The Long Earth

around Northern California. Why?’
    ‘Let’s take a halt. I’ve been more than a month in this flying hotel. Let’s spend at least one whole day in one place just, well, chilling out, OK? And
experiencing
. One whole day, and a night. You could fill up your water tanks. And frankly I am getting stir crazy.’
    ‘Very well. I can hardly object. I will find a suitably intriguing world and cease stepping. As we are over California, would you like me to fabricate a surfboard for you?’
    ‘Ha ha.’
    ‘You have changed, Joshua, do you know that?’
    ‘You mean because I’m arguing with you?’
    ‘As a matter of fact, yes. I am intrigued; you are quicker, less hesitant, less like a person walking around in his own head. Of course, you’re still you. Indeed I’m wondering if possibly you are more
you
than you have been for a very long time, now that you know how you were born.’
    Joshua shrugged this off. ‘Don’t push it, Lobsang. Thanks for the bracelet. But you’re no therapist. Maybe travel broadens the mind—’
    ‘Joshua, if
your
mind was any broader it would start pouring out of your ears.’
    Though it was midnight Joshua wasn’t sleepy, and he began to fix a meal.
    ‘How about a movie, Joshua?’
    ‘I’d prefer to read. Any suggestions?’
    The book screen lit up. ‘I know of no more apposite a title!’
    Joshua stared. ‘
Roughing It
?’
    ‘In many respects, Twain’s best work, I always think, although I will always have a soft spot for
Life on the Mississippi
. Read it. It is what it says, a journey into new territory, and often very funny in an acerbic way. Enjoy!’
    And Joshua enjoyed it. He read, and dozed, and this time dreamed of Indian attacks.
    The next day, around noon, the stepping stopped with that familiar lurch. Joshua found himself looking down at a lake, a shield of grey-blue that broke up the forest.
    Lobsang announced, ‘Surf’s up, dude.’
    ‘Oh, good grief.’
    On the ground, the forest was a pleasant place to be. Squadrons of bats hurtled after flies in the green-lit air above, air that smelled of damp wood and leaf mould. The soft sounds around Joshua were, oddly, much
quieter
than mere silence would have been. Joshua had learned that absolute silence in nature was such an unusual state that it was not only noticeable but positively menacing. But the murmur of this deep forest was a natural white noise.
    Lobsang said, ‘Joshua, look to your left. Quietly now.’
    They were like horses, shy-looking, furtive creatures, with oddly curving necks and padded feet, the size of puppies. And there was something like an elephant with a stubby trunk, but only a couple of feet tall at the shoulder.
    ‘Cute,’ said Joshua.
    ‘The lake is straight ahead,’ Lobsang said.
    The lake was surrounded by a wall of tree trunks and a fringe of open ground. The still water was choked with reeds and rushes, and in the rare open sunlight, under a blue sky, exotic-looking birds descended in clouds of pink-white flapping. On the far shore Joshua glimpsed a dog-like animal, tremendously large – it had to be four, five yards long, with a massive head and enormous jaws that must themselves have protruded for another yard. Before he could raise his binoculars it had slipped into the forest shadows.
    He said, ‘That was surely a mammal. But it had jaws like a crocodile.’
    ‘A mammal, yes. In fact I suspect it’s a distant relative of the whale – our whale, I mean. And there are real crocodiles in the water, Joshua, as usual. A universal.’
    ‘It’s as if parts of animals have been jumbled up – as if somebody’s been playing at evolution.’
    ‘We are now many hundreds of thousands of steps from the Datum, Joshua. In this remote world we’re seeing representatives of many of the animal orders we have on our branch of the probability tree, but as if reimagined. Evolution is evidently chaotic, like the weather—’
    He heard a kind of grunting, like a pig, a big heavy-chested pig, coming from behind him.
    ‘Joshua. Don’t run. Behind you. Turn very slowly.’
    He obeyed. He visualized the weapons he carried, the knife at his belt , the air gun in his chest pack. And up above was the airship, Lobsang with a flying arsenal at his command. He tried to feel reassured.
    Huge hogs. That was his first impression. Half a dozen of them, each as tall as a man at the shoulder, with powerful-looking legs, and backs that rose in bristling humps, and tiny coal-black eyes, and jaws