“Have you seen the news?” asked Landen when we were all seated about twenty minutes later, the three of us smelling of hot exhaust and burned rubber. I read the news story he had indicated on page four, sandwiched between an article suggesting which obscure illness would be most fashionable in the spring and the best way to achieve the neanderthal look then very much in vogue. It was about HR-6984: The Asteroid Strike Likelihood Committee had recalculated the possibility of a cataclysmic impact as up from 34 percent to 68 percent, which was the first time it had gone above a fifty-fifty chance in ninety years.

“Was this to do with the ChronoGuard Destiny Aware meeting last night?” I asked. “I saw Mr. Chowdry of the ASLC.”

“It seems so.”

“But none of the ex–potential employees were stated as actually dying with the strike,” I said, “only before it—accident, murder, but none by the strike itself.”

“Good job, too. If a single one had been killed by the asteroid, then the likelihood would have jumped even higher— perhaps to as much as ninety-eight percent.”

“Has there been much panic over the figures?” I asked.

“I’ve been listening on the radio, but not much. Anyone over forty isn’t worried because they’ll probably be dead anyway by 2041, and to anyone under twenty, thirty-seven years is a time too long to comprehend. The middle group is jittery but sanguine— after all, seventy-two percent is still a twenty-eight percent chance it won’t happen, and as we’ve seen before, wishful thinking and being easily distracted are powerful evolutionary survival tools. Ooooh, look,” he added, as his eyes had also been scanning the menu. “They’ve got a special on crispy duck.”

“Have you talked to Friday about the new figures?” I asked. “After all, it’s those blasted Letters of Destiny that have caused our chances to drop.”

“He says it all looks very dodgy, and not just from a mathematical point of view. I think he wants you to go with him to the old Kemble Timepark this afternoon.”

“Any idea why?”

“He said something about ‘inferring a narrative’ from the Destiny Aware letters, and no, I have no idea what it means either—but he seems very intent about it. He resigned his job this morning on the basis that he’ll be in custody from Friday morning anyway.”

“Because he’s going to murder Gavin Watkins?”

“Right. He thinks HR-6984 might have something to do with it, and how the potential future him was going to tackle the asteroid strike.”

“Ah.”