Dr Austin washed his hands in a sink, using a cake of astringent-smelling soap. He dried himself with an ordinary clean towel, then unwrapped a stick of chewing gum and popped it in his mouth. He held the packet out to Peter, a generous gesture since gum was an imported item.
‘No thanks,’ said Peter.
‘God knows why I eat it myself,’ mused Austin. ‘Zero nutritional value, a ten-second hit of sugar, and your salivary glands give your stomach the message that there’s food on the way — which there isn’t. Complete waste of time. And bloody expensive here. But I’m addicted.’
‘You should try คฉ้รี่ค,’ said Peter, recalling the pleasant sensation of this plant between his fingers, the burst of sweet juice on his tongue as his teeth first pierced its tough hide, the delicious pulp that yielded hints of fresh flavour even after half an hour of chewing. ‘You’d never want gum again.’
‘Beg pardon?’
‘คฉ้รี่ค.’
Austin nodded tolerantly. Probably adding Speech impediment to his mental file of the pastor’s health issues.
Silence fell, or what passed for silence in the USIC morgue. Peter thought that the freezers were groaning a bit less noisily than before, but maybe he was just acclimatising to the sound.
‘Did Dr Everett have family?’ he asked.
‘I couldn’t tell you,’ said Austin. ‘He didn’t talk about it.’
‘He had a daughter,’ said Grainger quietly, almost to herself.
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Austin.
‘They were estranged,’ said Grainger.
‘It happens,’ said Austin.
Peter wondered why — given that this meeting wasn’t exactly abuzz with convivial chatter — somebody didn’t just hand over a dossier on Everett and set a deadline for the funeral address.
‘So,’ he said, ‘I imagine I’ll be doing a funeral service?’
Austin blinked. The concept had caught him by surprise. ‘Uh… Maybe,’ he said. ‘Not for a while, though. We’re keeping him at negative temp. Frozen, in other words. Until another pathologist arrives.’ He glanced over to the mortuary drawers, then out the window. ‘The big concern, of course, is whether there’s anything in this environment that might cause people to become ill. That’s been a concern from the start. We’re breathing air we’ve never breathed before, eating food that’s totally new to our digestive systems. So far, all the evidence suggests it’s not a problem. But only time will tell. Lots of time. And it could be very bad news that we’ve now got a man who had no health problems whatsoever, no reason for him to die, and he’s dead.’
Peter began to shiver. He’d worn as much clothing as he could tolerate nowadays, even within the USIC base — his dishdasha, a loose sweater, jogging pants, tennis shoes — but it wasn’t enough to withstand the chill of the mortuary. He wished he could fling open the window, let the comforting balmy atmosphere swirl in.
‘Have you done a… uh… ’ The word had slipped out of his vocabulary. Without even intending to, he sliced at the air with an invisible scalpel.
‘Autopsy?’ Austin shook his head ruefully. ‘Matt was the one who had the skills in that area. That’s why we’ve got to wait. I mean, I can do autopsies if they’re straightforward. I could’ve determined a cause of death for Severin; that was no mystery. But if you’ve got no clues, you’re better off with an expert. And our expert was Matt.’
No one spoke for a minute. Austin seemed lost in thought. Grainger stared down at her shoes, which tapped restlessly in the air. Flores, who hadn’t uttered a peep since introducing herself, gazed out the window. Maybe she was dumbstruck with grief.
‘Well… ’ said Peter. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Can’t think of anything off-hand,’ said Austin. ‘We were actually wondering if there’s anything we can do to help you.’
‘Help me?’
‘Not with your… ah… evangelising, obviously,’ the doctor smiled. ‘But medically.’
Peter’s fingers flew up to his brow, touching the flaking skin there. ‘I’ll be more careful next time, I promise,’ he said. ‘Grainger’s given me some excellent suntan lotion.’
‘Sunscreen,’ Grainger corrected him irritably. ‘SPF 50.’
Austin said: ‘I actually meant the natives. The Oasans, as you call them. We’ve been supplying them with basic medicines virtually since we first got here. It’s the only thing they seem to want from us.’ He smirked in deference to Peter’s mission. ‘Well, just about the only thing. But you know, not one of them has ever shown up here for treatment. Not one! Which means not one of them has ever been checked out or diagnosed properly. We would love to know what’s up with them.’
‘Up?’ echoed Peter.
‘What ails them,’ said Austin. ‘What they’re dying of.’
Peter had a vivid mental image of his congregation in all their colours, singing hymns and swaying shoulder to shoulder.
‘The ones I’ve been dealing with seem quite healthy to me,’ he said.
‘Do you know what drugs they’re taking?’ persisted Austin.
The question annoyed Peter and he tried not to show it. ‘I’m not aware of them taking any. One of my Jesus Lovers — one of my congregation — had a close relative who died not long ago. I never met him. Another one has a brother — or maybe a sister — who’s in constant pain, apparently. I imagine that’s where some of the painkillers are going.’
‘Yes, I imagine so.’ Austin’s tone was neutral — breezy, even. There wasn’t a milligram of sarcasm detectable in it. But once again, Peter felt that his fellowship with the Oasans was being assessed with a jaundiced eye. The intimacy he shared with the Jesus Lovers was profound, built on a foundation of a thousand solved problems, disentangled misunderstandings, shared history. But as far as the USIC staff could see, his intimacy with the inhabitants of Freaktown hadn’t even got off the ground. The quaint Christian had nothing to show for his labours that a rational person could respect. People like Austin had a list of questions which they assumed needed answers before the word ‘progress’ could be uttered.
But that was what the Godless were always so good at, wasn’t it? Asking the wrong questions, looking for progress in the wrong places.
‘I appreciate why you’re curious,’ said Peter. ‘It’s just that the Oasans I see every day aren’t ill. And the ones who are ill don’t come to our church.’
‘Don’t you… uh… ’ Austin waved one hand vaguely around, to indicate door-to-door evangelism.
‘Normally I would,’ said Peter. ‘I mean, when I first arrived, I assumed I’d be visiting homes, looking for ways to make contact. But they’ve been coming to me. A hundred and six of them, last time we met. It’s a big congregation for just one pastor with no backup, and it’s growing. I’m giving them all my attention, all my energy, and still there’s more I could do if I had time — and that’s before I even think of knocking on the doors of the ones who’ve been keeping away. Not that they have doors… ’
‘Well,’ said Austin, ‘if you do find a sick one who’d be willing to come here and, you know, let us check him over… Or her… ’
‘Or whatever,’ said Flores.
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Peter. ‘The thing is, I don’t have any medical knowledge. I’m not even sure I could recognise a specific disease… in one of us, let alone in an Oasan. The signs and symptoms, I mean.’