Spock Messiah

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It had been three hours since the meeting broke up. Captain Kirk was sprawled out on his bunk staring at the ceiling, his mind busily working on the details of the coming expedition, when the intraship communicator sounded. He rolled off the bunk.

“Kirk here.”

“Sorry to bother, Jim,” McCoy’s voice said, “but we have a neelot problem. Can you come down to the cargo transporter?”

When he got to the transporter room, crewmen were wheeling a gaudily painted Beshwa wagon off the stage and over to one side. Chekov, a miserable expression on his face, was braced against the control console, his Kyrosian shorts down around his ankles. McCoy finished applying an antiseptic spray to one bare buttock, then sprayed a layer of flesh-colored foam that hardened into a thin, flexible sheet.

“There,” he said. “In a couple of days the dermolastic will dry up and fall off, leaving a nice, pink gluteus.”

“What happened to you?” Kirk demanded with a grin.

Chekov pulled up his shorts and turned so that Kirk could see a jagged tear in their seat

“Damn neelot bit me, sir.”

“His not to reason why,” McCoy put in softly.

“So where is it… them?” the captain asked.

“Still down there, sir. While I was trying to hitch one of them to the wagon, he let loose with a kick that could have taken off my head if I hadn’t jumped back out of range. When I did, another one just reached around and took a sample. Is it true that once they’ve tasted blood—”

“I’ll see that you’re mentioned in the log… sometime,” Kirk interrupted. “However, we’ve now got a Beshwa caravan and nothing to pull it with.”

“That’s what happens when you send a boy to do a man’s job,” McCoy drawled. “Especially a city boy.”

“I can’t help it if my dop isn’t a neelot tamer,” Chekov said defensively. “I’d like to see what you would have done if you were in my shoes… sir.”

McCoy made a modest gesture. “Once I’d shown them who was boss,” he said, “they’d be eating out of my hand. As an old Georgia farm boy raised around Missouri mules, I’ve yet to see a meaner, more ornery critter than a terrestrial jackass, in spite of all the planets I’ve been to.”

“Well,” said Kirk, folding his arms across his chest, “it looks like we have a volunteer, doesn’t it, Ensign?”

“Yes, sir!” came Chekov’s enthusiastic reply.

“Now, wait just one little old second, Jim,” McCoy protested.

Kirk looped his arm through one of McCoy’s and escorted him to the transporter stage. “Shouldn’t be any trouble at all for an ‘old Georgia farm boy.’ ” He turned to the officer behind the control console. “Lieutenant, energize, if you please.”

With a huge grin on her face, the woman officer did so.

“Yours not to reason why,” Kirk called gaily as McCoy faded from sight in the glitter of the carrier wave.

Ten minutes later, the chief medical officer reappeared with six docile neelots in tow. “I was waiting a full five minutes,” he said, as he led the animals to the wagon and rapidly hitched them up. Kirk noticed that his right knuckles were bruised and bleeding.

“Was that… eating out of your hand, or eating of it?” he asked.

“Couldn’t find an ax handle, so I had to use my fist,” McCoy explained. “They may have heads that look like alligators, but they’re soft. A proper Missouri mule would have reared back and hee-hawed.” Crooking his finger, and with a mock evil grin he said to Chekov, “Come along, Ensign. I wouldn’t want you to get hoof and mouth disease at a time like this. I have an old-fashioned needle…”

Sometime later, Kirk, programmed with a Beshwa dop, lay on his bunk again and began to sample the store of knowledge of his new identity. He had become accustomed to the Androsian mind he was previously linked to, but the Beshwa were products of a different culture. As he gingerly began to probe the memories and attitudes of his dop, the communicator sounded.

This time it was his chief engineer.

“What’s the problem, Scotty?”

“It’s this Beshwa caravan,” Scott explained. “I just canna make sense of some of its parts…”

Kirk grinned and realized he could get one up on his engineer because of his Beshwa dop.

“Hang on, Scotty, I’ll be right down.”

