“Captain, I haven’t even begun to perform. Just wait!” she said.
The chief guard barked an order and his men snapped to attention and marched to the curtain and parted it.
Kirk caught Sara’s hand. “Do your best,” he whispered. “There’s a lot at stake.”
“Aye, Captain,” she whispered. “Trust my dop.” Her hips moved sensuously and she gave a provocative little bump before moving ahead of the four men.
Kirk nodded to his officers and led the party through the tent doorway.
Directly ahead was an oval of hard-packed earth. Ranged around it were intricately woven mats and husky chieftains lounging on throws of lush fur. Large trays loaded with wine jugs and exotically colored and strangely shaped fruits and nuts were at their elbows. Serving men scurried in and out of another entrance directly across from Captain Kirk and his fellow officers. The lift of a hand or a bellow from the first rows of men sent a servant scuttling to his side to replenish his wine jugs and fruit bowls. Further back, the men were less lavishly dressed. They sat on bare neelot hides, and their signals to the servants were not answered with such alacrity. Kirk suspected Tram Bir had been in their ranks, on the very perimeter of their ranks, before he had gotten the Messiah’s ear and told him of Sara’s charm. Now he sat importantly in the very first row.
The Messiah was at the head of the oblong tent. He lounged on a raised dais draped with a silken, vermilion fur, the exact shade of the slashes of color beneath the eye holes of his ink-black, hooded mask. Guards were ranked in a semicircle behind him. Oil lamps on long poles flickered and smoked and sent eerie, grotesque shadows up the sides of the tent.
Kirk gave a roll on his drum to announce their presence. When he dropped his arms, the guard led the Beshwa party forward to the edge of the circle of hard-packed earth.
The Messiah waved a long-fingered hand. “Welcome.”
The performers bowed and Kirk murmured, “Peace and long life, Messiah.”
“Live long and prosper—Hirga of the Beshwa,” the Messiah responded after a pause.
Tram Bir stood, swaying slightly, and raised a nearly empty wine bowl. “Bring more torches that we may have more light to see the performance!” he shouted.
Instantly, serving men scurried in bearing torches. They drove the sharpened pole ends into the ground around the edge of the tamped earth circle.
The Messiah moved his hand in an impatient gesture. “We’re waiting, Beshwa. Entertain us.”
Kirk bowed and moved his band to one side. Scott, Chekov, and McCoy squatted and began to tune their instruments. Kirk set his drum on the ground and went to Sara, who still stood at the edge of the circle with her golden-masked head lowered, her slender body completely hidden in the long cape. As she lifted her hands to the clasp at her throat, his eyes caught the thick band on her wrist and he breathed a silent prayer. Then he took hold of the cape and whirled it away. There was a momentary silence as the tent full of men leaned forward to ogle the shapely body of the young ensign.
Kirk took his place behind the drum, glanced at his friends, and relaxed his mind, allowing the talent of his Beshwa dop to flood through him. As his ringers lightly caressed the drum’s taut membrane, bringing a soft murmur from it, McCoy and Chekov drew bows across their instruments, evoking steadily rising, pulsing notes. Scotty joined in just as the sound seemed on the verge of passing from the audible range. Kirk’s palms came down on the drums, interweaving a beat into the cascading sounds.
Sara’s amis uncurled to reveal jutting breasts that were barely covered by golden circlets of the same material as her mask. Below, she wore a small golden triangle. A sparkling jewel nestled in the dimple of her navel. A transparent, shimmering fabric, light as air, floated from her shoulders and, rather than hiding her nudity, enhanced it. Her hips made sensuous movements in rhythm with the music, and her gold-tipped fingers and toes punctuated the beat.
Beshwa it wasn’t, but the sighs and groans of the watching hill chieftains told Kirk that no one would object. Ensign George was pure, unadulterated, wanton sex. She pirouetted slowly, and the jewel in her navel danced to the music that spiraled from the Beshwa instruments. Although she moved teasingly among the clansmen seated nearest the circle, her graceful and nimble feet danced her out of their reach as they lifted hands toward her shapely body. Her smooth shoulders swayed, making the filmy fabric that enveloped her a shimmering cloud of color through which her creamy body glowed. The torchlight flashed and glittered from her mask.
Gracefully she whirled, coming ever closer to the Messiah. He sat impassively, but his eyes followed her every movement. Her arms wove graceful patterns as her body undulated before him.
Not close enough, Captain Kirk said to himself, as he gauged the distance from her arms to the lounging man. The range of the nullifier was only one meter. He increased the tempo.
As Kirk’s drum boomed faster, Chekov and McCoy followed along with a frantic sawing of their bows across their instruments. Scott hit and held a single high, pure note. Ensign George twirled across the hard-packed floor, her body a frenzy of orgiastic movement. She came to a halt before the Messiah with her arms raised beseechingly. Only her round little belly with its glittering jewel continued to dance. Her slender, swelling hips began to punctuate the beat and she slowly inched her feet forward. She was dancing solely for the leader, now.
Slowly, gracefully, she lowered her arms from above her head and reached out and ran her hands over his neck and shoulders. Then she sank to the floor at his feet.
Clan chiefs burst into wild applause. “More!” they screamed. “More!”
The Messiah held up his hand for silence and then motioned to Kirk and the others to rise. They stood, bowing from the hips.
“Beautifully done,” the Messiah said. “You will find that I am not ungenerous. Observe.”
He made a sudden, commanding gesture. Guards pounced. There was a fierce, futile struggle. Their masks were torn from their heads; then the four men were dragged forward.
“Holy one, how have we displeased you?” Kirk said humbly.
“Displeased, Captain Kirk? To the contrary, I’m delighted. I have fond memories of my last encounter with Ensign George. It was most kind of you to bring me such a lovely gift. Bind her!” he snapped to the guards, his voice suddenly ugly. “Take her to my tent!” He watched as Sara’s wrists were lashed together and she was dragged from the pavilion. Then he beckoned to Tram Bir to step forward. The chief sidled forward and stood before the Messiah like a small boy expecting punishment.
“It was at your suggestion that I allowed these ‘Beshwa’ to enter my presence, was it not?”
“I thought they would please you, Messiah.”
“What was my directive concerning strangers?”
“To kill them, Messiah. But these saved the life of my son. He joined them to us in blood. Also, they are great healers. The force I brought here is stronger because of them.”
“So your son Greth told me earlier, especially of the dead man who was walking around whole an hour later.” He shifted from Kyrosian to English. “Your healing was too ostentatious, Dr. McCoy. Coming as a Beshwa was a most ingenious disguise, but to come equipped with a medikit? As soon as Greth told me of yesterday’s events, especially those involving En sign Chekov, for whom he seems to have a pronounced dislike, the identity of the party was obvious.”
He reverted to hill dialect and spoke to the murmuring, confused hill chiefs. “This one,” he said, pointing to a cringing Tram Bir, “betrayed me. As is the custom, his oldest son will succeed him as chief. He and the demons who came in Beshwa guise will be given as a burnt offering to the gods before the rising of Kyr. Remove them!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As the Messiah watched, five long, sturdy poles, butt ends set deep in the ground, were readied in the center of the circle once occupied by the clan dead. Then Tram Sir and the four Enterprise officers were stripped and lashed securely to the poles with leather thongs. A cutting wind brought the first stinging drops of cold rain.
“Don’t you wish you’d stayed aboard the Enterprise, Captain?” the Messiah said. “Your bridge is a much cozier place. But you’ll be warmer, come morning. There’s enough wood and oil left to take the chill from your bones when we greet Afterbliss just before dawn. I think a burnt offering to the gods of a chief who disobeyed my
