Very little light came in through the slit in the tent flaps, and they shifted their bodies around, trying to arrange the blankets in a fashion that provided both warmth and a little padding atop the hard ground. McCoy shook his head.
“I feel like such a jackass, thinking they’d understand.”
“You tried, Doctor.”
With his legs, McCoy managed to get Kailyn propped in a more comfortable position, using the curved post as a backrest. Spock offered some help, and together they succeeded. McCoy cocked his ear and listened to Kailyn’s breathing; it was becoming labored, with a bronchial rasp. Her eyes were almost closed, and she looked at McCoy helplessly.
* * *
“Spock . . . are you awake?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
It was almost completely dark in the tent now. Spock estimated that they’d been there almost five hours, and what sun there had been had long since set. They could barely make out shapes in the chilly dimness, and they could hear that Kailyn was asleep.
“That’s good,” McCoy said quietly. “At least she’s conserving what strength she has left, and the cytotic reaction progresses more slowly if metabolism is slower.”
“Then your endeavor to communicate with our captors did indeed accomplish something. We might not have been moved in here had you not attracted the hunter’s attention.”
McCoy appreciated Spock’s attempt at reassuring him, but decided to change the subject. “What was it you started to say about that spear this afternoon?”
“Just that it was steel-tipped, and indicated some contact with a culture more technologically advanced.”
“It might just mean they killed some hunters from another tribe and looted the bodies.”
“Perhaps. But commerce seems to play an important role here, so it could indicate that they trade with others who live in this region. Since we have seen no means of locomotion other than footpower, it may also mean a more advanced settlement is not far away.”
“If it’s within walking distance for our friends here, it’d be within walking distance for us.”
“Precisely.”
“At the moment, however,” McCoy said glumly, “something is keeping us from walking.”
“Be patient, Doctor. I am presently working on that problem.”
The silver-haired hunter was in a foul mood as he shoved the overcooked leg of a small animal into his seasoning pouch, containing gravy made from a spicy root. With one ravenous bite, he stripped the leg of its meat, and the gravy dribbled down his beard. He looked at the gray-brown bone, angry that it contained so little to eat, and tossed it over his shoulder.
In the rest of the torchlit dining tent, villagers ate and talked, mostly in groups; but the hunter ate alone. He had been certain someone would barter for the three creatures his clan party had found in the river forest. The two males could probably work, especially the mysterious-looking one with the pointed ears—the one that had miraculously showed no pain when clubbed with the tree limb. How could such small, frail things have such strength?
McCoy peered into the darkness, trying to make out just what Spock was doing, as the Vulcan raised himself up and sat on the crosspiece of the post he was tied to. From that position, he was able to hook his fingers around it, and he tightened his grip, though the rough wood drove splinters into his skin. For a few minutes, Spock simply rocked back and forth against the post, shifting his weight from back to front, then side to side.
“What are you doing?” asked McCoy. “You don’t actually think you’re going to pull that out of the ground. You saw the way he pounded that hammer.”
“I am not questioning the skill with which our captor wielded his hammer, Doctor. But strength and skill must yield in turn to physical laws.”
Spock paused, sat back on the ground, and placed his feet on the crook of the post, puzzling McCoy even further.
“Are you trying to break the wood?”
“What’s going on?” said a sleepy new voice in the darkness. It was Kailyn. McCoy’s attention shifted from Spock to her.
“How do you feel?”
“Hmmm? Tired . . . weak . . . I guess. What’s going on?”
McCoy shrugged, then realized she probably couldn’t see him clearly enough. “I’m not sure.”
Spock continued thrusting against the wooden post with his legs, alternately pushing and kicking quietly, his boot heels making a slapping noise against the wood.
“It’ll never break, Spock.”
“That is not my intention.”
“Then what is?”
“Whatever went in must come out, given sufficient time and application of force. In addition, this ground is cold. Cold has a consistent effect on many materials, making them contract, and these stakes have been in the ground for several hours now. The chilling effect of the surrounding soil may be sufficient to have reduced the diameter of the wood—”
“And loosened up the posts,” McCoy finished. “Theoretically.”
“Theories must be tested.”
The hunter desperately wanted a sharp, metal-tipped spear, like the one his friend had gotten in trade with the mountain herders. Were not three naked-faces worth one shiny-tipped spear? He savagely bit a bone in two, and immediately regretted his fury—the bone had cut his cheek. He spat out the fragments along with a mouthful of his own blood.
The tiny female, though small as a child, might be able to tend gardens or pick berries. He growled to himself and cursed the wind gods for his bad luck. It wasn’t often that live creatures were captured and brought back for sale. None in the past year. Perhaps it had been so long that his neighbors had forgotten how good it was to have a slave, if only for trading with other tribes and villages. Meanwhile, he had himself three slaves for which he had no use. He would have to feed them, if he ever hoped to sell them, but he barely had enough food for himself, his mate, and their two young ones. The slaves were so small and thin, they probably contained little good meat, but little was better than none. If no one bought them tomorrow, he would have to kill them for food.
