Hello, little girl.’

  Shi-mi hissed at Mac, and Mac hissed back.

  Then Mac pushed back his chair, stood up, and made for the door. ‘I reckon I’ll go and torment Ed Cutler a little. Maybe I could borrow your prosthetic hand, Joshua. Hey, Ed! Mein Führer – I can walk!’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Joshua said to Maggie, when he’d gone. ‘This won’t mean much to you, but my headache has gone away. Maybe it means we made the right choice, here today. What do you think, Shi-mi?’

  The cat just purred, and pushed her head into his artificial hand for a more vigorous stroke.

  45

  A MONTH AFTER THE return of the Armstrong and Cernan from Happy Landings, Lobsang announced he wanted to visit the place himself, one more time.

  And Agnes came along.

  Agnes had heard only the most peripheral hints, mostly from Joshua, about what had gone on at Happy Landings, some big drama involving the military twains, and all sorts of weapons, and the children they were now calling ‘the Next’. The main thing as far as she was concerned was that in the end nobody had dropped bombs on anybody else, and that Paul Spencer Wagoner, formerly of the Home, was safe – although nobody seemed to know where he was, exactly.

  She was, however, curious to go see this mysterious place for herself. Why not?

  So they travelled, Lobsang and Agnes, just the two of them, on a small, comfortable private twain.

  On the day they arrived over Happy Landings, Agnes woke at dawn, as usual. In the tiny galley area she rustled up a breakfast of scrambled eggs and coffee, and took it on a tray to Lobsang in the lounge. He always claimed eggs were good for both of them, their artificial bodies needed proteins.

  She found him standing by the big picture window, staring out at the town. Looking down from the air, Agnes recognized the layout from the maps she’d studied: the river, City Hall, the big public squares, the trails off into the forest. She saw no sign that the military ships had ever been here. The place looked normal, for a High Meggers community.

  Save that there was no movement. No traffic on the dirt tracks. No smoke rising from the buildings. No troll bands singing by the river.

  ‘Empty,’ she said.

  ‘They have gone. The Next. Them and their families. Even the neighbouring communities have been emptied out. In fact we’re standing on an empty continent, Agnes. And— Oh.’ Lobsang started, stiffened. All the animation seemed to flee from him.

  ‘Lobsang? Are you all right?’ She put down her tray and shook his shoulder. ‘Lobsang!’

  And he came to life, his features mobile again. He sat down, slumping over as if he’d been punched.

  ‘Lobsang, what is it? What happened?’

  ‘I just got a message.’

  ‘What kind of message? Who from?’

  ‘The Next,’ he said, somewhat irritably. ‘Who else? A message somehow triggered by our arrival. It’s copied in radio frequencies – it’s hardly subtle.’

  ‘Never mind how. A message for you?’

  ‘Not exactly. A message for all mankind.’ He laughed, hollowly. ‘If only it had been for me. You know, I dreamed of dealing with the Next as an equal. Surely we would have shared interests. And after all I saved them, through my careful observations, my machinations through Nelson and Joshua and Roberta Golding and Maggie Kauffman, machinations that extracted them from the Hawaii base and saved them from nuclear destruction . . . I suppose I imagined being accepted as one of them. Evidently that’s not how they see me.’

  ‘Then how do they see you?’

  ‘An intermediary, I suppose. An ambassador, at best. A mere messenger at worst.’

  ‘A messenger?’

  ‘But even the message wasn’t for me alone . . . They’ve gone, Agnes. That’s what they say. Gone somewhere we can’t follow. They’ve taken themselves out of our reach. Well, wouldn’t you, given what humanity has already done to them – and contemplated doing?’ He sighed. ‘I must think about how to handle this. But I’ll take the ship down.’

  ‘You’ll eat your breakfast first,’ Agnes said, and she went to get the tray.

  The twain descended on a grassy expanse by the river.

  The two of them walked down the access ramp, to a ground littered with autumn leaves. There was none of the bustle, of people and trolls, that Agnes had imagined. The only motion was the fall of maple leaves; when she picked one up it was slightly fragrant. Some of the leaves had spilled on to the river water, clumps of them floating away like a regatta – a sight which, somehow, to Agnes, in the absence of people, was more disturbing than it had any right to be.

  And she heard a soft crackle. A footstep on the leaves? She turned to see.

