Taji's Syndrome (32 page)

Jeff nodded sympathetically, though he had never smoked. “I know the feeling,” he said, recognizing the anxiety the admission concealed.

“There’s one who seems to be in charge of the others, a man in his mid-thirties named Kiley. You would have to see his eyes to understand, but he is a machine.” Simeon looked toward Irene and Dale, giving Jeff a warning gesture with his hand. “I would like to borrow Missus Channing for a few minutes, Reed.”

Dale had risen and was standing by the bed. “All right. I’ll come with you.”

“As you wish.” Simeon took a terry cloth robe from the closet. “You can walk on your own, Missus Channing,” he said as he gave the robe to Dale, who held it for her.

“You know, there’s really no reason to keep me in jammies all the time,” Irene said. “I’d feel a hell of a lot better in slacks and shirt. I don’t like thinking of myself as sick anymore. I think it’s slowing down my progress.”

The three men walked with her down the hall. “I’ll see what can be arranged,” said Dale. “I should have thought of it before now.”

She slipped her hand into his. “You’re a love, do you know that?”

“We aim to please,” Dale told her, ignoring the two other men.

They arrived at a small therapy room equipped with whirlpool baths and a wall of double doors leading to small saunas. Beyond that stood four massage tables and some mild exercise machines.

“I would like it if you’d try the rowing machine. Nothing too strenuous, but enough to get your muscles into gear. If you start to feel dizzy or sore, stop at once,” said Simeon, looking not at Irene but at Dale, daring him to object.

“I’ll send for Naoko,” said Dale, and started toward the door.

“Naoko has been replaced,” Simeon said with no emotion at all.

“But—” Dale came back toward them. “She’s the best masseuse we have. Why replace her?”

“It wasn’t my decision,” Simeon said coolly. “I wasn’t consulted. There’s a Francis Bethune in her place. If I were you, I’d ask for Narmada Parvi—she’s very good.” He did not add that she had been with the hospital for more than ten years and was therefore relatively safe.

“All right. Is she here?” Dale said, perplexed.

“What’s going on?” Irene interrupted. “Why is Naoko gone and why don’t you want me to have the new man? It has to do with that fellow Kiley, doesn’t it? Ever since he came here, I feel like I’m being watched all the time. He gives me the creeps.”

“Narmada’s worked on you before,” said Simeon evenly, his tone even faintly bored, but his eyes warned her to be cautious and not argue.

“She’s fine,” said Irene, picking up on Simeon’s unspoken signals. “I’m not up to having more strangers around me. I’ve had nothing but strangers since I got this damned TS. Aside from Dale, I haven’t seen a truly familiar face in months.”

“Narmada it is,” said Dale, who had watched the silent exchange with growing apprehension. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

“Now then, Missus Channing, the rowing machine. Use that one, please, and no more than a dozen repeats. We’ll see how you’re doing when you’re through.” As she pulled out of her robe and took her place on the machine, Simeon pulled Jeff aside and said very softly, “The room is bugged. Possibly photographed as well.”

Jeff raised his voice enough to provide something for the listeners, “I can understand your concern. But if her temperature remains normal, I don’t think you should hold her back. Lack of exercise might be more of a problem than you think.”

“Her blood work isn’t normal yet,” Simeon said with a quick, relieved smile. “I don’t want to take any chances.”

From her place on the rowing machine, Irene hesitated in her workout to ask, “How is Doctor Picknor? When I heard he was in the hospital, I was . . . I felt so guilty.”

Simeon strolled over to her. “He’s holding his own. He’s signed a Public Benefit contract and they’re starting with some new therapy tomorrow. He’s more useful than many of the others, since he’s a physician.”

“Being a physician didn’t stop him from coming down with TS, and being one isn’t going to cure him. The statistics on nurses are horrifying,” Jeff said. “Twenty percent of the victims of TS have signed Public Benefit contracts and we still aren’t getting anywhere. All we have is more sick people we can try things out on. It’s all well and good to have the Public Benefit contract, but God! it would be better to have something to offer the people who sign them.” He looked away, and when he gave his attention to Simeon again, he was less caustic. “I was out of line to talk: like that.”

“You’re under the gun,” said Simeon, slightly startled that he would receive an apology.

