The War of Immensities (16 page)

This was the
place, there was no doubt about it, even if Chrissie could not see
why it might have been. There was no questioning her faith and if
it guided them to someplace in the middle of nowhere, then that was
the divine plan. Lorna, sweating, unsuitably dressed, swatting at
flies, might not have liked it, but that was the way it was. And
then there was this truck driver who had parked right where the
divinity least wanted him. Some people had no sense of
perspective.

They had hung
around the campsite while the man stirred himself and then stirred
the fire to life and put the billy on. Now he was squatting in
front of the fire and although evening was coming on, it was by no
means cool. Lorna, exasperated by his gaze, hung back and Chrissie
had to go forward.

“Excuse me. Is
this your property?”

“Nope,” the man
grunted.

“Do you live
around here?”

“Nope.”

“Is there any
reason that you’re here?”

“Not that I
know of.”

“Oh,” Chrissie
said. She had run out of questions. Usually, this was the bit where
Lorna babbled out a lot of questions and found out the man’s entire
history in five minutes, but instead she sat on a jerry can and
looked grumpy, swishing at the flies madly.

The man
regarded her far too long, before he reached into a pack at his
feet and produced a can of insect repellent. He threw it to her.
“Give that a bash.”

Lorna caught it
deftly but it wasn’t a brand she liked. She scowled.

“When the sun
goes down, the mozzies’ll eat yer alive,” the man said
offhandedly.

Lorna sprayed
liberally and then passed the can to Chrissie, who also hesitated.
Was it right to kill a few hundred of God’s creatures at such a
moment? For the moment was close, she could feel it. They had
arrived just in time. But then she reasoned that the creatures
would not be killed but only repelled. She gave herself a few
disdainful blasts, took a couple of paces forward and handed the
can back to the man. His hand was very grubby.

In fact she
could not work it out. All along she was expecting to meet someone
here—this man just wasn’t the image she had in mind.

“Just makin’
tea,” the man said in his gruff tones. “Want some?”

“Yes please,”
Chrissie smiled, and Lorna scowled but finally nodded.

The man grabbed
a handful of tea from the packet and chucked it in the billy. Oh
boy. When the water boiled, he stood, picked up the billy by the
handle and swung it. That did it.

“Are you for
real?” Lorna snarled at him.

“Girlie, I
reckon you’re the one that don’t exactly blend into the
landscape.”

“Who could?”
Lorna snapped.

The pager
summoned her to the reception desk where an urgent call awaited. In
fact it wasn’t so much urgent as long distance, the admissions
nurse pointed out as she handed the receiver over. “Dr Campbell
speaking.”

From the other
end, the voice boomed so loudly that she had to hold the receiver
away from her ear. The admissions nurse needed to put a hand over
her smile.

“My name is
Harley Thyssen, Professor of Vulcanology, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. I’m sorry to call so precipitously but I think we
have something in common, Dr Campbell.”

Felicity tried
to take it in, but really she was wondering if this was one of her
patients that she had forgotten, despite the fact that it could not
be. “I’m afraid I don’t understand...”

“Allow me to
navigate the conversation for a few moments, Dr Campbell. If you
can answer a couple of simple questions, the matter might be
expedited.”

“Sure. Okay,”
she said, irritated to notice that she was already mimicking his
American accent.

“I understand
that some time ago you made telephone contact with Father Miguel
Sierra of the Magaria Mission on Gran Canaria Island? Is that
so?”

“Well...
yes...”

“The good
father tells me that you wished to discuss the circumstances of
some of your own patients in regard to the medical condition of
sixty-three patients previously under his care?”

“That’s right.
There seemed to be similarities between six people I treated here
and those...”

“Yes. And these
patients were all victims of the Ruapehu eruption?”

“Yes,” Felicity
said softly. A mighty sense of relief swept through her. Here,
then, was someone who understood.

