I might, Dunworthy thought. "I want to use your telephone," he said when they reached the gate. "University business."
The porter looked nervous, but he set a telephone on the counter and watched while Dunworthy punched Balliol's number. When Finch answered, he said, "We've got to locate Basingame. It's an emergency. Phone the Scottish Fishing License Bureau and compile a list of hotels and inns. And get me Polly Wilson's number."
He wrote down the number, rang off, and started to punch it in and then thought better of it and telephoned Mary.
"I want to help source the virus," he said.
"Gilchrist wouldn't open the net," she said.
"No," he said. "What can I do to help with the sourcing?"
"What you were doing before with the primaries. Trace the contacts, look for the things I told you about, exposure to radiation, proximity to birds or livestock, religious that forbid antivirals. You'll need the contacts charts."
"I'll send Colin for them," he said.
"I'll have someone get them ready. You'd better check Badri's contacts back four to six days, as well, in case the virus did originate with him. The time of incubation from a reservoir can be longer than a person-to-person incubation period."
"I'll put William on it," he said. He pushed the phone back at the porter, who immediately came around the counter and walked him out to the pavement. Dunworthy was surprised he didn't follow him all the way to Balliol.
As soon as he got there, he phoned Polly Wilson. "Is there some way you can get into the net's console without having access to the laboratory?" he asked her. "Can you go in directly through the University's computer?"
"I don't know," she said. "The University's computer is moated. I might be able to rig a bettering ram, or worm in from Balliol's console. I'll have to see what the safeties are. Do you have a tech to read it if I can get it set up?"
"I'm getting one," he said. He rang off.
Colin came in, dripping wet, to get another roll of tape. "Did you know the sequencing came, and the virus is a mutant?"
"Yes," Dunworthy said. "I want you to go to Infirmary and get the contacts charts from your great-aunt."
Colin set down his load of placards. The one on top read, "Do Not Have a Relapse."
"They're saying it's some sort of biological weapon," Colin said. "They're saying it escaped from a laboratory."
Not Gilchrist's, he thought bitterly. "Do you know where William Gaddson is?"
"No." Colin made a face. "He's probably on the staircase kissing someone."
He was in the buttery, embracing one of the detainees. Dunworthy told him to find out Badri's whereabouts for Thursday through Sunday morning and to obtain a copy of Basingame's credit records for December, and went back to his rooms to telephone techs.
One of them was running a net for Nineteenth Century in Moscow, and two of them had gone skiing. The other weren't at home, or perhaps, alerted by Andrews, they weren't answering.
Colin brought the contacts charts. They were a disaster. No attempt had been made to correlate any of the information except possible American connections, and there were too many contacts. Half of the primaries had been at the dance in Headington, two-thirds of them had gone Christmas shopping, all but two of them had ridden the tube. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
He spent half the night checking religious affiliations and running cross-matches. Forty-two of them were Church of England, nine Holy Re-Formed, seventeen unaffiliated. Eight were students at Shrewsbury College, eleven had stood in line at Debenham's to see Father Christmas, nine had worked on Montoya's dig, thirty had shopped at Blackwell's.
Twenty-one of them had cross-contacts with at least two other secondaries, and Debenham's Father Christmas had had contact with thirty-two (all but eleven at a pub after his shift), but none of them could be traced to all the primaries except Badri.
Mary brought the overflow cases in the morning. She was wearing SPG's, but no mask. "Are the beds ready?" she said.
"Yes. We've got two wards of ten beds each."
"Good. I'll need all of them."
They helped the patients into the makeshift ward and into bed and left them in the care of William's nurse trainee. "The stretcher cases will be over as soon as we have an ambulance free," Mary said, walking back across the quad with Dunworthy.
The rain had stopped completely, and the sky was lighter, as if it might clear.
"When will the analogue arrive?" he asked.
"It'll be two days at the least," she said.
They reached the gate. She leaned against the stone passageway. "When all this is over, I'm going to go through the net," she said. "To some century where there aren't any epidemics, where there isn't any waiting or worrying or helpless standing by."
She pushed her hand back over her gray hair. "Some country that isn't a ten." She smiled. "Only there isn't one, is there?"
He shook his head.
"Did I ever tell you about the Valley of the Kings?" she said.
"You said you saw it during the Pandemic."
She nodded. "Cairo was quarantined, so we had to fly out of Addis Ababa, and on the way down I bribed the taxi driver to take us to the Valley of the Kings so I could see Tutankhamen's tomb," she said. "It was a foolhardy thing to do. The Pandemic had already reached Luxor, and we just missed being caught in the quarantine. We were shot at twice." She shook her head. "We might have been killed. My sister refused to get out of the car, but I went down the stairs and up to the door of the tomb, and I thought, this is what it was like when Carter found it."
She looked at Dunworthy and through him, remembering it. "When they found the door to the tomb, it was locked, and they were supposed to wait for the proper authorities to open it. Carter drilled a hole in the door, and held a candle up and looked through." Her voice was hushed. "Carnarvon said, 'Can you see anything?' and Carter said, 'Yes. Wonderful things.'"
She closed her eyes. "I've never forgotten that, standing there at that closed door. I can see it clearly even now." She opened her eyes. "Perhaps that's where I'll go when this is over. To the opening of King Tut's tomb."
She leaned out the gate. "Oh, dear, it's started raining again. I must get back. I'll send the stretcher cases as soon as there's an ambulance." She looked sharply at him. "Why aren't you wearing your mask?"
"It causes my spectacles to steam up. Why aren't you wearing yours?"
"We're running out of them. You've had your T-cell enhancement, haven't you?"
He shook his head. "I haven't had any time."
"Make time," she said. "And wear your mask. You'll be of no help to Kivrin if you fall ill."
I'm of no help to Kivrin now, he thought, walking back across to his rooms. I can't get into the laboratory, I can't get a tech to come to Oxford, I can't find Basingame. He tried to think who else he should contact. He'd checked every booking agent and fishing guide and boat rental in Scotland. There was no trace of the man. Perhaps Montoya was right, and he wasn't in Scotland at all, but off in the tropics somewhere with a woman.
Montoya. He'd forgotten completely about her. He hadn't seen her since the Christmas Eve service. She'd been looking for Basingame then so he could sign the authorization for her to go out to the dig, and then she had rung up on Christmas Day to ask whether Basingame was trout or salmon. And rung back with the message, "Never mind." Which might mean she had found out not only whether he was salmon or trout but the man himself.
He looked round for a telephone, remembered the one in the corridor outside the waiting room and went to find it. If Montoya had located Basingame and got her authorization, she would have gone straight out to the dig. She would not have waited to tell anyone. He was not even certain she knew he was looking for Basingame, too.