“If we beamed up an original, we wouldn’t need a duplicate,” Kirk said dryly, “but I see your point. Mr. Chekov…”
The young Russian, who except for his one outburst, had been sitting quietly for most of the conference, looked up.
“Yes, sir?”
“More education. Trot down to Andros and pick us up a Beshwa wagon. There should be at least one loading for the summer trading.”
With an effort, the navigator kept his face impassive.
“Yes, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?”
“You might pick up a liter of milk and a couple of dozen eggs on your way back.” Kirk struggled to keep down his own smile.
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” Chekov rose to his feet and marched stiffly to the door. When he reached it he paused, turned, and executed a flourishing salute.
“Theirs not to reason why,’ ” he declaimed dramatically.
“Theirs but to do and die.’” Grinning, Kirk completed the line.
“I thought our young friend only read Russian poetry,” McCoy said.
“Well, it is a poem involving Russians,” Kirk said, looking toward Chekov who stood at rigid attentioa “His ancestors blew mine out of the saddle with their cannons during the Charge of the Light Brigade.”
“What’s a… light brigade?” Sulu asked bemusedly.
“Six hundred men on horses armed only with swords and pistols,” Kirk explained. “Mr. Chekov seems to have stumbled on an old English poem called ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’ It’s about an incident during the Crimean War between Russia and England when, through a typical piece of brass-hat idiocy, a British cavalry unit was charging into a valley lined with Russian guns. The point of the poem is that it’s a glorious thing to get yourself killed because of a stupid order by a superior.
“All right, Ensign, I get the message. I suppose you’d like me to tell you how you’re supposed to get hold of a Beshwa caravan?”
“No, sir,” Chekov replied, still maintaining his rigid posture and a straight face. “A potential captain must be resourceful, sir. It is the milk and eggs that has me puzzled. My dop doesn’t seem to have heard of either; there are no chickens or cows on Kyros.”
There were several guffaws around the table, and Chekov relaxed.
“Then belay the groceries,” Kirk said. “How do you propose to get the other item?”
“By buying it, sir,” Chekov said smugly. “The Beshwa are traders, and a proper trader will sell his own mother if the price is right. I’ll stop by Engineering and pick up a sack of Mr. Scott’s counterfeit gold coins.” Chekov began to leave.
“Wait,” Kirk called. “Bones, what shape is Kaseme in?”
“Doped to the gills, Jim. He was given a shot before he recovered from his fainting spell last night, and he’s been out ever since. Why?”
“He’s got to be returned eventually. We’ll let Mr. Chekov lug him down to the transporter.” Kirk turned back to Chekov. “Tell Rogers to shift the coordinates, Ensign, and drop Kaseme in his own bedroom. If he remembers anything, he’ll put it down to an alcoholic nightmare. Will you take care of that, Ensign?”
Chekov nodded and left.
“I’ve got a feeling that someplace along the line my navigator gave one of my legs a slight pull,” Kirk said with a grin. ” Their’s not to reason why,’ indeed. Well, let’s get on to the next item on the agenda. Spock’s location. Thanks to Lieutenant Uhura, we have a pretty good idea where he might be.” Kirk turned to Uhura. “Lieutenant, if you please.”
The black woman snapped an order to the computer, and on the briefing room’s larger vision screen, a strange picture appeared. It was dark and punctuated by blobs and squiggles of light.
“The Captain and I were discussing Mr. Spock’s whereabouts earlier, trying to figure a way to trace his movements. Once he got to the hills, there was no way of telling what direction he and his party might have taken. It occurred to me that our orbital scanners might have picked up some information.”
She gestured to the large picture. “That is a nighttime infra-red scan of the Andros area,” she explained.
“The white blotch at the bottom is Andros. Cities throw off a lot of heat, even at night. The wavy line along here is the coast; there’s a marked temperature differential between land and sea.”
She gave another order to the computer and a bright line crawled from Andros, moved halfway up the screen, and then arced left. “A time sequence of Spock and his riders,” she said. “I thought a group that big, riding together, might generate enough heat to be picked up. I had no luck with the 1.3 and 2.2 micron windows, but hit paydirt on the 3.4. With a little computer enhancement, the slight trace I spotted was brought to what you see. Once the sun came up, the background thermal level rose to such a point that we lost him, but at least we know where he was at 06:00 this morning.”
“Spock may have more brain power than any one of us,” Kirk said as Uhura sat down. “But as a team we can’t be beat.”
He called an order to the computer, and the infra-red blow-up was replaced by a normal light photograph of the same area.
He stepped closer to the large screen. “If the clans respond to Spock’s call for a holy war—and after his Afterbliss demonstration there’s no doubt in my mind that they will—he’s going to need a fairly large assembly ground. Just beyond where the infra-red track ends,” Kirk pointed to the photo’, “there’s a large valley which opens onto the plains. That strikes me as a natural jump-off point for a strike on Andros. If Chekov gets us that Beshwa caravan, we’ll beam down here—” he indicated a spot about thirty kilometers northeast of the city, “—and circle back through the hills so we can appear to have come in from the northeast.”
“That’s rough looking country,” McCoy remarked. Kirk nodded.
The photo showed the sharp, jagged peaks of the mountain lairs of the hill clans; the lower foothills, slashed with gullies cut by the torrential spring rains, where they grazed their flocks from early summer through late fall; and finally the wide coastal plains that undulated down to the sea. The dominant feature of the aerial photo was a deep gorge that angled down from the northeast, cutting a twisting furrow through the foothills until it widened and discharged the river flowing on its bottom onto the plains. There the waters slowed, finally spreading out into a broad delta and joining the sea near Andros. The plain was criss-crossed with lines marking secondary roads connecting the agricultural villages, and broader ones showing main market roads leading to the city.
Kirk traced the road that went almost due north. When it reached the gorge, he paused.
“There’s evidently a bridge across here, though the scale is too small to show it,” he said. “You’ll note that the road picks up on the other side. A few kilometers farther north is a mining settlement which is the source of most of Andros’s iron. It is located by the mines, and up a ravine a few kilometers to the east, there’s a crude smelter.”
There was a groan from Scott. “I remember the place,” he said sourly, “or rather my dop does. He spent a year of compulsory city service there when he was younger.” Scott’s personality seemed to disappear and be replaced by an even more crotchety, cynical one. “What a hole! No girls, one lousy wine shop that watered the juice so much it took four liters to get a buzz on, and typical army chow. Ugh!”
“Army?” Uhura said curiously.
“That’s right, sweetie. It was a paramilitary operation, and still is. The clans always want to steal our spearstone, and every now and then they’ll pull a sneak raid to grab off a few ingots. Nothing large scale,” he added, “but enough of a nuisance so that only young men run the operation. What a pain! A week in the mines, a week at the smelter, a week on guard, and then you start the whole cycle over again. If I’d known, and had a choice, I would have picked the galleys!”
Scott stopped suddenly and looked sheepishly about
“I mean my dop would. It’s sair weird being able to tap into somebody else’s memories at will. While you’re doing it, you get to feeling you were there yourself.”
“That’s why the telescan implants seemed like such a great idea for survey use,” McCoy said. “Though I myself felt from the start—”
“We’re all aware of your feelings, Bones,” Kirk said, “but the postmortem can wait. At the moment, we have
