“Have you got the hypo for Gara?” Kirk asked.
“Right here, Jim,” McCoy replied, slapping his pouch. “It’s loaded with enough pirotoline to knock out a Rigellian mountain devil.”
“Good,” Kirk said. “When we locate him, and our little sex machine gets him turned on, our problems will be solved. Do you think you’ll be able to handle your end, Sara?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, her voice cool and professional. “The new filter stage in my implant is working perfectly. Enough of my dop is coming through so that I can imitate her actions—but with me firmly in control.”
“Good girl.” Kirk turned to Scott.
“All right,” he said to the engineer, “give us an hour. Spock wasn’t bluffing, I’m sure, when he said he rigged his tricorder to detect communicators, so we’ll be out of contact. We’ll have to work on blind coordinates from here on in. Keep the transporter locked onto the inn room and energize every fifteen minutes.”
“No problem, Captain,” Scott replied.
Kirk turned to face the other two. “That’s a fetching ensemble, Doctor, you must introduce me to your couturier,” he heard Sara say to McCoy.
“It’s what they’re wearing this season,” McCoy retorted.
“Are you two ready to beam down?” Kirk asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, Jim,” McCoy replied unhappily. “I trust that what comes out down there bears some resemblance to what went in.” He glanced ruefully at his legs again. “Those knees may be knobby, but at least they’re mine.”
“With Scotty at the controls, you have nothing to worry about.”
“The last time he was at the controls, we ended up with duplicate Spocks,” McCoy said sourly.
See: SPOCK MUST DIE!, Bantam Books, 1970.
“This time,” Kirk said, as he stepped onto the transporter, “I’ll settle for just one. All right, Mr. Scott, energize.”
“Energizing, sir,” responded Scott. His thick fingers played over the controls, then gripped the phasing runners. The deep hum of power from the operating transporter filled the room, and the rising crackle of the carrier wave became more distinct.
The Enterprise began to fade from Kirk’s sight. He caught a glimpse of a darkened room with a single, glowing lamp. Then suddenly, the ship was back and solid around him.
“What’s the problem, Scotty?”
“Och! That damn radiation must be bollixing up the magnetic field of the planet and reflecting back the transporter beam.”
He worked the controls to compensate for the effects of the slowly increasing radiation front.
“Captain, if this interference keeps building up, an’ I ken it will, this transporter is nae going to be working at her best. None of them will.” He looked at his captain with a grim face. “I canna guarantee I’ll be able to bring you back.”
Kirk glanced at McCoy, and then George; she gave a slight shrug.
“We’ll try to be quick about it, Scotty,” Kirk said in a reassuring voice. “Energize, again.”
“Aye,” Scott said. He looked glum as he moved the phase controls a second time. The power hum resurged, and the Enterprise again faded from Kirk’s sight. It flickered once, then twice, then once more, before it finally disappeared.
Kirk watched as the darkened room solidified around him again. There was that seemingly interminable moment before it stabilized; then it did, and Kirk knew he was whole and could move. He stepped forward into the weak pool of light cast by a smelly lamp atop a smooth-surfaced table. The lamp held animal fat in an earthen cup with a lit wick floating in it. There were deep shadows in the corners of the room, and the ceiling was black as space itself.
Ensign George went to the room’s only window and jerked back the heavy curtain covering it.
The early morning light of Kyr, the system’s yellow sun, poured in through mica-like panes set in the frame. Kirk and McCoy crowded close as the woman swung the window open. From their second-story vantage point they looked down on a large, paved plaza, obviously a marketplace from the bustle of activity around the stands and shops that lined it. The plaza was bounded on the left by the city’s wall. A main gate, a massive triangular opening with a center post holding the hinges and long ropes running from the base angles to huge winches, gave access to the world beyond. On each side of the gate, steps went up to a parapet that ran along the top of the wall. To the left, and on the far side of the plaza, were numerous multilevel buildings made of stone with sides painted in abstract, geometric shapes.
Ensign George pointed to a raised stone platform near a central well.
“That’s a speaker’s block,” she said. “One of the nice things about Andros is that anybody who wants to can get up there and speak his mind anytime on anything. Chag Gara was up there ranting the day I came down. Only a few people were listening, and most of them were laughing, but I scanned him so I could include some hillmen.” Her face grew bleak. “That was my next biggest mistake. If only I—”
“We’ve no time for ‘if onlys,’” Kirk said. “What’s our first step?”
Sara took a moment to answer. “Gara usually shows up early. He’s a tall, slender man, built much like Commander Spock. He’ll be easy to spot. He always wears a black hood with vermilion stripes under the eye slits.”
She stepped away from the window. “Once he shows up, I’ll have him hooked in no time. My dop knows how to get any man. I’ll bring him up the back way, and when you hear us in the hall, get set. Wish me luck,” she finished.
She gave them both a languid, promising smile, and her firm bottom gave a provocative wiggle as she slipped out of the door.
An hour crawled by before McCoy called excitedly, “Jim, I think I’ve spotted our man!”
Kirk jumped up from the bed where he had sprawled and looked out the window.
“Where?”
“There! Coming across the far corner toward the speaker’s block.”
Kirk followed McCoy’s pointing finger.
A small, disciplined group of hillmen was opening a path through a small gathering of curious onlookers. In their center, head bowed as if in meditation, walked a man in a long black robe, face hidden behind a red and black hill mask.
“Where’s Sara?” Kirk wondered.
“Over there. She’s coming toward him.”
The two watched intently. Distant as she was from the inn, the woman was easy to follow because of the glittering gold comb in her hair.
“Chag Gara’s bodyguard may present a problem,” Kirk muttered.
“Sara will find a way,” McCoy said. “She’s as bright as she is sexy.”
As they watched, she made her way through the ranks of the hillmen and approached the hooded leader, hands raised as if in supplication. He didn’t seem to notice her as, head bowed, he continued to walk slowly toward the rostrum. She tugged the sleeve of his flowing robe and he looked at her.
The result was electric!
The robed man jumped back as if he’d seen a venomous snake and, pointing an accusing arm at the woman, shouted something. Two of his hill disciples grabbed her roughly as he leaped onto the rostrum in two bounds. He began a rapid, intense scanning of the faces in the small group of city people who waited to hear him speak. Then he turned, jumped lithely down from the stone platform, and began running to the far side of the square. The people in the crowd looked at each other with puzzled expressions, and the bodyguard, after several moments of confusion, ran after him as he disappeared into a narrow alley. The two holding Sara waited a moment, then pushed her roughly to the ground and ran off after their companions.
Kirk threw open the door as Sara came running up the ramp that led to the second story of the inn, then slammed and barred it as soon as she entered.
“What happened out there?” he demanded angrily.
“I don’t know,” she said breathlessly. “Those eyes
