The Child Goddess Read online

  30

  OA STARED IN horror at the awful scene of Doctor Simon, gentle, kind Doctor Simon, falling to his knees and staring at the spider bite on his hand. It swelled immediately, but Oa had seen that before, had felt it on her own skin more than once. She remembered the vicious fire of it. But Doctor Simon looked stricken in another way, beyond simple physical pain. He turned stiffly to face Isabel, and said hoarsely, “The spider is the vector.”

  Oa didn’t know what “vector” meant, but Isabel looked as stricken as if the spider had bitten her instead of Doctor Simon. For a long, awful moment everyone froze where they were, hardly breathing. Then Doctor Simon straightened, holding his bitten hand stiffly away from his body. “I’d better get back to the infirmary as quickly as possible.”

  Jin-Li strode forward, and put a long, strong arm around Doctor Simon, lifting and supporting him, saying in a hard voice, “You’re sure?”

  With a ghost of a chuckle. Doctor Simon said, “Unfortunately, yes. The forest spiders are the carriers.”

  “Oh, my lord.” Isabel trembled, coming out of her trance. “Simon!”

  Jin-Li said, with swift pragmatism, “Let’s go. You have an antiviral?”

  “Started on it. In the medicator.” Doctor Simon straightened, staring down at the spider Po had killed. His eyes, when they came up to Oa’s, were dark with shock. “Oa, don’t let anyone touch that.”

  “No, Doctor Simon.” Oa’s voice was a whisper. She trembled all over. The anchens dropped, one by one, out of the canopy, and Doctor Simon’s eyes widened in wonder at the sight of them. Po left his knife where it was, pinning the now-dead spider to the ground. He stood stiff-legged, watching and waiting. None of them said a word.

  “Simon,” Isabel said in a shaking voice. “Is that what killed the hydro? A spider bite?”

  “Afraid so.”

  The three of them, Isabel and Jin-Li and Simon, turned to start up the hill. Jin-Li spoke into a wavephone, and Jacob Boyer, waiting beside the flyer, climbed up into the cockpit. Oa heard the motor start, and the rotors began to spin.

  “Ice,” Simon said.

  “In the flyer,” was Jin-Li’s terse answer. “What else?”

  Again the faint, hoarse chuckle. “Not much till we reach the infirmary.”

  They walked quickly up the hill, Jin-Li on one side of Doctor Simon, Isabel on the other. Oa trailed after them, casting a glance over her shoulder at the anchens, then looking forward, to where the flyer’s rotors spun faster.

  “Isabel. Oa comes with you.”

  Isabel spoke without looking back. “Yes, Oa, come with us. But tell the anchens we’ll be back.”

  Oa called to Po. He stood, his arms hanging at his sides, his face creased with confusion.

  “Do they understand?” Isabel asked. They had reached the flyer, and Jin-Li jumped inside, turning to give Doctor Simon a hand.

  “Oa doesn’t know.” Oa climbed into the flyer, too, and went to one of the rear seats. She strapped herself in, not waiting to be told. Jin-Li dug through the medical kit for an ice pack as the flyer lifted from the meadow and banked over the old lava flow to the northeast. Isabel sat next to Simon, bending toward him, her hand on his uninjured wrist. She murmured something Oa couldn’t catch.

  Jin-Li came forward with the ice pack, and knelt before Doctor Simon to apply it. Oa hugged herself, and wished she had her teddy bear.

  *

  ISABEL TRIED TO smile reassuringly at Oa. She kept Simon’s uninjured wrist in her fingers, and the wave of anxiety and physical pain that flowed from him made the bones of her hand ache. “I don’t understand, Simon,” she said in a low tone. “Other hydros were bitten, but only one got sick. The anchens—they carry the virus—but they don’t get sick, either. They certainly don’t die—just the opposite!”

  His breathing was quick and shallow. “Venomous spiders can have dry bites,” he said hoarsely. “The biologist at the power park brought me three, all dead, and they were all carriers. Sometimes—” He swallowed, and turned his eyes out to the vista of dark water. “About half of defensive bites . . . are dry. No venom.”

  Jin-Li secured the ice pack and took a seat across the aisle.

