The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter Page B

few spy balloons and such, aerial cameras. No sign of people, anywhere we can see.’
    ‘OK. So there’s a whole chain of these worlds, right? In two directions, East and West.’
    ‘Yes, sir. You just step from one into another, like passing down a corridor. You can go one way or another, East or West – though those are just arbitrary labels. They don’t correspond to real directions, in our world.’
    ‘No short cuts? I can’t just beam over to world two million?’
    ‘Not that anybody knows, sir.’
    ‘How many of these worlds? One, two, many? A million, a billion?’
    ‘Nobody knows that either, sir. We don’t even know how far out people have walked. It’s all –’ She waved a hand. ‘– loose around the edges. Uncontrolled.’
    ‘And every one of these worlds is a whole separate Earth, right?’
    ‘As far as we know.’
    ‘But the sun. Mars and Venus. The fucking moon. Are they the same as ours? I mean—’
    ‘Every Earth comes with its own universe, sir. And the stars are the same. The date is the same, in all the worlds. Even the time of day. The astronomers have established that with star charts; they could tell if there were a slippage of a century, or whatever.’
    ‘Star charts. Centuries. Jeez. You know, this afternoon I have to attend a conference chaired by the Governor about jurisdiction. If you commit a crime in Madison West fucking 14, do I even have the authority to arrest you?’
    Jansson nodded. Not long after Step Day had come to pass, while some people had just drifted away into the wild, others had started staking claims. You settled down, hammered in your markers, and prepared to plant your crops and raise your kids, in what looked like virgin country. But who, in reality, owned what? You could stake your claim, but would the government endorse it? Were the parallel Americas even United States territory? Well, now the administration had decided to take a position on that.
    Clichy said, ‘Word is the President is going to declare that all the stepwise Americas
are
US sovereign territory, over which US laws apply. The stepwise territories are “under the aegis of the federal government”, is the language. That will simplify things, I guess. If you can call having a beat suddenly become infinite “simple”. We’re all overstretched, all the agencies. You have the military being brought home from the war zones, Homeland dreaming up endless new ways the terrorists can get through, and meanwhile the corporations are quietly heading on out to see what there is to grab … Ah, shit. My momma told me I should have stayed in Brooklyn.
    ‘OK, listen, Officer Jansson.’ He leaned forward now, hands folded, intent. ‘I’ll tell you why I brought you in. Whatever the legal viewpoint, we’re still charged with keeping the peace in Madison. And, how lucky for us, Madison is a kind of magnet for the nutjobs over this.’
    ‘I know, sir …’
    Madison had been the source of the Stepper technology in the first place, so it was a natural hub for that reason. And Jansson, studying reports about people coming here to begin long stepwise journeys, was also beginning to wonder if there was something else about the area that attracted them. Some way stepping was
easier
here. Maybe the Long Earth was about stability. Maybe the oldest, most stable parts of the continents were the easiest places to step – just as iron had the most stable nucleus. And Madison, sitting at the heart of North America, was one of the most stable places on the planet, geologically. If she saw Joshua again, she meant to ask him.
    Clichy said, ‘So we got a special challenge. Which is why I need you, Jansson.’
    ‘I’m no kind of an expert, sir.’
    ‘But you keep functioning, right through all the
Twilight Zone
shit. Even on that first night, you kept your head clear and your mind focused on the policing priorities, while some of your esteemed colleagues were busy pissing their pants or puking up their