The Long War

Sound.
    All of which was whipped away as they began to step, to be replaced by the increasingly sparse facilities of SeaTac West 1 and 2 and 3, with their ribbons of road and rail tracks and small settlements cut into the enduring forest, each world glimpsed in the space of a heartbeat – until soon, after only a very few worlds, there was barely a sign of mankind at all, only the forest and the Sound, and the Cascades piled up in the distance. The ship rose steadily as it stepped, and Bill directed it laterally towards the mountains, which persisted more or less unchanged as they passed through the worlds. The sky flickered, though; the weather was never unchanging from Earth to Earth, and on this June day they passed from sun to cloud to showers.
    In the first few worlds there was nothing much to see but tree tops. Joshua knew there were bears down there in those forests, and beavers, and wolves. And people too, although further out than the Low Earths there was only a long but thinning tail of colonization. More rats than people, probably, now that the twains with their roomy holds and cargoes of foodstuffs flew so thick. What else was down there was guesswork. There was a programme to map the Low Earths from orbit, with small fleets of pole-to-pole satellites that would fly over a turning world, inspecting its continents, oceans and icecaps with cameras, ground-penetrating radar, infrared and other sensors, before stepping on to the next world, and the next . . . Even such coarse imagery, which would show few details smaller than a reasonably sized car, was only available for a hundred or so of the lowest worlds. Further out than that, save for particular worlds which had been subject to closer study, nobody knew, really.
    They were climbing the flank of Mount Rainier itself by the time they hit the first Ice Age world. For a few seconds they rode high over the crumpled white sheets that coated the ground. And then back to the endless forest green.
    Joshua sat back, watching the scenery blankly. Already he missed his family. He wondered how he was going to pass the time.
    ‘Bill?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Just checking. How is everything?’
    ‘Cracker.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘I just need to concentrate on the piloting. Not my usual occupation, but the Black Corporation lads gave me a decent run-through. It’s simple enough . . . But not like driving a car, I’ll tell you that. Or even riding a horse. After all the ship has to be sapient, to a degree, and it’s smarter than a damn horse in fact. It’s like you have this constant dialogue with the thing. Y’know, I once rode an elephant on this farm in the African bush, a rescue sanctuary. An African elephant isn’t tamed like the Indian sort; he’s a big strong smart animal that knows where he wants to go, and if you’re lucky that might happen to be the same way you want to go. Otherwise you just have to kind of hang on. This is the same. All a bit mad, isn’t it? But we’ll get there. Wherever “there” is.’
    ‘Fair enough.’
    And that was that. It was just like the journey of the Mark Twain all those years ago – but at least this time Joshua got on better with his crewmate.
    By sunset they had sailed out of the Ice Belt, as it was called, the sheaf of sporadically glaciated worlds around the Datum, and were passing over the more arid worlds of the Mine Belt. The view got even more dull. Joshua made a meal – of field rations warmed on a single gas ring, no gourmet kitchen on this ship – and took a portion to Bill, who was camping out in the wheelhouse.
    Then he turned in, looking out through the gondola’s windows as the dying rays of midsummer sunsets glowed on the gasbag.
    The dawn brought more of the same.
    By mid-morning of the second day they had crossed into the Corn Belt, a hundred thousand steps from Datum Earth, a thick band of warmer worlds lush with forests and prairie, and now studded with human farming communities – including Reboot, at Earth West 101,754, founded by Helen and her family of trekkers, and the place where she and Joshua had married.
    Then, in the late afternoon, Joshua sensed the airship slowing. The strobing of the skies slowed, and the more or less identical landscapes below flickered gently, coming to a standstill.
    And an angry buzzing filled the air. Suddenly the gondola was dark, the light excluded by a swarm of dark heavy insectile bodies that slammed continually against the clear windows, chitinous wings