Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  There was no response. His cold hand lay limply in Dunworthy’s gloved one, and the other continued picking steadily, uselessly at the sheet.

  “Dr. Ahrens thinks you might have caught your illness from an animal, a wild duck or a goose.”

  The nurse looked interestedly at Dunworthy and then back at Badri, as if he were hoping he would exhibit another yet– unobserved medical phenomenon.

  “Badri, can you remember? Did you have any contact with ducks or geese the week before the drop?”

  Badri’s hand moved. Dunworthy frowned at it, wondering if he were trying to communicate, but when he loosened his grip a little, the thin, thin fingers were only trying to pluck at his palm, at his fingers, at his wrist.

  He was suddenly ashamed that he was sitting here torturing Badri with questions, though he was past hearing, past even knowing Dunworthy was here, or caring.

  He laid Badri’s hand back on the sheet. “Rest,” he said, patting it gently, “Try to rest.”

  “I doubt if he can hear you,” the nurse said. “When they’re this far gone they’re not really conscious.”

  “No. I know,” Dunworthy said, but he went on sitting there.

  The nurse adjusted a drip, peered nervously at it and adjusted it again. He looked anxiously at Badri, adjusted the drip a third time and finally went out. Dunworthy sat on, watching Badri’s fingers plucking blindly at the sheet, trying to grasp it but unable to. Trying to hold on. Now and then he murmured something, too soft to hear. Dunworthy rubbed his arm gently, up and down. After awhile, the plucking grew slower, though Dunworthy didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.

  “Graveyard,” Badri said.

  “No,” Dunworthy said. “No.”

  He sat on a bit longer, rubbing Badri’s arm, but after a little it seemed to make his agitation worse. He stood up. “Try to rest,” he said and went out.

  The nurse was sitting at the desk, reading a copy of Patient Care.

  “Please notify me when…” Dunworthy said, and realized he would not be able to finish the sentence. “Please notify me.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said. “Where are you?”

  He fumbled in his pocket for a scrap of paper to write on and came up with the list of supplies. He had nearly forgotten it. “I’m at Balliol,” he said, “send a messenger,” and went back down to Supplies.

  “You haven’t filled this out properly,” the crone said starchily when Dunworthy gave her the form.

  “I’ve had it signed,” he said, handing her his list. “You fill it out.”

  She looked disapprovingly at the list. “We haven’t any masks or temps.” She reached down a small bottle of aspirin. “We’re out of synthamycin and AZL.”

  The bottle of aspirin contained perhaps twenty tablets. He put them in his pocket and walked down to the High to the chemist’s. A small crowd of protesters stood outside in the rain, holding pickets that said, “UNFAIR!” and “Price gouging!” He went inside. They were out of masks, and the temps and the aspirin were outrageously priced. He bought all they had.

  He spent the night dispensing them and studying Badri’s chart, looking for some clue to the virus’s source. Badri had run an on-site for Nineteenth Century in Hungary on the tenth of December, but the chart did not say where in Hungary, and William, who was flirting with the detainees who were still on their feet, didn’t know, and the phones were still out.

  They were still out in the morning when Dunworthy tried to phone to check on Badri’s condition. He could not even raise a dialing tone, but as soon as he put down the receiver, the telephone rang.

  It was Andrews. Dunworthy could scarcely hear his voice through the static. “Sorry this took so long,” he said, and then something that was lost entirely.

  “I can’t hear you,” Dunworthy said.

  “I said, I’ve had difficulty getting through. The phones…” More static. “I did the parameter checks. I used three different L-and-L’s and triangulated the…” The rest was lost.

  “What was the maximal slippage?” he shouted into the phone.

  The line went momentarily clear. “Six days.”

  “Six days?” Dunworthy shouted. “Are you certain?”

  “That was with an L-and-L of…” More static. “I ran probabilities, and the possible maximal for any L-and-L’s within a circumference of fifty kilometers was still five years.” The static roared in again, and the line went dead.

