The Long War

They passed more unprecedented milestones: ten million, twelve, fifteen million steps. Now they were crossing an extraordinary span of the Long Earth, of this great probability tree whose twigs and leaves were whole clusters of worlds; now they were reaching branches of that tree with a very deep divergence from those that led to an Earth anything like the Datum. It became impossible for the crews of the airships Zheng He and Liu Yang even to rely on breathable atmospheres in the worlds they visited. The oxygen levels fluctuated significantly, from, rarely, concentrations so high that spontaneous combustion, even of wet vegetation, must have been a hazard to unwary visitors, to, more often, worlds where the oxygen level was no more than a trace, and the land on the backs of the dancing continents was much less green. A more subtle danger, Roberta learned, was too high a concentration of carbon dioxide, ultimately lethal for humans.

And life had less of a grip on many of these Earths. They found whole bands of worlds where the land was bare altogether, where its colonization by plants from the sea had apparently never happened, let alone its later ‘conquest’ by wheezing lungfish. All but featureless, all but identical, these drab worlds passed, day after day, unchanging even at the airships’ tremendous stepwise speed.

Drab or not, Roberta for one was fascinated by the evolving panoramas of land, sea and sky she glimpsed through the windows of the observation deck, and intrigued by the closer-up glimpses of the worlds they stopped at to sample in more detail – not that she was allowed down to the surface on these hazardous worlds. Yet something in her, something weak and to be despised, recoiled from the bombardment of strangeness. After all, from here, even the whole of the Ice Belt, the band of periodically glaciated worlds of which the Datum seemed to be a reasonably typical member, seemed very small, very narrow, and very far away, spanning much less than one per cent of the monumental distance they had already travelled.

She spent more time alone in her cabin, trying to integrate the sheer flood of data hitting her. Or she would sit with the trolls on the observation deck, listening to their crooning, even though this kept the rest of the crew away from her – even Lieutenant Wu Yue-Sai, though not the loyal Jacques Montecute.

For his part, Jacques watched Roberta uncomfortably. He even felt a stab of guilt; this expedition might be too much for her after all. The horror of the Long Earth, in the end: Roberta was just fifteen years old, and the very scale of it might overwhelm one so young, no matter how smart.

On July 6, 2040, the Chinese ships reached their nominal target of Earth East 20,000,000 – a world which turned out to be unprepossessing, barren, ordinary. They planted a stone cairn with a plaque, took a few photographs, and prepared to turn back.

Captain Chen assembled his senior crew and guests on the observation deck of the Zheng He, for a party to celebrate the moment. The trolls sang a new song, playfully taught them by Jacques – ‘China Girl’. Chen even broke out the alcohol, for once. But Jacques advised Roberta not to make this the day she first tried champagne. Without regret, she stuck to her orange juice.

Lieutenant Wu Yue-Sai, in full dress uniform, neat and pretty, linked arms with Roberta. ‘I am so happy to have achieved so much, with you, my partner in discovery.’

Captain Chen strutted over. ‘Indeed. And no doubt we will learn even more during our long return journey to the Datum. So many worlds to revisit and sample. Twenty million of them!’

Roberta considered that carefully. ‘I feel my time would be better spent integrating the data I have already accumulated.’

‘“Integrating the accumulated data”! Is that all you wish to do?’ Captain Chen walked up to Roberta, looked up into her face.

He was an impulsive, somewhat childish man, Jacques judged, and evidently he was angered by Roberta’s humourlessness, her failure to laugh at his jokes, perceiving that his moment of triumph had been spoiled.

‘Clever child, clever child. But what a pompous creature you are. Clever, yes. But do you believe you are better than us mere mortals? Homo superior – is that what you understand yourself to be? Must we make way for you?’

She did not reply.

Chen reached up and wiped a thumb over her cheek; it came away moist. ‘And if it is so, why are you crying?’

Roberta fled.

She didn’t come down to the observation deck the whole of the next day.

A little before midnight, as he was preparing for sleep himself, Jacques went to her cabin door and knocked. ‘Roberta?’

No reply. He listened for a while, and heard the sound of sobbing. Captain Chen had discreetly given Jacques a pass key in case of emergency. Now he swiped the card and opened the door.