Taji's Syndrome

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  She made a complicated gesture of acceptance. “Can we arrange this with Ben?”

  “Of course,” said Haliburton at once. “That’s fine with me, with this department.”

  “All right,” said Jonathon, his arm still around Catherine’s shoulder. “We’ll call and make the arrangements. Do you have the results you wanted to show us, or . . .”

  “I have more than that,” said Haliburton, indicating the door into the hallway. “I have someone who wants to talk with you, who’s been interviewing everyone who has been exposed to the toxin. She is working up studies on the syndrome so that we can narrow in on where it comes from.” He came around the counter and started for the door. “She’ll be here in about ten minutes. In the meantime, I’ll show you what information we do have and what we’re doing with it.”

  “Conclusions?” Jonathon asked.

  “We haven’t reached any yet, except for tentative ones. Which is why your cooperation is so important to us.” He frowned. “There are more cases being found every day, and that means that we’re all at risk.”

  “Oh?” Catherine said sharply.

  “Yes, Missus Grey. Every one of us might be carrying the toxins in our bodies right now, and whatever triggers the active syndrome . . .” He stepped into the hallway, waiting for the Greys to come after him. “Doctor Kostermeyer is gathering the necessary material to make an assessment.”

  “Why?” Catherine demanded as she followed after Haliburton.

  “Doctor Kostermeyer works for the Department of Public Health and Environmental Services; many physicians do.” He ushered them into a small conference room near the elevator bank.

  “What kind of assessment are we talking about?” Jonathon asked as he pulled the door closed behind them and stood near the smaller of two tables, one in each arm of the L-shaped room.

  “A PHES assessment,” said Haliburton as he opened the draperies to reveal a stand of eucalyptus trees against an overcast sky. “They’re used to determine the hazard potential to public health in the State of California. Sacramento requires it when more than a certain number of people are stricken. Where toxic factors may be present, the epidemiologists have certain discretionary powers. Doctor Kostermeyer has been actively investigating this syndrome since it began.”

  “Investigating how?” Jonathon asked, intrigued and puzzled at once.

  “Gathering statistics on who has shown symptoms and getting as much of a history, medical and standard, as she can. She wants to find the pattern, such as living in the same area, or attending the same school, or going to the same shopping center. Any of those commonalities might give an indication of the kind of toxin we’re looking for, and when we know that, then we’re on the path to doing something about it.” Haliburton hoped ardently that his last assertion was more than wishful thinking. He stared out the window. “It’s important that we act quickly, in case—”

  “In case what?” Catherine asked sharply when Haliburton did not go on.

  “Oh, many things,” he responded vaguely. “If we could anticipate the whole thing, it wouldn’t be so fucking scary.” He was as astonished as the Greys were to hear this admission, and it took him a few seconds to recover. “That was out of line.”

  “But was it accurate?” Catherine prodded.

  Haliburton sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s accurate. Most of us aren’t admitting it yet, but there’re indications—Doctor Kostermeyer will be able to tell you more about them than I can—that this might be one of those long-fuse things, and it could be that no one’s really safe. Maybe every one of us will end up . . . tainted with it.” He cleared his throat. “My Uncle Paul died of AIDS, and I remember how much panic there was about it before the vaccine. And that was a disease that was hard to get. But a syndrome that is the result of environmental contamination—how do you deal with something like that? How do you find a way to stop it when it—”

  He was stopped by the opening of the door as Sylvia Kostermeyer stepped into the room. Her face was lined, her eyes were bright in shadows like bruises, and there was a trace of grey in her hair that had not been there two months before. “Hello,” she said to the three people in the conference room. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “Are you?” Haliburton asked with surprise. “I thought . . . you . . .” He looked at his watch and realized that she was almost ten minutes late. “It’s okay.”

  “Apparently,” she said, with a flicker of a smile that was gone before it had a chance to form. “Is there any coffee?”

  “I’ll get you some,” Haliburton volunteered, eager to have a few minutes to himself. “I’ll get a pot and bring it back here; how’s that?”

