The Long Earth

itself takes months. All for a chance to dump the kids in an uncivilized wilderness. And what use is a software engineer going to be out there? Or a lecturer in cultural history, come to that.’
    She smiled fondly. It was infuriating; he could see she wasn’t taking him remotely seriously. ‘Whatever we need to know, we’ll learn.’ She put down her coffee and slipped her arms around him. ‘I think we need to do this, Jack. It’s our chance. Our generation. Our kids’ chance.’
    Our kids, he thought. All save poor Rod. Here was his wife, one of the most intelligent people he’d ever met, her head full of idealism about the future of America and mankind, and yet contemplating abandoning her own son. He rested his cheek on her greying hair, and wondered if he would ever understand her.

15
    DREAMS OF THE Long Earth, all across the old world. Some dreams were new, and at the same time very, very old …
    The mates sat near the car, deep in the bush, drinking beer and pondering the changing world, and the stepping boxes they had all made that were resting on the red sand. Overhead, the central Australian sky was so full of stars that some had to wait their turn to twinkle.
    After a while one of them said gloomily, ‘Something clawed Jimbo’s guts out, left him looking like a dugout canoe. You know that, don’t you? It ain’t no joke! A cop went in there too!
He
came out with his face off!’
    Billy, who tended not to speak until he had thought for a while, like maybe a week, said, ‘It’s dreamtime stuff, mate, like it was before the ancestors came here. Don’t you remember what that scientist bloke told us, one time? They dug up the bones of big, big animals all over the bloody place, as big as you like! Big, slow food, but with big, big teeth. All these new worlds under the same sky! And no people to be seen in any of them, right? Like this world before it was buggered up! Just think what we could do if we got out there!’
    Somebody opposite the fire said, ‘Yeah, mate, we could bugger it up all over again. And I like my head with a face on it!’
    There was laughter. But Albert said, ‘Know what happened? Our ancestors bloody well killed them all, ate them up. They wiped out everything except what we got now. But we don’t have to do that, right ? They say the world out there is just like here, except no men, no women, no policemen, no cities, no guns, just the land over and over again. The waterhole here is the waterhole there, all ready and waiting for us!’
    ‘No, it isn’t. The waterhole’s half a mile over
there
.’
    ‘Near enough, you know what I mean. Why don’t we give it a go, boys?’
    ‘Yeah, but this is
our
country. This one right here.’
    Albert leaned forward, eyes sparkling. ‘Yes, but you know what?
So are those others! All of them!
I heard the scientist guys talking. Every rock, every stone, all there. It’s true!’
    In the morning, the little group, slightly hungover, tossed coins to select the one who would give it a go.
    Billy came back half an hour later, retching horribly, arriving out of nowhere. They picked him up and gave him water, and waited. He opened his eyes and said, ‘It’s true, but it’s bloody raining over there, mates!’
    They looked at one another.
    Somebody said, ‘Yeah, but what about all those creatures I’ve heard about, back in the old time? Roos with teeth! Bloody big ones! Big creatures with claws!’
    There was silence. Then Albert said, ‘Well, ain’t we as good as our ancestors? They saw off these buggers. Why can’t we?’
    There was a shuffling of feet.
    Finally Albert said, ‘Look, tomorrow,
I’m
going over for good. Who’s with me? It’s all there, mates. It’s all been left there waiting for us, since the beginning …’
    By the end of the next day the songlines had begun to expand, as the never-never began to become the ever-ever. Although sometimes the blokes came back for a beer.
    Later, there were towns, unfamiliar towns admittedly, and new ways of living, a mix of past and present, as old ways were seamlessly woven into new ones. The eating was good, too.
    And later still, surveys showed that in the great post-Step Day migration a greater proportion of Australian Aborigines left Datum Earth for good than any other ethnic group on the planet.

16
    Excerpts from the Journal of Helen Green, resceptfully respectfully spellchecked by Dad, aka Mr J. Green
:
    Here is the story
of how the Green family
walked across the