"Yes, I'll send Incan and her cub to your house as soon as both are strong enough to be moved." Galen gently pushed Zaylissa out the front door. "And I'll let you know at once of any changes in their condition. But they're stable now, you don't have to worry about them." Or stay a parseht longer.

The eastern horizon was already turning indigo; dawn was maybe an ahtset away. Although Galen didn't expect to see any visitors today, what with Chubla still firmly in the grip of the Elixir peddlers, he still had to keep the practice open in case somebody did finally see sense. He contemplated dozing on his examination table, even if it meant he'd feel as if he'd had wrestled with an ox in the evening.

Maybe he'd let Hamez keep watch today. The young Chimp had proven to be quite skilled — he'd do fine on his own, and Galen would be able to catch a few atseht of sleep in a real bed. If Hamez needed help, he'd only have to go upstairs to rouse him.

Galen firmly closed the door in Zaylissa's face and turned to lean against it with a sigh. Prila had not yet come in, so it fell to him and Hamez to clean the soiled instruments and bandages before the blood on them dried and attracted flies and other vermin.

The day never ends... and it hasn't even started!

Zana had prepared some tea, he discovered when he peeked into the kitchen, and had set the pot to the side of the oven to keep it hot. He poured three mugs and carried them into the examination room.

Hamez passed him in the door, carrying a tray with instruments; he was headed for the prep room where Prila cleaned everything for reuse. Laisa was scrubbing the table. Both stopped at once to accept their mug, and a companionable silence settled as everyone enjoyed their tea.

"I want to thank you for your help," Galen said. "And you, too, Laisa. Without you, we'd have lost both the mother and her baby."

Hamez raised his brows at that — apes never acknowledged a human's contribution, no matter how excellent — but was wise not to comment on his superior's eccentricity. Laisa blushed deeply, and bowed. "Thank you, vetes."

Galen futilely tried to suppress a yawn. "I expect this to happen again and again now, thanks to this cursed 'elixir'. Please call me at once if the humans in your quarter fall ill from that stuff and you need help."

Laisa shook her head. "Oh, that won't happen. Chief Voltis has forbidden the district-owned humans from taking the Elixir, or any of the public servants to give it to us, or order us to take it."

Galen and Hamez exchanged a look.

"I'm relieved to hear that," Galen sighed. "It's a pity that he can't just order the private citizens to have some common sense, too."

Hamez tiredly raised his mug to that; when they had finished their tea, all three of them hurried to clean up the examination room, and Galen sent Laisa home afterwards with the promise to come by once a day to look after Incan and her baby, at least until he had to send them back to Zaylissa.

"We really need something that Heron can't explain away," Galen turned to Hamez when they were alone again. "That Chief Voltis has forbidden the use of the elixir for his own humans clearly proves that he does believe us. Did you find anything with your, ah... powders and liquids that we can use?"

Hamez shook his head. "I expect to have the results in a day or two, vetes, I'm sorry, but I can't speed up the process of reducing the liquid to—"

Galen waved him off. "Just let me know as soon as you do have something."

His assistant bowed jerkily. "Of course, vetes, of course, at once!" He hesitated. "Do you think your client can help our cause in any way?"

"Zaylissa?" Galen snorted. "I don't expect anything from that woman except more tomfoolery. No, we're on our own here, Hamez." He patted the other ape's shoulder. "I need some sleep. You have the practice for today. Wake me if you can't keep your eyes open any longer."

He was fast asleep as soon as he fell into bed.

Hamez came to wake him a few atseht later; judging by the glare of the light and the heat in his room, Galen groggily estimated that it had to be noon.

"Any patients this morning?" he croaked. His throat was parched. He reached for the water jug beside his bed.

Hamez was hovering in the doorway, clearly uncomfortable to see his superior in this private state. "Nobody came to the practice while you were sleeping, vetes," he said.

"The Wonder Cure is taking care of all their troubles." Galen emptied his mug in one draw. The water was tepid and stale. "At least it gave me a few hours to make up for the night."

He glanced at the younger Chimp, who was valiantly fighting to keep his eyes open. "Go to bed, Hamez. I'll take over from here — not that I expect the afternoon to be any busier."

"Thank you, vetes." Hamez turned to leave, rubbing his face.

Galen fell back into his pillow, debating whether he should get up at all. If anyone did show up against all expectations, Prila would come to get him anyway, and a few parseht of waiting hadn't killed anyone. On the other hand, anyone who came to see doctor Kova today probably had a life-threatening emergency on their hands — something that even the most faithful believer didn't trust the Elixir to remedy. So maybe they didn't have those parsehts.

