by Greg Bear
“By whom? The parents?” Dicken asked. “They'll hunker down and hope for the best. Dr. Augustine made sure of that years ago.”
Augustine looked through the tower window and did not take Dicken's bait. “All it takes to get elected in twenty-first-century America is a mob of frightened sheep and a wolf with a nice smile,” he said softly. “We have plenty of sheep. Ms. DeWitt, could I speak with Christopher in private, please? But stay close.”
DeWitt looked between them, not knowing what to think, and then left, closing the door behind her.
“It's worse than any of them can imagine,” Augustine said, his voice low. “I think the starting pistol has been fired.”
“You mentioned that in the car. What in hell does it mean?”
“If we're lucky, the president can put a stop to it . . . But I do not know Ellington. He's kept his distance ever since he was elected. I do not know what he will do.”
“Put a stop to what?”
“If the situation gets any worse, I believe the governor will call Washington and ask for permission to clean up the schools. Sterilize the premises. He may ask for sanction to kill the children.”
Dicken stood up. “You have got to be shitting me.”
Augustine shook his head and looked him steadily in the eye. “State autonomous self-protection, as specified under Presidential Decision Directive 298, Emergency Action Gray Book. It's called the Military and Biological Security Protocol, Part Four. It was enacted seven years ago during a secret session of the Senate oversight committee. It gives discretion to state authorities on the scene to use all necessary force, under well-defined emergency conditions.”
“Why was I never told?”
“Because you chose to stay a soldier. The contents of the directive are confidential. At any rate, I opposed the rule as extreme, but there were a lot of scared senators in the room. They were shown pictures of Mrs. Rhine's family, incidents of Shiver in Mexico. They saw pictures of you, Christopher. The statute was signed by the president, and has never been revoked.”
“Is there any chance they'll listen to reason?”
“Slim to none. But we have to try. The race is on. You have work to do, and so do I.” He raised his voice. “Ms. DeWitt?”
DeWitt opened the door. As requested, she had not gone far; Augustine wondered if she had heard anything.
“I want to talk to Toby Smith.”
“Why?” DeWitt asked, as if the thought of Augustine seeing the boy again disgusted her.
“We're going to need their help,” he said.
“They're hardly trained for this sort of thing,” Dicken said, following Augustine down the concrete stairs. His voice echoed from the hard gray walls.
“You'd be surprised,” Augustine said. “We need answers by tomorrow. Is that possible?”
“I don't know.” Dicken was amazed at the transformation. This was the old Mark Augustine, jerked back to life like some sort of political zombie. His skin was regaining color, his eyes were hard, and the perpetual grimace of determination had returned.
“If we don't have answers by then, they could move in and kill us all.”
Dicken, Augustine, Middleton, DeWitt, Kelson, and Toby Smith gathered in Trask's office.
Toby stood before Augustine with a paper cup of water in one hand. Behind him stood Dr. Kelson and the two remaining school police officers. The officers wore surgical masks. The doctor did not seem to care very much whether he was protected.
“Toby, we're short staffed,” Augustine said.
“Yeah,” Toby said.
“And we have a lot of sick people to take care of. All of them your friends.”
Toby looked around the office. The square, metal-framed windows let in the bright afternoon sun and a whiff of warm air that smelled of the miles of dry grass beyond the compound.
“How many students are healthy enough to help us do some work around here?”
“A few,” Toby said. “We're all tired. Pretty koobered.”
“Koobered?”
“A word,” Toby said, squinting at Dicken, then looking around the room at the others.
“They have a lot of words,” DeWitt said. “Most are special to this school.”
“We think,” Kelson added, and scratched his arm through the sleeve, then looked around to see if anyone had caught him doing this. “I'm fine,” he said to Dicken. “Dry skin.”
“What does ‘koobered’ mean?” Augustine asked Toby.
“Not important,” Toby said.
“Okay. But we're going to spend a lot of time together, if that's all right with you. I'd like to learn these words, if you're willing to teach me.”
