Okwera said "Tell the parents you found evidence of leakage, so she'll need to have regular follow-up examinations."
I glanced at Masika, but he was silent.
"I can't do that."
"You don't want to cause trouble."
"It was an accident!"
"Don't tell her, and don't tell her family." Okwera regarded me sternly, as if I was contemplating something both dangerous and self-indulgent. "It won't help anyone if you dive into the shit for this. Not her, not you. Not the hospital. Not the volunteer program."
The girl's mother spoke English. I told her there were signs that the cancer might have spread. She wept and thanked me for my good work.
Masika didn't say a word about the incident, but by the end of the day I could hardly bear to look at him. When Okwera departed, leaving the two of us alone in the locker room, I said "In three or four years there'll be a vaccine. Or even Healthguard software. It won't be like this forever."
He shrugged, embarrassed. "Sure."
"I'll raise funds for the research when I get home. Champagne dinners with slides of photogenic patients, if that's what it takes." I knew I was making a fool of myself, but I couldn't shut up. "This isn't the nineteenth century. We're not helpless any more. Anything can be cured, once you understand it."
Masika eyed me dubiously, as if he was trying to decide whether or not to tell me to save my platitudes for the champagne dinners. Then he said "We do understand Yeyuka. We have Healthguard software written for it, ready and waiting to go. But we can't run it on the machine here. So we don't need funds for research. What we need is another machine."
I was speechless for several seconds, trying to make sense of this extraordinary claim. "The hospital's machine is broken?"
Masika shook his head. "The software is unlicensed. If we used it on the hospital's machine, our agreement with Healthguard would be void. We'd lose the use of the machine entirely."
I could hardly believe that the necessary research had been completed without a single publication, but I couldn't believe Masika would lie about it either. "How long can it take Healthguard to approve the software? When was it submitted to them?"
Masika was beginning to look like he wished he'd kept his mouth shut, but there was no going back now. He admitted warily "It hasn't been submitted to them. It can't be-that's the whole problem. We need a bootleg machine, a decommissioned model with the satellite link disabled, so we can run the Yeyuka software without their knowledge."
"Why? Why can't they find out about it?"
He hesitated. "I don't know if I can tell you that."
"Is it illegal? Stolen?" But if it was stolen, why hadn't the rightful owners licensed the damned thing, so people could use it?
Masika replied icily, "Stolen back. The only part you could call 'stolen' was stolen back." He looked away for a moment, actually struggling for control. Then he said, "Are you sure you want to know the whole story?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll have to make a phone call."
Masika took me to what looked like a boarding house, student accommodation in one of the suburbs close to the campus. He walked briskly, giving me no time to ask questions, or even orient myself in the darkness. I had a feeling he would have liked to blindfold me, but it would hardly have made a difference; by the time we arrived I couldn't have said where we were to the nearest kilometre.
A young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, opened the door. Masika didn't introduce us, but I assumed she was the person he'd phoned from the hospital, since she was clearly expecting us. She led us to a ground-floor room; someone was playing music upstairs, but there was no one else in sight.
In the room, there was a desk with an old-style keyboard and computer monitor, and an extraordinary device standing on the floor beside it: a rack of electronics the size of a chest of drawers, full of exposed circuit boards, all cooled by a fan half a metre wide.
"What is that?"
The woman grinned. "We modestly call it the Makerere supercomputer. Five hundred and twelve processors, working in parallel. Total cost, fifty thousand shillings."
That was about fifty dollars. "How-?"
"Recycling. Twenty or thirty years ago, the computer industry ran an elaborate scam: software companies wrote deliberately inefficient programs, to make people buy newer, faster computers all the time-then they made sure that the faster computers needed new software to work at all. People threw out perfectly good machines every three or four years, and though some ended up as landfill, millions were saved. There's been a worldwide market in discarded processors for years, and the slowest now cost about as much as buttons. But all it takes to get some real power out of them is a little ingenuity."
I stared at the wonderful contraption. "And you wrote the Yeyuka software on this?"
"Absolutely." She smiled proudly. "First, the software characterizes any damaged surface adhesion molecules it finds-there are always a few floating freely in the bloodstream, and their exact shape depends on the strain of Yeyuka, and the particular cells that have been infected. Then drugs are tailor-made to lock onto those damaged adhesion molecules and kill the infected cells by rupturing their membranes." As she spoke, she typed on the keyboard, summoning up animations to illustrate each stage of the process. "If we can get onto a real machine we'll be able to cure three people a day."
Cure. Not just cut them open to delay the inevitable.
"But where did all the raw data come from? The RNA sequencing, the X-ray diffraction studies ... ?"
The woman's smile vanished. "An insider at Healthguard found it in the company archives, and sent it to us over the Net."
"I don't understand. When did Healthguard do Yeyuka studies? Why haven't they published them? Why haven't they written software themselves?"
She glanced uncertainly at Masika. He said "Healthguard's parent company collected blood from five thousand people in southern Uganda in 2013, supposedly to follow up on the effectiveness of their HIV vaccine. What they actually wanted, though, was a large sample of metastasizing cells so they could perfect the biggest selling point of the Healthguard: cancer protection. Yeyuka offered them the cheapest, simplest way to get the data they needed."
