Free Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

here. Pulse one ten. BP one hundred over sixty. I'm doing a blood screen." She tore open a gauze wipe, swabbed at the arm without the bracelet, tore open another packet.
    Drugs or illegal endorphins. That would account for his agitated manner, his disconnected speech. But if he used, it would have shown up on the beginning-of-term screen, and he couldn't possibly have worked the elaborate calculations of the net if he was using. There's something wrong.
    Mary swabbed at the arm again and slid a cannula under the skin. Badri's eyelids fluttered open.
    "Badri," Mary said. "Can you hear me?" She reached in her coat pocket and produced a bright red capsule. "I need to give you your temp," she said and held it to his lips, but he didn't give any indication he'd heard.
    She put the capsule back in her pocket and began rummaging in the kit. "Tell me when the reads come up on that cannula," she said to Dunworthy, taking everything out of the wallet and then putting it back in. She laid the kit down and started through her handbag. "I thought I had a skin-temp thermometer with me," she said.
    "The reads are up," Dunworthy said.
    Mary picked her bleeper up and began reading the numbers into it.
    Badri opened his eyes. "You have to ... " he said, and closed them again. "So cold," he murmured.
    Dunworthy took off his overcoat, but it was too wet to lay over him. He looked helplessly around the room for something to cover him with. If this had happened before Kivrin left they could have used that blanket of a cloak she'd been wearing. Badri's jacket was wadded underneath the console. He laid it sideways over him.
    "Freezing," Badri murmured, and began to shiver.
    Mary, still reciting reads into the bleeper, looked sharply across at him. "What did he say?"
    Badri murmured something else and then said clearly, "Headache."
    "Headache," Mary said. "Do you feel nauseated?"
    He moved his head a little to indicate no. "When was -- " he said and clutched at her arm.
    She put her hand over his, frowned, and pressed her other hand to his forehead.
    "He's got a fever," she said.
    "There's something wrong," Badri said, and closed his eyes. His hand let go of her arm and dropped back to the floor.
    Mary picked his limp arm up, looked at the reads, and felt his forehead again. "Where is that damned skin-temp?" she said, and began rummaging through the wallet again.
    The bleeper chimed. "They're here," she said. "Somebody go show them the way in." She patted Badri's chest. "Just lie still."
    They were already at the door when Dunworthy opened it. Two medics from Infirmary pushed through carrying kits the size of steamer trunks.
    "Immediate transport," Mary said before they could get the trunks open. She got up off her knees. "Fetch the stretcher," she said to the female medic. "And get me a skin-temp and a sucrose drip."
    "I assumed Twentieth Century's personnel had been screened for dorphs and drugs," Gilchrist said.
    One of the medics knocked past him with a pump feed.
    "Mediaeval would never allow -- " He stepped out of the way as the other one came in with the stretcher.
    "Is this a drugover?" the male medic said, glancing at Gilchrist.
    "No," Mary said. "Did you bring the skin-temp?"
    "We don't have one," he said, plugging the feed into the shunt. "Just a thermistor and temps. We'll have to wait till we get him in." He held the plastic bag over his head for a minute till the grav feed kicked the motor on and then taped the bag to Badri's chest.
    The female medic took the jacket of Badri and covered him with a gray blanket. "Cold," Badri said. "You have to -- "
    "What do I have to do?" Dunworthy said.
    "The fix -- "
    "One, two," the medics said in unison, and rolled him onto the stretcher.
    "James, Mr. Gilchrist, I'll need you to come to hospital with me to fill out his admission forms," Mary said. "And I'll need his medical history. One of you can come in the ambulance, and the other follow."
    Dunworthy didn't wait to argue with Gilchrist over which