THE COVENANT OF THE CROWN

by Howard Weinstein

  He stepped into the waiting lift. The doors hissed shut behind him and he turned the control handle. “Deck five.”

  What mattered now was whether they could get to Sigma 1212 in time. All the carefully planned strategy had degenerated into a race against the clock and the Klingons. At this point, Kirk knew he was powerless to do any more than hope that the rush to rescue the crew of the Galileo would not become a search for bodies.

  The King’s body reposed in the sick bay morgue, and there it would stay. There was no stone urn, no proper Shaddan cremation, no entry into the next life. Not yet. If Stevvin was to join his ancestors, he would be late. Kirk hoped the gods would understand, and forgive.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Kinarr Mountains stood like sentinels daring travelers to pass. The lofty range, almost as old as the planet itself, held the Crown of Shad somewhere among its peaks. Had the Galileo been able to land at the coordinates laid out by the King, the search would have been short and direct. But as they climbed ever higher on trails spiraling narrowly through perpetual fog, McCoy was becoming convinced the quest was hopeless.

  They stopped to rest in a cove etched into the mountainside by millennia of wind and water. For the moment, it protected them from the gusts that alternately tried to pin them to the inside wall of rock rising up from the trail, or blow them over the outside ledge. McCoy gave Kailyn an injection of holulin, then sat on the ground and leaned against a boulder.

  “Spock, why are we doing this?”

  “You know why, Doctor.”

  “Tell me again, ’cause right now, I have my doubts. Here we are climbing a mountain somewhere in the middle of a two-hundred-mile range—”

  “We know we are proceeding along the most logical course.”

  “We have no way of knowing if we’re twenty feet or twenty miles away from that Crown.”

  With a shake of his head, McCoy gazed out across the Kinarr Mountains; the tops of all but a few were lost in the dense clouds that hung over the whole region. Visibility was limited, but what he could see made McCoy distinctly unhappy.

  “They all look the same,” he moaned. “There aren’t a whole lot of landmarks, Spock. We’ve been climbing since morning, four hours, and we don’t know if we’re getting closer or farther away. That makes it kind of hard to go on.”

  “What happened to all your optimism?” Kailyn wondered.

  “I left it a few miles down the trail.”

  “You accurately stated that we had little choice in our present course of action,” Spock said patiently. “Debating it serves no purpose whatsoever.”

  “In my head, I know you’re right. But my feet keep telling me you’re wrong.”

  Kailyn stood. “The Enterprise will be back here in about two days. I don’t want it to leave without us, and the only way we can be sure of being on it is to get to Shirn O’tay’s settlement.”

  She reached her hand out to McCoy and helped him up. Refreshed by her shot and the rest, Kailyn bounded out ahead. McCoy started after her.

  “The young lady convinced you rather readily, Doctor.”

  McCoy gave him a sour glare. “Shut up, Spock.”

  The difficulty of the climb varied—from bad to worse, as far as McCoy’s legs were concerned. The higher they went, the steeper the path wound. Vegetation became sparse, and ice-edged gusts bit through their clothing. Patches of snow appeared with increasing frequency, and soon more of the rocky ground was blanketed than bare. The fog had thickened from a filmy haze to an opaque mist, obscuring even the nearest peaks; after a while, McCoy found an odd comfort in the fact that he couldn’t see past the rim of the trail—he was allowed to forget about the steep slope that fell away just a few feet from where they walked. Only an occasional stone kicked over the edge would serve as a fearsome warning, clicking down the rocks below, finally falling out of earshot. It was a long, long way down.

  “Eight to ten thousand feet,” Spock estimated during their next pause along the trail. McCoy sat flat out, stretching his legs.

  “I have so many kinks, I’m going to need a wheelchair, Spock. Air’s getting pretty thin.” McCoy rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I’m too old for this.”

  Kailyn dropped to her knees beside him. “No, you’re not. This should help.” She began to knead his calf muscles and the backs of his thighs. “I used to do this for my father when we went on hikes.”

  For a moment, a faraway look glazed her eyes, and her massage weakened.