  Dunworthy put the receiver down. He should have felt reassured, but he could not seem to summon any feeling. Gilchrist had no intention of opening the net on the sixth, whether Kivrin was there or not. He reached for the phone to phone the Scottish Tourism Bureau, and as he did, it rang again.

  “Dunworthy here,” he said, squinting at the screen, but the visuals were still nothing but snow.

  “Who?” a woman’s voice that sounded hoarse or groggy said. “Sorry,” it murmured, “I meant to ring—” and something else too blurred to make out, and the visual went blank.

  He waited to see if it would ring again, and then went back across to Salvin. Magdalen’s bell was chiming the hour. It sounded like a funeral bell in the unceasing rain. Ms. Piantini had apparently heard the bell, too. She was standing in the quad in her nightgown, solemnly raising her arms in an unheard rhythm. “Middle, wrong, and into the hunt,” she said when Dunworthy tried to take her back inside.

  Finch appeared, looking distraught. “It’s the bells, sir,” he said, taking hold of her other arm. “They upset her. I don’t think they should ring them under the circumstances.”

  Ms. Piantini wrenched free of Dunworthy’s restraining hand. “Every man must stick to his bell without interruption,” she said furiously.

  “I quite agree,” Finch said, clutching her arm as firmly as if it were a bell rope, and led her back to her cot.

  Colin came skidding in, drenched as usual and nearly blue With cold. His jacket was open, and Mary’s gray muffler dangled uselessly about his neck. He handed Dunworthy a message. “It’s from Badri’s nurse,” he said, opening a packet of soap tablets and popping a light blue one into his mouth.

  The note was drenched, too. It read, “Badri asking for you,” though the word ‘Badri’ was so blurred he couldn’t make out more than the B.

  “Did the nurse say whether Badri was worse?”

  “No, just to give you the message. And Aunt Mary says when you come, you’re to get your enhancement. She said she doesn’t know when the analogue will get here.”

  Dunworthy helped Finch wrestle Ms. Piantini into bed and hurried to Infirmary and up to isolation. There was another new nurse, this one a middle-aged woman with swollen feet. She was sitting with them propped up on the screens, watching a pocket vidder, but she stood up immediately when he came in.

  “Are you Mr. Dunworthy?” she asked, blocking his way. “Dr. Ahrens said you’re to meet her downstairs immediately.”

  She said it quietly, even kindly, and he thought, she’s trying to spare me. She doesn’t want me to see what’s in there. She wants Mary to tell me first.

  “It’s Badri, isn’t it? He’s dead.”

  She looked genuinely surprised. “Oh, no, he’s much better this morning. Didn’t you get my note? He’s sitting up.”

  “Sitting up?” he said, staring at her, wondering if she were delirious with fever.

  “He’s still very weak of course, but his temp’s normal and he’s alert. You’re to meet Dr. Ahrens in casualties. She said it was urgent.”

  He looked wonderingly toward the door to Badri’s room. “Tell him I’ll be in to see him as soon as I can,” he said and hurried out the door.

  He nearly collided with Colin, who was apparently coming in. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Did one of the techs telephone?”

  “I’ve been assigned to you,” Colin said. “Great-Aunt Mary says she doesn’t trust you to get your T-cell enhancement. I’m supposed to take you down to get it.”

  “I can’t. There’s
an emergency in casualties,” he said, walking rapidly down the corridor.

  Colin ran to keep up with him. “Well, then, after the emergency. She said I wasn’t to let you leave Infirmary without it.”

  Mary was there to meet them when the lift opened. “We have another case,” she said grimly. “It’s Montoya.” She started for casualties. “They’re bringing her in from Witney.”

  “Montoya?” Dunworthy said. “That’s impossible. She’s been out at the dig alone.”

  She pushed open the double doors. “Apparently not.”

  “But she said—are you certain it’s the virus? She’s been working in the rain. Perhaps it’s some other disease.”

  Mary shook her head. “The ambulance team ran a prelim. It matches the virus.” She stopped at the admissions desk and asked the house officer, “Are they here yet?”