“Aren’t we all. It’s no excuse for . . .” He shrugged and dropped his voice. “About the PK?”

From the rowing machine, Irene groaned. As both men turned to her, startled, she said. “Sorry. Sore muscles.”

Simeon took a moment to collect his thoughts again. “It exhausts her, but she is gaining more control all the time.” His eyes were apprehensive. “I don’t know how long we can keep the ESA out of this.”

“We’ll find a way,” said Jeff, not at all sure how. “I want daily reports on her progress, with blood work and test results as they’re processed. I need to know what’s going on here. I haven’t enough data to begin to know where to start on the cases like hers.”

“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”

“I’m worried about all of them. The survivors . . . I don’t know what to say about them. What’s the old expression? out of the frying pan into the fire? Most of them are worn out from illness, and to have this . . . this ability turn up, well, the few we’ve identified are scared. Who can blame them?”

“Frying pan into the fire,” confirmed Simeon. “I haven’t seen much on the other survivors.”

“There aren’t very many of them,” Jeff said reluctantly. “This disease has about an eighty-six percent fatality rate, at least that’s the current figures. Survivors are only now showing up, and with TS spreading the way it is, we haven’t the time or the staff to go looking for them. We hope that someone notices them and lets us know about them.”

“Is that all you’ve been able to come up with? I know that the teenagers seem to come down with it faster than adults, but to have so high a fatality rate . . . Hell, once you’re thirteen, it sounds pretty hopeless.”

“There are a few people who are apparently past puberty and still immune. We’re trying to find out why. We can’t work out a similarity, except that none of the survivors have O-type blood and all those who are apparently immune do.” He shook his head slowly. “But find the sense in that, will you? If all it takes is O-type blood to be immune, most of the population would be safe.”

“Rh factors?” Simeon suggested.

“Nothing so far. We’re going for genotypes next. The genotypes may be a long shot, but—” He looked over at Irene. “Missus Channing, how do you feel?”

She stopped rowing. “Like I’ve dug up an entire back yard,” she said, pressing her forearm against her face. “I can’t believe how weak I am.”

“You’re doing very well,” Simeon said as the door opened and Dale returned with a small Hindu woman. “We’re almost ready for you, Narmada.”

“Good,” said Narmada with a smile. “It is wonderful to see Missus Channing so much improved.”

Jeff heard the lilt in her speech and asked, “Where are you from, Narmada?”

She beamed at him. “We came from New Delhi, many, many years ago. I was only eight.” She was too polite to ask where he came from, so he volunteered.

“My family left Iran when I was young, too. We aren’t Moslems, let alone Shi’ites.” He indicated Irene. “Have you worked with her before?”

“Oh, yes. Very fortunate lady is Missus Channing. She has lived.” Narmada went and stood beside her. “Come. If you are ready.”

Dale was helping Irene up from the rowing machine. “I have a feeling you’ll be back at work full-time in another month, Irene.” He wrapped his arms around her.

Irene returned his embrace, but when they broke apart, she said to Jeff, “What has always amazed me about Dale is that all through this, he has never once acted as if he was afraid of TS. He never behaved as if he could catch it from me, or as if there was any danger. When I think of the way everyone else behaved, it . . . humbles me.”

“Irene, don’t,” Dale protested fondly.

“It
is
remarkable,” said Simeon to them both.

“What’s to fear from an environmental disease?” Dale asked a little too blithely. “The air will give it to me quicker than she will.”

Narmada came and took Irene’s arm. “Excuse me, but it is time for the massage. You should not stand idly after exercise; it will make your muscles stiff.” So saying, she led Irene over to the massage tables.

“How has she been doing?” Dale asked, indicating the rowing machine.

“Fine,” Simeon said.

“She looked good,” Jeff agreed.

“And the other? What about that?” Dale looked scared for the first time. “Is she still . . . doing that?”

“I don’t know about today,” Simeon answered. “But we have the tapes from yesterday, and she certainly was doing it then.” He tried to give Dale the same sort of unspoken warning he had given Jeff, but Dale was not paying enough attention.

“How could something like that happen? Can you tell me that? How could she get that kind of . . . talent from surviving TS?” He was becoming nervous and he would not meet Simeon’s eyes.

