The Long Earth

snowfield.’
    Lobsang whispered in his ear. ‘I see it. You know, the parrot has nose filters which would enable me to smell—’
    ‘Forget it.’ Joshua took a few paces, turned and surveyed the airship. ‘Can you see this? Just giving you a chance to check for wear and tear.’
    ‘Good thinking,’ murmured the parrot.
    Joshua knelt beside the tree. ‘There are little flags, marking the trunk rings.’ He plucked one, and picked out the lettering. ‘University of Krakow. Scientists did this. What’s the point?’
    ‘For climate records from the tree rings, Joshua. Just like on the Datum. Interestingly, such records suggest the split between neighbouring worlds is usually around fifty years deep. Within the lifetime of your average pine tree. Of course that raises a lot of questions.’
    Joshua heard a rumble, a splashing sound, a kind of shrill trumpet. He turned slowly; evidently he wasn’t alone on this world . A short distance inland he glimpsed a scene of predator and prey: a cat-like creature with fangs so heavy it could barely lift its head, it seemed, was tracking a waddling beast with a hide like a tank. These were the first animals he had seen on this world.
    Lobsang saw what he saw. ‘The over-armed in pursuit of the over-armoured: the result of an evolutionary arms race. And one that has played out on Datum Earth many times, in various contexts, until both parties succumbed to extinction, all the way back to the dinosaur age and beyond. A universal, it seems. As on the Datum, so on the Long Earth. Joshua, go around the rocky outcrop. You’ll come to the open water.’
    Joshua turned and walked easily around the outcrop. The snow was deep, heavy to push through, but it felt good to stretch his legs after so many hours in the gondola.
    The expanse of the lake opened up before him. On the lake itself ice lay in a sheet, but there was open water close to the shore, and here there was movement, massive, graceful: elephants, a family of them, furry adults with calves between their towering legs. Some of them were wading out into the shallow water. The adults had extraordinary shovel-shaped tusks that they used to scoop at the lake bed, muddying the water for yards around. In a crystalline sparkle of spray a mother played with a calf. Fresh snow started to fall now, big heavy flakes that settled on the fur of the oblivious elephantids.
    ‘Gompotheres,’ Lobsang murmured. ‘Or relatives, or descendants. I’d keep away from the water. I suspect there are crocodiles.’
    Joshua felt oddly moved by the scene; there was a sense of calm about these massive creatures. ‘This is what you brought us down to see?’
    ‘No. Although these worlds are full of elephant types. A plethora of pachyderms. I wouldn’t normally have brought them to your attention. But they are a high-order prey species, and it appears that they are being tracked. And, interestingly, so are you.’
    Joshua stood quite still. ‘Thank you for sharing.’ He looked around , peering through the thickening snow, but saw nothing else moving. ‘Just tell me when to run, OK? I don’t mind if you say
right now
…’
    ‘Joshua, the creatures moving cautiously towards you are holding a conversation about you, though I doubt very much if you can hear it because it is very high pitched. Your fillings might tingle.’
    ‘I have no fillings. I always brushed my teeth properly.’
    ‘Of course you did. The communication is also quite complex, and becoming more rapid, as if some kind of conclusion is being reached as to what they’re going to do. It comes and goes because they are constantly stepping. This is almost too fast to see – too fast for
you
to see. From this behaviour I can deduce that they have a very ingenious method of triangulating the point at which all of their major hunters will surround the victim, which is to say,
you
—’
    ‘Hold on. Rewind. You said they are
stepping
? Stepping animals, stepping predators?’ The world pivoted around Joshua. ‘Well, that’s new.’
    ‘Indeed.’
    ‘These creatures are the reason you stopped here, aren’t they?’
    ‘By the way, I see no need for you to be afraid.’
    ‘
You
see no reason for
me
to be afraid?’
    ‘Well, they appear to be inquisitive creatures. As opposed to hungry creatures. Possibly more frightened of you than you currently are of them.’
    ‘How much do you want to bet? My life, for instance?’
    ‘Let’s see how this plays out. Joshua, wave your