The Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

  She punched up the contacts chart. Badri’s name was still at the top of it. She sat and looked at it a long moment, as remote as Montoya staring at her bones.

  “The first thing a doctor has to learn is not to be too hard on himself when he loses a patient,” she said, and he wondered if she meant Kivrin or Badri.

  “I’m going to get the net open,” he said.

  “I hope so,” she said.

  The answer did not lie in the contacts charts or the commonalities. It lay in Badri, whose name was still, in spite of all the questions they had asked the primaries, in spite of all the false leads, the source. Badri was the index case, and sometime in the four to six days before the drop he had been in contact with a reservoir.

  He went up to see him. There was a different nurse at the desk outside Badri’s room, a tall, nervous youth who looked no more than seventeen.

  “Where’s …” Dunworthy began and realized he didn’t know the blond nurse’s name.

  “She’s down with it,” the boy said. “Yesterday. She’s the twentieth of the nursing staff to catch it, and they’re out of subs. They asked for third-year students to help. I’m actually only first-year, but I’ve had first-aid training.”

  Yesterday. A whole day had passed, then, with no one recording what Badri said. “Do you remember anything Badri might have said while you were in with him?” he said without hope. A first-year student. “Any words or phrases you could understand?”

  “You’re Mr. Dunworthy, aren’t you?” the boy said. He handed him a set of SPG’s. “Eloise said you wanted to know everything the patient said.”

  Dunworthy put on the newly arrived SPG’s. They were white and marked with tiny black crosses along the back opening of the gown. He wondered where they’d resorted to borrowing them from.

  “She was awfully ill and she kept saying over and over how important it was.”

  The boy led Dunworthy into Badri’s room, looked at the screens above the bed, and then down at Badri. At least he looks at the patient, Dunworthy thought.

  Badri lay with his arms outside the sheet, plucking at it with hands that looked like those in Colin’s illustration of the knight’s tomb. His sunken eyes were open, but he did not look at the nurse or at Dunworthy, or at the sheet, which his ceaseless hands could not seem to grasp.

  “I read about this in meds,” the boy said, “but I’ve never actually seen it. It’s a common terminal symptom in respiratory cases.” He went to the console, punched something up, and pointed at the top left screen. “I’ve written it all down.”

  He had, even the gibberish. He had written that phonetically, with ellipses to represent pauses, and (sic) after questionable words. “Half,” he had written, and “backer (sic)” and “Why doesn’t he come?”

  “This is mostly from yesterday,” he said. He moved a cursor to the lower third of the screen. “He talked a bit this morning. Now, of course, he doesn’t say anything.”

  Dunworthy sat down beside Badri and took his hand. It was ice-cold even through the imperm glove. He glanced at the temp screen. Badri no longer had a fever or the dark flush that had gone with it. He seemed to have lost all color. His skin was the color of wet ashes.

  “Badri,” he said. “It’s Mr. Dunworthy. I need to ask you some questions.”

  There was no response. His cold hand lay limply in Dunworthy’s gloved one, and the other continued picking steadily, uselessly at the sheet.

  “Dr. Ahrens thinks you might have caught your illness from an animal, a wild duck or a goose.”

  The nurse looked interestedly at Dunworthy and then back at Badri, as if he were hoping he would exhibit another yet-unobserved medical phenomenon.

  “Badri, can you remember? Did you have any contact with ducks or geese the week before the drop?”

  Badri’s hand moved. Dunworthy frowned at it, wondering if he were trying to communicate, but when he loosened his grip a little, the thin, thin fingers were only trying to pluck at his palm, at his fingers, at his wrist.

  He was suddenly ashamed that he was sitting here torturing Badri with questions, though he was past hearing, past even knowing Dunworthy was here, or caring.

  He laid Badri’s hand back on the sheet. “Rest,” he said, patting it gently, “try to rest.”

  “I doubt if he can hear you,” the nurse said. “When they’re this far gone they’re not really conscious.”

  “No. I know,” Dunworthy said, but he went on sitting there.

