… cold, deadly-looking…” Shoulders shaking, she tried to muffle a sob.
McCoy gripped her shoulder firmly. “Stop it, Sara, you’re safe here.”
A moment later, she was back in control.
“Sorry, my dop…” she said in a shaky voice. “I felt it myself, though. I couldn’t help it. When he turned to look at me, those red eyes in those narrow slits became… horrible! He couldn’t have reacted more violently if I’d been lunging at him with a dagger! But why? I used all my dop’s wiles. His response doesn’t make sense. The Chag Gara I profiled would have responded with a wink and a suggestion to meet somewhere.”
Kirk went to the window and stood there for a moment, staring out into Andros.
“Yesterday and the day before—did you have any contact with him that might explain his reaction?” Kirk asked.
“Negative, sir,” Sara said to his back. “We never even spoke. After I finished snapping him from here, I went out to get more profiles from other parts of the city. I paused by the platform as he was speaking—ranting, really, about the wickedness of the cities and the wrath of the gods that would follow. There was an almost hypnotic quality about his voice, but he jumped from one idea to another so incoherently it was pathetic. I only stayed a minute or two, so I don’t see how he could remember me as anything but another face in the crowd.”
Kirk turned away from the window. “Bones, do you get the same reading I do?”
The surgeon nodded somberly. “I’m afraid so, Jim.”
“What do you mean?” Sara asked in a puzzled voice.
“Since, as you say, there could be no reason Chag Gara would remember you, then the man in the mask must have been someone else,” Kirk said. “Someone who knows you on sight and who could scan that crowd for other faces from the Enterprise!”
“Commander Spock!” George gasped.
“Exactly,” McCoy said.
“Yes,” Kirk muttered. “He’s assumed Chag Gara’s identity. Spock’s brilliance linked to that hill maniac’s emotional power, believing, as Chag Gara did, that he’s the chosen of the gods… destined to bring a new order to Kyros.” Kirk paced the small room. “There’ll be no laughter when he speaks now. He’ll mold his listeners to his will in a way that will make… Hitler look like a rank amateur.”
“He knows we’re down here now, Jim,” McCoy said quietly. “What do you think he’ll do?”
“Do?” Kirk faced the doctor. “The first thing he’ll do—the logical thing—will be to protect his rear, like any good strategist. He’ll protect Chag Gara! He can’t afford to let us get to him because if we do, he’ll lose his emotional power. He’s paranoid, thinks he’s being persecuted, and we’ve given him evidence that people are after him. In a warped way, Spock is a whole man for the first time; and now that he’s tasted the h’fe he can have— power, women, fame—he won’t give it up for the loneliness of a life where the high point of the week was a game of chess with a computer.”
“So he’ll head for Chag Gara,” McCoy said, “to get him before we do.”
“Right!” Kirk said smashing a fist into one palm. “We’d better get moving. Sara!”
“Yes, sir?”
“You’ll have to take the con. McCoy and I don’t know the language or customs and now there’s even less time to get implanted. Our disguises as foreign seamen will give us freedom of movement, but we’ll only be able to tag along. You’ll have to find out where Chag Gara lives, and fast.”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” she said. “What’s the procedure if we do find him? Do we try to use me again?
Kirk thought for a moment then shook his head. “No, that’s too uncertain. Chag might agree, but put the rendezvous with you off until later in the day, which might give Spock time to get to him, if he isn’t there already. Bones, can you adjust that hypo to give Gara a dose to put him under control without knocking him out?”
“Yes,” McCoy replied as he withdrew the hypo from his pouch and made an adjustment. “If I can get close enough to hit him with this, he’ll still be able to navigate, but won’t know what’s going on. We can pass him off as a friend who’s had one too many.”
“Good,” Kirk said, unbarring the door. “Let’s move. Sara, even though you didn’t intend to, you got us into this mess. Now, it’s up to you to help get us out.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Follow me, Captain, Doctor,” Sara said, turning right as they left the room. “We’ll go down the back way.”
She led the way through a narrow, gloomy corridor. A few lamps guttered along the walls, throwing a dim, yellowish light. They came to a down-sloping ramp and took it. At the bottom, they exited through swinging doors and found themselves under a portico roof which shielded a patio paved with multicolored, triangularly-cut stones. Cages holding small, hissing, lizard-like birds hung from brackets attached to the columns which supported the roof.
“This way,” the female officer said, and turned to her left. They walked alongside the inn until they came to the end of the building.
Kirk and McCoy at her heels, Sara stepped out into a narrow alley, again turning left. It was like walking along the bottom of an air shaft. Tall buildings on the left, and the high city wall on the right, cut off most of the light and air. A stench rose from the containers of garbage stacked beside rear exits.
When they finally emerged into the square, it was like leaving a dark tunnel. They found themselves squinting and blinking as their eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight
The woman hesitated for a moment, scanning the crowded square; then she started for the opposite side.
More Kyrosians had begun to congregate in the plaza as Kyr mounted higher in the sky. City women with market baskets were jostled by hooded hillmen stooped under great bundles of hides and bales of a wool-like material brought to the city for barter. Bareheaded farmers in sun-faded smocks carried trays of exotically colored fruits and vegetables. There was a creaking of ungreased wheels as several wagons came through the open, triangular main gate. The tailless, hairless, reptile-like draft animals that were pulling them squealed in protest at the weight of the piles of iron ingots the wagons carried. Behind them came another wagon, a long, eight-wheeled hybrid that was articulated in the middle and had an open wagon in front and a closed van behind.
“Beshwa,” Sara said in answer to Kirk’s question. “They must have come in to load up with trade goods before they make their summer sweep through the hills.”
When they reached the far side of the square, Sara tugged at Kirk’s vest-like jacket and gestured toward a stooped, wizened old man standing in front of a shop staring apathetically at a table covered with pottery.
“What about him?” Kirk asked.
“That’s the dop I was supposed to link Mr. Spock to,” she said bitterly, her voice heavy with self- recrimination. “If I—”
“Right,” McCoy interrupted before she could finish, “but there’s nothing that can be done about it now. We’ve got to get to Chag-whatever-his-name-is before Spock does. Now, let’s move it, Ensign.”
Sara grinned wryly at him and nodded. “I think we should try Vembe’s place first. The hillmen don’t like city food and a lot of those who have businesses in the-plaza eat at his place.”
She led them through an archway into a long arcade that stretched along the entire width of the far side of the square. It was lined with many small shops and eating houses. As Sara paused about a third of the way along, McCoy gave an appreciative sniff.
“Something smells good,” he said. “I was in such a hurry this morning that I didn’t have time for any breakfast.” He was turning into the doorway from which came the mouth-watering aroma of roasting meat simmering in some spicy sauce when the girl grabbed his hand.
“Next door,” she said, and led the way into a dark opening that was so low that, small as she was, she had to stoop to enter.
“Good lord!” muttered McCoy as his nostrils were assaulted by a charnel stench. “What’s that?”
Sara giggled. “Vris. It’s a hill delicacy. First you take a haunch of neelot and hang it in a dark room until it’s