I'd been half expecting something like this since Masika's comments back in the hospital, but I was still shaken. To collect the data dishonestly was bad enough, but to bury information that was halfway to a cure, just to save paying for what they'd taken, was unspeakable.
I said "Sue the bastards! Get everyone who had samples taken together for a class action: royalties plus punitive damages. You'll raise hundreds of millions of dollars. Then you can buy as many machines as you want."
The woman laughed bitterly. "We have no proof. The files were sent anonymously, there's no way to authenticate their origin. And can you imagine how much Healthguard would spend on their defence? We can't afford to waste the next twenty years in a legal battle just for the satisfaction of shouting the truth from the rooftops. The only way we can be sure of making use of this software is to get a bootleg machine and do everything in silence."
I stared at the screen, at the cure being played out in simulation that should have been happening three times a day in Mulago hospital. She was right, though. However hard it was to stomach, taking on Healthguard directly would be futile.
Walking back across the campus with Masika, I kept thinking of the girl with the liver infestation, and the possibility of undoing the moment of clumsiness that would otherwise almost certainly kill her. I said "Maybe I can get hold of a bootleg machine in Shanghai. If I knew where to ask, where to look." They'd certainly be expensive, but they'd have to be much cheaper than a commissioned model, running without the usual software and support.
My hand moved almost unconsciously to check the metal pulse on my index finger. I held the ring up in the starlight. "I'd give you this, if it was mine to give. But that's thirty years away." Masika didn't reply, too polite to suggest that if I'd owned the ring outright
I wouldn't even have raised the possibility.
We reached University Hall; I could find my way back to the guest-house now. But I couldn't face another six weeks of surgery unless I knew something was going to come of the night's revelations. I said "Look, I don't have connections to any black market, I don't have a clue how to go about getting a machine. But if you can find out what I have to do, and it's within my power ... I'll do it."
Masika smiled, and nodded thanks, but I could tell that he didn't believe me. I wondered how many other people had made promises like this, then vanished back into the world-without -disease while the Yeyuka wards kept overflowing.
As he turned to go, I put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "I mean it. Whatever it takes, I'll do it."
He met my eyes in the dark, trying to judge something deeper than this easy protestation of sincerity. I felt a sudden flicker of shame; I'd completely forgotten that I was an impostor, that I'd never really meant to come here, that two months ago a few words from Lisa would have seen me throw away my ticket, gratefully.
Masika said quietly "Then I'm sorry that I doubted you. And I'll take you at your word."
Mubende was a district capital, half a day's drive west of Kampala. Iganga delayed our promised trip to the Yeyuka clinic there until my last fortnight, and once I arrived I could understand why. It was everything I'd feared: starved of funds, understaffed and overcrowded. Patients' relatives were required to provide and wash the bedclothes, and half of them also seemed to be bringing in painkillers and other drugs bought at the local markets-some genuine, some ripoffs full of nothing but glucose or magnesium sulphate.
Most of the patients had four or five separate tumours. I treated two people a day, with operations lasting six to eight hours. In ten days, seven people died in front of me; dozens more died in the wards, waiting for surgery.
I shared a crowded room at the back of the clinic with Masika and Okwera, but even on the rare occasions when I caught Masika alone, he seemed reluctant to discuss the issue of a bootleg Healthguard. He said "Right now, the less you know the better. When the time comes, I'll fill you in."
The ordeal of the patients was overwhelming, but I felt more for the clinic's sole doctor and two nurses; for them, it never ended. The morning we packed our equipment into the truck and headed back for Kampala, I felt like a deserter from some stupid, pointless war: guilty about the colleagues I was leaving behind, but almost euphoric with relief to be out of it myself. I knew I couldn't have stayed on here-or even in Kampala-month after month, year after year. However much I wished that I could have been that strong, I understood now that I wasn't.
There was a brief, loud stuttering sound, then the truck squealed to a halt. The four of us were in the back, guarding the equipment against potholes, with the tarpaulin above us blocking everything but a narrow rear view. I glanced at the others; someone outside shouted in Luganda at Akena lbingira, the driver, and he started shouting back.
Okwera said "Bandits."
I felt my heart racing. "You're kidding!"
There was another burst of gunfire. I heard Ibingira jump out of the cab, still muttering angrily.
Everyone was looking at Okwera for advice. He said "Just cooperate, give them what they want." I tried to read his face; he seemed grim but not desperate; he expected unpleasantness, but not a massacre. Iganga was sitting on the bench beside me; I reached for her hand almost without thinking. We were both trembling. She squeezed my fingers for a moment, then pulled free.
Two tall, smiling men in dirty, brown camouflage appeared at the back of the truck, gesturing with automatic weapons for us to climb out. Okwera went first, but Masika, who'd been sitting beside him, hung back. Iganga was nearer to the exit than me, but I tried to get past her; I had some half-baked idea that this would somehow lessen her risk of being taken off and raped. Viben one of the bandits blocked my way and waved her forward, I thought this fear had been confirmed.
