She opened her eyes slowly and realized that she'd dropped off for a moment. It could only have been a few seconds because Matron was still with the same patient, in much the same posture as she had been. Mary yawned, then looked down at little Sonya. The baby's eyes were half-open and her mouth was slack.
A spear of anxiety shot through her and she quickly checked the baby's pulse. The infant's skin was already cooling, and where the pulse had been far too rapid, now it was utterly gone.
She sighed. At least someone was holding her when she died; she didn't go alone in her crib.
Yet Mary regretted that she hadn't noticed. Not that there would have been anything she could have done about it.
Nurse Mary Shea rose and took the baby's chart off her crib, carrying it and the small body outside. Beside the clinic there was a large tent where the bodies were stored prior to being buried. She handed Sonya to a soldier wearing a hazard suit and respirator; he glanced at Mary and she could see the misery in his eyes through the buglike lenses of his mask. She shook her head and shrugged and he nodded; sadly, she thought. Then Mary made a note on the chart of the child's time of death and gave him the paper.
She returned to the clinic only for a moment, just long enough to inform the head nurse of little Sonya Stratzman's death.
Matron looked her over.
"Take a break," she said. "Don't come back for twenty minutes or so. We won't fall to pieces."
"Thank you," Mary said, from the heart.
She turned and walked away, grabbing her jacket on the way out. Outside the clinic she paused, but not for long. I've got to get away from the smell of this place, she thought, and headed for the gate. She just had to get somewhere that didn't stink of death and disease.
As she approached the gate a soldier stepped out of the guard shack. "Identify yourself, please," he said.
He was one of the odd ones that Mary had noticed around the camp. They had this low-affect manner and they looked at you with these dead eyes that seemed to measure you for your scrap value.
"Mary Shea," she answered. "I'm a nurse at the clinic. I'm going for a short walk; I'll be back in ten minutes." Theoretically, civilians were free to leave the camp anytime they wanted. Up until now, though, she'd been too busy to test the theory.
I hope he's not going to give me an argument, she thought. I am so not in the mood.
"I don't think you should do that," the guard said. "It's very dangerous out there."
"It's pretty damn dangerous in here at the moment," she said crossly.
"Maybe you should just take a walk around the perimeter of the fence," he said, standing in her way.
"I just need to get away from the smell around here, okay? I'm not going far; I've only got ten minutes and I'd rather not waste it arguing with you." Her voice had risen toward the end there and now the guard was looking stubborn.
"Something the matter?" a voice asked.
She turned to see a lieutenant standing there. He was a good-looking young man with light brown eyes and dark brown hair.
"I just want to go for a short walk outside the fence, but this fellow thinks it's a bad idea."
"No one here is a prisoner, Corporal," the lieutenant said.
"Yes, sir."
The lieutenant turned to her and smiled slightly. "Would you like some company?"
She returned the smile. "Another time, perhaps. But right now I really just need to be alone for a few minutes."
"Another time, then." He watched the attractive young nurse walk away. Then he turned to the corporal. "Have the orders changed recently?" he asked. "Are there now restrictions on who can leave the camp?"
"No, sir." The corporal looked surly. "I just hate to see girls go out there alone. There's some rough characters out there."
"There are rough characters lurking a five-minute walk from this fence, Corporal?" Reese gave the soldier a hard look.
"Considering that's well within our patrol range, I'd have to say that you and your friends aren't doing a very good job. Wouldn't you, soldier?"
"Yes, sir."
If there's one thing I hate, it's a trooper with an attitude problem and this guy has one in spades, Reese thought.
Granted, the world has come to an end, hundreds of millions are dead, and we've got an epidemic, but…
He looked the corporal over in the patented intimidating style that good officers learned early and utilized often. "You forgot to have her sign out," Reese pointed out. "That was your oversight, not hers. So I don't want you giving her a hard time when she gets back. Just note that a young woman left at this time and have her sign in when she returns. Don't forget it again, and don't restrict the movements of civilians. If someone wants to leave, we can't stop them. Like I said, this isn't a prison."
"Yes, sir."
Reese continued on his way. He glanced down the road, but the girl was already out of sight behind some trees. He frowned, wondering how many other soldiers were getting the idea that the civilians in the camp were prisoners. He'd felt damned uncomfortable when the captain referred to them as inmates, even though he knew Yanik was only kidding. At least he thought the captain was kidding.
Then there were the thugs who claimed to have been beaten up by the guards. Ordinarily he'd have rejected such accusations out of hand. But there was something in the atmosphere of the camp lately that made their story hard to discount. Which made a soldier refusing to let someone take a walk outside the fence somewhat worrying.
* * *
Spring was moving on and the grass was growing, still looking thin and uncertain, but pushing up to the light anyway.
It doesn't seem right, somehow, Mary thought, obscurely disturbed by the returning life. She took a deep breath of air that only smelled of cool and green.
Some trees wore a fuzz of red at the tips of their branches; others were just putting forth new leaves, all pale green, with silver-gray fuzz on the outside. It was still too early for flowers, though. Maybe there were snowdrops and crocuses blooming somewhere, but there were none around here.
