The Nirvana Plague (53 page)

The professional broadcaster’s self-assured pose was gone. He seemed to be ad libbing, without prompter or copy.

NEWSREADER: … now believed that somewhere between one and ten percent of the entire human population has developed IDD. We believe that at least a hundred million people — possibly as many as one billion — no one really knows. But I know that millions of you who are watching this broadcast right now have the disease. Many of the staff here at
Newsline
have it. We know the spread of the disease has been accelerating rapidly the last few days. Explosively. Obviously all efforts to control it have failed. Nobody knows what the future holds for us now. Already some national governments have ceased to have any functional existence. Here in the US, government control of the media has ceased. The federal government has been evacuated. State and municipal governments…

Marley handed the small screen to Delacourt and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He had a signal. He punched Ally’s key. The end of the pen-shaped phone curled round his cheek as he waited for her to answer.

But she didn’t answer.

“This number is unreachable at this time.”

“Damn!” he said. “I’m trying Karen now.”

Roger watched him, smiling faintly.

“This number is unreachable at this time.”

Roger touched his arm. “Doc.”

Marley looked up.

Like sheets of newsprint nudged along by an indifferent breeze, Karen and Ally were walking slowly down the boardwalk toward them, each of them lugging a beaten-up bag of clothes.

Marley had never seen them together before. How tall Ally looked next to Karen! And how strange. Lithe, dark, and beautiful. Who was she?

Karen saw Roger and Marley standing together. Saw Roger already coming toward her. Lifting his arms. She fell into them. She sank down into him, but he held her up.

She heard him say her name. Or rather, she felt her name come from him. She lifted her head and met his eyes. Small grey eyes. Endlessly deep.

Somewhere inside of her something came loose. Like a pent-up breath, something was released. This thing that she was, this woman, this weariness, this hard determination, this dogged love for this strange man — all of that went out of her, the way a fist goes out of a hand when it’s opened, the way a dream goes out of your mind when you wake.

And then she wasn’t there anymore. She wasn’t anywhere. There was just a kind of hopeless relief, a kind of wordless awareness. It was both simple and strange, familiar and marvelous.

Time passed. There must have been time. There always was time. Now it seemed measureless. Immeasurable. Neither limited nor limitless, like awareness itself, like redness, or emptiness, or living, like all the things that seemed most present to her, there was now no limit to herself. She didn’t know where it was, herself. She didn’t care. There wasn’t anyone there to care where she had gone.

And she hadn’t gone anywhere. She was here. More here than anywhere else she’d ever been. Here in her husband’s arms. And he was here.
With
her. Here again
with her
after all these long lonely lost years. Simply, utterly, wonderfully
here.
The way a current runs in a sea, she ran in him, and he ran in her.

She came away from him and looked around her. Everything seemed both distant and immediate. Everything seemed unchanged and unchangeable. People everywhere. Ally and Marley, embracing. All the same. Somehow the same though utterly unconnected with the world she remembered. All of this had been part of a dream she’d been having. A dream of a life. And now she was awake, it was all still there, but now it was there as it already was, not as she had been dreaming it.

The planet swelled beneath her. Swallowed her up. The whole crowd, the chill air, the sea breeze, the entire town, the whole wide world it seemed, shot like light through her awareness, became present to her, as present to her as herself. She among all was herself.

Marley held his wife, bent himself round her, crushed her in his arms, lifted her off her feet and swung her around. A kind of fire swept through him. How could it be that he was in love with this stranger? How could it be that the woman he loved was a stranger to him? He ached now, holding her, knowing she was gone where he could not go, knowing somehow that now she was here with him far more fully than he himself could ever be here. The bars of a cell stood between them. The bars were there only for him. And yet, because they were there for him, they were also there for her. They reached through them to each other. She kissed him, and he ached for her, but he did not make it through the bars.

When he put her down, there were tears in his eyes.

“We’ve been looking for you,” she said.

He put his hands around the back of her neck, studied her face, so full of intelligence. How present she was to him! And yet how far away. He could find nothing to say, knew nothing needed saying.

“Don’t worry,” she said.

He touched the bandage on her forehead. One of her eyes was swollen and livid.

