Greg Bear - Darwin's Radio

In no time at all, he opened his eyes wide to the sky-spanning glare of a blinding blue sun.

Gordi Lado, shaking his head in sad embarrassment, left Kaye in Beck’s care to return to Tbilisi. He could not be away from the Eliava Institute for long.

The UN took over the small Rustaveli Tiger in Gordi, renting all of the rooms. The Russians pitched more tents and slept between the village and the graves.

Under the pained but smiling attention of the innkeeper, a stout black-haired woman named Lika, the UN peacekeepers ate a late supper of bread and tripe soup, served with big glasses of vodka. Everyone retired to bed shortly after, except for Kaye and Beck.

Beck pulled a chair up to the wooden table and placed a glass of white wine in front of her. She had not touched the vodka.

“This is Manavi. Best they have here — for us, at any rate.” Beck sat and directed a belch into his fist. “Excuse me. What do you know about Georgian history?”

“Not a lot,” Kaye said. “Recent politics. Science.”

Beck nodded and folded his arms. “Our dead mothers,” he said, “could conceivably have been murdered during the troubles — the civil war. But I don’t know of any actions in or around Gordi.” He made a dubious face. “They could be victims from the 1930s, the ‘40s, or the 1950s. But you say no. Good point about the roots.” He rubbed his nose and then scratched his chin. “For such a beautiful country, there’s a fair amount of grim history.”

Beck reminded Kaye of Saul. Most men his age somehow reminded Kaye of Saul, twelve years her senior, back on Long Island, far away in more than just distance. Saul the brilliant, Saul the weak, Saul whose mind creaked more every month. She sat up and stretched her arms, scraping the legs of her chair against the tile floor.

“I’m more interested in her future,” Kaye said. “Half the pharmaceutical and medical companies in the United States are making pilgrimages here. Georgia’s expertise could save millions.”

“Helpful viruses.”

“Right,” Kaye said. “Phages.”

“Attack only bacteria.”

Kaye nodded.

“I read that Georgian troops carried little vials filled with phages during the troubles,” Beck said. “They swallowed them if they were going into battle, or sprayed them on wounds or burns before they could get to hospital.”

Kaye nodded. “They’ve been using phage therapy since the twenties, when Felix d’Herelle came here to work with George Eliava. D’Herelle was sloppy; the results were mixed back then, and soon enough we had sulfa and then penicillin. We’ve pretty much ignored phages until now. So we end up with deadly bacteria resistant to all known antibiotics. But not to phages.”

Through the window of the small lobby, over the roofs of the low houses across the street, she could see the mountains gleaming in the moonlight. She wanted to go to sleep but knew she would lie awake in the small hard bed for hours.

“Here’s to the prettier future,” Beck said. He lifted his glass and drained it. Kaye took a sip. The wine’s sweetness and acidity made a lovely balance, like tart apricots.

“Dr. Jakeli told me you were climbing Kazbeg,” Beck said. “Taller than Mont Blanc. I’m from Kansas. No mountains at all. Hardly any rocks.” He smiled down at the table, as if embarrassed to meet her gaze. “I love mountains. I apologize for dragging you away from your business…and your pleasure.”

“I wasn’t climbing,” she said. “Just hiking.”

“I’ll try to have you out of here in a few days,” Beck said. “Geneva has records of missing persons and possible massacres. If there’s a match and we can date it to the thirties, we’ll hand it over to the Georgians and the Russians.” Beck wanted the graves to be old, and she could hardly blame him.

“What if it’s recent?” Kaye asked.

“We’ll bring in a full investigation team from Vienna.”

Kaye gave him a clear, no-nonsense look. “It’s recent,” she said.

Beck finished off his glass, stood, and clutched the back of his chair with his hands. “I agree,” he said with a sigh. “What made you give up on criminology? If I’m not intruding…”

“I learned too much about people,” Kaye said. Cruel, rotten, dirty, desperately stupid people . She told Beck about the Brooklyn homicide lieutenant who had taught her class. He had been a devout Christian. Showing them pictures of a particularly horrendous crime scene, with two dead men, three dead women, and a dead child, he had told the students, “The souls of these victims are no longer in their bodies. Don’t sympathize with them. Sympathize with the ones left behind. Get over it. Get to work. And remember: you work for God.”

“His beliefs kept him sane,” Kaye said.

“And you? Why did you change your major?”

“I didn’t believe,” Kaye said.

Beck nodded, flexed his hands on the back of the chair. “No armor. Well, do your best. You’re all we’ve got for the time being.” He said good night and walked to the narrow stairs, climbing with a fast, light tread.

Kaye sat at the table for several minutes, then stepped through the inn’s front door. She stood on the granite flagstone step beside the narrow cobbled street and inhaled the night air, with its faint odor of town sewage. Over the rooftop of the house opposite the inn she could see the snow-capped crest of a mountain, so clear she could almost reach out and touch it.

In the morning, she came awake wrapped in warm sheets and a blanket that hadn’t been laundered in some time. She stared at a few stray hairs, not her own, trapped in the thick gray wool near her face. The small wooden bed with carved and red-painted posts occupied a plaster-walled room about eight feet wide and ten feet long, with a single window behind the bed, a single wooden chair, and a plain oak table bearing a washstand. Tbilisi had modern hotels, but Gordi was away from the new tourist trails, too far off the Military Road.

She slipped out of bed, splashed water on her face, and pulled on her denims and blouse and coat. She was reaching for the iron latch when she heard a heavy knock. Beck called her name. She opened the door and blinked at him owlishly.

“They’re running us out of town,” he said, his face hard. “They want all of us back in Tbilisi by tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“We’re not wanted. Regular army soldiers are here to escort us. I’ve told them you’re a civilian advisor and not a member of the team. They don’t care.”

“Jesus,” Kaye said. “Why the turnaround?”

Beck made a disgusted face. “The sakrebulo , the council, I presume. Nervous about their nice little community. Or maybe it comes from higher up.”

“Doesn’t sound like the new Georgia,” Kaye said. She was concerned about how this might affect her work with the institute.

“I’m surprised, too,” Beck said. “We’ve stepped on somebody’s toes. Please pack your case and join us downstairs.”

He turned to go, but Kaye took his arm. “Are the phones working?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re welcome to use one of our satellite phones.”

“Thanks. And — Dr. Jakeli is back in Tbilisi by now. I’d hate to make him drive out here again.”

“We’ll take you to Tbilisi,” Beck said. “If that’s where you want to go.”

Kaye said, “That’ll be fine.”

The white UN Cherokees gleamed in the bright sun outside the inn. Kaye peered at them through the window panes of the lobby and waited for the innkeeper to bring out an antiquated black dial phone and plug it into the jack by the front desk. She picked up the receiver, listened to it, then handed it to Kaye: dead. In a few more years, Georgia would catch up with the twenty-first century. For now, there were less than a hundred lines to the outside world, and with all calls routed through Tbilisi, service was sporadic.