A late breakfast — or early lunch — later, Galen had already dismissed that line of reasoning again. Faithful believers would of course trust the Elixir to heal a raging fever, or a sliced artery, or a failing heart. Nobody had shown up at his door yet, and nobody would. The afternoon was stretching out before him, hot, bright, and full of silent rage. He had prepared a tea strong enough to tan his tongue, but even that couldn't cool his anger.

He wandered around the house, visiting Prila in the prep room, listening at Hamez' door — but all was silent behind it; his assistant was still asleep —, checking the mail in the basket by the front door and throwing away most of it. Went into his study without any idea what he wanted in there, standing in the middle of the room for a moment staring blankly at the opposite wall before leaving again. Climbed up the stairs again, this time going to his own bedroom where he had hidden away The Book and the letters from Melvin and Dolan, but felt too restless to continue copying the next chapter. Instead, he sat down to reread Dolan's latest letter.

It was already two months old; Dolan's letters only reached him occasionally, because the Freethinker didn't have the easy access to Ango's monastery that Melvin had. Galen had no idea how Dolan's letters reached Ango, and he didn't want to find out. The less everyone involved knew about the others, the less they could tell if they were caught by Urko's thugs.

Galen sincerely hoped that none of them would ever get caught. Of course, the best way to ensure that would be to stop writing those letters...

I'm not sure the average citizen is ready to hear that humans were once our masters, and we were nothing but mute and dumb animals, Dolan wrote. It is a step too far — several steps too far! — for even the most open-minded ape. I still propose that we circulate the chapters of this book of yours in reverse order, going backwards in time, so to speak, to slowly prepare our readers for this shocking revelation. And even then, I fear, we will lose most, if not all of them, to our cause. Some things might need to stay unsaid forever.

Galen hadn't written him back yet; mostly because he couldn't decide if he agreed with Dolan's estimation of his fellow apes, or not. Right now, he tended to agree with the other ape's pessimism — Chubla's eager embrace of expensive bottles of river water had certainly dealt a blow to his faith in simian intellect and common sense. You just had to present them with faked testimonials and a gripping stage performance, and they collectively put their brain in a jar and—

Apes simply didn't question the written word. After all, they had been taught from earliest age that the Holy Scrolls were truth everlasting. And that blind obedience then extended to anything put on a scroll, to the point that young girls demanded of their suitors to fit the mold of the fictitious heroes of their romantic adventure scrolls.

Galen stared unseeingly at the letter in his hand, not daring to disturb the insight forming in his mind. If apes accepted anything in writing...

He hastily put away the letter and sat down at his desk, reaching for a fresh scroll.

Writing a pamphlet denouncing the 'wonder cure' was simple; Galen had only needed to tone down the rage he was feeling during its revision. Copying said pamphlet in sufficient numbers was a different matter — after the third copy, Galen's hand was cramping, and no amount of shaking it out helped.

He had no idea how many apes lived in Chubla, but it had to be a few hundred. Chubla was the district's capital, and the most important trading hub north of the Iron Mountains, and had thus attracted quite a number of settlers. Even if he left out the apes who didn't have animals — few enough, since almost everyone kept some livestock — there were still too many to supply everyone with a pamphlet.

It had been a bad idea, Galen decided finally, born out of frustration. He looked up to see that the sun was already vanishing behind the rooftops; except for several trips to the treatment room to see how Incan and her baby were doing, he had sat at his desk all day.

His back was aching something fierce. He had wasted a whole afternoon on this pointless activity.

He still took the scroll downstairs to show it to Zana, who he had heard coming home from the shelter a while ago. She took it, eyes crinkling with amusement as she read through his tirade. Galen shifted on his feet, suddenly anxious that he had made a fool of himself.

She knew of the debacle at the circus; of course she knew. Galen had wavered for a moment — Prila had taken his and Hamez' robes home for cleaning and mending, and would've kept mum about the whole affair — but he had quickly admitted to himself that Zana would inevitably learn about it anyway, and in that case, he greatly preferred that she heard it from him first. She had been outraged, like the faithful companion she was, but her indignance had faded quickly: she was almost obsessively preoccupied with Boy these days.

"Well?" he asked when she had finished.

"I like it," she said to his relief. "It's very... passionate, but one can hardly dismiss your argument. Do you plan on handing it out to your patients' owners?"

