Ensign George went to the room’s only window and jerked back the heavy curtain covering it.
The early morning light of Kyr, the system’s yellow sun, poured in through mica-like panes set in the frame. Kirk and McCoy crowded close as the woman swung the window open. From their second-story vantage point they looked down on a large, paved plaza, obviously a marketplace from the bustle of activity around the stands and shops that lined it. The plaza was bounded on the left by the city’s wall. A main gate, a massive triangular opening with a center post holding the hinges and long ropes running from the base angles to huge winches, gave access to the world beyond. On each side of the gate, steps went up to a parapet that ran along the top of the wall. To the left, and on the far side of the plaza, were numerous multilevel buildings made of stone with sides painted in abstract, geometric shapes.
Ensign George pointed to a raised stone platform near a central well.
“That’s a speaker’s block,” she said. “One of the nice things about Andros is that anybody who wants to can get up there and speak his mind anytime on anything. Chag Gara was up there ranting the day I came down. Only a few people were listening, and most of them were laughing, but I scanned him so I could include some hillmen.” Her face grew bleak. “That was my next biggest mistake. If only I—”
“We’ve no time for ‘if onlys,’” Kirk said. “What’s our first step?”
Sara took a moment to answer. “Gara usually shows up early. He’s a tall, slender man, built much like Commander Spock. He’ll be easy to spot. He always wears a black hood with vermilion stripes under the eye slits.”
She stepped away from the window. “Once he shows up, I’ll have him hooked in no time. My dop knows how to get any man. I’ll bring him up the back way, and when you hear us in the hall, get set. Wish me luck,” she finished.
She gave them both a languid, promising smile, and her firm bottom gave a provocative wiggle as she slipped out of the door.
An hour crawled by before McCoy called excitedly, “Jim, I think I’ve spotted our man!”
Kirk jumped up from the bed where he had sprawled and looked out the window.
“Where?”
“There! Coming across the far corner toward the speaker’s block.”
Kirk followed McCoy’s pointing finger.
A small, disciplined group of hillmen was opening a path through a small gathering of curious onlookers. In their center, head bowed as if in meditation, walked a man in a long black robe, face hidden behind a red and black hill mask.
“Where’s Sara?” Kirk wondered.
“Over there. She’s coming toward him.”
The two watched intently. Distant as she was from the inn, the woman was easy to follow because of the glittering gold comb in her hair.
“Chag Gara’s bodyguard may present a problem,” Kirk muttered.
“Sara will find a way,” McCoy said. “She’s as bright as she is sexy.”
As they watched, she made her way through the ranks of the hillmen and approached the hooded leader, hands raised as if in supplication. He didn’t seem to notice her as, head bowed, he continued to walk slowly toward the rostrum. She tugged the sleeve of his flowing robe and he looked at her.
The result was electric!
The robed man jumped back as if he’d seen a venomous snake and, pointing an accusing arm at the woman, shouted something. Two of his hill disciples grabbed her roughly as he leaped onto the rostrum in two bounds. He began a rapid, intense scanning of the faces in the small group of city people who waited to hear him speak. Then he turned, jumped lithely down from the stone platform, and began running to the far side of the square. The people in the crowd looked at each other with puzzled expressions, and the bodyguard, after several moments of confusion, ran after him as he disappeared into a narrow alley. The two holding Sara waited a moment, then pushed her roughly to the ground and ran off after their companions.
Kirk threw open the door as Sara came running up the ramp that led to the second story of the inn, then slammed and barred it as soon as she entered.
“What happened out there?” he demanded angrily.
“I don’t know,” she said breathlessly. “Those eyes
… 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.”