  Simon put his head back against the seat rest and began to speak faster. Jin-Li took out the portable to record Simon’s words, and the simple action filled Isabel with dread.

  “I’ve been at it for a whole day,” Simon said rapidly. “I knew so little about spiders. Stupid of me . . . Australia has bad ones, but I . . . let the medicator deal with those, when it was necessary. The hydro who died had an immediate onset of migraine, even before . . . necrosis set in. An hour before other symptoms . . . by then the virus had taken hold. Wouldn’t have mattered . . .” He paused for breath, and rushed on. “Nothing the medicator could do. I put together a serum, but it isn’t tested yet, and it may be that it has to be used prophylactically, or immediately upon envenomation.”

  “Simon, maybe you should rest. Try to breathe calmly.”

  “I’m calm, Isabel. I need to get all this out, in case . . . in case I don’t have another chance.” She saw that his eyes slid to Jin-Li, holding the portable. He gave a small nod of approval, and then turned his eyes back to the ocean, where reflected stars sparkled on the shifting surface. It was dark in the flyer, the only light coming from the amber glow of the instrument panel. Boyer had said nothing, Isabel suddenly realized. And she knew he, too, was frightened.

  “You’ll have another chance, Simon.” But she saw the squinting of his eyes against even the dim light that reached them, and she knew the headache had started. She put her free hand on her cross and began to pray.

  By the time the power park came into view, Simon was recounting his symptoms in a low, matter-of-fact voice. “Visual disturbance,” he said. “Consistent with migraine, but fairly pronounced. Dry mouth, upset stomach. Probably have diarrhea in a couple of hours. The deceased hydro was dehydrated when he came to the infirmary. Expect the joint pain will start later.”

  The flyer settled to the tarmac before the Port Force terminal with what seemed to Isabel agonizing slowness. Boyer had called ahead, and the medtech was waiting with a stretcher and two men to carry it. Simon kept talking all the way to the infirmary, and Jin-Li, staunch and impassive, trotted beside the stretcher, recording everything.

  Paolo Adetti had the medicator ready in the smaller surgery. The larger surgery was empty. Gretchen Boreson must have been discharged. Simon, his voice growing scratchy, gave instructions as the syrinxes were patched to his wrists and ankles and temples, and the click and whirr of the machinery began.

  “Edwards, why didn’t you tell me it was the damned spiders?” Adetti said, bending to secure a sensor to Simon’s throat. “I could have kept working on the serum. This doesn’t look to me like it’s ready.”

  “Not,” Simon gasped. “Out of options.”

  Adetti glanced at the readout, and he spoke to the medicator, too. Isabel, standing impotently in the doorway of the little room, saw that Simon breathed a little easier, but his color was terrible, a gray-blue cast that she couldn’t blame on the poor light. Adetti ordered something else, and tapped the screen, but it didn’t seem to Isabel that Simon looked any better. He still talked, breathless now, his voice faint.

  “Subadults could be most predatory. Food-getting bites . . . see archival research on arachnidism . . . Try using regen in serum for reversing effects of virus . . .”

  His voice trailed off. Isabel found she was gripping Oa’s hand so hard it must have hurt. She forced herself to relax her fingers. Oa said, her voice almost as faint as Simon’s, “Re-versing? Re-versing?”

  Simon was beyond hearing her. Isabel knelt where she was, her cross in her hands. “Oa, pray with me,” she said softly. “Please.”

  “Oa prays with you.” The girl sank to her knees beside Isabel, so close Isabel could feel the warmth of her in the chill night. She could think of nothing to say. She fell back on ritual, on litany. She whisper
ed, “St. Mary Magdalene, patroness of those who ask . . .” When that was finished, she said the Pater Noster, and after that the Nineteenth Psalm. The medicator’s click was louder than her whispered prayers, and no one spoke to interrupt her, or to reassure her. She came to the end, and only knelt with her head bowed, her cross in her hand, Oa leaning against her shoulder. Isabel didn’t know who was supporting whom, but she was grateful for the contact. When her own prayers died away, Oa began, in her own language, murmuring petitions to Raimu-ke. They knelt for a long time, and when their knees could hold them no more, they moved to the little reception room and sat together on the floor, their backs against the wall. Eventually Oa slept, her head in Isabel’s lap. Isabel sat stroking her hair, watching the stars’ cold light glimmering beyond the window.

