The Long Earth

Cowley’s poison.
    Cowley was getting to the meat of his peroration. The hardcore stuff, the stuff these disadvantaged people had really come to hear. The reason he banned recordings of his speeches.
    ‘Here’s somethin’ I came across,’ he said, producing a clipping. ‘A pronouncement from one of them
pro-fess-ors
in the universities. And this man says, now let me quote, “The stepping ability represents a new dawn for humanity, the arrival of a new cognitive skill on a par with the development of language and multi-component tool-making,” and blah, blah, blah.
    ‘Do you understand what this man is saying, ladies and gentlemen? What he’s talking about? He’s talking about
evolution
.
    ‘Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was another sort of human being on this planet. We call them
Neanderthals
. They were like us, you see, they wore clothes of skin and made tools and built fires, why, they even cared for their sick and buried their dead with respect. But they weren’t
quite
as smart as us. They were around for hundreds of thousands of years, but in all that time not one of ’em came up with anything as complicated as a bow and arrow, which any seven-year-old American boy could make.
    ‘But there they were, with their tools and their hunting and their fishing. Until one day, along came a new sort of folk. A new sort with flat faces and slim bodies and clever hands and big, bulging brains. And these folk
could
make bows and arrows. Why, I bet there was some Neanderthal
pro-fess-or
who said something like, “The ability to make a bow and arrow represents a new dawn for humanity,” and blah, blah, blah. Maybe that Neanderthal prof urged Ug and Mug to give over a tithe of mammoth meat to fund more bow-and-arrow-making, for the benefit of the new folk. And it was all dandy, and everybody got along fine.
    ‘But where are Ug and Mug now? Where are the Neanderthals? I’ll tell you. Dead, these thirty thousand years.
Extinct
. Now there’s a terrible word if you like. A word beyond death, because extinction means your children are dead too, and your grandchildren and their children will
never even be born
.
    ‘You know what I would say to those Neanderthals? You know what they should have done when those bow-and-arrow folk showed up?’ He slammed his palm on a table. ‘They should have raised their big fists and their ugly old stone tools, and they should have smashed the bulging skulls of those new folk, every last one of them. Because if they had, their grandchildren would be around now.’ He kept slamming the palm, punctuating his sentences. ‘Now I got federal politicians and university
pro-fess-ors
telling me there’s a new sort of human being amongst us, a new evolution going on, a superman among us ordinary Joes. A superman, whose only power is the ability to slip into your child’s bedroom at night, without you even knowing it? What kind of superman is that?
    ‘You think I’m a Neanderthal? You think I’m gonna make the mistake they made? Are you gonna let these mutants take over God’s good Earth?
Are you gonna submit to extinction?
Are you? Or you? Or you? …’
    Everybody was on their feet, on the stage too, hollering and clapping. Jansson clapped too, for cover. Around her she glimpsed FBI guys quietly taking photographs of the crowd.
    The world was going to change again. That was the buzz. Once the Black Corporation’s more or less covert airship developments began to deliver the massive transformations in interworld carrying capacity they promised, huge trade flows and massive economic growth could be expected. But it wouldn’t come soon enough for the likes of Russo, or Cowley. Jansson fretted about how much harm might be done while everybody waited for the next miracle.

42
    THE
MARK TWAIN was a haven. Once you were airborne and stepping away you left your troubles behind. Now it was a relief to get away from the Rectangles, and head into the new and unknown. Joshua welcomed the escape, despite the increasing, foreboding pressure in his head.
    Lobsang was still stepping slowly, inspecting the Earths with relative care, while Joshua and Sally hung out on the observation deck. They were stepping at cloud height – but even so, once, over a dark green world, Joshua thought that he heard the scraping of leaves along the keel, the touch of what must be the titanic trees of some Joker planet.
    ‘Lobsang’s worried, isn’t he?’ said Sally. ‘And distressed by