When he arrived in the cargo transporter room, which he had left only an hour before, he found his engineer standing by the odd-looking wagon, fists on hips, muttering softly.

“Can I be of any help?” Kirk asked innocently.

“Well, sir,” Scott said, “if you can tell me why the wagon tongue is hinged so it can stick straight up in the air, and why the van can be disconnected from the wagon in front and, above all, why the blazes there’s a telescoping boom twenty meters long and connecting the twa parts… I’ll… I’ll nae take a drink for a month!”

“You don’t mean that?” Kirk asked in mock surprise. Scott nodded.

“Well,” Kirk began, “even though I’m not an engineer, of course, it seems simple to me. I imagine the reason the two parts can be disconnected is so the Beshwa, if they have several short trading visits to make in one day, can unhook the van and park it somewhere convenient. As for the rest…”

Scott’s jaw dropped farther and farther as Kirk went into a detailed explanation of the use of the various special features.

When he finished, he added modestly, “I may be way off base, though, Mr. Scott.”

Scott turned wide eyes on his captain. “But you’re right, Captain. That’s the way it has to be. Now, why couldn’t I have seen that?”

“Because I have a Beshwa dop and you don’t, Scotty. Now, get down to sickbay and have Dr. McCoy link you into yours, and then you can check this caravan over thoroughly. We’re beaming down before dawn tomorrow, and I don’t want a wheel coming off the first hour on the road.”

Scott turned to go, then swung back. “Captain, aboot that pledge…”

“Scotty,” Kirk said, “Do you really think I would make you go on the wagon?” Kirk grinned. Relieved, Scott went to sickbay.

Early the following morning, the landing party lined up before the Beshwa caravan for a quick inspection. The experiment of hooking two men into one dop had worked out well; the only thing that betrayed the overlapping was when the officers went into character. In spite of their physical differences, in intonations and mannerisms Kirk and Chekov were almost like identical twins. The same was true for Scott and McCoy, who had been double linked to the other Beshwa profile in the medical department files. Only Sara, still a little pale from her ordeal but otherwise in good shape, remained linked to her original doppelganger, the amorous little Androsian belly dancer; but since Beshwa women were retiring sorts who took no part in the trading, it was hoped she would be able to pass virtually unnoticed. In her case, her nonverbal abilities were considered more important than her verbal, though she had been given a quick hypno-briefing on Beshwa patois the night before, and her dop, for business reasons, already had a fair command of the hill tongue.

The caravan had contained enough clothing to outfit them all—Chekov’s purse had been large enough to buy the vehicle just as it stood, complete with dirty crockery from the morning meal of the former owners.

The men wore gaudily decorated leather tunics that stretched to their knees. Over them they wore sleeveless leather jackets with V-shaped openings that plunged from neck to waist, and woven trousers. Their hair, now dyed a purplish black, had been shaved on each side so that only a five-centimeter-wide strip remained. They were unarmed, in accordance with Beshwa tradition. Their skins had been darkened to a deep mahogany color, and their contact lenses were slightly more pinkish than the Kyrosian norm.

Sara’s dress was similar to the men’s, except that instead of hanging loosely, her tunic fit her voluptuously curved body like a second skin; and her hair, also dyed, had been trimmed to a pert page-boy bob.

Kirk surveyed the small party closely, then nodded his head in approval. “All aboard,” he called. He and Chekov climbed into the driver’s seat on the wagon, as the others scrambled up to perch on the trade goods on the wagon’s bed. They seated themselves comfortably on the thick fur covering.

“Energize,” Kirk ordered.

The neelots hissed and reared nervously, as they suddenly felt earth under their hooves instead of the ridged plate of the cargo transporter. Kirk’s newly acquired driver’s skill was put to a severe test as he tried to keep them from bolting. After he had them quieted down, he looked around, attempting to determine their location.

