"Grantville Gazette Volume XI" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)
A Gift of Blankets Kerryn Offord and Vincent Coljee
Quarantine House Alpha, Grantville, 1632
"How do we feel today?" Katharina Anna Schrey asked Quarantine House Alpha's most important patient.
John Thompson Sims looked up from his sick bed. "Lousy!"
Katharina smiled down at the elderly doctor. He'd been her friend and mentor since she started the long course of training that would eventually qualify her as a doctor. "If you can complain, that is a sign you are getting better."
John rolled his eyes. "How badly did I have it?
"Not too badly. There were only a few pustules on your face, and with any luck, they'll barely leave a scar."
John nodded his understanding. "And the child I was treating, what happened to him?"
"He recovered. The whole family is now out of quarantine and has been placed in the refugee center."
"That's good to know." John shook his head in gentle wonder. "I wouldn't have thought my old vaccination would have been much good after thirty odd years. It's nice to think the older people in Grantville have some protection." He stopped when he saw Katharina's shaking head. "No?"
"Dr. Ellis drew blood from the team. We helped you fight the infection by pumping you full of anti-serum."
"Oh!"
"There is a bright side." Katharina smiled at Dr. Sims disappointed face. "Now there are two immune doctors. You and Dr. Abrabanel."
John shuddered. "Do you know how soon I can leave?"
"Dr. Abrabanel will visit later this evening. If he gives you the all clear, we can let you out tomorrow."
John's head sank back into his pillow. "You're all heart, Katharina."
Days later, a meeting room at the Leahy Medical Center
The people of Grantville had been extremely lucky. In a time when smallpox was endemic, they arrived in Thuringia between cyclic waves of the disease. It took an average of five years for the pool of vulnerable people in a community to grow large enough for the next wave. Children born since the last wave made up most of these pools. That's why smallpox was known as a childhood disease in this era. Either it killed you as a child, or you survived. But Grantville was different. Since smallpox was dropped from the national vaccination program in 1972 only the military and a few people traveling overseas might have been vaccinated, and even the military stopped vaccinating against smallpox in 1990. Only about half of the up-timers had ever been vaccinated, and if those vaccinations were more than ten years old, they were nearly useless. That meant that almost the entire up-timer population was vulnerable. If smallpox spread through Grantville, at least one in three up-timers could expect to die. That was if the medical services could cope. If they couldn't, well, there was evidence to suggest that the entire up-timer community could die.
The inevitable had to happen. Smallpox arrived, but the people of Grantville hadn't been standing idle. Precautions were being taken. Precautions most people probably didn't even notice. Then there was the processing of refugees by the sanitary commission. All refugees entering the Ring of Fire were examined by public health officers. The ill were quarantined until they either died or were declared well enough to enter the community. And the doctors had been busy looking for a vaccine.
Dr. Jeff Adams looked around the table. "Five days ago we discharged our first case of smallpox, a young boy from a refugee family. That means we finally have some smallpox virus to start the variolation program Dr. Abrabanel has been advocating this past year. Now we have to work out how to best use the limited supply of virus."
Hope Underwood, president of the Grantville chapter of the American Red Cross, looked over at Dr. Adams. "Isn't using smallpox virus dangerous? Isn't that why they used cowpox back up-time?"
"Immunization using smallpox isn't dangerous if it is done properly, Frau Underwood," Balthasar Abrabanel answered. "I immunized my daughter using the dust from a dried smallpox pustule with no ill effect. You are basing your fears on the abysmal techniques western medical doctors used." Balthasar shook his head in disgust. "Cutting into the arm and smearing the live virus into the wound. What do they expect but that the patients will die?"
"And anyway, Hope, we need a sample of cowpox before we can make a vaccine, and we haven't been able to find any. That's the only reason we're even thinking of using deactivated smallpox," Jeff said.
"What? But there are cows everywhere."
"Yes, there are cows everywhere, but that doesn't necessarily mean cowpox is everywhere. Les Blocker has had feelers out as far as Magdeburg, Leipzig, Nurnberg and Erfurt, but he hasn't heard a whisper of cowpox."
"Didn't Jenner use cowpox for his vaccinations? It must be around."
Jeff gave Hope a wry smile. "There's some question as to what Dr. Edward Jenner actually used. There's even some suggestion he used smallpox. Whatever it was he used, he was in England. Just as being an island protected England from rabies, it's possible that being an island stopped the spread of cowpox to the continent."
"That means we have to send someone to England to get some infected cows, then," Hope said.
