Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

It took Dunworthy a moment to recognize him. Colin had said he'd had a relapse, but he had not expected this. He looked like an old man, his dark face pinched to whiteness under the eyes and in long lines down the sides of the mouth. His hair had gone completely white. "Badri," he said.

He turned around. "Mr. Dunworthy."

"I didn't know that you were in this ward," Dunworthy said.

"They moved me here after — " he stopped. "I heard that you were better."

"Yes."

I can't bear this, Dunworthy thought. How are you feeling? Better, thank you. And you? Much improved. Of course there is the depression, but that is a normal post-viral symptom.

Badri wheeled his chair round to face the window, and Dunworthy wondered if he could not bear it either.

"I made an error in the coordinates when I refed them," Badri said, looking out at the rain. "I fed in the wrong data."

He should say, You were ill, you had a fever. He should tell him mental confusion was an Early Symptom. He should say, It was not your fault.

"I didn't realize I was ill," Badri said, picking at his robe as he had plucked at the sheet in his delirium. "I'd had a headache all morning, but I put it down to working the net. I should have realized something was wrong and aborted the drop."

And I should have refused to tutor her, I should have insisted Gilchrist run parameter checks, I should have made him open the net as soon as you said there was something wrong.

"I should have opened the net the day you fell ill and not waited for the rendezvous," Badri said, twisting the sash between his fingers. "I should have opened it immediately."

Dunworthy glanced automatically at the wall above Badri's head, but there were no screens above the bed. Badri was not even wearing a temp patch. He wondered if it were possible that Badri didn't know Gilchrist had shut down the net, if in their concern for his recovery they had kept it from Badri as they had kept the news of Mary's death from him.

"They refused to discharge me from hospital," Badri said. "I should have forced them to let me go."

I shall have to tell him, Dunworthy thought, but he didn't. He stood there silently, watching Badri torture the sash into wrinkles, and feeling infinitely sorry for him.

"Ms. Montoya showed me the Probability statistics," Badri said. "Do you think Kivrin's dead?"

I hope so, he thought. I hope she died of the virus before she realized where she was. Before she realized we had left her there. "It was not your fault," he said.

"I was only two days late opening the net. I was certain she'd be there waiting. I was only two days late."

"What?" Dunworthy said.

"I tried to get permission to leave hospital on the sixth, but they refused to discharge me until the eighth. I got the net open as soon as I could, but she wasn't there."

"What are you talking about?" Dunworthy said. "How could you open the net? Gilchrist shut it down."

Badri looked up at him. "We used the backup."

"What backup?"

"The fix I did on our net," Badri said, sounding bewildered. "You were so worried about the way Mediaeval was running the drop, I decided I'd better put on a backup, in case something went wrong. I came to Balliol to ask you about it Tuesday afternoon, but you weren't there. I left you a note saying I needed to talk to you."

"A note," Dunworthy said.

"The laboratory was open. I ran a redundant fix through Balliol's net," Badri said. "You were so worried."

The strength seemed suddenly to go out of Dunworthy's legs. He sat down on the bed.

"I tried to tell you," Badri said, "but I was too ill to make myself understood."

There had been a backup all along. He had wasted days and days trying to force Gilchrist to unlock the laboratory, searching for Basingame, waiting for Polly Wilson to contrive a way into the University's computer, and all the while the fix had been in the net at Balliol. "So worried," Badri had said through his delirium. "Is the laboratory open?" "Back up," he had said. Backup.

"Can you open the net again?"

"Of course, but even if she hasn't contracted the plague — "

"She hasn't," Dunworthy cut in. "She was immunized."

" — she wouldn't still be there. It's been eight days since the rendezvous. She couldn't have waited there all this time."

"Can someone else go through?"

"Someone else?" Badri said blankly.

"To look for her. Could someone else use the same drop to go through?"

"I don't know."

"How long would it take you to set it up so we could try it?"

"Two hours at the most. The temporals and locationals are already set, but I don't know how much slippage there'd be."

The door to the ward burst open and Colin came in. "There you are," he said. "The nurse said you'd taken a walk, but I couldn't find you anywhere. I thought you'd got lost."

"No," Dunworthy said, looking at Badri.

"She said I'm to bring you back," Colin said, taking hold of Dunworthy's arm and helping him up, "that you're not to overdo." He herded him toward the door.

Dunworthy stopped at the door. "Which net did you use when you opened the net on the eighth?" he said to Badri.

"Balliol's," he said. "I was afraid part of the permanent memory had been erased when Brasenose's was shut down, and there was no time to run a damage assessment routine."

Colin backed the door open. "The sister comes on duty in half an hour. You don't want her to find you up." He let the door swing shut. "I'm sorry I wasn't back sooner, but I had to take immunization schedules out to Godstow."

Dunworthy leaned against the door. There might be too much slippage, and the tech was in a wheelchair, and he was not sure he could walk as far as the end of the corridor, let alone back to his room. So worried. He had thought Badri meant, You were so worried I decided to refeed the coordinates, but he had meant, I put on a backup. A backup.

"Are you all right?" Colin asked. "You're not having a relapse or anything, are you?

"No," he said.

"Did you ask Mr. Chaudhuri if he could redo the fix?"

"No," he said. "There was a backup."

"A backup?" he said excitedly. "You mean, another fix?"

"Yes."

"Does that mean you can rescue her?"

He stopped and leaned against the stretcher trolley. "I don't know."

"I'll help you," Colin said. "What do you want me to do? I'll do anything you say. I can run errands, and fetch things for you. You won't have to do a thing."

"It might not work," Dunworthy said. "The slippage…"

"But you're going to try, aren't you? Aren't you?"

A band tightened round his chest with every step, and Badri had already had one relapse, and even if they managed it, the net might not send him through.

"Yes," he said. "I'm going to try."

"Apocalyptic!" Colin said.

Lady Imeyne, mother of Guillaume D'Iverie.

Rosemund is sinking. I can't feel the pulse in her wrist at all, and her skin looks yellow and waxen, which I know is a bad sign. Agnes is fighting hard. She still doesn't have any buboes or vomiting, which is a good sign, I think. Eliwys had to cut off her hair. She kept pulling at it, screaming for me to come and braid it.

Roche has anointed Rosemund. She couldn't make a confession, of course. Agnes seems better, though she had a nosebleed a little while ago. She asked for her bell.

You bastard! I will not let you take her. She's only a child. But that's your specialty, isn't it? Slaughtering the innocents? You've already killed the steward's baby and Agnes's puppy and the boy who went for help when I was in the hut, and that's enough. I won't let you kill her, too, you son of a bitch! I won't let you!