A Day for Damnation

THIRTY

I WOKE up again in the ambulance. We were slowing. There was something happening outside.

I could hear someone with a bullhorn trying to give instructions to a crowd. They weren't listening. Scattered voices were hollering their defiance. I wondered if they were turning into a mob.

I wondered where I was.

I was flat on my back, staring at a plastic ceiling. I turned my head. A curtained window. I raised a hand. My chest ached. I pushed the curtain open.

The day was still pink, the air, the sky-

There were frightened people everywhere. On the lawns, on the driveways, and most of all, crowded around the emergency entrance. Some of them had been waiting all night for treatment. They looked tired and drawn. Their eyes were red, their faces were puffy. Was this turning into another plague? Would this be the one that finally destroyed our ability to resist?

And then the ambulance was stopping and the orderlies slid me out like a side of beef and onto a cart. Somebody in white grabbed hold behind me, and then we were moving-quickly-through a sea of painful, anxious faces. Somebody else was parting the crowds ahead of us. I turned my head to look at them. The people were huddling in the entrance hall, five deep. They were lined up in ragged formations, waiting. I thought I saw military guards. Were we under attack? No, those were riot helmets.

The hospital was a nightmare.

It was a wall of noise-children crying, people arguing, somebody screaming. The sound pressed in like an assault; each component voice was edged with hysteria. A woman was shrieking with rage-

-the cart lurched. And nearly toppled. The shrieking woman had grabbed it. She was screaming in my face. She yanked the blanket off me- "See! Another goddamn soldier! I knew it! The military is getting preferential treatment! They're going to let the rest of us die-!" And then they were pulling her off me, and the cart was rolling again, faster than before.

I didn't see what happened to her.

I heard voices. They were arguing about me. We were stopped again.

"-I can't do anything more for him than's already been done. Give him a shot and an inhaler and send him home to rest-"

"With third-degree pink lung?"

"When it turns into dust poisoning bring him back-"

"I'm not paid to take them home. I only deliver the meat-and this one's already signed in. He's got an army A-plus priority, and your Chief of Surgery already accepted delivery."

"Did they also tell you where the hell we're going to put him? The halls are already full of air mattresses-"

"That's not my problem. Here, read his chart-"

"I can't do this! I'll have to pull the plug on someone else-"

"That's not my problem."

Suddenly, someone bent her face close to mine. She looked tired and angry. "Open your eyes!" she demanded. "Can you move?" I couldn't even speak. I made a noise-not even strong enough to be a moan. It turned into a cough. It came out pink.

I think I won the argument.

Now the cart was rolling again, this time faster than before-came awake again as they were sliding me onto a bed. I blinked through tears of pain, turned my head and squinted at the light.

This was a private room!

I tried to protest, but I didn't have even enough air to croak. I pointed toward the door, the unseen crowds, and waved my hand frantically-despite the pain it cost me.

The nurse just pushed me back down and said, "No, you don't. Your job is to be here now." He was a chubby little man with a well-scrubbed face. He could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty. He looked like someone's maiden aunt, but he had surprisingly strong arms. He held me down and pushed a breathing mask onto my nose and mouth. "Now, just relax-" he said. "I'll be right here the whole time."

I was dimly aware that something was happening. There were other people in the room now.

Something bit my arm. I let go and floated. And waited to see if I was going to die.

I watched from above while they poked, they prodded, and they scanned. They set me up for DX studies and the Kelley series of broad-band vaccines, processes and affirmations. Then they "vacuumed" my lungs-which turned out to be nowhere near as painful as it sounded-and put me in an oxygen-helium tent.

And then they left me alone. I floated and waited.

The reaction set in the next morning.

I woke up somewhere on the other side of death. I was trying to fight my way back, but I was smothering in marshmallow. I couldn't breathe.

There were alarm bells ringing all around me. Sometime in the night, my lungs had decided enough was enough and begun to inflame.

My chest was a balloon.

I was trying to breathe. Nothing was happening. I was trying to scream, but no noise was coming out of my throat either. There was no air to scream with. Even as I thrashed on the bed, I knew I was doing the wrong thing.

And then something cold touched my arm-and something bit me on the chest-and something wet was sliding down my throat-I faded out.

And in again.

I still couldn't breathe. I faded out again. And in. And out. I lost count.

And then one night, I woke up gasping. My throat was raw.

And dry. I wanted water. I managed to holler-and my lungs screamed in agony! That was a mistake. I wanted to die, just to end the pain.

Somebody was saying something to me. "It's all right, Lieutenant. Just relax. See if you can relax." I tried to focus on the voice. All I saw was a blur. The room was too dim.

"Don't talk," he said. He held me up gently, cradling me and feeding me soup in small delicious doses. "Just eat. I'll talk." It was the nurse with the very clean face.

"Mmmf," I said, splurting soup.

He wiped my mouth with a napkin. "You're at Oakland General. It's Monday evening and you've already missed tonight's episode of Derby. Too bad. It was a good one. Grant is still looking for the missing robot, but now he knows it's still in the plant. Carrie found out about the last DV-sale-T. J. told her, of course-and now she's demanding a stockholders' meeting. Everything depends on Stephanie, but she refuses to leave Hong Kong, and nobody knows why. Ready for more?"

"Mmfl."

"Good. Open wide. So, compared to that, your problems are nothing, right?"

I didn't answer. My lungs hurt too much. Besides, Grant should have known from the beginning that T. J. couldn't risk having that robot's memory dumped.

"All right, one more slurp and we're done. There you go. Dr. Fletcher will be in to have a look at you in a little bit."

Dr. Fletcher was wearing gloves and a mask. All I could see were her eyes. They looked tired.

The first thing she said to me was, "Don't talk. You run the risk of destroying your vocal cords." She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked into my eyes, my ears, my nose. She studied the medi-console on her lap. Then, she looked at me and said, "Congratulations."

"Mm?"

"You'll live. We didn't expect you to. The tissues of your lungs were so swollen, there was no room for air. We had you on lung support for three days. You're one of the lucky ones. There were more than two thousand others who didn't make it-because we didn't have the machines for them."

I wanted to ask-but she put a finger across my mouth before I could speak.

"I said, don't talk." She hesitated, then added, "You had one of the worst cases of dust poisoning in the state, Lieutenant. We should have pulled the plug on you-we needed the bed space-but your commanding officer wouldn't allow it. She said you owed her a lobster dinner, and you weren't going to get out of your obligations that easy.

"Besides, we needed to discover something, and you helped us do it. We now know that dust poisoning is reversible in even the worst cases. If we can save you, then we can save anybody. We're already preparing for next year."

"Umf," I said. I held up a hand to stop her from going.

"You're going to be all right," she said. "Don't worry. The worst is over."

I grabbed her arm. "Mmf?"

"Colonel Tirelli is all right too."

"Dmk!"

"And Duke. He's in intensive care and his condition is stabilized. We're watching him closely. You did a good job on him, Lieutenant. You can be proud."

"MpP"

"I'm going to put you back to sleep now," she said. "And then I'm going to put you back on maintenance. It'll be easier for you." She touched a button on the medi-console.

And I went out again.