Dooms Day Book

Gilchrist and the rest of Mediaeval might be incompetent, but she wasn’t. She had learned Middle English and Church Latin and Anglo-Saxon. She had memorized the Latin masses and taught herself to embroider and milk a cow. She had come up with an identity and a rationale for being alone on the road between Oxford and Bath, and she had the interpreter and augmented stem cells and no appendix.

“She’ll do swimmingly,” Dunworthy said, “which will only serve to convince Gilchrist Mediaeval’s methods aren’t slipshod and dangerous.”

Gilchrist walked over to the console and handed the carryboard to Badri. Kivrin folded her hands again, closer to her face this time, her mouth nearly touching them, and began to speak into them.

Mary came closer and stood beside Dunworthy, clutching her handkerchief. “When I was nineteen—which was, oh, Lord, forty years ago, it doesn’t seem that long—my sister and I travelled all over Egypt,” she said. “It was during the Pandemic. Quarantines were being slapped on all about us, and the Israelis were shooting Americans on sight, but we didn’t care. I don’t think it even occurred to us that we might be in danger, that we might catch it or be mistaken for Americans. We wanted to see the Pyramids.”

Kivrin had stopped praying. Badri left his console and came over to where she was standing. He spoke to her for several minutes, the frown never leaving his face. She knelt and then lay down on her side next to the wagon, turning so she was on her back with one arm flung over her head and her skirts tangled about her legs. The tech arranged her skirts, pulled out the light measure, and paced around her, walked back to the console and spoke into the ear. Kivrin lay quite still, the blood on her forehead almost black under the light.

“Oh, dear, she looks so young,” Mary said.

Badri spoke into the ear, glared at the results on the screen, went back to Kivrin. He stepped over her, straddling her legs, and bent down to adjust her sleeve. He took a measurement, moved her arm so it was across her face as if warding off a blow from her attackers, measured again.

“Did you see the Pyramids?” Dunworthy said.

“What?” Mary said.

“When you were in Egypt. When you went tearing about the Middle East oblivious to danger. Did you get to see the Pyramids?”

“No. Cairo was put under quarantine the day we landed.” She looked at Kivrin, lying there on the floor. “But we saw the Valley of the Kings.”

Badri moved Kivrin’s arm a fraction of an inch, stood frowning at her for a moment, and then went back to the console. Gilchrist and Latimer followed him. Montoya stepped back to make room for all of them around the screen. Badri spoke into the console’s ear, and the semi-transparent shields began to lower into place, covering Kivrin like a veil.

“We were glad we went,” Mary said. “We came home without a scratch.”

The shields touched the ground, draped a little like Kivrin’s too-long skirts, stopped.

“Be careful,” Dunworthy whispered. Mary took hold of his hand.

Latimer and Gilchrist huddled in front of the screen, watching the sudden explosion of numbers. Montoya glanced at her digital. Badri leaned forward and opened the net. The air inside the shields glittered with sudden condensation.

“Don’t go,” Dunworthy said.

Transcript from the Doomsday Book

(000008-000242)

First entry. 23 December, 2054. Oxford. This will be a record of my historical observations of life in Oxfordshire, England, 12 December, 1320, to 28 December, 1320 (Old Style).

(Break)

Mr. Dunworthy, I’m calling this the Doomsday Book because it’s supposed to be a record of life in the Middle Ages, which is what William the Conqueror’s survey turned out to be, even though he intended it as a method of making sure he got every pound of gold and tax his tenants owed him.

I am also calling it the Doomsday Book because I would imagine that’s what you’d like to call it, you are so convinced something awful’s going to happen to me. I’m watching you in the observation area right now, telling poor Dr. Ahrens all the dreadful dangers of the 1300’s. You needn’t bother. She’s already warned me about time lag and every single mediaeval disease, in gruesome detail, even though I’m supposed to be immune to all of them. And warned me about the prevalence of rape in the 1300’s. And when I tell her I’ll be perfectly all right she doesn’t listen to me either. I will be perfectly all right, Mr. Dunworthy.

Of course you will already know that, and that I made it back in one piece and all according to schedule, by the time you get to hear this, so you won’t mind my teasing you a little. I know you are only concerned for me, and I know very well that without all your help and preparation I wouldn’t make it back in one piece or at all.