Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  As soon as Colin left, he rang William’s nurse and told her he wanted to see his doctor. “I’m ready to be discharged,” he said.

  She laughed.

  “I’m completely recovered,” he said. “I did ten laps in the corridor this morning.”

  She shook her head. “The incidence of relapse in this virus has been extremely high. I simply can’t take the risk.” She smiled at him. “Where is it you’re so determined to go? Surely whatever it is can survive another week without you.”

  “It’s the start of term,” he said, and realized that was true. “Please tell my doctor I wish to see him.”

  “Dr. Warden will only tell you what I’ve told you,” she said, but she apparently relayed the message because he tottered in after tea.

  He had obviously been hauled out of a senile retirement to help with the epidemic. He told a long and pointless story about medical conditions during the Pandemic and then pronounced creakily, “In my day we kept people in hospital till they were fully recovered.”

  Dunworthy didn’t try to argue with him. He waited until he and the sister had hobbled down the corridor, sharing reminiscences from the Hundred Years’ War, and then strapped on his portable drip and walked to the public phone near Casualties to get a progress report from Finch.

  “The sister won’t allow a phone in your room,” Finch said, “but I’ve good news about the plague. A course of streptomycin injections along with gamma globulin and T-cell enhancement will confer temporary immunity and can be started as little as twelve hours before exposure.”

  “Good,” Dunworthy said, “Find me a doctor who’ll give them and authorize my discharge. A young doctor. And send Colin over. Is the net ready?”

  “Very nearly, sir. I’ve obtained the necessary drop and pickup authorizations and I’ve located a remote hookup. I was just going to fetch it now.”

  He rang off, and Dunworthy walked back to the room. He hadn’t lied to the nurse. He was feeling stronger with each passing moment, though there was a tightness around his lower ribs by the time he made it back to his room. Mrs. Gaddson was there, searching eagerly through her Bible for murrains and agues and emerods.

  “Read me Luke 11:9,” Dunworthy said.

  She looked it up. “‘And I say unto you, “Ask and it shall be given you,”‘“ she read, glaring at him suspiciously. “‘“Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”‘”

  Ms. Taylor came at the very end of visiting hours, carrying a measuring tape. “Colin sent me to get your measurements,” she said. “The old crone out there won’t let him on the floor.” She draped the tape around his waist. “I had to tell her I was visiting Ms. Piantini. Hold your arm out straight.” She stretched the tape along his arm. “She’s feeling a lot better. She may even get to ring Rimbaud’s ‘When At Last My Savior Cometh’ with us on the fifteenth. We’re doing it for Holy Reformed, you know, but the NHS has taken over their church so Mr. Finch has very kindly let us use Balliol’s chapel. What size shoe do you wear?”

  She jotted down his various measurements, told him Colin would be in the next day and not to worry, the net was nearly ready. She went out, presumably to visit Ms. Piantini, and came back a few minutes later with a message from Badri.

  “Mr. Dunworthy, I’ve run 24 parameter checks,” it read. “All 24 show minimal slippage, 11—slippage of less than an hour, 5—slippage of less than five minutes. I’m running divergence checks and DAR’s to try to find out what it is.”

  I know what it is, Dunworthy thought. It’s the Black Death. The function of the slippage was to prevent interactions which might affect history. Five minutes’ slippage meant there were no anachronisms, no critical meetings the continuum must keep from happening. It meant the drop was to an uninhabited area. It meant the plague had been there. And all the contemps were dead.

  Colin didn’t come in the morning, and after lunch Dunworthy walked to the public phone again and rang Finch. “I haven’t been able to find a doctor willing to take on new cases,” Finch said. “I’ve telephoned every doctor and medic within the perimeter. A good many of them are still down with flu,” he apologized, “and several of them—”

  He stopped, but Dunworthy knew what he had intended to say. Several of them had died, including the one who would certainly have helped, who would have given him the inoculations and discharged Badri.

  “Great-Aunt Mary wouldn’t have given up,” Colin had said. She wouldn’t have, he thought, in spite of the sister and Mrs. Gaddson and a band of pain below the ribs. If she were here, she would have helped him however she could.

