The Long Earth

more was expected of him, Percy cleared his throat and plunged into ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’.
    The fellows listened with rapt attention until he had finished. Then they looked at one another. Eventually, as if some agreement had been reached, one of them stepped forward and sang the song back at Percy, pitch perfect.
    Private Percy listened with blank astonishment.
    And, a century later:
    The prairie was flat, green, rich, with scattered stands of oaks. The sky above was blue as generally advertised. On the horizon there was movement, like the shadow of a cloud: a vast herd of animals on the move.
    There was a kind of sigh, a breathing-out. An observer standing close enough might have felt a whisper of breeze on the skin.
    And a woman was lying on the grass.
    Her name was Maria Valienté. She wore her favourite pink angora sweater. She was only fifteen, but she was pregnant, and the baby was coming. The pain of the contractions pulsed through her skinny body. A moment ago she hadn’t known if she was more afraid of the birth, or the anger of Sister Stephanie who had taken away her monkey bracelet, all that Maria had from her mother, saying it was a sinful token.
    And now, this. Open sky where there should have been a nicotine-stained plaster ceiling. Grass and trees, where there should have been worn carpet. Everything was wrong. Where
was
here? Was this even Madison? How could she
be
here?
    But that didn’t matter. The pain washed through her again, and she felt the baby coming. There was nobody to help, not even Sister Stephanie. She closed her eyes, and screamed, and pushed.
    The baby spilled on to the grass. Maria knew enough to wait for the afterbirth. When it was done there was a warm mess between her legs, and a baby, covered in sticky, bloody stuff. It, he, opened his mouth, and let out a thin wail.
    There was a sound like thunder, from far away. A roar like you’d hear in a zoo. Like a lion.
    A lion?
Maria screamed again, this time in fear—
    The scream was cut off, as if by a switch. Maria was gone. The baby was alone.
    Alone, except for the universe. Which poured in, and spoke to him with an infinity of voices. And behind it all, a vast Silence.
    His crying settled to a gurgle. The Silence was comforting.
    There was a kind of sigh, a breathing-out. Maria was back in the green, under the blue sky. She sat up, and looked around in panic. Her face was grey; she was losing a lot of blood. But her baby was here.
    She scooped up the baby and the afterbirth – she hadn’t even tied off the cord – wrapped him up in her angora sweater, and cradled him in her arms. His little face was oddly calm. She thought she’d lost him. ‘Joshua,’ she said. ‘Your name is Joshua Valienté.’
    A soft pop, and they were gone.
    On the plain, nothing remained but a drying mess of blood and bodily fluids, and the grass, and the sky. Soon, though, the scent of blood would attract attention.
    And, long ago, on a world as close as a shadow:
    A very different version of North America cradled a huge, landlocked, saline sea. This sea teemed with microbial life. All this life served a single tremendous organism.
    And on this world, under a cloudy sky, the entirety of the turbid sea crackled with a single thought.
    I …
    This thought was followed by another.
    To what purpose?

2
    THE BENCH, BESIDE a modern-looking drinks machine, was exceedingly comfortable. Joshua Valienté was not used to softness these days. Not used to the fluffy feeling of being inside a building, where the furnishings and the carpets impose a kind of quiet on the world. Beside the luxurious bench was a pile of glossy magazines, but Joshua was not particularly good at shiny paper either. Books? Books were fine. Joshua liked books, particularly paperback books: light and easy to carry, and if you didn’t want to read them again, well, there was always a use for reasonably thin soft paper.
    Normally, when there was nothing to do, he listened to the Silence.
    The Silence was very faint here. Almost drowned out by the sounds of the mundane world. Did people in this polished building understand how noisy it was? The roar of air conditioners and computer fans, the susurration of many voices heard but not decipherable, the muffled sound of telephones followed by the sounds of people explaining that they were not in fact there but would like you to leave your name after the beep, this being subsequently followed by the beep. This was the office of the