The Long War

‘That’s it,’ Jansson said. ‘God has put us on this world, or worlds, to work. You comber types, happy to just wander around – or at least that’s how you’re painted here – are a bunch of slackers. Without work mankind can’t progress . . . and so on.’

Joshua sighed. ‘And so, pushed by such madness, we slide into war, or something.’

Jansson sipped her coffee. Joshua thought he saw her shiver, though the day wasn’t cold.

He asked gently, ‘And how are you, Monica?’

She looked up. ‘Best to stick to Lieutenant Jansson, don’t you think?’

‘You’re settled here in West 5?’

‘Well, nobody’s allowed to stay long back in Datum Madison even now. They might let you back for a while, Joshua, if you want to see it. I could pull a few strings. It’s an eerie place to see. The wildlife is flourishing. Prairie flowers sprouting in flash-burned rubble. America’s Chernobyl, they call it. It’s slowly healing, I guess.’

He said carefully, ‘And are you?’

She looked at him tiredly. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It’s leukaemia. My own stupid fault. I was too eager to go hopping back and forth to the Datum after the blast. But it’s manageable with drugs, and they’re talking about gene therapy.’

‘You always tried to put things right,’ Joshua said abruptly. ‘That’s what I always recognized in you.’

She shrugged. ‘That’s a cop’s job.’

‘But you took it a bit further than most. I always responded to that.’ He reached over, wincing as his shoulder ached, and touched her hand. ‘Just don’t give up yet. OK?’

Sally stood up impatiently. ‘If you two are going to get all mushy on me I’m out of here.’

Joshua turned. ‘You’re not going already?’

She winked. ‘I always have chores, Joshua. You know me. I’ll be back. So long, Lieutenant Jansson.’ And she disappeared with a soft pop.

Jansson raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ll make some more coffee.’

24

MARLON JACKSON, Senator Starling’s aide, was determined to take the meeting with this bizarre Valienté pioneer-type character on the chin.

Jim Starling was mostly manageable, in Jackson’s experience. Regrettably the Senator had a good if erratic memory, which could make him devilishly difficult to steer in the way a decent aide should be able to. But at least the Senator’s tantrums were generally short and futile, and in that the man was not unlike Jackson’s great-grandfather’s description of Lyndon B. Johnson: ‘A goddamn tornado until he ran down, and then you could get the work done.’ Jackson’s forebears had been behind-the-scenes toilers for democracy for generations.

But great-grandpa had never had to deal with modern technology. Such as a diary system into which an appointment for this Joshua Valienté had got inserted, even though everybody with access denied putting it there. Even when Jackson managed to delete the entry, it got put back again. Evidently Valienté had some kind of support; Jackson, an old hand in DC, knew the signs.

And it would

have to be someone like Valienté, who last time Jackson had seen him in person had been stonewalling a Senate board of inquiry about his spectacular but mysterious jaunt across the Long Earth, in an apparently pilotless ship. Driven by apparently covert technology, some of which was subsequently gifted by the Black Corporation to the nation, much to the silent fury of the nation’s political classes. Valienté, a walking talking symbol of the Long Earth, backed by some kind of hidden hand – Valienté, who had forced his way in here, more or less, to face a senator whose main support base despised the new colonies and everything about them. A clash of minds occurring just as the political situation vis à vis the colonies had never been trickier, what with the Valhalla declaration on top of all this crap about trolls . . .

In Jackson’s world this was a small incident, but one out of control and fraught with danger. Like a hand grenade rolling across the floor. If he just got the chance to smooth out the Senator’s more idiotic brain dumps into something that sounded like constructive dialogue, then everything would be fine. You just had to hope, in this business.

He gulped down one of his ulcer pills.

In fact Joshua Valienté and his buddy, both dressed in Bonanza-type dung-coloured pioneer gear, were a few minutes late when security finally showed them into the office. To Jackson they looked like an irruption from America’s semi-mythic past into the clutter of this mid-twenty-first-century office.

After a curt introduction, Valienté went straight on the attack. ‘Seven minutes late because of your security protocol. Are you afraid just of me, or all your voters?’ Before Jackson had a chance to respond, Valienté looked around at the hunting trophies on the office walls. ‘And what decor. Looks like they’re all either inedible or from a protected species, or both. Nice symbolism.’

His companion guffawed.