There were plenty of blankets and he made no attempt to move her, but he did put a pillow under her head so that she could rest comfortably and covered her with a blanket. He was exhausted, though not sleepy, so he turned off the overhead lights and lay back on one of the beds with another glass of ethyl-orange juice. What was this plague from space? His thoughts chased themselves in circles and he must have dozed off because the next thing he noticed was the sunlight coming in through the window over the empty couch. It was going to be another warm day. He glanced quickly at his telltale — it registered normal.
“Going to sleep forever?” Nita asked from the diet kitchen, where she was making dish-rattling noises. “It’s six-thirty already.” She brought him a cup of coffee and he saw that she had her hair combed and tied back and had applied a touch of lipstick; she looked as bright as the new day.
“I was going to call the World Health lab, but decided to wait until you woke up,” she said, and turned to the phone. He stopped her.
“Not yet. The news can wait until after breakfast — if there is breakfast that is…”
“A delicious, home-cooked, handmade breakfast of farm sausages and new laid eggs — it’s defrosting right now.”
“Show me where it is!”
There was an unspoken agreement that they would hold the world at bay for just a little while longer, enjoying the breakfast in the early sunlight that poured across the room. Until they touched the phone they were cut off and alone in these sealed rooms high above the city, in a private universe of their own. She poured more coffee and they sipped it slowly, looking out at the clear sky and sharp-edged, reaching towers of New York.
“Are you from here, from the city?” Nita asked. He nodded.
“Born, bred and abided here ever since, except for the nine years in the UN Army.”
“Nine years! I thought that you looked, well… a little…” She broke off, a little unsure of herself, and he laughed.
“I look a little old to be an intern? Well, you’re perfectly right.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“Please, Nita — if I was ever sensitive about the fact that I was ten years older than all my fellow students in medical school I’ve long since developed a thick hide. Neither am I ashamed of the time I put in the Army; I wanted to make it my career and I was a captain before I finally decided to leave.”
“Was there a — particular reason for the decision?”
“In the very end there was one positive fact that made my mind up, but the idea was a long time growing. I was always happy enough with what I did, though always with some doubts. Guns are fun to play with when you’re young, but they are really made to kill people. The UN Army is a very good idea, don’t misunderstand me, but after a certain time I began to feel that I, personally, could do better helping the world in some manner other than with a gun. That was when I met Doctor Percy Dharmatilake. He was large, black, mostly Tamil, though he was from Ceylon. No one could pronounce his first name, but he had been to school in England and had a very posh British ac-cent and didn’t mind at all when everyone called him Percy. He was our medical officer, and probably the best friend I ever had. When I watched him work, little by little, I began to have the feeling that there was more sense to his job than to mine. He never propagandized me, but he did answer all of my stupid questions with infinite patience. Even let me stand around and watch when he was operating. Yes, more coffee, thanks.”
He sipped silently, looking out of the window, and Nita knew from his expression that he was looking at something other than the New York skyline.
“It was a mine,” he said, “a bad one. Blew up one of our troop carriers and an entire squad. I knew every one of them. I was with Percy when the medics brought them in. Some were dead, others just, well, butchered. But he saved them, the ones he could. And I helped, he made me. He just assumed that I would because there was no one else there. I held clamps for him, passed him instruments, did a lot of things that I was not qualified to do and should not have done. But it worked. They were my friends — and I helped them. It was, well, the greatest feeling I had ever had. He gave me some medical books and I started thinking seriously about medicine, maybe surgery, as a career. What finally decided me was what happened in a little village in Tibet. We had been airdropped in during the night to get between the Indians and the Chinese who were having a disagreement. You had to wonder why. This place was off the main roads, off the main roads of civilization as well. I had never seen poverty or disease like that before. Looking at it, I had to wonder if guns were the only things that we could bring them. Instead of soldiers we should have airdropped a medical team — and a lot of plumbers. Their water supply was something right out of the stone age…”
The wasplike buzz of the phone cut across his words and he turned quickly to the kitchen extension and turned it on. Dr. McKay’s face swam into focus on the screen. His Department of Tropical Medicine must have worked through the night and it was apparent from the dark shadows under his eyes that he had worked along with them. He was brusque.
“How are you both feeling? Have there been symptoms of any kind”
Sam glanced at the dials of his own telltale, then at Nita’s. “All readings are normal and there are no symptoms. Have there been other cases—?”
“No, we’ve had none, I was just concerned since you both had been exposed.” He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed at his knotted forehead, “so far there have been no other cases of what is now unofficially known as Rand’s disease, at least not among human beings.”
“The birds?”
“Yes, we’ve had men out with lights all night, and since dawn there have been more reports, a plague of birds, dead birds. World Health has already broadcast a warning that ill or dead birds are not to be touched and that the police should be notified at once.”
“Have any other animals been affected?” Nita asked.
“No, nothing else so far, just the birds, for which we are very grateful. And you two, no symptoms at all, that is very hopeful. That is why you must stay in touch with me, let me know at once if there is anything, well, out of the ordinary. Good luck.” He hung up.
Nita sipped at her coffee. “It’s cooled off — I’ll have to heat some more.” She slid two sealed containers into the radar oven. “Everything about this disease is strange, it doesn’t fit any of the rules.”
“Well, should it, Nita? After all it is a disease from space, from another world, and it should be expected to be alien.”
“New but not alien. No matter what an organism is it can only affect the body in a limited number of ways. If the disease were really alien it would have no effect on human beings — if it were, say, a fungus that attacked only silicon-based life
“Or a bacteria that was only viable at twenty below zero.”
“Right! The disease Rand returned with is entirely new to us, but its reactions aren’t. Fever, nephrosis, furunculosis and pyemia. Admittedly the infection was spread through his entire body, but there are other diseases that attack a number of organs simultaneously, so it is just the combination of these factors that is new.”
Sam took the hot container she passed him and filled his cup. “You make it sound hopeful. I had visions of a plague from space sweeping around the world.” Then he frowned in sudden memory. “What about the birds — how do you fit them in?”