The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter Page A
Authors: Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter
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disturbed children how to hold a conversation and composing yet another angry letter to the bishop, with the occasional prayer thrown in the mix. Who didn’t have to work that way, every day of a busy life?
It did enable her to understand his absences, however. After all, he was steering, as he sometimes said, the narrative of the world.
At length Lobsang snapped back. He didn’t refer to whatever had distracted him, and Agnes did not enquire.
He stood up, stretching his back, wiping his hands. ‘Done – provisionally. You know, I could make this bike the safest in the world. Never skid, never put you in harm’s way . . . What do you say?’
Agnes thought that over before she answered. ‘I’m sure you could, Lobsang. And I’m very impressed, I really am. And touched. But, you see, a motorbike like my Harley doesn’t want to be completely safe. A machine like this develops what can only be called a soul, don’t you think? And you have to let that soul express itself, not hobble it. Let the metal be hot, the engine hungry . . .’
He stood, and shrugged. ‘Well, here’s your machine, complete with its hungry engine. Please drive safely – but that, Agnes, in your case, is a wish, not an expectation.’
So she carefully wheeled the Harley out of the little workshop, and guided the bike through the still-sparse rush-hour traffic of this stepwise world, until she reached open country where she could let the machine play. The wind was strong, but once you got away from the creeping industrialization of this young city – modern-day satanic mills, mostly covered by hoardings and advertisements – you were in a better world, the air cleaner, thoughts less melancholy. Over the roaring of the Harley she sang Joni Mitchell numbers, following roads like black stripes through the snow banks all the way around the frozen lakes of Madison West 5.
When she got back, Lobsang told her that Joshua Valienté had come home. ‘I need to see him,’ Lobsang said urgently.
Agnes sighed. ‘But, Lobsang, Joshua might not be so keen to see you . . .’
5
O N THE DAY OF the launch of the expedition of the Armstrong and Cernan , Capitol Square, Madison West 5, was like a movie set, thought Captain Maggie Kauffman, not without pride.
Here she was with her crew (make that crews ) at her side, drawn up in parade order before the steps of the Capitol building, under a clear blue Low-Earth January sky. The air was cold but blessedly free of the Datum’s smog and volcano ash. A presidential podium had been set up before the building’s wooden façade, a very mid-twenty-first-century image with hovering cameras and a fluttering flag, the holographic Stars and Stripes of America and its stepwise Aegis.
On the stage a few guests waited for the President himself, as he made his latest public appearance at his new capital. There was Admiral Hiram Davidson, commander of USLONGCOM, the Long Earth military command, and Maggie’s own overall superior. Beside him was Douglas Black, short, gaunt, bald as a coot and in heavy sunglasses. Black was a ‘close friend’ of the President as well as a ‘trusted adviser’, the gossip sites said. Translation: moneybags. He always seemed to show up at events like this. But that was the way of the world, as it had been long before Yellowstone, or Step Day.
Up there too was Roberta Golding, the very young, very slim, evidently very smart and now pretty famous young woman who had rocketed from internship to a place in the President’s kitchen cabinet in the space of a few years. Golding, as it happened, had once gone out with the Chinese on their own far-East expedition, as a western student on some kind of scholarship programme. She’d been only fifteen at the time, a rung in the ladder for her spectacular subsequent career. In fact Golding had worked with Maggie’s XO, Nathan Boss, advising on the planning of the new expedition to be launched today. Maggie supposed Golding had earned her
It did enable her to understand his absences, however. After all, he was steering, as he sometimes said, the narrative of the world.
At length Lobsang snapped back. He didn’t refer to whatever had distracted him, and Agnes did not enquire.
He stood up, stretching his back, wiping his hands. ‘Done – provisionally. You know, I could make this bike the safest in the world. Never skid, never put you in harm’s way . . . What do you say?’
Agnes thought that over before she answered. ‘I’m sure you could, Lobsang. And I’m very impressed, I really am. And touched. But, you see, a motorbike like my Harley doesn’t want to be completely safe. A machine like this develops what can only be called a soul, don’t you think? And you have to let that soul express itself, not hobble it. Let the metal be hot, the engine hungry . . .’
He stood, and shrugged. ‘Well, here’s your machine, complete with its hungry engine. Please drive safely – but that, Agnes, in your case, is a wish, not an expectation.’
So she carefully wheeled the Harley out of the little workshop, and guided the bike through the still-sparse rush-hour traffic of this stepwise world, until she reached open country where she could let the machine play. The wind was strong, but once you got away from the creeping industrialization of this young city – modern-day satanic mills, mostly covered by hoardings and advertisements – you were in a better world, the air cleaner, thoughts less melancholy. Over the roaring of the Harley she sang Joni Mitchell numbers, following roads like black stripes through the snow banks all the way around the frozen lakes of Madison West 5.
When she got back, Lobsang told her that Joshua Valienté had come home. ‘I need to see him,’ Lobsang said urgently.
Agnes sighed. ‘But, Lobsang, Joshua might not be so keen to see you . . .’
5
O N THE DAY OF the launch of the expedition of the Armstrong and Cernan , Capitol Square, Madison West 5, was like a movie set, thought Captain Maggie Kauffman, not without pride.
Here she was with her crew (make that crews ) at her side, drawn up in parade order before the steps of the Capitol building, under a clear blue Low-Earth January sky. The air was cold but blessedly free of the Datum’s smog and volcano ash. A presidential podium had been set up before the building’s wooden façade, a very mid-twenty-first-century image with hovering cameras and a fluttering flag, the holographic Stars and Stripes of America and its stepwise Aegis.
On the stage a few guests waited for the President himself, as he made his latest public appearance at his new capital. There was Admiral Hiram Davidson, commander of USLONGCOM, the Long Earth military command, and Maggie’s own overall superior. Beside him was Douglas Black, short, gaunt, bald as a coot and in heavy sunglasses. Black was a ‘close friend’ of the President as well as a ‘trusted adviser’, the gossip sites said. Translation: moneybags. He always seemed to show up at events like this. But that was the way of the world, as it had been long before Yellowstone, or Step Day.
Up there too was Roberta Golding, the very young, very slim, evidently very smart and now pretty famous young woman who had rocketed from internship to a place in the President’s kitchen cabinet in the space of a few years. Golding, as it happened, had once gone out with the Chinese on their own far-East expedition, as a western student on some kind of scholarship programme. She’d been only fifteen at the time, a rung in the ladder for her spectacular subsequent career. In fact Golding had worked with Maggie’s XO, Nathan Boss, advising on the planning of the new expedition to be launched today. Maggie supposed Golding had earned her
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