Spock shifted to his knees and gripped the post; hands still behind his back, he began working it carefully from side to side. Slowly, ever so slowly, he felt movement—not imagined, but quite real. The lateral jiggling gave way to an infinitesimal yielding upward. He rested, tensed the muscles and tendons in his wrists, arms, and shoulders, and locked his raw fingers around the wood again. He breathed deeply. McCoy and Kailyn were silent, as if their concentration might augment Spock’s strength. He coaxed the posts in tiny circular motions, rubbing them against the holes in which the stakes were so snugly contained. Tentatively, he switched the motion, testing, then applied every muscle fiber and ripped upward. He felt the strain, grimaced, and grunted involuntarily. The wood groaned, creaked, and suddenly broke free. Spock lurched forward, falling on his side. He rolled over and stood, holding the post in his hands.
But those hands were still tied behind him.
“Now what?” asked McCoy.
“A moment, Doctor.”
Spock bent over, slid his hands below his buttocks, and steadied himself. One foot at a time, he stepped over behind his hands. When he straightened again, his hands rested just where he wanted them—in front—and he soon had the complex knot untied.
“That’s much more workable. Now, to the business at hand,” Spock said, flexing his fingers to restore circulation.
“Was that a pun, Spock?”
“I don’t believe so,” said the Vulcan as he bent over Kailyn’s restraining post.
The hunter looked up to see his bearlike friend, two shiny-tipped spears in his hands! So—he’d traded for another, and now he wanted to look at the naked-faced ones again. Maybe they could work out an agreement in the darkness. The old hunter forgot his anger, for nothing made him happier than the chance to trade. Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed a sackful of roasted legbones to feed the slaves, and he and the spearman left the tent with a torch.
/> When they came outside, they pushed their cloaks up around their faces, for the wind gods were blowing frigid air down from the mountains this night. The torch flickered, but stayed lit in its shield. There was a warning moisture in the air and they hurried to the storage tent. The hunter threw open the flaps and stuck the torch in ahead of him. He let out a roar of rage—the naked-faces were gone. But his friend calmed him—no need to search tonight. There was a storm coming. They would look in the morning light and most certainly find the escaped slaves. Oh, they would be dead, but at least they could be cooked the next night for the tent meal. The silver-haired hunter might not get his spear, but supplying food for the village would get him credit in the marketplace.
Sigma 1212 had a moon—two, in fact—and the same stars that shone on other worlds twinkled in the sky here. But the perpetual cloud cover effectively blocked all celestial light, and Spock, McCoy, and Kailyn were forced to make their way through the frigid woodland in pitch-blackness. The wind blew steadily now, bending smaller trees and twisting limbs on larger ones. The whistle of the wind and moaning branches completely covered any noise made by three cold people fleeing along the overgrown trail.
If they were being followed, their trackers were not close. Spock was fairly certain of that, but of greater concern was finding shelter. Daybreak was too many hours away; there was no precipitation yet, but the chilled air hung heavy, laden with moisture waiting to fall. And Kailyn had to be half-carried by the two men. She was wrapped in a fur blanket stolen from their prison tent.
The search for a haven was imperative, and led them away from the one route they knew—the path along the river that would lead back to the shuttlecraft wreck.
“The three of us will not make it,” Spock said.
They rested in the lee of a massive tree trunk crooked over the path after years of trying to grow straight against the ceaseless push of the wind.
“But the Galileo isn’t that far,” McCoy said, hunching over Kailyn to shield her with the warmth of his body. “It only took a couple of hours when they caught us and took us to the village.”
“But we had already strayed some distance from the ship, and the hunting party had the distinct advantage of knowing the shortest route between destinations. We do not.”
“What do you suggest? We can’t spend the night out here in the open. It’s either that or pushing on back to the ship.”
“Negative. I recall some hills nearby when we were attempting to land.”
“I thought you were busy with the controls, not looking at scenery.”
“At the time, the hills were an obstruction, not scenery,” Spock said stiffly, “and I noticed them while avoiding hitting them.”
“Oh . . . sorry.”
“At any rate, they were some distance away from the river, but they may offer shelter in the form of caves. That would seem our best choice at this time.”
McCoy and Spock lifted Kailyn again. She was conscious, but unable to walk without help. “It’s a good thing you’re light, young lady,” McCoy said.
She smiled weakly—then felt a droplet on her cheek. “Raining,” she whispered.
McCoy and Spock began walking as briskly as they could.
The forest began to thin out, and the trees no longer acted as a protective screen. But neither did they block the path with low-hanging branches, and the trio managed a quicker pace. The hills were as Spock remembered them—rocky, covered with a sparse coat of flaxen grass that clung in the face of the omnipresent wind, the force of nature before which all life on Sigma seemed to bow.