Toby shrugged.
“Can you put some teams together and pick up some basic nursing skills from the doctors, from Ms. Middleton and the teachers?”
“I guess,” Toby said.
“Some of them are already doing that in the gym and in the infirmary,” Middleton said. “Helping keep kids comfortable, deliver water.”
Augustine smiled. He had pulled himself together, straightened his rumpled shirt and pants, washed his face in Trask's executive bathroom sink. “Thanks, Yolanda. I'm speaking with Toby now, and I want him to tell me what's what. Toby?”
“I'm not the best at doing that kind of stuff. Not even the best who's still up and standing around.”
“Who is?”
“Four or five of us, maybe. Six, if you count Natasha.”
“Are you fever-scenting, Toby?” Middleton asked. “Do I have to strap on my sachet again?”
“I'm just seeing if I can, Ms. Middleton,” Toby said.
Augustine recognized the chocolate-like scent. Toby was nervous. “I'm glad you're feeling better, Toby, but we all need to think clearly.”
“Sorry.”
“I'd like for you to represent me and Mr. Dicken and all the school staff, okay? And ask the right kids—the right individuals—to put together teams for more training. Ms. Middleton will help us train, and Dr. Kelson. Toby, can these teams become clouded?”
Toby smiled, one pupil growing larger, the other shrinking. The gold flecks in both irises seemed to move.
“Probably,” Toby said. “But I think you mean we should cloud. Join up.”
“Of course. Sorry. Can you help us learn who's going to get better and who isn't?”
“Yes,” Toby said, very serious now, and both irises large.
Augustine turned to Dicken. “I think that's where we should begin. We're not going to get any help from outside, no deliveries, nothing. We're cut off. As far as the children are concerned, we need to focus our efforts and our supplies on those for whom we can do the most good with what we have. The children are better equipped to determine that than we are. Is this clear, Toby?”
Toby nodded slowly.
“I don't like giving children such decisions,” Middleton said, eyes thinning. “They are very loyal to each other.”
“If we do nothing, more will die. This thing is going through the new children like a crown fire. It's spreading by breath and touch—aerosol.”
“What's that mean for us?” Dr. Kelson asked, looking between Dicken and Augustine.
“I don't think we'll catch it from the kids unless we engage in really stupid behavior—pick our noses, that sort of thing,” Dicken said, glancing at Augustine. Damn him, he's pulling us together. “The aerosol forms of the viruses are probably not infectious for us.”
“It has a smell,” Toby volunteered. “When it's in the air it smells like soot spread over snow. When someone is going to get sick, and maybe die, they smell like lemons and ham. When they're going to get sick but not die, they smell like mustard and onions. Some of us just smell like water and dust. We won't get sick. That's a good, safe smell.”
“What do you smell like, Toby?”
Toby shrugged. “I'm not sick.”
Augustine gripped Toby's shoulder. “You're our guy,” he said.
Toby returned his stare with
out expression, but his cheeks flared.
“Let's start,” Augustine said.
“It's come to them saving themselves,” DeWitt said, finding the logic bitter. “God help us all.”
46
PENNSYLVANIA
The woods became dark and still. The rooms inside the cabin were quiet, stuffy from months of being closed up. Beneath the table lamp in the living room, Stella Nova shuddered at the end of each exhale of breath, but her lungs were not congested, and the air did not go in and out of her with the harsh whicker Kaye had heard earlier.
She changed the bag of Ringer's. Stella still did not awaken. Kaye stooped beside her daughter, listening and watching, then straightened. She looked around the cabin, seeing for the first time the homey and decorative touches, the carefully chosen personal items of the Mackenzie family. On an end table, a silver frame with characters from Winnie-the-Pooh in bas-relief held a picture of George and Iris and their son, Kelly, perhaps three years younger than Stella at the time the picture was taken.