Galen snorted softly. "And who would that be? Save for Zaylissa, nobody has shown up today, just like they didn't show up the days before. I had actually planned to pin a copy of this at every front door," he confessed, "but Chubla's too big for that. I can't write that many copies, and even if I could, I'd be a wizened old ape before I'd be finished."

Zana thoughtfully tapped the scroll against her chin. "Hmmm... yes, I see." She pondered the problem while they made their way to the living room, where Prila had prepared one of her delicious dinners. At least they'd be able to keep her, Galen thought morosely, since his basic income was paid out of Voltis' city treasury.

He drew out a chair for Zana, but instead of sitting down, she suddenly whirled around and pointed the rolled-up pamphlet at his chest. "Why don't you just pin this at the public announcement posts?"

The announcement posts were special trees, strategically distributed across town, where people could pin messages, advertisements, and anonymous complaints. They usually drew at least a few interested readers, people who liked to gossip, or had nothing better to do with their time. Galen didn't know how he felt joining the ranks of trash vendors, lonely hearts, and irate old apes yelling at the youth.

Well, with this pamphlet, he'd probably fit right in with the irate old codgers.

Zana must've seen some of his thoughts on his face. "I can try to type out your pamphlet," she suggested. "It could speed up things a bit, although I must warn you that I don't have a lot of experience with typewriters. But we could get a lot more pamphlets written in less time, so you could distribute them to people directly. Or... or you could have them printed! I think the Iron Mountains Herald accepts private printing orders."

The thought of Zana typing out hundreds of pamphlets, day after day, melted Galen's heart, but he shook his head. "I wouldn't want you to come to hate your typewriter," he teased. "Believe me, if it was about several dozen scrolls, I'd happily take you up on that offer, but we're talking about hundreds of them."

"Well then." Zana sat down. "Have them printed and hang them up at the announcement posts. If nothing else, it'll start a debate, and that's always good. Maybe apes who secretly had their doubts about that elixir will feel encouraged to voice them."

Galen sat down opposite of her, frowning. "But will that be enough? I fear that Heron and his cunning apes will be long gone by the time the truth finally dawns on our good Chublans. That seems to be their usual method. I usually wouldn't mind if people learned from their own mistakes, but since it's their humans and livestock who has to bear the consequences of their foolishness—"

"Sorry to disturb you, doctor," Prila stuck her head in. "There's an ape at the door saying he has an emergency on his farm, and if you would come out and see if you can do anything?"

Galen exchanged a look with Zana. "And so it begins," he muttered, and threw his napkin on the table. "At least he didn't try to cure it with even more wonder brew."

The ape turned out to be farmer Durog, who had at the time he turned up on Galen's doorstep, lost five piglets in the course of a single afternoon. "They were doing fine," he complained. "I gave them the elixir every day. But I've run out of the stuff, and they just lay down and died."

Galen raised his brows, which Durog luckily didn't see, because Galen was busy saddling Tala. "Well, I'm glad you didn't try to remedy it with even more of this useless brew."

"I wanted to," Durog said with disarming honesty, "but the wife said no. Said I should get you instead."

Galen decided that Durog's wife deserved some kind of doctor's recognition medal, but all he said was, "I'm glad that you listened to your wife, then. I was looking forward to that Midwinter ham you promised me."

"No use fighting with the wife," Durog said evenly, "but I still bought some more bottles just in case."

And if Galen succeeded in saving the rest of Durog's pigs, the farmer would of course ascribe the wondrous recovery to the famous elixir. There was no breaking through the wall these people had built around their brains; the worse the results got, the more they were digging in their heels, because if anything was worse than losing your money to a con, it was admitting that you had been conned.

Galen grit his teeth and mounted Tala. He'd just waste his money on those educational posters that Zana wanted him to hang up at every announcement post. He knew it. People would ascribe all kinds of low motives to his attempt at saving their animals. Still, he had to try something.

Maybe Hamez had found something in his alchemical analysis of the elixir. It would be so much easier to have Chief Voltis throw Heron out of the district than to hammer some sense into the thick skulls of these fools. He'd ask him as soon as he got home.

Galen pressed his heels into Tala's flanks. The sooner he got to Durog's farm, the sooner he'd be back at his dinner table.

When Galen opened his eyes, the house was silent; from the light streaking through his window, he concluded that it was already mid-morning, which made him sit up in alarm. Today was one of the days where he was supposed to make his round to the farmers throughout the district — why had neither Hamez nor Prila woken him?

"Hamez said he'd make the rounds for you today," Prila told him when he confronted her in the kitchen, still in his morning robe. "He said you came home very late yesterday, and needed your sleep. Such a considerate young man," she added with alarming appreciation; were these two ganging up on him, for his own good, of course?

