Spock Messiah sttos(n-3 Page 13

  “Beshwa greetings, honorable warriors,” Kirk said with a welcoming smile. “Once again we move among your hills in search of trade, unmasked men with open hearts who bear no arms. If you return to your tents, may we join you? It will be good to camp again with old friends from the hills. We have new songs, new tales, and new wares. The first two are free, and the last is brought more for friendship than for profit.”

  There was no softening of the red eyes that glared down through mask eye slits. One of them turned to a rider who sat to one side, a black banner with a white circle flapping from his lance.

  “Are these to be killed?”

  The clansman addressed said, “Tram Bir ordered that all who were not of the folk were to be slain. Behead them.”

  Kirk stepped forward. “An act worthy of warriors,” he said scornfully. “We bear no arms. When you ride home with our heads, will you boast of the fierce battle you had taking them?”

  “All strangers are to die. It has been ordered,” replied the first clansman.

  “But we aren’t strangers. Every summer since the time before there was time, we have come trading in these hills. Did your chief list the Beshwa among those who were to taste your steel?”

  “No,” said the rider slowly, “but—”

  “Then take us to him,” Kirk interrupted. “If we are to die, we are to die; but let it be at his words, once he sees who we are.”

  There was a silence that seemed to last an eternity. Finally, the rider shrugged. “I will ask his son. I would not have the blood of Beshwa or women on my hands, unless it was so ordered.”

  The rider turned his neelot and galloped back along the trail to the main column, which was now only a few hundred meters away. Its leader was slumped forward in his saddle. A rough bandage was wrapped around his hooded head and the right side of his battle cloak was blood-soaked. Behind him stretched a long procession of wagons, piled high with rough-cast iron ingots. On each side rode warriors, some also bandaged, some of them leading neelots with dead warriors trussed to them.

  There was a momentary conversation, and then the rider trotted back.

  “Alt says to take you to Tram Bir.” He beckoned to two of the mounted tribesmen. They dismounted from their neelots and came over. “Bind them and put them in their wheeled house.”

  Chekov was first. He started to struggle as his arms were trussed behind his back, but he subsided when Kirk gave him a warning hiss. Then his feet were tied and he was dragged to the back of the van. One of the clansmen pulled open the rear door and peered inside.

  “Hey, Chief,” he yelled. “Come look what I found. There’s a woman in here.” He jumped inside the van and dragged Sara out into the light. “A pretty one, too,” he said, running his eyes over her curves. “How about putting the others up front in the wagon and letting me ride back here?”

  The leader shook his head. “Alt’s orders were to take them to his father unharmed. Tie the girl and put her back with the rest.” Grumbling, the hillman complied.

  Kirk was the last to be dumped through the door. It was then slammed shut.

  McCoy let out his breath in a long whew. “That was a close one,” he said. “But at least Chekov kept his mouth shut for a change.”

  “Where do we go from here?” Sara asked.

  “Wherever they want to take us,” Kirk replied. “I don’t think we have much choice in the matter.” The caravan lurched and began to roll forward on the trail. “At least we’re going in style,” McCoy added. “We seem to have acquired a chauffeur.”

  They jolted along for half an hour, and then the caravan came to a stop. Somebody barked a command from the outside, and the rear door was pulled open. Hillmen reached in, dragged them out, and tossed them roughly on the ground. Kirk struggled to a sitting position, blinking as his eyes accustomed themselves to the outside brightness, and looked around.

  Off to one side, at least a hundred neelots were staked out, several with dead bodies tied to their backs. Groups of hillmen were squatting around small fires, roasting chunks of dried meat on green sticks. A short distance from the caravan, Kirk saw a squat, bandylegged figure whose hood and battle cloak bore the distinctive markings of a clan chief. He stood with his hands behind his back, staring off into the distance, seemingly oblivious to the bustle around him. The leader of the party that brought the Beshwa caravan in went over to him, saluted, and said something. The chief glanced at the bound captives and then back along the trail at the approaching carts and their escorts.

  “Good,” he grunted. “They bring more spearstone than I expected. The Messiah will be pleased. How many dead?”

