The Long War

Sarah Ann Coates: now Jansson remembered the face of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old, scared, self-conscious, staring out of the file she had assembled on the incidents of Step Day in Madison. Sarah, one of the Home children Joshua Valienté had rescued in those frantic hours when the doors of the Long Earth had first creaked open. “It’s nice to see you again, Sister.”

“Come this way.” Sister Agnes linked her arm through Jansson’s, and they started walking slowly towards the smoke from the grill.

“You’re a great hostess, Agnes,” Jansson said, only slightly sarcastically. “All these people here and you swoop down on me as soon as I show my face.”

“Call it a gift. But don’t repeat that to Lobsang. He keeps badgering me to have avatars made. Iterations, like him. Copies of myself running around. Imagine how much I’d get done! So he says. Imagine the arguments I’d have, me, myself and I! So I say. I don’t think so. Now then, Monica, I’ve assigned Georgina and John to look after you today, anything you need you just ask them—and any time you feel like disappearing, that’s fine too.”

Jansson suppressed a sigh. Deny it as she might, she knew she needed the help. “Thank you. I appreciate that very much.” The song of the trolls carried on the shifting, gentle breeze: the usual troll music, a human tune simply harmonized and turned into a round, with the melody line repeated and overlapping. “What is that?”

“‘The Wearing of the Green’,” Agnes said. “An old Jacobite marching song. Scottish rebels, you know. You can blame Sister Simplicity for that one. She always was one for her Scottish roots. That and prize fights on TV. It is good to have the trolls back, though, isn’t it? Of course we had to restrict the guest list today to make sure there weren’t too many people for the trolls to cope with. And Senator Starling has promised to put in an appearance later on. Suddenly a supporter of the troll cause, and suddenly he always was, if you know what I mean. Says he sings in a Sunday choir and wants to sing along with the trolls, if he can. Going to bring along a squad of Operation Prodigal Son sailors too, the USS Benjamin Franklin choir, just as a gesture of peace and harmony. Now then, let’s find Joshua for you. It won’t be hard, he’ll be close to little Dan, and Dan will be close to the food…”

Agnes had appointed Lobsang as head chef. Jansson stared, bemused, at a Tibetan monk with a greasy apron over his orange robe and a chef’s hat on his shaven head. A man she didn’t know stood beside him, tall, fifty-ish, black, in a sober charcoal suit, wearing a cleric’s collar.

Lobsang raised a greasy spatula. “Lieutenant Jansson! Good to see you.”

Agnes more or less snarled at him. “That soya burger is raw, and that quorn sausage is on fire. Less blue-skyin’ and more fat fryin’, Lobsang.”

“Yes, dear,” he said wearily.

“Don’t worry, Lobsang,” said the cleric beside Lobsang. “I’ll help. I’m a dab hand at chopping onions.”

“Thank you, Nelson…”

“Lieutenant Jansson.”

Jansson turned. Joshua Valienté stood before her, looking uncomfortable in a kind of smart-casual get-up: clean shirt, pressed jeans, leather shoes. He held his left arm to his chest, his clenched fist concealed by his shirt cuff. At his side was Helen, his wife, sturdy, pretty, cheerful. And little Dan ran past, dressed in a cut-down twain-pilot uniform, engaged in some noisy game with other kids, as oblivious of the adults and their society as if they were nothing but tall trees.

Jansson and Joshua stood there, facing each other awkwardly. Jansson felt an uncomfortable surge of emotion, having witnessed the dangers to which Joshua had exposed himself so far from home—and now seeing him like this, with his family. With Helen, looking as if she belonged nowhere but at his side. After all she’d been through with this man, Jansson didn’t know what to say.

Joshua smiled, gently. “It’s OK, Lieutenant.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Helen snapped. “Give each other a hug!”

They leaned together, and she held him tight. “With them, you’re healed,” she murmured in his ear. “Don’t leave them again. Whoever comes calling.”

“Understood, Jansson.”

And yet she knew that was a promise he could never keep. She felt a stab of heartache for Joshua, the lonely boy she had known, the lonely man he would always be.

She pulled away. “Enough. Squeeze too hard and I might break.”

“Me too.” Joshua reached forward with his left arm, revealing his artificial hand. It was a clunky, oversized creation with unconvincing pinkish skin; it whirred and whined like a movie prop when he unclenched his fingers. “Bill Chambers calls it Thing. Like the Addams Family, you know? Funny guy. He’s around somewhere, incidentally. Getting smashed with Thomas Kyangu.”

Jansson tried not to laugh. “Joshua, surely they could have done better for you than that. Prosthetics these days—”

Helen said, “He insists on wearing that horrible old antique.”

“Sooner this than one of the Black Corporation gadgets Lobsang offered me.”