“You’re missing it, too. He’s still talking.”
“But I know what he is to say, and you do not.”
Lysander shrugged. “The part I saw didn’t seem very interesting.”
She hissed in reproof. “How can you make such judgment? On other hand,” she said, sounding almost plaintive, “Earth humans did not seem to find it interesting either. I do not understand Earth humans. Do you know that hardly any of them have spoken to me about thruster project? It is as though they do not appreciate what great gift Hakh’hli are making to them.”
“Well,” Lysander said helpfully, “maybe they don’t see it as a gift, exactly. After all, you told them there would have to be Hakh’hli supervisors and not merely Earth humans in charge.”
“But of course there must be Hakh’hli supervisors! Who knows what Earth humans might do otherwise? They are violent and not wholly civilized, Lysander! Remember all you have learned! They are capable of converting all technology into weapons.
“How could they make railgun a weapon?” he asked reasonably.
“That would be easy and not difficult at all! They might shoot one massive capsule up very fast and ram our ship! Can you imagine what would happen in that case? And our ship could not maneuver to get away, since main engines are completely off at present.” She woofed angrily. “It could be even worse! They could send nuclear bombs, such as those they are always dropping on each other.”
“They haven’t dropped any of those for years.”
“For years!” she mimicked. “For years, only! And does not that perhaps make it time for them to use such weapons again?” She glanced over Sandy’s shoulder and made a face. “We will talk of this again if you like,” she said, “but not now. Here is my watchdog coming, and I do not wish to speak to him.”
She hobbled angrily away. To Lysander’s surprise, Hamilton Boyle seemed more interested in him than in his charge, Polly. He nodded to her as he passed, and advanced on Lysander.
“Marguery’s going to be all right,” Boyle said, patting Lysander’s shoulder reassuringly. “It looked bad. In fact it was bad; there’s no doubt that you saved her life by getting her out of there. But it’s just some kind of allergic reaction. They’ve given her histamine blockers, and she’s conscious now. I just left her.”
“I’m going to see her,” Sandy decided, turning toward the emergency room door. Boyle put a hand on his arm.
“Not just now,” he said. “She’s, uh, she doesn’t look her best right now. She’d rather wait until she’s prettier for you to see her.”
Sandy gazed up at him, making a sound that was somewhere between, “Oh, hell,” and “Oh, wow!”—as much delighted that Marguery wanted to look her best for him as he was dejected that he couldn’t go in. “What is an allergic reaction?” he asked; and when Boyle explained, he asked curiously, “But what was she allergic to?”
Boyle tamped his pipe, considering. “It could be a lot of things,” he said at last. “Mold spores, for instance. That vault’s been wet for years; it’s probably full of them. How about yourself?”
“What about myself?”
“Are you having any allergic symptoms? Things like sneezing, itching, dizziness, hoarseness—anything like that? Look, as long as you’re here, why don’t we get the medics to check you out?”
“I don’t see any reason to be checked out,” Lysander said.
“But Marguery would want you to,” Boyle assured him. “It only takes a minute to get a sample, and it doesn’t hurt.”
It took a lot longer than a minute, counting the time for dropping his pants and stretching out, face down, while a gum-chewing young woman in one of the pale green uniforms poked for a soft spot in the fleshy part of his hip; and the part about it not hurting wasn’t true, either. The pokes with the woman’s finger were only annoying—well, “disturbing” was a better word, because Sandy was very conscious of the fact that she was female and he was exposed, and he had not been touched by any other human female but Marguery in such an intimate way. But when the woman had found a spot she liked the next thing was a click and a prod and a sudden sharp stabbing feeling, as though a rattlesnake had bitten him on the butt.
Sandy rolled instinctively away, shouting in astonishment, resentment, and hurt. When he looked around he saw the woman holding up a spring-loaded needle as long as the first joint of his thumb. “Please hold still,” she ordered, annoyed. “It’s only a cell sample, after all . . . There. You can go now.”
Full of vexation, Lysander went back into the waiting room. He did not smile when he saw Hamilton Boyle standing there, puffing his pipe right under a large “No Smoking” sign. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” Boyle asked genially.
“It was bad enough,” Lysander growled, rubbing his buttock. “Now can I see Marguery?”
Boyle shook his head regretfully: “I’m afraid not. She’s asleep, and they don’t want her disturbed.”
Lysander blinked at him, suddenly worried. “But they said she was doing well!”
“And so she is, my boy! It’s just that she’s had a close call, and so they want to keep her until they get some test results. She ought to be fine tomorrow morning. You can see her then, I’m sure—maybe even take her home.”
“Take her home?” Lysander felt a sudden glow. “That’ll be fine.” He thought for a minute, then had an inspiration. “Flowers! It is an Earth custom to send flowers to people in hospitals, isn’t it? Where does one get flowers?”
But Boyle was shaking his head, amused but tolerant. “It’s late, Sandy,” he pointed out. “The florists are all closed. You can bring some in the morning if you want to, but right now I think I ought to drive you home. My car’s in the lot.”
When they got to the car Boyle drove efficiently and fast, but when they reached the hotel he paused before getting out. ‘There’s one thing I’m kind of curious about, Sandy,” he said. “Did you see your friend Bottom’s speech on television?”
“Not really. I didn’t pay much attention.”
Boyle nodded. “Most of what he said was old stuff, if you don’t mind my saying so—we’ve done a pretty good job of working out detox systems for the soil and water ourselves. Had to, you know. There was just one little thing. Bottom said the Hakh’hli were going to start field trials themselves.”
“Yes? Why shouldn’t they?”
Boyle pursed his lips. “Perhaps there’s no reason. Only he said they wanted to do it in conjunction with the railgun project they want us to build for them. In Africa.”
Lysander shrugged. “Why not? It couldn’t do much harm there, could it?”
“But it couldn’t do much good, either, Sandy. Africa’s about the least affected continent as far as acid rain and heavy metals and so on are concerned. The Hakh’hli seem to be very interested in it, though. I wondered if you might know why?”
Lysander shook his head. “You’d have to ask ChinTekki-tho that,” he said. But as a matter of fact he had a pretty good idea what the answer would be, and an even better one that Hamilton Boyle would not get that answer from ChinTekki-tho.
Chapter 20
It may be that the disease called “AIDS” originated in Africa—the source was never entirely clear. It is certain that it ended there, and it ended the human population of Africa with it. By the time the Star War began ten thousand men and women were dying every day, worldwide. A year later it was a hundred thousand a day. The vaccine came along in time to save the remaining millions in most of the world. But in Africa there simply was not enough of anything to deal with the problem. While America was frantically diking and poldering its coastlines against the rising seas, while Europe was trying to save its crops from scouring winds and sudden freezes and ultraviolet burn, no one had energy to spare for helping the “emerging” countries of the Third World. They were thrown on their own resources, and they didn’t have enough resources for the job. Now Africa’s surviving populations of elephants, gorillas, rhinos, and tsetse flies are reclaiming their old ranges. They don’t have to compete with human poachers or farmers anymore, because the human beings are dead. AIDS didn’t kill the Africans. Neglect did.
For the first time since his landing on Earth, Lysander slept the whole night through. It was broad daylight when he woke, and he would undoubtedly have slept longer if Polly hadn’t wakened him. She wasn’t gentle. She shook him and shouted peremptorily in his ear. “Get up, Lysander! ChinTekki-tho wishes to speak to you, at once and not after any delay. Come quickly!”
Unhurriedly, Lysander opened his eyes and looked at her. “I will come,” he said, “since I have questions to ask ChinTekki-tho. Tell him I will be there in some few minutes.”