"c31" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)

1:10 A.M., Saturday, January 1, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

Middlemore Hospital was dark. A note on the front doors—electric and inoperative—said all admissions were being handled at the emergency station, around back. By the emergency door torchlights criss-crossed the ground like ships' lanterns on a heaving sea. Shadowy outlines of orderlies carried patients to purring ambulances. "What's going on?" Morgan asked a rushing orderly. "Power's cut. We're transferring urgent cases to Greenlane." "Christ. Don't you have a backup generator?" Desiree asked as they followed the man into the hospital. "Had accumulator power for a few minutes. They say the generator won't go, though. Water in the diesel fuel or somesuch." "Didn't they ever test it?" Morgan asked, but the man had scurried away. After they checked in at the hectic emergency admissions desk, a middle-aged, chubby, and clucking nurse herded them to a waiting area. "You'll have to wait here, dearie. Maternity's shut down. Only light we have is from the torches, and we're rationing those. Don't know how long we'll be dark." "Maybe we should go over to Botany Downs," Morgan suggested to Desiree. "If their generator is working..." Desiree folded up in another contraction. "How far apart are they?" asked the nurse. "Five minutes," Desiree said. "Then I don't think you'll be going anywhere. You stay here and work on these forms. I'll get you a doctor." She whooshed away, her torch arcing across the floor like a miner vanishing down a tunnel. "And I'm supposed to fill out these forms exactly how?" Morgan asked Desiree's silhouette. A doctor Sullivan appeared, apologizing for the overcrowding. The nurse held the light while he examined Desiree right in the waiting area, which they screened for privacy with their bodies. He rose and said, "Congratulations, Mrs. Hyland. You're going to be a mother." "Now?" Morgan asked. He hadn't thought they'd really do it, not now, not like this. "Can't you delay the labor," Desiree asked, "stop it with drugs, or..." "Sorry. You're too dilated, station's too low, and besides without the damned electricity we can't effectively monitor your contractions or realtime changes in the baby's heart rate. The wee bugger could brady down and die and we'd never know it." The doctor stole away. Morgan gulped. He tried to deny what he'd heard. His hand shook; he tried to steady it, demanding it stay still. It didn't work. "It'll be ok," he reassured Desiree. She squeezed his hand tight. He tried diverting his attention—fill out the forms. God, no, Morgan couldn't fill out forms! He threw them aside. He tried to convince himself this was normal so he could keep his wits about him. What would he do if this were a normal situation? He'd want to scrub up like a doctor, put on a gown, watch his son born. A brand new life! Everything would be new for Jeremy. Morgan would smile, warm with the anticipated memory of Jeremy's first camping trip, unwrapping his first football at Christmas, stalking his first deer. This was going to be great! Assuming— No, his thoughts had looped back around to the bad ones; he wasn't going to go there. This was a modern hospital. Premature babies lived. Morgan squeezed Desiree's hand. Two orderlies appeared out of the gloom with a gurney. "Hop aboard, ma'am," said one. "Where are you taking her?" Morgan asked. "We're to carry the missus an' the nipper up the stairs to three. No lifts, you know. Hop up." He patted the gurney. With Morgan anxiously holding doors open and handling the torch, the two brawny men hoisted Desiree, strapped to the gurney, through the procession of doctors, nurses, and patients in the emergency stairwell. Morgan suppressed a comment about how it was already growing warm as the air system sat idle. Desiree's hours of labor stretched on. Morgan noted their passing by the dimming of the electric torches as he paced the hallway. At first she'd wanted him holding her hand. Light glinted off the useless equipment like ghostly winking eyes. He kept asking, "What's going on?" as the gravity of having a premature baby without modern medicine sank in. The various doctors (or as he thought of them, "so-called doctors") always replied in an annoyed tone that they didn't know. He dared not ask why didn't they know—he knew. Modern and civilized, medicine heavily on the now-useless equipment. He began pacing the room. An unaskable question repeated in his mind like a bad advertising jingle. What would these idiots have done a hundred years ago? Finally, between moans, Desiree screamed at him to get the hell out, that this was all his fault. He remembered reading that women often screamed irrationally at their husbands while in labor. He calmed himself. I can't leave you, he'd protested. She said he'd be of more use if he could get their fucking generator working. Was she serious? he'd asked, and for a brief moment the relaxing thought of applying wrenches to metal displaced his fear at his unasked question. He'd marveled at how birth was a miraculous feat of biological engineering. Even so, with all it's failsafes, it, like the world, had gone off kilter. He might not be able to fix anything with Desiree's human engineering, he could at least put himself to good use fixing another. "If you think you can help, goddammit, help them!" she'd said. She knew the answer to his question as well. A hundred years ago, the baby would simply have died. Possibly Desiree as well. Morgan paced the hall. He chewed his nails, waiting in the corridor for the engineer's assistant to fetch him. An orderly finally came and led Morgan through the stairwell's crowd to the bowels of the building. The name sewn to the coveralls of the woman with short, auburn hair banging on the generator's drain valve read "Matty." "I'm gonna throw a wobbly if you don't strain the potatoes," she said to the drain valve, groaning with effort. "Bit of a deal there?" Morgan asked. "Yeah, the generator's carked it. I've got heaps of diesel to dump in here and a full tank of watery chunder that I can't dump. Who're you?" He put out a hand, shook her greasy one. "Morgan Hyland. Programmer, father-to-be, and generator repairman. This a 550? I've argued with a few before." "Get off the grass! And Sir Howard said we had the last one ever made. Know how to get it to drain? Some kind of pressure valve. I'm not the head engineer here. Someone's fetching Sir Howard, but he lives out in Waikikamukau." She grinned. Morgan grinned. The fictitious town, pronounced "why kick a moo cow", meant Way The Hell Out There. She continued, "I was supposed to take a class on the thing—only been on the job for a month, you know—but then there's this, and then there's that... I'm a business grad student. Marketing, you know? Only took this job 'cause of the pay, and I knew Sir Howard's son... And before you ask, me Mum's Aussie and me Dad's a Kiwi, which is why everyone thinks I talk funny. So you know how to fix the bugger or not?" "Well, first I'd... may I?" He put his hand out for the wrench. "Here," she said enthusiastically, "and rattle your dags about it!" After several minutes banging and cursing, he had the tank ready to drain. A thin stream of caramel gruel dribbled from the valve. "Okay, where's your waste tank?" "Oh, bloody hell! We haven't got one. We'd have to drain into a truck. Gah. Maybe I should just go home to me mum in Perth." They stared at the trickling gruel. "Can't just pour it down the dunny, can we?" "I don't think the sewer was meant for this. Do you have any fifty-five gallon drums? Maybe bypass this tank and feed directly from—" "Mr. Hyland?" An orderly appeared, looking disdainfully at Morgan's grimy clothes. Your wife's about to give birth." Morgan gave Matty a pained look. If they didn't have power, his premature baby boy would be in a world of hurt. But he had to be there. His eyes darted back and forth. "G'on, get upstairs," she said, giving him a nudge. "I'll be back as soon as I can. My kid's going to need that power."

