The Long Earth

time,’ Lobsang said, ‘on most worlds, and certainly on Datum Earth, complexity and organization reach a point where individual cells can survive unaided. And then, on most worlds, competition begins. The great kingdoms of life begin to separate, oxygen bleeds into the air as a waste product of creatures that learn how to harness the power of sunlight, and the long slow climb towards multicelled forms begins. The age of global cooperation vanishes, leaving no trace save enigmatic markers in genetic composition.’
    Sally said, ‘On most worlds, but not on First Person Singular’s.’
    ‘No. Actually that world must have been a remarkable Joker. There, the gathering complexity drove a familiar-looking evolutionary story – but the unity of that single global organism
was never lost
. We really have travelled to a very distant branch of the contingency tree. It—’
    ‘She, Lobsang,’ Joshua said.
    ‘
She
: yes, the feminine is appropriate,
she
appears to be positively gravid with apparently healthy life forms. She was more like a maturing biosphere than a creature like a human. As complexity increased, knots of control must have formed. To grow further it would have become necessary for the information structure to construct and contain a copy of itself, for the whole to become self-reflective. That is, conscious.’
    Sally frowned, trying to take this in. ‘But what would such a creature want?’
    ‘I can tell you that much,’ Joshua said. ‘Company. She was lonely. Although she didn’t know it until she encountered the trolls.’
    ‘Ah.’
    They would never know how a band of trolls had ended up on that remote world, Joshua realized. They must have come through the Gap; perhaps they were traumatized, some of them injured by exposure to vacuum. ‘But she was fascinated,’ he said, eyes closed, concentrating, trying to
remember
. ‘By the simple fact that there was more than one of them. The way they looked at each other, worked together – each of them recognized the other. They were not alone, as she was. They had each other. She wanted what they had. The one thing in the world she lacked …
    ‘A troll came to the water.’ He had a vision, like a waking dream, of the troll crouching, innocently scooping crabs from the shallow water – a mound of water rising, embracing him.
    ‘Killing him,’ Sally said, when Joshua described this.
    ‘Yes. She didn’t intend it, but that was the outcome. The trolls fled. Maybe she caught another one, an infant … studied it …’
    ‘And learned to step,’ Lobsang guessed.
    ‘Yes. It took her a long time. The thing we encountered isn’t all of her, all she was; once she filled an ocean. The thing in the sea here is – an expression of her. The essence. A form compact enough to step.’
    ‘So she followed the trolls,’ Sally said. ‘Heading West down the chain of worlds.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Lobsang. ‘Slowly but surely heading towards the Datum. And surely she is the reason for the stampede of the trolls, and perhaps other life forms. I am incubating the hypothesis that she has the same effect on pre-sapient species such as the trolls as does a large congregation of humans. Imagine the thunder of her thinking …’
    ‘So, behold the migraine monster,’ Sally said. ‘No wonder the trolls are fleeing.’
    ‘She doesn’t mean any harm,’ Joshua said. ‘She only wants to
know
them. To embrace them.’
    ‘You know, Joshua, you make this thing sound almost human.’
    ‘That’s how it felt.’
    ‘But that is only a partial perception,’ Lobsang said. ‘There is more. The entity you have encountered is only … a seed. An emissary of the integrated biosphere from which she originated. Her absorption of local life forms, even of higher mammals like trolls, is only an interim step. Her goal is,
must be
, to transform each Earth’s biosphere into a copy of her own. The entirety of it, enslaved. With every resource dedicated to a single purpose. That is to say, her own consciousness. This is not a malevolent phenomenon, or in any way
wrong
. There is no villain here. First Person Singular is simply an expression of another kind of sentience. Another model, if you like. But—’
    Sally’s face was ashen. ‘But for the likes of us she represents a termination. She brings the end of individuality, ultimately, to every Earth she touches.’
    ‘And the end of evolution,’ Lobsang said gravely. ‘The end of the world, in a sense. The end of