"Next time, I want you to ask me before you make those kinds of decisions for me," Galen chastised her gently. "And I'll tell Hamez the same. People mustn't think I'm neglecting my duties, just because I have an assistant now."

"Nobody thinks that, doctor," Prila protested, but when she brought him his breakfast, he noticed an extra heap of berry-topped cream — her way of apologizing to him.

Despite his words to Prila, he wasn't too sorry about the opportunity to sleep in — Durog's piglets had been in bad shape, and Galen had insisted on monitoring them until he was sure that they'd survive the night. It had been way past midnight when he had finally come home.

Galen frowned at the memory; he had tried to convince Durog that feeding the 'wonder cure' to the piglets had been the cause of their troubles — who knew what those little creatures in the river water really were? — but the farmer had insisted that the piglets had thrived while he still had the bottle of Elixir, and had only deteriorated after he'd run out of the stuff. At one point, he had stomped into the farmhouse, and come back with a pamphlet of the fifty 'satisfied customers' who'd supposedly written those glowing endorsements of the cure.

"Look here, it's all here in writing!" he had insisted as he shoved the scroll in Galen's face. "You can't argue with that, doctor!"

Galen sighed and rubbed his forehead at that memory. If it is written, it must be true. Who would write down a lie? It was inconceivable to the common ape. He had already concluded as much yesterday, but now he wondered about the reason.

Maybe it was because the common ape didn't read that much. Of course they could read, everyone learned to read and write at school, but that's as far as it went for most — and their compulsory reading consisted of the Holy Scrolls...

There you had it: of course the Scrolls were irrefutably and unquestionably true and holy — if they were the only written stuff you came into contact with at a young and impressionable age, that teaching rooted down so deeply in your mind that you automatically applied it to everything else written down. And the Defenders of the Faith were quick to censor anything they deemed blasphemous, so everything that was allowed to circulate had to have their approval.

Considering that the only other writing most apes encountered later in life consisted of laws, regulations, and official announcements from the prefects, and if they were merchants, their accounting — why, it became even more evident why they'd regard any scroll as good as fact.

Galen contemplatively sipped at his tea. Maybe having his own pamphlet printed out wasn't such a bad idea. As soon as his words appeared on a scroll, they'd automatically have more authority. It would cost him some sembles — probably quite a lot of sembles, as time was of the essence — but maybe he could write it off with Voltis as an investment in public health.

He'd go to the Iron Mountains Herald , as Zana had suggested. Galen regretted that he couldn't share the news with her, but she had left the house long before he had woken up: no doubt she was putting the finishing touches on her greenhouse just as he was about to enter the printer's office.

The clerk, a greying Chimpanzee with an air of long-suffering amusement that was probably the result of people coming to him with all sorts of ridiculous printing commissions, carefuly read through his stern condemnation of fraudulent medical practices that were currently posing a serious threat to public health; to Galen's secret relief, he only made suggestions about the type font and layout, though.

"We can offset certain key words with bolding and bigger size," the Chimp suggested. "Getting the core of your message across even to the lazy readers, and to people just passing by."

"I don't know..." Galen hesitated. "I don't want it to look like one of those circus pamphlets that yell at you with huge letters for every other word, and sprinkle exclamation curls all over the text like one would season a salad with a handful of sunflower seeds."

"Now why would you accuse me of such a thing, doctor?" The clerk put his hand over his heart. "As if I'd ever stoop that low. The Herald has a reputation to maintain. No, I was thinking of just a few strategically highlighted words — here, 'hazard' is a good candidate. Very alarming, and raises the question of what hazard exactly is threatening the reader. I'd replace 'economic foundation' with 'livelihood', though... or maybe even with 'your farm', or 'your existence'. People tend to ignore words that they don't understand, you know?"

"In my experience, people tend to ignore anything they want to ignore," Galen muttered with an eyeroll he couldn't suppress. "This," he gestured at the scroll in the other ape's hands, "is my desperate attempt to hammer some sense into them."

"Isn't that the truth," the ape agreed with him. "But for someone who doesn't write professionally, you did an excellent job, doctor. If I had any livestock, I'd certainly think twice to give them that stuff after reading your denouncement of it."

"Thank you," Galen sighed, although he wasn't sure how sincere the clerk was — making sympathetic noises to a paying customer was just good business strategy, and even if the ape was more sincere than that, it was easy to agree with a controversial stance if you didn't have any skin in the game yourself. Still, it was the first time anyone other than Zana and Hamez had agreed with him on the dubious nature of the 'wonder cure'; maybe there was hope for Chubla yet.