  “Six. Those plains sheep have sharp teeth.”

  “My son, did he fight well?”

  “Like a man of twice his years. He killed four before a spear thrust brought him down. We wanted to bring him back in a cart, but he insisted on riding with the rest.”

  “And these?” The chief gestured toward Kirk and the rest.

  “Beshwa. We found them on the trail.”

  “I know they’re Beshwa, idiot. Why were they brought here?”

  “Alt ordered it. He said that perhaps the Messiah’s order didn’t apply to them. Beshwa have always been allowed to move freely through the hills.”

  “What has been, is past,” the chief said harshly. “They are not of our blood. Kill them.”

  “The woman, too?”

  Tram Bir nodded. As he turned to go, a stocky warrior beside him who wore the markings of a sub-chief held out a restraining hand and whispered something. The chief shrugged.

  “Bring that one here,” he ordered, pointing at Sara. Two hillmen jerked her to her feet and dragged her forward. Tram Bir eyed her critically. “She has a pretty face, Greth, but there doesn’t seem to be much meat on her bones.”

  The sub-chief gave a coarse laugh. “Well see,” he said, and drew a razor-edged dagger from a sheath.

  Kirk fought to keep control, frantically searching the memory of his Beshwa dop for some scrap of information about clan ways that could be used to stay the hillman’s blade. Suddenly, he thought he had something. Superstition might work where argument wouldn’t

  “Azrath!” he boomed in as deep a voice as he could manage, lifting his face to the sky. “Azrath, hear! They would harm your handmaiden!”

  “What is this nonsense?” Tram Bir demanded in an irritated voice.

  “She has been consecrated to Azrath. The power she draws from him will shield us all from harm. Why do you think the Beshwa bear no arms? Why do robber clans let the Beshwa pass in peace?” Kirk fixed his eyes directly on Tram Bir’s. “If you touch our sister, Azrath’s wrath will follow you and your children and your children’s children. Your seed will be cursed until the end of time.”

  “That might have been true once,” Tram Bir said coldly. “But we no longer fear foreign gods. We are the chosen of the Messiah.”

  “And your sister is to be chosen by the son of the chief—if he likes what he sees,” Greth added in a mocking voice. He lowered his knife into the vee neck of Sara’s short leather tunic, edge out, and slashed down suddenly. She struggled futilely against the hard grip of grinning guards on each side, as the chiefs son pulled her slit garment open and exposed her shapely body to his father’s eyes.

  “See,” he said, “there’s lots of meat on those bones.”

  “Not enough for my taste,” Tram Bir said, “but you can take her back with you if you want to. Just see that you dispose of her before we leave for the gathering in the morning. As for those—” he gestured toward the male captives—”cut their throats.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Clansmen pounced on and rolled the defenseless captives onto their backs. Knives lifted and were about to slash down, when there was a sudden shout

  “Chief, look! Your son Alt!”

  A neelot was coming toward the group, a boyish figure slumped in the saddle, head hanging and eyes closed. The side of his mount glistened red where blood had run
down it. The rider came to a stop a few meters from the chief and tried to straighten up.

  “Father and chieftain, your orders have been carried out,” the boy said in an almost inaudible, faltering voice. “I tried to do you honor in the fight and… and…” His voice died away and he started to fall sideways. Hands caught him and lowered him gently to the ground. His father knelt beside him and opened the boy’s battle cloak. Extending from his side was a short length of broken spear shaft. The chief reached out his hand as if to grasp it, and then drew back.

  “Hestor,” he said, looking up. “Can this be removed?”

  A stooped man with an elder’s markings on his clan hood knelt beside Tram Bir. He took hold of the spear shaft and tugged at the splintered stub. The boy bit his lips and unsuccessfully tried to stifle a scream. Then he coughed and a bloody froth appeared.

  “It’s barbed,” said the older man, rising to his feet “It cannot be removed. It would be useless to let the boy suffer any longer.”

  For a moment, the chief gazed silently at his dying son. Then he reached down and drew a short, wide-bladed dagger from a sheath marked with ceremonial designs. He touched the tip of the blade to the boy’s throat and said in a low voice, “I offer my son to the Messiah. He dies a warrior’s death. At the appointed time, may he be lifted to Afterbliss with the rest.”

