Facts Relating to the Arrest of Dr. Kalugin

“Well, er, of course. Sit down in the water again while I determine a course of treatment for you.” What a chance to show off my new knowledge of the local healing herbs! I accessed hurriedly. Let’s see, what might be growing here that was useful for burns? Sambucus canadensis, of course! That was the native elderberry tree, wasn’t it? Hadn’t I seen one growing along the bank near here? I turned and waded ashore, holding out Tsar to his master. The dog’s growling subsided like a teakettle taken off the fire.

“Listen to me, children! There’s an elder tree growing up there on the bank. Perhaps your mommies use the leaves to make poultices? Yes? No? Well, will you be good children and fetch me some branches so I can make a soothing poultice for this poor man?” I implored. Up on the bluff a small crowd of colonists had gathered, drawn by all the noise.

“Vasilii Vasilievich, I’m dying!” moaned the blacksmith, writhing in the water. “Oh, Holy Saints, oh, Mother of God, why did I ever leave Irkutsk for this savage place?”

“All right,” chorused the little Indians, and scampered away bright-eyed with excitement. Konstantin howled and prayed until they returned bearing green branches laden down with tiny blue berries. I gathered them up, confused. What did one do with them, exactly? Tsar’s master knew an indecisive adult when he saw one, fortunately.

“You pound them up on a rock!” he yelled helpfully. “Want us to do it?” Without waiting for a reply he grabbed up a water-worn cobble and began mashing the berries into a slimy mess on the top of a boulder. The other children crowded around him while Tsar stalked stiff-legged along the bank, snarling at Konstantin.

In no time at all they’d reduced leaves and berries and all to a nasty-looking goo.

“All right, Konstantin Kirillovich,” I told him, “please rise from the water. I’ve got an excellent native salve that’ll take the pain away.” I scooped up a handful of the muck and prepared to clap it on his seared derriere, while the children looked on expectantly.

And, well, my nerve gave way. How could this horrible stuff help a burn like that? I found myself digging into my coat for the little book of skin repair tissue we field agents carry. Yes, I know it’s forbidden! But, you know, the truth is, our medicine works just as well on mortals as it works on us. Stealthily I tore out three or four of the sheets and stuck them on the blacksmith’s behind, but he caught a glimpse of what I was doing over his shoulder.

“ Prayers you’re putting on my ass?” he screamed. “Are you crazy?”

“No!” I smeared the elderberry poultice on to disguise what I’d done. “That was merely, um, medical parchment, very useful in forming a base for the compound, you see—”

“Listen, you big St. Petersburg pansy—” he grated; then a remarkable expression crossed his face as the drugs in the skin replacement were released into his system. “The pain’s gone!” he gasped. He reached behind and felt himself; then crouched down in the water to wash off the salve. By the time he rose, dripping, the synthetic skin had fused with his own and looked fresh and pink as on the day of his birth.

“Hooray!” yelled the children, jumping up and down in triumph, while Tsar went mad with barking.

“It’s healed, ” Konstantin stated in wonderment. Then he stared down at the swirling water. “It must have been this stream! I was here when the little father blessed it! It’s a miracle! The holy water has worked a miracle!”

I squelched wearily back up the bank, as his cries brought spectators from the bluff down for a closer look at the Miracle of the Holy Stream. Courier was not among them, at least. Ought I go see if he’d finally got his orders and gone? Perhaps I should go call on the Munin family to see how Andrei Efimovich’s leg was mending. Perhaps I should look for specimens of Asclepias speciosa. There were a thousand better things to concern myself with than a difficult fellow operative. I was supposed to be a doctor, wasn’t I?

And so I resolutely put Courier out of my mind and spent the rest of the day trudging from hut to house, with the intention of getting to know my patients better. I was not particularly successful; anyone who had the least ache or pain had run down to the Holy Stream and was bathing in its icy waters. Not necessarily bad for business: I might have a few cases of pneumonia by the week’s end. But I did lance an abscessed gum for a Kashaya woman, and recommend a salve for a Creole baby’s flea bites; so I was of some use to my mortal community.