The Long Utopia (23 page)

‘Albert,’ Luis said. ‘I bought his
Golden Precepts
after his death.’

‘Well, that fine dream is bogus. The coming war with Germany, and it’s inevitable, you know, will see to that. But after the flags are folded there will be a deeper divergence than any between nations. For we, we humans, will become
two
kinds, at least – d’ye see? There’ll be the old sort, Radcliffe and his crew,
Homo sapiens sedentarius
. And then among ’em will arise the new sort, us –
Homo sapiens transversus.
That’s the best I can do with my schoolboy Latin; let Darwin’s successors sort it out. And in a century or two,
if
we do this, our new kind will flood this good Earth – and those
green forest worlds into which we Waltz, I dare say. And then, who knows what the future will hold? Eh? What’s it to be? It’s that or the subjugation we saw with poor Abel on the Mississippi. Subjugation, or glory.’ He studied their faces, a very old man, determined, intent. ‘Are you with me? Are you?’

‘Y
OU CAN GUESS
the rest,’ Nelson told Joshua, deep in the hidden basement of the Royal Society, both of them huddled in the cold over Luis’s handwritten journal. ‘Hackett’s programme of inbreeding worked, and very quickly.

‘Within decades there was an explosion of natural steppers in the human population. That’s what I infer from the available evidence anyhow. Surely many of those steppers disappeared into the Long Earth, lost to some accident or other – or just seeking places to hide. It would have been interesting to study Happy Landings, before it was destroyed. See if there was any upsurge in the number of drifters turning up there.’

Joshua thought back. That remote colony, ultimately the source of the genetic upgrading that resulted in the emergence of the Next, had been a kind of natural sink of steppers, a well that all the soft places led to. ‘Yeah. I do remember folk from there saying that in recent times they had come under more pressure. Too many people coming in, the ancient balance with their troll population lost. But it wasn’t the kind of place to keep proper records, was it?’

‘No. And meanwhile those steppers who remained close to the Datum would have been secretive. Surely the lesson of what became of the Knights of Discorporea wouldn’t have been lost. But no secret is easy to keep.’ He let that hang.

Joshua sighed. ‘Don’t tease me, Nelson. You’ve found a few stories, haven’t you?’

‘Not all of it conclusive. For instance – have you heard of the Angel of Mons?’

‘No. Should I?’

‘Maybe not. The Great War, 1914. British soldiers in the trenches spread stories of mysterious figures who would appear and vanish again, helping the wounded. Some said they were the ghosts of English archers from the Battle of Agincourt, centuries earlier.’

‘Hmm. Whereas in fact they were my great-great-uncles?’

‘That’s the idea.’ He opened a notebook and checked an entry. ‘The official line is that it all came from a bit of fiction by a Welsh writer called Arthur Machen. Which was a very effective cover-up, for the time. In the 1940s, during the next war, I believe there must have been steppers aiding elements of the Home Guard, the volunteer army who were preparing to resist a Nazi invasion of England. I saw a version of a memoir by Tom Witringham, from which some pages had been excised – Witringham set up guerrilla-war training for selected Home Guard units. There could easily have been useful refuges in the stepwise worlds, resistance hideouts, caches of food, explosives, you name it – everything but guns and ammo because of the steel . . .’

The story went on, in Britain at least reflecting the changing concerns of national history.

‘In the 1950s, Cold War spies. James Bond with a step ability, Joshua! In the 1970s, it looks as if they were infiltrating the unions and the IRA—’

‘This all seems very virtuous.’

‘Oh, I’ve no doubt there was the usual streak of jewel thieves, peeping toms and other rascals. With time I may be able to pin down more from police records. And this is only the British connection – well, the whole inbreeding conspiracy did start here – but clearly there were elements overseas too, especially in America. We know that from what you’ve told me of Sally Linsay’s family history . . .’

S
ALLY WAS HUNCHED
over her bronze rifle, peering down at the farmhouse. ‘I know some of this. My father was never a stepper himself. But he married into a family of steppers.’

‘I remember how you told me that as a kid you used to take your father over into stepwise Wyoming, where he had his workshop. Nelson said your mother came from an Irish offshoot of the Hackett clan.’

‘My father loved my mother. I guess he still does love her memory, for all his other faults. And he was fascinated by stepping, even though he was no stepper himself. He studied the phenomenon scientifically, eventually dreamed up the Stepper box. But he hated my mother’s family – the “old-country clan”, he called them – with their letters and phone calls. You see, before she met my father, there had been some family pressure on my mother to “marry the right sort”. I always thought it was to do with money. Well, that was the story they told us kids at the time. I never knew different, until now. Never knew they were
breeding steppers
. My father never told me. Even though we went all the way to Mars and back together! I suppose it never occurred to him to confide in me. Knowing him, it wouldn’t.’

