When Goldman returned to the isolation ward, Casey had been cleaned up and was lying nude beneath a set of clean white sheets. His body had been scrubbed down until it glowed a rosy pink. Goldman inspected the head wound again and swabbed it down with an antiseptic solution. The progress of the membraneous lining in its attempt to recover the exposed brain tissue was now obvious to even an untrained eye. Even more startling was the fact that from a very close examination it was clear that new bone was being grown around the perimeter of the injury.
The major pulled the covers down from Casey's body to get a look at the rest of him. He whistled softly under his breath. Casey's body was covered with scars, many of them deep, and others with puckered edges as if they had healed irregularly by themselves. The wounds were a blend of old and fairly recent, but many of them had faded almost white from age, and others seemed to have crisscrossed several times until it was impossible to tell which was the oldest wound.
Goldman called for an orderly to take Sergeant E-5 Casey Romain to the X-ray room for his series and to keep an eye on his vitals. If there was any change, Goldman was to be notified immediately. In the meantime he would go and get ready for surgery.
By the time Casey had been X-rayed, Goldman and the colonel had finished their scrub and were waiting for their patient to be rolled in along with his plates.
Placing Casey under the sterile sheets, Colonel Landries again inspected the wound and remained silent for a moment before saying to Goldman:
"Has there been any sign of infection?"
"Negative," responded the major. "There is no sign of any infection at all. We should have his blood work in a few minutes. Perhaps that will tell us more."
The two doctors stood discussing the possible explanations for their strange patient's condition until the X-ray plates were set up on the display. They went over the plates one after another, and then repeated themselves, consulting the X-ray tech's report on the unusual conditions present in the patient. One particular item caught their special attention. A thick mass of tissue in the patient's left thigh surrounded a piece of foreign matter of unknown nature. Because of the angle from which the X-ray was made it was difficult to make out exactly what the object was. They decided to go in for it after they tried to remove the piece of shrapnel from the brain.
As Landries prepped the area around the head wound and painted it with antiseptic, he commented that the shrapnel seemed a little longer than it had been when they brought Casey in. Taking a pair of forceps, he gently tugged at the piece of metal. Almost without any effort on his part it came free from the surrounding brain tissue.
Casey was obviously in no distress, so Landries told Goldman to go after the unknown object in the thigh.
Surgery over, the two doctors retired to the coffee room, Goldman taking the object he had removed from Casey's thigh with him. While Landries sipped hot black coffee, Goldman removed the membraneous tissue surrounding the object. Slowly the form took shape… until there could be no doubt as to the object's identity.
An arrowhead. A metal arrowhead.
Landries spilled his coffee as the object was dropped in front of him on the table. Picking it up, he turned to Goldman.
"Bronze?"
Goldman nodded.
"Goldman, your hobby is ancient history. When would you say the last time an arrowhead like this was made?"
Goldman took the piece from Landries, turning it over and over in his fingers.
"Colonel, this is handmade and not cast. It resembles very closely some of the bronze artifacts I've seen in museums in Jerusalem and Istanbul. You know, I went there with my uncle, the one who's the curator for the Judaic Arts and History Museum in New York."
He was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the arrowhead.
"How old? Oh, I don't know. It looks a lot like some of the arrows I have seen from the period of, say, 300 BC to AD 400. They didn't change very much among most of the primitive-and some not so primitive-tribes during that time. Bronze was still very popular-and a lot easier to work than iron.”
"Doctor Landries, that man in there, Romain. Those wounds on his body look like they were made by edged weapons like he had been sliced up by swords and axes. We have treated almost every conceivable type of injury since we have been here, and nothing-I repeat, nothing-even remotely resembles those wounds. The blood work on him is normal except for one thing: his white blood cells are hyperactive. The phagocytic action is unbelievable. I set a smear of his blood in with a preserved sample of the old Viet's-the old man who had the typhus-and Romain's WBCs attacked and destroyed the typhus bacilli as if they were at a picnic. That's the reason there is no sign of infection in his body. Furthermore, there are no detectable foreign organisms present in his system other than those that are necessary for the maintenance of life. Colonel, I do not believe that a harmful bacteria or virus can survive in Romain's body. He doesn't even have any cavities." Landries nodded. "Anything else?" Goldman hesitated a moment and said, "Yes… I injected two cc's of a whole blood sample into a guinea pig, and the animal died in convulsions less than ten seconds after the injection. Sergeant Romain's blood is poison, deadly poison."
Landries shook his head, tired and confused. "We are faced with something outside our experience, Major, and I am not sure I really want to find out what it is. You stay with him and monitor him until midnight, and then give me a call, and I'll relieve you."
The next shock came in the quietness of the isolation room where the orderlies had brought Casey after surgery. Major Goldman had been sitting by the bed, studying Casey's face in the single light of the bedside lamp. There was nothing unusual in Casey's features. His age was indeterminate. He could be anywhere in the late twenties to the late thirties.
Goldman closed his eyes and nodded. The exhaustion of the day crept over him, dragging him unaware into sleep. He dreamed… but it was one of those dreams that wake one with a jerk as though falling.
Casey was moving restlessly on the bed, beginning to mumble to himself, jerking his head back and forth as though denying some accusation. And for the first time Casey spoke, the words coming forth clear and unhesitatingly though his breathing had been troubled up to this point.
Latin!
Not the Latin of the textbooks. Casey was speaking the Latin of the Caesars. Perfectly. Fluently.
As a doctor and historian, Goldman realized immediately that what he was hearing was something only a few classical scholars could speak with any case. Goldman knew them all by name-and Romain was not one of them.
He bent closer and listened. His eyes grew large with wonder, and then he gently nodded his head as understanding finally came…
The time to call Landries came and passed, and still Goldman sat and listened to the words of the man on the bed.
Listened and wondered…
TWO
Major Goldman sat beside the bed of the man whose ID tags read, "Casey Romain," watching his patient and listening to the sounds of the air conditioners straining to keep the hot night away. Air conditioners in a war zone. Time progresses… Goldman sat quietly, occasionally taking the vital signs of the casualty on the bed. A timeless unreality hung in the room like strange music probing the edges of the doctor's mind, the ironic symphony of some incomprehensible deity who blended the air conditioner noise with the rales-the crackling, rattling breathing-of the man named Casey and periodically punctuated both with volleys of distant artillery fire crumping its way through the surrounding mountains in search of an unseen enemy.