  “Thanks,” said Sylvia, tossing her large leather case onto the larger of the two tables. “I could use coffee. Or twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.” She looked at the Greys as Haliburton left the room. “Forgive the delay. I know it’s hard on you, and all these tests and questions are inconvenient and troublesome, but I assure you that it’s in a good cause.”

  “We know,” said Jonathon.

  “I’m sorry about your daughter,” Sylvia said wearily. “I’m sorry about all of them. And that’s the trouble.” She hesitated and then said, “We have confirmation of another sixteen cases.”

  “Sixteen cases?” Catherine repeated.

  “Bringing the total of verified cases to a grand total of forty-seven.”

  “Is that—” Jonathon began, only to be cut off by Sylvia’s next words.

  “With thirty-four fatalities.”

  —Maximillian Klausen and Elihu Dover—

  BETTY RADSTON was suffering from the first of her long series of spring allergies, but she smiled gamely as she brought in the morning reports to Max Klausen’s office and set them along with a cup of fresh-brewed herbal tea on his desk. “Morning, Doctor. Are you officially awake and in yet?”

  Max put his long, thick fingers over his eyes. “I wish I weren’t,” he muttered.

  “Why?” Betty asked, aware that he was more than usually upset. “Bad news?”

  “Eherman brought Eunice Dover in last night—thing that Barenssen woman had, it looks like. I had to call Elihu and tell him this morning before I left the house. Cassie gave me a lecture on being surly.” He looked at the tea as if it might be a lab specimen. “How do you tell someone you’ve known most of your life that the woman he’s been happily married to for over thirty years appears to have come down with some kind of syndrome that—” He dropped his hands to the desk, narrowly missing the teacup.

  “If you’ve known him that long, perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary to . . .” Betty ventured, not entirely sure herself what she was attempting to say.

  “It would be necessary, no matter what. Elihu’s been practicing medicine longer than almost any human being I’ve ever met and if it weren’t for him, I might not have gone into medicine, and not into environmental medicine. Hell, what did I know, or care? I was twelve years old and my mother had moved my sister and me to Sweet Home to get away from the pressure of the city; she was in pretty bad shape back then. I got a kick out of taking care of chickens and sheep and goats—most of the time, anyway. Elihu Dover was our GP, and he kept encouraging me to look beyond where I was and to think about . . . oh, all kinds of things. Even if I didn’t like him, I’d owe him.” He lifted his teacup as if it weighed more than ten pounds.

  Betty took a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “Allergy,” she reminded Max. “How bad do you think it is?”

  “You mean Eunice? Bad enough: the Barenssen woman died.” He looked up at his assistant. “Elihu said he’d seen a couple other similar cases, but they’re all part of that religious school there outside of Sweet Home, and getting any of them to go to the doctor isn’t easy. They don’t believe in it, think that it’s contrary to Biblical order because it’s an attempt
to thwart God’s will. They’re Fundamentalists, the back-to-the-old-ways and back-to-the-land-and-simple-life stripe. I think the only reason we saw Kirsten Barenssen is because her brother isn’t part of that sect, and he brought her to Elihu.” He shook his head slowly. “I gather Eunice has been looking after the Barenssen kids until something can be arranged. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

  “Nothing unusual in that,” said Betty. “What information do you have on”—she could not remember if she knew the woman’s name—“. . . on Elihu’s wife’s condition?”

  “Not enough, I can tell you that.” Max stood up abruptly. “And I’d better do something about that. I want to see Eunice first and find out what the monitors have got on her since last night. If there’s a chance, I’d like to talk to her. She’s a steady woman and you can bet she’s aware of the potentials of her condition. Then I have to go to that meeting that Watt has called and find out what he’s tearing his hair about. And then I think I’m going to arrange for the afternoon off.”

  “Doctor Klausen!” Betty was genuinely shocked. She had rarely known Max Klausen to do anything impulsive or so irresponsible.

