“Where do I report? What’s the address?”
“We’ll come for you. That will be safer.”
“When?”
“In an hour.”
Things were moving too quickly. Gavein didn’t feel prepared, but he didn’t refuse.
Both Lorraine and Anabel promised they would tend to Ra Mahleiné in Gavein’s absence.
They hope to stand under the umbrella of safety around David Death, he thought. The instinct of self-preservation at work.
Ra Mahleiné wiped her glasses over and over. In Davabel they put too much salt on the street, she complained, and it clouded her lenses. The reasoning she used was long and involved. When snow fell, the city authorities instantly (and maliciously) sprinkled salt. The result was slush, which passing cars in turn sprayed on her glasses, and the salt in that slush etched and pitted the glass. She spent an inordinate amount of time removing every trace of salt. Ra Mahleiné had grown even thinner. She vanished among the pillows of the sofa. It seemed that the little energy she had left was devoted to the obsessive cleaning of her lenses.
She lifted her eyes to Anabel. Without glasses they seemed larger than usual. “Very well, Anabel, I’ll take you, but you must be obedient,” she said, stressing obedient. “You’ll be under my protection, until such time as…” She hesitated. “You must listen… Any insubordination, and it’s the end for you. An end that will be as miserable as you are.”
Gavein wondered. Ra Mahleiné loathed the woman yet was choosing her. To pay back old pain, he thought, old humiliation.
“I remember how you kicked me, as a parting gift. And where you kicked, where you loved to kick.”
Gavein clenched his fists. He had not known this.
“Don’t worry, Lorraine,” Ra Mahleiné went on. “I won’t punish you as I do her. You’ll go on walks with me. I’m still weak, but it will be spring soon. The snow will melt. I intend to do a lot of walking, and you’ll help me.”
“But… I have a job.”
“Don’t you wish to live? To live, you must be near Gavein, at least near me, isn’t that so?”
Even she believes it, he thought. She accepts the role of Death’s wife.
“Mrs. Throzz is right,” Lorraine’s mother hastened to say. “That’s definitely the best arrangement. Until the business of all these deaths is made clear, you’ll take a vacation, dear. How can your employers refuse? The most important thing is a person’s safety.”
46
With the squeal of tires and the mewl of dying sirens, the column of vehicles came to a halt. At the head of the column were two infantry carriers of the National Guard, armored and fitted with machine guns, small-caliber cannons, and missile launchers. All the vehicles were painted in green-gray camouflage and adorned with the small white, black, and red emblems of Davabel. After the carriers came a white hospital minibus, two civilian cars, an army truck, and another armored vehicle.
A serious business, thought Gavein, if they arrive with such an entourage.
Several civilians stepped from the cars. They entered the front room. Two armed soldiers stationed themselves at the door.
Medved nodded in greeting. “This is Senator Boggs,” he said, introducing a tall, graying man. “And this is Dr. Siskin, from the Division of Science.” Dr. Siskin was small and slight, a gray.
“And Puttkamel?” asked Gavein. “He should be in this illustrious company.”
“Don’t joke, Dave. Or don’t you know? The arsonists who survived seized Puttkamel and lynched him.” Medved gestured toward a massive man whose bald spot was exactly the size of the military cap that ordinarily sat on his head. “This is General Thompson.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Thompson. “You don’t seem a monster. Any one of my sergeants looks more imposing.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, sir. I’d be happy to exchange places with any one of them.”
“Medved informed you of everything by telephone, yes? Let’s be off,” said Thompson.
“I have a phone call to make, then we can go.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t time.”
The soldiers standing by the door both took a step forward.
“I’m a prisoner?” Gavein asked, turning to Medved. “This you didn’t tell me.”
“Make your call,” said Senator Boggs. “Of course you are not a prisoner. We are simply in a great hurry, since this matter is so grave.”
Gavein nodded and picked up the phone. He told Dr. Nott that he was leaving to be tested.
“I will be in contact with your wife,” the doctor assured him. “She is weak now but will regain her strength before the operation. Do not worry.”
Gavein hung up. “I am free now. May my wife accompany me?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” said Siskin. “The testing facility is off-limits. A military installation, you understand.”
Gavein had expected this answer, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“I’ll be gone for how long?” he asked.
“Six, seven days,” said Boggs. “I give you my personal word it will not be longer.”
“Then let’s go. And may the seven days pass as quickly as possible.”
Gavein started for one of the cars, but it turned out that he had been assigned a place in the ambulance. Inside were two men wearing helmets and airtight plastic suits. They wanted him to lie on the stretcher, but he preferred to sit. That way he could look out the window as the ambulance drove, its siren on. The two medics began to take readings. As if performing a rite of magic, they ran a sensor over his body.
“Radiation normal. No higher than background.”
The other confirmed it.
On the empty streets Gavein saw burned cars, broken windows, litter. The convoy passed a military cordon.
“It would be better if you lay down now,” said one of the scientist-medics. “There could be rocks thrown.”
In the distance was a mob.
“Why are they doing that?” Gavein asked, taking his place on the thick foam rubber.
“The infection spreads. People want to fight the germ. Even people you saw only on television, glimpsed accidentally out of the corner of your eye, are now dying. If it’s not known whose fate is sealed, then naturally everyone wants to remove the cause.”
“And you two, why do you wear masks?”
“We’re volunteers. They tell us to put on masks, so we put on masks, but it makes no difference, does it?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
A couple of stones thumped against the side of the ambulance. The convoy accelerated. More sirens went on. A couple of tear-gas canisters were fired at the crowd.
“At least they’re not shooting,” said one of the medics.
“Not shooting yet, Yull. Who knows when they’ll start?”
“They will be prosecuted if they use weapons. That will make them think first.”
“For now.”
The crowd dispersed, and then there was hardly anybody out. The convoy sped down streets that seemed normal.
“Mr. Death,” said Yull, nudging Gavein with an elbow. “You can sit up now. We’re out of it.”
Gavein looked around. Once in a while they passed rows of the curious standing along police barriers. No one threw anything at the convoy. Some turned their backs at the last moment or hid their faces.
They pay me tribute, thought Gavein, as if I were a head of state. Which is no surprise. How else does one welcome Death?
“The madness was only in Central Davabel,” said the other scientist, Omar. “A lot of people settled private scores behind the pretext of dealing with David Death.”
“How is the country managing?” Gavein asked.
“A depopulated Central Davabel is now surrounded by a cordon of soldiers. It’s a tight line, but here and there desperate people break through. Soldiers too have lost members of their families. Sometimes they look the other way. Hence that band of attackers.”