  There was a hushed silence as he lifted the blade, and then a voice said quietly, “Our lives for his, Tram Bir. I can save your son.”

  The chief turned his head toward the prisoners. “The spear is barbed,” he said harshly.

  “Be that as it may,” McCoy said, “I can heal him. But it must be done quickly. He bleeds inside. Soon it will be too late.”

  Tram Bir shook his head and turned back to his son.

  “Beshwa have strange powers,” said the elder who had examined the boy’s wound. “Long ago they healed me of a fever when all else had failed.”

  Tram Bir considered the advice silently for a moment. At last, slowly replacing the ceremonial dagger in its sheath, he rose to his feet.

  “If it is as you say, old friend, they shall earn my gratitude. If it isn’t, they shall die… but not swiftly. Unbind them.”

  Moments later, the now unconscious boy was lifted into the van and laid on one of the built-in bunks. Sara, holding her slit tunic together with one hand, climbed in, followed by McCoy.

  “You two wait out here,” Kirk said to Chekov and Scott. He stepped up into the van and shut the door.

  “All right, Bones,” he said, “how are you going to get out of this?”

  McCoy seemed strangely unperturbed. “We’re still alive, aren’t we, Jim? Since your Azrath didn’t bail us out, somebody had to.”

  “For how long?”

  “Just watch. If you thought for one moment that I, a Starfleet surgeon, was going to land on a planet two thousand years behind the Federation in medical technology and rely only on their herbs and potions, you are out of your star-picking mind.”

  Leaving Kirk standing with his mouth open, McCoy went to the front of the van and, bending down, opened a small, concealed panel. Reaching in a hand, he drew out a standard-issue Starfleet medikit.

  “Did you think I was going to operate with a dirk and no antiseptics, Jim?” he asked blandly.

  Before Kirk could answer, there was an imperious knocking at the van door. “Open up,” called Tram Bir from outside, “I wish to be with my son.”

  “Sorry, honored chief,” Kirk replied through the door, “but our spells won’t work if you are present We’ll call you when we’re through.”

  Tram Bir growled and went away.

  McCoy gave the unconscious boy a shot of anesthetic and then straightened. “That should keep him under until I get the job done,” he said. “I’m going to need your help in a minute, Jim, but first I’ve got to take a crash course in Kyrosian anatomy.”

  He switched on a medical tricorder and began to scan the boy’s body.

  “Heartbeats fluttering,” he muttered, “—he has two, both tri-chambered—liver function normal, gastro-intestinal OK, lung–only one of those but as big as the two we have—severe trauma. Massive laceration of muscles and blood vessels, of course, but actually it looks worse than it is. This will take some time, though.”

  Then, moving the instrument to the boy’s head, he continued, “Minor head wound, mild concussion.” Glancing up at Kirk, he said, “Jim, get that hood off and staunch the blood while I work on this.” He gestured at the broken spear shaft.

  “Hold it,” Kirk said. “If we’re going to make this look really impressive, we ought to have atmosphere.” He went to a chest and took out two native instruments, an oddly shaped horn that looked like a flat-iron with a hose attached to one end and a lute-like instrument with strings going in all directions. He went to the door, opened it a crack, and passed the instruments out to Scott and Chekov.

  “Give us some music to make magic by,” he muttered. “I don’t care if it comes out sour, but I want it loud.” As he shut the door and locked it, there was a brief moment of cacophony as the two officers struggled to agree on pitch, tune, and tempo; and then, somewhat off-key, the morbid strains of the “Saint James Infirmary Blues” resounded through the hills for the first time in the history of Kyros.

  “Isn’t that a violation of General Order One?” McCoy asked sourly, wincing at the raucous intermingling of toots and tweedles.

  Kirk grinned. “Who’s going to report us?”

  “Well, if you can stand that racket, I guess I can. Let’s get started. Get that hood off and clean up the head wound.”

