Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,185

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