The Long Earth

of personhood, isn’t it? I’ve already trialled the technology – well, you know that, I traced your earlier expedition as I told you. All rather thrilling, isn’t it?’
    Joshua reached the base of the gondola and entered the observation deck he’d spotted before, a blister of reinforced glass giving spectacular views of this Low Earth’s Siberia. The construction site sprawled below, with ancillary workings cut into the forest, supply dumps, dormitories, an airstrip.
    Joshua, thinking it over, began to realize just what an achievement Lobsang had pulled off here –
if
the airship stepped as advertised. Nobody before had found a way to make a
vehicle
capable of stepping between the worlds the way a human could, and that was throttling the expansion of any kind of trade across the Long Earth. In parts of the Near East, and even in Texas, they had human chains carrying over oil by the bucket-load. If Lobsang really had cracked this, essentially by becoming the vessel himself – well, he was like a modern rail pioneer; he was going to change the world, all the worlds. No wonder security was so tight.
If
it worked . This was all experimental, evidently. And Joshua would be swimming across Long Earth in the belly of a silvery whale. ‘You seriously expect me to risk my life in this thing?’
    ‘More than that. If “this thing” fails I expect you to bring me home.’
    ‘You’re insane.’
    ‘Quite possibly. But we have a contract.’
    A blue door slid open, and, to Joshua’s blank astonishment, Lobsang showed himself in person – or rather, in ambulatory unit. ‘Welcome again! I thought I would dress for the occasion of our maiden voyage.’ The automaton was male, slim and athletic, with movie star looks and a wig of thick black hair, and it wore a black lounge suit. It looked like a waxwork of James Bond, and when it moved, and worse when it smiled, it did nothing to dispel the artifice.
    Joshua stared, struggling not to laugh.
    ‘Joshua?’
    ‘Sorry! Pleased to meet you in person …’
    The deck vibrated as engines bit. Joshua felt oddly thrilled at the prospect of the voyage in a small-boy kind of way. ‘What do you think we’re going to find out there, Lobsang? I guess anything is possible if you go far enough. What about dragons?’
    ‘I would suggest we might expect to find anything that
could
possibly exist in the conditions found on this planet, within the constraints of the laws of physics, and bearing in mind that the planet has not always been so peaceful as it is now. All creatures on Earth have been hammered on the anvil of its gravity, for example, which influences size and morphology. So I am sceptical about finding armoured reptiles who can fly and spout flames.’
    ‘Sounds a little drab.’
    ‘However, I would not be human if I did not acknowledge one important factor, which is that I might be totally wrong. And
that
would be very exciting.’
    ‘Well, we’ll find out – if this thing actually steps.’
    Lobsang’s synthetic face folded into a smile. ‘Actually we’ve been stepping for the last minute or so.’
    Joshua turned to a window and saw that it was true. The construction site had cleared away; they must have passed out of the sheaf of known worlds in the first few steps – although that word ‘known’ was something of a joke. Even the stepwise worlds right next to the Datum had barely been explored; humans were colonizing the Long Earth in thin lines stretched across the worlds. Anything could be living out back in the woods … And he, evidently, was going deeper into those woods than anybody before him.
    ‘How fast will this thing go?’
    ‘You’ll be pleasantly surprised, Joshua.’
    ‘You’re going to change the world with this technology, Lobsang.’
    ‘Oh, I know that. Up to now the Long Earth has been opened up on foot. It’s been medieval. No, worse than that, we haven’t even been able to use horses. Stone Age! But of course, even on foot humans have been moving out since Step Day. Dreaming of a new frontier, of the riches of the new worlds …’

13
    MONICA JANSSON HAD always understood very well that it was the promise of the riches of the new worlds that drew the likes of Jim Russo out into the Long Earth to try their luck, over and over, with the law seeming at times no more than a minor obstacle in the face of their ambition.
    On her first visit to Portage East 3, ten years after Step Day, it had taken Jansson a minute or two, even