Given that it was colder than usual, it was probably still too early for the young leaves that were already showing. But nature was resilient; if these leaves got burned, others would replace them.
All her life Mary had thought that if the bombs ever dropped, the world would just end—no more spring, no more people, no more anything. And here things like grass and trees were carrying on much the same as they always did.
People, however, are screwing up as usual.
Maybe that was unfair. To date, no one had been able to discover where the cholera had come from and why it continued to spread. Poor little Sonya. And her poor brother, too.
Poor me, she thought. She wasn't used to losing patients like this. I'm used to treatments that work. People died of cancer, or degenerative diseases. Apart from a few stubborn exceptions, they didn't die of bacteria!
She'd lost patients, of course. Death was a part of life and there were some diseases they hadn't yet eradicated. But this!
This was a nineteenth-century-style epidemic. Or a third-world one. Funny to think that was what they were now. As third world as anybody else.
That was probably an exaggeration. But I'm in an exaggerated mood— hypersensitive, exhausted, uncomfortable in my own skin.
Still, things were going from bad to worse at the moment.
They really were…
On top of everything else, four men had entered the clinic in the last week to be treated for what looked like one hell of a beating. Three of them had accused the guards of jumping them; the fourth was in a coma. But everyone knew the four men had been involved in selling drugs, or bootleg alcohol, or black-market goods. So their word was taken with a grain of salt.
Besides, the accused guards were able to call on witnesses who placed them elsewhere when the beatings were supposed to have been administered.
People! she thought, feeling close to despair. They just never stop. They make an accu
sation, which the accused deny, someone demands an investigation, the investigators claim they're being impeded, the accused say the investigators aren't going far enough, the accusers shout "whitewash!" the accused
"persecution!"
Mary stopped and plopped down under a tree with a discouraged sigh. She was in the middle of a hydrangea thicket and she looked for the clusters of buds on the tips of the branches. They were still tightly wound in their protective winter coating, not a hint of petal showing.
Taking a deep breath redolent with the scent of cool, damp air and earth and growing things, she started to let down her guard.
Mary allowed her eyes to tear up; she'd come out here to have a good cry in private. It was the sort of thing that helped her survive.
"The cholera is doing a great job."
With an effort of will Mary swallowed her tears, though it felt like they were going down inside a cardboard box. But then, she'd been startled, both by the voice and what he'd said. She hadn't heard anyone walking. How long had they been there?
"Yeah. It's really helping things along. And they're all still sniffing the toilets and boiling water and things like that."
The two men laughed; she wasn't sure, but she thought there might have been a third voice.
"I toldja nobody would believe that anthrax would occur naturally."
"Maybe not, but it spreads like crazy."
"Yeah, but it's pretty obviously not natural."
"Cholera's more treatable."
"Only if you get the medicine."
"Tomorrow trucks will be arriving to take the sickest people to the central hospital. So the clinic will be receiving even less."
"Well, fewer patients. One way or another."
They were moving away, laughing. Mary stood and crept toward the voices. Moving carefully, she peered through the branches of the hydrangeas and saw three figures, dressed in what looked like army fatigues, moving down the path. They'd gone out of sight before she could get a look at even the backs of their heads. Moving quickly but carefully, Mary moved parallel to the path, trying to catch up to them enough to get a glimpse.
She heard car doors slam and moved more quickly still, risking the sound of crunching leaves. But she was too late. By the time she reached a dirt road, a green van was just turning a corner, to be quickly hidden by some bushes and fir trees. Looking around, she saw no one else.
What was that all about? she wondered.
It had sounded as though she'd been listening to people who were happy about the epidemic, maybe even somehow causing it. But who on earth would that be? Even Arab terrorists had better things to think about these days. And this was the first she'd heard about patients being taken to a central hospital.
Or even that there is a central hospital.
She should probably tell someone. Not that she had anything concrete to tell, considering she hadn't seen any faces and hadn't recognized anybody's voice. Still… But who could she tell?
Matron? No, she had enough on her plate.
Maybe… maybe that good-looking lieutenant. She didn't mind taking advantage of his apparent interest if it would help.
It galled her that she had no proof. Unless trucks do in fact show up tomorrow. That wasn't something she would know. At least not yet. She glanced at her watch and gasped. Not now, later. Right now she needed to get back to work. She certainly had a lot to think about. Like how anyone would go about deliberately spreading cholera.
* * *
"You could spray the germs on raw fruits and vegetables,"
Mary said.
Dennis Reese just looked at her, his mouth partially open.
When she'd suggested coffee he'd been delighted; Mary Shea was a fine-looking woman, with a striking figure, long auburn hair, and hazel green eyes. She didn't look like a conspiracy nut.
"We don't have that many raw vegetables," he pointed out.
"Yes, they're scarce, which may be why everyone in the camp hasn't come down with it. It sure isn't in the water supply, which is the usual vector. The second most-likely source is contaminated food. But the kitchens and the food in storage have been checked without finding anything wrong. So what if food is being treated just before it's served?"
