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 orders, and spies who sought my life, will have a salutary effect on my followers. I’U see you in a few hours.” He turned to go.
“Hold it,” Kirk snapped in an authoritative voice.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Killing us is pointless. Something has happened you don’t know about.”
“Yes?”
“Your clans may take Andros for you, but when you march against new cities, you are going to have to have other miraculous raisings of the dead to convince them you are what you say you are and sweep them up in your crusade.”
“A logical assumption, Captain. That’s why the gods have provided me with Afterbliss.”
Kirk studied the black-robed figure for a moment. So cool, so logical, and yet so crazy. There had to be a way of getting under that paranoid overlay to the original, clear-thinking mind. Emotional appeals were useless since, Kirk thought, they would drive the Messiah further into paranoia. But cold logic might yet somehow get through to the original mind and stir it to revolt against the madness that enchained it. With a tremendous effort, he forced himself to appear as cold and dispassionate as if he were discussing an intriguing new concept in theoretical astrophysics.
“Your mistake is in believing the Enterprise will continue to follow your orders,” he said quietly.
“Indeed? I’ve been careful to make only reasonable requests of Mr. Sulu. He complies because he thinks he’s buying the time necessary for you to recover the warp-drive modulators. I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to give him an order he’d have to refuse—such as using phasers against Andros.” He tapped the tricorder he was wearing under his robes. “As long as I have this, it is illogical to think the Enterprise will be uncooperative.”
“You can’t expect help from an abandoned, radioactive hulk,” Kirk replied. “And that’s what the Enterprise will be by this time tomorrow. Since you disabled our warp-drive and beamed down here eight days ago, something catastrophic has happened.” As precisely as if he were feeding data into a computer, Kirk described the rapidly peaking radiation storm and its inevitable effects on the helpless starship.
“Indeed,” the Messiah said when Kirk finished. “What you’ve told me correlates directly with the change in weather patterns and the auroral displays of the past several nights. As soon as I finish my mission down here, I’m looking forward to calculating the origin of the storm from the data in the ship’s computer. The sub-space manifestation is most intriguing. In fact,” he added, “once my campaign gathers enough momentum so that it no longer needs my personal supervision, I’m thinking of moving permanently to the Enterprise. I have no one to play chess with down here. What’s more,” he said with a sudden change in voice and manner, “Ensign George doesn’t have exclusive rights. I’m looking forward to brightening the nights of Nurse Chapel and a few of the others.”