Darwin's Children d-2

by Greg Bear

  Dicken saw no one else under the tent.

  “We don’t have a team in place yet,” Flynn said. “She just came down sick this morning.”

  “Is there a phone connection in the trailer, an intercom, a bullhorn, anything?”

  Flynn shook her head. “We’re still putting it together.”

  “Goddamnit, she’s alone in there?”

  Turner nodded.

  “For how long?”

  “Since this morning,” Flynn said. “I went in and tried to do an exam. She refused, but I took some pictures, and of course, there’s the video. We’re running tests on the waste line fluid and the air, but the equipment here isn’t familiar to me. I didn’t trust it, so I took the samples over to the primate lab. They’re still being run.”

  “Does Jurie know she’s ill?” Dicken asked.

  “We called him,” Turner said.

  “Did he give any instructions?”

  “He said to leave her alone. Let nobody in until we were sure.”

  “But Maggie went in.”

  “I had to,” Flynn said. “She looked so scared.”

  “You were in a suit?”

  “Of course.”

  Dicken swung about on his stiff leg and leaned his head to one side, biting his cheek to keep his opinions to himself. He was furious.

  Flynn would not meet his eyes. “It’s procedure. All tests done under Level 3 conditions.”

  “Well, we sure as hell follow the goddamned rules, don’t we?” Dicken said. “Haven’t you at least asked her to come out and have a doctor inspect her?”

  “She won’t come out,” Turner said. “We have video cameras tracking her. She’s in the bedroom. She’s just lying there.”

  “Dandy,” Dicken said. “What in hell do you want me to do?”

  “We have the pictures,” Flynn said, and took her data phone from her pocket.

  “Show me,” Dicken said.

  She brought up a succession of five pictures on the phone’s screen. Dicken saw a young SHEVA girl with dark brown hair, pale blue eyes with yellow specks, thin features but prominent cheekbones, pale skin. The girl looked like a frightened cat, her eyes searching the unseen corners, refusing even in her misery to be intimidated.

  Dicken could tell the girl was exhibiting no obvious signs of Shiver—no lesions on her skinny arms, no scarlet cingulated markings on her neck. A live update chart butted in at the conclusion of the slide show and displayed a temperature of 102.

  “Remote temperature sensing?”

  Flynn nodded.

  “You said her viral titers were high.”

  “She cut herself getting into the van. They had been instructed not to draw blood, but they sequestered the stain and we took a sample under controlled conditions. That’s why the van is still here. She’s producing HERV.”

  “Of course she is. She’s pregnant. She doesn’t present any of the necessary symptoms,” he said. “What makes you think it’s Shiver?”

  “Dr. Jurie said it might be.”

  “Jurie isn’t here, and you are.”

  “But she’s pregnant,” Turner said, scowling, as if that explained their concern.

  “Have you tested for pseudotype viruses?”

  “We’re still running the samples,” Turner said.

  “Anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You’ve had Shiver,” Flynn said sullenly. “You should be even more cautious.” She looked more angry than distressed now. They were wondering whose side he was on, and he was half inclined to tell them.

  “I won’t even need a suit,” he said contemptuously, and tossed the phone back to Flynn. He walked toward the trailer.

  “Hold it,” Turner said, his face red. “Go in there without a suit, and you’ll stay. We won’t—we can’t let you out.”

  Dicken turned and bowed, holding out his arms in exasperated placation. There was work to do, a problem to resolve, and anger wasn’t helping. “Then get me a goddamned suit! And a phone or an intercom. She needs to communicate with the outside. She needs to talk with someone. Where are her parents—her mother, I mean?”

  “We don’t know,” Flynn said.

  The narrow rooms inside the mobile home were neat and cheerless. Rental-style furniture, upholstered in beige and yellow plaid vinyl, lent them an air of cheap and soulless utility. The girl had brought no personal effects, and had touched none of the stuffed animal toys that lined the shelves in the tiny living room, still in their plastic wrappings.