  The nurse adjusted a drip, peered nervously at it, and adjusted it again. He looked anxiously at Badri, adjusted the drip a third time, and finally went out. Dunworthy sat on, watching Badri’s fingers plucking blindly at the sheet, trying to grasp it but unable to. Trying to hold on. Now and then he murmured something, too soft to hear. Dunworthy rubbed his arm gently, up and down. After a while, the plucking grew slower, though Dunworthy didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.

  “Graveyard,” Badri said.

  “No,” Dunworthy said. “No.”

  He sat on a bit longer, rubbing Badri’s arm, but after a little it seemed to make his agitation worse. He stood up. “Try to rest,” he said and went out.

  The nurse was sitting at the desk, reading a copy of Patient Care.

  “Please notify me when …” Dunworthy said, and realized he would not be able to finish the sentence. “Please notify me.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said. “Where are you?”

  He fumbled in his pocket for a scrap of paper to write on and came up with the list of supplies. He had nearly forgotten it. “I’m at Balliol,” he said, “send a messenger,” and went back down to Supplies.

  “You haven’t filled this out properly,” the crone said starchily when Dunworthy gave her the form.

  “I’ve gotten it signed,” he said, handing her his list. “You fill it out.”

  She looked disapprovingly at the list. “We haven’t any masks or temps.” She reached down a small bottle of aspirin. “We’re out of synthamycin and AZL.”

  The bottle of aspirin contained perhaps twenty tablets. He put them in his pocket and walked down to the High to the chemist’s. A small crowd of protesters stood outside in the rain, holding pickets that said, “UNFAIR!” and “Price gouging!” He went inside. They were out of masks, and the temps and the aspirin were outrageously priced. He bought all they had.

  He spent the night dispensing them and studying Badri’s chart, looking for some clue to the virus’s source. Badri had run an on-site for Nineteenth Century in Hungary on the tenth of December, but the chart did not say where in Hungary, and William, who was flirting with the detainees who were still on their feet, didn’t know, and the phones were out again.

  They were still out in the morning when Dunworthy tried to phone to check on Badri’s condition. He could not even raise a dialing tone, but as soon as he put down the receiver, the telephone rang.

  It was Andrews. Dunworthy could scarcely hear his voice through the static. “Sorry this took so long,” he said, and then something that was lost entirely.

  “I can’t hear you,” Dunworthy said.

  “I said, I’ve had difficulty getting through. The phones …” More static. “I did the parameter checks. I used three different L-and-L’s and triangulated the …” The rest was lost.

  “What was the maximal slippage?” he shouted into the phone.

  The line went momentarily clear. “Six days.”

  “That was with an L-and-L of …” More static. “I ran probabilities, and the possible maximal for any L-and-L’s within a circumference of fifty kilometers was still five years.” The static roared in again, and the line went dead.

  Dunworthy put the receiver down. He should have felt reassured, but he could not seem to summon any feeling. Gilchrist had no intention of opening the net on January sixth, whether Kivrin was there or not. He reached for the phone to phone the Scottish Tourism Bureau, and as he did, it rang again.

  “Dunworthy here,” he said, s
quinting at the screen, but the visuals were still nothing but snow.

  “Who?” a woman’s voice that sounded hoarse or groggy said. “Sorry,” it murmured, “I meant to ring—” and something else too blurred to make out, and the visual went blank.

  He waited to see if it would ring again, and then went back across to Salvin. Magdalen’s bell was chiming the hour. It sounded like a funeral bell in the unceasing rain. Ms. Piantini had apparently heard the bell, too. She was standing in the quad in her nightgown, solemnly raising her arms in an unheard rhythm. “Middle, wrong, and into the hunt,” she said when Dunworthy tried to take her back inside.

  Finch appeared, looking distraught. “It’s the bells, sir,” he said, taking hold of her other arm. “They upset her. I don’t think they should ring them under the circumstances.”

  Ms. Piantini wrenched free of Dunworthy’s restraining hand. “Every man must stick to his bell without interruption,” she said furiously.

