Free The Long Cosmos by Terry Pratchett

manufacturing capacity we have at GapSpace – even if you suddenly expanded it one hundred per cent—’
    Stella said, ‘ Replicators. You’re talking about using silver-beetle technology to build the Clarke, aren’t you? That’s the only way you could get it done so quickly.’
    Roberta said, ‘It’s under consideration.’
    Dev glanced at Lee, who winked back. It was nice to see these Next disagreeing with each other, even if Dev had no idea what they were talking about. He asked pleasantly, ‘And what is “silver-beetle technology”?’
    Stella looked at him. ‘I guess you’ll find out soon enough. Highly efficient replicator and reassembly technology. Alien technology. It already destroyed one stepwise Earth, as far as we know.’
    Dev just stared. ‘It destroyed an Earth ?’
    â€˜Long story,’ Stella said.
    Roberta said, ‘No technology is dangerous if handled correctly. And it would allow an extremely rapid construction, just as you say. The Clarke telescope would be very large, but mostly structurally simple. An ideal application of replicator techniques. Of course, preliminary results would begin to come in much earlier than full construction – and then we will have decisions to make on how to react. I think I’ve seen enough here. We must talk in more detail. I need to meet your senior people, while avoiding having them take us for tours of the O’Neill – Stella, what do they do on that object?’
    Stella grinned. ‘They walk on grass, and chase zero-gravity chickens along the spin axis.’
    Lee flared. ‘You dismiss us, don’t you? Everything we’ve built here. Spaceflight is an ancient dream, cherished for longer than people like you have even been in existence, and we’re achieving it at last.’
    â€˜Perhaps. But, child,’ Roberta said sadly, ‘can you not see that all of this has already been swept away? Because the Galaxy is now reaching down to you. Well. There is much to do. Shall we return to our shuttle?’

10
    J OSHUA SPENT HIS first night alone on Earth West 1,520,875 up a tree.
    Not that he tried too hard to keep count; this was a sabbatical after all, and counting kind of wasn’t the point. And since the deletion of a whole world, of Earth West 1,217,756, doomed by an infestation of alien creatures, and with the Long Earth sealed up to either side of that wound, such numbers were probably meaningless anyhow.
    Just now, in fact, the choice of tree had been more significant than the choice of world.
    He had found this tree, standing on this rocky bluff, had selected a stout branch, and lodged himself in the angle of branch and trunk. He made sure his pack was hanging where he could reach it, pulled his outer coat up over his legs, and then tied himself in place with a few loops of rope. This had been his habit when striking out alone since he was a boy, when he had first sought safety high in trees.
    He laughed at himself. ‘I learned all I know about surviving in the wilderness from Robinson Crusoe,’ he told the empty world. Because climbing a tree was exactly what Crusoe had done, on the first night on his island. As it happened Joshua had a copy of the book itself in his pack – one of just two books he’d brought with him. The Crusoe was an ancient paperback, the very copy he had read himself as a boy in the Home – it was heavily annotated in his own rounded child’s handwriting, an act of graffiti that had earned him punishment detail from Sister Georgina. Potato peeling, as he recalled. Well, he fully intended to return this copy to the bookshelf that Sister John, only half joking, called the Joshua Valienté Library. ‘I won’t be out here for ever,’ he told himself.
    He was dog tired. He’d tried napping, without success. Then again, the sun had yet to set.
    Chewing on jerky, sipping water, he inspected his