To some, all the new children looked alike. People chose the simplest markers to differentiate between one another. Some people, Kaye had learned, were little more than social drones, going through the motions of being human beings, like little automatons, and teaching these people to see Stella and her kind with any sense of discrimination or understanding was almost impossible.
She hated that amorphous mob, lined up in her imagination like an endless army of unthinking robots, all intent on misunderstanding, hurting, killing.
Kaye checked Stella once again, found her signs steady if not improving, then walked from room to room to find her husband. Mitch sat on the porch in an Adirondack chair, facing the lake, eyes fixed on a point between two big pines. The fading light of dusk made him look sallow and drained.
“How are you?” Kaye asked.
“I'm fine,” Mitch said. “How's Stella?”
“Resting. The fever is steady, but not dangerous.”
“Good,” Mitch said. His hands gripped the ends of the square wooden armrests. Kaye surveyed those hands with a sudden and softening sense of nostalgia. Big, square knuckles, long fingers. Once, simply looking at Mitch's hands would have made her horny.
“I think you're right,” Kaye said.
“About what?”
“Stella's going to be okay. Unless there's another crisis.”
Mitch nodded. Kaye looked at his face, expecting relief. He just kept nodding.
“We can take turns sleeping,” Kaye suggested.
“I won't sleep,” Mitch said. “If I sleep, someone will die. I have to stay awake and watch everything. Otherwise, you'll blame me.”
This astonished Kaye, to the extent she even had enough energy to feel astonished. “I'm sorry, what?”
“You were angry with me for being in Washington when Stella ran away.”
“I was not.”
“You were furious.”
“I was upset.”
“I can't betray you. I can't betray Stella. I'm going to lose both of you.”
“Please talk sense. That is loony, Mitch.”
“Tell me that's not exactly how you felt, because I was away when it began.”
Why did the burden rest upon her? How often had Mitch been away, and Stella had decided it was time to pull something, to challenge, stretch, reach out and test? “I was stressed out,” Kaye said.
“I've never blamed you. I've tried to do everything you wanted me to do, and be everything I've needed to be.”
“I know,” Kaye said.
“Then cut me some slack.” At another time, those words might have hit Kaye like a slap, but his voice was so drained and desperate, they felt more like the brush of a wind-blown curtain. “Your instincts are no stronger than mine. Just because you are a woman and a mother does not give you the right to . . .” He waved a hand helplessly. “Go off on me.”
“I did not ‘go off on you,’ ” Kaye said, but she knew she had, and felt defensively that she did indeed have that right. Yet the way Mitch was behaving, the words he was saying, scared her. He had never been one to complain or to criticize. She could not remember having this sort of conversation in their twelve years of being together.
“I feel things as strongly as you,” Mitch said.
Kaye sat on the chair arm, nudging his elbow inward. He folded his arm across his chest. “I know,” she said. “I'm sorry.”
“I'm sorry, too,” Mitch said. “I know it isn't the right time to talk like this.” His breath hitched. He was trying to hold back sobs. “But right now I feel like curling up and dying.”
Kaye leaned over to kiss the top of his head. His face was cold and hard under her fingers, as if he were already in some other place, dead to her. Her heart started to beat faster.
Mitch cleared his throat. “There's this voice in my head, and it says over and over again, ‘You are not fit to be a father.’ If that's true, the only option is to die.”
“Shush,” Kaye said, very cautiously.
“If I go to sleep, I'll let something get in. A little crack. Something will creep in and kill my family.”
“The hell with that,” she said, again gently, softly, as if her breath might shatter him. “We're tough. We'll make it. Stella's doing better.”
“I'm tapped out. Broken.”
“Shush, please. You are strong, I know you are, and I apologize if I've been acting stupid. It's the situation, Mitch. Don't be hard on either of us.”
He shook his head, clearly unconvinced. “I need you to tuck me in,” he said, his voice hollow. “Put me in that big bed and pull up the frilly sheets and kiss me on the cheek and say good night. I'll be all right in a little while. Just wake me if Stella has a problem, or if you need me.”