  “I quite agree,” Finch said, clutching her arm as firmly as if it were a bell rope, and led her back to her cot.

  Colin came skidding in, drenched as usual and nearly blue with cold. His jacket was open, and Mary’s gray muffler dangled uselessly about his neck. He handed Dunworthy a message. “It’s from Badri’s nurse,” he said, opening a packet of soap tablets and popping a light blue one into his mouth.

  The note was drenched, too. It read “Badri asking for you,” though the word “Badri” was so blurred he couldn’t make out more than the B.

  “Did the nurse say whether Badri was worse?”

  “No, just to give you the message. And Great-aunt Mary says when you come, you’re to get your enhancement. She said she doesn’t know when the analogue will get here.”

  Dunworthy helped Finch wrestle Ms. Piantini into bed and hurried to Infirmary and up to Isolation. There was another new nurse, this one a middle-aged woman with swollen feet. She was sitting with them propped up on the screens, watching a pocket vidder, but she stood up immediately when he came in.

  “Are you Mr. Dunworthy?” she asked, blocking his way. “Dr. Ahrens said you’re to meet her downstairs immediately.”

  She said it quietly, even kindly, and he thought, She’s trying to spare me. She doesn’t want me to see what’s in there. She wants Mary to tell me first.

  “It’s Badri, isn’t it? He’s dead.”

  She looked genuinely surprised. “Oh, no, he’s much better this morning. Didn’t you get my note? He’s sitting up.”

  “Sitting up?” he said, staring at her, wondering if she were delirious with fever.

  “He’s still very weak of course, but his temp’s normal and he’s alert. You’re to meet Dr. Ahrens in Casualties. She said it was urgent.”

  He looked wonderingly toward the door to Badri’s room. “Tell him I’ll be in to see him as soon as I can,” he said and hurried out the door.

  He nearly collided with Colin, who was apparently coming in. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Did one of the techs telephone?”

  “I’ve been assigned to you,” Colin said. “Great-aunt Mary says she doesn’t trust you to get your T-cell enhancement. I’m supposed to take you down to get it.”

  “I can’t. There’s an emergency in Casualties,” he said, walking rapidly down the corridor.

  Colin ran to keep up with him. “Well, then, after the emergency. She said I wasn’t to let you leave Infirmary without it.”

  Mary was there to meet them when the lift opened. “We have another case,” she said grimly. “It’s Montoya.” She started for Casualties. “They’re bringing her in from Witney.”

  “Montoya?” Dunworthy said. “That’s impossible. She’s been out at the dig alone.”

  She pushed open the double doors. “Apparently not.”

  “But she said—are you certain it’s the virus? She’s been working in the rain. Perhaps it’s some other disease.”

  Mary shook her head. “The ambulance team ran a prelim. It matches the virus.” She stopped at the admissions desk and asked the house officer, “Are they here yet?”

  He shook his head. “They’ve just come through the perimeter.”

  Mary walked over to the doors and looked out, as if she didn’t believe him. “We got a call from her this morning, very confused,” she said, turning back to them. “I telephoned to Chipping Norton, which is the nearest hospital, told them to send an ambulance, but they said the dig was officially under quarantine. And I couldn’t get one of ours out to her. I finally had to persuade the NHS to grant a dispensation to send an ambulance.” She peered out the doors again. “When did she go out to the dig?”

  “I—” Dunworthy tried to remember. She had phoned to ask him about the Scottish fishing guides on Christmas Day and then phoned back that afternoon to say. “Never mind,” because she had decided to forge Basingame’s signature instead. “Christmas Day,” he said. “If the NHS offices were open. Or the twenty-sixth. No, that was Boxing Day. The twenty-seventh. And she hasn’t seen anyone since then.”

  “How do you know?”

  “When I spoke to her, she was complaining that she couldn’t keep the dig dry single-handed. She wanted me to phone to the NHS to ask for students to help her.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Two—no, three days ago,” he said, frowning. The days ran together when one never got to bed.

  “Could she have found someone at the farm to help after she spoke to you?”

  “There’s no one there in the winter.”

