Willis, Connie - Doomsday Book (v2.1)

by Doomsday Book (lit)

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 el
se, 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.

  "Kivrin?" His voice was almost too weak to be heard.

  The nurse banged in the door. "Mr. Dunworthy, you are not allowed in here -- "

  "On Sunday," Dunworthy said. "You were to have left her a message telling her what to do. Did you tell her to work on the tomb?"

  "Mr. Dunworthy, you're exposing yourself to the virus -- " the nurse said.

  Mary came in, pulling on a pair of imperm gloves. "You're not supposed to be in here without SPG's, James," she said.

  "I told him, Dr. Ahrens," the nurse said, but he barged past me and -- "

  "Did you leave Kivrin a message at the dig that she was to work on the tomb?" Dunworthy insisted.

  Badri nodded his head weakly.

  "She was exposed to the virus," Dunworthy said to Mary. "On Sunday. Four days before she left."

  "Oh, no," Mary breathed.

  "What is it? What's happened?" Badri said, trying to push himself up in the bed. "Where's Kivrin?" He looked from Dunworthy to Mary. "You pulled her out, didn't you? As soon as you realized what had happened? Didn't you pull her out?"

  "What had happened -- ?" Mary said.

  "You have to have pulled her out," Badri said. "She's not in 1320. She's in 1348."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  "That's impossible," Dunworthy said.

  "1348?" Mary said bewilderedly. "But that can't be. That's the year of the Black Death."

  She can't be in 1348, Dunworthy thought. Andrews said the possible maximal slippage was only five years. Badri said Puhalski's coordinates were correct.

  "1348?" Mary said again. He saw her glance at the screens on the wall behind Badri, as if hoping he was still delirious. "Are you certain?"

  Badri nodded. "I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw the slippage -- ," he said, and sounded as bewildered as Mary.

  "There couldn't have been enough slippage for her to be in 1348," Dunworthy cut in. "I had Andrews run parameter checks. He said the maximal slippage was only five years."

  Badri shook his head. "It wasn't the slippage. That was only four hours. It was too small. Minimal slippage on a drip that far in the past should have been at least forty-eight hours."

  The slippage had not been too great. It had been too small. I didn't ask Andrews what the minimal slippage was, only the maximal.

  "I don't know what happened," Badri said. "I had such a headache. The whole time I was setting the net, I had a headache."

  "That was the virus," Mary said. She looked stunned. "Headache and disorientation are the first symptoms." She sank down in the chair beside the bed. "1348."

  1348. He could not seem to take this in. He had been worried about Kivrin catching the Indian flu, he had been worried about there being too much slippage, and all the time she was in 1348. The plague had hit Oxford in 1348. At Christmastime.

  "As soon as I saw how small the slippage was, I knew there was something wrong," Badri said, so I called up the coordinates- -"

  "You said you checked Puhalski's coordinates," Dunworthy said accusingly.

  "He was only a first-year apprentice. He'd never even done a remote. And Gilchrist didn't have the least idea what he was doing. I tried to tell you. Wasn't she at the rendezvous?" He looked at Dunworthy. "Why didn't you pull her out?"

  "We didn't know," Mary said, still sitting there stunned. "You weren't able to tell us anything. You were delirious."

  "The plague killed fifty million people," Dunworthy said. "It killed half of Europe."

  "James," Mary said.

  "I tried to tell you," Badri said. "That's why I came to get you. So we could pull her out before she left the rendezvous."

  He had tried to tell him. He had run all the way to the pub. He had run out in the pouring rain without his coat to tell him, pushing his way between the Christmas shoppers and their shopping bags and umbrellas as if they weren't there, and arrived wet and half-frozen, his teeth chattering with the fever. There's something wrong.

  I tried to tell you. He had. "It killed half of Europe," he had said, and "it was the rats," and "What year is it?" He had tried to tell him.

  "If it wasn't the slippage, it has to have been an error in the coordinates," Dunworthy said, gripping the end of the bed.

  Badri shrank back against the propped pillows like a cornered animal.

  "You said Puhalski's coordinates were correct."

  "James," Mary said warningly.

  "The coordinates are the only other thing that could go wrong," he shouted. "Anything else would have aborted the drop. You said you checked them twice. You said you couldn't find any mistakes."

  "I couldn't," Badri said. "But I didn't trust them. I was afraid he'd made a mistake in the sidereal calculations that wouldn't show up." His face went gray. "I refed them myself. The morning of the drop."

  The morning of the drop. When he had had the terrific headache. When he was already feverish and disoriented. Dunworthy remembered him typing at the console, frowning at the display screens. I watched him do it, he thought. I stood and watched him send Kivrin to the Black Death.

  "I don't know what happened," Badri said. "I must have -- "

  "The plague wiped out whole villages," Dunworthy said. "So many people died, there was no one left to bury them."

  "Leave him alone, James," Mary said. "It's not his fault. He was ill."

  "Ill," he said. "Kivrin was exposed to the Indian flu. She's in 1348."

  "James," Mary said.

  He didn't wait to hear it. He yanked the door open and plunged out.

  Colin was balancing on a chair in the corridor, tipping it back so the front two legs were off the ground. "There you are," he said.

  Dunworthy walked rapidly past him.

  "Where are you going?" Colin said, tipping the chair forward with a crash. "Great-Aunt
Mary said not to let you leave till you'd had your enhancement." He lurched sideways, caught himself on his hands, and scrambled up. "Why aren't you wearing your SPG's?"

  Dunworthy shoved through the ward doors.

  Colin came skidding through the doors. "Great-Aunt Mary said I was absolutely not to let you leave."

  "I don't have time for inoculations," Dunworthy said. "She's in 1348."

  "Great-Aunt Mary?"

  He started down the corridor.

  "Kivrin?" Colin asked, running to catch up. "She can't be. That's when the Black Death was, isn't it?"

  Dunworthy shoved open the door to the stairs and started down them two at a time.

  "I don't understand," Colin said. "How did she end up in 1348?"

  Dunworthy pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs and started down the corridor to the call box, fishing in his overcoat for the pocket calendar Colin had given him.

  "How are you going to pull her out?" Colin asked. "The laboratory's locked."

  Dunworthy pulled out the pocket calendar and began turning pages. He'd written Andrews' number in the back.

  "Mr. Gilchrist won't let you in. How are you going to get into the laboratory? He said he wouldn't let you in."

  Andrews' number was on the last page. He picked up the receiver.

  "If he does let you in, who's going to run the net? Mr. Chaudhuri?"

  "Andrews," Dunworthy said shortly and began punching in the number.

  "I thought he wouldn't come. Because of the virus."

  Dunworthy put the receiver to his ear. "I'm not leaving her there."

  A woman answered. "24837 here," she said. "H.F. Shepherds', Limited."

  Dunworthy looked blankly at the pocket calendar in his hand. "I'm trying to reach Ronald Andrews," he said. "What number is this?"

  "24837," she said impatiently. "There's no one here by that name."

  He slammed the phone down. "Idiot telephone service," he said. He punched in the number again.

  "Even if he agrees to come, how are you going to find her?" Colin asked, looking over his shoulder at the receiver. "She won't be there, will she? The rendezvous isn't for three days."

  Dunworthy listened to the telephone's ringing, wondering what Kivrin had done when she realized where she was. Gone back to the rendezvous and waited there, no doubt. If she was able to. If she was not ill. If she had not been accused of bringing the plague to Skendgate.