Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,86

Ward. He couldn’t see Mary anywhere, but she had said they needn’t wait, and he was suddenly so tired he couldn’t stand.

They went outside. It was just beginning to get light out and still raining. Dunworthy hesitated under the hospital porch, wondering if he should ring for a taxi, but he had no desire to have Gilchrist show up for his tests while they were waiting and have to hear his plans for sending Kivrin to the Black Death and the battle of Agincourt. He fished Mary’s collapsible umbrella out of her bag and put it up.

“Thank goodness you’re still here,” Montoya said, skidding up on a bicycle, spraying water. “I need to find Basingame.”

So do we all, Dunworthy thought, wondering where she had been during all those telephone conversations.

She got off the bike, pushed it up the rack, and keyed the lock. “His secretary said no one knows where he is. Can you believe that?”

“Yes,” Dunworthy said. “I’ve been trying most of today—yesterday—to reach him. He’s on holiday somewhere in Scotland, no one knows exactly where. Fishing, according to his wife.”

“At this time of year?” she said. “Who would go fishing in Scotland in December? Surely his wife knows where he is or has a number where he can be reached or something.”

Dunworthy shook his head.

“This is ridiculous! I go to all the trouble to get the National Health Board to grant me access to my dig, and Basingame’s on vacation!” She reached under her slick and brought out a sheaf of colored papers. “They agreed to give me a waiver if the Head of History would sign an affidavit saying the dig was a project necessary and essential to the welfare of the University. How could he just go off like this without telling anybody?” She slapped the papers against her leg, and raindrops flew everywhere. “I have to get this signed before the whole dig floats away. Where’s Gilchrist?”

“He should be here shortly for his blood tests,” Dunworthy said. “If you manage to find Basingame, tell him he needs to come back immediately. Tell him we’ve got a quarantine here, we don’t know where an historian is, and the tech is too ill to tell us.”

“Fishing,” Montoya said disgustedly, heading for Casualties. “If my dig is ruined, he’s going to have a lot to answer for.”

“Come along,” Dunworthy said to Colin, anxious to be gone before anyone else showed up. He held the umbrella so it would cover Colin, too, and then gave up. Colin walked rapidly ahead, managing to hit nearly every puddle, then dawdled behind to look at shop windows.

There was no one on the streets, though whether that was from the quarantine or the early hour, Dunworthy couldn’t tell. Perhaps they’ll all be asleep, he thought, and we can sneak in and go straight to bed.

“I thought there’d be more going on,” Colin said, sounding disappointed. “Sirens and all that.”

“And dead-carts going through the streets, calling ‘Bring out your dead’?” Dunworthy said. “You should have gone with Kivrin. Quarantines in the Middle Ages were far more exciting than this one’s likely to be, with only four cases and a vaccine on its way from the States.”

“Who is this Kivrin person?” Colin asked. “Your daughter?”

“She’s my pupil. She’s just gone to 1320.”

“Time travel? Apocalyptic!”

They turned the corner of the Broad. “The Middle Ages,” Colin said. “That’s Napoleon, isn’t it? Trafalgar, and all that?”

“It’s the Hundred Years War,” Dunworthy said, and Colin looked blank. What are they teaching children in the schools these days? he thought. “Knights and ladies and castles.”

“The Crusades?”

“The Crusades are a bit earlier.”

“That’s where I’d want to go. The Crusades.”

They were at Balliol’s gate. “Quiet, now,” Dunworthy said. “Everyone will be asleep.”

There was no one at the porter’s gate, and no one in the front quadrangle. Lights were on in the hall, the bell ringers having breakfast probably, but there were no lights in the senior common room, and none in Salvin. If they could get up the stairs without seeing anyone and without Colin’s suddenly announcing he was hungry, they might make it safely to his rooms.

“Shhh,” he said, turning back to caution Colin, who had stopped in the quad to take out his gobstopper and examine its color, which was now a purplish-black. “We don’t want to wake everyone,” he said, his finger to his lips, turned around, and collided with a couple in the doorway.

They were wearing rain slicks and embracing energetically, and the young man seemed oblivious to