“Not me,” said Gavin cheerfully. “I’m a tosser for life— however long or short that might be.”

There was silence for a moment.

“My guess is that the motive for the murders is nothing about the people concerned but everything to do with how long they live,” I said. “If Mr. Chowdry is correct and HR-6984 will strike us only because we are expecting it to, then evidence of life beyond 2041 will lower expectation to zero and we’ll survive. If Gavin killed these people at Goliath’s behest, then Goliath is plotting the destruction of the planet and everyone on it.”

“Hang on,” said Landen, who was always the slowest when it came to this sort of thing. “Goliath wants the earth destroyed? For what possible reason? They’d be destroyed, too.”

“The Goliath Corporation,” I said, “is trying to use the Dark Reading Matter as some sort of a lifeboat—a brave new world to be run by them and them alone. It won’t be ideal for mankind, but it will at last fulfill Goliath’s mission statement: to own everything and control everybody.”

We all thought about this for a moment.

“So let me get this straight,” said Friday. “I’ve got to kill Gavin to stop him from killing the others, so that they can all see they live beyond 2041, and thus avert a strike by a rogue asteroid that could be influenced by human expectation?”

“That’s Expectation-Influenced Probability Theory in a nutshell,” said Tuesday.

“Sodding hell,” said Friday.

“What?”

“I’m on a total, total, loser here. I kill Gavin, the murders won’t happen, the ChronoGuard operators will live long and healthy lives, and the probability of an asteroid strike will drop to almost zero.”

“That’s a total loser?” said Tuesday. “Aside from the murder bit, you’ll be a hero. Listen, I’d kill Gavin if it meant saving seven billion lives.”

“And that’s the shitty bit,” said Friday. “As soon as I pull this trigger, the eventline changes to include the shooting, and no one will ever know why I killed Gavin.”

We stood in silence for a moment, trying to get our heads around this. We weren’t sure, but I think he was right—Shazza had suggested the same thing back during the support-group meeting. The Letters of Destiny might have changed several times during the past ten minutes.

“You’ll never know why I did it,” he continued, “I’ll never know why I did it, and the seven billion or so lives I save will never know it either. I’m going to rot in a prison cell for the rest of my life still believing that my function is unfulfilled and having no idea why I killed Gavin.”

“I’m not sure I buy that,” said Tuesday.