“What parts?” Dunworthy asked.
Colin handed the book to him and bent over, his hands on his knees, taking deep noisy breaths. “It—doesn’t—say.”
Dunworthy unwound the muffler and opened the book to the page Colin had turned down, but his spectacles were too spattered with rain to read it, and the open pages were promptly soaked.
“It says it started in Melcombe and moved north to Bath and east. It says it was in Oxford at Christmas and London the next October, but that parts of Oxfordshire didn’t get it till late spring, and that a few individual villages were missed until July.”
Dunworthy stared blindly at the unreadable pages. “That doesn’t tell us anything,” he said.
“I know,” Colin said. He straightened up, still breathing hard, “but at least it doesn’t say the plague was all through Oxfordshire by Christmas. Perhaps she’s in one of those villages it didn’t come to till March.”
Dunworthy wiped the wet pages with the dangling muffler and shut the book. “It moved east from Bath,” he said softly. “Skendgate’s just south of the Oxford-Bath road.”
The porter had finally decided on a key. He pushed it into the lock.
“I rang up Andrews again, but there was still no answer.”
The porter opened the door.
“How are you going to run the net without a tech?” Colin said.
“Run the net?” the porter said, the key still in his hand. “I understood that you wished to obtain data from the computer. Mr. Gilchrist won’t allow you to run the net without authorization.” He took out Basingame’s authorization and looked at it.
“I’m authorizing it,” Dunworthy said and swept past him into the lab.
The porter started in, caught his open umbrella on the doorframe, and fumbled on the handle for the catch.
Colin ducked under the umbrella and in after Dunworthy.
Gilchrist must have turned the heat off. The laboratory was scarcely warmer than the outside, but Dunworthy’s spectacles, wet as they were, steamed up. He took them off and tried to wipe them dry on his wet suit jacket.
“Here,” Colin said and handed him a wadded length of paper tissue. “It’s lavatory paper. I’ve been collecting it for Mr. Finch. The thing is, it’s going to be difficult enough to find her if we land in the proper place, and you said yourself that getting the exact time and place are awfully complicated.”
“We already have the exact time and place,” Dunworthy said, wiping his spectacles on the lavatory paper. He put them on again. They were still blurred.
“I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to leave,” the porter said. ‘I cannot allow you in here without Mr. Gilchrist’s—” He stopped.
“Oh, blood,” Colin muttered. “It’s Mr. Gilchrist.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Gilchrist said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m going to bring Kivrin through,” Dunworthy said.
“On whose authority?” Gilchrist said. “This is Brasenose’s net, and you are guilty of unlawful entry.” He turned on the porter. “I gave you orders that Mr. Dunworthy was not to be allowed on the premises.”
“Mr. Basingame authorized it,” he said. He held the damp paper out.
Gilchrist snatched it from him. “Basingame!” He stared down at it. “This isn’t Basingame’s signature,” he said furiously. “Unlawful entry and now forgery. Mr. Dunworthy, I intend to file charges. And when Mr. Basingame returns, I intend to inform him of your—”
Dunworthy took a step toward him. “And I intend to inform Mr. Basingame how his Acting Head of Faculty refused to abort a drop, how he intentionally endangered an historian, how he refused to allow access to this laboratory and how as a result the historian’s temporal location could not be determined.” He waved his arm at the console. “Do you know what this fix says? This fix that you wouldn’t let my tech read for ten days because of a lot of imbeciles who don’t understand time travel, including you? Do you
“You have no right to speak to me that way,” Gilchrist said. “And no right to be in this laboratory. I demand that you leave immediately.”
Dunworthy didn’t answer. He took a step toward the console.
“Call the proctor,” Gilchrist said to the porter. “I want them thrown out.”
The screen was not only blank but dark, and so were the function lights above it on the console. The power switch was turned to off. “You’ve switched off the power,” Dunworthy said, and his voice sounded as old as Badri’s had. “You’ve shut down the net.”
“Yes,” Gilchrist said, “and a good thing, too, since you feel you have the right to barge in without authorization.”
He put a hand out blindly toward the blank screen, staggering a little. “You’ve shut down the net,” he repeated.
“Are you all right, Mr. Dunworthy?” Colin said, taking a step forward.
