Greg Bear - Darwin's Children

PENNSYLVANIA

Stella saw and felt everything in ragged jerks. Being moved was an agony and she cried out, but still, the shadows insisted on hurting her. She saw asphalt and stone and gray bricks, then a big upside-down tree, and finally a bed with tight pink sheets. She saw and heard adults talking in the light of an open door. Everything else was dark, so she turned toward the darkness—it hurt less—and listened with huge ears to voices in another room. For a moment, she thought these were the voices of the dead, they were saying such incredible things, harmonizing with a weird joy. They were discussing fire and hell and who was going to be eaten next, and a mad woman laughed in a way that made her flesh crawl.

The flesh did not stop crawling. It just kept on going, and she lay in the bed with no skin, staring up at cobwebs or ghostly arms or just floaters inside her eyeballs, tiny chains of cells magnified to the size of balloons. She knew they were not balloons. It did not matter.

Kaye was beyond exhaustion. Iris Mackenzie sat her down in a chair with a cup of coffee and a cookie. The house was huge and bright inside with the colors and tones rich folks choose: creams and pale grays, Wedgwood blues and deep, earthy greens.

“You have to eat something and rest,” Iris told her.

“Mitch…” Kaye began.

“He and George are with your girl.”

“I should be with her.”

“Until the doctor arrives, there’s nothing you can do.”

“A sponge bath, get that temperature down.”

“Yes, in a minute. Now rest, Kaye, please. You nearly fainted on the front porch.”

“She should be in a hospital,” Kaye said, her eyes going a little wild. She managed to stand, pushing past Iris’s gentle hands.

“No hospital will take her,” Iris said, turning restraint into a hug and sitting her down again. Iris pressed her cheek against Kaye’s and there were tears on it. “We called everyone on the phone tree. Lots of the new children have it. It’s on the news already, hospitals are refusing admissions. We’re frantic. We don’t know about our son. We can’t get through to Iowa.”

“He’s in a camp?” Kaye was confused. “We thought the network was just active parents.”

“We are very active parents,” Iris said with iron in her tone. “It’s been two months. We’re still listed, and we will stay listed as long as we can help. They can’t hurt us any more than they already have, right?”

Iris had the brightest green eyes, set like jewels in a face that was farmer’s daughter pretty, with light, florid Irish cheeks and dark brown hair, a slender physique, thin, strong fingers that moved rapidly, touching her hair, her blouse, the tray, and the kettle, pouring hot water into the bone china cups and stirring in instant coffee.

“Does the disease have a name?” Kaye asked.

“No name yet. It’s in the schools—the camps, I mean. Nobody knows how serious it is.”

Kaye knew. “We saw a girl. She was dead. Stella may have got it from her.”

“God damn it,” Iris said, teeth clenched. It was a real curse, not just an exclamation.

“I’m sorry I’m so scattered,” Kaye said. “I need to be with Stella.”

“We don’t know it isn’t catching… for us. Do we?”

“Does it matter?” Kaye said.

“No. Of course not,” Iris said. She wiped her face. “It absolutely does not matter.” The coffee was being ignored. Kaye had not taken a sip. Iris walked off. Turning, she said, “I’ll get some alcohol and a bath sponge. Let’s get her temperature down.”

OHIO

The director greeted the staff car at the tangent where the wide circular drive met the steps to the colonnade of the administration building. He wore a brown suit and stood six feet tall, with wheat-colored hair thinning at the crown, a bulbous nose, and almost no cheek bones. Two women, one large and one short, dressed in green medical scrubs, stood at the top of the steps. Their features were obscured by the shadow of a side wall that blocked the low sun.

Augustine opened the door and got out without waiting for the driver. The director dried his hands on his pants leg, then offered one to shake. “Dr. Augustine, it’s an honor.”

Augustine gave the man’s hand a quick grip. Dicken pushed his leg out, grasped the handle over the door, and climbed from the car. “Christopher Dicken, this is Geoffrey Trask,” Augustine introduced him.

Behind them, the two Secret Service cars made a V, blocking the drive. Two men stepped out and stood by the open car doors.

Trask mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “We’re certainly glad to have both of you,” he said. At six thirty in the evening, the heat was slowly retreating from a high of eighty-five degrees.

Trask flicked his head to one side and the two women descended the steps. “This is Yolanda Middleton, senior nurse and paramedic for the pediatric care center.”

Middleton was in her late forties, heavy-set, with classic Congolese features, short-cut wild hair, immense, sad eyes, and a bulldog expression. Her uniform was wrinkled and stained. She nodded at Dicken, then examined Augustine with blunt suspicion.

“And this is Diana DeWitt,” Trask continued. DeWitt was small and plump-faced with narrow gray eyes. Her green pants hung around her ankles and she had rolled up her sleeves. “A school counselor.”

“Consulting anthropologist, actually,” DeWitt said. “I travel and visit the schools. I arrived here three days ago.” She smiled sadly but with no hint that she felt put-upon. “Dr. Augustine, we have met once before. This would be a pleasure, Dr. Dicken, under other circumstances.”

“We should get back,” Middleton said abruptly. “We’re very short-staffed.”

“These people are essential, Ms. Middleton,” Trask admonished.

Middleton flared. “Jesus himself could visit, Mr. Trask, and I’d make him pitch in. You know how bad it is.”

Trask put on his most royal frown—a poor performance—and Dicken moved in to defuse the tension. “We don’t know,” he said. “How bad is it?”

“We shouldn’t talk out here,” Trask looked nervously at the small crowd of protesters beyond the fence, more than two hundred yards away. “They have those big ears, you know, listening dishes? Yolanda, Diana, could you accompany us? We’ll carry on our discussion inside.” He walked ahead through the false columns.

One agent joined them, following at a discreet distance.

All of the older buildings were a jarring shade of ocher. The architecture screamed prison, even with the bronze plate on the wall and the sign over the front gate insisting that this was a school.

“On orders from the governor, we have a press blackout,” Trask said. “Of course, we don’t allow cell phones or broadband in the school, and I’ve taken the central switchboard offline for now. I believe in a disciplined approach to getting out our message. We don’t want to make it seem worse than it is. Right now, my first priority is procuring medical supplies. Dr. Kelson, our lead physician, is working on that now.”

Inside the building, the corridors were cooler, though there was no air conditioning. “Our plant has been down, my apologies,” Trask said, looking back at Augustine. “We haven’t been able to get repair people in. Dr. Dicken, this is an honor. It truly is. If there’s anything I can explain—”

“Tell us how bad it is,” Augustine said.

“Bad,” Trask said. “On the verge of being out of control.”

“We’re losing our children,” Middleton said, her voice breaking. “How many today, Diane?”