The Long Earth

wrapped in a honey glow, a great improvement.
    Joshua said hesitantly, ‘I find it best to worry about the little things. Things that can be helped by being worried about. Such as the making of clam chowder, and giving you a coffee. The bigger stuff, well, you have to handle that as it faces you.’
    Sally smiled thinly. ‘You know, Joshua, for an antisocial weirdo you are sometimes almost perceptive. Look – what bugs me above all is that I’ve had to come to you two for help. Well, to
anybody
. I’ve been living on my own resources for years. I suspect I can’t face this problem on my own, but I hate to admit it. And there’s something else, Joshua.’ She studied him. ‘You’re different. Don’t deny it. The super-powered stepper. The king of the wild Long Earth. I have a feeling you’re somehow central to all this. That’s the secret reason I came to
you
specifically.’
    That made him deeply uncomfortable, almost betrayed. ‘I don’t want to be central to anything.’
    ‘Get used to it. And that’s my problem, you see. When I was a kid, all the Long Earth used to be my playground, and mine alone. I’m
jealous
. Because all this may be more yours than mine.’
    He tried to take all this in. ‘Sally, maybe you and I—’
    And at that moment, very precisely the
wrong
moment, the door opened and Lobsang sauntered in, smiling. ‘Ah! Clam chowder! With bacon, excellent!’
    Sally and Joshua shared a glance, parked their conversation, and turned away.
    Sally focused on Lobsang. ‘So here you are, the android that eats. Gobbling down clam chowder, again?’
    Lobsang sat down and, rather artificially, draped one leg over the other. ‘Yes, of course, why not? The gel substrate that supports my intelligence needs organic components, and why should those components not be of the finest cuisine?’
    Sally looked at Joshua. ‘But if he eats, then surely he must eventually …’
    Lobsang smiled. ‘Such minimal waste as I produce is expelled as carefully compacted compost in biodegradable wrapping. Why is this amusing? You did ask, Sally. At least your mockery makes a change from your usual disdain for me. And now we have work to do. I need you to identify these creatures, please.’
    Behind him a wall panel lowered, to reveal a screen that flickered into life. Joshua stared at a familiar biped, scrawny, dirty, yellowish in colour. It was holding a stick like a club, and it was staring at its unseen observers with malice aforethought, and possibly afterthought as well. Joshua knew what it was all too well.
    ‘We call them elves,’ said Sally.
    ‘I know you do,’ said Lobsang.
    ‘I think in some of the colonies they call them Greys, after the old UFO mythology. You see them everywhere in the High Meggers, and sometimes in the lower worlds. They are generally leery of humans, but they will try their luck if you’re isolated or wounded. Super-fast, super-strong, highly intelligent hunters who use stepping when they go for their prey.’
    ‘I know,’ Joshua said. ‘We’ve met them before.’
    ‘Elves. Not a bad name, when you think about it. Elves weren’t always sweet little creatures, were they? Northern European legends portray them as tall and powerful and quite without souls. A nasty name. I can live with that. They need all the bad press we can give them. And in mythology, aren’t elves often afraid of iron? No wonder, I guess; iron could be used to trap them, to stop them stepping.’
    Joshua went back to the chowder in the galley, and as he worked Lobsang gave Sally a curt account of Joshua’s battle with the hog-riding assassins.
    When he returned, she looked at Joshua with new respect. ‘You did well to survive.’
    ‘Yes. And that was supposed to be my day off. Long story.’
    ‘Fun guys to have around, right?’
    ‘Here’s another variant,’ Lobsang said. The screen displayed an image of the pregnant, big-brained elf Joshua had tried to save.
    ‘I call this kind lollipops,’ Sally said. ‘Big-brained, you can see that, but not actually all that bright that I’ve observed.’
    Lobsang nodded. ‘It makes sense. The stepping-birth procedure has allowed a dramatic expansion of the physical size of the brain, but perhaps that has yet to be matched by an increase in functional capability . They have the hardware; the software is yet to evolve.’
    Sally said, ‘In the meantime some of the other elf types farm them. For their brains, I mean. They eat the big brains. I’ve