The Long Earth

animals came to drink. As they cruised on, once more stepping through the worlds, Joshua watched herds of tremendous beasts flick into existence and vanish, quadrupeds and bipeds, creatures that might almost have been elephants, others that might almost have been flightless birds, with lesser creatures running at their feet. A few seconds’ glimpse, and then another extraordinary, unearthly scene, and then another.
    ‘Like a Ray Harryhausen show reel,’ Lobsang said.
    Joshua asked, ‘Who’s Ray Harryhausen? And what’s a show reel?’
    ‘Tonight’s movie will be the original version of
Jason and the Argonauts
, followed by an illustrated talk. Don’t miss it. But – what a find, Joshua! This American Sea, I mean. All this coastline. What a place to come and colonize!
This
North America has a second Mediterranean, an enclosed sea, with all the riches and cultural connectivity that promises. As for the potential for colonization, it knocks the Corn Belt into a cocked hat. Why, this could be the seat of a new civilization altogether. Not to mention the opportunities for tourism. Just one of these worlds alone – and we’ve already sailed over hundreds of them.’
    Joshua said dryly, ‘Maybe they’ll call it “the Lobsang Belt”.’
    If Lobsang got the joke he didn’t reveal it.
    Another night, another easy sleep for Joshua.
    And when he awoke the next morning the monitor in his room showed what looked like a close-up of a campfire.
    Joshua jumped out of bed. Lobsang came into his room when he was pulling on his pants, causing him to pull a little quicker. He would have to teach Lobsang the meaning of the word
knock
.
    Lobsang smiled. ‘Good morning, Joshua, on this auspicious day.’
    ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Joshua had no time for Lobsang’s nonsense today. The idea of company, authentic, undeniably human company, was electrifying. Socks, sturdy boots … ‘OK, I’m ready to go down. Lobsang – that fire, whoever built it. Are they human?’
    ‘Apparently so. You might find her sunbathing among the dinosaurs.’
    ‘Dinosaurs! Her! Sunbathing!’
    ‘You’ll have to see for yourself. But be careful, Joshua. The dinosaurs look amiable enough. Well, some of them. But
she
might bite …’
    Apart from the elevator there was now a second means of getting to the ground, a highly technical business which consisted of an old car tyre (scavenged from a store of random garbage in the airship’s capacious hold), a length of rope and a simple panic button on Joshua’s chest pack which could call the tyre down, or, more importantly, get it moving quickly back up if he were being chased. Joshua felt better for having installed this escape mechanism as a backup after his encounter with the murderous elves, and these days always insisted on having the tyre at ground level, ready to run directly towards in an emergency.
    Now he was being lowered towards a new Earth, once again. And there was another human here … somewhere. He could
feel
it. He really could. People made a world feel different, to Joshua.
    As was becoming customary for Lobsang, he had decided to land Joshua a little way from the target to allow for a cautious approach, as opposed to a drop from out of the open sky. So the airship floated over the edge of the estuary, a place of scattered trees , scrub, marshland and small lakes. The air was fresh but laden with the smells of salt, and a kind of wet-rot stink from the jungle’s edge – and a subtler, drier scent, Joshua thought as he descended, that he couldn’t quite place. The denser forest lapped to the edge of this muddy plain, tumbling down from the higher land to the south. And that thread of smoke rose up from somewhere inland.
    Joshua came down a little way from the water’s edge, in the forest. Once on the ground he walked forward, watchfully, heading for the smoke. ‘I smell … dryness. Rust. It’s like the reptile house in a zoo.’
    ‘This world may be very different from the Datum, Joshua. We’ve come a long way across the contingency tree.’
    The forest cleared away, revealing a stretch of beach, the slow-moving water. And on a bluff of rocks, close to the water, Joshua came upon a group of fat, big, seal-like creatures lazing in the sun, around a dozen including a few infants. Pale blond hair lay streamlined along their heavy bodies, and they had small, almost conical heads with black eyes, and small mouths, and flat nostrils like a chimp’s. They were like seals with