The Long War

the North Koreans. An iron staple through the hearts of prisoners. So if they step away—’
    ‘Yeah. In your case it’s a cruder variant, of a type used by some warlords in central Asia, we think. Joshua, don’t sit back. There’s a kind of crossbow fixed to your back. It’s just wood and stone and sinew, but it has an iron pin. You can walk around, you understand? But if you step away—’
    ‘The pin stays behind, and boing . The bow fires, and the bolt goes straight through the heart, right? I get it.’ He began to drum the message into his own head. Don’t step. Don’t step . He felt at his chest. Under the ruin of his shirt he found a stout leather band. ‘What’s to stop me just cutting this off?’
    ‘First, that would set it off,’ Sally said. ‘And, second, they sewed the weapon to your skin. I mean it’s supported by the strap around your chest, but . . .’
    ‘They sewed it?’
    ‘Sorr-hrry, sorr-hrry,’ Li-Li said. ‘Order-hrrs . . . here.’ She brought Joshua a carved wooden mug, plain but smoothly shaped.
    It contained a lukewarm, meaty broth. He drank gratefully. He found he was hungry, thirsty. He couldn’t be that badly hurt. ‘Orders, eh?’
    ‘It’s not her fault,’ Jansson said. ‘She’s a kind of doctor, I think. She tried to do the work cleanly, competently. Gave you some kind of painkillers. If it had been left to others – Joshua, I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were going to jump you like that.’
    ‘Nothing you could have done, I suspect, Lieutenant Jansson.’
    ‘We have a plan, of sorts. Or had one before you showed up. We’ve been trying to adapt . . .’
    Sally said, ‘We’re second-guessing the motivation of non-human sapients. We weren’t expecting them to treat you like this. Maybe this is what passes for diplomacy, among beagles. Just attack the ambassador when he shows up. However the staple is our technology, after all. Humans invented this stuff to control other humans.’
    Joshua grunted, ‘So I’m learning a moral lesson. But somebody brought it here, right? And somebody had to show these dogs—’
    ‘Beagles,’ Sally said.
    ‘How to manufacture the iron components.’
    ‘That would-ss be me. Hell-llo, pathless-ss one . . .’
    Joshua looked around, more carefully, systematically. There was a row of dogs – beagles? – standing as if to attention over one of their number lying on a kind of scrap of lawn, green growing grass, like a carpet. Sally was standing before him, Jansson and Bill sitting on the floor, against one wall. And, in another corner, with a dog guard hovering over him—
    ‘Finn McCool. I’ve seen you looking better.’
    The kobold had evidently been worked over. He could barely sit up straight. His sunglasses were gone. One eye was closed, bruises showed down one side of his bare torso, and one of his ears had been bitten off ; Joshua could see the marks of teeth, a crude stitching. Still, McCool grinned. ‘It was all busines-ss. We told the beagles-ss of you, pathless-ss ones. Your ships flicker in the ss-ky of this world. You would notice beagles-ss soon. We told them, be ready. We taught them how to ss-taple the ss-teppers. We got good price-ss.’
    ‘Did you have this done to me?’
    The kobold managed to laugh. ‘Not me. But I would hav-ve, pathless-ss one.’
    Bill Chambers snarled. ‘ Pogue mahone , gobshite.’
    Joshua said, ‘So what the hell happened to you, McCool? Contractual dispute, was it?’
    ‘Or-hrrders again,’ came another voice, canine, but with a more liquid quality than the rest. Female. ‘My or-hhrders. Always my orders . . .’
    Joshua turned to the group of dogs by the podium. He recognized the tall warrior – Snowy. He still had that ray gun dangling from his Batman-type utility belt, like a prop from one of Lobsang’s old 1950s sci-fi movies, alongside crude blades of metal and stone. He stood at ease, but with an air of constant, competent alertness.
    He was watching over another, a female, the one who lounged, very dog-like, on the grass. It was she who had spoken about orders.
    Sally was studying Joshua with some sympathy, leavened by amusement at his probably obvious disorientation. ‘Classic Long Earth set-up, isn’t it, Joshua? A mash-up of three disparate sapient species – four if you count the Rectangles builders, off-stage – nurtured on separate Earths and now all mixed up together like this.’ She nodded at the reclining female dog. ‘Joshua, meet