  “Aye, sir,” Kirk said. He untied the thongs holding the boy’s headgear on and tried to pull it off. He couldn’t. McCoy, seeing the trouble Kirk was having, handed him a scalpel.

  “Cut it off,” he said. Kirk carefully slit the hood from chin to forehead and then, bit by bit, peeled it back on both sides until it was free. Sara handed him a moistened sterilized pad from the medikit. He pressed it gently to the wound and began mopping away the congealed blood.

  McCoy’s fingers probed lightly around the broken spear shaft that protruded from the boy’s side.

  “Sara, put a represser on that,” he ordered.

  The woman removed a small, oblong object and placed it near the wound. She pressed a button on the instrument and, instantly, the flow of blood stopped under the influence of a low-power force-field.

  “Suction,” McCoy said.

  Sara pressed a flexible hose to the wound and the blood was drawn away.

  “Now, I can see what I’m doing,” McCoy murmured. “Sara, prepare an automatic IV, universal he-mo factors, one liter,” he ordered a moment later.

  Snapping open a small kit, Ensign George removed a telescoping metal rod with a collapsible tripod base. Next, a plastic pouch containing a dark powder was hung at the top of the rod. She poured a liter of water from a storage jug into it. The powder dissolved almost instantly, and a red fluid began to run through a plastic tube into a needle which had been inserted in the boy’s left arm.

  “Good,” McCoy said, his eyes glancing up briefly. “Now a type oh-oh scalpel.”

  Ensign George handed the instrument to McCoy and he pressed the tip of the slim cylinder against the boy’s side. A short, bloodless incision appeared under the ragged hole around the spear shaft.

  “Probe,” he ordered.

  Sara handed him a flexible, light-carrying tube with tiny waldoes on it, and he inserted it into the small incision below the wound. Plugging a lead from the other end into the medical tricorder, he studied the display on the instrument’s tiny screen.

  “Take a look, Jim.”

  “Ugly,” Kirk said, looking at the black silhouette of the barbed spear point which had torn through the chest muscles and was buried in spongy gray lung tissue. “How are you going to get that thing out?”

  “Watch. Minilaze, Sara,” he ordered.

  She handed him the tiny cutting tool. He made a clean
incision through the tissue that had closed in around the barbs, the beam cauterizing as it cut. Then, grasping hold of the short, splintered stub, he gently pulled the head out.

  “Sara, anabolic protoplaser, type zero.”

  He applied the tip of the instrument to the ulterior of the wound, slowly working it outward to repair torn veins and gashed arteries, and unite nerves and muscle fibers. Soon, all that was left was the closing of the jagged tear where the spear had gone in and the small incision below it.

  “Type two protoplaser.”

  “Bones, wait,” Kirk said, breaking his long silence. “I have the impression this is the boy’s first battle; he only looks about fourteen or fifteen.”

  “So?” McCoy asked.

  “How about giving him something to remember?”

  “Like old Heidelberg, eh?”

  “Something like that, Bones.”

  “If Starfleet finds out, they may lift my license.”

  McCoy said, adjusting the protoplaser and setting to work.

  When he finished, he looked at a puckered scar that made a semicircle on the boy’s chest where the shaft had been. He made a quick scan with the medical tricorder and then switched it off.

  “That’ll give him some status with the other boys,” he said. “And with a little rest, some hot soup, he’ll be back on his feet in a day or two. Now the head wound.”

  He studied the torn flesh critically. “Good thing they shave their heads. Saves me the trouble of depilating him.”

  When he had finished, McCoy injected Alt with another dose of universal antibiotic and a stimulant to counteract the anesthesia. By the time the boy began to come around, the Federation medikit was safely back in its hidden compartment.

  Alt’s eyes flickered, then opened. “Who…?”

  “It’s all right, son, you’re going to be fine,” McCoy said, giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “You’re almost as good as new.”

  The boy’s lips turned up in a hesitant smile.

  “Here,” Kirk said, handing the boy the broken spear, “a little souvenir.” The boy studied the deadly object, turning it over in his hands and testing the razor-sharpness of the head with a finger. He looked down at his side and saw the lavish scar. His eyes widened.