Masika grabbed my arm, and when I tried to break free, he tightened his grip and pulled me back into the truck. I turned on him angrily, but before I could say a word he whispered "She'll be all right. just tell me: do you want them to take the ring?"
"What?"
He glanced nervously towards the exit, but the bandits had moved Okwera and Iganga out of sight. "I've paid them to do this. It's the only way. But say the word now and I'll give them the signal, and they won't touch the ring."
I stared at him, waves of numbness sweeping over my skin as I realized exactly what he was saying.
"You could have taken it off under anaesthetic."
He shook his head impatiently. "It's sending data back to Healthguard all the time: cortisol, adrenaline, endorphins, prostaglandins. They'll have a record of your stress levels, fear, pain ... if we took it off under anaesthetic, they'd know you'd given it away freely. This way, it'll look like a random theft. And your insurance company will give you a new one."
His logic was impeccable; I had no reply. I might have started protesting about insurance fraud, but that was all in the future, a separate matter entirely. The choice, here and now, was whether or not I let him have the ring by the only method that wouldn't raise suspicion.
One of the bandits was back, looking impatient. Masika asked plainly, "Do I call it off? I need an answer." I turned to him, on the verge of ranting that he'd wilfully misunderstood me, abused my generous offer to help him, and put all our lives in danger.
It would have been so much bullshit, though. He hadn't misunderstood me. All he'd done was taken me at my word.
I said "Don't call it off."
The bandits lined us up beside the truck, and had us empty our pockets into a sack. Then they started taking watches and jewellery. Okwera couldn't get his wedding ring off, but stood motionless and scowling while one of the bandits applied more force. I wondered if I'd need a prosthesis, if I'd still be able to do surgery, but as the bandit approached me I felt a strange rush of confidence.
I held out my hand and looked up into the sky. I knew that anything could be healed, once it was understood.
Frost Painting
Carolyn Ives Gilman
New writer Carolyn Ives Gilman has sold stories to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Universe, Full Spectrum, Realms of Fantasy, Bending the Landscape, and elsewhere. She is the author of five nonfiction books on frontier and American Indian history and recently published her first novel, Halfway Human. She lives in Saint Louis, where she works as a museum exhibition developer.
In the deceptively quiet story that follows, she shows us that the hardest thing is to let go of something that you never really had ...
Soon after Galena Pittman's plane landed in Williston, North Dakota, she began to pick up nuggets of valuable information. To wit:
1. They really listen to Country Western music in the country west. Monotonous, whining hours of it, in fact.
2. Edible vegetables are as rare there as art critics.
3. Don't depend on public transportation if you want to get somewhere before dehydration sets in.
"I'll just catch a cab," she said to the woman at the ticket counter in the oneroom Williston airport. The woman was dressed in the polyester pant suit all small-town females seemed required to wear, and she had that rural look of certainty that she knew how the land lay. Right now she was regarding Galena as if she were a six-year-old who needed life explained to her.
"The cab drivers will both be at home," she said.
"Both?" Galena said. "It's suppertime," the ticket woman said, efficiently piling up papers.
She cast an eye over Galena, taking in the stylish bolo tie with the ceramic cactus pin, the wide-brimmed hat with the quail feather, the hand-painted cowboy boots. Her eyebrow rose.
"How am I supposed to get to the motel, then?" Galena said. Outside, there was nothing in sight but range land. It was going to be a long walk.
At last the woman sighed. "I'll give you a lift."
Climbing int
o the woman's pickup, it occurred to Galena that the context had changed the message of her clothing since she had left Chicago that morning. Normally, she took pride in dressing with the kind of riskiness that said to onlookers, "This is a trained professional. Do not try this at home." But here the cultural referents were different.
"I suppose you think I'm intending to be satirical," she said as the truck thudded across cattle grates onto the highway, bouncing her off the seat. "Actually, I'm making a kind of reflexive commentary on the banalization of the Western motif in the mass market."
No reaction.
"It's a statement on Eastern use of Western symbols. I'm satirizing us, not you. "You heading for the Windrow Mountains?" the woman said. "Yes." Galena was surprised to be found out so quickly. "I figured. You're the type."
The type? Galena would admit to being many things, but not a type.
"We've been getting a lot of you through here," the woman went on. "Arty types."
Kooks. Weirdos. Galena could almost hear the woman thinking the words. "I'm not going there to stay," she said. "Joining a hive-mind's not my thing. I'm not a Californian."
"Uh-huh," the woman said.
There was something like a siren that went off in Galena's mind at times like this. It was whooping, wrong, wrong. She had made a fool of herself again. It was like a career.
The next morning when Galena picked up the white rental Hyundai at the Chevrolet dealership, the boots and bolo were gone. Even so, the car dealer spotted her right away. Guessing where she was bound, he turned suddenly reluctant to rent her the car.
"Look, I'm just going there to see a friend," Galena said reasonably. "I'll be back Sunday."
"So you say."
"You want to see my plane ticket?"
"You all have plane tickets." Exasperated, Galena said, "Have they ever heard of tolerance in this town?"
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection Page 74