"Maybe, but we can't afford to send anybody just yet. Anyway, horsepox should be a viable alternative, and Les is pretty sure there's horsepox on the continent. It's just a matter of finding an infected animal."
"And until that animal is found, we variolate using deactivated smallpox virus," Balthasar said.
Jeff nodded. "Right. We variolate until we can vaccinate with cow- or horse-pox."
Quarantine House Alpha
The house was on the very edge of the town, an older house, occupied by only half a dozen down-timers, though how they managed to rent such a desirable property Georg Lenkert had no idea. He was sharing a much smaller place with a dozen other guys, and even that stretched his budget.
Georg noted the gas and water meter readings, leaving just the electricity meter to go. Before the Ring of Fire it would have been accessible from outside the house, but like so many houses in Grantville, the owners of this one had enclosed the porch to give more living space. Georg knew where the key was kept, but it was good customer relations to check if someone was home first. And besides, if he was lucky, the Girl would answer the door.
The door opened at his knock to reveal… the wrong girl. Georg managed to hide his disappointment. Maybe the right girl was inside. Clipboard in hand, he tapped the official badge of the utility company he wore. "Meter man, Fraulein. I wish to read the electricity meter."
Lise Gebauer smiled and stepped back from the door. "Sure. You know where it is?"
Georg nodded and made his way to the meter, then finished preparing the invoice. The note on the invoice said that this establishment was authorized to pay by check, so he went in search of someone to give the invoice to.
His dream girl was sitting on the sofa in the lounge with a monster of a cat in her lap having its ears gently rubbed. " Lucky cat," Georg muttered.
He waved the invoice. "Fraulein, I have finished. Do you wish to pay now?"
Katharina Schrey called over her shoulder toward the back of the house. "Hans, meter man. Could you bring the check book?" She turned back to Georg. "He shouldn't be long."
Georg moved closer. She was making a fuss over the cat, so he decided to do the same. He knelt beside her and held out his hand for the cat to sniff. After a moment, the cat started to rub his head against the hand.
Georg smiled shyly and rubbed the cat's ears, his fingers daringly close to Katharina's. "He's a fine looking cat. Does he have a name?"
"The girls call the fleabag Trojan. And if you've seen the kittens Frau Patton's prize Siamese had last month, you understand why."
Georg turned at the new voice. He'd been so intent on Katharina that he hadn't heard the man and woman enter. He passed the prepared invoice to the man. "I've seen the kittens. Frau Patton is not very happy. But what do kittens have to do with the cat's name?"
Lise gave Georg a sympathetic smile. "Ignore Hans. That's his idea of a joke. Dr. Ellis suggested the name." She grinned. "He called him a Trojan horse. You see, the fleas came into the house on Trojan, just like… "
"The Greeks in Virgil's Aeneid. When they gained entry to the city of Troy in a wooden horse." Georg finished.
"Yes, like that. And they infested Katharina's bed… " Lise turned to her friend. "I told you not to let him sleep with you."
I should be so lucky.Georg felt Katharina looking at him. For a moment he thought he'd spoken out loud.
"You've read Virgil?"
Georg let out a quiet sigh of relief. She couldn't have heard him if she could ask a question like that. Not with that hint of excitement in her voice. He returned to petting Trojan to hide his blushes. He hadn't actually read Virgil. His Latin teacher had assigned him the task of translating the poem. He'd considered it a complete waste of time, as undoubtedly, the poem had been translated hundreds of times before, by better scholars than him. And he'd been right. For a price he'd obtained another student's translation, which he'd carefully copied, making several deliberate mistakes so as not to make his teacher suspicious. But if his dream girl was impressed by scholarship… "It was a long time ago. My Latin teacher insisted that I translate Aeneid. I didn't do a very good job, but I could follow the story."
"Poor, Katharina. For a moment there, I bet you thought you'd found a fellow scholar." Lise smiled. "Katharina also reads Greek"
Georg glanced at Katharina. She was flushed, probably embarrassed by her friend singing her praises. With a sigh, he stood up. He still had half a dozen properties with meters he had to read today and it was past time he was gone. He traded a receipt for a check from Hans before making his way to the door. "It has been a pleasure meeting all of you. Until next month."
Once out of sight of the house he stopped. So, her name is Katharina, and she is educated. Maybe he should see about taking some classes.
Katharina looked up at the smiling faces of her friends. "Did he really say what I think he said?"
Hans nodded. "He's smitten. Jealous of a cat. And the fleabag, at that."
Katharina reached a hand up to the right side of her face. The side the meter man had been looking at all the time. "He didn't notice my face."
"You make too much of the pox scars."