  “I want to go out to Sweet Home and have a talk with Elihu. I might even try to get into that sub-community, the religious group, to find out how many other potential cases they have, and how serious they are. I’ve got a very bad hunch about this, and if I don’t do something, it’ll drive me out the window.” He picked up the papers she had left for him. “I’ll go over these as soon as I’ve seen Eunice.”

  “When do I schedule appointments, then?” Betty wondered.

  “Tomorrow. I have one meeting this afternoon; I’d like for you to move it to tomorrow or the next day, if you can. If not, tell me before I leave and I’ll see who can take it. It’s nothing drastic—report on the fluorescent light/computer screen readings at Vehicle Registration. They aren’t going to like it much; neither total is acceptable.” He looked for his overcoat. “See if Garland can take it. She’s more involved in that than I am in any case.”

  Betty sneezed again. “I’ll attend to it, Doctor.” She was very careful to call him Max only on social occasions and when they were speaking privately in his office. “Anything else?”

  Max was pulling on his overcoat, fussing with the collar and trying to button it at the same time. “Later,” he said. His voice was naturally gruff and often those who did not know him thought him brusque because of it, but Betty smiled.

  “I hope your friend Eunice turns out to be a false alarm.”

  “So do I,” said Max as he headed for the door, annoyed that the shortest way to the hospital wing of the complex was across the large U-shaped courtyard; in April it would be a pleasant diversion, but today there was a sleety rain falling. Only the pines and low-growing cypress were green, and the walkways were slick and treacherous.

  By the time he reached the hospital wing, his hair was wet and his shoes were soaked. He strode through the lobby and to the elevator bank, trying to ignore the squitch of each step. As he rode upward, smelling wet clothing and one or two lingering unidentifiable perfumes, he thought over the last few days of Kirsten Barenssen: the woman had faded away, losing strength and that sense of being present. She did not resist her disease, and what little time she was truly conscious she devoted to prayers that were a mixture of self-recrimination and ecstatic anticipation. The head nurse had said that Kirsten Barenssen had lost the will to live.

  Eunice was in an isolation room, everything about her monitored and controlled. Even the sheets on her bed were the use-once-and-throw-away variety. Seeing Max come through the door, she smiled warmly. “You and El are too overprotective,” she greeted him.

  Max came and stood beside her bed, his overcoat left at the nurses’ station and his body covered by a full-length disposable garment like a caftan. “They tell me I’m not supposed to kiss you.”

  “Probably a sensible precaution,” she said. “We won’t shake hands, either.”

  For a moment they looked at each other, each feeling awkward at being denied these basic courtesies, then Max drew up a chair and sat down beside her bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not as well as I’d like,” she said calmly. “I haven’t got any stamina and I feel almost . . . shaky. El insisted that you check me out. He’s convinced that there’s some kind of epidemic breaking out in Sweet Home. I can’t change his mind. And,” she said more seriously, “if this is what’s going around, I don’t blame him for his concern.”

  “Is it going around?” Max asked with exaggerated nonchalance.

  “That’s your department, Maximillian,” she said, taking her tone from him. As she leaned back on the pillows she gave an aggravated sigh. “I wish I could keep up. I haven’t any strength, and that . . . irks me.” Her fingers moved on the edge of the sheet. “I was exhausted all of Thursday because on Wednesday I did the shopping and put all my groceries away. For a while I thought I had something wrong with my stomach—I felt as if I was about to throw up, but I never did. Which nerve does that?” Before he could answer, she waved the question away. “It’s—not important. I really don’t care which nerve it is; I’d simply like it to stop.”

  “So would I, Eunice,” said Max with rising emotion. “I promise you that if there is a way to stop it, I will, just as soon as possible.”

  “You’re hedging, Max. You aren’t positive that you have enough information to treat this, are you?”

  Max looked down at Eunice, at the greying hair that framed her face and the gentle, tired curve of her mouth. “Not yet, but we’re working on it.”

