The Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

  Mary walked rapidly over to his desk and took the keyboard over from him. She tapped several keys, stared at the screen, tapped more keys.

  “What is it?” Dunworthy said.

  “What are the conditions at the churchyard?” Mary said.

  “Conditions?” he said blankly. “It’s muddy. She’s covered the churchyard with a tarp, but a good deal of rain was still getting in.”

  “Warm?”

  “Yes. She mentioned it was muggy. She had several electric fires hooked up. What is it?”

  She drew her finger down the screen, looking for something. “Viruses are exceptionally sturdy organisms,” she said. “They can lie dormant for long periods of time and be revived. Living viruses have been taken from Egyptian mummies.” Her finger stopped at a date. “I thought so. Badri was at the dig four days before he came down with the virus.”

  She turned to the house officer. “I want a team out at the dig immediately,” she told him. “Get NHS clearance. Tell them we may have found the source of the virus.” She typed in a new screen, drew her finger down the names, typed in something else, and leaned back, looking at the screen. “We had four primaries with no positive connection to Badri. Two of them were at the dig four days before they came down with the virus. The other one was there three days before.”

  “The virus is at the dig?” Dunworthy said.

  “Yes.” She smiled ruefully at him. “I’m afraid Gilchrist was right after all. The virus did come from the past. Out of the knight’s tomb.”

  “Kivrin was at the dig,” he said.

  Now it was Mary who looked uncomprehending. “When?”

  “The Sunday afternoon before the drop. The nineteenth.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “She told me before she left. She wanted her hands to look authentic.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “If she was exposed four days before the drop, she hadn’t had her T-cell enhancement. The virus might have had a chance to replicate and invade her system. She might have come down with it.”

  Dunworthy grabbed her arm. “But that can’t have happened. The net wouldn’t have let her through if there was a chance she’d infect the contemps.”

  “There wouldn’t have been any one for her to infect,” Mary said, “not if the virus came out of the knight’s tomb. Not if he died of it in 1318. The contemps would already have had it. They’d be immune.” She walked rapidly over to Montoya. “When Kivrin was out at the dig, did she work on the tomb?”

  “I don’t know,” Montoya said. “I wasn’t there. I had a meeting with Gilchrist.”

  “Who would know? Who else was there that day?”

  “No one. Everyone had gone home for vac.”

  “How did she know what she was supposed to do?”

  “The volunteers left notes to each other when they left.”

  “Who was there that morning?” Mary asked.

  “Badri,” Dunworthy said and took off for Isolation.

  He walked straight into Badri’s room. The nurse, caught off-guard with her swollen feet up on the displays, said, “You can’t go in without SPG’s,” and started after him, but he was already inside.

  Badri was lying propped against a pillow. He looked very pale, as if his illness had bleached all the color from his skin, and weak, but he looked up when Dunworthy burst in and started to speak.

  “Did Kivrin work on the knight’s tomb?” Dunworthy demanded.

  “Kivrin?” His voice was almost too weak to be heard.

  The nurse banged in the door. “Mr. Dunworthy, you are not allowed in here—”

  “On Sunday,” Dunworthy said. “You were to have left her a message telling her what to do. Did you tell her to work on the tomb?”

  “Mr. Dunworthy, you’re exposing yourself to the virus—” the nurse said.

  Mary came in, pulling on a pair of imperm gloves. “You’re not supposed to be in here without SPG’s, James,” she said.

  “I told him, Dr. Ahrens,” the nurse said, “but he barged past me and—”

  “Did you leave Kivrin a message at the dig that she was to work on the tomb?” Dunworthy insisted.

  Badri nodded his head weakly.

  “She was exposed to the virus,” Dunworthy said to Mary. “On Sunday. Four days before she left.”

  “Oh, no,” Mary breathed.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Badri said, trying to push himself up in the bed. “Where’s Kivrin?” He looked from Dunworthy to Mary. “You pulled her out, didn’t you? As soon as you realized what had happened? Didn’t you pull her out?”

