years told the French we were doing this, they could save themselves a lot of trouble if they shot us all now,’ she murmured.
‘No one would believe it,’ Joe said. ‘And no one’s here. I came from the shore yesterday, they’ve all gone to Stornaway. If there were soldiers I’d have seen.’
‘Mm,’ she said, but he couldn’t tell if she was agreeing or not.
‘Agatha, have you got the book?’ Kite said to her.
She held up a notebook.
‘Then we’re ready.’
They were. McCullough and the four grown tortoises were on the future side of the gate, while the rest of them stayed on the past side. The distance between them was narrow enough to shake hands over.
‘All right.’ She looked happy. She was one of those people who liked books, Joe suspected, that were mainly graphs and numbers. ‘Let’s have young tortoise number one on our side and old tortoise number one on the future side. Who’s doing the honours?’
Kite glanced at the others to see if any of them would volunteer, without much expectation. No one did. He took out his gun and shot the little tortoise in the head.
Joe flinched hard and had to concentrate not to move when a shard of shell slid across and touched his boot. He didn’t quite see what happened to the old tortoise. It didn’t fade into mist or pop out of existence; it was just gone. So was the crate it had been in. His eye had slid over the real moment of it and he couldn’t have said how it had gone except that it had. On the other side McCullough rubbed his eyes.
‘Well then. I suppose we’d better get started, if you have to do it?’
Joe stared at him.
Kite was watching McCullough too. He inclined his head slowly. He always moved slowly. He had rusted. ‘Could you bring the second one over here?’
‘Second one? We haven’t done a first one yet,’ McCullough laughed.
‘Check the numbers on them,’ Kite said, quite gently.
‘We’ve got two, three, and four,’ McCullough said without checking. ‘Never got number one, something must have happened to it before we had them.’
There was a small silence in which there was only the wind singing around the gate.
Joe didn’t have many anchor chains to his own character. He hadn’t been himself for long enough. But one thing he had known about himself for as long as he’d been himself, was the epilepsy. Epileptic amnesia, the doctor had said; perfectly common, plenty of people have it. Nothing extraordinary. Even when the Sidgwicks had told him it might be a sign of something else, it had still been epilepsy. A disease with an interesting cause, but still a disease, laced through him as thoroughly as any cancer.
Only it wasn’t epilepsy. It was the pillars. It was the future rearranging itself. McCullough had forgotten the presence of a tortoise that was now impossible. Joe must have had a whole life that had become impossible.
He felt himself losing the strength in his knees. If there had been anywhere to sit down, he would have. As it was, he slumped a little. It must have looked strange, as though someone had smacked him too hard in the middle of his spine. Mrs Castlereagh noticed and smiled a tiny, regretful fraction. She must have suspected already. No wonder she hadn’t been surprised to find he’d forgotten meeting Kite.
‘Yes,’ Kite said. He sounded curious now. ‘I just shot it in front of you. You didn’t see?’
‘I …’
Kite pointed with the muzzle of his gun to the blasted little corpse on the ground. ‘About ten seconds ago.’
‘So,’ Mrs Castlereagh said, ‘let’s have young tortoise number two on the future side, beside old tortoise number two.’
Joe watched the old one hard, because he didn’t want to see the little one die. The gunshot was loud when it came. But nothing happened to the old tortoise, which only hid inside its shell from the noise.
‘I don’t like this,’ McCullough said unsteadily.
Joe couldn’t have agreed more.
‘If you could bring the third one over here to the past side,’ Kite said, polite, although everything else about him said, I’m the one shooting them, you prick.
McCullough looked unhappy and tugged the sleigh across. His shadow swung in the hellish red light. Mrs Castlereagh and Joe had to help him lift down the third crate. The third tortoise was more awake under its blanket. It was eating some lettuce and it looked at them all interestedly. Once