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Chapter 3.1

1:10 A.M., Saturday, January 1, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

Middlemore Hospital was dark. A note on the front doors—electric and inoperative—said all admissions were being handled at the emergency station, around back. By the emergency door torchlights criss-crossed the ground like ships' lanterns on a heaving sea. Shadowy outlines of orderlies carried patients to purring ambulances. "What's going on?" Morgan asked a rushing orderly. "Power's cut. We're transferring urgent cases to Greenlane." "Christ. Don't you have a backup generator?" Desiree asked as they followed the man into the hospital. "Had accumulator power for a few minutes. They say the generator won't go, though. Water in the diesel fuel or somesuch." "Didn't they ever test it?" Morgan asked, but the man had scurried away. After they checked in at the hectic emergency admissions desk, a middle-aged, chubby, and clucking nurse herded them to a waiting area. "You'll have to wait here, dearie. Maternity's shut down. Only light we have is from the torches, and we're rationing those. Don't know how long we'll be dark." "Maybe we should go over to Botany Downs," Morgan suggested to Desiree. "If their generator is working..." Desiree folded up in another contraction. "How far apart are they?" asked the nurse. "Five minutes," Desiree said. "Then I don't think you'll be going anywhere. You stay here and work on these forms. I'll get you a doctor." She whooshed away, her torch arcing across the floor like a miner vanishing down a tunnel. "And I'm supposed to fill out these forms exactly how?" Morgan asked Desiree's silhouette. A doctor Sullivan appeared, apologizing for the overcrowding. The nurse held the light while he examined Desiree right in the waiting area, which they screened for privacy with their bodies. He rose and said, "Congratulations, Mrs. Hyland. You're going to be a mother." "Now?" Morgan asked. He hadn't thought they'd really do it, not now, not like this. "Can't you delay the labor," Desiree asked, "stop it with drugs, or..." "Sorry. You're too dilated, station's too low, and besides without the damned electricity we can't effectively monitor your contractions or realtime changes in the baby's heart rate. The wee bugger could brady down and die and we'd never know it." The doctor stole away. Morgan gulped. He tried to deny what he'd heard. His hand shook; he tried to steady it, demanding it stay still. It didn't work. "It'll be ok," he reassured Desiree. She squeezed his hand tight. He tried diverting his attention—fill out the forms. God, no, Morgan couldn't fill out forms! He threw them aside. He tried to convince himself this was normal so he could keep his wits about him. What would he do if this were a normal situation? He'd want to scrub up like a doctor, put on a gown, watch his son born. A brand new life! Everything would be new for Jeremy. Morgan would smile, warm with the anticipated memory of Jeremy's first camping trip, unwrapping his first football at Christmas, stalking his first deer. This was going to be great! Assuming— No, his thoughts had looped back around to the bad ones; he wasn't going to go there. This was a modern hospital. Premature babies lived. Morgan squeezed Desiree's hand. Two orderlies appeared out of the gloom with a gurney. "Hop aboard, ma'am," said one. "Where are you taking her?" Morgan asked. "We're to carry the missus an' the nipper up the stairs to three. No lifts, you know. Hop up." He patted the gurney. With Morgan anxiously holding doors open and handling the torch, the two brawny men hoisted Desiree, strapped to the gurney, through the procession of doctors, nurses, and patients in the emergency stairwell. Morgan suppressed a comment about how it was already growing warm as the air system sat idle. Desiree's hours of labor stretched on. Morgan noted their passing by the dimming of the electric torches as he paced the hallway. At first she'd wanted him holding her hand. Light glinted off the useless equipment like