‘I never heard from any Fund when I was growing up,’ Joshua said. ‘I suppose the Sisters would have kept them away from me, even if they found me. And they never put pressure on you?’

‘They may have tried, but if so they could never find me. I stepped
away from Datum Madison a year after Step Day, and I never came back again. Not long enough to be tracked down by that shadowy coven, anyhow. Of course my father got his revenge on them, with Step Day. After that almost anybody could step, with a Stepper box costing a few bucks, and that blew their nasty little conspiracy wide open.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Anyhow, what about your father? Did Nelson find him in the end? That was the point of the exercise.’

He took a breath. ‘Yes, Nelson found him, Sally. Through the Fund’s records. He’s in a retirement home in New York, West 5. Originally from the Bronx – he’s Irish American.’

‘Heart-warming. Less of the stalling, Valienté. Spill the beans.’

‘He’s – ordinary. He’s called Freddie. Freddie Burdon. You know I grew up using my mother’s name. Of course the Home had no records of my father.’

‘Burdon. Another genetic legacy of the Discorporea days, then.’

‘Yes, but he never stepped, not before Step Day. I guess he carried the gene, though. He’s seventy-four years old now; he was only eighteen when I was born – seventeen when I was conceived. Just a kid, for God’s sake . . .’

‘O
F COURSE
I remember your mother.’ Freddie Burdon had a broad Bronx accent.
Ya madd-ah.
‘Of course I remember Maria. Who wouldn’t? Whaddya think I am, a monster? . . .’ And his speech broke up into coughing.

He looked older than his age, Joshua thought. Old, shrunken over an imploded chest, face angular and bony. He was like a sick bird. His skin tones were grey. Even his clothes, a worn jacket and trousers, looked grey, as if stained with ash. He claimed that his emphysema was a legacy of heroic volunteer work he’d done in the aftermath of Yellowstone, helping the victims escape, even though he’d already been in his fifties then. Joshua suspected that was bullshit, that smoking had done the damage; even now Freddie’s fingers were stained nicotine yellow.

They were in a charity home, a big boxy construction of timber and concrete typical of a Low Earth footprint city. Outside, the air of this version of Brooklyn was faintly smoggy, like a memory of how its Datum parent had once been.

Freddie looked dwarfed, out of place and out of time. He was lucky, Joshua thought, to have finished up in a refuge like this. Joshua made a silent resolution to pump some money into the place, but out of his father’s sight, and out of his reach.

Freddie, Joshua learned, had trained as an electrician but had never got a qualification. He’d drifted from job to job, spiralling
down as he’d aged. He’d never had family – not after Maria – and had never accumulated money.

‘Of course I remember Maria,’ Freddie said again. ‘Look, I was no stepper. Even with a box, when I tried it, I puked my guts up. But I had the genes – didn’t I? And so did your mother. And look what we made.’ He coughed again, but grinned, a ghoulish expression. ‘The great Joshua Valienté! The world’s most famous stepper! Only good damn thing I ever did was you, son.’

‘How did you find my mother?’

‘Well, they sent me the name, an address.’

‘“They”?’

‘A bunch of bankers representing the families. The Fund, you know. And there was a cheque inside that first letter, with a promise of more if I went to see her, if we got to know each other, if we married, if we had a kid. A regular instalment plan. But it wasn’t, you know,
compulsory
. Just a kind of suggestion. And the money wasn’t that much, looking back. If I’d ever had any money I probably would have turned it down.’

‘But you had no money.’

Freddie grinned wider. ‘Not then, not now. So I thought, what’s there to lose? At least I can go meet the girl. You have to understand she was only fourteen then; this was in the nature of setting up a long-term relationship between us. So I pocketed the dough and headed over to Madison, Wisconsin, and looked for the family. Only to find—’

‘She’d run away.’

‘Yeah.’ He coughed, hawked, and spat into a handkerchief. ‘She’d had some version of the same letter. Wasn’t happy at home anyhow, and now there was this pressure to hook up with some stranger. Only fourteen. Well, I tracked her down.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘See, I’m no stepping superhero like you, but I had a brain on me then. She was in this home for kids—’

‘On Allied Drive.’

‘Was it? Can’t remember. I do remember those nuns. I asked for Maria. Said I was a cousin. Well, I was, wasn’t I? They didn’t trust me further than I could spit. Don’t blame them, looking back; I was seventeen years old and a piece of work, you know what I’m saying? I might have given up.’

