Kaseme’s contacts have reported the location of Speck’s headquarters. Unfortunately, it is so well guarded by his hill followers that any direct assault is out of the question. We have been unable to come up with a plan for forcible entry that wouldn’t alert Spock in time for him to carry out his threat to destroy the trilithium modules.
Spock is up to something—a number of hill chiefs have visited him in the last two days—but we haven’t been able to find out what it is. Little time is left. Unless we can recover the crystals in the next five days, we will be forced to abandon the Enterprise.
Captain James Kirk, now known as Healer Hirga, sat at a makeshift desk in a room at the rear of Kaseme’s clinic. Dr. McCoy, alias Healer Makai, snored softly on a cot at the far side of the room. Behind Kirk, a heavy door closed off the room used as a transporter terminal. Since communicators couldn’t be used to call the Enterprise for a pick-up because of the Messiah’s threat, a schedule had been worked out that automatically energized the transporters every fifteen minutes. Time was measured by a large and complicated water clock that stood beside Kirk’s desk.
Kirk rose to his feet as a faint hum sounded from the inner room. A moment later the door opened and Lieutenant Commander Scott entered the room.
“I think this will do the job, Captain,” he said, handing Kirk a silver rod which was richly ornamented with gold rings and jeweled studs.
Kirk turned the rod over in his hands and examined it critically. “Good job, Scotty,” he said. “It’ll pass as a healer’s wand—same heft and everything. How does it work?”
“If I may, sir,” Scott said, taking the wand back. He pointed to one stud set with a tiny opal. “The trigger. The band next to it is the safety. Turn it to the right to activate the firing mechanism. Like this.” He turned the ring and pointed it toward the cot where McCoy lay sleeping. When he pressed the stud there was a slight hiss and then a thunk as a tiny dart slammed into the wall a few centimeters above McCoy’s head. The sleeping doctor woke with a start.
“What was that?” he said in a blurry voice.
“Naething,” Scott said. “Go back to sleep.” He handed the wand back to Kirk. “There’s a clip o’ twenty darts in the butt. Each one is made from 1.4 hyperpyroxine which will dissolve instantly upon impact. Paralysis is instantaneous, according to Dr. Mbenga. Anybody hit with one of those won’t be able to move a muscle for at least an hour. The range is limited though, aboot ten meters. You’ll have to get pretty close to Mr. Spock to hit him.”
“No problem there,” Kirk said. “Healers are privileged people on Kyros, and after Spock is down, his bodyguards won’t want to bother us.” He glanced at the water clock. “Only a few hours left. Is the landing party standing by?”
“Aye, sir,” Scott replied. “The twenty with implants are disguised as hillmen and will meet you in the square. I’ll have another twenty armed with Kyrosian weapons here as a back-up force in case of trouble.”
“Good,” Kirk said. “When you get back up to the ship, notify Security Chief Pulaski that there’s been a slight change of plans. Ker brought me word an hour ago that the time of Spock’s mass meeting has been moved up from early dusk to late dusk. I don’t know why, but Spock never does anything without a reason. There’s been a whispering campaign going on about the powers of the new Messiah. He’s promised to perform a spectacular public miracle tonight. I imagine half the town will be there.”
“The more, the better,” McCoy said, rising from the bunk. “There’ll be just that much more confusion when Kaseme’s boys go into action.”
“I thought you were asleep,” Kirk said.
“With you shooting things at me…?” McCoy replied.
There was a soft tap on the closed outer door. “It’s Ker Kaseme, honored friends,” a voice called. “May I enter?”
“In a moment,” Kirk said. “Scotty,” he said in a low voice, “get into the other room. Ker is doing a fine job of keeping his eyes closed to our comings and goings, but an officer in Fleet uniform might be too much.” He glanced at the water clock. “The next beam-up is due in a few minutes, anyway.”