  Dicken wondered how long ago the stuffed animals had been purchased. How long had Jurie been planning to bring SHEVA children into Pathogenics?

  A year?

  Two dining chairs had been upset beside the dinette. Dicken bent to set them right. The plastic in his suit squeaked. He was already starting to sweat, despite the air conditioner pack. He had long since come to sincerely hate isolation suits.

  He looked for other obstructions that might snag the plastic, then moved slowly toward the bedroom at the back of the trailer. He knocked on the frame and peered through the half-open door. The girl lay on her back on the bed, still wearing pedal pushers, blouse, and a denim jacket. The bed’s green plastic covers had been tossed aside, and she was staring at the ceiling.

  “Hello?”

  The girl did not look at him. He could see her skinny chest moving, and her cheeks were ruddy with fever or fear or perhaps despair.

  “Helen?” He walked along the narrow space beside the bed and bent over so she could see his face. “My name is Christopher Dicken.”

  She swung her head to one side. “Go away. I’ll make you sick,” she said.

  “I doubt it, Helen. How do you feel?”

  “I hate your suit.”

  “I don’t like it much, either.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  Dicken straightened and folded his arms with some difficulty. The suit rustled and squeaked and he felt like one of the plastic-wrapped stuffed animals. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”

  “I want to throw up.”

  “Have you thrown up?”

  “No,” she said.

  “That’s good.”

  “I keep trying.” The girl sat up on the bed. “You should be afraid of me. That’s what my mother told me to say to anyone who tries to touch me or kidnap me. She said, ‘Use what you have.’”

  “You don’t make people sick, Helen,” Dicken said.

  “I wish I could. I want him to be sick.”

  Dicken could not imagine her pain and frustration, and did not feel comfortable probing it out. “I won’t say I understand. I don’t.”

  “Stop talking and go away.”

  “We won’t talk about that, okay. But we need to talk about how you’re feeling, and I’d like to examine you. I’m a doctor.”

  “So was he,” she snapped. She rolled to one side, still not looking at Dicken. Her eyes narrowed. “My muscles hurt. Am I going to die?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I should die.”

  “Please don’t talk that way. If things are going to get any better, I have to examine you. I promise I won’t hurt you or do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.”

  “I’m used to them taking blood,” the girl said. “They tie us down if we fight.” She stared fixedly at his face through the hood. “You sound like you’ve helped a lot of sick people.”

  “Quite a few. Some were very, very sick, and they got better.”

  “And some died.”

  “Yes,” Dicken said. “Some died.”

  “I don’t feel that sick, other than wanting to throw up.”

  “That might be your baby.”

  The girl opened her mouth wide and her cheeks went pale. “I’m pregnant?” she asked.

  Dicken suddenly felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. “They didn’t tell you?”

  “Oh, my God,” the girl said and curled up, facing away from him. “I knew it. I knew it. I could smell something. It
was his baby inside of me. Oh, my God.” The girl sat up abruptly. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Dicken must have showed his concern even through the hood.

  “I’m not going to hurt myself. I have to throw up. Don’t look. Don’t watch me.”

  He said, “I’ll wait for you in the living room.”

  She swung her legs out over the side of the bed and stood, then paused, arms held out as if to keep her balance. She stared down at the fake wooden floor. “He used nose plugs and scrubbed me with soap, and then he covered me with cheap perfume. I couldn’t make him stop. He said he wanted to learn whether he would ever have grandchildren. But he wasn’t even my real father. A baby. Oh, my God.”

  The girl’s face wrinkled up in an expression so complex Dicken could have studied it for hours and not understood. He knew how a chimpanzee must feel, watching humans emote.

  “I’m sorry,” Dicken said.

  “Have you met anyone else like me who was pregnant?” the girl asked, holding, compelling his gaze through the plastic.

  “No,” Dicken said.

  “I’m the first?”

  “You’re the first in my experience.”

  “Yeah.” She got a panicky look and walked stiffly into the bathroom. Dicken could hear her trying to throw up. He went into the living room. The smell of his sorrow and loathing filled the helmet and there was no way to wipe his eyes or his nose.

