He waited to see if it would ring again, and then went back across to Salvin. Magdalen's bell was chiming the hour. It sounded like a funeral bell in the unceasing rain. Ms. Piantini had apparently heard the bell, too. She was standing in the quad in her nightgown, solemnly raising her arms in an unheard rhythm. "Middle, wrong, and into the hunt," she said when Dunworthy tried to take her back inside.

Finch appeared, looking distraught. "It's the bells, sir," he said, taking hold of her other arm. "They upset her. I don't think they should ring them under the circumstances."

Ms. Piantini wrenched free of Dunworthy's restraining hand. "Every man must stick to his bell without interruption," she said furiously.

"I quite agree," Finch said, clutching her arm as firmly as if it were a bell rope, and led her back to her cot.

Colin came skidding in, drenched as usual and nearly blue With cold. His jacket was open, and Mary's gray muffler dangled uselessly about his neck. He handed Dunworthy a message. "It's from Badri's nurse," he said, opening a packet of soap tablets and popping a light blue one into his mouth.

The note was drenched, too. It read, "Badri asking for you," though the word 'Badri' was so blurred he couldn't make out more than the B.

"Did the nurse say whether Badri was worse?"

"No, just to give you the message. And Aunt Mary says when you come, you're to get your enhancement. She said she doesn't know when the analogue will get here."

Dunworthy helped Finch wrestle Ms. Piantini into bed and hurried to Infirmary and up to isolation. There was another new nurse, this one a middle-aged woman with swollen feet. She was sitting with them propped up on the screens, watching a pocket vidder, but she stood up immediately when he came in.

"Are you Mr. Dunworthy?" she asked, blocking his way. "Dr. Ahrens said you're to meet her downstairs immediately."

She said it quietly, even kindly, and he thought, she's trying to spare me. She doesn't want me to see what's in there. She wants Mary to tell me first.

"It's Badri, isn't it? He's dead."

She looked genuinely surprised. "Oh, no, he's much better this morning. Didn't you get my note? He's sitting up."

"Sitting up?" he said, staring at her, wondering if she were delirious with fever.

"He's still very weak of course, but his temp's normal and he's alert. You're to meet Dr. Ahrens in casualties. She said it was urgent."

He looked wonderingly toward the door to Badri's room. "Tell him I'll be in to see him as soon as I can," he said and hurried out the door.

He nearly collided with Colin, who was apparently coming in. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Did one of the techs telephone?"

"I've been assigned to you," Colin said. "Great-Aunt Mary says she doesn't trust you to get your T-cell enhancement. I'm supposed to take you down to get it."

"I can't. There's an emergency in casualties," he said, walking rapidly down the corridor.

Colin ran to keep up with him. "Well, then, after the emergency. She said I wasn't to let you leave Infirmary without it."

Mary was there to meet them when the lift opened. "We have another case," she said grimly. "It's Montoya." She started for casualties. "They're bringing her in from Witney."

"Montoya?" Dunworthy said. "That's impossible. She's been out at the dig alone."

She pushed open the double doors. "Apparently not."

"But she said — are you certain it's the virus? She's been working in the rain. Perhaps it's some other disease."

Mary shook her head. "The ambulance team ran a prelim. It matches the virus." She stopped at the admissions desk and asked the house officer, "Are they here yet?"

He shook his head. "They've just come through the perimeter."

Mary walked over to the doors and looked out, as if she didn't believe him. "We got a call from her this morning, very confused," she said, turning back to them. "I telephoned to Chipping Norton, which is the nearest hospital, told them to send an ambulance, but they said the dig was officially under quarantine. And I couldn't get one of ours out to her. I finally had to persuade the NHS to grant a dispensation to send an ambulance." She peered out the doors again. "When did she go out to the dig?"

"I — " Dunworthy tried to remember. She had phoned to ask him about the Scottish fishing guides on Christmas Day and then phoned back that afternoon to say, "Never mind," because she had decided to forge Basingame's signature instead. "Christmas Day," he said. "If the NHS offices were open. Or the twenty-sixth. And she hasn't seen anyone since then."

"How do you know?"

"When I spoke to her, she was complaining that she couldn't keep the dig dry singlehanded. She wanted me to phone to the NHS to ask for students to help her."

"How long ago was that?"

"Two — no, three days ago," he said, frowning. The days ran together when one never got to bed.

"Could she have found someone at the farm to help after she spoke to you?"

"There's no one there in the winter."

"As I remember, Montoya recruits anyone who comes within reach. Perhaps she enlisted some passerby."

"She said there weren't any. The dig's very isolated."

"Well, she must have found someone. She's been out at the dig for eight days, and the incubation period's only twelve to forty-eight hours."

"The ambulance is here!" Colin said.

Mary pushed out the doors, Dunworthy and Colin on her heels. Two ambulancemen in masks lifted a stretcher out and onto a trolley. Dunworthy recognized one of them. He had helped bring Badri in.

Colin was bending over the stretcher, looking interestedly at Montoya, who lay with her eyes closed. Her head was propped up with pillows, and her face was flushed the same heavy red as Ms. Breen's had been. Colin leaned farther over her, and she coughed directly in his face.

Dunworthy grabbed the collar of Colin's jacket and dragged him away from her. "Come away from there. Are you trying to catch the virus? Why aren't you wearing your mask?"

"There aren't any."

"You shouldn't be here at all. I want you to go straight back to Balliol and — "

"I can't. I'm assigned to make certain you get your enhancement."

"Then sit down over there," Dunworthy said, walking him over to a chair in the reception area, "and stay away from the patients."

"You'd better not try to sneak out on me," Colin said warningly, but he sat down, pulled his gobstopper out of his pocket, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.

Dunworthy went back over to the stretcher trolley. "Lupe," Mary was saying, "we need to ask you some questions. When did you fall ill?"

"This morning," Montoya said. Her voice was hoarse, and Dunworthy realized suddenly that she must be the person who had telephoned him. "Last night I had a terrible headache," she raised a muddy hand and drew it across her eyebrows, "but I thought it was because I was straining my eyes."

"Who was with you out at the dig?"

"Nobody," Montoya said, sounding surprised.

"What about deliveries? Did someone from Witney deliver supplies to you?"

She started to shake her head, but it apparently hurt, and she stopped. "No. I took everything with me."

"And you didn't have anyone with you to help you with the excavation?"

"No. I asked Mr. Dunworthy to tell the NHS to send some help, but he didn't." Mary looked across at Dunworthy, and Montoya followed her glance. "Are they sending someone?" she asked him. "They'll never find it if they don't get someone out there."

"Find what?" he said, wondering if her answer could be trusted or if she were delirious.

"The dig is half underwater right now," she said.

"Find what?"

"Kivrin's corder."

He had a sudden image of Montoya standing by the tomb, sorting through the muddy box of stone-shaped bones. Wrist bones. They had been wrist bones, and she had been examining the uneven edges, looking for a bone spur that was actually a piece of recording equipment. Kivrin's corder.