ghostly winking eyes. He kept asking, "What's going on?" as the gravity of having a premature baby without modern medicine sank in. The various doctors (or as he thought of them, "so-called doctors") always replied in an annoyed tone that they didn't know. He dared not ask why didn't they know—he knew. Modern and civilized, medicine heavily on the now-useless equipment. He began pacing the room. An unaskable question repeated in his mind like a bad advertising jingle. What would these idiots have done a hundred years ago? Finally, between moans, Desiree screamed at him to get the hell out, that this was all his fault. He remembered reading that women often screamed irrationally at their husbands while in labor. He calmed himself. I can't leave you, he'd protested. She said he'd be of more use if he could get their fucking generator working. Was she serious? he'd asked, and for a brief moment the relaxing thought of applying wrenches to metal displaced his fear at his unasked question. He'd marveled at how birth was a miraculous feat of biological engineering. Even so, with all it's failsafes, it, like the world, had gone off kilter. He might not be able to fix anything with Desiree's human engineering, he could at least put himself to good use fixing another. "If you think you can help, goddammit, help them!" she'd said. She knew the answer to his question as well. A hundred years ago, the baby would simply have died. Possibly Desiree as well. Morgan paced the hall. He chewed his nails, waiting in the corridor for the engineer's assistant to fetch him. An orderly finally came and led Morgan through the stairwell's crowd to the bowels of the building. The name sewn to the coveralls of the woman with short, auburn hair banging on the generator's drain valve read "Matty." "I'm gonna throw a wobbly if you don't strain the potatoes," she said to the drain valve, groaning with effort. "Bit of a deal there?" Morgan asked. "Yeah, the generator's carked it. I've got heaps of diesel to dump in here and a full tank of watery chunder that I can't dump. Who're you?" He put out a hand, shook her greasy one. "Morgan Hyland. Programmer, father-to-be, and generator repairman. This a 550? I've argued with a few before." "Get off the grass! And Sir Howard said we had the last one ever made. Know how to get it to drain? Some kind of pressure valve. I'm not the head engineer here. Someone's fetching Sir Howard, but he lives out in Waikikamukau." She grinned. Morgan grinned. The fictitious town, pronounced "why kick a moo cow", meant Way The Hell Out There. She continued, "I was supposed to take a class on the thing—only been on the job for a month, you know—but then there's this, and then there's that... I'm a business grad student. Marketing, you know? Only took this job 'cause of the pay, and I knew Sir Howard's son... And before you ask, me Mum's Aussie and me Dad's a Kiwi, which is why everyone thinks I talk funny. So you know how to fix the bugger or not?" "Well, first I'd... may I?" He put his hand out for the wrench. "Here," she said enthusiastically, "and rattle your dags about it!" After several minutes banging and cursing, he had the tank ready to drain. A thin stream of caramel gruel dribbled from the valve. "Okay, where's your waste tank?" "Oh, bloody hell! We haven't got one. We'd have to drain into a truck. Gah. Maybe I should just go home to me mum in Perth." They stared at the trickling gruel. "Can't just pour it down the dunny, can we?" "I don't think the sewer was meant for this. Do you have any fifty-five gallon drums? Maybe bypass this tank and feed directly from—" "Mr. Hyland?" An orderly appeared, looking disdainfully at Morgan's grimy clothes. Your wife's about to give birth." Morgan gave Matty a pained look. If they didn't have power, his premature baby boy would be in a world of hurt. But he had to be there. His eyes darted back and forth. "G'on, get upstairs," she said, giving him a nudge. "I'll be back as soon as I can. My kid's going to need that power."


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