Facts Relating to the Arrest of Dr. Kalugin Read online

  Facts Relating to the Arrest of Dr. Kalugin

  Kage Baker

  Facts Relating to the Arrest of Dr. Kalugin

  by Kage Baker

  .… One of the lasting enigmas in the history of the Ross settlement is that of Vasilii Kalugin, the medical officer or feldsher for the colonists. We know nothing of his origins prior to his arrival at Ross in 1831, although it can be guessed that he had some familiarity with botany as well as his obvious medical training … nor is much known of the circumstances surrounding his arrest within two months after his arrival at the settlement, and still less concerning his apparent pardon and reinstatement … Finally, his disappearance from the historical record after 1835 … presents certain problems in light of documents recently discovered in the Sitka archives …

  —Badenov’s Russian Expansion in the North Pacific, Harper/Fantod, 2089

  Oh, dear, that old tale. I’d prefer not to discuss that, if you don’t mind. No, really, you’d have nightmares. No? Well, you’re an exceptional Immortal, I must say, if you don’t. I’m sure the rest of us do. Very well then; the night and the storm will provide atmosphere, and we can’t go anywhere until dawn anyway. Shall I tell you what really happened, that night in 1831? Have another glass of tea and poke up the fire. No sneering now, please. This is a true story. Unfortunately.

  I was working for two Companies at once, you see. It so happened that my job with Dr. Zeus Inc. required me to assume a mortal identity and join the Russian-American Company, posing as a medico sent out to take care of the settlers in the Californian colony. The real job involved some clandestine salvage operations not far offshore, but they don’t enter into this story.

  I’d worked hard to prepare a mortal identity, too, I mean besides graying my hair. I had all manner of anecdotes about having been a surgeon in the Imperial Navy and patched up battle wounds. I thought that’s what they’d need in California: someone to stitch up grizzly bear bites and slashes from knife brawls. But no sooner had I arrived in Sitka than I was summoned to Baron Von Wrangel’s office and informed that I was to be a botanist, if you please! Oh, and a surgeon, too, but when I wasn’t amputating limbs I was to spend my every spare moment collecting any local plants with curative powers, interviewing the natives if necessary.

  Difficult man, Baron Von Wrangel. A man of science, to be sure, and limitless enthusiasm for exploration and study; but you wouldn’t want to work for him. And I wasn’t programmed for botany, you see! I’m scarcely able to tell a beet from a cabbage. I’ve been a Marine Operations Specialist for six centuries now.

  Well, before I left Sitka I transmitted a requisition to the Company—our Company—for an access code on the healing plants of the Nova Albion region. I’d just received a confirmation on my request when the Buldakov weighed anchor and left Alaska, so off I went to California in fond hopes the access code would catch up with me there.

  You’ve heard of the Ross colony, the Russian outpost north of San Francisco? It was supposed to grow produce to support Russia’s Alaskan colonies and turn a tidy profit for the Russian-American Company into the bargain. It lost money, as a matter of fact; but what a charming failure it was! On a headland above the blue Pacific, with beautiful golden mountains sloping up behind it and great dark groves of red pine trees along the skyline, and such a blue sky! Compared to Okhotsk it was a fairytale of eternal summer.

  The stockade there was faced with the biggest planks I’d ever seen, enormous those red trees were, but the gates stood open most of the time. Why? Because there was no danger from the local savages. Despite my use of the term they were no fools, politically or otherwise, and they knew that our presence there protected them from the depredations of the Spanish. Therefore, the local chieftains signed a treaty with us; and you may say what you like about my countrymen, but as far as I know the Russians are the only nation ever to keep a treaty with Native Americans.

  So it was a calm place, Ross, and I could sit calmly in the orchard outside the stockade. There I liked to work on my field credenza (resembling a calfskin volume of Schiller’s poems), and if a naked Indian ambled past with his fishing spear over his shoulder we’d merely wave at each other. On the day the Courier came I had been idling there all morning, typing up my daily report in a desultory way and watching the russet leaves drift down.