  “What had happened—?” Mary echoed. “What do you mean?”

  “You have to have pulled her out,” Badri said. “She’s not in 1320. She’s in 1348.”

  25

  “That’s impossible,” Dunworthy said.

  “1348?” Mary said bewilderedly. “But that can’t be. That’s the year of the Black Death.”

  She can’t be in 1348, Dunworthy thought. Andrews said the maximal slippage was only five years. Badri said Puhalski’s coordinates were correct.

  “1348?” Mary said again. He saw her glance at the screens on the wall behind Badri, as if hoping he were still delirious. “Are you certain?”

  Badri nodded. “I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw the slippage—” he said, and sounded as bewildered as Mary.

  “There couldn’t have been enough slippage for her to be in 1348,” Dunworthy cut in. “I had Andrews run parameter checks. He said the maximal slippage was only five years.”

  Badri shook his head. “It wasn’t the slippage. That was only four hours. It was too small. Minimal slippage on a drop that far in the past should have been at least forty-eight hours.”

  The slippage had not been too great. It had been too small. I didn’t ask Andrews what the minimal slippage was, only the maximal.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Badri said. “I had such a headache. The whole time I was setting the net, I had a headache.”

  “That was the virus,” Mary said. She looked stunned. “Headache and disorientation are the first symptoms.” She sank down in the chair beside the bed. “1348.”

  1348. He could not seem to take this in. He had been worried about Kivrin catching the virus, he had been worried about there being too much slippage, and all the time she was in 1348. The plague had hit Oxford in 1348. At Christmastime.

  “As soon as I saw how small the slippage was, I knew there was something wrong,” Badri said, “so I called up the coordinates—”

  “You said you checked Puhalski’s coordinates,” Dunworthy said accusingly.

  “He was only a first-year apprentice. He’d never even done a remote. And Gilchrist didn’t have the least idea what he was doing. I tried to tell you. Wasn’t she at the rendezvous?” He looked at Dunworthy. “Why didn’t you pull her out?”

  “We didn’t know,” Mary said, still sitting there stunned. “You weren’t able to tell us anything. You were delirious.”

  “The plague killed fifty million people,” Dunworthy said. “It killed half of Europe.”

  “James,” Mary said.

  “I tried to tell you,” Badri said. “That’s why I came to get you. So we could pull her out before she left the rendezvous.”

  He had tried to tell him. He had run all the way to the pub. He had run out in the pouring rain without his coat to tell him, pushing his way between the Christmas shoppers and their shopping bags and umbrellas as if they weren’t there, and arrived wet and half-frozen, his teeth chattering with the fever. There’s something wrong.

  I tried to tell you. He had. “It killed half of Europe,” he had said, and “it was the rats,” and “What year is it?” He had tried to tell him.

  “If it wasn’t the slippage, it has to have been an error in the coordinates,” Dunworthy said, gripping the end of the bed.

  Badri shrank back against the propped pillows like a cornered animal.

  “You said Puhalski�
��s coordinates were correct.”

  “James,” Mary said warningly.

  “The coordinates are the only other thing that could go wrong,” he shouted. “Anything else would have aborted the drop. You said you checked them twice. You said you couldn’t find any mistakes.”

  “I couldn’t,” Badri said. “But I didn’t trust them. I was afraid he’d made a mistake in the sidereal calculations that wouldn’t show up.” His face went gray. “I refed them myself. The morning of the drop.”

  The morning of the drop. When he had had the terrific headache. When he was already feverish and disoriented. Dunworthy remembered him typing at the console, frowning at the display screens. I watched him do it, he thought. I stood and watched him send Kivrin to the Black Death.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Badri said. “I must have—”

  “The plague wiped out whole villages,” Dunworthy said. “So many people died, there was no one left to bury them.”

  “Leave him alone, James,” Mary said. “It’s not his fault. He was ill.”

  “Ill,” he said. “Kivrin was exposed to your virus. She’s in 1348.”

  “James,” Mary said.

  He didn’t wait to hear it. He yanked the door open and plunged out.

