The Long War

Now Joshua was flat on his back, with the crossbow gadget digging painfully into his spine. The man-wolf was on top of him, standing easily on all fours, his paws pinning Joshua’s limbs, his heavy head above him, staring down.

A scent of meat on his breath. A glimpse of a wagging tail. Snowy actually licked his face.

“This won’t hu-hrrt.”

No, it damn well wouldn’t. Joshua braced to step, to put a clean end to this.

But that hadn’t been Snowy’s voice. He glanced sideways, in sudden hope.

Not a human. Another dog: Li-Li. She said, “Granddaughter wants t-hrrophy. You want life. All can win-nnh.”

Snowy panted. “I tell G-hrranddaughte-hhr I chewed your-hrr face off. Trophy head useless-ss.”

Joshua gasped, “She won’t be happy with that.”

“So I give he-hhr another-hhr trophy.”

“What other trophy?”

“Hold still…” Li-Li bent, and closed her mouth over Joshua’s left wrist.

As the great jaws closed, severing skin and tendon and muscle and bone, Joshua screamed.

But he did not step.

67

Geographically Valhalla was near the coastline of the inland ocean of this distant America, on Earth West One Point Four Million Plus Thirteen (stoner miscount correction applied, as Ensign Toby Fox solemnly told Maggie). The dirigibles of Operation Prodigal Son arrived in this world about midday of a sparkling late July day, and hovered in a blue sky as pure as a special effect in a computer game.

Admiral Davidson briefed his captains. They were here to assert the authority of the United States over these rebels, he said, but he wanted a show of goodwill, not a shooting match. His strategy was that a detachment of marines would accompany a group of senior officers, to be nominated by the respective captains, in a march on city hall. It was to be a good-natured, hearts-and-minds kind of event. However, he added, the marines would be armed.

And when Maggie heard that Captain Cutler from the Lincoln, the idiot who’d pulled a gun on Carl, was to be put in charge of this bizarre parade, she decided to nominate herself for the march.

At the drop point they formed up, fifty personnel in all, and walked through the streets of Valhalla—through this city of Earth West one-million-plus-change, this symbolic stronghold of the rebels of the Long Earth. At Admiral Davidson’s orders the marines kept their weapons in sight but with safeties on. Meanwhile the silent dirigibles floated overhead, a menacing presence, full of watchful eyes, ready to act in a C2 role, as nodes of command and control—but, it was hoped, not as weapons platforms, not today.

And, this hot, humid noon, Valhalla was empty.

That was what they found as they walked on steadily from their mustering point. The marines stuck to the middle of wide, empty roads, with the officers walking behind, the only sounds their footsteps, and the calls of birds. There were a few abandoned vehicles in the empty streets, small hand-drawn carts. A couple of horses were tied up at a rail outside a Wild West-type saloon. There were even a couple of steam-powered cars, neatly parked up. No sign of people anywhere.

The dirigible crews reported that the picture was much the same as far as they could see from the air. Nobody at home.

Maggie walked beside Joe Mackenzie. “Is it just me, Mac, or do you feel kind of ridiculous?”

The doctor said cynically, “Well, we are military. You said it yourself; this operation can’t all be about kittens stuck up trees. We have to do some soldier-type stuff from time to time.”

“True enough.”

At least Maggie felt relatively at home in this place, which unlike most stepwise communities felt like an authentic American city, with its scale, its streetlights, a few elements of traffic control, even posters for concerts and dances and lectures and such, although these were mostly hand-lettered in a small-town kind of way. It was definitely a Long Earth settlement, though, with the buildings massive blocks of timber and sandstone and concrete, the roadways crude lanes of tar, the sidewalks compressed river-bed gravel.

Then she heard the singing.

They came to a kind of square, really just the intersection of two main drags. Here, in the shade of a shop awning, were a dozen trolls, singing some kind of song about Mohawks and tea and taxes, as far as Maggie could tell. The marines, in the van of the party, slowed to a halt and stared.

Admiral Davidson and Captain Cutler had a quick conference.

Then Cutler gave the order that they were to take a break. It was a reasonable position from the point of view of security. They were in the open here, but were overlooked by no tall buildings, and had a clear view in four directions down these empty streets. As the rest dumped their packs and fished out water bottles, Cutler posted sentries to each of the square’s four corners, and guys with Steppers were sent a world or two to either side also. It was a classic Long Earth security drill.