The Long War

I think we’d lost our moral bearings. Your actions helped us find them again.’ He grinned. ‘And now, on to the stars! We’re already talking about probes to Mars, even a manned jaunt. And some neat visuals . . .’
    He began to speak of something called a planetary alignment, occurring this very day: lots of Earth’s sister worlds were lining up in one part of the sky, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, even the crescent moon. ‘Of course it’s visible from all the worlds of the Long Earth. But we’re taking the opportunity to throw over probes, to get decent images – to showcase the possibilities of the Gap, you see.’
    Joshua said, ‘You’ll probably scare everybody to death. Aren’t they saying this line-up is astrologically ominous?’
    Helen pulled his sleeve. ‘Don’t tease the man.’
    Sally snorted. ‘But it’s not as good from the Gap. You haven’t got a moon!’
    ‘ In the way ,’ Frank said smoothly, good humoured. ‘We don’t have a moon in the way. All the better for seeing the real spectacle . . .’
    The noise, the clamour, became too much for Jansson, all at once. The words being spoken around her seemed to dissolve into a jabber. She dropped her head and put her hands to her ears.
    Frank Wood put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Here, let’s get you out of this.’
    Agnes was immediately at her side too. She smiled into Jansson’s face, took her arm, nodded to Sisters Georgina and John, and walked her and Frank away from the clamour. ‘Come on,’ Agnes said. ‘Let’s get some air. Then I’ll call you a buggy – we have golf carts here – and get you back to your summer house for a break. How’s that?’
    ‘You’re very kind.’
    ‘I remember how it was to be ill, frankly. Lobsang didn’t clean that out of my head, at least.’
    They were heading towards the greater band of trolls down by the river. As they went about their business, eating, grooming, splashing in the water, flickering between the worlds, the trolls sang another gentle melody. A few humans stood by, clapping along, trying to join in.
    Despite all the people present, Jansson felt a kind of peace emanating from the contented troll band. ‘That’s another lovely song.’
    Agnes squeezed her arm. ‘“All My Trials”. Outside of the Steinman canon, one of my own favourites since childhood.’
    ‘Oh, yes. And how appropriate for me. Soon be over . . .’
    Agnes squeezed her arm. ‘That’s enough of that.’
    They had come to a bluff of higher ground, a shallow rise which Jansson climbed painfully, and here they paused. They looked out over the unspoiled lakes of this world, the sun hanging calmly in the blue sky, the young, still-small city rising on the isthmus – a ghost of Datum Madison.
    Agnes said, ‘I used to come up here when I was ill. Look at all this. The wider world that frames us all. The heavens, governed by their own eternal laws, the same on every world. Like Frank’s alignment of planets, right? And the simple things, the play of sunlight on water, a universal across the Long Earth. That’s where I found solace, Monica.’
    ‘But when you’ve been out there , it all seems so fragile,’ Jansson said. ‘Contingent. It might not have been this way. It might not be this way tomorrow.’
    ‘Yes,’ Agnes said thoughtfully. ‘And being close to Lobsang – well, I feel I see the world through his eyes, to some extent. The way he regards people – even his closest associates and friends, Joshua, Sally, that nice cleric Nelson Azikiwe, no doubt others – even me . . . He calls us “valuable long-term investments”. I sometimes think he, or maybe his paymaster Douglas Black, is positioning us all like pieces on a chessboard, ready for the game to begin.’
    ‘But what is the game?’
    ‘No doubt we’ll find out. Now, where’s that buggy?’
    There was a commotion behind them, raised voices. Reluctantly, Jansson, Agnes and Frank turned to look.
    An airship had materialized, right above Lobsang’s position. Lobsang himself seemed to freeze – no, Jansson thought, he had gone from his ambulant unit, gone in an instant, she could tell from his posture.
    All around the grassy sward people’s phones started to chime, and were pulled from pockets and purses. Soon the stepping started, people being simply deleted from the scene.
    And Jansson heard two words on all their lips. The first, Yellowstone . The second, Datum .
    Frank said grimly, ‘Maybe Joshua was