Forty-Two
I should have guessed one detail about the tortoises.
They float.
If a tortoise got blown off a wall and into the water, you wanted it to float. And you wanted all the connectors nice and watertight.
Montague didn’t want them to get blown into the water, either. That’s why they had that low sloping shape. The harder the wind blew, the more air pressure held them down.
That shape sliced through the water.
I broke water in the cave like a breeching whale, shouting “Gunfire!” I was half frozen. My mouth tasted of bitter alien sea water and the putty seemed to have swollen until it filled my sinuses and ear canals. My skin was ice and flame, my muscles only ice, my lungs an inferno.
But I had the tortoise.
I kicked hard as I could for the shore, gulping air and shouting “Gunf
