The Long Earth

wonders for the cognitive processes. A very human observation, don’t you think?’ The pacing continued.
    Finally the quasi-salmon was cooking, although Joshua had to keep an eye on it.
    Lobsang stopped pacing at last. ‘You are good at concentrating, aren’t you, Joshua? You can ignore distractions, a very useful skill, and it makes for a certain tranquillity.’
    Joshua didn’t respond. Through the window, light flared: a distant volcano blossoming against the endless Eurasian green, to be snatched out of existence in a heartbeat, as they stepped on, and on.
    Lobsang said, ‘Listen, Joshua. Let’s talk about natural steppers. Like you.’
    ‘And Private Percy?’
    ‘You asked me about my researches. Since Step Day I have endeavoured to explore all aspects of this remarkable new phenomenon. As one example I sent researchers off around the world, to study cave systems used by early man. They were tasked to inspect similar caves in the adjoining worlds, to investigate parallel habitations, if any. It was an expensive endeavour but it yielded fruit, because my researchers quickly found in a cave near Chauvet in a stepwise France, among other things, a painting. More accurately it was the badge of a certain Kent regiment at the time of the First World War, and rendered with great accuracy.’
    ‘Private Percy?’
    ‘Quite. Well, I already knew about him and his stepping exploits. But then, in a stepwise version of the caves at Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England, my indefatigable investigators found the complete skeleton of a middle-aged man, in possession of a corked flagon of cider, a few coins, and one gold watch of mid-eighteenth-century manufacture with only the gold and brass remaining of the metal parts. This was a wet cave, but his boots had survived, slightly glistening like the poor man himself, thanks to a sheen of calcium carbonate deposited by drips from the roof. Interestingly, the hobnails and the aglets on his laces were not there.’
    ‘Aglets?’
    ‘The small steel caps once fitted to the end of a lace … I’m painting a picture for you here, Joshua.’
    ‘It’s kind of a dull picture, Lobsang.’
    ‘Patience. The intriguing thing about this particular find is that the corpse was discovered only because he was lying with the fingers of one hand jammed into a very small space at the bottom of the cave. My operatives found the gentleman in fact as they were exploring a lower cave. They saw the bones protruding through the roof, as if the man had been trying fruitlessly to widen the little gap. All very Edgar Allan Poe, don’t you think? Of course they broke their way through from the cave below, and you can work out the rest. The man was a notorious thief and ne’er-do-well known locally as Passover.’
    ‘He was a stepper, wasn’t he?’ said Joshua, flatly. ‘And I just bet that there was no other entrance to the cave.’ For a moment he imagined the drip of icy water oozing over bleeding fingers in the darkness, a man trying to scrabble his way out of a cave like a coffin … ‘So maybe he’d had a few drinks. Sister Serendipity once told me that Somerset cider was made of lead, apples and handsaws. He lost his bearings,
stepped
, ended up in his small cave without even knowing that he’d stepped at all, which would of course make him even more disorientated. He tried to feel his way out, banged his head, knocked himself out. How am I doing?’
    ‘Superbly. And the skull itself was, indeed, slightly damaged,’ said Lobsang. ‘Not a good death, and I wonder how many other individuals get themselves trapped in some corner before they know what is happening to them.
    ‘
Natural steppers
, Joshua. The history of Datum Earth is full of them, if you know how to interrogate the record. Mysterious disappearances. Mysterious arrivals! Locked-room mysteries of all kinds. Thomas the Rhymer is a favourite example of mine, the Scots prophet who, it is said, kissed the queen of the elves and left this world … In more modern times there are plenty of cases documented in the black scientific and intelligence literature, of course.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘You are unusual, you see, Joshua, but not unique.’
    ‘Why are you telling me all this now?’
    ‘Because I don’t want there to be secrets between us. And because now I am going to tread on dangerous ground. And tell you about your mother.’
    The
Mark Twain
stepped Westward, with little sound other than the pop of the air getting