The Long War

63

THREE DAYS AFTER his discovery that the ring was gone, when they got to the world they had informally called the Rectangles, there was only one obvious location for Joshua to make for.

He sat silently as Bill guided the airship over an arid, crumpled landscape to a dry valley, its walls honeycombed with caves, its floor marked with those familiar rectangular formations, like field boundaries or the foundations of vanished buildings – and that one monumental stone structure, like a sawn-off pyramid.

Even from the air the place oppressed Joshua. Here, ten years ago, with Lobsang and Sally, he had found sapient life, some reptilian form. How did they know it was sapient? Only because, in a jumble of dried skeletons in a cave, a relic of some last spasm of dying, Joshua had found a finger-bone wearing that ring he’d taken away: clean gold with sapphires. So these creatures had evidently been sapients, and were just as evidently long dead, and Joshua still felt the odd, existential ache of that near miss, as if he were stranded on some island watching a ship pass, oblivious.

And, oddly, he felt an echo of that strange experience in this new time, the Long Earth without the trolls. More worlds with something missing.

‘Well, this is the site,’ he called up to Bill. ‘I kind of expected it to be swarming with trolls.’

He could almost hear Bill’s shrug. ‘And I never expected it to be that easy.’

‘I guess not.’

‘The world’s a classic arid Joker,’ Bill said. ‘According to my instruments. Drier than my gob in Lent.’

‘Take us down well away from that pile. It’s hot.’

‘Actually I thought I might make for the person on the ground down there waving to us.’

When Joshua looked away from the monument, it was obvious. Silvery emergency blankets had been spread over a rock bluff, positioned to be visible from the sky but not from the ground. And somebody was standing there in olive-green coveralls, waving both arms.

‘Good plan,’ Joshua said.

The Shillelagh descended smoothly. They both disembarked this time, with their boots on and packs on their backs – Bill was laden with a Stepper box, and Lobsang’s troll translation kit – ready to explore.

Joshua wasn’t particularly surprised at the identity of the person who had summoned them from the sky. ‘Lieutenant Jansson.’

‘Joshua.’ Jansson was thin, pale, sweating, evidently a lot more unwell than when he’d last seen her. As they walked up she sat down on an outcrop of rock, clearly exhausted from all the waving.

‘We came to the right world, then. We guessed correctly.’

‘About Ms. Linsay taking the ring? What it signified, where you were to come? Oh, yes. She complained about it being hard for her to find – the ring. “Trust that idiot to take it with him on his holidays,” was her phrase, I’m afraid. Then she hoped you wouldn’t notice its absence. And even if you did, you wouldn’t follow her here. She hoped that, she said, but she did plan for you showing up . . . You took your time to work it out, Joshua.’

Joshua shook his head. ‘You’re still a cop, retired or not. Only a cop would call Sally “Ms. Linsay”. We need to be here, Monica. We have our own mission, from Lobsang. About the trolls.’

Jansson smiled. ‘I think Sally anticipated that too. “That meddler Lobsang’s bound to get involved in this”—’

‘I know, I know.’

‘I said she planned for you to come, Joshua. Whether she wanted it or not. That’s why I’m here. She brought me over to wait for you. Call me a stalking horse. She did a complicated deal with the beagles over that.’

Joshua stared. ‘Beagles?’

‘I know. Long story. Truth be told I think they were glad to have me stashed out of their sight, I smell bad to them . . . You know, it’s been a month since we’ve been here, most of it playing for time, hoping something would turn up. Sally’s patient. The instincts of a hunter, I suppose. It’s been harder for me.

He inspected her. ‘I’m guessing you’re self-medicating.’

‘Yes, and I’m doing fine, so don’t fuss. Now, just listen, Joshua . . .’

Jansson quickly told them that Sally was twenty-six worlds further over, and what the situation was: about the kobold, about the sapient canines.

‘Finn McCool,’ Bill growled. ‘Playing both ends against the middle, I’ll be bound. The little gobshite.’

For now, Joshua took in very little of this. ‘Kind of complicated.’