  “As I remember, Montoya recruits anyone who comes within reach. Perhaps she enlisted some passerby.”

  “She said there weren’t any. The dig’s very isolated.”

  “Well, she must have found someone. She’s been out at the dig for seven days, and the incubation period’s only twelve to forty-eight hours.”

  “The ambulance is here!” Colin said.

  Mary pushed out the doors, Dunworthy and Colin on her heels. Two ambulance men in masks lifted a stretcher out and onto a trolley. Dunworthy recognized one of them. He had helped bring Badri in.

  Colin was bending over the stretcher, looking interestedly at Montoya, who lay with her eyes closed. Her head was propped up with pillows, and her face was flushed the same heavy red as Ms. Breen’s had been. Colin leaned farther over her, and she coughed directly in his face.

  Dunworthy grabbed the collar of Colin’s jacket and dragged him away from her. “Come away from there. Are you trying to catch the virus? Why aren’t you wearing your mask?”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “You shouldn’t be here at all. I want you to go straight back to Balliol and—”

  “I can’t. I’m assigned to make certain you get your enhancement.”

  “Then sit down over there,” Dunworthy said, walking him over to a chair in the reception area, “and stay away from the patients.”

  “You’d better not try to sneak out on me,” Colin said warningly, but he sat down, pulled his gobstopper out of his pocket, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.

  Dunworthy went back over to the stretcher trolley. “Lupe,” Mary was saying, “we need to ask you some questions. When did you fall ill?”

  “This morning,” Montoya said. Her voice was hoarse, and Dunworthy realized suddenly that she must be the person who had telephoned him. “Last night I had a terrible headache”— she raised a muddy hand and drew it across her eyebrows—“but I thought it was because I was straining my eyes.”

  “Who was with you out at the dig?”

  “Nobody,” Montoya said, sounding surprised.

  “What about deliveries? Did someone from Witney deliver supplies to you?”

  She started to shake her head, but it apparently hurt, and she stopped. “No. I took everything with me.”

  “And you didn’t have anyone with you to help you with the excavation?”

  “No. I asked Mr. Dunworthy to tell the NHS to send some help, but he didn’t.” Mary looked
across at Dunworthy, and Montoya followed her glance. “Are they sending someone?” she asked him. “They’ll never find it if they don’t get someone out there.”

  “Find what?” he said, wondering if Montoya’s answer could be trusted or if she were half-delirious.

  “The dig is half underwater right now,” she said.

  “Find what?”

  “Kivrin’s corder.”

  He had a sudden image of Montoya standing by the tomb, sorting through the muddy box of stone-shaped bones. Wrist bones. They had been wrist bones, and she had been examining the uneven edges, looking for a bone spur that was actually a piece of recording equipment. Kivrin’s corder.

  “I haven’t excavated all the graves yet,” Montoya said, “and it’s still raining. They have to send someone out immediately.”

  “Graves?” Mary said, looking at him uncomprehendingly. “What is she talking about?”

  “She’s been excavating a mediaeval churchyard looking for Kivrin’s body,” he said bitterly, “looking for the corder you implanted in Kivrin’s wrist.”

  Mary wasn’t listening. “I want the contacts charts,” she said to the house officer. She turned back to Dunworthy. “Badri was out at the dig, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “The eighteenth and nineteenth,” he said.

  “In the churchyard?”

  “Yes. He and Montoya were opening a knight’s tomb.”

  “A tomb,” Mary said, as if it were the answer to a question. She bent over Montoya. “How old was the tomb?”

  “1318,” Montoya said.

  “Did you work on the knight’s tomb this week?” Mary asked.

  Montoya tried to nod, stopped. “I get so dizzy when I move my head,” she said apologetically. “I had to move the skeleton. Water’d gotten into the tomb.”

  “What day did you work on the tomb?”

  Montoya frowned. “I can’t remember. The day before the bells, I think.”

  “The thirty-first,” Dunworthy said. He leaned over her. “Have you worked on it since?”

  She tried to shake her head again.

  “The contacts charts are up,” the house officer said.