by Ann Benson
He left the fabric circle on the microscope and punched in the locking numbers for the security door as he went out. Halfway down the hall he realized that he’d forgotten the mail, so he ran back and placed his palm flat against the entry verification screen and waited for the click of the lock. A few seconds later the flat screen sterilized itself by sending a flash of high-voltage electricity through the metal-coated surface, announcing its intention to do so with a shrill beep. Frank was one of only a few people with unlimited access to this lab, although with some concerted effort the security guard could override the system. He considered the whole system a great big pain in the ass, and wanted something simpler. He’d been told by the lab’s director that anything simpler would be too easy to break, and would therefore not suffice. So on occasion, when it suited him to do so, Frank simply left the door unlocked. And seeing that he would be gone only a few minutes, he decided on his way back out again that this could be one of those occasions.
Out on the sidewalk as he waited for a break in the traffic, Frank felt the warm sunshine on his skin, a welcome change from the cold gray concrete walls and stark fluorescent lighting of the lab. He stood still in the bustle of the noonday sidewalk and soaked up the sun’s rays, which seldom blazed with such intensity in England. When he turned his gaze back to the street his field of vision was dotted with blue sunspots. He failed to see the standard black London taxi come flying around the corner at breakneck speed. As it sailed through the air rather rapidly, his last thought before colliding with the metal lamppost was Bloody hell, Yersinia pestis. Fucking bubonic plague.
As they faced each other across the breakfast table, Janie read aloud to Caroline the newspaper article about Frank’s death. When she finished, she set the paper down and they were both quiet for a moment.
She shook her head. “No wonder he wasn’t there when I returned his call. It sounded like he was really excited about something. Now we’ll never know what it was.”
“We were just with him yesterday,” Caroline said. “What a tragedy, he was so young.…”
But Janie, though not untouched by the loss, had more pragmatic concerns. It doesn’t seem so terribly unusual anymore, people dying suddenly, she thought to herself. “We’ll have to get the fabric and the rest of the soil samples out of the lab and send them back to the States. We won’t be able to finish up here. Let’s head over to the lab right now and start making the arrangements. I don’t want to lose too much time.”
“It would be a whole lot easier if we could make the initial screenings here,” Caroline said, thinking of the mountains of customs paperwork she would now be forced to fill out. “Maybe we still can. Let’s talk to the lab director and find out if we can continue with someone else.”
Janie’s voice conveyed her increasing level of irritation. “I knew something like this was going to happen. I don’t want to wait for someone to take Frank’s place. I have a life back home that I’d like to resume one of these days. I haven’t worked in two years, Caroline, and I’m getting incredibly rusty. I have to be out of here in a little over three weeks; you have even less time than that. I do not want to be bodyprinted!”
Caroline, usually so calm, tried to reason with her. “Unfortunately, you don’t get to make that decision,” she pointed out. “If they want to print you, they’ll find a reason, whether you like it or not. I can understand your reasons for wanting to keep your body out of the system, but you have to realize that it’s going to happen sooner or later. They’ll get everyone. You’re not going to escape. Neither am I. So you might as well just accept it.”
Janie flushed with embarrassment. Caroline’s typically rational response was entirely justified. She admired her assistant’s willingness to be so forthright with the person holding the purse strings. She apologized immediately. “You’re right. I didn’t mean to make such a fuss. It’s just that I have this dire dread of it.… I’m not precisely sure why.”
Caroline smiled. “Contrition is very becoming on you. You should try it more often.”
“I think I will,” Janie said resolutely. “Now we should probably decide how to proceed from here. We have a few new circumstances thrown into the mix. I agree with you, it would be easier to get the analyses done here than to ship back all that dirt. We’ll keep that as our primary goal. Hopefully we can persuade someone at the Institute to help us.”
“Let’s just go there. You know how difficult it is to get things done over the phone in this country.”
“I think that’s a good plan. We can go right after we finish here. No sense in waiting around for help to come to us. And on the way there don’t let me forget to mail this print.” She held up a sealed, addressed manila envelope.
“Is it going to John Sandhaus?” Caroline asked.
“Uh-huh. He’ll give it a good workover. By the time we get back, we’ll know Gertrude’s shoe size.”
“If the envelope doesn’t get lost on his desk.”
“There’s always the possibility that it will. Everyone wants the poor guy to take a look at something. I’m just glad he keeps looking at my stuff.”
“Lucky you.”
“I know. He’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s good at what he does.”
They were about to cross a side street not far from the Institute when Caroline remembered that there was a postal machine at the end of it. She pointed down the narrow street and said, “If we go down this way, we can mail the print at that box on the corner and then just go in the main entrance to the Institute instead of the side.”
“Why not?” Janie said. “A little variety is nice every now and then. And considering how this trip is going, some change will do us good.”
They turned right at the next corner, mailed the print, and then turned left again. They found themselves facing the ornate and forbidding facade of the Institute’s main entrance.