  “Vasilii Vasilievich!” someone roared, and looking up I beheld Iakov Babin striding through the trees. He was one of the settlers, a peasant who’d worked as a trapper for a time, settled down now with an Indian wife. A tough fellow with a nasty reputation, too, and he looked the part: stocky and muscular, with a wild flowing beard and ferocious tufted eyebrows, and a fixed glare that would have given Ivan the Terrible pause.

  “Hey, Vasilii Vasilievich!” he repeated, spurning windfall apples out of his way like so many severed heads as he advanced. I closed my credenza.

  “Good afternoon, Babin. How is your wife? Did the salve help?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Doc, I ain’t been home yet. I just come back from the Presidio.” He meant the handful of mud huts that would one day be San Francisco. “Jumped off the boat and been five hours on the trail.” He loomed over me and fixed both thumbs in his belt. “You know an Englishman by the name of Currier?”

  “Currier?” I scanned my memory. “I don’t believe so, no. Why?”

  “Maybe he’s a Yankee. I couldn’t tell what the polecat was, nohow, but he comes on board the Polifem at Yerba Buena and says he’s looking for Dr. Vasilii Kalugin, which is you. Says he’s from some Greek doctor. You ain’t sick, are you, Doc?”

  “No, certainly not!”

  “No, me and the boys reckoned it was pretty unlikely you’d caught something from a whore!” His hard eyes glinted with momentary good humor, and I was uncomfortably aware of the contempt in which he held me. It wasn’t personal: but I could read and write and wore clothes made in St. Petersburg, which made me a trifle limp in the wrist as far as he was concerned. “So anyway, he’s on his way here now. I got to warn you, Doc, watch out for him.”

  “Currier,” I mused aloud. Then I remembered my requisition. Of course! He must be the courier Dr. Zeus was sending with my access code. I improvised: “You know, I do have a maiden aunt in Minsk who put me in her will. Perhaps she’s died. Perhaps that’s what he’s here about. Not to worry, Babin.”

  Iakov Dmitrivich shook his bushy head. “He ain’t from Minsk, Doc. More likely from Hell! Me and the boys about figured he’s a dybbuk.”

  “Why on earth would you say that?” I frowned. Mortals who can detect the presence of cyborgs are rare, and in any case we’re all trained in a thousand little deceptions to avoid notice.

  “He ain’t right somehow.” Babin actually shivered. “The Indians noticed first, and they wouldn’t go near him, though he was real friendly when he come on board. But when we had to sit at anchor a couple days, ’cause the captain took his time about leaving, well, he took on about it like a woman! Sat in his cabin and cried! Brighted up some when we finally lifted anchor, but the longer we were on board the crazier he acted. By the time we finally dropped anchor in Port Rumiantsev we was damn glad to be rid of him, I tell you.”

  “Dear me.” I was at a loss. “Well, thank you, Babin. I’ll watch out for the fellow. Though if he’s bringing me a legacy I don’t suppose I’ll care whether he’s a dybbuk or not, eh?”

  Babin snorted at my feeble attempt at humor. “Just you watch him, Doc,” he muttered, and departed for the stockade.

  I signed off on my credenza and stood, brushing away leaves. Wandering out from the orchard, I looked up at the hills where the trail from Port Rumiantsev came down. Yes, there h
e was! A pale figure striding along, really rather faster than a mortal would go. Gracious, why hadn’t he taken a horse? I squinted my eyes, focusing long-range.

  He looked pale because he was wearing a suit of fawn linen, absurd at this season of the year, and tall buff suede boots. The whole cut of his clothing was indeed English; though he had somehow acquired one of our Russian conical fur hats and wore it jauntily on the back of his head. He was bounding down the trail with a traveling-bag slung over his shoulder, looking all about him with an expression of such fascinated delight one felt certain he was about to miss a step and come tumbling down the steep incline. Had he been a mortal he certainly must have fallen.

  I thrust my credenza in a coat pocket and transmitted: Quo Vadis?

  Huh? He turned his head sharply in my direction.

  Are you the courier?

  That’s me! Are you Kalugin? He was speaking Cinema Standard.

  Yes.

  Hey, that’s great! I’ve got an access code for you from Botanist Mendoza! Whyn’t you walk up to the road to meet me?

