Читать книгу Darwin’s Children - Greg Bear - Страница 31

As they drove Stella remembered many such trips. She lay in the backseat, nose burning, arms folded tightly, fingers and toes itching, her head in Kaye’s lap and when Kaye drove, in Mitch’s.

Mitch stroked her hair and looked down on her. Sometimes she slept. For a time, the clouds and then the sun through the car windows filled her up. Thoughts ran around in her head like mice. Even with her parents, she hated to admit, she was alone. She hated those thoughts. She thought instead of Will and Kevin and Mabel or Maybelle and how they had suffered because their parents were stupid or mean or both.

The car stopped at a service station. Late afternoon sun reflected from a shiny steel sign and hurt Stella’s eyes as she pushed through the hollow metal door into the restroom. The restroom was small and empty and forbidding, the walls covered with chipped, dirty tile. She threw up in the toilet and wiped her face and mouth.

Now the backs of her ears stung as if little bees were poking her. In the mirror, she saw that her cheeks would not make colors. They were as pale as Kaye’s. Stella wondered if she was changing, becoming more like her mother. Maybe being a virus child was something you got over, like a birthmark that faded away.

Kaye felt her daughter’s forehead as Mitch drove.

The sun had set and the storm had passed.

Stella lay in Kaye’s lap, face almost buried. She was breathing heavily. “Roll over, sweetie,” Kaye said. Stella rolled over. “Your face is hot.”

“I threw up back there,” Stella said.

“How far to the next house?” Kaye asked Mitch.

“The map says twenty miles. We’ll be in Pittsburgh soon.”

“I think she’s sick,” Kaye said.

“It isn’t Shiver, is it, Kaye?” Stella asked.

“You don’t get Shiver, honey.”

“Everything hurts. Is it mumps?”

“You’ve had shots for everything.” But Kaye knew that couldn’t possibly be true. Nobody knew what susceptibilities the new children might have. Stella had never been sick, not with colds or flu; she had never even had a bacterial infection. Kaye had thought the new children might have improved immune systems. Mitch had not supported this theory, however, and they had given Stella all the proper immunizations, one by one, after the FDA and the CDC had grudgingly approved the old vaccines for the new children.

“An aspirin might help,” Stella said.

“An aspirin would make you ill,” Kaye said. “You know that.”

“Tylenol,” Stella added, swallowing.

Kaye poured her some water from a bottle and lifted her head for a drink. “That’s bad, too,” Kaye murmured. “You are very special, honey.”

She pulled back Stella’s eyelids, one at a time. The irises were bland, the little gold flecks clouded. Stella’s pupils were like pinpricks. Her daughter’s eyes were as expressionless as her cheeks. “So fast,” Kaye said. She set Stella down into a pillow in the corner of the backseat and leaned forward to whisper into Mitch’s ear. “It could be what the dead girl had.”

“Shit,” Mitch said.

“It isn’t respiratory, not yet, but she’s hot. Maybe a hundred and four, a hundred and five. I can’t find the thermometer in the first aid kit.”

“I put it there,” Mitch said.

“I can’t find it. We’ll get one in Pittsburgh.”

“A doctor,” Mitch said.

“At the safe house,” Kaye said. “We need a specialist.” She was working to stay calm. She had never seen her daughter with a fever, her cheeks and eyes so bland.

The car sped up.

“Keep to the speed limit,” Kaye said.

“No guarantees,” Mitch said.