‘So it is,’ said Jansson.

‘That’s what happens when Sally Linsay gets into your life . . . But, as I said, we have our own mission here. OK. Well, we’re going to leave the airship here and walk over.’

‘Fine. There’s a certain time of day when they wait for me, stepwise, to meet me when I’m ready to come back . . . Listen, do you have any coffee while we wait? I ran out days ago.’

The final step into Earth West 1,617,524 was a jolt. Though he was warned by Jansson, Joshua had expected another arid Joker, like Rectangles. But it wasn’t arid, not just here anyhow. Joshua had an immediate impression of green, of moisture, of freshness; he couldn’t help taking a deep breath.

Then he observed that the green wasn’t the usual riff on forest or prairie, but, evidently, fields, being grazed by creatures that might have been cattle but weren’t, and tended by upright figures that might have been human farmhands, but weren’t.

And then he took in the most important aspect of the landscape. The creatures standing before him, that might have been dogs, but weren’t.

There were perhaps a dozen of the upright dogs, standing in neat ranks. The central two seemed the most significant, judging by the quality of the belts they wore at their waists – belts, on dogs. From which tools of some kind hung. And weapons. A thing like a crossbow.

And a ray gun! A gaudy toy, like a prop from some old TV show. Just as Jansson had described.

Their gender was very obvious; of the central couple, one was female, the other male. The male was taller, towering, a magnificent – animal. Yet not an animal. Even as he computed the peril they were all in, part of Joshua rejoiced. Sapients – an entirely new kind – and one not extinct for millennia, like over in Rectangles.

Bill gaped. ‘I’m dreaming. I know you told us about this, Lieutenant Jansson.’ He shook his head. ‘But this is mad.’

The male turned to Bill, and pulled back his lips from a very wolf-like face, and Joshua was astonished anew when he spoke. ‘No. You a-hhre not in d-hrream.’ A dog-like growl, yet the English words were clear.

Jansson said, ‘Joshua, Bill. Let me present Li-Li. And Snowy.’

Despite Jansson’s briefing about all this, Joshua felt he was dreaming too. ‘Snowy?’

Jansson pointed to the humans. ‘Joshua Valienté. Bill Chambers, his companion. Joshua is the one Sally promised.’

‘ “Promised”?’

‘One of her schemes. Given you were bound to be coming anyhow, she spun it for her advantage. She bigged you up as an ambassador of a greater power . . .’

‘Nice of her.’

Snowy studied Joshua. ‘You are emissar-hrry of human Granddaughter-hrr.’

‘Granddaughter?’

‘He means ruler,’ Jansson said.

‘OK. Well, we don’t have a Granddaughter – umm, Snowy. Not the way you mean. But – an emissary. I guess that’s the right idea. I’m here to put things right with the trolls—’

Before he could say any more Snowy, without moving a muscle, emitted a soft growl, and two of the dogs behind him moved forward in a blur. They were on Joshua before he could react, and they pinned his arms to his sides.

Joshua fought an instinct to step away. ‘Hey. What are you doing?’

Snowy nodded.

And Joshua was thrown forward to the ground, his face pressed to the rutted dirt of the track.

His injured shoulder ached like hell. He made himself not step out of this, not yet.

He tried to lift his head. He found himself staring into the face of the female dog. Li-Li? She was unfolding a bundle of cloth that contained small wooden pots, blades of stone and iron, needles, thread. Like a crude field medicine kit. Her eyes were wolf-like, yet oddly tender.

He asked, ‘Why – what—’

‘Sorr-hrry.’ She reached behind him, and he felt his shirt being ripped open.

Even now he forced himself not to step.

He heard Jansson, evidently distressed. ‘Joshua? I’m sorry. Sally did talk about you as an emissary. They must have planned this. We never suspected they’d treat you like this—’

He heard no more, as what felt like a very heavy fist slammed into the back of his head, smashing his face into the dirt, and the option to step vanished anyhow.

And the pain began, slicing, piercing, and he fell into oblivion.