Connie Willis - Dooms Day Book

The door opened and the nurse ushered Montoya in. Her terrorist jacket and jeans were wet. It must still be raining. “What’s going on?” she said to Mary, who was labelling a vial of Gilchrist’s blood.

“It seems ,” Gilchrist said, pressing a wad of cotton wool to the inside of his arm and standing up, “that Mr. Dunworthy failed to have his tech properly checked for inoculations before he ran the net, and now he is in hospital with a temperature of 39.5. He apparently has some sort of exotic fever.”

“Fever?” Montoya said, looking bewildered. “Isn’t 39.5 low?”

“103 degrees in Fahrenheit,” Mary said, sliding the vial into its carrier. “Badri’s infection is possibly contagious. I need to run some tests and you’ll need to write down all of your contacts and Badri’s.”

“Okay,” Montoya said. She sat down in the chair Gilchrist had vacated and shrugged off her jacket. Mary swabbed the inside of her arm and clipped a new vial and disposable punch together. “Let’s get it over with. I’ve got to get back to my dig.”

“You can’t go back,” Gilchrist said. “Haven’t you heard? We’re under quarantine, thanks to Mr. Dunworthy’s carelessness.”

“Quarantine?” she said and jerked so the punch missed her arm completely. The idea of a disease she might contract had not affected her at all, but the mention of a quarantine did. “I have to get back,” she said, appealing to Mary. “You mean I have to stay here?”

“Until we have the blood test results,” Mary said, trying to find a vein for the punch.

“How long will that be?” Montoya said, trying to look at her digital with the arm Mary was working on. “The guy who brought me in didn’t even let me cover up the site or turn off the heaters, and it’s raining like crazy out there. I’ve got a churchyard that’s going to be full of water if I don’t get out there.”

“As long as it takes to get blood samples from all of you and run an antibodies count on them,” Mary said, and Montoya must have gotten the message because she straightened out her arm and held it still. Mary filled a vial with her blood, gave her her temp, and slid a tach bracelet on. Dunworthy watched her, wondering if she had been telling the truth. She hadn’t said Montoya could leave after they had the test results, only that she had to stay here until they were in. And what then? Would they be taken to an isolation ward together or separately? Or given some sort of medication? Or given more tests?

Mary took Montoya’s tach bracelet off and handed her the last set of papers. “Mr. Latimer? You’re next.”

Latimer stood up, holding his papers. He looked at them confusedly, then set them down on the chair he’d been sitting on, and started over to Mary. Halfway there, he turned and went back for Mary’s shopping bag. “You left this at Brasenose,” he said, holding it out to Mary.

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “Just set it next to the table, won’t you? These gloves are sterile.”

Latimer set the bag down, tipping it slightly. The end of the muffler trailed out on the floor. He methodically tucked it back in.

“I’d completely forgotten I left it there,” Mary said, watching him. “In all the excitement, I—” She clapped her gloved hand over her mouth. “Oh, my Lord! Colin! I’d forgotten all about him. What time is it?”

“4:08,” Montoya said without looking at her digital.

“He was supposed to come in at three,” she said, standing up and clattering the vials of blood in their carrier.

“Perhaps when you weren’t there he went round to your rooms,” Dunworthy said.

She shook her head. “This is the first time he’s been to Oxford. That’s why I told him I’d be there to meet him. I never even gave him a thought until now,” she said, almost to herself.

“Well, then, he’ll still be at the Underground station,” Dunworthy said. “Shall I go and fetch him?”

“No,” she said. “You’ve been exposed.”

“I’ll phone the station then. You can tell him to take a taxi here. Where was he coming in? Cornmarket?”

“Yes, Cornmarket.”

Dunworthy rang up information, got through on the third try, got the number off the screen and rang the station. The line was engaged. He hit disconnect and punched the number in again.

“Is Colin your grandson?” Montoya said. She had put aside her papers. The others didn’t seem to be paying any attention to this latest development. Gilchrist was filling in his forms and glaring, as if this was one more example of negligence and incompetence. Latimer was sitting patiently by the tray, his sleeve rolled up. The medic was still asleep.

“He’s my great-nephew,” Mary said. “He was coming up on the tube to spend Christmas with me.”

“What time was the quarantine called?”

“Ten past three,” Mary said.

Dunworthy held up his hand to indicate he’d gotten through. “Is that Cornmarket Underground Station?” he said. It obviously was. He could see the gates and a lot of people behind an irritated-looking station master. “I’m phoning about a boy who came in on the tube at three o’clock. He’s twelve. He would have come in from London.” Dunworthy held his hand over the receiver and asked Mary, “What does he look like?”

“He’s blonde and has blue eyes. He’s tall for his age.”

“Tall,” Dunworthy said loudly over the sound of the crowd. “His name is Colin—”

“Templer,” Mary said. “Dierdre said he’d take the tube from Marble Arch at one.”

“Colin Templer. Have you seen him?”

“What the bloody hell do you mean have I seen him?” the stationmaster shouted. “I’ve got five hundred people in this station and you want to know if I’ve seen a little boy. Look at this mess.”

The visual abruptly showed a milling crowd. Dunworthy scanned it, looking for a tallish boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. It switched back to the station master.

“There’s just been a temp quarantine,” he shouted over the roar which seemed to get louder by the minute, “and I’ve got a station full of people who want to know why the trains have stopped and why don’t I do something about it. I’ve got all I can do to keep them from tearing the place apart. I can’t bother about a boy.”

“His name is Colin Templer,” Dunworthy shouted. “His great aunt was supposed to meet him.”

“Well, why didn’t she then and make one less problem for me to deal with? I’ve got a crowd of angry people here who want to know how long the quarantine’s going to last and why don’t I do something about that –” He cut off suddenly. Dunworthy wondered if he’d hung up or had the phone snatched out of his hand by an angry shopper.

“Had the stationmaster seen him?” Mary said.

“No,” Dunworthy said. “You’ll have to send someone after him.”

“Yes, all right. I’ll send one of the staff,” she said, and started out.

“The quarantine was called at 3:10, and he wasn’t supposed to get here till three,” Montoya said. “Maybe he was late.”

That hadn’t occurred to Dunworthy. If the quarantine had been called before his train reached Oxford, it would have been stopped at the nearest station and the passengers rerouted or sent back to London.

“Ring the station back,” he said, handing her the phone. He told her the number. “Tell them his train left Marble Arch at one. I’ll have Mary phone her niece. Perhaps Colin’s back already.”

He went out in the corridor, intending to ask the nurse to fetch Mary, but she wasn’t there. Mary must have sent her to the station.

There was no one in the corridor. He looked down it at the call box he had used before and then walked rapidly down to it and punched in Balliol’s number. There was an off-chance that Colin had gone to Mary’s rooms after all. He would send Finch round, and if Colin wasn’t there, down to the station. It would very likely take more than one person looking to find Colin in that mess.