The Long War

near the prow. The infants were asleep, and most of the adults. Three or four were murmuring their way through a song about not wearing red tonight, because red was the colour that my baby wore . . . Silly, but with easy, pretty multi-part harmonies. The Chinese crew tended to keep their distance from the beasts. Or, perhaps, the trolls kept them away, subtly. But they welcomed Jacques and Roberta.
    So Jacques sat on the carpeted floor with Roberta, and they snuggled up to the warmth of the big creatures’ furry bellies. Immersed in the trolls’ strong musk, they might have been at home in Happy Landings, if not for the strange skyscapes that swept past the windows.
    ‘This is no consolation,’ Roberta murmured, hiding her face. ‘Just mindless animal warmth.’
    ‘I know,’ Jacques said. ‘But it’s all we have. Try to sleep now.’

58
    C APTAIN M AGGIE K AUFFMAN’S requested meeting with George Abrahams came to pass only a few days after her request of the cat, not particularly to her surprise. They arranged to rendezvous at a community further West, in a stepwise Texas, a town called Redemption – a location conveniently on the Franklin ’s route to Valhalla, where all the Operation Prodigal Son dirigibles were now being summoned for the showdown with the Declaration-of-Independence ‘rebels’.
    Redemption turned out to be quite a large settlement, and one of the more grown-up ones – the kind with a sawmill boasting a zero-fatality record on a billboard. Maggie was sure the locals would already have registered their township’s existence with the appropriate bureaux, and certainly would never have troubled the likes of the Benjamin Franklin . She happily ordered an R&R break for the crew, but made sure Nathan Boss had the MPs on the watch for trouble.
    And then she waited. She even interrogated the cat: ‘OK, where’s Abrahams?’
    The cat said softly, ‘You don’t find George Abrahams. Dr. Abrahams finds you.’
    After a couple of hours there came a ping from the duty officer. A car was waiting for her by the access ramp.
    It looked like a British Rolls-Royce, though curls of steam seemed to be seeping from under the hood. A man in black was standing beside an open door, with the air of a driver to the wealthy classes.
    And in the car, when she climbed in, was George Abrahams. Somehow he looked bigger than she remembered, more imposing – no, younger , she thought.
    He smiled as the car pulled away. ‘The car’s operated by the restaurant.’
    ‘What restaurant?’
    ‘You’ll see. Nice sense of style, don’t you think? Even if it is a steampunk limousine . . . Are you all right, Captain?’
    ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that you seem . . . younger.’
    Abrahams smiled, and whispered, ‘Well, it is all a façade, as we both know very well.’
    Maggie found that faintly sinister, and it triggered something of the paranoia she seemed to be developing. Before disembarking, she’d slipped a locator into her uniform pocket, and now she was glad of it. ‘I can’t believe that you intend anything like a kidnap. I must tell you that my ship—’
    ‘Don’t be melodramatic, Captain. Look, we’re nearly there. It really isn’t a very big town, is it? Well, most Long Earth communities aren’t, yet. Sometimes we forget how new all this is – that Step Day was just a generation ago.’
    She was relieved to find they were indeed pulling up at a restaurant. Inside, she was impressed by the decor: heavy on stone and massive timbers in the usual colony-world style, but still elegant. Obviously some budding entrepreneur had realized that even in the reaches of the Long Earth people sometimes wanted a touch of class.
    And the Chardonnay was excellent.
    As they sat together in a booth for two, she raised a glass, ironically. ‘So who should I be drinking to? Who are you, Mr. Abrahams? Am I having dinner with the Black Corporation?’
    ‘Actually, Captain Kauffman, the answer to your question is no – essentially. Though I do work with them and through them, I suppose – well, I told you that. I like to think of myself as working on behalf of humanity. And indeed on behalf of the troll nation, two fine species kept apart by stupidity. And that is why, Captain Kauffman, you have come to my attention, mine and that of a few others.’
    She felt angry, exposed. ‘What others? Douglas Black?’
    ‘Certainly Douglas Black. Captain, you must think of yourself as a valued long-term