Galen left with the clerk's promise to have the first dozen posters ready by evening — and a considerably lighter sembles pouch for that speedy production — and a renewed determination to T ake Measures against Heron and his ilk, even if he was still unclear about the exact nature of those measures.

It was time for Hamez to deliver on his promise to analyze the Wonder Cure with his Wonder Kit of strange substances. As far as Galen knew, it was not a standard part of a physician's toolkit, but it came in handy now, and he wasn't in the mood to wonder what Hamez did actually need it for. Maybe alchemy was a hobby of his.

As he had hoped, Hamez was already back from his round through the district when he returned from the printer's shop. "Did they send you home, or did you only make the smaller round?" he greeted his assistant, who was trying to rub down Ahpahchee without getting hit by one of the ape-hating horse's hooves.

His assistant jumped back from the beast's head that snapped at his shoulder, and quickly closed the door to the bay, before turning to him. "Ah, they, ah, they mostly didn't need any help," he said, a bit out of breath. Not for the first time, Galen thought he should've given Ahpahchee to Peet and Alan, since the horse was annoyingly peaceful around the humans. "So I was finished with the round a, a lot earlier than usual."

Galen patted his shoulder as they left the barn. "Well, look at the bright side — you'll get to eat Prila's lunch, and then we can look at the results of your examination of the wonder brew together."

Hamez perked up at that. "I had wanted to tell you anyway, vetes, that my analysis of the liquid is complete. However, I—"

"No, don't tell me yet. Let's eat first." Galen wasn't ready to hear bad news after just having found the energy to fully enter the battle of pamphlets; and if Hamez had good news — well, all the better to build up a bit of excited anticipation.

"As you wish," Hamez gave in. "I am hungry after being out all morning."

As it turned out, both of them were too impatient to drag out their meal; in fact, it was Galen who ushered Hamez upstairs as soon as his assistant had finished his last bite.

"What did you examine the water for?" he asked, glancing about Hamez' tiny chamber with unabashed curiosity. The microscope sat on the table, hidden beneath a protective cover, but otherwise, no other mysterious contraptions could be found, which was a bit disappointing.

Of course, those mysterious contraptions could well be hidden under Hamez' bed, where Galen suspected the wooden case with the vials and reactants had found its home. It was the only place in the room where you could hide something: the chamber was just big enough to fit in the cot, the table at the window, and some hooks on the wall to hang up one's robes. It was just a guest room, after all.

"I tested for certain harmful minerals, and for traces of manure that could've been washed out from the adjacent fields," Hamez explained. "They can cause severe diarrhea, for example, but some of the minerals, especially, can act slowly, so that symptoms of poisoning would only appear after some time has already passed—"

"So, long after the circus has left town," Galen mused. "And it would be exceedingly difficult to prove a connection to the elixir."

"Exactly."

"And what did you find?"

"Traces of arsenic... I believe there are several mines in these mountains? And traces of ammonia, but neither of them high enough to prove acutely harmful. Of course, if an animal is already weakened, or very sensitive by nature, it could cause some symptoms..."

"So," Galen said after a long pause, "do you think Chief Voltis would accept this as sufficient proof to kick out Heron and his ilk?"

"No. I'm very... very sorry, but the results are too inconclusive for that." Hamez nervously pushed his glasses back up. "But Heron can't prove that they're curing the animals from any ailments, either."

Galen sat down on the cot with a sigh. "I'm afraid he doesn't have to prove anything — people are convincing themselves of the wondrous effects of his elixir all on their own; Durog swears that his piglets only suffered because he ran out of Wonder Cure."

"I see..." Hamez akwardly fingered his robe, as if he didn't know what to do with his hands. "Maybe if there was a very dramatic case, demanding a swift improvement... one that would invite a direct comparison to what real medicine can do..."

Galen snorted softly. "A doctors' duel? I'm afraid the probability of such a case popping up at short notice is very low. My poor attempt at public education by infiltrating the advertisement trees of Chubla is all that's left now." He rose. "At least I can tell myself that I honestly tried to protect people from their own foolishness. And Incan, at least, survived her owner's foolishness and greed."

He patted Hamez' shoulder. "You can help me distribute those pamphlets; the first two dozen or so should be printed by now."

"Two dozen?" Hamez said, startled. He'd probably had other plans for his evening.

"Oh, I know, it's not much, but no worries." Galen gently steered him out of the room. "I'll have another fifty done by tomorrow."