  He shook his head. “They’ve just come through the perimeter.”

  Mary walked over to the doors and looked out, as if she didn’t believe him. “We got a call from her this morning, very confused,” she said, turning back to them. “I telephoned to Chipping Norton, which is the nearest hospital, told them to send an ambulance, but they said the dig was officially under quarantine. And I couldn’t get one of ours out to her. I finally had to persuade the NHS to grant a dispensation to send an ambulance.” She peered out the doors again. “When did she go out to the dig?”

  “I—” Dunworthy tried to remember. She had phoned to ask him about the Scottish fishing guides on Christmas Day and then phoned back that afternoon to say, “Never mind,” because she had decided to forge Basingame’s signature instead. “Christmas Day,” he said. “If the NHS offices were open. Or the twenty-sixth. And she hasn’t seen anyone since then.”

  “How do you know?”

  “When I spoke to her, she was complaining that she couldn’t keep the dig dry singlehanded. She wanted me to phone to the NHS to ask for students to help her.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Two—no, three days ago,” he said, frowning. The days ran together when one never got to bed.

  “Could she have found someone at the farm to help after she spoke to you?”

  “There’s no one there in the winter.”

  “As I remember, Montoya recruits anyone who comes within reach. Perhaps she enlisted some passerby.”

  “She said there weren’t any. The dig’s very isolated.”

  “Well, she must have found someone. She’s been out at the dig for eight days, and the incubation period’s only twelve to forty-eight hours.”

  “The ambulance is here!” Colin said.

  Mary pushed out the doors, Dunworthy and Colin on her heels. Two ambulancemen in masks lifted a stretcher out and onto a trolley. Dunworthy recognized one of them. He had helped bring Badri in.

  Colin was bending over the stretcher, looking interestedly at Montoya, who lay with her eyes closed. Her head was propped up with pillows, and her face was flushed the same heavy red as Ms. Breen’s had been. Colin leaned farther over her, and she coughed directly in his face.

  Dunworthy grabbed the collar of Colin’s jacket and dragged him away from her. “Come away from there. Are you trying to catch the virus? Why aren’t you wearing your mask?”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “You shouldn’t be here at all. I want you to go straight back to Balliol and—”

  “I can’t. I’m assigned to make certain you get your enhancement.”

  “Then sit down over there,” Dunworthy said, walking him over to a chair in the reception area, “and stay away from the patients.”

  “You’d better not try to sneak out on me,” Colin said warningly, but he sat down, pulled his gobstopper out of his pocket, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.

  Dunworthy went back over to the stretcher trolley. “Lupe,” Mary was saying, “we need to ask you some questions. When did you fall ill?”

  “This morning,” Montoya said. Her voice was hoarse, and Dunworthy realized suddenly that she must be the person who had telephoned him. “Last night I had a terrible headache,” she raised a muddy hand and drew it across her eyebrows, “but I thought it was because I was straining my eyes.”

  “Who was with you out at the dig?”

  “Nobody,” Montoya said, sounding surprised.

  “What about deliveries? Did someone from Witney deliver supplies to you?”

  She started to shake her head, but it apparently hurt, and she stopped. “No. I took everything with me.”

  “And you didn’t have anyone with you to help you with the excavation?”

  “No. I asked Mr. Dunworthy to tell the NHS to send some help, but he didn’t.” Mary looked across at Dunworthy, and Montoya followed her glance. “Are they sending someone?” she asked him. “They’ll never find it if they don’t get someone out there.”

  “Find what?” he said, wondering if her answer could be trusted or if she were delirious.

  “The dig is half underwater right now,” she said.

  “Find what?”

  “Kivrin’s corder.”

  He had a sudden image of Montoya standing by the tomb, sorting through the muddy box of stone-shaped bones. Wrist bones. They had been wrist bones, and she had been examining the uneven edges, looking for a bone spur that was actually a piece of recording equipment. Kivrin’s corder.

  “I haven’t excavated all the graves yet,” Montoya said, “and it’s still raining. They have to send someone out immediately.”

