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And after she’d finished, Martha, feeling sick, really wished she’d remained in blissful ignorance.

‘You… you can’t be serious!’ she exclaimed.

‘Perfectly,’ said Eve.

‘But…’ Martha couldn’t find the words.

Suddenly Eve’s cool exterior cracked. ‘The pressure,’ she hissed. ‘The constant pressure. The fear that one day you’ll miss one, that a species will slip through your fingers. And Earth – Earth is the worst, by far. Extinction after extinction after extinction, it’s a nightmare keeping track! The instant you’ve updated your records, the stupid humans destroy another rainforest, and there we go again. This way, it will all be over with. I’ll never have to worry about it again.’

‘But…’ The words still weren’t coming. ‘But… But… you’re destroying all life on Earth to cut down on paperwork?’

‘I’m not destroying all life on Earth,’ Eve told her. ‘That’s exactly the point. I will be going to destroy all life on Earth, and then I will have destroyed all life on Earth. It will happen instantaneously.’

Martha boggled. ‘You’re committing mass genocide and quibbling about tenses?’

Eve dismissed this with a wave of her hand. ‘In a very short time, the clone‐dos will have deposited all the bombs, with the clone‐tooths and clone‐osaurs preventing any interference.’

Martha thought it interesting that the ridiculous names didn’t actually defuse the threat at all. In fact, they heightened it, because it made it even clearer that this was the work of a madwoman. But she had spotted a flaw in Eve’s plan. ‘If you blow up everything, your collection will always be incomplete. You know, because you’ll have killed everything.’

This brought a smile to Eve’s face. She spoke to Martha as if she were a simpleton who’d overlooked the most obvious of factors. ‘But that’s the whole point! I admit that I panicked when the disaster first happened, when all the Earth specimens got transported back. But they all died on arrival; the only one of my exhibits that survived for more than a few seconds was a dinosaur. There’s not a trace of any of them on Earth any more, the pressure of the return trip must have been too great.’

Martha nearly gagged. She was responsible for the deaths of 300 billion creatures. For wiping out 300 billion species.

She had to switch off again, that was just impossible to deal with.

Eve was still talking. ‘But it gave me the idea. A get‐out clause! And as long as I have just one specimen to represent the planet – I sent Tommy to collect the dinosaur, but that’s gone now too. Thankfully, I have you.’

This was too much. Not only had she sent all those creatures back to Earth, but she’d inspired mass genocide while she was at it. It was all her fault.

And her penance was to be a living death.

‘Now if you’ll excuse me,’ Eve continued, ‘I have to see about ordering some new guidebooks. Our current ones will soon be hopelessly out of date.’

‘No!’ Martha cried. ‘Please, you can’t do this!’ But Eve had already left the room.

THE ISPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES

KAKAPA

Strigops habroptilus

Location: New Zealand

The kakapo is the world’s only flightless parrot. It has an owl‐like face and greeny‐yellow feathers, with the male being more brightly coloured than the female. They are solitary, each having its own territory, and live on the ground. The herbivorous kakapo is the heaviest known parrot, weighing up to 3.5 kilograms.

Addendum:

Last reported sighting: AD 2017.

Cause of extinction: introduction of non‐indigenous predators; hunting for meat and skins.

ISpyder points value: 900

SIXTEEN

For a few moments, Martha found it hard to breathe. What could she do? She had to do something! But here she was, tied to a chair and helpless. In desperation, she turned to Eve’s accomplice, who was still looking slightly sulky after his telling‐off. He probably wouldn’t care about her, but she could appeal to his self‐interest. ‘Frank, you