Captain Boss, visibly frustrated by his reception, yielded the floor to one of his officers, a woman, late forties, slim, dark, crisp-looking.
‘My name’s Margarita Jha. Commander, USN. I’m the chief science officer on this vessel, the Cowley. As the Captain indicated we have on board a slew of specialists, civilian and military, come to study the strange phenomena that are afflicting your world here. Their team leader is Dr Ken Bowring of the US Geological Survey, whose speciality is seismology. We also have meteorologists, oceanographers, you name it. We even have an anthropologist with an attachment to the SETI Institute, that’s the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, come to study your, ah, unwelcome neighbours …’
Jha spoke well and fluently, and was listened to politely in return. She had an air of command her captain rather lacked, Agnes thought.
‘But,’ Jha said, ‘my own specialty is biology. That’s where I started. And as a biologist I have to tell you that, unfortunately for you, and your kids, your animals, your crops – indeed, for all the living things native to this particular stepwise Earth – now that the spin-up has reached a period of twenty hours or so, we’ve passed a fundamental limit.
‘You can’t adapt to a day of that length, or shorter, and nor can other living things. Experiments connected to the space programme have shown this; twenty or twenty-one hours is the minimum length of day we can withstand.’ She counted the points off on her fingers. ‘I’m talking about your chickens not laying properly. The critters you call furballs, who come hunting at dawn – you must have seen them staggering around as if they’re drunk or high, at all the wrong times of the day, and then the poor little beasts get snapped up by the big birds and other predators, as long as they are awake and functioning. The flowering plants can’t track the sun. Even the trees are suffering, in the long run. Your world has an intricate ecology, just as we find everywhere on the Long Earth, and a beautiful one – but that ecology is dependent on a twenty-four-hour daily cycle. I’m afraid we’re predicting a significant die-back, and soon. And that’s even before you start to talk about the effects of the volcanism that’s breaking out, the fires, the ash clouds suppressing the temperatures, the toxic gases you can smell – we all remember Yellowstone, don’t we? Ken Bowring will tell you about that.
‘Folks, it’s not just your lives that have been disrupted. We’re talking about a peculiar kind of extinction event on this world. And it’s your great misfortune that your township has been caught up in it.’
Captain Boss stepped forward. ‘Thank you, Commander. Admirably clear. Any questions?’
Oliver Irwin was still standing. He glanced around at his neighbours. ‘I’m sure I can speak for all of us. What are we going to do about this, Captain?’ He looked up at the military airship. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘Well,’ Boss said, ‘in the long term we intend to continue to study this phenomenon, or this group of related phenomena, as best we can. But in the short term we’re going to have to lift you off this rock, and take you, your children, and all your goods, somewhere safe. I know you have stepwise lodges, but I understand this particular world was the centre, for you. We’ll take you wherever you want to go.’ He added with a forced smile, ‘Look, we won’t leave anyone behind. Your pets – even your farm animals will be saved. The twain is a big ship.’
Oliver stiffened, and the townsfolk muttered.
Agnes groaned. ‘That young man just does not get it.’
Oliver Irwin said, ‘Sir – Captain Boss – let me tell you this. This isn’t a “rock”. Or a “centre”. This is our home. And when I ask you what you’re going to do about it, I don’t want to hear you say we need to run and hide.’ A rumble of approval from his neighbours. ‘We’re not quitters. We’re Americans. We’re pioneers. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re going to stay here. And if you can’t help us,’ to yells of approval, ‘then please do what Al Todd asked you to do, and get that big ship of yours out of the light of his beets.’
‘Darn right!’
‘Well said, Oliver.’
Boss looked helplessly at Jha.
The science officer stepped forward again. ‘We do sympathize, sir. Really. The US Navy isn’t fond of quitting either. But we don’t even know what we’re dealing with here—’
‘It’s those darn silver beetles,’ said Angie Clayton. ‘That’s obvious enough.’
Boss said, ‘But we hardly know anything about them. You know that we’ve taken the Cowley on a tour. We spanned much of the continent, this footprint of North America. The creatures you call the beetles are building – something. Like immense road systems. What we don’t know is why they’re doing all this. What the purpose of their network is. And unless we can figure out at least that much—’
Lobsang sighed.
Agnes plucked his sleeve. ‘Lobsang. No.’
‘—then we can’t even predict what comes next—’