chunk: Shortly after sending Kivrin to the 14th century, Badri Chaudhuri, the technician who set the time travel coordinates for Kivrin's trip, collapses suddenly, an early victim of a deadly new influenza epidemic that then disrupts the university and eventually leads to the entire city's being quarantined. The time traveler Kivrin also falls ill as soon as she arrives in the past.  She awakens, after several days of fever and delirium, at a nearby manor, whose residents have nursed her. Being moved by her rescuers caused her to lose track of where the "drop point" is (in order to return home, she must return to the exact location where she arrived, when the gateway opens at a prearranged time).