“All right,” Kaye said. She felt an immense sadness as he looked up and met her eyes.
“I try all the time,” he said. “I give you both all I have, all the time.”
“I know.”
“Without you and Stella, I am a dead man. You know that.”
“I know.”
“Don't break me, Kaye.”
“I won't. I promise.”
He stood. Kaye took his hand and led him into the bedroom like a frightened boy or an old, old man. She pulled back the down comforter and the blanket and top sheet. Mitch unbuttoned his shirt and removed his pants and stood by the side of the bed, lost.
“Just lie down and get some rest,” she said.
“Wake me if Stella gets any worse,” Mitch said. “I want to see her and tell her I love her.” He looked at her, eyes unfocused. Kaye tucked the sheets in around him, her heart thumping. She kissed him on the cheek. No tears, his face cold and hard as stone, all Mitch's blood flowing away to somewhere far from her, taking him to where she could not go.
“I love you,” Kaye said. “I believe in you. I believe in what we've done.”
His eyes focused on hers, then, and she felt embarrassed at the power she had over this large, strong man. The blood returned to his face, and his lips came alive under hers.
Then, like a light going out, he was asleep.
Kaye stood beside the bed and watched Mitch, eyes wide. Her chest felt wrapped in steel bands. She was as frightened as if she had just missed driving them all off a cliff. She stood vigil over him for as long as she could before she had to leave and check on Stella. She hated the conflict, husband or daughter, but went with her judgment and the nature inside her, and crossed the few steps into the living room.
The cabin was completely dark.
“What?”
Kaye sat up on the floor. She had fallen asleep beside Stella, with only the flap of the sleeping bag between her and the hard wood, and now she had the distinct impression someone other than her daughter was in the room.
It wasn't Mitch. She could see the blanketed hill of his toes through the bedroom door.
“Who's there?” she whispered.
Crickets and frogs outside, a couple of large flies b
uzzing around the cabin.
She switched on a table lamp, checked her daughter for the hundredth time, found the fever way down, the breathing more regular.
She thought about moving Stella into the second bedroom, but the hook supporting the bag of Ringer's solution would have to be moved as well, and Stella seemed comfortable on the sleeping bag, as comfortable as she would have been in a bed.
Kaye looked in on Mitch. He, too, was sleeping quietly. For a few minutes, Kaye stood in the short, narrow hallway, then leaned against the wall. “It's better,” she said to the shadows. “It has got to be better.”
She turned suddenly. For a moment, she had thought she might see someone in the hall, someone beloved and familiar. Her father.
Dad is dead. Mom is dead. I'm an orphan. All the family I have is in this house.
She rubbed her forehead and neck. Her muscles were so tense, not least from sleeping beside Stella on the wooden floor. Her sinuses felt congested, as if she had been crying. It was a peculiar, not unpleasant sensation; the byproduct of some deeply buried emotion.
She needed to get some air. She checked Stella again, obsessive; knelt to touch her daughter's forehead and feel her pulse, then walked around the couch, through the porch door, down the steps, and across the path through the grass to the boat dock.
The dock was thirty feet long and ten feet wide, ridiculously large on such a small lake. It supported a single overturned rowboat and a pile of moldy life vests. Grass blades poked out of the vests, shimmering in the moonlight.
Kaye stood at the end of the dock and crossed her arms. Absorbed the night. Crickets stroked out the degrees of heat, frogs thrummed with sexy, alien dignity out there in the shallows, among the reeds. Gnats hummed their desperate little ditties.
“Do any of you know what it is to be sad?” Kaye asked the lake and its inhabitants, then looked back toward the house. “Are you sad when your children are ill?” The single lamp in the living room burned golden through the windows of the porch.
She closed her eyes. Something large, completing a connection . . . something huge passing over, sweeping the lake, the forest—touching all the living things around her.
The frogs fell silent.
