Greg Bear - Blood Music

He reached into his pants pocket and handed Edward a slip of paper with his address and phone number. Then he went to the keyboard and erased the image in the frame dumping the memory of the examination. “Just you. Nobody else for now. And please…hurry.”

It was one o’clock in the morning when Vergil walked out of the examination room. The samples had been taken. In the main lobby, Vergil shook hands with Edward. Vergil’s palm was damp, nervous. “Be careful with the specimens,” he said. “Don’t ingest anything.”

Edward watched Vergil cross the parking lot and get into his Volvo. Then he turned slowly and went back to the Frankenstein Wing. He poured a cc of Vergil’s blood into an ampoule, and several cc’s of urine into another, inserting both into the hospital’s tissue, specimen and serum analyzer. He would have the results in the morning, available on his office VDT. The stool sample would require manual work, but that could wait; right now he felt like one of the undead. It was two o’clock.

He pulled out a cot, shut off the lights and lay down without undressing. He hated sleeping in the hospital. When Gail woke up in the morning, she would find a message on the answerphone—a message, but no explanation. He wondered what he would tell her.

“I’ll just say it was good ol’ Vergil,” he murmured.

Edward shaved with an old straight razor kept in his desk drawer for just such emergencies, examined himself in the mirror of the doctor’s dressing room and rubbed his cheek critically. He had used the straight razor regularly in his student years, an affectation; since then the occasions had been seldom and his face showed it: three nicks patched with tissue paper and styptic pencil. He glanced at his watch. The batteries were running low and the display was dim. He shook it angrily and the display became crystal-clear: 6:30 A.M. Gail would be up and about, preparing for school.

He slipped two quarters into the pay phone in the doctor’s lounge and fumbled with the pencils and pens in his coat pocket.

“Hello?”

“Gail, Edward I love you and I’m sorry.”

“A disembodied voice on the phone awaited me. It might have been my husband.” She had a fine phone voice, one he had always admired. He had first asked her out, sight unseen, after hearing her on a phone at the house of a mutual friend.

“Yes, well—”

“Also, Vergil Ulam called a few minutes ago. He sounded anxious. I haven’t talked to him in years.”

“Did you tell him—”

“You were still at the hospital. Of course. Your shift is at eight today?”

“Same as yesterday. Two hours with premeds in the lab and six on call.”

“Mrs. Burdett called, also. She swears little Tony or Antoinette is whistling. She can hear him/her.”

“And your diagnosis?” Edward asked, grinning.

“Gas.”

“High-pressure, I’d say,” Edward added.

“Steam, must be,” Gail said. They laughed and Edward felt the morning assume reality. Last night’s mist of fantasy lifted and he was on the phone with his wife, making jokes about musical fetuses. That was normal. That was living.

“I’m going to take you out tonight,” he said. “Another Heisenberg dinner.”

“What’s that?”

“Uncertainty,” Edward said crisply. “We know where we are going, but not what we are going to eat. Or vice versa.”

“Sounds wonderful. Which car?”

“The Quantum, of course.”

“Oh, Lord. We just had the speedometer fixed.”

“And the steering went out?”

“Shh! It’s still working. We’re cheating.”

“Are you mad at me?”

Gail hmphed. “Vergil better see you during office hours today. Why is he seeing you, anyway? Sex-change?” The thought made her giggle and start to cough. He could picture her turning the phone away and waving at the air as if to clear it. “’Scuse. Really, Edward. Why?”

“Confidential, my love. I’m not sure I know, anyway. Maybe later.”

“Got to go. Six?”

“Maybe five-thirty.”

“I’ll still be critiquing videos.”

“I’ll sweep you away.”

“Delicious Edward.”

He cupped the receiver and smooched indelicately before hanging up. Then, rubbing his cheek to ball up and remove the tissue paper, he walked to the elevator and rode up to the Frankenstein Wing.

The analyzer was still clinking merrily, running hundreds of samples bottle by bottle through the tests. Edward sat down to its terminal and called up Vergil’s results. Columns and numbers appeared on the screen. The suggested diagnosis was unusually vague. Anomalies appeared in highlighted red type.

24/c ser c/count 10,000 lymphoc./mm 3

25/c ser c/count 14,500 lymphoc./mm 3

26/d check re/count 15,000 lymphoc./mm 3

DIAG (???) What are accompanying physical signs?

If the spleen and lymph nodes show enlargement, then:

ReDIAG: Patient (name? file? ) in late stages of severe infection.

Support : Histamine count, blood protein level (call), phagocyte count (call)

DIAG (???) (Blood sample inconclusive): if anemia, pain in joints, hemorrhage fever: ,

ReDIAG: Incipient lymphocytic leukemia

Support: Not a good fit, no support but lymphocyte count.

Edward asked for a hard copy of the analysis and the printer quietly produced a tight-packed page of figures. He looked it over, frowning deeply, folded it and stuck it in his coat pocket. The urine test seemed normal enough; the blood was unlike any he had ever seen before. He didn’t need to test the stool to make up his mind on a course of action: put the man in the hospital, under observation. Edward dialed Vergil’s number on the phone in his office.

On the second ring, a noncommittal female voice answered, “Ulam’s house, Candice here.”

“Could I speak to Vergil, please?”

“Whom may I say is calling?” Her tone was almost comically formal.

“Edward. He knows me.”

“Of course. You’re the doctor. Fix him up. Fix up everybody.” A hand muffled the mouthpiece and she called out, somewhat raucously, “Vergil!”

Vergil answered with a breathless “Edward! What’s up?”

“Hello, Vergil. I have some results, not very conclusive. But I want to talk with you, here, in the hospital.”

“What do the results say?”

“That you are a very ill person.”

“Nonsense.”

“I’m just telling you what the machine says. High lymphocyte count—”

“Of course, that fits perfectly—”

“And a very weird variety of proteins and other debris floating around in your blood. Histamines. You look like a fellow dying of severe infection.”

There was silence on Vergil’s end, then, “I’m not dying.”

“I think you should come in, let others check you over. And who was that on the phone—Candice? She—”

“No. Edward, I went to you for help. Nobody else, you know how I feel about hospitals.”

Edward laughed grimly. “Vergil, I’m not competent to figure this out.”

“I told you what it was. Now you have to help me control it.”

“That’s crazy, that’s bullshit, Vergil!” Edward damped his hand on his knee and pinched hard. “Sorry. I’m not taking this well. I hope you understand why.”

“I hope you understand how I’m feeling, right now. I’m sort of high, Edward. And more than a little afraid. And proud. Does that make sense?”

“Vergil, I—”

“Come to the apartment. Let’s talk and figure out what to do next.”

“I’m on duty, Vergil.”

“When can you come out?”

“I’m on for the next five days. This evening, maybe. After dinner.”