The Long Mars Read Free Page B

among her crew on the twain were telling her that the volcano was now having global effects, effects that were going to linger. The ash had washed out fairly quickly – though even lying on the ground it remained a problem, as Chen had said – but sulphur dioxide from the eruption was hanging around in the air as aerosol particles, creating terrific sunsets but deflecting the sun’s heat. As the Datum headed into its first post-volcano winter, temperatures had plummeted fast and early, and spring next year was going to be late, if it showed up at all.
    Yes, America would need Chinese rice for the foreseeable future. But Maggie could see that the challenge was going to be to stop ‘friends’ like China using the disaster to gain a permanent foothold in American society. Already there had been rumours that the Chinese were running tobacco into a nicotine-starved Datum America – like the Opium Wars in reverse, she thought.
    Maggie Kauffman, however, worked on the principle of dealing with the practical problems before her, and letting the wider world take care of itself.
    ‘About your ballot boxes, Captain Chen. Suppose I assign a small team of my own crew to travel with you until the election is over. They can take authority for the operation – as well as responsibility for any errors.’
    He smiled broadly. ‘A wise solution.’ He stood up. ‘And I wonder if I could send over a detachment of my own crew, in the spirit of cultural exchange. After all, our governments are already discussing sharing twain technology, for example.’ He glanced around dismissively. ‘Our own ships being somewhat more advanced than your own. Thank you for your time, Captain.’
    When he’d gone, Maggie murmured, ‘Glad that’s over.’
    ‘Quite,’ said Shi-mi.
    ‘Listen. Remind me to tell the XO to sweep this “exchange crew” from toenails to eyebrows for bugs and weapons.’
    ‘Yes, Captain.’
    ‘ And smuggled cigarettes.’
    ‘Yes, Captain.’
    In the sidpa bardo, said some versions of the Bardo Thodol, the spirit was given a body superficially like the former physical shell, but endowed with miraculous powers, with all sense faculties complete, and the capability of unimpeded motion. Karmic miraculous powers.
    Thus the vision of Lobsang embraced the world – all the worlds. Sister Agnes would probably ask if his soul was flying high above the ground.
    And, thinking of Agnes, Lobsang looked down on an unprepossessing children’s home in a stepwise copy of Madison, Wisconsin, in May 2041, half a year after the eruption . . .
    As that bad first winter gave way to a desolate spring, and America entered a long period of post-Yellowstone recovery, newly re-elected President Cowley announced that the nation’s capital was to be, pro tem, Madison West 5, replacing an abandoned Datum DC. And he was going to deliver a big speech to inaugurate the city into its new role from the steps of this world’s version of the Capitol building, a big barn of timber and blown concrete that was a brave imitation of its long-destroyed Datum parent.
    Joshua Valienté was sitting in the parlour of the Home, staring at TV images of an empty presidential podium. He was here ostensibly to visit with fifteen-year-old Paul Spencer Wagoner, an extremely bright and extremely troubled kid who Joshua had first encountered in a place called Happy Landings, many years ago. Joshua had been instrumental in getting Paul into the Home after his family broke up. But Paul was out right now, and Joshua couldn’t resist tuning in to the sight of a President, in Madison.
    Cowley bounced up on to the stage, all teeth and hair, under a rippling Stars and Stripes – the new holographic version of the flag, enhanced to reflect the reality of the nation’s stepwise extension into the Long Earth.
    ‘I’m amazed he’s actually here,’ Joshua said to Sister John.
    Sister John, born Sarah Ann Coates and once, like Joshua, a resident of the Home on Allied Drive