Smith and Joan approached the gate of the orchard, holding hands. They’d been talking about Bernice’s bizarre idea that finding the Pod would transform Smith into another person and had even started making jokes about it.

The dark cloud was starting to disperse, and the silver dust had begun to settle across the countryside.

‘The size of that explosion…’ Joan whispered. ‘John, I am beginning to suspect that some of what Bernice says may be true.’

‘Some of it,’ Smith muttered. ‘Not all of it.’

‘So, may I ask why you have suddenly steeled yourself so?’

‘Once, perhaps, but try asking it five times fast.’

‘Don’t evade me, John. You’ve changed.’

‘For the better?’

‘Yes. I didn’t think you could play a soldier for long.’

‘You’re right, it isn’t me.’ Smith vaulted the gate and I helped Joan climb over. ‘I can see why Rocastle thinks that way. It’s attractive. Imagine, never having to make any decisions. Because of honour. And etiquette. And patriotism. You could live like a river flowing downhill, hopping from one standard response to the other. Honour this. Defend that.’

‘May I add the concept of the waterfall to this gay picture?’ Joan asked, enjoying their conversation despite, or perhaps because of, its grim setting.

‘Oh, you may. But that’s just death, and Rocastle’s principles let you get over that in a barrel.’

‘Well, the edge of that waterfall looked very close until you decided to paddle against the tide. I can’t believe that either of us are still alive, or that we’re still active and not shocked into silence.’

‘That’s because we’re doing something. That’s why I sent the others off so they wouldn’t sit still and get afraid. Tim will be in the orchard. When I was a boy, I used to go and see a man who lived on a hilltop, and on the way there were fruit trees⁠ —’

Joan stopped walking, and held Smith’s arm harder. ‘There was a man who lived on a hilltop? Near Aberdeen? That doesn’t sound very likely.’

‘Yes!’ Smith insisted. ‘Near Aberdeen. I can see him. I can remember⁠ —’ He turned his head to reassure Joan and blinked in astonishment. ‘No I can’t.’ He turned back to the angle he’d been standing at before. ‘Yes I can, he was⁠ —’ He turned back to her and took in a long, frightened breath. ‘Joan, my memory of this man seems to depend upon the angle I hold my head. What does that mean?’

Joan struggled with a terrible desire that had boiled up inside her, to hit him or drag him away or just stop this madness from happening.

Because she had a terrible feeling that it was going to happen. To her. Again.

‘It means that I can hear another waterfall,’ she told him bitterly, ‘one all of my own.’

‘Sorry?’