Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,182

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, squinting 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