Dim shapes that seemed like bushes humped around them, but all the moons had set, and starshine didn’t provide enough light for traveling safely. A hah’ hour passed before a faint grayness began to appear on the eastern horizon. When at last it was light enough, Kirk jumped down from the wagon and pushed through tangled vegetation, Sara at his heels, until he came to an outcropping of rock which jutted ten meters into the air. When he reached the rock, he clambered up it, and slowly surveyed the surrounding countryside.

“We seem to be right on target,” he said as he reached down to help Sara climb up beside him.

To the north he could make out an escarpment slashing across the middle distance. It rose to the far left rather abruptly and cut east, separating the foothills from the plains. Along its base ran a gorge, deeply cut into living rock by millennia of rushing waters. Directly ahead, a roaring sounded in the distance, and the first rays of Kyr gave rainbow tints to a cloud of dancing mist that rose above the canyon’s edge to signal a waterfall below.

He swung one hundred and eighty degrees and faced due south, studying the wind-scoured plains which sloped gently down toward Andros and the sea. There was no sign of life. He looked back in the direction they were to travel.

“Can you make out the bridge, Captain?” Sara asked.

He shook his head and glanced back in the direction of Andros.

The rolling country dotted with brush, barren as it was, seemed almost benign compared to the rugged foothills and the roaring chasm ahead.

He was about to climb down from his vantage point when a light morning wind shifted and the mist was rolled back.

“There it is,” he exclaimed. “I can just make out the top ends of the support poles. It’s not far off.”

“Why couldn’t we have beamed down farther back?” Sara asked, as they headed back to the Beshwa caravan.

“The migration path we’ll be taking to cut in behind Spock’s gathering is fairly heavily traveled. It might have looked a little odd if a Beshwa caravan suddenly appeared in the middle of a clan heading for their summer grazing grounds. This way, if we run into any hillmen when we reach the trail, we can simply say that we turned down to the mining settlement for some trading.”

When they arrived at their strange, many-wheeled vehicle, McCoy poked his head out of the back door of the van, where he and the rest had taken refuge from the morning chill.

“Do you have us located?” the doctor asked.

Kirk nodded. “The road from Andros is just to the left, and the bridge is almost straight ahead.”

They cut through the brush and then down a hill until they reached the dirt road. It was rutted from heavy traffic, though there was no one on it at the moment. As they traveled along, slightly below the level of the rolling country they had just left, the bridge’s support poles began to rise from behind a low hill. When they topped it, Kirk pulled the neelots to a halt and stared down in dismay.

The heavy jakim cables which should have arced between the uprights to support the suspension bridge, dangled loosely into the ravine between.

Kirk whipped the neelots forward, and the wagon lumbered quickly to the edge of the gorge. Halting it, Kirk leaped down.

The bridge was gone; the only link between the hills and the lowlands for forty kilometers in either direction lay in tangled ruins at the bottom of the canyon.

Kirk raised his eyes and peered to the opposite side. The cables had been cut from the far side and, like a taut ribbon cut at one end, the bridge had gone curling into the depths below. The party stood looking for a moment at the now inaccessible road on the other side that wound back into the hills; and then they turned and went back to the vehicle.

“Why?” Sara murmured.

Kirk dug into the memory of his dop.

“Spearstone. It looks like the clans are already on the move.” He pointed toward the sharply rising hills on the other side of the ruined bridge. “Back that way about six kilometers is the source of most of Andres’s iron. There are some rich veins there. Spock’s working fast. The first step in a major offensive is to cut off the raw materials your enemy needs for instruments of war.” Kirk turned around and faced Chekov.

“Get me the map, Ensign. There must have been a way to get across before the bridge was built.”

The Russian went into the caravan and emerged a moment later with a roll of parchment-like material.

Kirk unrolled it and spread it out on a flat rock. He studied it for a long moment, his face clouded in concentration. Finally, he put a finger on the map.

“Look,” he said, his finger tracing a path. “A few kilometers downstream, the gorge river empties into a small lake. I’ll bet in the old days the iron was ferried across. I don’t know how they’d get it out otherwise. The terrain on the far end of the lake looks even more rugged than it is along here. If my hunch is right, there should be an old road branching off not too far back which we can take down to the lake.”