  He walked back to his room. The sister had posted a large placard reading, “Absolutely No Visitors Allowed,” on his door, but she was not at her desk or in his room. Colin was, carrying a large damp parcel.

  “The sister’s in the ward,” Colin said, grinning. “Ms. Piantini very conveniently fainted. You should have seen her. She’s very good at it.” He fumbled with the string. “The nurse just came on duty, but you needn’t worry about her either. She’s in the linen room with William Gaddson.” He opened the parcel. It was full of clothing: a long black doublet and black breeches, neither of them remotely mediaeval, and a pair of women’s black tights.

  “Where did you get this?” Dunworthy said. “A production of Hamlet?”

  “Richard III,” Colin said. “Keble did it last term. I took the hump out.”

  “Is there a cloak?” Dunworthy said, sorting through the clothing. “Tell Finch to find me a cloak. A long cloak that will cover everything.”

  “I will,” Colin said absently. He was fumbling intently with the band on his green jacket. It sprang open, and Colin threw it off his shoulders. “Well? What do you think?”

  He had done considerably better than Finch. The boots were wrong—they looked like a pair of gardener’s Wellington’s—but the brown burlap smock and shapeless gray-brown trousers looked like the illustration of a serf in Colin’s book.

  “The trousers have a strip,” Colin said, “but you can’t see it under the shirt. I copied it out of the book. I’m supposed to be your squire.”

  He should have anticipated this. “Colin,” he said, “you can’t go with me.”

  “Why not?” Colin said. “I can help you find her. I’m good at finding things.”

  “It’s impossible. The—”

  “Oh, now you’re going to tell me how dangerous it is in the Middle Ages, aren’t you? Well, it’s rather dangerous here, isn’t it? What about Aunt Mary? She’d have been safer in the Middle Ages, wouldn’t she? I’ve been doing lots of dangerous things. Taking medicine to people and putting up placards in the wards. While you were ill, I did all sorts of dangerous things you don’t even know about—”

  “Colin—”

  “You’re too old to go alone. And Great-Aunt Mary told me to take care of you. What if you have a relapse?”

  “Colin—”

  “My mother doesn’t care if I go.”

  “But I do. I can’t take you with me.”

  “So I’m to sit here and wait,” he said bitterly, “and nobody will tell me anything, and I won’t know whether you’re alive or dead.” He picked up his jacket. “It’s not fair.”

  “I know.”

  “Can I come to the laboratory at least?”

  “Yes.”

  “I still think you should let me go,” he said. He began folding the tights. “Shall I leave your costume here?”

  “Better not. The sister might confiscate it.”

  “What’s all this, Mr. Dunworthy?” Mrs. Gaddson said.

  They both jumped. She came into the room, bearing her Bible.

  “Colin’s been collecting for the clothing drive,” Dunworthy said, helping him wad the clothing into a bundle. “For the detainees.”

  “Passing clothes from one person to another is an excellent way of spreading infection,” she said to Dunworthy.

  Colin scooped up the bundle and ducked out.

 
; “And allowing a child to come here and risk catching something! He offered to come and walk me home from the infirmary last night, and I said, ‘I won’t have you risking your health for me!’”

  She sat down next to the bed and opened her Bible. “It’s pure negligence, allowing that boy to visit you. But I suppose it’s no more than what I should have expected from the way you run your college. Mr. Finch has become a complete tyrant in your absence. He simply flew at me in a rage yesterday when I requested an extra roll of lavatory paper—”

  “I want to see William,” Dunworthy said.

  “Here!” she sputtered. “In hospital?!” She shut her Bible with a snap. “I simply won’t allow it. There are still a great many infectious cases and poor Willy—”

  Is in the linen room with my nurse, he thought. “Tell him I wish to see him as soon as possible,” he said.

  She brandished the Bible at him like Moses bringing down the plagues on Egypt. “I intend to report your callous indifference to your students’ well-being to the Head of the History Faculty,” she said and stormed out.