  The stars were fading when Jin-Li came to get her. The gray light of early morning made the air seem colder even than it was.

  “Paolo says you should come into the surgery,” Jin-Li said to Isabel.

  “Is he better?”

  Jin-Li’s long eyelids dropped briefly, that characteristic cautionary gesture. “He’s conscious, Isabel. But he can’t move his legs.”

  Isabel felt a chill certainty in her chest that she was about to say good-bye to Simon. She wriggled carefully out from beneath Oa’s head, and Jin-Li handed her a pillow to place beneath it. Isabel stood up on uncertain legs.

  “The serum’s no good, then,” she said.

  “I don’t know. He’s been working on it all night.”

  Isabel hurried into the small surgery, and went to Simon’s bedside. The head of the bed was raised. Simon looked ghastly, but his fingers were tapping at his computer, and he was muttering commands, both to it, and to Adetti, who was working at his own computer. The medicator’s readout screen was a mass of numbers and symbols, not, Isabel felt certain, Simon’s vital signs.

  “Simon, what are you doing?” she asked gently. “Not still working?”

  His eyes flicked to her. She was shocked to see how sunken they were, how weak his ghost of a smile. His voice was thready. “Make it count,” he said. And then, to Adetti, “Input regen factor.” Adetti nodded, and spoke to his computer. Jin-Li’s portable was still recording, resting on the counter beside the little sink.

  Isabel looked across the bed at Adetti. “Paolo, what’s happening?”

  He met her eyes, his black ones frank for once. He spoke gently. “Simon’s systems are shutting down. The virus is lethal in a mature adult, the telomerase too much for a body with a functioning reproductive system. There’s nothing more we can do, and Simon wanted to work on the antiviral.”

  “Almost got it,” Simon whispered. “One more step.”

  “Then can you take it, Simon? Get well?”

  “Nope.” He tapped once on his computer, and then let his head fall back against the pillow, his eyes closed. “Got away from me, Isabel. Sorry. ”

  Her heart missed a beat. She took Simon’s hand in hers, and found it ice-cold. “Try, Simon,” she whispered. “Try.”

  “Sure,” he gasped. “But— ’s too late. ’S gone too far.” He took another breath, a rasp of air through collapsing airways.

  She gripped his hand to her breast, and cast a look of appeal at Adetti. “Paolo, please!”

  The other physician left his computer and came to stand beside her, his dark features drawn. “I’ve just ordered it,” he said wearily. “The medicator’s administering it now. But I’m afraid Simon’s right.”

  “Hydros,” Simon croaked. “Isabel.”

  “Yes,” Adetti said. “Everyone will be inoculated. Isabel, too.” He smoothed the blanket that covered Simon, an unexpectedly paternal gesture. “Simon, you’ve done everything you could. Now rest.”

  Isabel watched his kindnesses to Simon with despair, certain that only his conviction that Simon was beyond help could have pierced his usual self-preoccupation. Perhaps Gretchen had fled, unable to deal with this disaster.

  But she, Isabel, was a priest of the Order of Mary Magdalene. She had duties to anyone who stood at the door to eternity, even he who was a nonbeliever.

  “Paolo,” she said. “Could I be alone with Simon? If there’s nothing more you can do for him right now?”

  “Yes. I’ll wait outside with the girl.”

  “Thank you. Anything I should watch for?”

  “The medicator will let you know.” He hesitated, then gave the blanket a last pat, and turned away. Jin-Li picked up the portable and followed Adetti out.

  Isabel squeezed Simon’s fingers. “Can you hear me, Simon?”

  His lips were as white as the pillow, and they barely moved. “Yes.”

  “Is there anything you want to say to me? A message for Anna?”

  His voice was only a thread, and she bent closer to hear better. She could feel his breath, so fragile, so ephemeral, on her cheek. “Sorry,” he said.

  “Shall I say that to her, Simon?”

  “Yes-s-s.”

  “I will. I’ll tell her.” Isabel ignored the pain in her throat, the incipient ache in her chest. She stroked his nerveless hand, and searched for words. “Simon . . . can I do anything else?”