Katharina looked at the unblemished face of her friend. "That's easy for you to say, with your perfect skin. You didn't see the looks on people's faces when I stopped using the face paint."
"But this guy, this… " Lise looked at Katharina expectantly.
"Georg Ludwig Lenkert." Katharina answered.
Lise's eyes brightened. "You know his name. So you are interested."
"I read the name on his identification card, Lise."
Lise turned to Hans. "I think she's protesting too much. What do you think?"
"I think it is none of my business." Hans grinned. "But he didn't seem to mind looking at your face."
"Hans is right, Katharina. You had no trouble going out without face paint until those kids started making fun of you. Maybe it's just an up-timer thing. Have you noticed how perfect their skin tends to be?"
Katharina slumped into the sofa. "That's because they didn't have smallpox up-time." She gently fingered the scars. "Georg really didn't seem to mind them, did he?"
"It was as if they didn't exist," Lise confirmed. "Now all you have to do is arrange to meet him more than once a month."
"How? I don't know anything about him."
Lise stepped up behind Katharina and put her arms around her. "Don't worry. Hans can find out where you can accidentally bump into him. Can't you?"
"Of course. Consider it my contribution to the star-crossed lovers."
Katharina blew Hans a raspberry.
The VoTechCenter, Grantville, two weeks later
Georg almost froze at the door. When he enrolled in a course on up-timer history the last person he'd expected to see in the classroom was his dream girl. He found a seat where he could look at her without her seeing him.
The VoTechCenter, Grantville, two months later
Katharina was getting frustrated. Two months of attending classes at the VoTech and Georg barely noticed her existence. She turned to Lise. "If Georg doesn't say something tonight, I'm giving up."
"You can't give up now. Maybe he's shy. Maybe you have to make the first move."
She released a sigh. "Very well. I'll sit next to him tonight."
"You'll need to do more than that. Ask him to join us for coffee after class."
Katharina glared. "You're asking too much."
"Katharina, it's been two months with nothing to show for it. You have to do something to catch his attention."
"All right. I'll ask." Katharina collected her dignity before storming off.
" Shehas to do something to catch his attention?" Hans was all smiles as he repeated Lise's last comment.
"Well, she doesn't seem to be aware just how much time Georg spends staring at her when she isn't looking."
"And of course, Georg is unaware of how much Katharina stares in his direction when he isn't looking." Hans placed a gentle kiss on Lise's nose. "Come on, we have classes of our own to attend."
The High School Cafe
Georg had been only too happy to accept Katharina's invitation to share a coffee with friends after class. After two months of watching her from across the room, he'd almost built up the nerve to approach her. Having Katharina make the first move had been a godsend. Sitting beside her and her friends, he looked for something to say. There was always the old standby. "Where do you all work?"
Katharina smiled. "Lise and I are in the nursing program. I hope to get into the MD program later."
Georg looked at Hans. "And you? Are you also training to be a nurse or doctor?"
"Not me. I'm a journeyman mason. I'm a foreman with Kelly Construction doing brick and stone work."
"So how did you and Lise get together?"
"The company pays extra for first aid-certified employees, so I took a course. It just happened to be the same one Lise was taking."
"What about the rest of the people sharing the house? And how can you afford the rent on a house like that? I share a smaller place with a dozen others, and even then most of us struggle to meet the rent." Georg asked.
Lise smiled. "Most of us are in the nursing program. It's a sanitary commission house and they subsidize the rent for health workers."
Georg was a bit confused. "Does that mean you pay full rent?" he asked Hans.
"No. They also subsidize my rent, though not as much. I'm a member of one of their special teams."
"What special teams?" Georg was getting curious. If Hans could get into that house that way, well, why couldn't he?
Hans cast a quick glance around the cafe. There were no patrons close enough to hear. Even so, he leaned closer to Georg before speaking in a low voice. "You know the sanitary commission induction program for all new refugees?"
Georg nodded. When he first arrived in Grantville a sanitary commission official had asked him questions and had him fill out forms before sending him into the showers while they cleaned his clothes.
"The service not only processes new arrivals, they maintain special teams that provide care for anybody in quarantine until the doctors consider them safe to enter the community,"
"You mean like Herr Beasley and Officer Jordan?"
"You know about that?" Hans' voice was shocked.
"For some people, the postman and meter-man are their only source of news other than the radio. We hear a lot of gossip. Do the up-timers know what it was yet?"
"Gossip!" Hans shook his head. "It wasn't smallpox. But that's all the up-timers know. They have no idea what killed that family."