  He could hear her complaining loudly in the corridor to someone, presumably the nurse, because William appeared almost immediately, smoothing down his hair.

  “I need injections of streptomycin and gamma globulin,” Dunworthy said. “I also need to be discharged from hospital, as does Badri Chaudhuri.”

  He nodded. “I know. Colin told me you’re going to try to retrieve your history student.” He looked thoughtful. “I know this nurse…”

  “A nurse can’t give an injection without authorization by a doctor, and the discharges will require authorization as well.”

  “I have a friend up in Records. When do you want this by?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “I’ll get right on it. It might take two or three days,” he said, and started out. “I met Kivrin once. She was at Balliol to see you. She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”

  I must remember to warn her about him, Dunworthy thought, and realized he had actually begun to believe he might be able to rescue her in spite of everything. Hold on, he thought. I’m coming. Two or three days.

  He spent the afternoon walking up and down the corridor, trying to build his strength up. Badri’s ward had an “Absolutely No Visitors Allowed” placard on each of the doors, and the sister fixed him with a watery blue eye each time he approached them.

  Colin came in, wet and breathless, with a pair of boots. “She has guards everywhere,” he said. “Mr. Finch says to tell you the net’s ready except he can’t find anyone to do med support.”

  “Tell William to arrange it,” he said. “He’s taking care of the discharges and the streptomycin injection.”

  “I know. I’ve got to deliver a message to Badri from him. I’ll be back.”

  He did not come back, and neither did William. When Dunworthy walked to the phone to ring Balliol, the sister caught him halfway and escorted him back to his room. Either her tightened defenses excluded Mrs. Gaddson as well, or Mrs. Gaddson was still angry over William. She did not come all afternoon.

  Just after tea a pretty nurse he hadn’t seen before came in with a syringe. “Sister’s been called away on an emergency,” she said.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the syringe.

  She tapped the console keyboard with one finger of her free hand. She looked at the screen, tapped in a few more characters, and came around to inject him. “Streptomycin,” she said.

  She did not seem nervous or furtive, which meant William must have managed the authorization somehow. She injected the largish syringe into the cannula, smiled at him, and went out. She had left the console on. He got out of bed and went round to read what was on the screen.

  It was his chart. He recognized it because it looked like Badri’s and was as unreadable. The last entry read, “ICU15802691 14-1-55 1805 150/RPT 1800 CRS IMSTMC 4ML/q6h NHS40-211-7 M AHRENS.”

  He sat down on the bed. Oh, Mary.

  William must have obtained obtained her access code, perhaps from his friend in Records, and fed it into the computer. Records was no doubt far behind, swamped by the paperwork of the epidemic, and had not yet got to Mary’s death. They would catch the error someday, though the resourceful William had no doubt already arranged for its erasure.

  He scrolled the screen back through his chart. There were M. AHRENS entries up through 8-1-55, the day she had died. She must have nursed him until she could no longer stand. No wonder her heart had stopped.

  He switched the console off so that the sister wouldn’t spot the entry and got into bed. He wondered if William planned to sign her name to the discharges as well. He hoped so. She would have wanted to help.

  No one came in all evening. The sister hobbled in to check his tach bracelet and give him his temp at eight o’clock, and she entered them in the console but didn’t appear to notice anything. At ten a second nurse, also pretty, came in, repeated the streptomycin infection, and gave him one of gamma globulin.

  She left the screen on, and Dunworthy lay down so he could see Mary’s name. He didn’t think he would be able to sleep, but he did. He dreamed of Egypt and the Valley of the Kings.

  “Mr. Dunworthy, wake up,” Colin whispered. He was shining a pocket torch in his face.

  “What is it?” Dunworthy said, blinking against the light. He groped for his spectacles. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s me, Colin,” he whispered. He turned the torch on himself. He was wearing, for some unknown reason, a large white lab coat, and his face looked strained, sinister in the upturned light of the torch.

  “What’s wrong?” Dunworthy asked.