“We don’t know.” Simeon folded his hands and looked toward the clerestory windows. “I think we ought to discuss this later, Dale. You don’t want to upset Missus Channing, do you?”

“No,” said Dale at once, looking quickly over his shoulder to where Narmada was draping Irene with light blankets while she prepared to begin her massage. “She’s lost a lot of weight,” he remarked inconsequently.

“That’s to be expected.” Jeff wondered if Dale knew there were listening devices in the room. He certainly did not act that way.

“I think she’s gained a little of it back. She needs it.” He folded his arms. “Doctor Taji”—the formality shocked both Jeff and Simeon—“I’d like to have access to all the TS records you have for this region. I might be able to spot something you’ve overlooked. I want to do something. You can understand that, can’t you?”

This abrupt petition was so unexpected that it took Jeff a little while to frame his answer. “Let’s discuss it later. I have to make a few phone calls to find out what we’re permitted to release, and to whom.” He was aware that he could shift the response from positive to negative, depending upon whom he called: Susannah Ling would certainly permit the information being released; Patrick Drucker would just as certainly refuse.

“Fine. That’s fine.” He looked from one man to the other. “I want her to be better. I want her to be well, to be over this.”

“So do we,” said Jeff. He took a step toward the door. “Where are the records? I want to go over her entries for the last two days.”

“I’ll show you,” Simeon offered at once. “Dale?”

“I want to stay with Irene a little while. I’ll catch up with you.” He moved away from them, toward the massage table.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Simeon said, “I don’t know what to make of Dale these days. He was staunch as a pioneer through the worst of it, and now he looks as if he’s about to cave in.”

“Maybe he’s the sort who goes to pieces after an emergency. I’m a little like that myself.” They went quickly down the hall, neither man paying much attention to others around them.

“It’s more than that. He said something the other day that worried me then. He said he thought TS had changed Irene, had turned her into someone he didn’t know any more. Mind you, that was after a third brass monkey, so who knows how much of that was booze and how much was his real thoughts.” He indicated a door on the right. “That’s medical records. There should be two techs and two transcriptionists on duty.”

“Okay,” Jeff said, recognizing the note of circumspection in the information.

There were three techs in the room, one of them wearing a badge that said Kiley.

“Doctor Simeon,” said Kiley, coming to greet him with the kind of stiff-legged walk a guard dog might have.

“This is Doctor Taji from Atlanta. He’s with me.” Simeon could not quite sustain the faint air of superiority that he most often used to put staff members in their place.

“Doctor Taji,” said Kiley in a way that made it obvious that he knew precisely who Jeff was.

“Which monitor may I use?” Jeff inquired in a manner that Susannah had once described as his preoccupied mode. “I need to review some material.”

“I’ll be happy to get it for you,” said Kiley, his eyes, as Simeon had said, like stones.

“No, I won’t trouble you. Since I don’t know yet how much of her records I’ll have to access, it’s hardly fair for me to take up your time. Thanks, anyway.” With that, he went and selected one of the monitor stations and sat down, seemingly oblivious to the anger he had inspired in Kiley.

By the time they left the records room, some forty minutes later, Jeff had discovered that almost a third of Irene Channing’s test results had been put under seal. He told Dale about it as they drove back into Dallas.

“They’re being cautious,” said Dale.

“Come on,” Jeff chided him gently. “You know better than that. They’re trying to put a lid on her. And they’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

“Well, they don’t know what’s going on,” Dale said weakly.

“Dale, what’s wrong?” Jeff demanded. “What’s bothering you?”

Dale stared out the window of the Comet; when he spoke, he said, “I think you ought to check her kids yourself. I think you could find out something that way.”

“Her kids? Why?”

“Because she got it and survived it, and her teenaged son hasn’t got it at all. Steven doesn’t have a trace of it. Who knows about Brice—he’s still too young, in any case.” He checked the crease in his trousers. “She got through the disease and ended up with a power and her kids don’t have it. It’s not like any other case I’ve ever seen.”

“TS hasn’t been around long enough for that to be necessarily significant,” Jeff reminded Dale as he honked at a speeding cyclist.

“Yeah.”