Georg shuddered. If it had happen a couple of weeks earlier or later, it might have been him rather than Officer Jordan who discovered the Beasleys. If gossip was to be believed, he could have been struck down with whatever it was that killed them and almost killed Buster Beasley and Officer Jordan. "Did you have to care for them?" he asked Katharina.
She shook her head. "No. They were taken to a different quarantine house. The worst we've had is a boy with smallpox, and Dr. Sims, who caught it treating the boy."
"Surely caring for someone infected with smallpox is dangerous?"
"No." Katharina shook her head. "As you've probably noticed, I've had smallpox. According to the up-timers, that makes me immune to it."
Georg had noticed Katharina's scars. He'd seen worse. "It sure looks like you had a bad case. Not like Hans, and as for Lise… how did you come through without a blemish?"
Lise smiled. "My grandmother did what the up-timers call variolation to me when I was a baby. If it hadn't been for Dr. Abrabanel being present when I was interviewed for a place on Hans' team I don't think the up-timer would have approved my application. I don't think she believed me. She kept muttering about Jenner being the first to do that in the late-seventeen hundreds."
Georg smiled. "My mother says grandmother protected me from smallpox when I was a baby by smearing a pit of puss from a pox onto my arm and scratching the skin."
"That's the same thing my grandmother did. Dr. Abrabanel and I had quite a discussion comparing techniques. Apparently he learned a different way."
"So I'm also immune to smallpox. That's good to know."
"Georg, how would you like to apply for one of the special teams?" Lise asked.
Georg froze. He looked over at Lise suspiciously, then at Katharina to see how she felt about her friend's suggestion.
"Yes, the commission is always looking for volunteers." Katharina said.
"I'd like to, but what does it involve? Meter reading isn't much of a job, but it pays the bills."
"First, they'll put you through a training course on how to handle contagious diseases, then they put you on a retainer and give periodic refresher classes. They run practice exercises so that everyone is prepared if a contagious disease strikes. Usually it's only a few days a month, and best of all, it qualifies as your militia commitment, too," Hans answered.
"Now that last sounds good. No more slogging up and down hills with a rifle in my arms and a pack on my back in all weathers. I'm definitely interested."
"I'll get an application form for you. Where do I send it?" Lise asked.
"Save yourself the postage. My route on Thursday will take me past the hospital. If you tell me who to talk to, I can collect one."
"Just ask for Dr. Adams' office. Someone there will find one for you."
"Thank you." Georg looked at the clock. "I'm sorry, but if I'm going to be any good tomorrow, I need my sleep." He smiled at Katharina. "See you in class next week."
"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Lise asked.
Katharina blushed. She was doing a lot of that lately. "Thank you."
"That's what friends are for. You do remember that Jochim is moving out of the house when he marries, don't you?"
If Katharina had thought she couldn't get any warmer, she'd been wrong. "Yes, I remember. And yes, it would be nice if Georg could move in."
"Just checking."
A couple of months later
Katharina and Georg were poring over their class notes as they wrote up reports for night school. Lise Gebauer stopped at the door to focus on the happy couple. Getting Georg into the house had been one of her better ideas.
"What are you guys working on?"
Katharina looked up and smiled. "We're writing a paper on smallpox in the New World for history class. Did you know that contagious diseases killed millions before the first European settlers arrived?"
"How does that work? How did the diseases get introduced?
"It's thought that early explorers somehow carried the infections without being affected themselves. With a truly 'virgin' population to play with, the diseases ran wild," Katharina answered.
"For a moment there, I thought you were going to say contagious diseases were deliberately introduced."
"Well," Georg started, "there are lots of stories about smallpox and measles being deliberately introduced to clear land of meddlesome natives, but we've only been able to identify one confirmed case where an attempt was made to deliberately spread disease."
Lise shuddered. "Who'd do a thing like that?"
"An Englishman." Georg answered with a smile. "Sir Jeffery Amherst, the commander-in-chief of British forces in North America in 1763. He tried to deliberately infect warring native American tribes by sending them gifts of blankets taken from a smallpox hospital. Not that the histories are sure that attempt worked. There was already smallpox doing the rounds."
Lise shuddered again. "Well, at least that can't happen here. The sanitary commission is set up to prevent things like that."
Georg grinned evilly. "Imagine what could happen if someone could introduce smallpox into Grantville."
"Georg! That's horrible." Lise backed away. When she neared the door she spoke to Katharina. "Hit him for me."
Lise had the satisfaction of hearing a loud yelp of pain from Georg.
2 a.m.the next morning
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Merten Burkhard asked.