  Very well.

  He vanished into the great pine trees that grew along the stream and I trudged across the fields, sinking ankle-deep in frequent gopher holes. Long before I was able to reach the trees, he emerged from their green gloom and walked briskly to meet me, with his shadow stretching away across the fields behind him.

  “Marine Operations Kalugin?” Grinning he grabbed my hand and shook it heartily. It was a wide grin, he had a wide square jaw with a wide full mouth whose front teeth were slightly gapped. I remember that he had a deep dimple in his chin and greenish eyes. His color was ruddy, his hair thick and curling. None of us look old—unless we age ourselves cosmetically—but he looked astonishingly young.

  “Boy, I’m glad to see you. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had getting up here,” he told me. I concluded that, despite his youthful appearance, he must be one of the truly old operatives. Have you ever noticed that the older ones tend to fall back principally on Cinema Standard when mortals aren’t present? I’ve noticed it, anyway. I suppose they do it because perhaps there wasn’t any complex human language back in Paleolithic times when they were made, and so Cinema Standard became the first real language they ever learned, their mother tongue, so to speak.

  “Wouldn’t they loan you a horse at Port Rumiantsev?” I inquired. He widened his eyes in amazement.

  “Were there horses for rent there? Gosh, nobody told me. Hey, that Rumiantsev place, that’s Bodega Bay, isn’t it? Isn’t Hitchcock gonna film The Birds there?”

  “Some scenes, yes.” I smiled. “Tippi Hedrin is first attacked in that harbor. Are you a cinema enthusiast?”

  “Well, sure! And, boy, do things look different there now!” He giggled slightly, I suppose aware of the banality of his remark, and swung his bag down from his shoulder. “Well, I guess I’d better give you that access code.”

  From a narrow compartment he drew out an envelope, neatly addressed to me in Russian using Roman letters. “It’s in there.” He handed it to me.

  “Wonderful.” I tore the envelope open and peered inside. Wrapped in a thin sheet of notepaper was the filmy strip of code. I closed it up again carefully and tucked it deep in my pocket.

  “And the lady said to tell you—” his voice and face abruptly altered and I was hearing a woman’s voice, speaking smooth Cinema Standard with just the faintest steel of Old Spain: “This study was compiled in 1722 and while I don’t think any of the species described here have gone extinct since then, he should check with the local Indians. However, I’m quite sure he’ll find it comprehensive enough for his needs.”

  His face resumed its normal appearance and I applauded. “How marvelous! Is that a special subroutine for couriers?”

  He looked confused. ” I’m the Courier,” he said.

  “Yes, but—” There was an awkward pause while I tried to fathom what he meant, during which I became aware that a few of the settlers had come out of their huts and were staring at us. The Courier lifted his bag again, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Anyway. There’s your letter. What are my orders?” he asked me.

  “Orders?” I stared at him. “I have no orders for you.”

  His face went perfectly blank, a greater transformation than the moment previous; no more expression than a wax mannequin.

  “You haven’t got any orders for me?” he repeated wonderingly. “But you have to. Where am I supposed to go next?”

  “I don’t know, Mr.—er, dear me, you haven’t told me your name—”

  “Courier,” he informed me. Strange; but our etiquette, as you know, frowns on remarking upon a fellow cyborg’s personal appellation, so I blundered on:

  “Courier. My dear sir, I’m afraid I haven’t received any transmissions from Base since I’ve been here. Clearly there’s been some mistake. I’m sure they’ll send your orders any day now.”

  “But what am I supposed to do ?” His knuckles whitened on the handle of his bag.

  “Well—” I looked around uncomfortably. I could understand if he were irritated, but his flat incomprehension baffled me. “Perhaps you’d like to visit the colony here?”

  Instantly his face cleared. “Okay!” he said cheerfully. I glanced over at the little crowd of Indians and frontiersmen beginning to gather by the stockade.

  “We need to address the question of your cover identity, however. Your choice of clothing is a little unusual for a Russian,” I explained delicately. “Are you programmed to speak our language, at all?”