  “Don’t stop,” said McCoy. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she replied wistfully. “I was just thinking about Father, wondering how he is.”

  “Don’t you worry,” said McCoy, holding her hand. I may be the chief surgeon, but my staff can do just fine without me.”

  “Oh?” said Spock casually. “Then why does the captain continue to put up with you?”

  “Because I’m such a joy to have around,” McCoy snapped. “Come on, let’s get going.” He grunted as he clambered back to his feet.

  Kailyn held tight to his arm. “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep,” she murmured.

  “Isn’t that from a poem?”

  She nodded. “A great poet from your planet—Robert Frost.”

  “Oh, yeah. A New Englander. I always preferred Dixie poets myself.”

  The sun of Sigma 1212 blazed forth with a sudden and stunning glory. After the time in space, where giant suns are reduced by distance to twinkling pinpoints, and the past day of doleful clouds and violent storms, it shone now like heavenly fire, flooding the mountaintops and their snowcaps with a blinding brilliance. While they’d been walking, the dense fog had begun to thin gradually with altitude, but the brightening came in increments so small as to go unnoticed by three climbers more concerned with the path under their feet than the sky over their heads.

  And so the sun had burst upon them like a celestial flare. Free of the fog, peaks soared wherever they looked, and they stood in breathless awe, perched at the top of this world, surrounded by pristine beauty and whiteness so stark it made their eyes ache. McCoy squinted, refusing to close out the light that made him feel renewed.

  “I’d forgotten what sunshine looked like,” he whispered.

  Kailyn peered down the mountain at the clouds below them. Before, they’d appeared unremittingly gray, but from this new vantage point, they seemed a pure and fluffy white, like a carpet below them. “I feel like I could just leap out there and walk on them,” she said, wandering dangerously close to the edge of the trail. She felt giddy, like a child in a wonderland.

  Not even Spock could resist the splendor basking before them. Through slitted eyes, he looked from horizon to horizon, momentarily overwhelmed by the sweeping panorama stretched below like some vast artist’s canvas. “Incredible,” he said in a hushed voice. “Such unspoiled beauty.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said McCoy.

  Spock scanned down the steep mounains, then back up to the sun, a deep orange-red. The sun. Ever so slowly, it was moving, across the white-blue sky and down toward the horizon. Time passed, unceasingly. Night crept closer.

  “We must move on,” he said, finally.

  McCoy thought he sensed a tinge of regret in the toneless voice of rationality, and he looked directly into the first officer’s eyes; he found what he sought.

  Spock gazed back, without shame. “Appreciation of great beauty is not illogical, Doctor.”

  “No, it’s not,” said McCoy gently.

  For a while, the trail seemed to descend, in concert with the sun. Shadows lengthened and crossed their path as Spock continued to lead the way. Once more, they stopped to rest their ever-more-weary legs. Spock, too, had begun showing signs of fatigue, in shortness of breath and obvious stiffness in his left shoulder, the one injured during his ordeal the previous night. McCoy slumped to the ground, near exhaustion, and Spock knelt next to him.

  “Perhaps we should make camp here, Doctor.”

&nbs
p; “No,” McCoy wheezed. He glanced out at the sun, which was poised to dip below the field of clouds. “We’ve still got some daylight left. A little farther.”

  “Whatever we do today is distance we don’t have to cover tomorrow,” Kailyn said.

  Spock sat alone to consult the maps, while Kailyn stood and turned toward the broad vista, her back to McCoy. He watched her with admiration. A girl—no, a young woman. While McCoy’s old legs told him to stay on his backside awhile longer, he knew now that Kailyn was tougher than any of them had thought. Through the roughest stretches of climbing, even when they had to be tied together at the waist by safety cords, she never faltered, never missed a step. He was proud of her, and felt the impulse to tell her so. But not now—later, perhaps when they settled in for the cold night ahead. With greater effort than he wanted to admit, McCoy got first to his knees; then, one leg at a time, he stood up unsteadily. Neither Spock nor Kailyn saw. He tried to take a deep breath, but his lungs protested and he coughed, a rumbling sound from deep in his chest that alarmed him. Kailyn heard it and turned quickly, her lithe body still encased in the skintight thermal suit. Her face flashed her concern in a deep frown—the cough sounded like her father’s the last time she’d seen him.

