The Long War

Occasionally they passed over relics of what used to be an old trekking trail, like the one Helen’s family followed to get out to Reboot, on Earth West 101,754: information flags or warning posts, abandoned halfway houses. Thanks to the twains the days of pioneer trekking, of footslogging across a hundred thousand worlds, were gone, a phase of history that had only lasted a few years but was already passing into legend. Helen wondered what the likes of Captain Batson, who had led her particular trek, were doing now. Yet the trails were still in use, by gangs of humans driving troll bands one direction or the other across the Long Earth. Helen could never tell if the trolls were singing, or not.

These sights were mostly just glimpses, gone in a second or two as they travelled on.

17

TEN YEARS AFTER the epic journey of Joshua Valienté and Lobsang, twain technology, offered as open source by the Black Corporation, had become the standard way of moving groups of people and large cargoes around the Long Earth. But, Jacques Montecute reflected gleefully as he prepared for his mission into deep stepwise China, some twain journeys were more spectacular than others.

This particular journey, with Roberta Golding, was to begin from Datum China. Once the rather lengthy preliminaries were complete, the sister ships Zheng He and Liu Yang lifted into the dome of smog that hung over Xiangcheng, Henan province. Standing in the Zheng He gondola’s main observation lounge, Jacques was able to look up through the window to see the ship’s great silvery hull overhead, the skin flexing like the hide of some muscular animal, as the twain began, literally, to swim through the air. The ship’s mobile hull would have been a remarkable sight even if it hadn’t been adorned with the clasped-hands symbol of the eight-year-old Federated Republic of China.

They soon left the airfield behind, and drifted over the factories and car parks and rubbish tips of a grimy industrial zone. Roberta Golding, Jacques’s charge, fifteen years old, stood by the big floor-to-ceiling windows, impassively inspecting the landscape drifting below.

And a dozen trolls, here in the observation lounge, began to sing ‘Slow Boat to China’, the song strung out into a round and layered with harmony like honey piled on a piece of toast, in the trolls’ usual fashion.

Around Jacques a scattered handful of crew, along with a few more informally dressed types who looked like scientists, glanced out of the windows and laughed at jokes Jacques couldn’t catch, and couldn’t have translated if he had. Jacques and Roberta, from Happy Landings, were used to having trolls around. But some of the crew stared at the trolls, as if they were an utterly unfamiliar sight. Jacques noticed one crewman close to the big animals wearing a conspicuous weapon of some kind at his hip, as if they might be about to go on the rampage.

A uniformed young Chinese, a woman, evidently a crew member, offered Jacques and Roberta drinks: fruit juice, water. Jacques took a water and sipped it. ‘Thanks.’

‘It is my pleasure.’

‘Nice choice of song.’

‘We thought it was an amusing choice to welcome you,’ she said brightly. ‘We being the crew. For this is a fast boat

from China, you see.’ She proffered a hand for a strong shake. Dark haired, sensible looking rather than attractive, she might have been twenty-five years old. ‘I am Lieutenant Wu Yue-Sai. A Federal Army officer, but attached to the China National Space Administration.’

‘Ah. Which is running this East Twenty Million project.’

‘Exactly. You can see the logic. Our space engineers are trained to handle advanced technology in unfamiliar and extreme environments. Who better to confront the mysteries of the far East worlds? I however trained as a pilot. I have ambitions to become an astronaut, some day. For now I have been assigned an informal role as companion to your protégée, Ms. Roberta Golding. If that is acceptable to you, and indeed to Ms. Golding. You will call me Yue-Sai, I hope.’

‘And she’ll want you to call her Roberta, I’m sure.’

‘Perhaps she has informal names. Robbie, Bobbie . . .’

Jacques glanced at Roberta, who was solemnly sipping her orange juice. ‘Roberta,’ he said firmly. ‘What do you mean – what kind of companion?’

‘I am relatively close to her in age. Of course I am the same sex. I have enjoyed a broad education, in philosophy and the humanities as well as science and engineering, just as Ms.—as Roberta has.’

‘Well, Roberta’s basically self-taught.’

‘My primary duty is to ensure her safety, whenever we leave the ship. During ground excursions and so forth. No doubt we will encounter many hazardous incidents.’

‘That’s a thoughtful gesture.’

‘It is my honour. I have been studying English especially. As have many of the crew, including the Captain.’

‘I can tell. Thank you. We’ll make a good team.’