The Long Earth

do. And when you quoted passages from W. H. Hudson’s
A Shepherd’s Life
at the funeral of old Humphrey, after the service – which incidentally you took magnificently – some of them sidled up to me and asked if I had put you up to that. Of course, I told them that I hadn’t. And believe me when that news got around, well, you had passed. They realized that you are not only very fluent in English, but also fluent in
England
, which means a lot down here.
    ‘And then, to cap it all, you took an allotment, and are seen digging and planting and in general tilling the soil of the Good Earth, and that got everybody on your side. You see, everybody was a little nervous when they heard about you coming. They were, and how can I put this, expecting you to be a little more … earnest? You seem remarkably well prepared for your mission among us.’
    Nelson said, ‘In a way my whole life has prepared me for this, yes. You know, as a child I was lucky, very lucky for a
bongani
like me, running around in the South Africa of those days. But my parents could see a better future for those prepared to work for it. You might have thought them tough parents, and I suppose you might be right. But they kept me off the streets and made me go to school.
    ‘And then of course the Black Corporation came up with its “Searching for the Future” programme, and my mother picked it up on her radar and made sure I got myself an interview, and after that it was as if I had been selected by fate. Apparently I hit the mark on every test they set. Suddenly the Corporation found it had got itself a poster boy, a poor African kid with an IQ of 210. They more or less told me to ask for the moon. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Not until Step Day … Where were you on Step Day, David?’
    The elderly priest walked over to a large oak desk, produced a large day book, turned the pages, and said, ‘I see that I was getting ready for evensong when I first heard what was going on. What did I think of it? Who had time to think coherently at all?
    ‘It wasn’t too bad around here. The countryside is different from the town, you see? People don’t panic so easily, and I don’t think many of the kids round here were very much interested in fiddling with electronic components. Well, the closest place with a ready supply would be Swindon. But everyone watched what was happening on television. Around here people were looking at the skies to see if they could
see
these other worlds – that was how little we understood. But the wind was still blowing in the trees, the cows got milked, and I think we just spent our time listening to the news bulletins, interspersed with
The Archers
.
    ‘I don’t really remember formulating any sort of position whatsoever until it was definitively announced that there were indeed other Earths, millions of them, as close to us as a thought and, apparently, ours for the taking. Now
that
made ears prick up around here. It was about land! In the countryside land gets attention.’ He looked into his brandy glass, saw that it was empty and shrugged. ‘In short, I must say I found myself wondering “What hath God wrought?”’
    ‘Book of Numbers,’ said Nelson, instinctively.
    ‘Well done, Nelson! And also, rather pleasingly, they were the first official words sent by Samuel Morse over the electric telegraph in 1838.’ He topped up his brandy glass, and made a complex little sign to enquire of Nelson if he might like another.
    But the younger man seemed distracted. ‘What hath God wrought? Let me tell you what God wrought, David, oh, indeed. Step Day came, and we found out about the Long Earth, and suddenly the world was full of new questions. By this time I had read all about Louis Leakey, and the work he and his wife did in Olduvai Gorge. I was thrilled at the thought that everyone in the world was an African at the core. So I said to the Corporation that I wanted to know how man had become man. I wanted to learn
why
. Most of all, I wanted to know what it was that we were supposed to be doing here, in the new context of the Long Earth. In short, I wanted to know what we were
for
.
    ‘Of course, my mother and her faith had lost me by then. I was too smart for my own God, so to speak. I had found time to read up about the affairs of the four centuries following the birth of the infant Jesus, and indeed to look at the erratic progress of Christianity since then. It seemed to me that whatever the truth of