Scott nodded and went into the back room. Kirk followed him to the door. “McCoy and I will be out with Kaseme for the next couple of hours getting things organized for this evening. Bring the landing party down around 17:30. You stand by with your men here. . Once the other group is in position in the plaza, Ensign George will notify me. McCoy and I will be in front of Vembe’s.”
“Aye, sir,” Scott acknowledged the orders. “An” I hope that little widget does the trick.”
“You haven’t let me down yet, Scotty,” Kirk said as he closed and barred the door. He crossed the room and opened the outer door. “Enter, honored friend,” he said, shifting effortlessly into Kyrosian. Kaseme entered and bobbed a greeting.
“Have you gotten enough men?” Kirk asked.
“Yes, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be,” Kaseme replied. “I had to pay three times as much as I expected and promise to pay twice as much when the fracas is over.” He pulled out an almost empty purse and eyed it ruefully.
“There’s a lot more where that came from,” Kirk said. “Why was it hard to get the men?”
“The Messiah,” Kaseme answered. “Until he showed up, our city slum types, miserable as they were, had one thing going for them. Bad as their lot was, there was always one group they could look down on, the hill outcasts who had drifted into Andros because they had no place else to go. They’re the ones who have always done the dirty jobs no one else would touch, but now they’re walking tall. They’re carrying arms and no longer step into the gutter when they meet an Androsian on a narrow sidewalk. My veels aren’t too happy about picking on someone who might fight back.”
“What about the provost guard?” Kirk asked.
“That’s taken care of. I didn’t have to bribe the watch commander much to gain his cooperation. There’s no room for him and his men in the Messiah’s ‘New Order,’ and they’re itching for an excuse to bash in a few hill skulls. Once trouble starts, they’ll be in there swinging. But they’ve been ordered to stay away from the immediate vicinity of the Messiah, so they shouldn’t interfere with your plans.”
“Good,” Kirk said. “Where are your men?”
“I’ve got them spotted in little groups in taverns all over town. I didn’t dare assemble them in one place; there are too many of the Messiah’s agents around. I’ve left orders, though, that their wine be doled out in scanty rations so they’re not too drunk to be of use.” Kaseme fell silent.
Kirk rose to his feet. “All right. It’ll take us several hours to make the rounds with final instructions, so let’s suit up, Bones, and get going.”
He took two hooded white robes, with crimson slashes across their fronts, from pegs on the wall and tossed one to McCoy. After he’d slipped his on, he adjusted its folds carefully. As he picked up his silver wand from the table, he saw Kaseme gaze at it with obvious envy. Kaseme’s own carved wooden one looked cheap and gaudy by comparison.
“If our healing goes off on schedule,” Kirk said, “you can have this one. Call it a gift from a grateful patient.”
He glanced at McCoy who nodded his readiness.
“Let’s go.”
Captain Kirk drew his white healer’s robe tighter about him and shivered as a chill wind blew across the plaza. He had his hood pulled up, and his features were almost indistinguishable in the darkness.
“Looks like a storm blowing up,” McCoy remarked.
“I’m not surprised,” Kirk said. “That radiation front is beginning to interfere with the planetary weather patterns, in spite of an ozone layer twice Earth’s standard.”
He peered out at the plaza. “It doesn’t seem to have affected the turnout, though.”
“Curiosity seems to be a trait basic to most intelligent life,” McCoy remarked.
The two stood in silence for a moment, looking out from their vantage point under the ar
cade archway in front of Vembe’s shop. Its doors were closed and, happily, only a faint scent of vris lingered to pollute the air.
As they watched, the crowd in the square grew denser.
“It looks like Kaseme’s men are starting to arrive,” Kirk muttered, as roughly dressed men in groups of twos and threes, some lurching slightly, emerged from side streets and began to infiltrate the growing throng.
Thunder growled overhead, and a faint flicker of light glimmered briefly in the sky.
“Captain!” A whisper came from behind them. Kirk turned, and a scantily dressed figure stepped out of the gloom. It was Ensign George.
“Aren’t you freezing in that outfit?” McCoy asked solicitously.
