Doomsday Book (62 page)

"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 the Indian flu. 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 inoculations," 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' 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' 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' 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 bewilderedly. "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 overhand. 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 inoculation."

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 any more," 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.

Kivrin would surely have gone back to the drop as soon as she realized it was 1348. She would have been there all this time, waiting for the net to open, frantic that they hadn't come to get her.

If she had realized. She would have no way of knowing she was in 1348. Badri had told her the slippage would be several days. She would have checked the date against the Advent holy days and thought she was exactly where she was supposed to be. It would never have occurred to her to ask the year. She would think she was in 1320, and all the time the plague would be sweeping toward her.

The gate's lock clicked free, and Dunworthy pushed it together far enough to squeeze through. "Bring your keys," he said. "I need you to unlock the laboratory."

"That key's not on here," the porter said, and disappeared into the lodge again.

It was icy in the passage, and the rain came slanting in, colder still. Dunworthy huddled next to the door of the lodge, trying to catch some of the heat from inside and jammed his hands hard against the bottoms of his jacket pockets to stop the shivering.

He had been worried about cutthroats and thieves, and all this time she had been in 1348, where they had piled the dead in the streets, where they had burned Jews and strangers at the stake in their panic.

He had been worried about Gilchrist not doing parameter checks, so worried that he had infected Badri with his anxiety, and Badri, already feverish, had refed the coordinates. So worried.

He realized suddenly that the porter had been gone too long, that he must be warning Gilchrist.

He moved toward the door, and as he did, the porter emerged, carrying an umbrella and exclaiming over the cold. He offered half the umbrella to Dunworthy.