‘If not for the money.’

‘If not for that. Then I saw her coming back from school, that was what did it for me. God, she was beautiful.
You
got your looks from my side, God have mercy on you. Well, I wasn’t going to give up after that. I found a way to get to her.’

‘How?’

‘Bribed a cleaner. It all became a scandal when—’

‘I know. Freddie, she was only fourteen.’

‘Yeah, mister high and mighty? Well, I was only seventeen, so there. Look, Joshua – you want me to tell you it was love at first sight? All I know is we liked each other, and I took her out a couple of times, she found a way to sneak out.’ He submitted to another coughing spasm. ‘We were just kids, OK? But I made her laugh, and she was rebellious and as cute as hell. We had fun, that’s all. At first. Though the nuns gave her a tough time.’

‘But you had the letter from the Fund in your pocket. Did you think you were
entitled
to her? This beautiful kid? That you had some kind of rights over her?’

‘No! It wasn’t like that. Christ, you should have been there. Look,’ and he seemed embarrassed, he leaned forward and whispered, ‘we never went past first base, OK? Until one night—’

‘Do I want to hear this, Freddie?’

He shrugged his hunched shoulders. ‘You came to me, remember. It was a summer night, 2001. She was looking her best. She had this cute pink angora sweater, and I remember she always wore this dumb little monkey bracelet that her mother had once given her. And I had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s I’d lifted—’

‘Oh, Christ, Freddie.’

‘What do you want me to tell you? It was
ordinary
. Just a fumble. We were drunk, we went too far.
Ordinary
. Sorry if that’s not what you want to hear.’ He leaned closer, and Joshua could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath. ‘And I know it was illegal, but I never forced her. OK? I was stupid, not bad.’

‘So she got pregnant.’

‘Caught first time. Just our luck.’

‘And you ran out?’

Freddie spread his hands. ‘What would you have had me do? I couldn’t support her, let alone a kid. Even if it had been legal. I was a kid myself. Yeah, I ran. I figured those nuns would look after her better than I ever could.’

‘Not well enough,’ Joshua said grimly.

Freddie looked at him. ‘So that’s it. That’s the story, the top and bottom. I was just a kid, and I lived a whole life since then. If you want me to tell you I never loved again, I’d be lying. But I never forgot her, Joshua. Hurt me years later when the Fund told me she’d died.’

‘You never came to find me, did you?’

He laughed sourly. ‘Yeah.
That
would have gone down well. So now you found me. Now what?’

Joshua thought that over for a long moment. Then he stood. ‘I guess our business is done.’

‘Oh, is it? You think you got “closure” now?’ He made quote marks in the air with his fingers, to Joshua a very old-fashioned gesture highlighting an old-fashioned word. ‘Hey, where you going? Will you come see me again?’

Joshua considered that. ‘Maybe.’

‘Listen,’ Freddie called after him. ‘I know you’re disappointed. Whatever you expected of me, good or bad, I’ve always been that, at heart.
Disappointing
. But I’ll tell you something, Joshua. You never knew about me, but I knew about you. Followed you in the papers, and online. How could I not? After Step Day and all. Maybe I never
came to see you. But I never asked you for money, did I, Joshua? And I’ll tell you something else. I never went back to the families for the money they owed. I mean, for fulfilling the contract, for knocking Maria up. That was the point of it all, wasn’t it? I never asked for that money, Joshua. Even though I was owed. That’s got to count for something, hasn’t it? Even though I was owed!’

Sally said, ‘And that was it?’

‘That was it.’

‘Have you been to see him again?’

Joshua shrugged. ‘I guess I will, when this latest Lobsang business has blown over.’

‘Just an ordinary guy, huh.’

‘Yeah. Not some demonic seducer. And not much older than me, though he looked it. That was the strangest thing. Didn’t feel like he was a father at all. We were just two old men together. Well, I got that monkey off my back, I guess.’

‘You atoned with your father, Joshua. Important step on your spiritual journey as a mythic hero.’

He squinted up at her. ‘You laughing at me?’

‘Me? Never. And I guess that whatever you say about Hackett and his cronies, they achieved what they set out to achieve. They changed the genetic composition of mankind. They changed the world, the whole future.’

‘And screwed up our lives in the process.’

‘True,’ she said. ‘So what now?’

‘So now we eat, sleep – or at least I do – and in the morning I go call the cops. And then we go find Grandpa Lobsang.’ He studied her. ‘Deal?’

She closed her eyes, cradling her rifle. Then she said, ‘Deal.’