The Long Earth

mystery still divides us. How did you get out here? Rather more purposefully than stuttering, I would hazard.’
    Sally looked out of the window. It was dark outside, but the stars glittered with a vengeance. ‘I still don’t entirely trust you two. Out in the Long Earth everybody needs an edge, and this is my edge. I’ll tell you one thing. If you go much further you will meet trouble coming the other way.’
    That throb in Joshua’s skull was never far from his awareness. ‘
What’s
coming?’
    ‘Even I don’t know. Not yet.’
    ‘It’s caused the migration of the trolls and the other humanoids, hasn’t it?’
    ‘So you know about that? I guess you could hardly miss it.’
    ‘Lobsang and I think we need to pursue this. Find out what’s causing it.’
    ‘What, and save the world?’
    Joshua was getting used to her mockery. She was resolutely unimpressed by Lobsang’s treasure-ship dirigible, and by his grandiose talk and dreams, as well, it seemed, as by Joshua’s own reputation. ‘So why have you come back to us? To laugh at us, or to help us? Or because of what we can do for you?’
    ‘Among other things. It will keep.’ She stood up. ‘Goodnight, Joshua. Have Jeeves make up another stateroom, please. One that is not right next to yours, preferably. Oh, don’t look so alarmed, your honour is safe. It’s just that I snore, you see …’

37
    THE SHIP STEPPED all through the night, and, for once, Joshua thought he could feel every step. He sagged into something like sleep just before dawn, and got maybe an hour before Sally hammered on his door.
    ‘Show a leg, sailor boy.’
    He groaned. ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Last night I gave Lobsang some coordinates to aim for. We’ve arrived.’
    Once decent, Joshua hurried down to the observation deck. The ship was motionless. They weren’t far from the Pacific coast in this version of Washington State. And below, far, far into the deep Long Earth, far beyond the consensus on where the colonizing wavefront might yet have reached, was a township, where no township had a right to be. Joshua just stared. It sprawled along the bank of a reasonably sized river, with a clutter of buildings, tracks threading through a thick, damp forest. But there were no fields, as far as he could see, no sign of agriculture. There were people everywhere, doing what people always did when there was an airship overhead, which was to point upwards and chatter excitedly. But without farms, how could they live in such a densely populated community?
    Meanwhile, by the river, there were familiar hulking forms … Not quite human. Not quite animal.
    ‘Trolls.’
    She glanced at him, surprised. ‘That’s what they’re called out here. As you know, evidently.’
    ‘As Lobsang knew before we set off.’
    ‘I suppose I should be impressed. You’ve met them, have you? Joshua, if you want to understand the trolls, if you want to understand the Long Earth, you need to understand this place. That’s why I’ve brought you here.
    ‘Orientation, Joshua. If this was the Datum we would be hovering over a township called Humptulips, in Grays Harbor County. We’re not so far from the Pacific coast. Of course the details of the landscape differ, the track of the river. I hope they’ve got the clam chowder boiling.’
    ‘Clam chowder? You know this place that well?’
    ‘Of course I do.’
    In her way, she could be as irritatingly smug as Lobsang.
    The airship came down over a broad dirt square at the heart of the township. The buildings scattered around the square struck Joshua immediately as
old
, of weathered wood, some on eroded-looking stone bases. He had an immediate sense that this township, of maybe a couple of hundred people, had been here long before Step Day. The square itself was dominated by a stout communal wooden building that Sally said was known simply as ‘City Hall’, and she led the way there. Inside, the building, constructed on a frame of impressive cedar beams, had a high ceiling, polished wooden floors and furniture, glassless windows at eye-level, and large doors at either end. The fire pit in the centre added a decent enough glow.
    Lobsang had descended with them, his ambulant unit clothed in saffron robes for the occasion. Despite his 1980s body-builder bulk, he had never looked more Tibetan. And he seemed oddly self-conscious – as well he might, because the hall was full of staring, smiling townsfolk, and
trolls
, mixing with the people as