The Long Earth

of deal easily enough. People, unfettered, know how to live, how to treat each other. I imagine Neanderthal man learned all this. I guess sometimes the lesson doesn’t stick. Sometimes they seem kind of stunned, as if they’ve been staring at the horizon too long, and they find it difficult to sit still in any one Earth. Long Earth Syndrome, it’s called, so I’m told.
    We’ve had more formal contact from home. A postman does the rounds! A good man called Bill Lovell. From the mail we learned that some remote federal agency has validated our various land claims. The most important missive for me was a statement from Pioneer Support, the government agency that was set up to handle the affairs of emigrants. My bank accounts and investment funds are still running. I’m providing for Rod, of course, our ‘phobic’ son, our ‘homealone’, as I’m told current Datum slang has it. Tilda feels this is somehow cheating. Not in the pioneer spirit. But my intention was never to have any of us suffer out here. Why should we? This is my solution, my compromise to ensure my family is protected.
    There’s been no letter from Rod, not one. We do write to him; he hasn’t written back. For better or worse we don’t discuss this. It breaks my heart slowly, however.
    I want to finish this on a joyous note.
    It’s now twenty-four hours or more since Cindy Wells went into labour, the colony’s first birth. Cindy called in her friends, and Helen went along, who’s training up on midwifery. She’s only just fifteen, my God. Well, the labour was long, but the birth came without complications. And as I write, it’s not long past dawn, they’re all still with Cindy.
    I can’t tell you how proud I am. On Helen’s birthday too. (Thanks, Dad!)
    So I have one extra chore to perform today. That town sign of ours needs modifying:
    WELCOME TO REBOOT
FOUNDED 2026, A.D.
POP. 117 118
    And in a sky on the other side of the world a gaudy airship hovered in the dawn light, listening to such whispered stories, before it vanished into deeper stepwise realities.

26
    JOSHUA WOKE UP . The big woollen throw he preferred to sleep under was slightly musty, rather heavy, somehow very reassuring. Outside, he saw through his stateroom window, Earths flickered by. There was the endless Eurasian forest, sometimes burning, occasionally covered in snow. Another morning on the
Mark Twain
.
    He carefully negotiated his way out of bed, had a shower, dried himself off and slipped the monkey bracelet on to his wrist. It was the only thing of his mother’s that he had ever possessed. It was cheap plastic, marginally too tight round his wrist, but in his mind it was worth more than gold could ever be.
    The
Mark Twain
gave that tiny little lurch he had learned to expect when the stepping stopped. In theory, he knew there was no reason why there should be a lurch, but every ship has its idiosyncrasies. He looked out of his window again.
    Now, against expectation, the ship was hovering over an ocean that, as far as he could see, went on for ever. They had been crossing the vast landscapes of Eurasia for days. Joshua was a Madisonian who had grown up with the lakes near by. God, he thought, I could do with a swim. He stripped down to trunks.
    Then, without consulting Lobsang, he ran to the gondola’s elevator and let it down until the open cage was only a little way above the deep blue sea, an ocean as calm as a lake.
    The ambulant unit appeared in the hatch above him. ‘There you are. If you are thinking of a dip in this briny sea, I suggest you think twice . I’ve sent up my usual balloons and sounding-rockets, and I am pretty certain that if there is any dry land on this planet there is little of it. The sea level is very high: we hover over drowned continents, probably.’
    ‘An ocean world, then.’
    ‘I have no idea if there is anything so sophisticated as a fish swimming around in there. There
appears
to be nothing much more than floating seaweed, some of it extremely green. This is a fascinating world, and exploring it would be an excellent undertaking. However, while I cannot forbid you to go swimming, I urgently counsel you against doing so before I have checked for safety.’
    The untroubled sea sparkled beguilingly. ‘Oh, come on. It can’t hurt, surely.’ He heard the sound of mechanical activity up above in the ship.
    Lobsang said, ‘Can it not? But who knows how evolution might have proceeded on such a world? Joshua, until I check it