  “Graves?” Mary said, looking at him uncomprehendingly. “What is she talking about?”

  “She’s been excavating a mediaeval churchyard looking for Kivrin’s body,” he said bitterly, “looking for the corder you implanted in Kivrin’s wrist.”

  Mary wasn’t listening. “I want the contacts charts,” she said to the house officer. She turned back to Dunworthy. “Badri was out at the dig, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “The eighteenth and nineteenth,” he said.

  “In the churchyard?”

  “Yes. He and Montoya were opening a knight’s tomb.”

  “A tomb,” Mary said, as if it were the answer to a question. She bent over Montoya. “Did you work on the knight’s tomb this week?” she asked.

  Montoya tried to nod, stopped. “I get so dizzy when I move my head,” she said apologetically. “I had to move the skeleton. Water’d gotten into the tomb.”

  “What day did you work on the tomb?”

  Montoya frowned. “I can’t remember. The day before the bells, I think.”

  “The thirty-first,” Dunworthy said. He leaned over her. “Have you worked on it since?”

  She tried to shake her head again.

  “The contacts charts are up,” the house officer said.

  Mary walked rapidly over to his desk and took the keyboard over from him. She tapped several keys, stared at the screen, tapped more keys.

  “What is it?” Dunworthy said.

  “What are the conditions at the churchyard?” Mary said.

  “Conditions?” he said blankly. “It’s muddy. She’s covered the churchyard with a tarp, but a good deal of rain was still getting in.”

  “Warm?”

  “Yes. She said it was muggy. She had several electric fires hooked up. What is it?”

  She drew her finger down the screen, looking for something. “Viruses are exceptionally sturdy organisms,” she said. “They can lie dormant for long periods of time and be revived. Living viruses have been taken from Egyptian mummies.” Her finger stopped at a date. “I thought so. Badri was at the dig four days before he came down with the virus.”

  She turned to the house officer. “I want a team out at the dig immediately,” she told him. “Get NHS clearance. Tell them we may have found the source of the virus.” She typed in a new screen, drew her finger down the names, typed in something else, and leaned back, looking at the screen. “We had four secondaries with no
positive connection to Badri. Two of them were at the dig four days before they came down with the virus. The other one was there three days before.”

  “The virus is at the dig?” Dunworthy said.

  “Yes.” She smiled ruefully at him. “I’m afraid Gilchrist was right after all. The virus did come from the past. Out of the knight’s tomb.”

  “Kivrin was at the dig,” he said.

  Now it was Mary who looked uncomprehending. “When?”

  “The Sunday afternoon before the drop. The nineteenth.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “She told me before she left. She wanted her hands to look authentic.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “If she was exposed four days before the drop, she hadn’t had her T-cell enhancement. The virus might have had a chance to replicate and invade her system. She might have come down with it.”

  Dunworthy grabbed her arm. “But that can’t have happened. The net wouldn’t have let her through if there was a chance she’d infect the contemps.”

  “There wasn’t any one for her to infect,” Mary said, “not if the virus came out of the knight’s tomb. He died of it in 1118. The contemps had already had it. They’d be immune.” She walked rapidly over to Montoya. “When Kivrin was out at the dig, did she work on the tomb?”

  “I don’t know,” Montoya said. “I wasn’t there. I had a meeting with Gilchrist.”

  “Who would know? Who else was there that day?”

  “No one. Everyone had gone home for vac.”

  “How did she know what she was supposed to do?”

  “The volunteers left notes to each other when they left.”

  “Who was there that morning?” Mary asked.

  “Badri,” Dunworthy said and took off for isolation.

  He walked straight into Badri’s room. The nurse, caught off-guard with her swollen feet up on the displays, said, “You can’t go in without SPG’s,” and started after him, but he was already inside.

  Badri was lying propped against a pillow. He looked very pale, as if his illness had bleached all the color from his skin, and weak, but he looked up when Dunworthy burst in and started to speak.

  “Did Kivrin work on the knight’s tomb?” Dunworthy demanded.