“We had an accident,” she said. “A few stitches.”

He embraced her again.

How long they held one another, he did not know. Suddenly it seemed the party was going again. The fishing boats were parading in the channel, blowing horns. A fireboat was jetting water high into the air.

Delacourt touched him on the arm. “You dropped your phone,” she said.

He took it from her. It was buzzing. He put it to his ear.

“Carl, Colonel Benford. It’s finished. It’s spreading very, very fast now. It’s beyond containment by any means. At the rate we think it’s moving, within a week or two more than half the human race will have turned.”

“Yes,” he said. “Where are you going?”

Ally and Delacourt introduced themselves to each other while he talked.

Karen and Roger were still wrapped in each other’s arms. Karen’s face lay on Roger’s shoulder, slack, glowing, her eyes gone far away.

“Mid-ocean,” Benford said. “The president, the cabinet, congress, key government personnel. They’re all flying out to meet the
Auster
. As many as can. And other ships. We’re going to try to ride it out. Maybe, given enough time, IDD will blow itself out naturally.”

“But you know that’s not going to happen. There’s no going back now.”

“Yes.” She paused. “But I’m still what I am,” she said, “and I’m under orders.”

“I understand.”

“What are you going to do now?” she said.

“I have no idea. Try to be a real doctor maybe. My wife is here. And Karen.”

“I’m glad they found you. I’m glad they made it. They must both be remarkable.”

He looked at Ally.

She was watching him talk.

“Yes,” he said.

Benford fell silent for a moment, searching for words.

“Well. I’ll let you go. I wanted to say goodbye. And to thank you for your work. And to wish you well.”

“You’re welcome, colonel. Write to me.”

“No, I can’t. We’ll be maintaining total communication isolation. This is my last call.”

“Of course.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

He clicked off and dropped the little phone back in his pocket.

Ally said, with a wry grin, “So where are you staying, husband?”

Dear Sarah,

I hope you don’t mind me addressing you by your first name. Nobody here uses honorifics anymore. And, of course, there are no armies to be colonels in.

It’s great to hear from you. I’m glad you’ve all come back to the real world again. Do you know T.S. Eliot?

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Happy New Year! It’s now officially the year “2”. Well, it’s official as anything gets in this brave new world. It’s still called “May 1” (in English anyway). Though there’s talk of renaming the months, I don’t think it’ll happen — too much a part of the language now.

On the other hand, there’s a new language going on — it’s not really an invented language. It’s just sort of happening. I wouldn’t even call it a “language” exactly. To us old timers, it’s more like a secret code than a language. I’ve tried to understand it, but I just can’t get my mind around it. That, of course, is the whole problem. My mind, I mean.

They say that no more than 1% of population continues in the old way — “the old mind” they call it. I have some “old mind” friends here. Helps with the loneliness. I’d be thrilled if you came out here too. I’m sure they’d find some way to put you to good use. They’ve a genius for making creative use of people, believe me.

I’m practicing medicine again. A bona fide hospital physician. But doctoring, like everything else, is changing a lot. I’m just trying to keep up. The “bambies” think I’m rather quaint. Another sense in which I’m arriving where I started — where Ally, my wife, and I started together — with holistic care and whatnot.

We have a house up in Lemon Creek, not far from the hospital.

Ally is due in August. It’s a girl. The bambies are certain that every child born now will only know the new mind — even those born to “old mind” parents. There’s no way to test for it in children this young, at least no way that you and I would consider scientifically valid. But they’ve got some different ideas about experimental validity too. Still, I’m sure they’re right about it. So when the last of us are gone, the last of the old mind goes with us. We’re dinosaurs.

It’s a funny thing. When it was our world, they were mentally ill. But in their world, we’re just old-fashioned.

What are your plans now? Need a job? How about coming out to Juneau? (I don’t suppose you’ll be getting your Pentagon job back!) We’re all still here — Roger and Karen, and Xan Delacourt.

Take care, colonel. (There. I said it.) I look forward to hearing from you again.

Carl

We two, how long we were fool'd,

Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,

We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return.

We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,

We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,

We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,

We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,

We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,

We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings,

We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,

We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,

We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar, we are as two comets,

We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,

We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,