The second shock wave was stronger than the first. Again a rain of plaster fell. Gavein found himself on the floor beside the nurse.
“This, too, is my doing,” he said with a grin.
Winslow waved away his humor. Their dislike was mutual; it wasn’t time yet for them to call a truce.
The quake evidently bothered her less than the fact that she had injected herself. She looked at the spot of the puncture.
“It all went in… all that shit went in,” she muttered.
“You got a bubble? I don’t know about these things, but I would think you’d feel it.”
“Damn. Oh damn. You wait here. Dr. Barth!” she yelled into the hallway.
A name Gavein didn’t know. Through a window he watched the frantic activity of DS personnel trying to repair the damage from the seismic shocks. Some were in white lab coats, some in the green of military uniforms, and some in the gray coveralls of workers. They swarmed around a small bunker in the courtyard. In the distance gleamed the dome of the energy plant that powered the DS complex, and beyond that, on a gray horizon, were the buildings of Davabel.
50
The last shocks had opened a crack that was several meters deep and about two meters wide. It went across the whole complex. In its path, one building had collapsed, the telephone center. The difference in height between the two sides of the crack was about a meter. The other buildings were not touched, but the underground plumbing and power lines had been broken. When the emergency power came on, there was light again in the night. All the experiments were halted. Instead of meals, dry rations and juice in cartons were distributed.
The television news service reported that the epicenter lay exactly underneath the Division of Science. The land toward the sea had sunk a meter, but another commentator said that Davabel was rising. (Ezzir related, with a chuckle, that his colleagues all feared that the division complex would be swept away by a raging sea at the command of David Death.) Another expert on the screen explained that the boundary between the tectonic plates of Davabel and Ayrrah lay exactly in this location. But this was conjecture only; no one knew the geology of the region that well. Only in Ayrrah had anything resembling a science of seismology been developed. The decision was made to consult the experts of that Land, but such consulting would take time, because although questions were sent to Ayrrah directly by plane, the answers to them could come only by way of Llanaig and Lavath.
Gavein received the recording of the next phone call to Ra Mahleiné. He listened as she gave an account of her daily aggravations and worries, but something seemed wrong. He tried not to respond emotionally to her voice but, instead, to follow only the sense of what she said. When he did this, it was obvious. He had heard these sentences before: they had been taken from previous tapes. He noticed now the subtle differences in tone among the different recordings.
He trembled with anxiety. Debating quickly what to do, he came to a decision. He pushed the alarm and jammed the button with a matchstick. He sat back on the bed and planned his strategy.
Aurelia, the nurse on duty, was the first to come running. She was young, thin-lipped, skinny.
“Please stand by the window and wait,” he told her in a voice of authority. He didn’t want them to confer before they spoke to him.
A little later, Saalstein ran in, his lab coat flapping.
“I’ll explain in a moment,” Gavein said. “Please wait over there,” he added, pointing. “And button up your coat.”
Two more came running: a young physician he didn’t know, wearing glasses and with a pinched rodent face, and Nurse Nylund, the only white nurse he had seen so far at the DS. Slender and tall, she had white eyebrows, pink skin, and a hundred freckles.
Pinched Mouth started to say something, but Gavein silenced him with a gesture.
“I’ll explain in a moment. Where is Dr. Ezzir?”
“He got a cold. Tomorrow his leave is up,” said Saalstein. “Are you—?” he began, but Gavein interrupted.
“Will one of you please explain the telephone tape cassettes to me, or must I call Siskin or Thompson?”
“What cassettes? I don’t understand,” said the physician.
“And you are?”
“Dr. Barth.”
“The last telephone recording of my wife, Dr. Barth, was a fabrication. I want to hear the actual recording. Do you have authorization to make that happen, or do I need to talk with your superiors? But perhaps someone else will come.”
Gavein felt that he had hit a nerve.
Dr. Barth began to stammer.
“No point,” Saalstein said to him. “We should tell him the truth.”
Pinched Mouth underwent a transformation, as if touched by a wand. He turned very red. “If you insist, Saalstein. But it’s on your head. “
The last statement was absurd. Gavein was surprised that the DS had put such a nonentity in charge.
“The first thing I want to know,” he said, turning to Saalstein, ignoring Dr. Barth, “is if Ra Mahleiné is still alive.”
“She is.”
Gavein heaved a sigh of relief.
“Is she all right?”
“She’s no sicker than she was before. Dr. Nott is taking care of her. That’s not what this is about.”
“Good. What is this about?”
“A crime was committed. Zef Eisler and Laila Hougassian are dead.”
“They…? Even they.”
“You wanted the truth. Around the Eisler house is an abandoned area cordoned off by the military. But no one was forced to evacuate, and a few stayed on. Zef and Laila must have gone out. They were found on the sidewalk. Zef had been stabbed about twenty times with a knife. Laila was gang-raped, then drowned in a bucket. They had taped her mouth shut and pulled off most of the bandages. The methods used suggest that the murderers knew the Significant Names of their victims. Now you know what Medved’s people know, because he’s on the case. Your wife’s recordings were faked so that you would have no contact with the outside. Some think that the murders were triggered by the telephone recording in which Ra Mahleiné mentioned the victims. That focusing your mind on them increased the probability of their death.”
“That’s ridiculous. I think of many people, all the time. Saalstein, I’ve just come to a decision: I agree to that operation. You people can cut me open and have a look inside, on the condition that the operation concludes my stay at the DS. I doubt you’ll find anything, but I want to get home.”
“I’ll notify Dr. Siskin immediately,” said Dr. Barth, officially accepting Gavein’s offer. “He’ll be most pleased.”
Saalstein looked at the man with disgust.
“The nurses may leave,” said Dr. Barth. The man had regained his confidence. “We don’t need them.”
We don’t need you, Gavein thought.
“One more condition,” he said to Dr. Barth.
He had the physician’s full attention.
“I must speak personally with my wife. Without that, no operation.”
“That won’t be possible,” said Saalstein. “Her last statement, recorded earlier, has become important evidence in the investigation. It was your Magda who found the bodies on her outing. Miss de Grouvert was pushing her.”
Curious, Gavein thought. Lorraine is the one who usually pushes her.
“I insist on speaking with my wife. The conversation will only supply you with more evidence for your investigation.”
51
That same day he was informed that both Thompson and Boggs agreed to his terms. The conversation would be monitored and could be broken off at any moment by the police censor listening in.
In the evening there was a series of weak aftershocks. The main buildings of the DS had been erected like concrete cages, so they rode the quakes well. More plaster crumbled down, that was all. The smaller structures were propped by wooden beams.