Janie stopped for a minute to study the large map of the facility posted in the main reception area. She ran her finger over the etched surface until she found the office she was seeking.
“Go ahead without me, will you?” Janie said to Caroline. “I’ve got a couple of things to settle with the billing office for the tests they’re going to run for me. It should only take a few minutes. I have to straighten out a couple of issues relating to credit exchanges. I’ll meet you in the lab as soon as I’m done.”
They parted, Janie heading in one direction, Caroline in another, toward the lab. When she arrived after a long walk down the Institute’s labyrinthine hallways, she found the door unlocked and the huge room strangely silent. She stepped inside tentatively, feeling as if she shouldn’t be there, and called out to see if anyone else was present. No one responded.
It was a huge and complex facility, with more equipment than she’d ever seen in any other lab. There were dozens of microscope stations. With a little searching she found the one where they’d taken their first look at the strange circle of fabric. It was still there on the platen, apparently undisturbed. She looked around further, and wandered off to one end of the large room. There she found an entire wall of refrigerated storage units, and wondered which one of them contained their samples.
She was just gripping the handle of one of the units when a security guard, disturbed by her sudden and unexplained appearance on his video display, came into the lab. He asked what her business was and how she’d gotten in.
“The door was unlocked,” she explained. “I have some samples here for analysis. I need to make some arrangements for them.”
“Oh, dear!” he said, then blanched upon realizing that the door to the lab had probably been open all night. “I’m afraid that the facility is closed today due to the death of one of the technicians,” he said. “No work will be done until Monday. Only the administrators are in today.”
She glanced back at the microscope and wondered what effect prolonged exposure to the air would have on the piece of fabric. “Look, can I at least put away one of my samples? I
think Frank may have been working on it just before he had his accident. He would have stored it properly if he’d had the opportunity.”
The security guard followed her to the microscope. After surveying the scene he shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s quite impossible. I’m sorry, miss, but I can’t let you touch anything until I get the proper authorization. You’ll have to speak with the director,” he said, and gave her the necessary directions to find the administrative offices.
He motioned her out the door and she reluctantly complied, but not without giving him a frosty stare as she headed through it.
Bruce Ransom looked anxiously at the clock and watched with dismay as the second hand jerked inexorably forward. Each tick represented a diminishment in the short period of time he had to complete the research outline he was working on. This morning he had considered calling Ted Cummings and postponing their meeting, but he knew Ted was anxious to get this project under way, in spite of the inconvenience caused by Frank’s untimely demise. Bruce was beginning to get antsy over the work, too, mostly due to his sincere desire to have it out of the way so he could move on to the good stuff. It was boring work, a confirming replication of something he’d already done without the necessary documentation. But funding for the larger, more interesting work to follow was contingent on Bruce’s submission of that documentation, so he’d agreed to do it.
He remembered how he’d felt the day he discovered that the “bodyprint” of any bacterium could be used to reproduce a three-dimensional holographic image; by running that “printed” hologram through another program for 3-D animation, he’d been able to make the little fellow dance a jig before his eyes. It was a remarkable little bit of trickery. If he’d been able to add a schnoz and a hat, he could have morphed the creature into the bacterial version of Jimmy Durante. He could record the movements he’d animated and study every little detail by stopping the action at any point in the routine.
No one had been overly impressed until Bruce explained that what he’d done was significantly different from other types of 3-D computer animation: his version was based on real, living beings, and he could replicate them down to the individual cells. He knew, because he’d helped to develop the technique, that an individual bodyprint could be parsed into the separate body systems, the circulatory system, the skeleton, the neurological map, etcetera, and that those systems could be analyzed separately. What if, Bruce had said to the board, we could use this information to enable people who can’t move their limbs to control their own bodies through customized computer robotics?
And though Institute Director Ted Cummings had been jokingly described by one colleague as a “stunningly adequate” scientist, he recognized brilliance when it hauled off and slapped him across the face. Having housed no star-quality experiments for quite some time, the Institute sent its scientific machinery whirring into action, with Ted, a shrewd maker of political deals, at the helm, flawlessly manipulating the venerable establishment’s rudder on a course of grant-winning presentations. Remarkably, he himself was doing the lion’s share of the early lab work. This was a real detour from Ted’s usual routine. Bruce suspected that this was Ted’s way of including himself in what would surely be award-winning work without having to participate in the meatier, more demanding phase. The clamor of accolades was a powerful enticement, even for a talented administrator who rarely needed to pull on latex gloves to justify his paycheck. Perhaps his contract is up for renewal, Bruce thought cynically. Such personal involvement in experimental work was more than slightly out of character for a man whose last eleven years had been spent directing the activities of a very talented group of researchers, any one of whom could leave him in the dust in a lab setting.
One of Ted’s more ingratiating personal qualities was a penchant for punctuality. So when Bruce’s intercom buzzer suddenly sounded he was tempted to pick the thing up and fling it across the room.