The voice on
the other end, who to Felicity might still have been that of a god,
allowed a satisfied pause. “Okay, Dr Campbell. First let me praise
your diligence. And add that I, like you, am investigating the
connection between the volcanic activity and the comatose
conditions of the victims. I’d like it if we can pool our
resources.”

Felicity
baulked. There were, after all, matters of patient confidentiality
to consider, not to mention that the hospital would be none too
pleased if the matter was not directed through the proper channels.
She would have said all that, had she not suddenly realised that
she did not even remember the name of the man to whom she was
speaking. From the desk she snatched up a pad and pen and asked him
to repeat his personal details. Professor, no less. MIT, no less.
Thyssen answered patiently.

“Dr Campbell,
we cannot hope to achieve much with this call. I am merely
attempting to touch base.”

“I don’t know
how I can be of any assistance...” Felicity said helplessly.

“You already
have been. You made the connection. However, I must point out that
at this stage, there is no evidence to support that connection
whatsoever, except that of coincidence.”

“Oh.”

“Nevertheless,
we must proceed.”

“What do you
want me to do?”

“Have you
maintained contact with the six patients?”

“Yes. One of
them is still here in Wellington Hospital. His condition is
steadily improving and he ought to be able to be released in a few
months. I observed unusual behaviour in that patient and then wrote
to the medical practitioners responsible for the others. They
reported their patients as normal, with respect to their on-going
conditions. More recently, two days ago in fact, I tried to contact
the patients themselves. None were available to speak to me.”

“None of
them?”

“One was under
sedation, as indeed Mr Wagner is here. The other four had all gone
away and no one seemed to be able to tell me where.”

“Excellent, Dr
Campbell. Fine work indeed. Okay, so obviously we need more
details. I wonder if you would be good enough to provide the data
you have on the six patients, their condition and progress and
present circumstances and send it to me at MIT. To which, I will
reciprocate with all the information I have on Gran Canaria and
other incidents. Then, each of us will be in a position to know
more precisely what we are talking about.”

The enormity of
it once more shook Felicity to the core and she procrastinated
desperately—if only to give herself time to think. “There will be
limitations in regard to patient confidentiality...”

“Of course. I
too will have to withhold certain information until its security
classification is more clearly known. But the more you can tell me
and the more I can tell you, the better our chances of determining
just what this condition is and what the connection is, if
any.”

“All right
then...” Felicity sighed, knowing that there was no time in her
schedule for such a task, but the true concern then came to her.
“Do you think they are in danger?”

“Yes, I do,”
Thyssen said chillingly. “And if we are right, it could be that a
great many other people will be in danger in the future. We really
need to get on with this, urgently.”

“I’ll do what I
can.”

“Thank you
doctor. No doubt we’ll speak again. Until then, I suggest
discretion. This all might amount to nothing. We wouldn’t want to
make complete fools of ourselves before the public, would we?”

They had taken
his battery away again, and once more the chase was on through the
corridors of Fairhaven as Joe attempted his umpteenth escape by
hand. At least, he mused, it was building the strength of his arms.
For he had suddenly stopped, and the two nurses in pursuit almost
ran into the back of him. They stood to either side, hanging onto
the wheelchair grimly, panting desperately. Joe flinched in pain
several times and then suddenly became calm.

“Perhaps you’ll
be good enough to push me back to my room,” he smiled up at
them.

Felicity looked
over the monitors grimly. Kevin Wagner, sedated to oblivion, was at
peace at last.

“Same as last
time,” Turley said.

“Yes, I know,”
Felicity said in quiet bewilderment. “I watched it happen. He just
grew more and more agitated until finally he threatened to become
violent. But now, all of a sudden, he’s calm again. I just don’t
understand it.”

Andromeda gave
out a few extra snores and that was it. She had passed out on the
floor of the motel room, hours ago, her second bottle of Vodka
half-drunk, tilted from her hand. In the middle of nowhere, nowhere
had been the only place to go.

