Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

By the time I got the coughing under control, Imeyne had set meat and cheese on the table for Gawyn, and Eliwys had gone back to her sewing, so I still don't know anything.

No, that's not true. I know why Eliwys looked so wary when he came in and why he made up a tale about a band of renegades. And what that conversation about "daltrisses" was all about.

I watched him standing there in the doorway looking at Eliwys, and I didn't need an interpreter to read his face. He's obviously in love with his lord's wife.

Dunworthy slept straight through till morning.

"Your secretary wanted to wake you up, but I wouldn't let him," Colin said. "He said to give you these." He thrust a messy sheaf of papers at him.

"What time is it?" Dunworthy said, sitting up stiffly in bed.

"Half past eight," Colin said. "All the bellringers and DT's are in hall eating breakfast. Oatmeal." He made a gagging sound. "It was absolutely necrotic. Your secretary chap says we need to ration the eggs and bacon because of the quarantine."

"Half past eight in the morning?" Dunworthy asked, blinking nearsightedly at the window. It was as dark and dismal as when he'd fallen asleep. "Good Lord, I was supposed to have gone back to hospital to question Badri."

"I know," Colin said. "Great-Aunt Mary said to let you sleep, that you couldn't question him anyway because they're running tests."

"She rang up?" Dunworthy asked, groping blindly for his spectacles on the bedstand.

"I went over this morning. To have my blood tested. Great- aunt Mary said to tell you we only need to come once a day for our blood tests."

He hooked his spectacles over his ears and looked at Colin. "Did she say whether they'd identified the virus?"

"Huh-unh," Colin said around a lump in his cheek. Dunworthy wondered if the gobstopper had been in his mouth all night, and if so why it hadn't diminished in size. "She sent you the contacts charts." He handed the papers to him. "The lady we saw at the infirmary rang up, too. The one on the bicycle."

"Montoya?"

"Yes. She wanted to know if you knew how to get in touch with Mr. Basingame's wife. I told her you'd ring her back. When does the post come, do you know?"

"The post?" Dunworthy said, looking through the stack.

"Mum didn't have my presents bought in time to send them on the tube with me," Colin said. "She said she'd send them by post. You don't think the quarantine will delay it, do you?"

Some of the papers Colin had handed him were stuck together, no doubt because of Colin's periodic examinations of his gobstopper, and most of them seemed to be, not the contact charts, but assorted memoranda from Finch: One of the heating vents in Salvin was stuck shut. The National Health Service ordered all inhabitants of Oxford and environs to avoid contact with infected persons. Mrs. Basingame was in Torquay for Christmas. They were running very low on lavatory paper.

"You don't, do you? Think it will delay it?" Colin asked.

"Delay what?" Dunworthy said.

"The post !" Colin said disgustedly. "The quarantine won't delay it, will it? What time is it supposed to come?"

"Ten," Dunworthy said. He sorted all the memoranda into one pile and opened a large manila envelope. "It's usually a bit late at Christmas because of all the parcels and Christmas cards.

The stapled sheets in the envelope weren't the contact charts either. They were William Gaddson's report on Badri's and Kivrin's whereabouts, neatly typed and organized into the morning, afternoon, and evening of each day. It looked far neater than any essay he'd ever handed in. Amazing what a salutory influence a mother could have.

"I don't see why it should be," Colin said. "I mean, it's not as if it's people, is it, so it can't be contagious? Where does it come, to the hall?"

"What?"

"The post ."

"Porter's lodge," Dunworthy said, reading the report on Badri. He had gone back to the net Tuesday afternoon after he was at Balliol. Finch had spoken to him at two o'clock, when he had asked where Mr. Dunworthy was, and again at a little before three, when Badri had given him the note. At some time between two and three, John Yi, a third-year student, had seen him cross the quad to the laboratory, apparently looking for someone.

At three the porter at Brasenose had logged Badri in. He had worked in the net until half-past seven and then gone back to his flat and dressed for the dance.

Dunworthy phoned Latimer. "When you were at the net Tuesday afternoon?"

He blinked bewilderedly at Dunworthy from the screen. "Tuesday?" he said, looking around as if he had mislaid something. "Was that yesterday?"

"The day before the drop," Dunworthy said. "You went to the Boleian in the afternoon."

He nodded. "She wanted to know how to say, 'Help me for I have been set upon by thieves.'"

Dunworthy assumed by "she" he meant Kivrin. "Did Kivrin meet you at the Bodleian or at Brasenose?"

He put his hand to his chin, pondering. "We had to work until late in the evening deciding on the form of the pronouns," he said. "The decay of pronomial inflections was advanced in the 1300's but not complete."

"Did Kivrin come to the net to meet you?"

"The net?" Latimer said doubtfully.

"To the laboratory at Brasenose," Dunworthy snapped.

"Brasenose? The Christmas Eve service isn't at Brasenose, is it?"

"The Christmas Eve service?"

"The vicar said he wished me to read the benediction," Latimer said. "Is it being held at Brasenose?"

"No. You met with Kivrin Tuesday afternoon to work on her speech. Where did you meet her?"

"The word 'thieves' was very difficult to translate. It derives from the Old English theof , and is — "

This was useless. "The Christmas Eve service is at St. Mary the Virgin's at seven," he said and rang off.

He phoned the porter at Brasenose, who was still decorating his tree, and made him look up Kivrin in his log book. She hadn't been there Tuesday afternoon.

He fed the contacts charts into the console and entered the additions from William's report. Kivrin hadn't seen Badri Tuesday. Tuesday morning she had been in Infirmary and then with Dunworthy. Tuesday afternoon she'd been with Latimer and Badri would have been gone to the dance in Headington before they left the Bodleian. Monday from three on she was in Infirmary, but there was still a gap between twelve and half-past two on Monday.

He scanned the contacts sheets they had filled out again. Montoya's was only a few lines long. She had filled in her contacts for Wednesday morning, but none for Monday and Tuesday, and she hadn't listed any information on Badri. He wondered why, and then remembered she had come in after Mary gave the instructions for filling up the forms.

Perhaps Montoya had seen Badri before Wednesday morning, or knew where he'd spent the gap between noon and half-past two on Monday.

"When Ms. Montoya phoned, did she tell you her telephone number?" he asked Colin. There was no answer. He looked up. "Colin?"

He wasn't in the room, nor in the sitting room, though his duffel was, its contents spread all over the carpet.

Dunworthy looked up Montoya's number at Brasenose and rang it up, not expecting any answer. If she was still looking for Basingame, that meant she hadn't gotten permission to go out to the dig and was doubtless at the NHS or the National Trust, badgering them to have it declared "of irreplaceable value."

He dressed and went across to the hall, looking for Colin. It was still raining, the sky the same sodden gray as the paving stones and the bark on the beech trees. He hoped that the bellringers and detainees had breakfasted early and gone back to their assigned rooms, but it was a fond hope. He could hear the high hubbub of female voices before he was halfway across the quad.