Facts Relating to the Arrest of Dr. Kalugin

Kostromitinov rolled his eyes. “How should you know? Haven’t you ever heard that he who plays the greatest fool often lays the deepest plots?” Truer than you know, I thought. “But I suppose there’s nothing to be done now, is there? Pull yourself together, Vasilii Vasilievich. Why don’t you go to the pantry and brace yourself with a shot of vodka? And can you vouch for this desperate character’s behavior after I leave again tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir.” I replied weakly, and stumbled past him into the kitchen, where I took his advice and had a shot of vodka. In fact, I took his advice three times.

“Kalugin!” My troubled sleep ended with a jolt. It was pitch black in my room, but an apparition at the foot of my bed glowed by infrared like the fires of Hell. I felt an involuntary desire to cross myself. It was only Courier standing there, after all.

“What is it?”

“Have you got my orders?”

“Dear God, what time is it?” I groaned, and checked my internal chronometer. “Courier, it’s four o’clock in the morning!”

“Have you got my orders?” he repeated, louder this time.

“Ssh! Let me see if they’ve come,” I grumbled, sitting up and fumbling for my credenza. I opened it and looked for messages. “No, Courier, I’m sorry. I’ll look again later. Why don’t you go back to bed, now?”

He opened his mouth as if to say something; sighed loudly instead, and went away.

Of course I failed utterly to go back to sleep after that. I wondered, as I tried to beat comfort into my leaden pillow, whether mortals would envy us our infinitely prolonged existence if they knew it meant an infinite number of Four A.M.s like this one.

In any case it was a chilled and blear-eyed immortal who ordered hot tea and settled down by the fire in the deserted officers’ mess to enjoy it. Need I tell you that my pleasure was short-lived? For here came Courier, with his traveling-bag in his hand, pacing toward me like a dog in search of its master.

“Have you got my orders?” he wanted to know.

“Not yet.” I sipped my tea.

“You didn’t even look!”

“I’d hear the signal if a message came in,” I told him. “However, if it will make you feel better—” I took out the credenza and showed him. After staring at it a moment he sank down on a bench. He looked so miserable it was impossible not to feel sorry for him.

“Would you like any breakfast?” I inquired. “I can order you a bowl of kasha. The cook is awake.” He nodded glumly and I went out to fetch it for him. When it arrived he cheered up quite a bit, became pleasant and talkative, praised kasha to the skies for its flavor, its aroma and its obvious nutritive qualities: but when it was gone he fell silent again, with a queer sullenness to his expression I had not noticed previously. He began to beat out a rhythm on the table with his hands. I finished my tea, drew a deep breath and volunteered:

“Well, since it seems you’ll be my guest a trifle longer than we’d anticipated, would you like to explore the surrounding countryside today? We can borrow a pair of saddle horses from the stables.”

Courier’s face smoothed out like untroubled water. He jumped to his feet.

“You bet! Let’s go!”

We departed the colony while it was still half-asleep, white smoke curling up from its chimneys and Indian day laborers straggling in across its fields from their village nearby. Courier’s horse was skittish and uneasy, but I must say he was a superb rider, controlling with an iron hand an animal that clearly wanted to bolt and run. I myself ride like a sack of flour; there were no Cossacks amongst my mortal gene donors, I fear. My mount looked over its shoulder at me in what I fancied was pitying contempt. Horses always know.

Courier seemed quite happy to spur his horse splashing along dark streams, in the deep shadow under enormous trees, exclaiming over their vastness. (“Gosh! This looks like where The Return of the Jedi was shot!”) Sometimes we’d come down into an open valley and follow a watercourse through willow and alder thickets, near villages where Indians fished for salmon, or we’d skirt wide marshlands where a single egret stood motionless, like a white flame. I played the tour docent and explained as much as I knew of the local natural history, though of course I’d have done better if I’d had a chance to access Mendoza’s codes, but Courier didn’t seem to mind. He shouted his rapture at encountering a madrone tree scarlet with berries, or a spray of flame-pink maple leaves backlit by a sunbeam against moss green as emeralds.

As the afternoon lengthened I led us back in a loop to the great coastal ridge, and timed our progress up its leeward side so that we came to the crest just as the sun was setting.