  When the girl came out, she stopped in the doorway, then sidled through, as if afraid to touch the frame. She held her arms out to her side like wings. Her cheeks were a steady golden brown and the yellow flint-sparks in her eyes seemed even larger and brighter. More than ever, she looked like a cat. She glared at him quizzically. She could see his puffy eyes and wet cheeks through the plastic. “What do you care?” she asked.

  Dicken shook his head inside the helmet. “Hard to explain,” he said. “I was there at the beginning.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure there’s time,” he said. “We need to find out why you’re sick.”

  “Explain it to me, and then you can look at me,” the girl said.

  Dicken wondered how they would react outside if he spent a couple of hours in the trailer. If Jurie should happen to come back…

  None of that mattered. He had to do something for the girl. She deserved so much more than this.

  He pulled up the covering seal and unzipped his helmet, then removed it. It certainly wasn’t the worst risk he had ever taken. “I was one of the first to know,” he began.

  The girl lifted her nose and sniffed. The way her upper lip formed a V was so strangely beautiful that Dicken had to smile.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “You’re not afraid, you’re angry,” the girl said. “You’re angry for me.”

  He nodded.

  “Nobody’s ever been angry for me. It smells kind of sweet. Sit in the living room. Stay a few feet away, in case I’m dangerous.”

  They walked into the living room. Dicken sat on a dinette chair and she stood by the couch, arms folded, as if ready to run. “Tell me,” she said.

  “Can I examine you while I talk? You can keep your clothes on, and I won’t stick you with anything. I just need to look and touch.”

  The girl nodded.

  Rumors and half-truths were all she had ever heard. She remained standing for the first few minutes, while Dicken pressed his fingers gently under her jaw, into her armpits, and looked between her fingers and toes.

  After a while, she sat on the vinyl couch, listening closely and watching him with those incredible flint-spark eyes.

  36

  ARIZONA

  The three cars split off at a crossroads going through a small desert town. Stella looked through the rear window at the diminishing dot of the car that contained Celia and LaShawna and two of the boys. Then she turned to look at Will, who seemed to have fallen asleep.

  JoBeth Hayden had talked about her daughter for the first half hour or so, about how she had been glad Bonnie was not on the bus, being taken to Sandia, yet how disappointing it was not to see her and have her be free.

  After a while, Stella had felt her muscles tighten from the aftereffects of the crash, and she had tuned out Jobeth, focusing instead on the pile of crumpled pages that Will had arranged on the seat between them.

  Will opened his eyes and leaned forward. “Mrs. Hayden,” he said, and ran his tongue over dry lips, avoiding Stella’s curious stare.

  “Yes. Your name is William, isn’t it?”

  “Will. I’d like to put these up by you.” He dropped some crumpled pages in the middle of the front bench seat.

  “That’s trash,” Jobeth Hayden said disapprovingly.

  “I can’t keep it back here,” Will said.

  “I don’t see why not.”

  Stella could not figure out what Will was up to. She rubbed her nose. The front bench seat was in direct sunlight. Will was fever-scenting. She could smell him now, subtle but direct, like cocoa powder and butter. She had never smelled anything exactly like it.

  “Can I?” Will asked.

  Jobeth Hayden shook her head slowly. Stella saw her eyes in the rearview mirror; she looked confused. “All right,” she said.

  Stella picked up a crumpled page and smelled it. She drew back, rejecting the urge to frith, and stared at Will resentfully. The paperback was a reservoir. Will had been rubbing the pages behind his ears, storing up scent. She poked him with her finger and flashed a query with her cheeks. He took the paper from her hands.

  “We don’t want to go to this ranch,” Will said to Mrs. Hayden.

  “That’s where we’re going. There’s a doctor there. It’s a safe place, and they’re expecting you.”

  “I know a better place,” Will said. “Could you drive us to California?”

  “That’s silly,” Jobeth Hayden said.

