The porter was standing at the lodge desk, taking the decorations off the little Christmas tree. He glanced up at Dunworthy and looked suddenly alarmed. Dunworthy walked past him and through the gate.
“You can’t go in there, Mr. Dunworthy,” the porter called after him. “The college is restricted.”
Dunworthy walked into the quad. Gilchrist’s rooms were in the building behind the laboratory. He hurried toward them, expecting the porter to catch up to him and try to stop him.
The laboratory had a large yellow sign on it that read “No Admittance Without Authorization,” and an electronic alarm attached to the jamb.
“Mr. Dunworthy,” Gilchrist said, striding toward him through the rain. The porter must have phoned him. “The laboratory is off-limits.”
“I came to see you,” Dunworthy said.
The porter came up, trailing a tinsel garland. “Shall I phone for the University police?” he asked.
“That won’t be necessary. Come up to my rooms,” he said to Dunworthy. “I have something I want you to see.”
He led Dunworthy into his office, sat down at his cluttered desk, and put on an elaborate mask with some sort of filters.
“I’ve just spoken to the WIC,” he said. His voice sounded hollow, as if it were coming from a great distance. “The virus is a previously unsequenced virus whose source is unknown.”
“It’s been sequenced now,” Dunworthy said, “and the analogue and vaccine are due to arrive in a few days. Dr. Ahrens has arranged for Brasenose to be given immunization priority, and I’m attempting to locate a tech who can read the fix as soon as immunization has been completed.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Gilchrist said hollowly. “I’ve been conducting research into the incidence of influenza in the 1300’s. There are clear indications that a series of influenza epidemics in the first half of the fourteenth century severely weakened the populace, thereby lowering their resistance to the Black Death.”
He picked up an ancient-looking book. I have found six separate references to outbreaks between October of 1318 and February of 1321.” He held up a book and began to read. “‘After the harvest there came upon all of Dorset a fever so fierce as to leave many dead. This fever began with an aching in the head and confusion in all the parts. The doctors bled them, but many died in despite.’”
A fever. In an age of fevers—typhoid and cholera and measles, all of them producing “aching of the head and confusion in all the parts.”
“1319. The Bath Assizes for the previous year were cancelled,” Gilchrist said, holding up another book. “‘A malady of the chest that fell upon the court so that none, nor judge nor jury, were left to hear the cases,’” Gilchrist said. He looked at Dunworthy over the mask. “You stated that the public’s fears over the net were hysterical and unfounded. It would seem, however, that they are based in solid historical fact.”
Solid historical fact. References to fevers and maladies of the chest that could be anything, blood poisoning or typhus or any of a hundred nameless infections. All of which was beside the point.
“The virus cannot have come through the net,” he said. “Drops have been made to the Pandemic, to World War I battles in which mustard gas was used, to Tel Aviv. Twentieth Century sent detection equipment to the site of St. Paul’s two days after the pinpoint was dropped. Nothing comes through.”
“So you say.” He held up a printout. “Probability indicates a.003 per cent possibility of a microorganism being transmitted through the net and a 22.1 per cent chance of a viable myxovirus being within the critical area when the net was opened.”
“Where in God’s name do you get these figures?” Dunworthy said. “Pull them out of a hat? According to Probability,” he said, putting a nasty emphasis on the word, “there was only a.04 per cent chance of anyone’s being present when Kivrin went through, a possibility you considered statistically insignificant.”
“Viruses are exceptionally sturdy organisms,” Gilchrist said. “They have been known to lie dormant for long periods of time, exposed to extremes of temperature and humidity, and still be viable. Under certain conditions they form crystals which retain their structure indefinitely. When put back into solution they become infective again. Viable tobacco mosaic crystals have been found dating from the sixteenth century.
“There is clearly a significant risk of the virus’s penetrating the net if opened, and under the circumstances I cannot possibly allow the net to be opened.”
“The virus
“Then why are you so anxious to have the fix read?”
“
