The Long Earth

central France.’
    ‘But you have an explanation, I take it.’
    ‘I’m sure you can see it, Joshua.’
    ‘He stepped there? Into the forest with his Russians?’
    ‘Possibly,’ said Lobsang, ‘or perhaps one of the trolls found itself in the trenches by accident, and helped him away.’
    ‘ “Trolls”?’
    ‘That seems the mythological term that best describes these creatures, extrapolating from legends that must derive from even older sightings: creatures glimpsed in our world only to vanish again, entirely misunderstood, the seeds of legend … a term that already has become current in some parts of the Long Earth, Joshua. Percy’s wasn’t the only sighting.’
    ‘So you anticipated finding these – stepping humanoids, did you?’
    ‘From logical extrapolation. And I anticipated the singing from Percy’s own account. Consider: humans can step; chimps can’t – there have been experiments to establish that. But perhaps our hominid relatives of the past, or rather their modern descendants, were, or
are
, able to step. Why not? To have encountered such beings so early in our journey is of course the achievement of a major goal. And we must expect, we must hope at least, to meet many more such groups as we continue. What an intellectual thrill this is, Joshua!’
    ‘So they kept Percy alive, all those years?’
    ‘It seems so. These “Russians” found Percy wandering in a France which had no Frenchmen living in it, and they were kind to him, for decades. Over several of their generations, perhaps. Remarkable. As far as I know, he never understood the truth about his friends. But Percy probably had never seen
anybody
from another country before being shipped to France, and, of course, being English and unlettered, was probably half prepared to believe that a foreigner could look like just about anything. Why shouldn’t a Russian look like a big hairy ape?
    ‘For much of the rest of his life Private Percy travelled with his “Russians” across a calm, well-wooded, well-watered world where they kept him fed with meat and vegetables, and were in all respects considerate in their treatment of him, right up until the day when he made it clear – and I must say that I don’t know how he communicated this to them – that he wanted to go back to the place where he had come from.’
    ‘Songs can be very expressive, Lobsang. You can sing your homesickness.’
    ‘Perhaps. And, as we’ve experienced ourselves, they learned those songs well, and remember them. They must have been passed between generations of trolls, perhaps even from group to group … Intriguing. We must learn something of the social lives of these creatures. Well – in the end the trolls took him home, as good fairies should, back to France, but fortunately not in an era when man was disassembling man with high explosives.’
    Now the ambulant unit strolled through the blue door at the rear of the deck, and seamlessly, and rather eerily, took up the conversation from its disembodied counterpart. ‘You have further questions, Joshua?’
    ‘I’ve read about that war. It didn’t last all that long. Why didn’t he go back earlier?’
    The ambulant unit put a cold hand on Joshua’s shoulder. ‘Would you have done? It was a terrible, inhuman conflict, a war that had become a machine for killing young men as efficiently, if as horribly, as possible. How keen would he be to walk back into that? And don’t forget he didn’t really know he was a stepper. He
thought
that he had been blown into another part of France. Besides, his “Russians” were happy to know him. I suspect it was the songs that clinched it. He says they loved hearing him sing. He taught them all the songs that he knew – and you, Joshua Valienté, heard one of them today.
    ‘So – our first field trip. Perhaps we need an operational debrief. You thought I’d put you in harm’s way, didn’t you? Please believe me, I would not do that. It would not be in my own interest, would it?’
    ‘You know a hell of a lot about what we’re encountering, even before we’ve encountered it. You might have warned me what was coming.’
    ‘Yes. I accept that. We must work on our communication. Look – we have barely begun our epic journey; we barely know each other. What would you say to some quality time together?’
    Sometimes, the only thing you can do is stare blankly.
Quality time
, said the artificial man! Joshua knew the term, of course, if only because