  McCoy grinned at her, then nodded toward Spock, who was still with the maps. “You think he’s gotten us lost and won’t admit it?”

  Spock looked up. “We are following the correct route.”

  McCoy leaned close to Kailyn and said in a stage whisper: “I told you he wouldn’t admit it.”

  The trail continued on a downhill slope, and twisted around a bend. Spock suddenly stopped and held up a hand for silence. McCoy strained to listen. There was no mistaking—there were voices up ahead. On this narrow mountain trail, there was no place to hide—and they were about to run into a band of humanoids. The figures were far below, heading up; they looked like snowmen, dressed in white parkas.

  “Oh, lord,” said McCoy in a low voice, “please don’t let these be like the last ones.”

  Cautiously, Spock moved ahead. “Set your phaser on stun, Doctor.”

  “I don’t like shooting people, Spock,” he said—but he set the switch as instructed, and kept Kailyn in line behind him.

  “Neither do I, but it is best to be prepared,” said Spock.

  There was something sprawled across the path ahead of them; the curve and grade of the trail placed them out of sight of the group of natives downhill, and they approached it warily. It was a dead animal. Its dusty-white woolly coat was stained with blood, presumably its own, and its four legs were splayed out under it. Either it was freshly killed or the cold air had preserved it, for there was no smell from the carcass. As they moved closer, they could see that it had two great antlers, intricately curved, growing from the front of its head. It was a massive beast—at least eight feet long.

  “Whatever killed it packed quite a punch,” said McCoy. He leaned over to examine a triple slash gouged into one antler. “Looks like a three-toed claw of some kind.”

  He narrowed his eyes and brushed something off the tip of one antler—a bloody patch of white, furry hide. “Also looks like he took a hunk out of his attacker,” he said, slipping the hide into his pocket.

  “What a magnificent creature,” Kailyn breathed. “It didn’t die without a fight.”

  “Indeed,” Spock agreed. “Though it was fatally wounded, it is largely intact. Whatever killed it must have been a carnivore. Odd that pieces were not removed for food.”

  McCoy peeked over the edge of the mountain. “Take a look down there.”

  Spock and Kailyn both glanced down. Far below, barely visible, a white animal was grotesquely draped like a gargoyle on a ledge. It looked like a cross between a mountain lion and a bear. McCoy began a comment, but was cut off by a new voice, clearly threatening though it spoke in an alien tongue. Spock, McCoy, and Kailyn turned as one and saw that the way was blocked by the humanoids they’d seen up ahead. Their faces were visible now inside their fur-trimmed hoods—deeply tanned, moon-shaped, with even bangs of jet-black hair. And angry.

  There were an even dozen of them, all with steel-tipped weapons—spears, bows and arrows, and long-bladed knives. The leader, burlier than the others, chattered loudly and aimed sharp gestures at the animal carcass.

  “We did not kill it,” Spock said evenly. He had no idea if the leader understood; for emphasis, he pointed to the gash in the antler, avoiding motions that might alarm.

  “We found it here—dead.”

  The burly Sigman had a silent reply—he pointed his loaded longbow directly at Spock’s chest. At a quick nod of his head, his companions surrounded the shuttle party. They moved with swift agility, showing no fear of the trail’s edge or the long fall that awaited the careless.

  “I suggest we offer no resistance,” said Spock in a low voice.

  “Here we go again,” said McCoy as their hands were tied behind them.

  The setting sun cast long rays through the clouds, painting the skies in vivid splashes of gold, red, and deep blue. The armed group took the Galileo crew about halfway down the mountain where a narrow pass cut the one peak into two. The pass was less than thirty feet wide at its opening, but it broadened gradually as they descended, finally flaring like a funnel after perhaps a half-mile. The mountain band finally paused—spread below was a shadowed valley, nestled between the towering Kinarrs. On one side, a deep V of sky separated two mountains; they seemed to be bowing before the sun, permitting it to shine through to the inner plateau. But except for that opening, the valley was completely protected by the encircling range.

