Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1)

by Connie Willis

however, that they are based in solid historical fact.” Solid historical fact. References to fevers and maladies of the chest that could be anything, blood poisoning or typhus or any of a hundred nameless infections. All of which was beside the point. “The virus cannot have come through the net,” he said. “Drops have been made to the Pandemic, to World War I battles in which mustard gas was used, to Tel Aviv. Twentieth Century sent detection equipment to the site of St. Paul’s two days after the pinpoint was dropped. Nothing comes through.” “So you say.” He held up a printout. “Probability indicates a .003 percent possibility of a microorganism being transmitted through the net and a 22.1 percent chance of a viable myxovirus being within the critical area when the net was opened.” “Where in God’s name do you get these figures?” Dunworthy said. “Pull them out of a hat? According to Probability,” he said, putting a nasty emphasis on the word, “there was only a .04 percent chance of anyone’s being present when Kivrin went through, a possibility you considered statistically insignificant.” “Viruses are exceptionally sturdy organisms,”