Chrissie could
feel the moment was close. She sat on the bull bar of the truck and
gazed at the sky away to the east, sipping the tea out of the dirty
cup in which it had been offered. Lorna sulked and drank. The man
squatted and regarded the fire. It was ridiculous.

And then the
sensation came upon them and they sat, stiffening their bodies,
bowing their heads, gritting their teeth. The nausea swept up
through their feet, erupting through their bodies into their
brains. The man sat back on his heels with a grunt, Lorna almost
fell off the jerry can as she wrapped her hands across her midriff,
Chrissie clutched the bull bar and tried to raise her head. The
Angel of Judgement passed by and hurried on toward the west and the
moment was over.

Lorna
unravelled and stood up, dusting herself off embarrassedly. She had
spilled most of her tea and the tin cup hung uselessly from her
fingers. The man stood and bent forward, resting his hands on his
knees. Chrissie rose and walked unsteadily, studying everything.
But it was gone. They had been passed over again.

The man then
straightened and looked around.

“Well, I gotta
go now. Can I give you girls a ride somewhere?”

An unnamed
mountain, insignificant amid the neighbouring peaks of the Southern
Andes, suddenly exploded. Amid rain and storms, the brilliant flash
reached no human eyes, and the tremendous roar no ears, or if it
did was mistook for distant thunder. Like the tree that fell in the
forest, no one saw or knew it had happened. The massive ash cloud
pumped up to be lost amid the swirling hurricane, the shaking of
the earth disturbed no feet. Lava burst from the crater and spilled
down the slopes and there were a couple of further blasts an hour
or so later but then the mountain, even less significant now with
its cap blown away and replaced by a rugged crater, began to
quieten again and slide back into obscurity.

And anyway, had
the eruption been noticed, it would hardly have been regarded of
importance. This was Tierra de Fuego, The Land of Fire, the great
island amid thousands below the Strait of Magellan, a disjointed
tail of the Andes and snow-bound tundra, eternally under grey
clouds or so it seemed. This was the land, they said, where the sun
never shone. In fact it did, but always so feebly it could be
ignored.

There were
people who lived there but on the flat lands further north, eking
out an existence in the most inhospitable land on earth. None of
them saw the eruption nor felt its tremors, and such events were so
common anyway that they would have thought nothing of it in any
case.

It was even of
little interest to vulcanologists, being so remote, amid so many
other greater recent eruptions and mightier mountains, away from
all civilisation.

When the
seismic readings came through, there was perhaps only one person in
the world who took any note of it. Jami Shastri shook her head in
dismay.

“Why don’t
these things happen where someone can get near them?” she
murmured.

It briefly
crossed her mind that she was asking for the death of multitudes.
She shuddered as she made her way to Thyssen’s office with the
preliminary data hardcopy in her hand. He was still in the Canary
Islands, as far as she knew, but wherever he was, he would want to
know about this right away.

She stood in
the doorway, watching him pack like a wife who had just kicked out
her husband and began to regret it before he got out the door.
Kevin Wagner was hurriedly pushing his belongings into an overnight
bag—wherever he was going, it wouldn’t be for long.

But Felicity
already knew that. And he had been good enough to call her and tell
her he was leaving.

She had hurried
to the rehab centre where he made his home for the present but it
was hard to say why she should be concerned. This was what she
expected, the way she expected it. Everything was happening
normally—still she found she fretted. “Do you have any idea where
you’re going?” she asked, leaning on the door jamb, her arms folded
in front of her.

Kevin Wagner
threw a casual wave as he blew the dust off his spare shoes.

“Thataway.
West. Australia, I guess.”

“How will you
get there?”

“Fly. I do
possess a current pilot’s licence, you know.”

“You mean, fly
yourself?”

“Sure. I can
hire a plane. No problem.”

“I don’t think
your medical condition...”

He stopped her
with his winning smile. The deep lines either side of his mouth,
the lights in his eyes, the kindness in his voice, all soothed her
such as that she could feel it physically.