The Long Utopia

‘You’ve lost me,’ Luis admitted cheerfully. ‘Our oysters have gone extinct, by the bye. Shall I order another round?’

Burdon ignored him. ‘You haven’t lost me, “Foyle”.’ He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘You’re talking about cross-breeding our children, aren’t you? The way a man breeds his horses.’

At that word, cross-breeds, Luis saw it, all of a sudden, and forgot about the oysters. ‘My God, man. How can you conceive of such a thing?’

Hackett sneered. ‘Thank you, Lord, for blessing me with companions of such small imagination! Forget horse breeders and pigeon fanciers. Think of arranged marriages. Haven’t our own aristocracy been pairing off their sprogs for generations? Not to mention the royalty. And I know for a fact, “Smith”, that the new mercantile rich you associate with are doing exactly the same thing now, purely to keep the wealth in a closed circle of families. All I’m suggesting is – let’s do the same. For our own protection, our families’. And,’ he added more ominously, ‘to improve the blood.’

Burdon said heavily, ‘You’d better tell us exactly what you propose.’

‘Simple enough. We establish an organization – a Fund, let’s call it, to be handled anonymously by one of the better banks – no, more than one, let’s spread the risk across institutions, indeed across nations – umm, “Mr Boyd”, you may be able to handle the American end. Now let’s suppose you have a grandson of marriageable age, “Smith”.’

‘Actually I do have a grandson.’

‘Good. While you, “Boyd”, might have a spare granddaughter of similar age. The Fund keeps a list of our families and others, the births and deaths and so forth – all quite above board, with operatives who have no idea of the true purpose. But when two eligible candidates pop up in the fullness of time, they are – approached.’

Burdon said, ‘Approached?’

‘It might work this way. Letters arrive, from a nominated bank. A meeting is arranged between the two youngsters. Each is told that if they would consider a liaison, then a gift would be available – call it a grant. We’d have to consider the wording; the only stipulation would be the birth of a sprog, of course, which is the point of the exercise. Perhaps there would be a sweetener to make the meeting in the first place: fifty per cent of the balance might be paid up at the marriage, and a further fifty per on the occasion of the first litter. But if the youngsters don’t hit it off, they can walk away with no harm done. D’ye see? There’s no compulsion, no hardship – everybody wins, including a young couple with an unexpectedly good start in life.’

Luis grunted. ‘How much of a “good start”?’

Hackett shrugged. ‘That’s to be decided between us. A thousand pounds, perhaps.’

Luis, who had started out earning shillings in flea-pit theatres, was nothing if not careful with his money. ‘A thousand pounds? Are you mad?’

‘Certainly not,’ Hackett growled, ‘and ye needn’t pretend, either of you, that we haven’t the resources between us to establish a fund healthy enough to generate such sums through the interest paid. And it needn’t just be the three of us.’ He produced a piece of paper, tucked into the endpapers of The Time Machine. ‘I’ve done some research – well, I’ve had plenty of time to do it, and the resources, and don’t ask me how. Beyond those I contacted like you two, there is a slew of families like ours, their histories studded with Waltzers, or possibilities anyhow, like true pearls on a paste necklace.’

Luis sca

‘You need to be careful with that,’ Burdon murmured.

Hackett nodded and tucked the paper away. ‘You understand that we are strengthening the blood, increasing the chances of the faculty emerging in a given generation. Many species respond quickly to such domestication. I suspect Darwin would predict that the results ought to be visible in a very few generations. A century or so, perhaps.’

Luis said, ‘And when said cross-breeds produce a Waltzer child to order – what then? What’s to become of it? It will be in danger of just such a risk as we have faced in the course of our own lives – suspicion and persecution, especially if, despite appearances, the successors of Radcliffe are still on our elderly tails.’

Hackett nodded. ‘It’s a fair question. Initially there would need to be some way of keeping tabs, an agency on hand to advise the bewildered young parents of toddler Jimmy when he starts popping out of existence.’

‘But the need for that would fade with time, I imagine,’ Burdon said. ‘The more Waltzers there are, the more the families will know. Because Uncle Jerome or Aunt Gi

‘That’s the idea. So what do you think?’

Burdon said softly, ‘You’ve always thought big, “Foyle”. All the way back to the days of Albert and his Knights. But this is a stretch, even for you. To manipulate the generations – to try to shape the future, centuries ahead—’

Luis tried to take all this in. ‘To change the very flavour of mankind itself. What arrogance, sir!’

Hackett flared, ‘Arrogance? But what is the choice? To leave our descendants unprotected, to be picked off for their magical ability by these – others? An ability with the capacity for so much good – have you forgotten the Underground Rail Road?’ He tapped the cloth-bound cover of the novel. ‘And besides, as this tome shows us, the future will shape mankind willy-nilly if we don’t, like it or not.

‘But the oneness of humanity will be gone, it’s true. “We are living at a period of the most wonderful transition, one which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which all history points – I mean, of course, the realization of the unity of mankind.”’ He studied their faces. ‘You recognize that quote?’

‘Albert,’ Luis said. ‘I bought his Golden Precepts after his death.’

‘Well, that fine dream is bogus. The coming war with Germany, and it’s inevitable, you know, will see to that. But after the flags are folded there will be a deeper divergence than any between nations. For we, we humans, will become two kinds, at least – d’ye see? There’ll be the old sort, Radcliffe and his crew, Homo sapiens sedentarius. And then among ’em will arise the new sort, us – Homo sapiens transversus. That’s the best I can do with my schoolboy Latin; let Darwin’s successors sort it out. And in a century or two, if we do this, our new kind will flood this good Earth – and those green forest worlds into which we Waltz, I dare say. And then, who knows what the future will hold? Eh? What’s it to be? It’s that or the subjugation we saw with poor Abel on the Mississippi. Subjugation, or glory.’ He studied their faces, a very old man, determined, intent. ‘Are you with me? Are you?’

35

‘YOU CAN GUESS the rest,’ Nelson told Joshua, deep in the hidden basement of the Royal Society, both of them huddled in the cold over Luis’s handwritten journal. ‘Hackett’s programme of inbreeding worked, and very quickly.

‘Within decades there was an explosion of natural steppers in the human population. That’s what I infer from the available evidence anyhow. Surely many of those steppers disappeared into the Long Earth, lost to some accident or other – or just seeking places to hide. It would have been interesting to study Happy Landings, before it was destroyed. See if there was any upsurge in the number of drifters turning up there.’

Joshua thought back. That remote colony, ultimately the source of the genetic upgrading that resulted in the emergence of the Next, had been a kind of natural sink of steppers, a well that all the soft places led to. ‘Yeah. I do remember folk from there saying that in recent times they had come under more pressure. Too many people coming in, the ancient balance with their troll population lost. But it wasn’t the kind of place to keep proper records, was it?’