The Long Utopia

‘Fine. North, or south?’

‘South. I still believe the main action must be at the equator …’

Under Joshua’s guidance the Shillelagh turned its battered nose south, and the turbines once more bit into the air.

28

ONCE THE GREAT New York viaduct had passed beyond the horizon, there was no more sign of the silver beetles. Not for mile after mile, hour after hour.

Heading steadily south, they tracked the eastern coast of North America, which, as far as Joshua could tell from maps downloaded into Lobsang’s tablets, more or less matched the geography of the Datum – minus the people, and plus a choking blanket of forest that in most places extended all the way to the sea. Lobsang claimed that in places he could see the forest colonizing the sea itself, with trees rooted in the tidal areas, like banyans. Inland too the character of the forest gradually changed. In the increasing warmth as they headed south, Joshua thought the forests looked lusher, richer, a more vibrant green, perhaps.

But they could see more evidence of disruption, more damage done by storms and freak waves. Even out to sea they peered down on the wave-smashed ruin of a coral reef.

For a late lunch, Joshua rustled up more clam chowder and served it with bread.

‘You know, Lobsang, I’ve been with you over a week now and I still can’t get over the fact that you faked your death. I always suspected you weren’t entirely gone, but still … Even by the standards of your bizarro life, that’s quite a stunt.’

‘I didn’t mean to deceive anyone. Especially not my friends. But it was not all artifice, not a simple lie. The aftermath of the confrontation with the Next was like a death to me. I, who had always regarded myself as the custodian of humanity, was ignored.’

Joshua gri

‘Joshua, I’m trying to describe my deepest existential crisis. Perhaps we could discuss Star Trek some other time.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I had a breakdown, Joshua. In a sense I did die, or part of me. And the surviving piece has become a pioneer. A farmer. Once I tried to apprehend the problems of all mankind. Now I am immersed in the particular. Or I was.’ Lobsang sighed. ‘And yet here I am. Agnes, my anchor, had me face up to my wider responsibilities.’

‘And Sally Linsay.’

Lobsang looked at him sharply. ‘Sally? What about her?’

‘I talked this over with Agnes. Lobsang, you keep talking about coincidences, or the lack of them. Isn’t it a coincidence that this crisis with the beetles has blown up slap bang in the world you happen to be homesteading?’

‘I have wondered about that …’

‘She set you up.’

‘Who?’

‘Sally, of course. You say you went to her for advice on a suitable world. And she brought you out here?’

‘That’s so.’

Joshua laughed. ‘She knew there were problems here. Or she guessed it; her intuition about the Long Earth is pretty powerful. Remember how we first met her?’ It had been on their first jaunt together into the deep Long Earth – on The Journey, as fanboy types now referred to it. ‘There we were drifting through the High Meggers for the very first time, two bozos in a leaky prototype airship – and she’d already gotten wind of the crisis First Person Singular had caused, that massive stepwise disruption, and she was waiting for us. And now she’s got hold of you and Agnes and dropped you right on top of this latest drama. That’s why the world is blowing up under you, Lobsang. Sally made sure you were here when it did.’

Lobsang seemed angry. ‘If that’s true she should have consulted me.’

‘Would you have gone to New Springfield if she had? You’ve just been telling me about your breakdown, about your need to escape. This was the only way she could swing it.’

Lobsang was silent, frozen.

Joshua sighed. ‘You never guessed, did you? For all your world-spa

‘Oh, I will,’ said Lobsang stonily.

Joshua looked back with a grin. ‘Poor old Lobsang. You want me to gather a few laurel leaves? It wouldn’t hurt—’

‘Go take your run, Valienté.’

29

WHEN AGNES WALKED slowly up the trail back to her homestead on Ma

Agnes smiled warily. Marina didn’t smile back, and Agnes might have expected that. This morning, with George/Lobsang away, Marina had agreed to watch Ben for a couple of hours. But the business of the Poulson house and Nikos had created some tension between the families. It was often this way, in Agnes’s experience, when you had to speak to parents about their children.

It took a moment for Agnes to register that the expression on Marina’s face was more serious than that.

She hurried forward. ‘Is something wrong? Is it Ben?’

‘No,’ Marina said quickly. ‘Not Ben. He’s fine, he’s napping. It’s your cat, I’m afraid. It’s Shi-mi.’

Agnes checked Ben, who was sleeping peacefully.

Then she looked for Shi-mi.

The cat was lying by the hearth. When Agnes arrived, Shi-mi tried to lift her head, but dropped back. ‘Agnes,’ she said, softly, scratchily. ‘I couldn’t reach my litter. I made a mess. I do apologize.’

Agnes ruffled the fur above Shi-mi’s eyes. ‘A quite convincing mess too.’

‘My decline was sudden. An abrupt shut-down. I imagine the process is realistic. Marina was very kind, but there was nothing she could do. I hope she is not distressed … Agnes?’

‘I’m here, sweetheart.’ The cat shuddered and yowled, and Agnes stroked her until she was still. ‘We still have choices, Shi-mi. You know that. We can take you to the gondola, the workshop—’

‘No. This is my place. I have lived here, these last years, as a true cat. People accept me. The mice fear me. I disdain the dogs. It is right that I, I … I-I-I-I—’

The sudden judder in her voice was mechanical, profoundly disturbing, an intrusion of artificiality – or in fact of reality, Agnes supposed. But she stroked Shi-mi’s side until she was calm again.

Shi-mi said now, ‘Agnes, say goodbye to Joshua for me. And Lobsang. And make sure you tell Maggie Kauffman what became of me. Tell her I expect Mac to crack a bottle of single malt – Auld Lang Syne, not the cheap stuff – in memory of a flea-bucket.’

‘I will. You have always been a good friend, Shi-mi.’

‘I am Ben’s cat now. That’s all I ever wanted to be, I’ve discovered. And I, I …’ Her voice tailed off into a soft, quite convincing purr. Then, as Agnes stroked her, she shuddered once, and her eyes opened wide, and their soft green LED light faded to dark.

30

THE NEXT TIME he called a halt, Lobsang stopped the twain dead, in the middle of the night, without warning. In the pitch dark, as the engines shut down, Joshua woke immediately.

In shorts and a T-shirt he rolled out of bed, pushed out through the partition into the body of the gondola, and stumbled into the co-pilot’s seat, beside Lobsang. A dashboard clock showed two a.m. The only internal light came from the control tablets, which underlit Lobsang’s face as he peered through the window. Outside, the moon, more than half full, was bright.

It was obvious why they had stopped.

Under the prow, looking south, Joshua saw ocean to his left-hand side, waves glistening like mercury in the moonlight. To the right lay land cloaked with forest green. And spa