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"I'll put the call through as soon as I get them," Mrs. Graham said, and
vanished. A
second later she had been replaced by a young woman wearing a white coat, who
announced that she was speaking from the Emergency Unit.
"Hello," Anne said to her. "My name is Patterson, Dr. Patterson. I'm at the
Clansman
Restaurant at Tomatin on the Kingussie road south from Inverness. We need an
ambulance here right away."
"Very good," the woman replied. "Can you give me some information?"
"A man has collapsed here and needs hospital treatment immediately. I've
administered a diffusive tranquilizer. This is important: He must be taken to
the Special Isolation section of the Intensive Care Unit at Glasgow Royal.
They are familiar with this kind of case there." Murdoch stared at Anne in
horror as he listened. She went on, "The patient is a United States citizen by
the name of..." She took the papers that Murdoch was proffering numbly and
scanned them. "Lee
Francis Walker; last residing at 236 Bayview Towers, San Francisco; social
security number 101-58-
1453."
"His records to be beamed through to Glasgow?" the woman inquired.
"Yes, please. And could you arrange for the ambulance to bring a supply of
Sotisone 5 and
Formactinin. We're clearing a landing area here, and we'll have a car
transmitting on Emergency
Band for the ambulance to home on."
"Very good, Dr. Patterson. They'll be leaving immediately."
"Thank you." Anne cut the call and turned to Murdoch, who was still watching
speechlessly.
Her face was grave. "Has he been drowsy for the last day or two?" she asked.
"Lack of energy, sleeping a lot...temporary blurrings of vision?"
"Yes...he has," Murdoch mumbled. "I thought he'd been working too hard."
"Fits of giddiness? Difficulty in coordinating movements?"
"He never mentioned anything like that, but then he isn't the kind of guy who
would." He swallowed hard. "You've seen this before, haven't you? It's the
same thing you've been getting at the plant."
Before Anne could reply, the call-tone sounded again. This time the call was
put straight through, and showed a swarthy, gray-bearded man dressed in what
looked like a surgical smock. "Dr.
Patterson," he said at once. "Surely you're not still working at this time on
a Friday."
"Hello, Dr. Ellis. No, I'm not, but we have an emergency that I'm arranging to
be sent straight to you. His name is Lee Walker. You'll be getting all the
details soon via computer from
Inverness. An ambulance is on its way here to collect him."
Ellis's expression became more serious. "How positive is it?" he asked. "Has
voluntary motor deterioration set in yet?"
"Possibly incipient. The diagnosis is tentative at this stage, but I don't
want to take any chances. Listlessness and lethargy for the last two days,
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temporary visual disturbances, and suspected giddiness. Right now we have
complete loss of vision, extreme dilation of pupils, and no stimulus
responses; involuntary contractions of right arm and partial loss of control
of lower limbs; pulse fifty-four; skin cold and moist; stiffening of hands and
arms under sedation."
Ellis listened and nodded his head slowly.
"It could be another one, right enough," he said. "Very well. I'll have them
prepare for reception right away."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was one-thirty in the morning when Murdoch and Anne came out of a side door
of the
Glasgow Royal Infirmary and trudged across the almost empty parking lot to his
car. A wind was beginning to blow from the west, and it was just starting to
rain. Anne had flown to Glasgow with
Lee in the ambulance; Murdoch had driven, leaving Anne's car at the restaurant
in Tomatin to be
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In the Intensive Care Unit of the Infirmary, Ellis had confirmed Anne's
suspicions and admitted Lee to the Special Isolation section, where the other
cases from Burghead were interned.
Ellis had also mentioned to them in confidence that the most recent reports
from London had revealed a flood of identical cases appearing in many parts of
the world, but especially in the
West Coast region of the United States. The victims were from all walks of
life, and it seemed safe to conclude that whatever the cause of the sickness
was, it had nothing to do with working around fusion reactors. If anything,
the common link seemed to be that all of the victims had been in the western
United States around eight months previously; Lee, for example, had been
living there, and the eight from Burghead had all been members of a party that
had spent some time in
California in early September as part of an exchange program of European and
American fusion scientists. From what had been learned so far from the earlier
cases, Lee's condition could be expected to deteriorate rapidly toward total
disruption of the central nervous system. To date there had been no
fatalities, but all the signs pointed inevitably in that direction, probably
within several weeks. As far as Ellis knew, the cause had still not been
identified, and no cure was even remotely in sight. There was nothing more
that anybody could do.
Murdoch was still shaky from the shock when he climbed into the car next to
Anne and closed the door. He sat for a long time, staring out at the
streetlamps through the streaky patterns of rain and dust on the windshield.
The occasional lights from traffic passing by outside the Infirmary grounds
added to the bleakness and emptiness of the scene. And the emptiness of
Storbannon would be even worse to return to. Tonight of all nights, he didn't
want to be alone.
Even as he thought it, he felt Anne's hand close around his in the darkness of
the car. He turned his head and saw that she was watching him.
"We can pick my car up tomorrow," she whispered simply. Murdoch barely nodded
by way of reply. There was no need to say anything. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]