"Yes, this is where the women I followed home from the hospital live. See those three trees, and the white letterbox? This is the place. And inside there is a small fortune in medicines," his brother, Dieter, answered.
"How do you know the medicines are here?"
"Because, dimwit, I saw them loading a box when I delivered the laundry. The same box one of the women carried when she left the hospital."
"But where they put them?" Merten asked.
"In the kitchen, of course. Where else would you find one of those refrigerators? The medicines are supposed to be kept cool."
"Oh!"
"Come on, the lights have been out long enough. Everyone should be asleep by now."
They gained entry from a window left ajar. Quietly, first Dieter then Merten crawled through the window. They were in the dining room and could easily see their way to the refrigerator in the moonlight.
"You got the bag ready?" Dieter whispered.
"Yes."
Dieter pulled gently at the refrigerator door. There was a clinking of bottles as the door came open. In the gentle glow of the interior light, Dieter searched for the packages he had come for. Then something hit his face. It was as if a red hot iron had struck him. He couldn't help it. He screamed.
The noises coming from the kitchen had Georg up and out of the bed in a flash. He hit the light switch in the kitchen only seconds later. Using the two-handed grip he'd been taught, he pointed his pistol at the intruders. "Freeze, I have a gun."
Having made his little speech, Georg concentrated on the sight in front of him. Two men were backed into a corner. One was bleeding fairly heavily from deep scratches in his face, arms and hands. The other guy was better off. His face appeared undamaged. They were ignoring him, more concerned with their present danger. Trojan stood hissing at them, daring them to move. The cat's already massive size was transformed to enormous by the way his fur was standing up. Georg licked his dry lips. He'd heard stories about Trojan intimidating vicious dogs. It seemed he was just as effective when dealing with humans.
Hans entered the kitchen, knotting his robe. "What do we have here then?"
Georg grinned. "Just something the cat dragged in."
"It looks like they were interested in something in the refrigerator. Silly people. Opening the refrigerator with Trojan asleep on top. What were they thinking?"
Georg snorted. "I don't think they were expecting Trojan. Would you do something about tying them up? I'd rather not stand here pointing a gun at them until the police arrive."
"You worried about the police seeing you with that gun?"
"It's not the gun, it's the time. The police aren't going to get here anytime soon.
"Fair enough. And you might ask Katharina to grab you a robe or something. It's pretty obvious why you were still awake at two in the morning."
Georg flushed at Hans' sally. So, I jumped out of bed, grabbed the gun and rushed in here without bothering about dressing or grabbing a robe. Time might have been of the essence. Then Georg noticed the gleam in Hans' eyes, and realized what he had seen. His duty to protect the refrigerator over, Trojan was now intent on new game.
"No, Trojan. No!" Georg lowered his hands protectively. Then, realizing that meant taking the gun off the two intruders, brought it back up, then down, then up. Finally, he lowered himself to the ground so he could pull his legs in protectively and still keep the gun pointed at the intruders.
Hans was laughing his head off..
"It's not funny, Hans."
"Oh it is, Georg. Really, it is."
It took over an hour for the police to arrive. It took another hour and several mugs of coffee for the police to take statements.. Eventually they left with their two prisoners.
"Where did you get the gun?" Johann Wantzleben, the other male in the household, asked.
"The utilities company supplied it, and training in using it."
"Why? That's one of the up-timer guns. Why would a meter reader need an up-timer pistol?"
"It's for self protection… "
"You mean because you carry a lot of money with you?" Johann asked.
"I don't actually carry much money. Most people who pay the meter man pay by check. No, the pistol is for protection against wild animals and dogs. There's a real risk of rabies on some of the routes."
Georg's audience shuddered. Rabies was a death sentence. Smallpox only killed one in three people. rabies killed everyone.
August 1632, Grantville
The household had been on edge since the first sound of gunshots. They'd received a phone call telling them that enemy cavalry had been detected close to town and to stay put until further notice. They had prepared to evacuate or to render aid. Now all they could do is wait to see which it would be.
The ring of the phone broke the tense silence. Lise answered it. "Yes. Yes. Very well. I'll pass that on. Thank you."
"Well?" Hans asked for all of them.
"The enemy has been routed. But they were Croats." Lise gave Georg a crooked smile. "It seems someone on the sanitation committee read your paper. We're to go out and check all the dead and wounded for signs of smallpox, and sterilize any equipment they might have with them."
Johann looked from Lise to Georg. "I'm sorry? What's the connection between the Croats and Georg's history paper?"
"Someone in the sanitary commission is wondering whether the Croats might have been someone's version of a gift of blankets." Georg answered.