  Lobsang said, ‘This place serves no further purpose – and it’s become much too well known, for the Next to be comfortable here again. But a unique community has been lost, a little of the richness of human experience. And so we’re alone, Agnes—’

  ‘Not quite.’ She pointed.

  Walking towards them from the direction of City Hall were two figures: a young man and a boy, both wearing what looked like hand-me-down pioneer clothing.

  ‘Hello, Lobsang,’ said the man, in a broad New York accent, and he grinned. Rather endearingly he held a rake, as if he’d been sweeping up the leaves.

  The boy, who looked Asian, maybe Japanese, said nothing at all.

  They both stared at Sister Agnes in her habit, and at Lobsang, in his trademark orange-robe-and-shaved-head uniform.

  They took the boys aboard the twain, let them shower, fed them up, gave them better-fitting clothes than the left-behind stuff they’d found in the empty cabins of Happy Landings – promised them a ride out of here to wherever they chose to go – and let them talk.

  The young man turned out to be called Rich. He’d fallen here – and that seemed to be the right expression for how Happy Landings worked, you ‘fell’, helplessly and haplessly, through some kind of network of soft places until you ended up in this peculiar pit of a place – fallen all the way from Dublin, which wasn’t even his home; he was an American exchange student studying Irish mythology. ‘I did think at first the Guinness must have had something to do with it,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘That or the leprechauns I’d been reading about.’

  The Japanese boy was called, incongruously, George; his mother was English. He was a high-school kid, out hiking when he, too, fell here.

  Both had arrived to find the place deserted already. Evidently the eerie Long-Earth-wide collection mechanism that kept this place populated had not ceased to function when the inhabitants had evacuated. Happily, Agnes thought, Rich had arrived first, and had been on hand to help twelve-year-old George when he showed up. Even so they’d been here alone for weeks.

  Rich seemed unfazed by his experience, though happy enough to have been rediscovered; neither of them had been sure how they had got here, and still less which way to go to get home. And as they talked, young George came out of his shell. In Agnes’s eyes he seemed to grow in confidence and even authority. Younger he might be but he was evidently a good deal smarter than Rich. Perhaps he could have been another of Happy Landings’ super-smart kids, she thought; perhaps he had Spencer or Montecute genes in him. She wondered what would become of him now.

  Dealing with the boys did Agnes herself a power of good.

  She wasn’t really one for vacations like this, even if she did rationalize it by telling herself her work now was caring for Lobsang. Sometimes Agnes wondered if she’d become a rich man’s plaything. A dreadful fate! Which Sister Concepta used to warn the se
nior girls about, back in Agnes’s long-gone convent-school days, speaking about hellfire punishments that in a perverse way made the prospect somewhat beguiling, and Agnes and friends like Guinevere Perch had giggled behind their hands. Well, the message evidently hadn’t sunk in for Guinevere, who at the peak of her career had owned extensive properties in Marbella and the Seychelles, and a very expensive Georgian terrace house in central London, handy for the House of Commons . . . Once Agnes had visited the London property, and Guinevere had shown Agnes some of the secrets in the well-appointed basement. The tawdry fittings, the cartoonish objects of lust, control and cruelty, their use meticulously recorded by Guinevere in her little notebook – it had made Agnes laugh out loud, rather to the amazement of her friend who might have been expecting a lecture.

  But Agnes, over a drink, had told her how she had seen more sin, more darkness of the soul, in little anonymous tenements in Madison, Wisconsin than anything that might have been imagined in that London basement. More sin – more hell indeed. She had tried never to let it get through to her deep self, but even now that was difficult. Sometimes Agnes found herself agreeing with Lobsang in the worst of his tirades about humanity’s inadequacies. It was hard to remember that she had ever been innocent herself.

  Well, in her heart she hadn’t changed; she was driven by the same impulses that had always shaped her life. She yearned to comfort frightened children: as simple as that. To soothe the worried and apprehensive. To feed the hungry. This had been her life, after all, most of it, the other part being farting in the halls of the mighty . . . Now, oh, how she missed the wards and kindergartens, the kitchens and the hospices! No doubt about it, she would have to ask Lobsang for time away, to find some forlorn and forsaken corner of the Long Earth, or even somewhere in the long-suffering Datum, where she could make a difference.