  Colin was balancing on a chair in the corridor, tipping it back so the front two legs were off the ground. “There you are,” he said.

  Dunworthy walked rapidly past him.

  “Where are you going?” Colin said, tipping the chair forward with a crash. “Great-aunt Mary said not to let you leave till you’d had your enhancement.” He lurched sideways, caught himself on his hands, and scrambled up. “Why aren’t you wearing your SPG’s?”

  Dunworthy shoved through the ward doors.

  Colin came skidding through the doors. “Great-aunt Mary said I was absolutely not to let you leave.”

  “I don’t have time for enhancements,” Dunworthy said. “She’s in 1348.”

  “Great-aunt Mary?”

  He started down the corridor.

  “Kivrin?” Colin asked, running to catch up. “She can’t be. That’s when the Black Death was, isn’t it?”

  Dunworthy shoved open the door to the stairs and started down them two at a time.

  “I don’t understand,” Colin said. “How did she end up in 1348?”

  Dunworthy pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs and started down the corridor to the call box, fishing in his overcoat for the pocket calendar Colin had given him.

  “How are you going to pull her out?” Colin asked. “The laboratory’s locked.”

  Dunworthy pulled out the pocket calendar and began turning pages. He’d written Andrews’s number in the back.

  “Mr. Gilchrist won’t let you in. How are you going to get into the laboratory? He said he wouldn’t let you in.”

  Andrews’s number was on the last page. He picked up the receiver.

  “If he does let you in, who’s going to run the net? Mr. Chaudhuri?”

  “Andrews,” Dunworthy said shortly and began punching in the number.

  “I thought he wouldn’t come. Because of the virus.”

  Dunworthy put the receiver to his ear. “I’m not leaving her there.”

  A woman answered. “24837 here,” she said. “H. F. Shepherds’, Limited.”

  Dunworthy looked blankly at the pocket calendar in his hand. “I’m trying to reach Ronald Andrews,” he said. “What number is this?”

  “24837,” she said impatiently. “There’s no one here by that name.”

  He slammed the phone down. “Idiot telephone service,” he said. He punched in the number again.

  “Even if he agrees to come, how are you going to find her?” Colin asked, looking over his shoulder at the receiver. “She won’t be there, will she? The rendezvous isn’t for three days.”

  Dunworthy listened to the telephone’s ringing, wondering what Kivrin had done when she realized where she was. Gone back to the rendezvous and waited there, no doubt. If she was able to. If she was not ill. If she had not been accused of bringing the plague to Skendgate.

  “24837 here,” the same woman’s voice said. “H. F. Shepherds’, Limited.”

  “What number is this?” Dunworthy shouted.

  “24837,” she said, exasperated.

  “24837,” Dunworthy repeated. “That’s the number I’m trying to reach.”

  “No, it’s not,” Colin said, reaching across him to point to Andrews’s number on the page. “You’ve mixed the numbers.” He took the receiver away from Dunworthy. “Here, let me try it for you.” He punched in the number and handed the receiver back to Dunworthy.

  The ringing sounded different, farther away. Dunworthy thought about Kivrin. The plague had not hit everywhere at once. It had been in Oxford at Christmas, but there was no way of knowing when it had reached Skendgate.

  There was no answer. He let the phone ring ten times, eleven. He could not remember which way the plague had come from. It had come from France. Surely that meant from the east, across the Channel. And Skendgate was west of Oxford. It might not have reached there until after Christmas.

  “Where’s the book?” he asked Colin.

  “What book? Your appointment calendar, you mean? It’s right here.”

  “The book I gave you for Christmas. Why don’t you have it?”

  “Here?” Colin said, bewildered. “It weighs at least five stone.”

  There was still no answer. Dunworthy hung up the receiver, snatched up the calendar, and started toward the door. “I expect you to keep it with you at all times. Don’t you know there’s an epidemic on?”

  “Are you all right, Mr. Dunworthy?”

  “Go and get it,” Dunworthy said.

  “What, right now?”