“What do we do when we get there?” Sara asked. “Swim to the other side? Somehow I doubt that the ferry is still running.”

Kirk grinned at the officer. “We’re Beshwa, remember? We go where we want, even when there aren’t any convenient bridges around.” He stood up, rolling the map. “You’ll see,” he added cryptically.

There was a road. But it was so overgrown with vegetation that they almost missed it. As they jolted down the old trail, they had to stop at intervals and hack a path wide enough for the caravan to pass through the thickets which had grown up since the road was last used. Nearly an hour later, the Beshwa vehicle emerged from a narrow ravine onto a bank that sloped gently down to the edge of a placid lake. Sara ran to the shore, knelt, cupped her hands, and splashed cold, clear water on her sweaty, dust-grimed face. “Umm,” she called, “that’s lovely. Is there time for a quick swim, Captain?”

“Go ahead,” Kirk said. “Since you don’t have a Beshwa dop, you won’t be much help rigging the caravan.”

Sara stripped off her clothes without a hint of self-consciousness, ran out onto a long flat rock which jutted over the lake’s edge, and then, like a golden naiad, arced into the cool water.

“You know, Jim,” McCoy chuckled and said, “no matter how this crazy expedition ends up, I don’t think Sara will ever go back to being her old, prim self.”

“If this expedition is ever going to go anyplace.”

Kirk said, “we’d better get to work. Scotty, you and Chekov unhitch the neelots. Bones and I will disconnect the van and wagon.”

Not long after, the job was done. The long wagon tongue, hinged where it was connected to the front of the wagon, now stood erect, a sturdy mast. A timber had been attached about a third of the way up the tongue to serve as a boom, and the canvas-like covering that protected the trade goods in the wagon was ready to be rigged as a sail.

“Sara,” Kirk called to the woman, who was happily cavorting in the water a hundred meters out, “we’re ready to launch. Come in and keep an eye on the neelots, while we take the van and the cargo across.”

As she came flashing toward them, like a graceful mermaid, the four men put their shoulders to the back of the van and rolled it down the slope into the water. Then, as it bobbed gently like a great floating box, they went back and rolled down the wagon.

“Can I help?” called Sara, as she pulled herself onto a sun-warmed rock, as unconcerned about her nudity as a child.

“Now you can,” Kirk replied. He removed his neelot-hide boots and waded out to where the van and the wagon floated a few meters apart. “You can give me a hand getting these two hooked together.” She dove back into the water and surfaced at his side. He reached under the front of the van and took hold of the protruding end of the telescoping pole. He pulled it out a few meters and-then slid the tip into a socket at the rear of the floating wagon, locking it into place with a metal pin.

“Push the wagon on out until this thing’s fully extended,” he said. “I’ll set the locking pins at each of the joints.”

Sara dug her feet into the sand of the gently shelving bottom, and pushed the van out into the lake until the rod was fully extended.

“That’s it,” Kirk said as he moved toward her, reaching under water at each junction of the sections to lock it in place. “We’re ready to go.”

“I guess it’s a boat now,” Sara said. “But why break it into two parts?”

“The van’s so high,” Kirk answered, “it would cut off most of the wind. It’s a stubby mast. Why don’t you untether the neelots and water them? They’re probably as thirsty as we.”

The girl nodded, swam back to the rock, and slipped into her clothes. McCoy and the rest waded out and climbed up on the wagon. Scott broke into an off-key rendition of “Anchors Aweigh,” as Kirk hoisted the sail and let the boom swing out until it was almost at right angles to the wagon. Slowly, as the wind bellied out the one-piece canvas-like covering, the strange craft began to gather momentum. The van rode decorously behind, kept in position by the long, flexible connecting pole.