  The farther down into it they went, the warmer the air got—the winds that ruled the high alpine peaks could not enter here, and the weather was calm.

  Only the top sliver of the sun was still visible, and it bathed those parts of the valley it could reach with its crimson radiance. The trail changed into steps carved with great care right into the stony surface of the planet. The steps dove straight down the slope, pausing at wide intervals for small platform landings. At each one was a broad, flat boulder with engraved images on its altarlike top—pictures of animals prancing against mountain backdrops. The leader knelt before each altar on the way down, with the others standing silently, heads bowed, as he offered a prayer. The ceremony was repeated five times.

  At last, the steps reached an end, and multiple paths branched off from their base. The sky had tuned blue-black, and stars began to sparkle. The ground suddenly rumbled, and an eerie chorus of howls and grunts drifted up from a lower road. Soon, a herd of at least a hundred animals clip-clopped into sight. They walked with a rhythmic gait, driven slowly by twenty of the mountain folk. As they passed, Spock noticed that several of the herders were females, and the animals were the same as the dead beast they’d found on the trail. A musky cloud of dust followed the herd, and McCoy sneezed. When the animals had gone, the captives were led into a cavern.

  McCoy stifled a slightly nauseous feeling at being in a cave again, but it wasn’t difficult to do—this one resembled the previous night’s hiding place as much as a sod hut resembled a Dixie mansion. The opening was low and they had to duck down, but the interior broadened out to a high-vaulted grotto, with ceramic oil-burning lanterns along the walls, and support columns made of carefully fitted stone bricks rising up into the shadows. A massive altar dominated the central room, with stone steps leading to its pulpit fifteen feet up. Painted animal carvings decorated it on all sides.

  Perhaps fifty of the mountain people stood around the shrine as one tall old man mounted the steps. He wore white woven leggings and a brightly striped poncho. His hawk nose jutted away from a face framed by flowing white hair and a beard down to the middle of his chest. Taking the steps in ceremonial cadence, he reached the top, where a small animal lay, twitching instinctively as it tried to wriggle free of the leather harness that held it. It was a baby from the herd, a male with the first downy growth of antlers sprouting above its eyes.
Tiny hooves clicked against the rock altar, and the tall man drew a gleaming blade of the scabbard at his waist. He raised hands and eyes toward the ceiling far above, and spoke in ringing tones. Spock understood.

  “Let the wind gods see us, and sanctify this sacrifice of the Night of Darkness. When the moons shine again, may our prosperity and peace be renewed.”

  He plunged the knife down and the small beast yelped. Then it was still—the clean stroke had done its work mercifully, but McCoy still felt vaguely queasy. He glanced at Kailyn, who watched the service with wide-eyed absorption.

  Two young men, dressed in leggings and vests instead of the heavy outdoor parkas, bounded up the altar steps as the tall man came down. They untied the dead animal and carried it away, down a corridor off the main cave.

  The burly trail leader waited patiently for the tall man to get through a knot of people gathered around him. Finally, he came across and stood before the trail leader, who whispered in his ear. The tall man nodded his white head; the others stepped back and he approached the prisoners, regarding them with searching eyes. His face was crisscrossed by tiny lines and wrinkles, like an intricate map etched on old leather. The hawk nose prominently displayed its blood vessels, and the eyelids hung low under extra folds of skin. But there was a calm strength in this face, and the voice swelled with authority.

  “Who are you that raid our snowsheep herds?”

  Spock lifted an eyebrow. “We did not raid your herds. We found the dead animal on the trail, just as your men did. The snowsheep had been attacked by something with triple-toed claws, and—”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We saw marks on the antlers, and found this.”

  McCoy angled the pocket on the back of his thermal pants toward Spock, and the Vulcan took out the patch of bloodstained white fur. The tall man held it up, then turned to the trail leader.