The Long Utopia

‘That crook!’

‘I didn’t vote for him.’

‘The President says that the whole of the extended stepwise nation is with you at this difficult time. We only want to help you—’

‘Then shift that ship and quit blocking the light on my beets!’

More laughter.

Lobsang leaned over to Agnes. ‘Ironically, it’s obvious why they’re so crabby.’

‘Of course it is. Nobody’s getting any decent sleep.’

And they hadn’t for a long time. In the months since Lobsang’s airship jaunt to the south with Joshua, things had worsened dramatically. The length of a day was now down, incredibly, to just twenty hours. Not only that, according to Lobsang who was now measuring such things for himself, the spin-up of the world seemed to be accelerating further.

The nights went by too fast, and it was as if they were all permanently sleep-deprived, or jet-lagged. Of course you could just step away to the neighbouring worlds if you sought a normal day-night sequence – worlds where, bizarrely, sunrise and sunset were drifting out of synch with the home world. But, Agnes had seen it for herself, the more the day here shrank in length, the more people came back to their homes, night after night, as if defying reality, and their own weakness.

‘Stubbor

‘True, perhaps. And this world is the one the founders chose – this is where they have the bulk of their iron tools, for one thing, even if they were drawn here to an ore seam the beetles’ actions may have created. Why should they give all that up? But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t listen to the advice of the Captain here and his crew. I mean, they did bring a properly equipped science team.’

‘But the Navy wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t called them in, Lobsang.’

‘Somebody had to. I’m concerned, Agnes. Not just for us, not just for this town …’

Agnes glanced down at Ben, who was trying to work a handmade wooden yoyo. He wore a beetle-silver bangle on his wrist, as did most of the kids in this town. And he looked tired, snappy, irritable, just like the rest. She grabbed Lobsang’s hand, synthetic flesh on synthetic flesh, but it felt like a human contact, warm, strong. ‘Look, Lobsang, Oliver Irwin is the mayor of this dump, in all but name. You played your part; you brought in the Navy. Now let Oliver do the talking. Let these others sort it out. Don’t be Lobsang. Be George. Be ordinary. Be Ben’s dad. That’s why we came here, remember. It’s best if everybody figures this out for themselves – makes their own decision about their lives, rather than have you make it for them.’

He took a deep breath, ‘I’ll try, Agnes. I will try.’

Captain Boss, visibly frustrated by his reception, yielded the floor to one of his officers, a woman, late forties, slim, dark, crisp-looking.

‘My name’s Margarita Jha. Commander, USN. I’m the chief science officer on this vessel, the Cowley. As the Captain indicated we have on board a slew of specialists, civilian and military, come to study the strange phenomena that are afflicting your world here. Their team leader is Dr Ken Bowring of the US Geological Survey, whose speciality is seismology. We also have meteorologists, oceanographers, you name it. We even have an anthropologist with an attachment to the SETI Institute, that’s the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, come to study your, ah, unwelcome neighbours …’

Jha spoke well and fluently, and was listened to politely in return. She had an air of command her captain rather lacked, Agnes thought.

‘But,’ Jha said, ‘my own specialty is biology. That’s where I started. And as a biologist I have to tell you that, unfortunately for you, and your kids, your animals, your crops – indeed, for all the living things native to this particular stepwise Earth – now that the spin-up has reached a period of twenty hours or so, we’ve passed a fundamental limit.

‘You can’t adapt to a day of that length, or shorter, and nor can other living things. Experiments co

‘Folks, it’s not just your lives that have been disrupted. We’re talking about a peculiar kind of extinction event on this world. And it’s your great misfortune that your township has been caught up in it.’

Captain Boss stepped forward. ‘Thank you, Commander. Admirably clear. Any questions?’

Oliver Irwin was still standing. He glanced around at his neighbours. ‘I’m sure I can speak for all of us. What are we going to do about this, Captain?’ He looked up at the military airship. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘Well,’ Boss said, ‘in the long term we intend to continue to study this phenomenon, or this group of related phenomena, as best we can. But in the short term we’re going to have to lift you off this rock, and take you, your children, and all your goods, somewhere safe. I know you have stepwise lodges, but I understand this particular world was the centre, for you. We’ll take you wherever you want to go.’ He added with a forced smile, ‘Look, we won’t leave anyone behind. Your pets – even your farm animals will be saved. The twain is a big ship.’

Oliver stiffened, and the townsfolk muttered.

Agnes groaned. ‘That young man just does not get it.’

Oliver Irwin said, ‘Sir – Captain Boss – let me tell you this. This isn’t a “rock”. Or a “centre”. This is our home. And when I ask you what you’re going to do about it, I don’t want to hear you say we need to run and hide.’ A rumble of approval from his neighbours. ‘We’re not quitters. We’re Americans. We’re pioneers. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re going to stay here. And if you can’t help us,’ to yells of approval, ‘then please do what Al Todd asked you to do, and get that big ship of yours out of the light of his beets.’

‘Darn right!’

‘Well said, Oliver.’

Boss looked helplessly at Jha.

The science officer stepped forward again. ‘We do sympathize, sir. Really. The US Navy isn’t fond of quitting either. But we don’t even know what we’re dealing with here—’

‘It’s those darn silver beetles,’ said Angie Clayton. ‘That’s obvious enough.’

Boss said, ‘But we hardly know anything about them. You know that we’ve taken the Cowley on a tour. We spa