The Long War

As they waited for the others Joshua murmured, ‘I don’t get this. All this processing and screening – all new since the last time I came back. But what’s the point? I know there are stepwise hazards for the Datum: infectious diseases, invasive species. But all these barriers – the Long Earth is an open frontier. Here we are obediently riding in on a twain and arriving at a transport hub, but we could step back anywhere on the Datum, with a backpack full of long-horned beetles. There’s no logic.’

Sally rolled her eyes. ‘It’s all symbolism, Joshua. You never do get stuff like this, do you? This is President Cowley saying to his voters, look how I’m protecting you. Look how terrible these travellers are, what a threat they are.’ She glanced at the banks of security processing gear. ‘Also there’s a lot of federal money to be earned by the companies that manufacture gear like this. Fear generates big profits.’

‘You’re very cynical.’

‘Joshua, cynicism is the only reasonable response to the antics of humanity. Especially on the Datum.’

At last Dan, Helen and Bill came through. Dan was wide-eyed and bewildered, but not actively scared, Joshua was relieved to see. Reunited, they picked up their luggage and moved through a crowded outer hall, looking for a cab rank. Joshua noticed a feature that was new since he’d last come through a place like this: small patches of the crowded sidewalks marked off by yellow hatching, reserved as stepping areas that you otherwise tried to keep clear, so as to allow an unimpeded flow-through. Only on the Datum would you need such controls; he felt an uncomfortable claustrophobia just thinking about it.

And now another man approached them, this one in a smart-looking business suit, carrying a plastic shopping bag. Evidently they weren’t to be left alone for a minute. Aged maybe thirty, this guy had thinning hair, spectacles, and a winning smile.

He stood directly in their path, so they had to stop. Joshua thought he was probably another religious nut. Then the man said, clearly and calmly, ‘Welcome to Earth, mutants.’

And he reached into his bag.

Joshua lunged forward, putting his body between the man and his family. From the corner of his eye he saw Sally pick up Dan and step away in an instant with a pop of imploding air. And the man pulled out a blade, short, heavy, wicked. In one movement he hurled it.

The knife hit Joshua above the right breast. He was thrown back, pain flooding him.

He saw Helen charge forward and ram her fist into the man’s face. She was a midwife, and strong in the upper body; he was laid flat out. Cops and other security people came running.

For Joshua, the world greyed and fell away.

23

‘YOUR WOULD-BE killer is called Philip Mott,’ Monica Jansson said, as she poured Joshua’s coffee. ‘A junior attorney working for one of the big railroad combines. No previous record, no significant contact with the police. He’s not a phobic, as far as we know, and he’s not a home-alone – that is, never dumped by a family stepping away, a common trigger for this kind of behaviour.’

Joshua knew all about that syndrome. Helen herself was the sister of the Madison-bomb accomplice Rod Green, a home-alone gone rogue.

‘But,’ Jansson said, ‘Mott doesn’t own a Stepper box. He’s hardly ever stepped at all as far as any of his character witnesses testify. He has been running with President Cowley’s Humanity Firsters for years, some of the more rabid elements, which even Cowley now officially disowns . . .’

Joshua shifted in the sofa, which was a little too deep for him to feel comfortable. A couple of days after the attack his shoulder was healing, but was still strapped up, and was prone to deliver stabs of fresh pain if he didn’t favour it. Sally sat beside him, cradling a coffee mug, perched on the edge of her seat. As ever she looked as if she was about to bolt through the door, or out of this reality altogether. Dan, meanwhile, was outside, playing basketball with Bill, using a rusty old hoop fixed to the wall of Jansson’s house. Joshua could hear them running around in the sunshine, Dan jabbering out some imaginary commentary.

And Helen, incredibly, was in custody, on assault charges.

They were staying with Joshua’s old sparring partner, former MPD Lieutenant Monica Jansson. Jansson’s house, here on the outskirts of Madison West 5 – to which the residents of Datum Madison had been rezoned after the nuke – was typical Low Earth architecture, a massive structure of wood of a quality that would once have been impossibly expensive on the Datum. Jansson’s personal past showed in the way the place was studded with bits of high-tech gear: a widescreen TV, cellphones, a laptop.