  “Good.” She nodded twice. “How long is it going to take?” She looked at him, then away. “No, it isn’t fair to ask that, is it? How can you know yet how long this or anything is going to take? I know better; El’s shown me a lot in thirty-one years, and I do know that it isn’t reasonable to make such demands. But, Max, it is so tempting.”

  “I know.” He reached down and put his hand over hers, annoyed at the sterile mittens that covered his fingers. “It’s the most frustrating job in the world at times like this. I keep thinking that there ought to be a sensible way, an easy way, to figure out what’s going on, for this or any other disease, but there never is.” He studied her face, aware that she was pale—that was the effect of the anemia. There was also a lack of animation that came from bone-deep fatigue; the latter concerned him far more than the former. “It might be a bit of a fight,” he said, offering her the warning as consolation.

  “I’ve had some experience with that,” she said, remembering back to her twenties when she had been a social worker in Eureka. “I won’t expect miracles and I won’t squander what resources I have left.”

  Max nodded. “I’m counting on it, Eunice.” He cocked his head to the side. “Are you afraid?”

  “Of course I’m afraid,” she said curtly. “In my position, you would be, too.”

  “Don’t let that get in the way, if you can manage it,” said Max with strain coming into his words. “There are times the fear is a thousand times more deadly than the condition, whatever it is.”

  “I know; I learned that from El.” She coughed gently, her expression becoming apologetic.

  “Well, if you can, keep it in mind while we’re running our tests and all the rest of it, okay?” He wished he had something cheering to tell her, but the glib assurances stuck in his throat.

  “Remind me, Max,” she said, doing her best to be playful. “But keep in mind that I don’t like being in the dark. Tell me what you do or don’t discover, and what changes are happening. I know I’ll be less worried if I know what’s going on. If I don’t, I’ll start imagining, and that will be worse than anything.” She looked at him with the pert intensity of a bird. “You will do that, won’t you?”

  “Yes, Eunice. I’ll do that.” He made a mental note to himself to instruct
the nursing staff not to waffle. He recognized the slight hesitation in her voice, the trace of breathiness as she spoke that told him more than any chart or tracing that the condition was taking its toll on her. Now that he looked, he saw that her skin was not only pale but waxy as well, and that her hair was without lustre, falling in lank tendrils around her face. “We’re going to take good care of you, Eunice,” he said with determination, as if his promise would drive away what he had seen.

  “I should hope so,” she responded with a cough that was meant to be laughter.

  Max made himself go on. “I’m planning to visit Elihu this afternoon, to find out how many other cases have cropped up in Sweet Home, and to see if there are others in the immediate area.”

  “There isn’t much but Sweet Home in the immediate area,” said Eunice. “You remember what it’s like? It hasn’t changed a lot in the last twenty years.” She turned her head on the pillow. “It’s strange, but I have these moments of dizziness. I never know when to expect them. They pass, but for a short while it’s almost as if I were seasick.”

  It took Max a little time to think of the right comment. “When were you ever seasick, Eunice?”

  “Well, actually, I was once,” she said, grateful for the chance to speak of something other than the mysterious disease that had brought her to this hospital, this room, this bed. “It was years and years ago, and I was going out with my father and brother, on a small party boat out of Coos Bay. It was cold, and I’d eaten extra pancakes with lots of everything.” Her face softened with her memory. “That lots-of-everything was my undoing, of course. It was a rough day, with an eight-foot swell. I was so dreadfully embarrassed.” She was able to smile briefly. “What other tests are you going to run?”

  Max took a deep breath. “We’re going to run a PAST scan on you. It’s one of our newest toys, the PAST scanner. You’ll like it—it looks like something out of a bad science fiction movie. It’s very low radiation and it measures temperature fluctuations, mineral concentrations, nerve reactions and oxygen levels, along with the usual things. It’s very good at showing toxins in bone and tissue; that’s what it was developed to do.” He held up his hands. “What we do next depends on your PAST.”