  “Nothing,” Colin whispered. “You’re being discharged.”

  Dunworthy hooked his spectacles over his ears. He still couldn’t see anything. “What time is it?” he whispered.

  “Four o’clock.” He thrust his slippers at him and turned the torch on the closet. “Do hurry.” He took Dunworthy’s robe off the hook and handed it to him. “She’s likely to come back any moment.”

  Dunworthy fumbled with the robe and slippers, trying to wake up, wondering why they were being discharged at this odd hour and where the sister was.

  Colin went to the door and peeked out. He switched the torch off, stuck it in the pocket of the too-large lab coat, and eased the door shut. After a long, breath-holding moment, he opened it a crack and looked out. “All clear,” he said, motioning to Dunworthy. “William’s taken her into the linen room.”

  “Who, the nurse?” Dunworthy asked, still groggy. “Why is she on duty?”

  “Not the nurse. The sister. William’s keeping her in there till we’re gone.”

  “What about Mrs. Gaddson?”

  Colin looked sheepish. “She’s reading to Mr. Latimer,” he said defensively. “I had to do something with her, and Mr. Latimer can’t hear her.” He opened the door all the way. There was a wheelchair just outside. He took hold of the handles.

  “I can walk,” Dunworthy said.

  “There isn’t time,” Colin whispered. “And if anyone sees us I can tell them I’m taking you up to Scanning.”

  Dunworthy sat down and let Colin push him down the corridor and past the linen room and Latimer’s room. He could hear Mrs. Gaddson’s voice dimly through the door, reading from Exodus.

  Colin continued on tiptoe to the end of the corridor and then took off at a rate that could not possibly be mistaken for taking a patient to Scanning, down another corridor, around a corner, and out the side door where they had been accosted by the “The End of Time Is Near” sandwich board.

  It was pitch black in the alley and raining hard. He could only dimly make out the ambulance parked at the street end. Colin knocked on the back of it with his fist, and an ambulance attendant jumped down. It was the medic who had helped bring Badri in. And had picketed Brasenose. “Can you climb up?” she asked, blushing.

  Dunworthy nodded and stood up.

  “Pull the doors to,”
she told Colin and went round to get in the front.

  “Don’t tell me, she’s a friend of William’s,” Dunworthy said, looking after her.

  “Of course,” Colin said. “She asked me what sort of mother– in-law I thought Mrs. Gaddson would be.” He helped him up the step and into the ambulance.

  “Where’s Badri?” Dunworthy asked, wiping the rain off his spectacles.

  Colin pulled the doors to. “At Balliol. We took him first, so he could set up the net.” He looked anxiously out the back window. “I do hope Sister doesn’t sound the alarm before we’re gone.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about it,” Dunworthy said. He had clearly underestimated William’s powers. The sister was probably on Willam’s lap in the linen room, embroidering their intertwined initials on the towels.

  Colin switched on the torch and shone it on the stretcher. “I brought your costume,” he said, handing Dunworthy the black doublet.

  Dunworthy took off his robe and put it on. The ambulance started up, nearly knocking him over. He sat down on the side bench, bracing himself against the swaying side, and pulled on the black tights.

  William’s medic had not switched on the siren, but she was going at such a rate she should have. Dunworthy clung to the strap with one hand and pulled on the breeches with the other, and Colin, reaching for the boots, nearly went over on his head.

  “We found you a cloak,” Colin said. “Mr. Finch borrowed it of the Classical Theatre Society.” He shook it out. It was Victorian, black and lined in red silk. He draped it over Dunworthy’s shoulders.

  “What production did they put on? Dracula?”

  The ambulance lurched to a stop, and the medic yanked open the doors. Colin helped Dunworthy down, holding up the train of the voluminous cloak like a pageboy. They ducked in under the gate. The rain pattered loudly on the stone overhead and under it was a clanging sound.

  “What’s that?” Dunworthy asked, peering out into the dark quad.

  “‘When At Last My Savior Cometh,’” Colin said. “The Americans are practicing it for some church thing. Necrotic, isn’t it?”