“Ready on the brake, Bones,” Kirk said as the front wheels made contact with the shelving bottom of the opposite shore, and the wagon began to roll up out of the water. When it was far enough inland so the van also was beached, McCoy brought the vehicle to a halt

Chekov jumped down and released the connecting rod from its socket, telescoping each section until all of it had slid back into its protective tunnel under the van. In the meantime, Kirk and the other two dropped the tailgate of the wagon and were busily unloading bundles of trade goods.

When the wagon was finally empty, McCoy released the brake and it went sailing down the beach, entering the water at an angle as Kirk tacked into the northerly wind. Once across the small lake, they loaded the neelots into the now empty wagon and again set sail for the opposite shore.

It took an hour of arduous brush-hacking before they finally got back onto the main road. Before it had seemed like only a rutted cart trail, but compared to what they had been over on their detour, it was more like a broad highway.

When they were almost at the top of a long slope, Kirk turned the reins over to McCoy and unrolled the map.

“We should reach the Androsian mining settlement in a couple of hours,” he said. “Once over the crest, the road doglegs into a narrow canyon. The mines and the workers’ huts are located where it widens out The smelter is up a side canyon near a stream that supplies water for its operation.” He raised his eyes from the map and rolled it closed. “Beshwa have been here before, so this will be the first test of how well we’ll be able to pass.”

“That will be no problem, Captain,” said a confident voice from the rear. Kirk turned. Chekov had made a comfortable nest with carefully arranged bundles and a soft fur blanket. He sprawled indolently. “As long as we have our dops to cue us, nobody will be able to tell us from the real thing”

“Except for Sara,” Scott said. “She isnae linked to a Beshwa.”

Chekov chortled. “Sara doesn’t need a Beshwa dop. As long as there are males around, our little belly dancer will be able to handle the situation. Right, little vabushka?” he said, reaching over as if to pat her firmly rounded rump.

“Ensign George to you, if you please,” she said. “And keep your hands to yourself. My dop doesn’t engage in erotic play with children.”

Chekov’s retort was cut off by a sudden roll of thunder. Dark storm clouds were piling up over the mountains to the west and rapidly moving toward them.

“Looks like another soaker coming up,” Kirk said. “That radiation front is really screwing up Kyros’s weather. Better get in the van; no point in all of us getting wet.”

For the next hour the caravan crawled through the beating rain, climbing steadily up the road that snaked along the bottom of the winding canyon that led through the hills to the mining settlement. Finally the rain tapered off; and when Kirk stopped to rest the neelots, the others came out of the van and climbed back into the wagon.

“Dismal territory,” Kirk remarked.

The surrounding foothills were even more tumbled, rough, and rock-and-bush-strewn than they had appeared in the photos taken by the automatic survey cameras aboard the Enterprise. The sky was sullen gray, pregnant with dark, swollen thunderheads. Shivering, Kirk slapped the reins and urged the neelots into motion.

When another hour had passed, they seemed to have almost reached the crest of the range of hills. The cloud cover had lightened considerably, parting occasionally to let a watery sun appear.

Suddenly McCoy gripped Kirk’s arm.

“Look, Jim,” he said, pointing. “Over there, a little to the left. Isn’t that smoke?”

“It’s probably just mist.”

McCoy sniffed the air. “Mist never smelled like that,” he said. “There’s something burning ahead.”

Kirk took a whip from its socket beside the seat and cracked it over the neelots’ heads. They broke into a loose-jointed canter. When the caravan finally topped the crest of the hill and Kirk saw what lay ahead, he jerked back sharply on the reins, bringing the caravan to a sudden halt.

“What’s going on?” Sara’s voice called from the rear.

“Stand up and see,” Kirk replied grimly. “Spock must be already on the march.”

A gusting wind, moaning dirge-like from the mountains, carried smoke and the smell of slaughter to the stunned travelers. Kirk sat, staring down at the scene of carnage. McCoy rose partway from his seat, his mouth open, and Chekov stared, shock scrawled across his boyish face. Only Scott spoke.

“Great Lord of Space…”