The Long Earth

52

JOSHUA AND SALLY hurried through the last few Madisons, West 10, 9, 8… Joshua wasn’t interested in these crowded worlds; all he wanted now was to get home. 6, 5, 4… In one Low Earth they had taken the time to cross geographically, from Humptulips to Madison, flying the airship on the one engine Franklin Tallyman, boy genius of Reboot, had managed to fix up for them. 3, 2, 1… There were barriers in the last few worlds, some kind of system of warning signs; they hurried on—

Zero.

Madison was gone.

Joshua stood in shock, gasping. Sally clutched his arm. They stood in a plain of rubble. Gaunt shapes, fragments of wall sticking out of the ground. A few twisted tangles that must be the remains of reinforced-concrete structures. Dust, dry as hell, choked him immediately. The battered airship hung blindly over these ruins.

Somebody was standing before them. Some guy in a coverall suit, no, a woman, Joshua realized, seeing her face through a dusty visor.

‘We’re here to meet steppers,’ she said, her voice a relay from a speaker. ‘Get out of here. Go straight back.’

Alarmed, shocked, Joshua and Sally stepped hand in hand back to West 1, taking the airship with them. Here, in the bright sunlight, another young woman in a FEMA uniform approached them with a clipboard and data pad. She looked up at the airship, shook her head in disbelief, and said reproachfully, ‘You’re going to have to go through decon. We do post warnings in the neighbouring worlds. Hey, you can’t catch everybody. Don’t worry, you’ve broken no law. I’ll need your names and social security numbers…’ She started to peck at her pad.

Joshua began to take in the surroundings. This parallel Madison was crowded, compared with the last time he was here. Tent cities, feeding hospitals, feeding stations. A refugee camp.

Sally said bitterly, ‘Here we are in the land of plenty, with everything anybody could ever want, multiplied a million times over. Nevertheless somebody wants to start a war. What a piece of work is a man.’

‘But,’ Joshua said, ‘you can’t start a war if nobody turns up. Listen, I need to get to the Home. Or where the Home would be…’

The FEMA official’s phone rang, at her waist. She looked at the screen, seemed puzzled, and glanced at Joshua. ‘Are you Joshua Valienté?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s for you.’ She handed him the phone. ‘Go ahead, Mr Lobsang.’