  There was a long pause that made her glance up anxiously at the medicator screen. It was once again monitoring Simon’s heartbeat, his respiration, his temperature. The indicators were low, but they were, for the moment, steady.

  When she looked down again, she saw that Simon’s pale lips were curved slightly at the corners. “What is it?” she murmured.

  “Mother Burke . . .” He drew a breath that whistled in his chest. “Know where . . . I’m . . . going?”

  “I think I do, my dear friend. I think there’s nothing to fear.”

  “Not . . . afraid.”

  Isabel put both her hands over his. “No, you wouldn’t be, Simon. You’ve carried out an act of great courage. The antiviral serum will bear your name, I promise you.”

  Another curve of the icy lips. “Adetti . . . won’t like.”

  “He may surprise us.” She waited, watching his chest. Its rise and fall were almost imperceptible. “Simon,” she said.

  “S-still . . . here.”

  “I know you don’t pray, Simon . . . but you won’t be disturbed if I do, will you?”

  “N-no.” Another slow, shallow breath. “Pray . . . for me . . . Mother Burke.”

  Isabel’s eyes burned as she made the sign of the cross with her right hand. As she had done at other times, she pushed her personal feelings to a small part of her mind and soul, to be dealt with later. If it was harder in this instance than it had ever been, it didn’t matter. Her obligation was doubled because Simon was close to her. And because, in this moment, she was all he had.

  She began the litany, her words just audible over the steady hiss and click of the medicator. Simon’s face relaxed, and she still covered his hand with her left one.

  She liked the words from the King James version, the old, old ones that had survived since the Renaissance, survived subsequent translations, survived even the revisions of generations of self-conscious editors.

  She quoted softly,

  THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD. I SHALL NOT WANT.

  A small sigh came from Simon, a sigh of recognition, of acknowledgment. The familiar words were like honey in her mouth, the images balm to her spirit.

  HE MAKETH ME TO LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES.

  HE LEADETH ME BESIDE STILL WATERS. HE RESTORETH MY SOUL.

  She watched Simon breathing. His closed eyelids flickered gently.

  HE LEADETH ME IN THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE.

  Simon’s lips moved, ever so slightly, and Isabel saw that he knew the words, that he was following along as she said them.

  YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH,

  I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR THOU ART WITH ME.

  THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME, IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES;

  THOU ANOINTEST MY HEAD WITH OIL; MY C
UP RUNNETH OVER.

  His cold fingers lifted, and twined with hers.

  SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE,

  AND I WILL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOREVER.

  Simon opened his eyes, and fixed them on her face. The pupils had expanded, and the blinking lights of the medicator screen twinkled in them, giving them false life. He took a rasping breath. “Isabel.”

  “Yes, my dearest friend.”

  “Love.” A long pause, another rattle of air in lungs that had ceased to function on their own. “Forever.”

  “Yes, Simon. Forever.” Every line of his face, every detail of the room, burned itself into Isabel’s memory to be replayed later, when she could grieve. She thought she would always remember the amber and green and red lights on the screen, the dull white of the sheets, the paleness of Simon’s narrow lips. She stood, and bent over him to kiss his forehead.

  “Bye,” he whispered.

  “Godspeed,” she answered, just as the medicator alarm began to trill, a high, slender sound that pierced her heart. Before Adetti reached the bedside, she had put her hand over Simon’s eyes, and closed the lids, ever so gently.

  31

  OA WOKE TO find herself alone on the floor of the reception area. Someone had slipped a pillow beneath her head, and covered her with one of the stiff white blankets from the surgeries. She sat up, alarmed at the silence around her. “Isabel?” she whispered. And then, a little louder, “Isabel?”

  “I’m here, Oa.” Isabel’s hushed voice came from the small surgery.

  Oa scrambled to her feet. Perhaps Doctor Simon was sleeping. A shaft of morning light stretched across the tiled floor, just reaching the open door of the surgery. Oa followed it, and stood in the doorway to look in.

  Isabel sat in a chair beside the bed, both of her hands holding one of Doctor Simon’s. She looked up when Oa’s shadow fell across the bed. Her face was a hollow-eyed mask. The air in the room smelled distinctly of death.