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Authors: Terry Pratchett

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‘Pleased to meet you,' Lobsang said.

‘Good firm handshake,' Ken said approvingly. He turned to Nelson with a grin. ‘Is he alive, would you say, Rev?'

Nelson considered. ‘
He
thinks he's alive, and that's good enough for me.'

Lobsang nodded. ‘Wait here.'

He vanished.

And returned, holding the hand of a rather bewildered-looking little boy, heavily bundled up for warmth, even though the late autumn day was mild. Then the boy grinned, pulled away from Lobsang and ran forward. ‘Granddad!'

Nelson bent stiffly, holding out his arms. ‘Troy! Oh, my word . . .'

Lobsang said, ‘I told you I'd bring him home.'

‘I hope it wasn't too much trouble.'

Lobsang smiled. ‘Just a walk in the park.'

66

T
HE PRAIRIE WAS
flat, green, rich, with scattered stands of oaks. The sky above was blue as generally advertised. On the horizon there was movement, like the shadow of a cloud: a vast herd of animals on the move.

And the baby was alone.

Alone, except for the universe. Which poured in, and spoke to her with an infinity of voices. And behind it all, a vast Silence.

Her crying settled to a gurgle. The Silence was comforting.

There was a kind of sigh, a breathing-out. Joshua was back in the green, under the blue sky.

On the move, ‘down' was always the direction of Datum Earth. Down to the bustling worlds. Down to the millions of people. ‘Up' was the direction of the silent worlds and the clean air of the High Meggers.

But to Joshua Valienté, in the end, down was home.

Leaning on a stick, one prosthetic hand stiff, Joshua scooped up the baby, wrapped her up in a ragged old silver survival blanket that smelled of troll, and cradled her in his arms. Her little face was oddly calm. ‘Helen,' he said. ‘Your name is Helen Sofia Valienté.'

A soft pop, and they were gone.

On the plain, nothing remained but the grass, and the sky.

Acknowledgements

I'm grateful once again to our good friends Dr Christopher Pagel, owner of the Companion Animal Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, and his wife Juliet Pagel, for, among other things, a discussion on a happily serendipitous observation that Ellie Arroway of
Contact
appears to have been their neighbour, and an insightful reading of the text. And I'm grateful too to Professor Ian Stewart for his stimulating speculations on the peculiar forests of Earth West 230,000,000, as well as another very helpful reading. All errors and inaccuracies are of course my sole responsibility.

S.B.

December 2015, Datum Earth

About the Authors

S
IR
T
ERRY
P
RATCHETT
, OBE, was the author of more than seventy books, including the internationally bestselling Discworld series of novels. In January 2009 Pratchett was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his services to literature. Sir Terry, who lived in England, died in 2015 at the age of sixty-six.

www.terrypratchettbooks.com

S
TEPHEN
B
AXTER
is an acclaimed, multiple-award-winning author whose many books include the Xeelee Sequence series, the Time Odyssey trilogy (written with Arthur C. Clarke), and
The Time Ships
, a sequel to H. G. Wells's classic
The Time Machine
. He lives in England.

www.stephen-baxter.com

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Books by Terry Pratchett

The Dark Side of the Sun

Strata

The Unadulterated Cat

(illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)

Good Omens
(with Neil Gaiman)

The Discworld
®
Series

The Color of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Equal Rites

Mort

Sourcery

Wyrd Sisters

Pyramids

Guards! Guards!

Eric
(illustrated by Josh Kirby)

Moving Pictures

Reaper Man

Witches Abroad

Small Gods

Lords and Ladies

Men at Arms

Soul Music

Interesting Times

Maskerade

Feet of Clay

Hogfather

Jingo

The Last Continent

Carpe Jugulum

The Fifth Elephant

The Truth

Thief of Time

The Last Hero

(illustrated by Paul Kidby)

Night Watch

Monstrous Regiment

Going Postal

Thud!

Making Money

Unseen Academicals

Snuff

Raising Steam

Books About Discworld

The Art of Discworld

(with Paul Kidby)

The Streets of Ankh-Morpork

(with Stephen Briggs)

The Discworld Companion

(with Stephen Briggs)

The Discworld Mapp

(with Stephen Briggs)

The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld

(with Stephen Briggs)

Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion . . . So Far

(with Stephen Briggs)

The Discworld Graphic Novels

The Color of Magic

The Light Fantastic

DISCWORLD FOR YOUNG ADULTS

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

The Illustrated Wee Free Men

(illustrated by Stephen Player)

Where's My Cow?

(illustrated by Melvyn Grant)

FOR YOUNG ADULTS

The Carpet People

Nation

The Bromeliad Trilogy

Truckers

Diggers

Wings

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy

Only You Can Save Mankind

Johnny and the Dead

Johnny and the Bomb

BOOKS BY STEPHEN BAXTER

PROXIMA

Proxima

Ultima

NORTHLAND

Stone Spring

Bronze Summer

Iron Winter

FLOOD

Flood

Ark

TIME'S TAPESTRY

Emperor

Conqueror

Navigator

Weaver

DESTINY'S CHILDREN

Coalescent

Exultant

Transcendent

Resplendent

A TIME ODYSSEY (WITH ARTHUR C. CLARKE)

Time's Eye

Sunstorm

Firstborn

MANIFOLD

Manifold 1: Time

Manifold 2: Space

Manifold 3: Origin

Phase Space

MAMMOTH

Silverhair

Longtusk

Icebones

Behemoth

THE NASA TRILOGY

Voyage

Titan

Moonseed

THE XEELEE SEQUENCE

Raft

Timelike Infinity

Flux

Ring

Xeelee: An Omnibus

Vacuum Diagrams

Xeelee: Endurance

THE WEB

The Web: Gulliverzone

The Web: Webcrash

NON-SERIES

Anti-Ice

The Time Ships

Traces

The Light of Other Days

(with Arthur C. Clarke)

Evolution

The H-Bomb Girl

Dr. Who: The Wheel of Ice

Last and First Contacts

Universes

The Medusa Chronicles

(with Alistair Reynolds)

NON FICTION

Deep Future

Omegatropic

Revolutions in the Earth: James Hutton and the True Age of the World

The Science of Avatar

B
Y
T
ERRY
P
RATCHETT
AND
S
TEPHEN
B
AXTER

The Long Earth

The Long War

The Long Mars

The Long Utopia

Credits

Cover design by R. Shailer/TW

Cover photographs: space background and planet Earth

image © NASA, landscape and figures © Shutterstock

Specifications of the USN space vessel
Uncle Arthur
illustrated by Richard Shailer

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE LONG COSMOS
. Copyright © 2016 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Published simultaneously in Great Britain by Doubleday, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, a division of Random House Group, Ltd.

FIRST U.S. EDITION

ISBN: 978-0-06-229737-2

EPub Edition JUNE 2016 ISBN 9780062297396

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BOOK: The Long Cosmos
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