I realize now that I've neglected to describe Joe's walking stick in detail, and it is quite deserving. It's a wonderful example of reuse, you see. He took a length of PVC tubing and reinforced it with some of the tumble wires that he'd found floating around. The end result is quite sturdy, yet pliable. So that I do have enough time, while supporting Chester, to wonder what has become of Wynn. Surely, if I were to finish Chester off, right here and now, I would have to contend with Wynn. Presumably, he would want to prevent me from killing Chester right here and now, so he should be turning up right here and now to stop me. And yet, he is nowhere to be seen. I can't help thinking that Wynn has snuck around the back of this hut (Dr. Hubbleworth likes to refer to it as his 'cabin') and come across either the Doctor himself, or Joe. I really ought to investigate, however, I have this human being to support and I don't quite know what to do with him.

I have dragged Chester's limp, passed-out body into the building beside the Doc's hovel. It is another apothecary's shop, where Miraj is accosting a clerk.
"Anything, ideally, with opium in it will do...? Alcohol to keep it in solution of course... perhaps some formulation that would go well with the Daffy's Elixir of which we plan to purchase..."
Miraj is a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. I wonder what he's working on here. He seems to be covered in blood. I wonder to whom that blood belongs...
"- eeh, how many cases was that again,...?" Dr. Hubbleworth has suddenly appeared from behind a glass cupboard in which various instruments are dustily jumbled. Apparently, the Doctor has somehow been attending the exchange despite the fact that he too, is covered in blood. Furthermore, it looks to be his own as there is a scalpel protruding from his left shoulder. That must be the work of our customs officer. The Doctor raises a finger.
"'Strangers heed my wise advice: never pay the retail price.'"
He passes out upon the floor. I hesitate a moment and then I drop Chester on top of him, relieved to have found such an opportunity.
"Perhaps they have fought each other to the death, or near death, as the case may be."
Miraj winks at me, remains cheery, "In that welcome event," making a carefree motion in the air with his handkerchief, "a hundred cases should do the trick, for this time out, anyway, - Now as to that oahpiated article we're discussing, -"
"Aye, we call it Laudanum, Sir - compounded according to the original formulae of the noted Dr. Paracelsus of Germany. Preventive against a variety of ailments, sir? -Excellent anti-costive properties, - given the uncertainty of diet, -"

The Doctor is attempting to raise his index finger from the position that he holds upon the floor, mumbling, "The commissioners know all too well about Daffy's Elixir, and the uses tis put to."

Miraj is more than willing to finish this request on the Doctor's behalf. For just a moment I felt I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling did not last long. There was a touch of insanity in this proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the performance. I longed to return to my position back at the saloon where I felt I had at least the capacity to make more sense of the world. The problem with Miraj is that he tends to be stand-offish with the other agents.
"Miraj, it's so good to see you. How did you find yourself in the company of this fine surgeon?"
"Why HE approached ME in the vestibule of this fine establishment. Can you imagine? The state he's in... Then he asked me to his room, which was in the main building of the station..."
"Insatiable appetite, this old gent. I happen to know that he'd only JUST finished dining with a young man in his cabin a few moments ago."
"... and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silver-mounted dressing-case but also... The business entrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks -so I had been informed; but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station..."
"The making of bricks, you say."
They were all waiting -for something. Who was I to interfere with their particular variety of uncongenial preoccupation, or occupation, as the case may very well be? There is an air of plotting about this place, and nothing can cure it. The only thing that ever comes to them is disease, of one sort or another. The philanthropic pretense of this whole concern, regarding the human condition, their talk, their governance, any show of work, was all subsumed by a singular desire. To reach a trading-post where silicate crystals were to be had so that they can earn a percentage.