The Long War (17 page)

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.

Jansson was in her fifties now, but looked older, to Joshua’s inexpert gaze. She was thinner than he remembered too, her hair greyed and cut short. And he’d noticed a line of medicines, in small white plastic bottles, on the mantelpiece over the big fireplace – and just above the mantlepiece was Joshua’s sapphire ring on its leather loop, hanging in pride of place from a picture hook on the wall. Encouraged by Helen, he’d brought the ring here with the vague intention of showing it, one of his few impressive trophies of his travels, to a few discreet friends.

On the TV, some geologist was crawling around a bubbling mud pool in a copy of Yellowstone, on some Low Earth or other. Apparently there had been similar disturbances at Datum Yellowstone and at some of its Low Earth footprints. The jokey commentator was talking about geysers failing, wildlife fleeing and such, and how it was actually
good
for business at the National Park, with people coming in to rubberneck the latest chthonic turmoil in the stepwise copies. Maybe that religious nut at the twain port had been right about the fire and brimstone at Yellowstone, even if he made the wrong interpretation.

Sally said now, ‘So this Mott guy has never pulled a stunt like this before?’

‘Not on the record, no. But a lot of the Firsters are like that nowadays. Their strategies have evolved. They soak up the propaganda, they stay quiet, under the radar, they take to carrying around stakes—’

Joshua asked, ‘Stakes?’

‘That’s their jargon for the weapon he carried. Like staking a vampire, you know? A stake of iron, for a stepper. Very hard to police. And then, out of the blue, they find themselves in some situation where they’re presented with a target of opportunity. Such as near a twain terminal, but outside the security barriers so nobody knows what he has in the bag – where this guy met you, Joshua.’

‘And recognized your face,’ Sally said dryly.

‘And – bang. He would have been aiming for your heart, by the way. Even if he missed the heart, he might have caused you problems if you tried to step away with a chunk of steel sitting in your chest.’

Sally grunted. ‘I’m hearing that there are countries on the Datum where governments are doing that kind of thing purposefully. Surgically fixing iron clips to your heart, or an artery.’

Jansson said, ‘Yeah. They call it stapling. Look, don’t worry. Mott’s still in custody; he’ll be charged. Datum law-enforcement isn’t what it was in my day, but you don’t get away with attacks like that.’

‘And nor does my wife, it seems,’ Joshua said bitterly. ‘I can’t believe they charged Helen with assault.’

‘Well, she did lay the guy out. Quite a haymaker. She’ll get off with a reprimand, it was self-defence—’

‘She’s still in custody! They took away her Stepper, won’t even give her bail. How long will we have to wait to get her out?’

‘That’s the policy now with non-residents of the Low Earths or the Datum, I’m afraid.’

Sally shook her head. ‘The Datum’s become a world full of paranoids, run by paranoids. No wonder we never come back.’

‘Well, you came back this time for a reason,’ Jansson said to Joshua. ‘Your meeting with Senator Starling, right?’

‘To talk about this issue of the trolls, yes.’ He shrugged, making his shoulder ache anew. ‘Thanks to you, Jansson – I know you opened a few doors to set that up. But now I’m doubting the wisdom of coming here at all.’

‘You have to try,’ Sally snapped. ‘We went through this back at Hell-Knows-Where.’

He said tiredly, ‘Sure. But now we’re here it’s obvious that the issue of the welfare of trolls isn’t going to be at the top of the Datum political agenda.’

Jansson nodded. ‘You may be right. But the case of Mary out at the Gap has made the news even on the Datum. It’s such an exceptional case, such obvious cruelty and injustice, in the middle of a space programme, for God’s sake. It couldn’t be higher profile, and presents an opportunity for change. Which is why I did what I could to help set up your meeting with Starling.’

Sally said, ‘Exactly. Joshua, what’s the use of your having a famous face if you don’t use it for good?’

He grunted. ‘All my “famous face” has done for me so far is get me stabbed, my wife put in custody, and my kid scared out of his wits.’

Jansson glanced out the window at Dan. ‘Oh, I think that little pioneer’s tougher than that.’

Joshua grimaced. ‘President Cowley would say he’s a little mutant.’

Jansson smiled sadly. ‘Also a sinner.’

Sally nodded. ‘Genesis 3:19. We saw the posters.’

Joshua closed his eyes, remembering Bible classes at the Home. ‘What God told Adam and Eve after the expulsion from Eden.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return
.’

‘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.’

M
ARLON
J
ACKSON,
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.

Jackson hadn’t yet said a single word. He was struggling here; he felt as if he’d been hit by some primal force. ‘Why don’t you take a seat, Mr. Valienté, and Mr.—’ he glanced at his briefing ‘– Chambers?’

At least they complied to that degree.

What
was
this Valienté? Jackson’s briefing had suggested some kind of retard with nothing more than a gift for stepping . . . He was evidently more than that. His very voice was strange, Jackson thought as he tried to size up this man, a voice which laid down words as a poker player laid down cards, with finality and decision. He seemed slow rather than fast, but relentless. As hard to stop, once he came rolling at you, as an oncoming tank.

As for the trophies on the wall, Jackson knew that the tiger head had been acquired by Starling’s grandfather who’d bought it from a dealer in Chinese aphrodisiacs, but most of the rest were the result of the Senator’s own efforts. All these trophies were a signal – Valienté was right to spot the symbolism – to inform any visitors that the Senator had an impressive and well-oiled armoury and was not shy of using it. But then, practically everybody who voted for him was a firearms enthusiast. Jim Starling was
not
a man to take any notice of latter-day eco-tards wetting their pants because they thought somebody was killing Bambi out in some dismal stepwise Earth. Which, of course, was the background to this whole business.

Anyhow this was not Jackson’s problem; he just had to get through the next hour or whatever until these guys were shown the door. ‘Coffee, gentlemen?’

Chambers said, ‘You wouldn’t have a cup of tea at all?’

Jackson made a call; the drinks arrived in a couple of minutes.

Then, to Jackson’s relief, he heard a flush from the bathroom. The door opened and the Senator came in with, fortunately, for once, everything safely stowed away.

Starling, a burly fifty-something in shirtsleeves, evidently in the middle of his working day, looked disarmingly welcoming. The colonists stood up, and looked a little less, well,
bristling
, as the Senator shook their hands. This was what Starling was good at, working people even from the first second he walked in a room.

And Jackson could see it shook Valienté up when Starling asked for his autograph, as they sat down. ‘Not for me, it’s for my niece. She’s a big fan.’

Valienté seemed to feel the need to apologize as he signed a card. ‘I didn’t vote for you. Postal votes don’t get out as far as Hell-Knows-Where.’

Starling shrugged. ‘But you’re still my constituent, according to the Aegis definition and the electoral records.’ Joshua maintained a legal address at the Home in Madison West 5. ‘And you’re in politics yourself now, right?’ He flipped through the paperwork on his desk. ‘A mayor in some pioneer-type community. How admirable.’ The Senator flopped back in his big chair and said, ‘Well, now, gentlemen, you came all the way back from your distant Earth, you came all the way in to DC, you wanted to see me urgently. So let’s get to it. I believe the issue is game preservation in the subsidiary Earths, yes?’