“Fool!” I snapped. “Don’t you think if any orders had come in I’d have told you? Here!” I grabbed out my credenza and thrust it at him. ” You look from now on! Keep it until your damned orders come in, and leave me alone!”
I set off down the corridor to my room, but he followed me swiftly. “Can’t we go somewhere else? Isn’t there anything else to do around here?” he pleaded.
“No! But here’s an order for you, you imbecile!” I turned on him. ” Go to your room and stay there !!”
His reaction was extraordinary. All the color drained from his face; with a queer frightened look he dodged around me and stumbled down the corridor to his room. I went into my own quarters, feeling guilty again. What could be wrong with the creature? Well, I hadn’t made him the way he was, anyway; and surely I’d played host beyond the call of duty. Perhaps he’d let me get a full night’s sleep now.
Dawn next day found me creeping from my room, carrying a real volume of Schiller and the envelope containing the access code strip. I left the stockade and descended the steep path into the cove. The old shipyard was still being used for carpentry, and the forge and tannery were down here too; but it was still so early that there was no one about to see me hurry across the footbridge and disappear into the woods on the other side of the stream. I found a clearing under a stand of red pines with a floor of dry brown needles; and there I settled down happily, took out Mendoza’s letter, and accessed the code at last.
Instantly my mind was ringing with Latin names and three-dimensional images of growing things and their uses. To my astonishment I realized that acorn meal from Quercus agrifolia, if left to mold, produced a useful antibiotic. And the leaves of Rubus ursinus could be used against dysentery? Really? And, my goodness, what a lot of uses for Asclepias speciosa, which was nothing more than milkweed!
Oh, well. Doubtless I’d find dozens of interesting little weeds next time I went exploring. For now, however, I intended to stay where I was until Courier got his damned orders and took his much-desired leave. I was thoroughly weary of him. I yawned, stretched out my boots and immersed myself in Schiller’s poems.
What a pleasant morning I had. Before long the forge started up, and a breeze brought me the hot smell of charcoal and the bell-note of hammer on anvil. At the bottom of my glade the stream rushed and chattered along, brown as tea. It was a holy stream, I remembered with amusement; not long ago a visiting priest had blessed it, and consecrated it, and now we had an unlimited supply of holy water. How thoughtful of the reverend father! Just what was needed on the frontier.
My idyll was shattered by no end of commotion at the forge. I jumped up and ran to the edge of my clearing, where I beheld Konstantin the smith, hip-deep in the stream, splashing and stumbling in a circle. He was trying to shake off a tiny mongrel dog, which had hold of the seat of his trousers with a positive death-grip and swung by its clamped teeth, growling ferociously. Konstantin sobbed oaths upon the little cur, imploring a whole host of blessed saints to smash it like a cockroach. From the bank of the stream four little naked Indians watched with solemn black eyes.
“What happened?” I ran to them.
“Tsar bit him,” replied the tallest of the children.
“Vasilii Vasilievich!” wept the blacksmith. “Help me, in God’s Holy Name! Get it off me !”
“For heaven’s sake, man, it’s the size of a rat! Why did the doggie bite him?” I turned again to the boy.
“He came running out here with his pants on fire,” the child replied. “It was neat. Then he jumped in the water where we were swimming. We jumped out and Tsar jumped in to bite him. He’s a brave dog.”
That was when I realized that it wasn’t Konstantin’s trousers the dog had seized with such energy. No wonder he was crying. I waded hastily into the stream and somehow prised Tsar loose, but he had tasted blood and yapped viciously for more. I held him out at arm’s length, squeaking and struggling, as I bent to examine poor Konstantin’s backside.
Yes, the seat of the trousers had quite burnt away, and in addition to the dog bite he had a thoroughly ugly second-degree burn on either buttock.
“Tsk! This is a serious burn, my friend,” I told him.
“I know that, you idiot!” he groaned. “I mean—excuse me—can’t you do something about it? I’m suffering the pains of Hell!”
“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.