“I sure am,” she replied, “but it would be out of character if I didn’t display the merchandise.”
“Is everything set?” Kirk asked.
Sara nodded. “Commander Pulaski is standing by for final instructions.” She gestured toward a cluster of men in hill dress standing on the other side of the square.
“Tell them,” Kirk began, “that as soon as Spock arrives, they are to get as close to him as possible. When Kaseme’s men start the riot, I want them to form a flying wedge and be ready to open a path through the crowd and out of there. I’m banking on there being so much confusion that Spock’s bodyguards won’t question our actions.”
“I’ll tell Pulaski,” Sara said, and headed across the square, attracting admiring glances and occasional shouted compliments as she undulated through the crowd.
A flash of lighting suddenly illuminated the square, and a stiff blast of wind almost extinguished the recently lighted oil lamps set on pillars along the arcade. A moment later a rumble of thunder sounded from the direction of the distant mountains. Kirk glanced worriedly at the sky. Tattered streamers of clouds, pale and ghostlike, skittered across the northern sky. An occasional early star gleamed between the rents in the clouds, and on the western horizon only a lurid red glow marked the place where Kyr had set.
“Look, Bones,” Kirk muttered. The doctor craned his head upward. Flickering, shifting, but ever growing, a dancing veil of light was forming, snaking between the racing clouds.
“An aurora,” Kirk went on. “I wonder if that’s Spock’s promised miracle.”
“I doubt it,” McCoy said, shaking his head. “My dop remembers seeing one when he was a child, so auroras aren’t unusual even this far south.”
“Well, whatever this ‘miracle’ is, I hope the weather holds off,” Kirk said. “Most of the crowd is here for a free show, and a heavy rain would send them scuttling for cover.”
Twilight deepened. The wind died to small, unpredictable gusts that seemed to be coming from every direction. The sky overhead cleared and most of the cloud cover seemed to be concentrated on the horizon. Suddenly, there was a rumble of hill drums and the sound of distant chanting came from a narrow street that opened onto the square.
Then the sound grew louder, as the high-pitched, strangely atonal skirling of native pipes fluted above the deep bass of the drums. A hush fell over the square, as thirty or forty clansmen mounted on hissing neelots began to open a path through the crowd.
There was a final pipe and drum crescendo as the procession entered the square, and then a sudden, dramatic silence. A hollow square of torch-bearing hillmen appeared; an alien army whose sinister masks, fitfully illuminated by the flaring, dancing torchlight, made them appear like a host from hell. In their center, drawn by four matched black neelots, was a window-less, hearse-like vehicle painted jet black.
As the procession neared the center of the square, Kirk, McCoy at his heels, headed rapidly toward it. Hillmen ringed the van, holding back the curious crowd that pressed in.
As the two Enterprise officers pushed their way through the throng, hooded hillmen and gaily dressed city folk alike stepped aside deferentially at the sight of their white healers’ robes. Just as they reached the front ranks of the circle of spectators, there was a roll of drums. A trapdoor opened on the roof of the van, just behind the driver’s seat, and a black-robed figure appeared. He stood for a moment, head bowed as if in deep thought. His waist was circled by a wide leather belt. A mace-like weapon swung at his right hip; attached to his left was a small, rectangular black box. As the Messiah turned, scanning the crowd from behind his red and black hood, Kirk gazed fixedly at the box.
“Bones, look,” he whispered. “Spock has the tricorder on him.” Kirk raised his eyes to the figure’s face. He felt safe from detection behind his healer’s robe, but a glance from the Messiah made him turn away. As he did so, a soft sigh escaped his lips. “Spock…”
The Messiah slowly raised both arms to the sky as if in supplication. As he lowered them, he spread them wide as though to embrace the crowd. Tall in the torchlight, he began to speak. His voice was low, almost inaudible, and a silence held the crowd as they strained to hear what he had to say.
At first, in spite of the drama of the torchlight and the hooded followers, he sounded like any other street preacher inveighing against a long catalog of acts which the gods considered sinful, coming down especially hard on pleasures of the body. The crowd began to stir restlessly.