  “Sure!” he affirmed. In a flat Kievan accent he inquired: “’Say, Comrade, what time does the boat leave? Where can I catch the diligence for Moscow? Is this the road to the Volga ferry?’”

  “Very well … er … we’ll say you’re my late aunt’s lawyer’s clerk, and you’ve come all this way to deliver this important letter with news of her demise. You’ve also brought papers I must review and sign concerning her estate, so I’ve asked you to be my guest for a day or so.”

  “Got it.” He made a circle with his index finger and thumb. “I’m a clerk. So, let’s go! Show me around the place.”

  He surveyed the view in evident enjoyment as we crossed the headland toward the stockade. Everything pleased him: our villainous-looking Aleuts scraping a sea lion skin, the windmill turning on its low eminence, a field of pumpkins blazing red like harvest moons amid withering vines. “Hey, neat!” He elbowed me, pointing at them. “I guess in a couple of days you’ll have some swell jack o’lanterns, huh?”

  “If these people had ever heard of Halloween, certainly,” I replied. “You must remember, Courier, this is Russian America. And 1831.”

  “Oh.” He looked momentarily confused. “Sure it is. Sorry, I forgot.” He glanced down into the cove, where the stream flowed into the sea. “Gosh! What’s that down there? Say, is that a shipyard?” He ran to the edge of the bluff to look. “I don’t see any ships. Just some kayaks.”

  “Bidarkas,” I corrected him. “We used to build ships. They fell apart. And our wheat gets Wheat Rust due to the winter fogs, and our Aleut hunters have nothing much to do because the sea otters they were brought here to hunt had unfortunately been hunted nearly to extinction by the time this settlement was founded.” I shrugged apologetically. “We don’t seem to be able to accomplish much here.”

  “I guess not.” He gazed around. “But it’s so beautiful.”

  I felt a glow of friendship toward him. “Exactly, Courier! Look about you. No one is hungry here, because we do manage to raise enough to feed ourselves. Everyone is working together in peace, regardless of race. The climate is mild. Could you ask for a better description of Paradise? If only we weren’t supposed to be making a profit!”

  But he wasn’t listening to me. He was hastening ahead to look at the cemetery.

  “I have to see Everything,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  He was quite serious. He wanted to have the colony explained to him, f
rom the gopher holes and plough-scored rocks to the flag atop the mast in the stockade. Then he wanted to meet everyone. Everyone, I say: he even reached through the bars in the jail to shake hands with poor little Fedor Svinin, the ex-clerk who had embezzled ten years’ worth of salary to cover his gambling debts. “You don’t say? Poor old guy!” He would have pumped hands with equal enthusiasm with Kostromitinov, the General Manager, had Piotr Stepanovich not been visiting our farm at the river. That was all right: he shook hands with all the local Kashayas he could find, who stared at him in mute incomprehension; he shook hands with every one of our Aleuts, who smiled politely and then wiped their hands on their sealskin shirts. Courier didn’t notice; he didn’t hold still long enough, leaping away to exclaim over some new feature of the settlement he’d just noticed. Everyone, everything enchanted him.

  And really it was delightful, if a bit exhausting, to accompany someone who took such intense pleasure in the smallest details of mundane life. One saw through his eyes and the great trees looked bigger, the Indians more mysterious, the coastline more wild and romantic.

  Though I must say I seem to have been the only one who enjoyed his company; Babin had already been talking to the other Russians about my mysterious visitor, and the ones who weren’t superstitious drew their own smirking conclusions about this effusive pretty boy. So much for my ever earning their respect.

  Courier even approached Babin with his hand out, crying “Pleased to meet you, sir, my name’s Courier,” before Babin stepped back indignantly.

  “By the Black Goat hisself!” he spat. “As if I’d want to touch the likes of him, after the way he cut up on the Polifem !”

  Courier lowered his hand, looking hurt and bewildered, as Babin turned and stamped off. “What’s wrong with him ?” he asked me.

  “He, er, formed rather a poor opinion of you, I’m afraid. Apparently. When you were fellow passengers on the Polifem, ” I explained. “There seems to have been some unfortunate incident—?”