  “Go back to Balliol and get it. I want to know when the plague reached Oxfordshire. Not the town. The villages. And which direction it came from.”

  “Where are you going?” Colin asked, running alongside him.

  “To make Gilchrist open the laboratory.”

  “If he won’t open it because of the flu, he’ll never open it for the plague,” Colin said.

  Dunworthy opened the door and went out. It was raining hard. The EC protesters were huddled under Infirmary’s overhang. One of them started toward him, proffering a flyer. Colin was right. Telling Gilchrist the source would have no effect. He would remain convinced the virus had come through the net. He would be afraid to open it for fear the plague would come through.

  “Give me a sheet of paper,” he said, fumbling for his pen.

  “A sheet of paper?” Colin said. “What for?”

  Dunworthy snatched the flyer from the EC protester and began scribbling on the back. “Mr. Basingame is authorizing the opening of the net,” he said.

  Colin peered at the writing. “He’ll never believe that, Mr. Dunworthy. On the back of a flyer?”

  “Then fetch me a sheet of paper!” he shouted.

  Colin’s eyes widened. “I will. You wait here, all right?” he said placatingly. “Don’t leave.”

  He dashed back inside and reappeared immediately with several sheets of hardcopy paper. Dunworthy snatched it from him and scrawled the orders and Basingame’s name. “Go and fetch your book. I’ll meet you at Brasenose.”

  “What about your coat?”

  “There’s no time,” he said. He folded the paper in fourths and jammed it inside his jacket.

  “It’s raining. Shouldn’t you take a taxi?” Colin said.

  “There aren’t any taxis.” He started off down the street.

  “Great-aunt Mary’s going to kill me, you know,” Colin called after him. “She said it was my responsibility to see that you got your enhancement.”

  He should have taken a taxi. It was pouring by the time he reached Brasenose, a hard slanting rain that would be sleet in another hour. Dunworthy felt chilled to the bone.

  The rain had at least driven the picketers away. There was nothing in front of
Brasenose but a few wet flyers they had dropped. An expandable metal gate had been pulled across the front of the entrance to Brasenose. The porter had retreated inside his lodge, and the shutter was down.

  “Open up!” Dunworthy shouted. He rattled the gate loudly. “Open up immediately!”

  The porter pulled the shutter up and looked out. When he saw it was Dunworthy, he looked alarmed and then belligerent. “Brasenose is under quarantine,” he said. “It’s restricted.”

  “Open this gate immediately,” Dunworthy said.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir,” he said. “Mr. Gilchrist has given orders that no one be admitted to Brasenose until the source of the virus is discovered.”

  “We know the source,” Dunworthy said. “Open the gate.”

  The porter let the shutter down, and in a minute he came out of the lodge and over to the gate. “Was it the Christmas decorations?” he said. “They said the ornaments were infected with it.”

  “No,” Dunworthy said. “Open the gate and let me in.”

  “I don’t know whether I should do that, sir,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “Mr. Gilchrist …”

  “Mr. Gilchrist isn’t in charge anymore,” he said. He pulled the folded paper out of his jacket and poked it through the metal gate at the porter.

  He unfolded it and read it, standing there in the rain.

  “Mr. Gilchrist is no longer Acting Head,” Dunworthy said. “Mr. Basingame has authorized me to take charge of the drop. Open the gate.”

  “Mr. Basingame,” he said, peering at the already-blotted signature. “I’ll find the keys,” he said.

  He went back in the lodge, taking the paper with him. Dunworthy huddled against the gate, trying to keep out of the freezing rain, and shivering.

  He had been worried about Kivrin sleeping on the cold ground, and she was in the middle of a holocaust, where people froze to death because no one was left on their feet to chop wood, and the animals died in the fields because no one was left alive to bring them in. Eighty thousand dead in Siena, three hundred thousand in Rome, more than a hundred thousand in Florence. One half of Europe.

  The porter finally emerged with a large ring of keys and came over to the gate. “I’ll have it open in a moment, sir,” he said, sorting through the keys.