The cave’s opening was a crevice in the rock face of a low cliff. Without a light or weapon, McCoy had infinite misgivings about entering, even though Spock would go in first. Getting attacked by a creature in its lair would not help matters in the least, and McCoy toyed with discarding the whole idea. Outside, at least, the elements were the only things that could do them in. Inside? An active imagination could conjure up an endless array of fates he would prefer not to meet even in daylight, much less in the confines of a dark burrow.
“What if it’s only two feet high in there?” asked McCoy through chattering teeth. He wasn’t sure if the chattering was caused by cold or fear. The occasional raindrop had become a swirling mist during their search.
“Since sounds echo inside, Doctor, it is quite likely larger than you suggest.”
“Then something probably lives in there. If it has large teeth, I don’t want to be an unwelcome guest.”
“We shall announce our presence first.” Spock kicked up a large stone near his foot and tossed it through the cave opening. It clattered along a wall and rolled to a stop.
McCoy held Kailyn tighter; she was barely awake and her head rested limply on his shoulder. Spock kept one ear cocked into the cave, while McCoy found himself holding his breath. No other sounds came out. They waited. Spock threw another rock. Another clatter. And more silence from inside.
Spock looked at McCoy. “It would appear to be uninhabited.”
McCoy swallowed. “Either that, or some very annoyed animal is just waiting to sink its teeth into whatever threw those rocks.”
“Wait here. I shall be out momentarily.”
“I hope so,” McCoy muttered.
Spock hefted a sturdy branch as a club, crouched, and disappeared into the cave mouth. McCoy listened, reassuring himself that as long as he heard muffled footfalls and the tapping of the stick, everything was just fine. But he braced himself for the sudden shriek or roar of an enraged beast. There goes that imagination again. . . .
It seemed like hours, but Spock emerged about three minutes later. “I do not expect you to enjoy the night in there, Doctor, but it does seem to be safe.”
Once again, Spock bent low and led the way in. Very reluctantly, McCoy followed, making certain Kailyn didn’t crack her head on any rock outcroppings. He tried to open his eyes to look around the cavern—and then realized they’d been open all along. He couldn’t see a thing.
“My god,” he whispered, “this must be what it’s like to be blind.”
“There is a nearly complete absence of light here,” Spock said, more by way of information than agreement.
“Then how do you know there’s nothing lurking in the corners?”
“I traced the entire perimeter with the stick. In addition, my senses are somewhat more acute than your own—I saw and heard nothing. And this cave is but a small chamber, with no other openings.”
“Are you sure?”
“Reasonably.”
McCoy clicked his tongue nervously. “You could’ve said you were absolutely sure.”
“That would have been untrue.”
“You could’ve humored me.”
“Enough discussion, Doctor. I shall go back to the ship now and bring back Kailyn’s drug and other essential supplies.”
McCoy reached out and clamped his hand on Spock’s arm. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“I never said anything about staying in this cave alone.” McCoy made no effort to hide his fear.
“You are not alone—you are with Kailyn. She needs you as much as she needs the drug. You will be relatively safe here. Meanwhile, I will be able to get our supplies much more rapidly alone.” There was genuine concern in Spock’s voice, and McCoy sensed it. It calmed him—a little.
“I guess I’m supposed to be logical here, huh?”
“That would be a welcome change of pace.”
McCoy smiled in spite of his very real anxiety, and he was momentarily thankful for the darkness—perhaps Spock hadn’t seen the grin, and he wiped it away quickly.
“Well? What are you waiting for—daylight? Get going, Spock.” McCoy felt the stick being pressed into his hand; he suddenly realized he was still holding Spock’s arm, and he let go.
“Get some rest, Doctor.”
“Fat chance.”
“Then keep an eye on the cave entry.”
“And if I see a
nything come in that doesn’t have pointed ears, I’ll clobber it with this,” McCoy said, grasping the stick.
“The animals here may have pointed ears.”
“Not like yours.” McCoy wiped his palms—despite the cold, he was sweating. “Be careful. And don’t be late.” There was a shadow across the faint bar of light coming in the opening—McCoy thanked the stars there was that much relief from the blackness. “If you think we’re going to wait all night for you to get back, you’ve got another thing coming. Spock . . .” But he knew Spock was gone.
McCoy busied himself with making Kailyn as comfortable as possible. As he started to fold the blanket into a sleeping cocoon for her, he realized that their bodies were the only available source of heat; also, the closer they were, the more readily he could detect any changes in her condition. He found a waist-high boulder in the middle of the cave—by smacking into it with his knee—and decided to use it as a backrest. He propped Kailyn against the boulder, with one fold of the fur blanket as a ground cover, then slid down next to her. The rest of the blanket neatly covered both of them, and he put his arms around her, leaning her head on his chest.
THE COVENANT OF THE CROWN Page 9