Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

"It's Badri, isn't it? He's dead."

She looked genuinely surprised. "Oh, no, he's much better this morning. Didn't you get my note? He's sitting up."

"Sitting up?" he said, staring at her, wondering if she were delirious with fever.

"He's still very weak of course, but his temp's normal and he's alert. You're to meet Dr. Ahrens in casualties. She said it was urgent."

He looked wonderingly toward the door to Badri's room. "Tell him I'll be in to see him as soon as I can," he said and hurried out the door.

He nearly collided with Colin, who was apparently coming in. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Did one of the techs telephone?"

"I've been assigned to you," Colin said. "Great-Aunt Mary says she doesn't trust you to get your T-cell enhancement. I'm supposed to take you down to get it."

"I can't. There's an emergency in casualties," he said, walking rapidly down the corridor.

Colin ran to keep up with him. "Well, then, after the emergency. She said I wasn't to let you leave Infirmary without it."

Mary was there to meet them when the lift opened. "We have another case," she said grimly. "It's Montoya." She started for casualties. "They're bringing her in from Witney."

"Montoya?" Dunworthy said. "That's impossible. She's been out at the dig alone."

She pushed open the double doors. "Apparently not."

"But she said — are you certain it's the virus? She's been working in the rain. Perhaps it's some other disease."

Mary shook her head. "The ambulance team ran a prelim. It matches the virus." She stopped at the admissions desk and asked the house officer, "Are they here yet?"

He shook his head. "They've just come through the perimeter."

Mary walked over to the doors and looked out, as if she didn't believe him. "We got a call from her this morning, very confused," she said, turning back to them. "I telephoned to Chipping Norton, which is the nearest hospital, told them to send an ambulance, but they said the dig was officially under quarantine. And I couldn't get one of ours out to her. I finally had to persuade the NHS to grant a dispensation to send an ambulance." She peered out the doors again. "When did she go out to the dig?"

"I — " Dunworthy tried to remember. She had phoned to ask him about the Scottish fishing guides on Christmas Day and then phoned back that afternoon to say, "Never mind," because she had decided to forge Basingame's signature instead. "Christmas Day," he said. "If the NHS offices were open. Or the twenty-sixth. And she hasn't seen anyone since then."

"How do you know?"

"When I spoke to her, she was complaining that she couldn't keep the dig dry singlehanded. She wanted me to phone to the NHS to ask for students to help her."

"How long ago was that?"

"Two — no, three days ago," he said, frowning. The days ran together when one never got to bed.

"Could she have found someone at the farm to help after she spoke to you?"

"There's no one there in the winter."

"As I remember, Montoya recruits anyone who comes within reach. Perhaps she enlisted some passerby."

"She said there weren't any. The dig's very isolated."

"Well, she must have found someone. She's been out at the dig for eight days, and the incubation period's only twelve to forty-eight hours."

"The ambulance is here!" Colin said.

Mary pushed out the doors, Dunworthy and Colin on her heels. Two ambulancemen in masks lifted a stretcher out and onto a trolley. Dunworthy recognized one of them. He had helped bring Badri in.

Colin was bending over the stretcher, looking interestedly at Montoya, who lay with her eyes closed. Her head was propped up with pillows, and her face was flushed the same heavy red as Ms. Breen's had been. Colin leaned farther over her, and she coughed directly in his face.

Dunworthy grabbed the collar of Colin's jacket and dragged him away from her. "Come away from there. Are you trying to catch the virus? Why aren't you wearing your mask?"

"There aren't any."

"You shouldn't be here at all. I want you to go straight back to Balliol and — "

"I can't. I'm assigned to make certain you get your enhancement."

"Then sit down over there," Dunworthy said, walking him over to a chair in the reception area, "and stay away from the patients."

"You'd better not try to sneak out on me," Colin said warningly, but he sat down, pulled his gobstopper out of his pocket, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.

Dunworthy went back over to the stretcher trolley. "Lupe," Mary was saying, "we need to ask you some questions. When did you fall ill?"

"This morning," Montoya said. Her voice was hoarse, and Dunworthy realized suddenly that she must be the person who had telephoned him. "Last night I had a terrible headache," she raised a muddy hand and drew it across her eyebrows, "but I thought it was because I was straining my eyes."

"Who was with you out at the dig?"

"Nobody," Montoya said, sounding surprised.

"What about deliveries? Did someone from Witney deliver supplies to you?"

She started to shake her head, but it apparently hurt, and she stopped. "No. I took everything with me."

"And you didn't have anyone with you to help you with the excavation?"

"No. I asked Mr. Dunworthy to tell the NHS to send some help, but he didn't." Mary looked across at Dunworthy, and Montoya followed her glance. "Are they sending someone?" she asked him. "They'll never find it if they don't get someone out there."

"Find what?" he said, wondering if her answer could be trusted or if she were delirious.

"The dig is half underwater right now," she said.

"Find what?"

"Kivrin's corder."

He had a sudden image of Montoya standing by the tomb, sorting through the muddy box of stone-shaped bones. Wrist bones. They had been wrist bones, and she had been examining the uneven edges, looking for a bone spur that was actually a piece of recording equipment. Kivrin's corder.

"I haven't excavated all the graves yet," Montoya said, "and it's still raining. They have to send someone out immediately."

"Graves?" Mary said, looking at him uncomprehendingly. "What is she talking about?"

"She's been excavating a mediaeval churchyard looking for Kivrin's body," he said bitterly, "looking for the corder you implanted in Kivrin's wrist."

Mary wasn't listening. "I want the contacts charts," she said to the house officer. She turned back to Dunworthy. "Badri was out at the dig, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"The eighteenth and nineteenth," he said.

"In the churchyard?"

"Yes. He and Montoya were opening a knight's tomb."

"A tomb," Mary said, as if it were the answer to a question. She bent over Montoya. "Did you work on the knight's tomb this week?" she asked.

Montoya tried to nod, stopped. "I get so dizzy when I move my head," she said apologetically. "I had to move the skeleton. Water'd gotten into the tomb."

"What day did you work on the tomb?"

Montoya frowned. "I can't remember. The day before the bells, I think."

"The thirty-first," Dunworthy said. He leaned over her. "Have you worked on it since?"

She tried to shake her head again.

"The contacts charts are up," the house officer said.

Mary walked rapidly over to his desk and took the keyboard over from him. She tapped several keys, stared at the screen, tapped more keys.

"What is it?" Dunworthy said.

"What are the conditions at the churchyard?" Mary said.

"Conditions?" he said blankly. "It's muddy. She's covered the churchyard with a tarp, but a good deal of rain was still getting in."

"Warm?"

"Yes. She said it was muggy. She had several electric fires hooked up. What is it?"

She drew her finger down the screen, looking for something. "Viruses are exceptionally sturdy organisms," she said. "They can lie dormant for long periods of time and be revived. Living viruses have been taken from Egyptian mummies." Her finger stopped at a date. "I thought so. Badri was at the dig four days before he came down with the virus."