It began three days later.
Eunice woke up... wrong.
It wasn't a "sickness." It was an annoyance. A dull, persistent headache, low in the back of her skull. A strange, woolly fatigue. And a... a queasiness.
"Must be that... that stew," she mumbled, pushing herself up. "You... you did... cook the beef long enough, right?"
"Two days," Karlman said, affronted. "It was... 'procedurally correct.'"
"Well," she said, "something's... off."
She was a 47-year-old woman with, she assumed, the flu. A normal, boring, human illness. It was almost... a relief. In their world, a "sickness" was never just a sickness. It was a complication. It was a curse. This just felt... mundane.
She managed it. She was an 'A-type.' She took ibuprofen for the headache. She drank ginger tea for the nausea. She went to her garden.
But... she felt... weak.
"Go... go back to bed," Karlman said, his voice tight. He was hovering.
"I'm fine, Karlman. I'm just... 'under the weather.'"
"You're not 'fine,'" he said. His 'A-type' analysis was already kicking in. "Your... your skin... is... pale."
"It's always pale. We live in a permanent fog."
"And... you're... hot." He put his hand, not on her forehead, but on her wrist. The data. "You have a fever."
His panic was immediate. It was not a loud panic. It was a cold, sharp, analytic panic.
The last time...
The last time... fever... abdominal...
He was, immediately, back in the yellow-lit ER. He was back to sepsis.
"Eunice," he said, his voice a flat, cold command. "Go. Lie down. Now."
The CEO was back.
Eunice, too tired to fight, sighed. "Fine. You're... hovering."
"I'm managing," he retorted.
For two days, he "managed." He took her temperature every hour. He graphed it. '99.8... 99.4... 100.1... 99.7.' It was low-grade, but persistent.
He made her broth. He tracked her fluid intake.
"Any... any pain?" he asked, his voice carefully casual. "Abdominal? Any... pulling?"
"No," Eunice said, her eyes closed. "It's... it's not the... the site, Karlman. It's... it's a headache. And... I'm... I'm dizzy. Just... let me... sleep."
He let her sleep. And he sat in the chair, in the dark, and he watched her.
He was terrified. The "curse"... it wasn't finished. The "poison" was back. The "jar" on the mantel... it was a lie.
The war wasn't over.