  “I’ve been trying to get there for more than a year now.”

  “We’re going to the ranch, and that’s that.”

  Will dropped another wadded-up page onto the pool of sun on the front seat. Stella could smell Will’s particular form of persuasion very clearly now, and however much she fought against it, what he said was beginning to seem reasonable.

  Mrs. Hayden continued to drive. Stella wondered if too much persuasion would confuse her and make her drive off the road.

  Will cradled his head in his arms. “We’re fine. I don’t need a doctor./ She’s fine, she can still drive.”

  “We’re going to see a doctor in a small town in Arizona, and then we’re going straight to the ranch,” Mrs. Hayden said.

  “It’s right across the state line. You have to drive through Nevada, though. Can I see the map?”

  Mrs. Hayden was frowning deeply now, and she started to toss back the pieces of crumpled paper. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “I just want to see the map,” Will said.

  “Well, I suppose that’s okay, but no more of this trash, please. I thought you children behaved better.”

  Stella touched Will’s arm. “Stop it,” she whispered, leaning forward so only he would hear.

  Will ignored Stella and tossed the paper again onto the front seat, in the pool of sunshine that warmed it and made it release its scent.

  “This is really intolerable,” Mrs. Hayden said, but her head straightened and she did not sound angry. She reached over, opened up the glove box, and handed Will an Auto Club map of Arizona and New Mexico. “I don’t use them often,” she said. “They’re pretty old.”

  Will opened the map and spread it across their knees. His finger followed highways going north and west. Stella leaned into the corner where the seat met the door and folded her arms.

  “You’ll have to sit up straight, sweetie,” Mrs. Hayden told her. “The car has side airbags. It’s not safe to slump over.”

  Stella sat up. Will looked at her. Her back was really hurting now. C
almly, he reached over and touched her hands, her legs, then her back.

  “What are you doing back there?” Mrs. Hayden asked, dimly concerned.

  Will did not answer, and she did not press the question. His fingers marched lightly up Stella’s spine, and she rolled over to let him examine her back.

  “You’ll be okay,” Will said.

  “How do you know?” Stella asked.

  “You’d smell different if you were bleeding inside, or if something was broken. You’re just suffering from a little whiplash, and I don’t think there’s any nerve damage. I smelled a boy with a broken back once, and he had a sad, awful smell. You smell good.”

  “I don’t like you telling us what to do,” Stella said.

  “I’ll stop once she takes us to California,” Will said. He did not seem very confident, and he did not smell sure of himself. This was one nervous young man.

  “It’s a beautiful day/ I learned a lot in North Carolina,” Will doubled. “I’m glad you’re here/ That was before they burned our camp.”

  Stella had never met anyone more adept at persuasion. She wondered whether his talent was natural, or whether he had been taught somewhere. She also wondered whether they would be in any danger. But Stella was not willing, not yet anyway, to tell Mrs. Hayden her suspicions. She apparently had suspicions of her own. “I’d like to roll down the windows,” Mrs. Hayden said. “It’s getting stuffy in here.”

  “It’s fine, really,” Will said. At the same time, he undered to Stella, “/I need your help. Don’t you want to see what we can do?”

  Stella shook her head, thinking of Mitch and Kaye, thinking irrationally of the house in Virginia, the last place she had really felt safe, though that had been an illusion.

  “Didn’t you ever want to run away?” Will asked in a near whisper.

  “It really is stuffy,” Mrs. Hayden said. Will was running out of pages.

  “Help me,” Will pleaded softly, earnestly.

  “What is this place?” Stella asked.

  “I think it’s in the woods,” Will said. “It’s hidden, far from the towns. They have animals and grow their own food./ They raise marijuana and sell it to make money to buy stuff.”

  Marijuana was legal now in most states, but still that sounded dangerous. Stella suddenly felt very cautious. Will looked and smelled scary, with his jumbled hair and cocoa-powder richness, his face that seemed capable of so many expressions. He’s been with others and they’ve taught him so much. What could they teach me—and what could I add?