Dennis took a sip of coffee, never taking his eyes from her pretty, anxious face. She'd related an overheard conversation to him and it was worrying. On the one hand, a simple explanation was that someone was playing a sick joke on her. Which begged the question why anybody would do that? Maybe she turned someone
down and they resented it? The other, and actually most likely explanation was that Nurse Shea had fallen briefly asleep and had dreamed the whole thing.
"Let's see if these ambulance trucks show," he suggested.
"You think I'm making this up?" she asked. It was clear that she was offended.
"No." He waved that away. "But it's possible you dreamed it.
You looked really tired, yesterday. And that conversation had a kind of dream logic to it. You know what I mean?" She shook her head, her expression cool. "What I mean is, one minute they seem to be saying they've caused the epidemic, then they're talking about ambulances." He held his hands up, moving them like two parts of a scale. "What you fear, combined with a hope of rescue."
"Excuse me," Mary said, rising, "but it never occurred to me that this epidemic might be the result of bioterrorism. If anything, I thought it was the result of shoddy construction. And since the idea hadn't even occurred to me, it would be hard for me to be afraid of it. Don't you think?"
"Yeah," he agreed. "Like I said, let's wait and see about those trucks. Then we'll know."
"We'll know that I overheard someone talking about ambulance transport," she snapped. "We still won't believe that I overheard the first part of the conversation, will we?"
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to," she snapped, and stalked off.
I seem to be seeing this woman's back a lot, Reese thought.
Nice view.
"Cute," Chip Delaney said.
Dennis looked up at him; he and Chip were sharing quarters and getting to be friends. "You think?" he said.
"Uh-huh. Redheads, man. They're testy but they're worth it."
He slapped Reese on the shoulder. "The captain wants you, buddy. ASAP."
* * *
When the lieutenant walked into Captain Yanik's office, it was to find the head nurse on the verge of blowing a gasket.
"You can't be serious!" she was screeching. "We can't send these people on a trip. Most of my patients are too sick to be moved. And where are they being taken? How far away is it?
What are we supposed to tell their families when they come looking for them? Besides, you know I can't spare any personnel to go with these trucks and they didn't provide any. What they'll be delivering at the end of their journey is a load of corpses!"
"I have my orders, Ms. Vetrano. Worst cases to be moved to the central hospital. Doctor," Yanik appealed, "surely they'll have a better chance away from here."
"That is not necessarily correct, Captain," the Sikh physician told him. He frowned. "Perhaps we could send some patients who are very ill and some patients who are still ambulatory and might be able to administer to those who can't take care of themselves."
"Doctor, I don't understand why we have to do this at all," the head nurse said. "What we need are more supplies and more trained medical help. And we don't know why this epidemic is happening, so maybe we should truck everybody out of here."
"Nurse Vetrano has a point," Ramsingh said. "Close investigation has not turned up an answer to what has caused the epidemic. Everyone is boiling their water and washing their hands carefully, yet the contagion keeps spreading. Perhaps the problem is this place."
"This place has been a fairground for more than a hundred years," the captain pointed out. "Not once, to the best of my knowledge, has it ever been the source of an epidemic."
"Then what is?" Reese asked.
They all looked at him, the captain scowling. The look in his eyes informing the lieutenant that he wasn't helping. Dennis steeled himself, deciding to tell them what Mary had reported.
"Nurse Shea claims to have overheard some men speaking in a way that indicated they might be deliberately spreading the contagion. She suggested that they might be spraying germs onto raw fruits and vegetables after they'd been put out for consumption."
"Who?" Yanik demanded. "Can she tell us?"
"No, sir. She claims to have only caught a brief glimpse of them from the back before they drove off in a green van. She said they were wearing fatigues."
"Very useful," the captain drawled.
"It might be worth looking into," Reese suggested.
"You believed her?" Yanik said. His tone implied that the lieutenant had a screw loose.
"I have my doubts, sir. But she also heard them say that trucks would be coming for the patients and that its arrival would correspond with a decrease in medical supplies."
The captain and the doctor exchanged glances.
"All we would need to do is station someone in the cafeteria to watch," Ramsingh said.
"Better set up a video camera," Reese suggested. "They wouldn't be expecting that. Besides, if anyone is just lingering in the cafeteria, they'll be noticed. We could make sure it's a different someone every few hours, but even that would stand out. And since we don't know who might be doing this, we might blow our cover before we've even started by enlisting the perpetrator."
"Like I said, you believed her," Yanik said flatly. The captain looked more contemptuous than annoyed.
"Under the circumstances, sir, I think it's worth investigating." Reese stood at ease, hoping Mary Shea hadn't dreamed her encounter.
"I don't know," Yanik mused, rubbing his chin. "Electricity is at a premium right now."
"How about human life?" Nurse Vetrano snapped. "That at a premium, too?"
The captain flicked a look at Dennis that said, "Thanks!
Thanks a lot!"
"All right," Yanik said. "We'll set it up. I'll check to see if Nurse Vetrano's proposal is acceptable to HQ and get back to you. Meanwhile, you two can be deciding who goes."
The Future War t2-3 Page 12
