“This is why our sister must come with us when we go to join the Messiah with you,” Kirk said.
“No,” Tram said flatly. “Women must stay behind when the warriors ride. If I let her come along, my men would demand a new chief.” He clapped Kirk on the shoulder. “But bring your brothers and come to the feasting. I want to hear what Greth says when he sees the dead walk hi.” He turned to go.
Kirk thought quickly. Without Ensign George, their chances of getting close enough to use the nullifier on Spock were nil.
“Wait,” he called. “What if your warriors wanted our sister to come?”
“There’s no chance of that,” the chieftain replied.
“Perhaps not,” Kirk said, “but let her speak to them in her own way after the feasting.”
It was still dark when there was a banging on the van door.
“First light is almost here,” a hill voice called. “We leave with it.”
Kirk sat up with a groan and clutched his throbbing head with both hands. There was a stir as the others pulled themselves out from under their fur coverlets. Except for Sara, the others didn’t seem to be in any better shape than their captain.
“I’ll go out and hitch up the neelots,” Sara said brightly. “I don’t think any of you are up to it.”
“Who brought me home, Bones?” Kirk asked as she exited briskly into the gray of early dawn.
“Beats me,” McCoy said. “The last thing I remember was Chekov doing a Beshwa version of the kazat-ski, while Scotty was speculating on whether a neelot stomach would do for a proper haggis. You know, Jim, I never could understand the Scots predilection for making puddings from chopped-up sheep’s lungs.”
Kirk made a face, but Scott didn’t respond. He was too busy nursing a hangover.
“Oh, well,” Kirk said, “I suppose this, too, will pass.” He got to his feet, poured water from a jug into a basin, and splashed his face. The van door opened and Sara came in.
“All ready to roll,” she said. “If you’re driving, Captain, you’d better get up there. Tram Sir’s ready to leave.”
“Glad you’re coming with us, Ensign,” Kirk said, “After that dance of yours, if Tram Bir had said no, his men would have strung him up right there and elected you chief.”
“My dop is a woman of many talents,” Sara said demurely.
“Don’t be so modest, Ensign. You did provide the body, you know.”
Kirk went outside and climbed into the driver’s seat Tram Bir waved him into position behind the provision carts. As he pulled up behind them, there was a snarl of clan horns. Then, Tram Bir and his warriors at the head, the column moved out through the gate and across the drawbridge.
Two hours later, they were back on the east-west migration trail.
“Tell me, Jim,” McCoy said, “what do you think our chances are of getting within striking distance of Spock?”
Kirk shrugged. “Not too good. If you were in his shoes, what would you expect us to do?”
“Probably something pretty much like we’re doing.”
“Right. What I’m hoping is that he’ll expect us to come in disguised as hillmen. There’s another thing in our favor, too. He doesn’t know about the radiation storm and how desperate our situation has become up there. As a result, he may not anticipate a try as crazy as this one—at least not this soon.” He glanced up at the sun and made a quick mental calculation. ‘I know this vehicle sticks out like a sore thumb but, with luck, it may take a few hours for word about strangers in the camp to get to him. According to the map, it’s going to be about dusk when we get there, and some big ceremony involving the dead we’re Bringing is planned. That should keep him busy for a while. What’s more, Tram Bir is on our side.”
“How?” McCoy demanded.
“Before we got too drunk last night, I suggested to him that he ought to hold off on asking the Messiah about us until he was in a position to ask a favor—like maybe after the first battle. I think he’ll go along with that because we’re a fairly valuable property, and he’d like to have us around as long as possible. Besides, I think he has designs on our little ensign.”
McCoy chuckled. “I wouldn’t doubt it. When she tossed her G-string to the crowd on her final exit, I had a few myself.”
There was a long silence during which Kirk thought of what lay ahead. Finally, he said somberly, “Every time I think of the odds we’re facing, I wonder if I shouldn’t have given Chekov’s suggestion more serious consideration.”
“You mean using a shuttlecraft and phasers?”
“Yes. My veto was based on the dynamics of Earth history. Maybe they don’t work the same way here.”
“Could be, Jim,” McCoy said, “but it’s too late to do anything about it now. You ordered Sulu to refrain from any direct action until he heard from you and,” he added wryly, “I don’t think even your voice is loud enough to carry a hundred and fifty kilometers.”
Kyr’s red bulk was dropping toward the horizon as the clan column emerged from the widening valley onto the northern limits of the great coastal plain, a gently rolling land covered with short, feathery fronds of reddish Kyrosian grass. The setting sun’s rays tinged them a deep maroon, making it look as if the land had been painted with blood.
Kirk gestured toward the south. “Andros is someplace down there.”
McCoy nodded and pointed off to the right as something caught his eye. “Look,” he said, “company…”
In the distance, another clan column was moving on a converging course. As minutes passed and the two groups came closer together, white-sheeted dead could be seen heaped on long, flat-bedded carts.
“Looks like they had a raiding assignment, too,” McCoy said.
As they rode on, more groups of riders came into view, most of them from a westerly direction. Then they topped a slight rise, and the great gathering came into view. Tent clusters, each marking the camping place of a clan, formed a rough horseshoe, the open end facing south. Each grouping was separated from the one on either side by an open space of at least a hundred meters distance. It looked as if, in spite of their new-found unity, a certain amount of hostility and mutual suspicion remained. Smoke began to rise into the still air as cooking fires were lighted. In front of each tent stood spears, one for each occupant, their burnished heads gleaming in the last rays of the setting sun like fire-dipped pinpoints, a flickering, changing scatter of earthbound stars.
Dominating the curved upper part of the horseshoe was a great black pavilion, a long, low rectangle that stood in marked contrast to the dome-shaped tents of the clan clusters. Directly in front of it, a tall pole had been erected and from it hung a black banner. Caught by a momentary gust of wind, it rippled out, displaying a large white circle in its center, the symbol of Afterbliss. Surrounding the pavilion, one every three meters or so, stood armed hillmen, weapons at the ready.
McCoy jerked his thumb at them. “It looks like visitors just don’t wander in unannounced.”
Kirk nodded in somber agreement. “Nobody ever said that getting to him was going to be easy. Spock may be crazy, but he’s shrewd.”
A hundred meters or so behind the pavilion, a black tent stood by itself. Behind it was a semicircle of domed shelters that were larger and more elaborately decorated than those in the clan area. An ornate banner flapped in front of each.
“Looks like he wants his chiefs close at hand,” Kirk said.
A speaker’s platform had been erected in front of the pavilion. Before it, at a distance of two hundred meters or so, white-wrapped bodies had been placed in concentric circles, heads facing inward. More were being placed in position as additional contingents of hillmen arrived with their dead.
“Looks like they’re going to cremate them,” McCoy said, as clansmen began to carry in armfuls of wood from a huge pile to one side. They continued to watch as they drove closer.
“Uh, uh,” Kirk said. “They’ve got something else in mind. Look where they’re putting it.” Four long arms of wood were growing from the circle of bodies to form a cross, each arm pointing to a different point of the compass. Hillmen scurried back and forth like ants, adding wood until each pile was at least fifty meters long and a meter and a half high.
As more bodies were carried in, Kirk made a mental calculation and then whistled. “Spock really bloodied his troops,” he said softly. “There must have been a clan raid on every settlement on the perimeter.” His brow furrowed. “Why would he waste men like that when he needs them for his attack on Andros? Once he has the capital, the outlying villages will stop resisting.”