God, how did I find myself fighting these deadlines all the time? No surprise, really. The Institute had recruited him right out of his residency. Bruce, who had already accepted a lucrative fellowship, gave it up to work in its state-of-the-art facilities. He’d never had a chance at private practice; he’d been sweet-talked right into a job in genetic research, a career path that he would readily admit had many benefits. The work was intriguing, he’d had lots of opportunity for travel and professional growth, and he had never been called out in the middle of the night to deliver the baby of a deadline.
Still, it had changed his life dramatically to follow this routine. He moved from Boston to California almost overnight, and eventually here to England, putting an abrupt end to his previous plan to settle into a nice safe practice.
Despite his previous inclination to launch the intercom on a quick trip to Jupiter, he pressed the button. “Yes, Clara, what can I do for you?” he asked, trying to sound ruffled but accommodating.
His secretary responded nervously, “Pardon me, Dr. Ransom, I’m sorry to disturb you, but Dr. Cummings just called from the lab. He’s anxious for you to join him.”
Oh, fuck, he thought as he pressed the button down. “It’s all right, I’ll be out shortly. Do me a favor, though, and call him back for me. Tell him I’ll be on my way in just a minute.”
He finished the section he had been dictating and printed it quickly. It wasn’t as organized as he’d hoped it would be, but it would have to do. Feeling a bit rumpled, he went to his lavatory and checked his appearance. Satisfied that he wouldn’t frighten anyone, he rushed out through the anteroom, file folder in hand, his lab coat flying out behind him, and promptly stubbed his toe on the leg of a chair.
“Son of a bitch!” he muttered to himself. This was not going to be an easy day.
Five
They rode at a fast pace for the rest of the day, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Alejandro’s town of Cervere, always keeping alert for sources of water. Alejandro adapted quickly to the rhythm of riding, and felt quite comfortable in the saddle. To anyone watching him he would not have seemed like the novice rider he was.
Noticing his charge’s unexpected skill, Hernandez remarked, “You are born to the saddle, Jew. I think you waste the best in yourself in being a medicus. It seems to me a worthless pursuit, anyway, full of deceit and trickery. I come from the barber’s surgery feeling worse than when I went in, without fail.”
“Then you must abandon the barber and instead consult a physician when you have a complaint, for a well-trained one has knowledge no barber can dare to claim.”
“One such as yourself?” Hernandez asked.
Alejandro hmphed cynically. “You may be assured that I am well trained, but I curse my own ignorance daily.”
“Well, then, it is settled. You must take up the sword if your present work fails to satisfy you. You will find more satisfaction in it, I am sure.”
Alejandro did not like the tenor of their conversation as it seemed to be developing. He put a little more distance between himself and Hernandez, moving a few feet farther away to make further discussion difficult. Such nonsense, he thought to himself. How can any calling be nobler than mine? Why, look what I have sacrificed for it! And why does this rogue bother me with such drivel, when I have far more weighty things to consider?
But Hernandez would not be put off. In the few hours they’d spent together, Alejandro had discovered him to be an extremely jocular fellow, a lover of discourse. As if he’d read the young physician’s mind, the Spaniard guided his horse closer and said, “You will find no nobler work than soldiering, young man. You look to be one who could easily master the skills.”
“And of course, you will be happy to teach me, I fear.…”
“And why not? What better time than a journey that may well prove treacherous?”
We do not have the time to luxuriate in the learning of skills, Alejandro thought to himself. By now the murder of the bishop has been discovered, and I am even more a hunted man than before. He wonde
red if Hernandez suspected him. He had said nothing, and did not act like a man who was escorting a fugitive he knew to be the murderer of a bishop. While they traveled quickly, Hernandez had not guided them into a state of flight; they traveled openly, without hiding, and Hernandez was friendly to all who passed.
“I think not,” Alejandro finally said to Hernandez’s offer.
“Oh, come now, young man, what can be the harm in it?”
And despite Alejandro’s evident reluctance Hernandez challenged him. “We will try something easy first. I will let you be the one to find a resting place where there is water.”
Wary though he was of participating in his escort’s little game, and weary though he was of their discussion, Alejandro loved a challenge. But water was not a luxury, it was a necessity. “And if I do not find water, what then?” he said to his companion. “Will we be in danger?”
“Then I will show you my own wisdom by being the one to find it.”
“All right, then,” Alejandro said.
As they rode on, Alejandro kept his eyes moving in search of the kind of greenery that would naturally be found near water. Several times he thought he’d found it, but on closer inspection every one of his “finds” had no water above the ground. Finally, from a distance, he spied a lush green enclave of vegetation, bigger and heartier than the previous sites. It came into closer view as they rode through the shimmering heat of the mostly brown Aragon countryside.
It did not take them long to reach the greenery. Their reward was a delightful spring bubbling up in its center. “You see?” Hernandez said. “You have natural skills. I shall help you to improve them even further.”