Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

"Yes. We've got two wards of ten beds each."

"Good. I'll need all of them."

They helped the patients into the makeshift ward and into bed and left them in the care of William's nurse trainee. "The stretcher cases will be over as soon as we have an ambulance free," Mary said, walking back across the quad with Dunworthy.

The rain had stopped completely, and the sky was lighter, as if it might clear.

"When will the analogue arrive?" he asked.

"It'll be two days at the least," she said.

They reached the gate. She leaned against the stone passageway. "When all this is over, I'm going to go through the net," she said. "To some century where there aren't any epidemics, where there isn't any waiting or worrying or helpless standing by."

She pushed her hand back over her gray hair. "Some country that isn't a ten." She smiled. "Only there isn't one, is there?"

He shook his head.

"Did I ever tell you about the Valley of the Kings?" she said.

"You said you saw it during the Pandemic."

She nodded. "Cairo was quarantined, so we had to fly out of Addis Ababa, and on the way down I bribed the taxi driver to take us to the Valley of the Kings so I could see Tutankhamen's tomb," she said. "It was a foolhardy thing to do. The Pandemic had already reached Luxor, and we just missed being caught in the quarantine. We were shot at twice." She shook her head. "We might have been killed. My sister refused to get out of the car, but I went down the stairs and up to the door of the tomb, and I thought, this is what it was like when Carter found it."

She looked at Dunworthy and through him, remembering it. "When they found the door to the tomb, it was locked, and they were supposed to wait for the proper authorities to open it. Carter drilled a hole in the door, and held a candle up and looked through." Her voice was hushed. "Carnarvon said, 'Can you see anything?' and Carter said, 'Yes. Wonderful things.'"

She closed her eyes. "I've never forgotten that, standing there at that closed door. I can see it clearly even now." She opened her eyes. "Perhaps that's where I'll go when this is over. To the opening of King Tut's tomb."

She leaned out the gate. "Oh, dear, it's started raining again. I must get back. I'll send the stretcher cases as soon as there's an ambulance." She looked sharply at him. "Why aren't you wearing your mask?"

"It causes my spectacles to steam up. Why aren't you wearing yours?"

"We're running out of them. You've had your T-cell enhancement, haven't you?"

He shook his head. "I haven't had any time."

"Make time," she said. "And wear your mask. You'll be of no help to Kivrin if you fall ill."

I'm of no help to Kivrin now, he thought, walking back across to his rooms. I can't get into the laboratory, I can't get a tech to come to Oxford, I can't find Basingame. He tried to think who else he should contact. He'd checked every booking agent and fishing guide and boat rental in Scotland. There was no trace of the man. Perhaps Montoya was right, and he wasn't in Scotland at all, but off in the tropics somewhere with a woman.

Montoya. He'd forgotten completely about her. He hadn't seen her since the Christmas Eve service. She'd been looking for Basingame then so he could sign the authorization for her to go out to the dig, and then she had rung up on Christmas Day to ask whether Basingame was trout or salmon. And rung back with the message, "Never mind." Which might mean she had found out not only whether he was salmon or trout but the man himself.

He looked round for a telephone, remembered the one in the corridor outside the waiting room and went to find it. If Montoya had located Basingame and got her authorization, she would have gone straight out to the dig. She would not have waited to tell anyone. He was not even certain she knew he was looking for Basingame, too.

Basingame would surely have come back as soon as Montoya told him about the quarantine unless he had been stopped by bad weather or impassable roads. Or Montoya might not have told him about the quarantine. Obsessed as she was with the dig, she might merely have told him she needed his signature.

Ms. Taylor, her four healthy bellringers and Finch were in his rooms, standing in a circle and bending their knees. Finch was holding a paper in one hand and counting under his breath. "I was just going over to the ward to assign nurses," he said sheepishly. "Here's William's report." He handed it to Dunworthy and scurried out.

Ms. Taylor and her foursome gathered up their handbell cases. "Mr. Andrews called," Ms. Taylor said. "He said to tell you a battering ram won't work, and you'll have to go in through Brasenose's console."

"Thank you," Dunworthy said.

She went out, her four bellringers in a line behind her.

He rang the dig. No answer. He rang Montoya's flat, her office at Brasenose, the dig again. There was no answer at any of them. He phoned her flat again and let it ring while he looked at William's report. Badri had spent all day Saturday and the morning Sunday working at the dig. William must have been in contact with Montoya to find that out.

He wondered suddenly about the dig itself. It was out in the country from Witney, on a National Trust farm. Perhaps it had ducks, or chickens, or pigs, or all three. And Badri had spent an entire day and a half working there, digging in the mud, a perfect chance to come in contact with a reservoir.

Colin came in, soaked to the skin. "They ran out of placards," he said, rummaging through his duffel. "London's sending some more tomorrow." He unearthed his gobstopper and popped it, lint and all, into his mouth. "Do you know who's standing on your staircase?' he asked. He flung himself onto the window seat and opened his Middle Ages book. "William and some girl. Kissing and talking all lovey-dovey. I could scarcely get past."

Dunworthy opened the door. William disengaged himself reluctantly from a small blonde in a Burberry and came in.

"Do you know where Ms. Montoya is?" Dunworthy asked.

"No. The NHS said she's out at the dig, but she's not answering the phone. She's probably out in the churchyard or somewhere on the farm and can't hear it. I thought of using a screamer, but then I remembered this girl who's reading archaeohistory and…" He nodded toward the small blonde. "She told me she saw the assignment sheets out at the dig, and Badri was signed up for Saturday and Sunday."

"A screamer? What's that?"

"You hook it to the line and it magnifies the ring on the other end. If the person's out in the garden or in the shower or something."

"Can you put one on this phone?"

"They're a bit too complicated for me. I know a student who might be able to rig it, though. I've got her number in my rooms." He left, holding hands with the blonde.

"You know, if Ms. Montoya is at the dig, I could get you through the perimeter," Colin said. He took his gobstopper out and examined it. "It'd be easy. There are lots of places that aren't watched. The guards don't like to stand out in the rain."

"I have no intention of breaking quarantine," he said. "We are trying to stop this epidemic, not spread it."

"That's how the plague was spread during the Black Death," Colin said, taking the gobstopper out and examining it. It was a sickly yellow. "They kept trying to run away from it, but they just took it along with them."

William stuck his head in the door. "She says it'd take two days to set it up, but she's got one on her phone if you want to use that."

Colin grabbed for his jacket. "Can I go?"

"No," Dunworthy said. "And get out of those wet clothes. I don't want you catching the flu." He went down the stairs with William.

"She's a student at Shrewsbury," William said, heading off through the rain.

Colin caught up with them halfway across the quad. "I can't catch it. I had my enhancement," he said. "They didn't have quarantines, so it went everywhere." He pulled his muffler out of his jacket pocket. "Botley Road's a good place to sneak through the perimeter. There's a pub on the corner by the blockade, and the guard nips in now and again for something to keep warm."