‘Who are they?’
‘What do names matter, out here? It’s what they’ve done that counts.’
‘How many?’
‘Five. All male. I think they’re related, a father with sons, or maybe cousins. A pack of them.’
‘Why don’t they just step out of there?’
‘Because I went in and smashed their Stepper boxes.’
‘Tell me why you’re here. What these guys did.’
‘Look at the place,’ she said bitterly. ‘You can figure it out for yourself.’
‘The pioneers. Just one couple?’
‘Yeah. I found a journal that the bad guys threw out the door, with other trash. They grew up on the Datum, survived Yellowstone, ended up in a Low Earth refugee camp – that’s where they met – and spent the next few years watching their parents cough their lungs up from the ash. When they were free of that they came out here, with all their parents’ savings used up on a twain delivery of the tools they needed, a few chickens, a pregnant sow. They hammered together their farmhouse, planted their crops and their flowers, raised their pigs and their chickens. She got pregnant. They always hoped others might follow, that some kind of township would grow up here.’
‘But these characters showed up first.’
‘Joshua, they’d done everything right. They had a stockade, they had a cellar as protection against stepping raids. None of it was any use, not against enough force, not against men like these who will use that force without hesitation. They might have had a chance, a window, if they’d just gunned down these guys as soon as they showed up here. But good people always hesitate. Stupid, stupid.
‘I figured out some of what happened. They killed the husband immediately. When I found the place a few days later the woman was still alive. You can imagine. She was pregnant, Joshua. I tried a raid of my own, hoping to get her out. They killed her pretty quick, hoping to get rid of a witness, I guess. And then—’
‘And then you took your position up here. And, what? You’ve contained them ever since?’
‘It will take them a while to starve. I drove off the animals in the stockade, but there’s plenty of dry store in there, salted meat. The farmsteaders were careful to guard against a bad season. And there’s a water supply, a clay pipe from the river. I haven’t been able to cut that, there’s not enough cover for me to reach it.’
‘You’re hoping that the hunger will drive them out.’
‘No. I’m hoping they’ll starve to death, and save me the trouble.’ She said this levelly, glaring down at the house. ‘Or maybe they’ll kill each other. I hear arguments sometimes. Even a gunshot, once, inside the house. They’ve been calmer since the corn liquor ran out.’
Joshua studied her. ‘You won’t kill them yourself. Right? I mean you could. You could step in there and blaze away. You could torch the house. You’ll let them die this indirect way, but—’
‘I don’t kill, Joshua. I have killed.’
He knew this about her.
She said, unprompted, ‘Sometimes it’s necessary. But it’s not a policy.’
‘Why not?’
She didn’t take her eyes off the farmhouse. ‘Because I don’t trust myself. Because once I start, I may not stop. At times I feel rage …
‘People like this, Joshua, they’re the worst of mankind. Predators. Parasites, preying on the labour of others. Consuming decent lives for the sake of a few hours’ fun. How many times have this band pulled a stunt like this before? Because, believe me, it looks to me like they’re practised at it. And they foul up the Long Earth, the way humans were doing on their own planet long before. You want to know how I found this set-up? From the trolls.’
‘What trolls? … Oh.’ He realized that he hadn’t heard a note of a troll-call, sighted a single one of the otherwise ubiquitous humanoids, since arriving in this world.
‘I go where the trolls aren’t. That’s how I know how to find trouble, humans screwing up the place even more than usual.’ She blinked, shook her head. ‘When I was on Mars I had a long talk about this, with Frank Wood, the astronaut guy – remember him? He accused me of being the conscience of the Long Earth. Not what I want to be called, but it made me think.’
‘After you told him where to shove it, no doubt.’
‘When I find something like this – I can’t stand it, Joshua. I can’t stand by and let this happen.’
‘Yet you’re reluctant to kill. Not in cold blood.’ He thought he understood. ‘And so you’re stuck, aren’t you? You’re caught between conflicting impulses – to destroy these bandits on the one hand, not to kill on the other. Just as you’re contradictory about concealment; you hide yourself away, but leave clues so you can be found. You’re like a computer program stuck in a loop. Lobsang would understand.’
‘So go get him and have him spell me on the stake-out.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve a better idea. You’ve got me to help you now. Suppose I go fetch a twain. A military ship. The US Navy is still running patrols out of their base on Datum Hawaii. The Navy isn’t what it was, but they’d bring home perps like this for justice.’
She snorted.
‘Come on, Sally. This isn’t the Old West. You’ve got a live crime scene here. You’re a witness to much of it, forensics will establish the rest. That’s your way out. You stay here, keep them kettled. I’ll go find a Long Mississippi waystation and send a message. Then I’ll come straight back, and I’ll stay with you until this is resolved. OK?’
She said nothing.
He sighed, stretched out on the rock, sipped more water. ‘Look, take your time deciding. I’m not going anywhere today, I’m bushed anyhow.’
She looked down at him with the thinly veiled contempt that had always, somehow, characterized their relationship, across nearly three decades. She said, ‘Oh, make yourself at home. Well. What shall we talk about? I know. How about you tell me what Nelson Azikiwe found out about your father?’
He squinted up at her. ‘Of course you’d know about that.’
‘You know me, Joshua. I know everything. I was there, remember. I know you went cry-babying to him about Daddy on your fiftieth, after I left you with him. Midlife-crisis cliché or what?’
‘I just wanted to know who my father was. Is that so wrong? Turned out to be a good question. It took years for Nelson to nail it down, mostly because much of it is ancient history, pre-digital. He had to go hunting in person around archives on the Datum, those that survived.’ He glanced at her. ‘He found out a lot about my family. And yours, if you want to know.’ That got her attention. ‘Nelson wouldn’t even let me help pay his expenses and stuff. I think he enjoys the hunt. Solving puzzles …’
‘Just cut to the chase, Joshua. Did you meet dear old Dad, or not?’
He sat up and faced her. ‘Yes.’
33
IT HAD BEEN earlier that year, the early spring of 2058, when Nelson Azikiwe had called Joshua from Datum London, where, he said, the last piece of the puzzle had turned up.
So Joshua went to meet him.
It wasn’t safe to just step into London any more. You couldn’t rely on ground levels; the continuing post-volcanic winter had left the city ice-choked, and thanks to clogged drains much of it was flooded. You had to come into the Datum elsewhere, and travel across geographically. As it turned out, the nearest to London Joshua could reach by a stepwise twain ride was Madrid, eight hundred miles to the south.
The Spanish capital was prospering, relatively. The shifting climate bands had turned central Spain temperate, and Madrid was now much as northern France had once been; wheat fields flourished where olive trees had grown sparsely. Most of the world’s great cities, Joshua guessed, anywhere north of here, were worse off.