Dr. Pori the mathematics teacher, seated on Ezekiel’s left, touches him on the shoulder. “Zeke?”
“He’s just tired from his studies,” says Ezekiel’s mother, but to Konstance Ezekiel looks worse than tired.
Father comes into the Commissary with bits of compost stuck in his eyebrows. “You missed the conference with Mrs. Chen,” says Mother. “And you have dirt on your face.”
“Apologies,” says Father. He tugs a leaf from his beard and pops it in his mouth and winks at Konstance.
“How’s our little pine tree today, Father?” asks Konstance.
“On track to punch through the ceiling before you’re twenty.”
They chew their beefsteaks, and Mother embarks on a more inspiring tack, how Konstance ought to feel more pride to be part of this enterprise, that the crew of the Argos represents the future of the species, they exemplify hope and discovery, courage and endurance, they’re widening the window of possibility, shepherding the cumulative wisdom of humanity into a new dawn, and in the meantime why not spend more time with her in the Games Section? How about Rainforest Run, where you tap floating coins with a glowing wand, or Corvi’s Paradox, excellent for the reflexes—but now Ezekiel Lee is grinding his forehead into the table.
“Sybil,” asks Mrs. Lee, rising from her seat, “what’s wrong with Ezekiel?” and the boy rears back, moans, and falls off his stool.
There are gasps. Someone says, “What’s happening?” Mother calls out to Sybil again while Mrs. Lee lifts Ezekiel’s head and sets it in her lap and Father shouts for Dr. Cha, and that’s when Ezekiel retches black vomit all over his mother.
Mother shrieks. Father drags Konstance away from the table. The vomit is on Mrs. Lee’s throat and in her hair, it’s on the legs of Dr. Pori’s worksuit, and everyone in the Commissary is backing away from their meals, astonished, and Father is rushing Konstance into the corridor as Sybil says, Initiating Quarantine Level One, all nonessential personnel to their compartments immediately.
* * *
Inside Compartment 17, Mother makes Konstance sanitize her arms to her armpits. Four times she asks Sybil to check their vital signs.
Pulse and respiration rates stable, says Sybil. Blood pressure normal.
Mother climbs on her Perambulator and touches her Vizer and within seconds she’s speed-whispering to people in the Library: “—how do we know it’s not infectious—” and “—hope Sara Jane sterilized everything—” and “—aside from births, what has Dr. Cha seen, really? A few burns, a broken arm, some deaths from old age?”
Father squeezes Konstance’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right. Go to the Library and finish your school day.” He slips out the door and Konstance sits with her back against the wall and Mother paces, chin jutted, forehead creased, and Konstance goes to the door and presses it.
“Sybil, why won’t the door open?”
Only essential personnel are allowed to circulate right now, Konstance.
She sees Ezekiel wince at the lights, fall off his stool. Is it safe for Father to be out there? Is it safe in here?
She steps onto her own Perambulator, beside her mother’s, and touches her Vizer.
In the Library grown-ups gesticulate around tables while cyclones of documents whirl above them. Mrs. Chen herds the teenagers up a ladder to a table on the second tier and sets an orange volume in the center. Ramón and Jessi Ko and Omicron Philips and Ezekiel’s little brother Tayvon watch as a foot-tall woman in a light-blue worksuit with the word ILIUM stitched on the breast emerges from the book. If at some point during your long voyage, she says, it becomes necessary to quarantine in your compartments, be sure to stick to your routines. Exercise daily, seek out fellow crew members in the Library, and…
Ramón says, “You hear about people vomiting but to actually see it?” and Jessi Ko says, “I hear Quarantine One lasts seven days no matter what,” and Omicron says, “I hear Quarantine Two lasts two months,” and Konstance says, “I hope your brother feels better soon, Tayvon,” and Tayvon bunches his eyebrows like he does when he’s concentrating on a mathematics problem.
Below them Mrs. Chen crosses the atrium and joins grown-ups around a table, images of cells and bacteria and viruses rotating in the space between them. Ramón says, “Let’s go play Ninefold Darkness,” and the four of them scamper up a ladder toward the Games Section, and Konstance watches the flying books a moment longer, then takes a slip of paper from the box in the center of the table, writes Atlas, and drops it into the slot.