“What’s he doing?” Kirk muttered. “Another couple of minutes of this and people will start to go home.”
“I think he’s pulling an old debater’s trick,” McCoy answered softly. “Once he’s got them completely off guard, he’s going to let them have it.”
His prediction was right. Suddenly, the Messiah’s voice took on a ringing timbre and boomed through the square as if amplified.
“You tire of the old words? Good, they’ve kept you divided and confused for too long. Tonight, I bring the new—new words for a new day—” He paused dramatically. “And a sign to seal them by. Listen, my children, the gods have no quarrel with the pleasures of the flesh—love, food, and drink are their gifts to lighten your days. But on Kyros there is little love, and the poor go hungry. And wine is used to deaden misery rather than as a source of joy.
“Why should such things be in a world the gods created for your delight? In your hearts you know the answer. Look to your masters, the oppressive few who feed on your distress and rob you of your birthright from the gods. Our world is splintered into tiny states, each ruled by little groups of greedy men, bloated parasites whose taloned hands wield taxes, police, and jails!
“But the gods have eyes! The gods have ears! And now, their wrath—too long withheld—descends! For behold, I have been ordained and sent among you to lead you to the light, a messiah for the golden age to come.
Through me, all Kyros will be united into one people: one people believing as one, thinking as one, worshipping as one. You shall be my body and I shall be your soul; you, my sword, and I, your shield. And through me you shall find such glory and blessings as you have never known in all your troubled days.”
As he spoke, the Messiah’s arms and extended hands beat up and down, punctuating the rhythmic Sow of his words. Shadows cast by the flaming torches surrounding him danced on the buildings facing the plaza.
A low rumble of thunder sounded from the darkening sky as the speaker chanted his vision of the days that were to come, a vision of Kyros united, where there were no longer slaves and masters, no longer rich and poor, no longer hunger and suffering and oppression. Then a note of menace entered his voice as he shifted from the future to the present. There were those, he rumbled, who would attempt to thwart the will of the gods, parasites who would never willingly surrender their power. For those, he pledged, there would be no mercy.
His voice rose higher and higher until it was at once shrill and nearly hysterical and yet, at the same time, as commanding and booming as the distant, growling thunder.
Kirk had a sudden memory of an ancient history tape of a small, mustached man wearing an armband with a twisted cross on it, molding a vast amphitheater of people into a single, screaming beast with the magic of his voice. The Messiah’s arms pumped
and suddenly stopped. Kirk heard a fault buzz come from the box on the figure’s hip. The Messiah flung his arms up and pointed to the eastern horizon. That area of the sky was still clear of clouds, and a few stars shone through a dancing, shifting veil of rainbow colors that was draped across a full sixty degrees in a rippling aurora. But that didn’t cause the sudden gasp of fearful awe.
One star was moving!
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Behold… Afterbliss!”
The Messiah’s cry rang through the square and the eyes of the crowd followed the pointing arm of the black-robed man. The new star rose, a shimmering pearl of white that climbed swiftly up the vault of the heavens, moving across the sky toward Andros.
“Behold the work of the gods, a dwelling place of everlasting delight for those who follow their will and their chosen Messiah. Death in battle is no longer death, but a gateway to eternal life. The swords of the ungodly may pierce our bodies and spill our blood on the dry ground, but with each rising of our heavenly home, the gods shall lift our dead to their reward. And for those who resist the divine will”—the Messiah’s voice growled his message of warning again—”another place has been prepared, a place of burning and eternal torment!”
As the new star moved on its downward course, dropping to the western horizon, the torch-bearing hillmen who ringed the wagon began a barking chant, continuing through the minutes the star was visible.
“Death! Death to unbelievers! Death to the Messiah’s enemies!”
Scattered voices in the crowd began to pick it up, and the Messiah himself joined in, cracking out the staccato words.
“Death! Death! Death!”
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