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“Mr. Spock’s message, sir. An old beggar woman brought it to me at the inn.”

Kirk glanced at the parchment-like scroll. It was from Spock all right. Kirk’s name was written on the outside in lettering so precise that it could have been printed by a computer.

As Kirk untied the ribbon and opened the scroll, Scott watched as Dawson removed his garishly marked, close-fitting hood, displaying his newly-shaven head.

“What were you doing down there, Lieutenant? Playing trick or treat?”

Dawson grinned and rubbed his head. “My dop is a hillman, Commander. At least he was before he got kicked out of his clan for propositioning one of the chiefs wives. Andros is full of hillmen who have had their hoods lifted.”

“Who what?” Scott asked.

“Had their hoods lifted. Exposing the face is as taboo among the hill tribes as exposing the breasts once was back on Earth a few hundred years ago. On Kyros, once your face has been seen by an enemy, you’re wide open to any spell he wants to send your way. The worst punishment a clan can inflict on an erring member, aside from killing him, is to strip off his hood in public. Once his features are known, he usually would opt for immediate, permanent, self-imposed exile. Or commit suicide. Most of them get to Andros and live together in a slum, since no hill tribe will take a reject from another…”

Kirk’s voice suddenly halted further conversation. His face a frozen mask, he spoke in unnaturally calm, precise tones.

“Mr. Scott, please call the warp drive engine room and have your people check the status of the trilithium modulator crystals in the field damper circuits. Have them check stores to see if the replacements are there.”

“Now why would you be wanting the trilithium modules checked at a time like this?”

“Please carry out my orders, Mr. Scott,” Kirk said. Although he gave no hint of his inner turmoil, there was a quality to his voice that made Scott jump.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Jim, what the hell’s wrong?” McCoy asked. Kirk ignored him, staring at the scroll held in his hands.

Scott went to the communicator and began to snap orders to the duty officers in the warp drive engineering room. When they replied, their voices were high and excited. Scott turned to his captain, his broad face ashen.

“They’re gone! The replacements, too! Our warp drive is disabled!”

“Then Spock wasn’t bluffing,” Kirk said in a low voice. His steady eyes looked first at his engineering officer and then at the ship’s surgeon.

“Gentlemen,” he continued in the same slow, measured tones, “I regret to inform you that the Enterprise and her crew are at the mercy of a madman. Mr. Spock has gone insane.”

His face expressionless, he began to read aloud from the parchment-like scroll while his officers stared at him in shock.

Stardate 6718.1 Captain Kirk:

No longer the void. No longer the frigid wanderings through empty corridors of self. I have been touched. I have been anointed. I have seen.

There are gods, and they move in mysterious ways; and the strangest of these is that they should select a poor human-Vulcan hybrid as the agent through which their will is to be done. Kyros reeks with sin; flame and sword shall cleanse it, though persuasion is the first commandment. First, Andros, and then, as my forces grow, city after city until the whole planet is united into one people governed by the divine law.

You will say that in doing this I am violating General Order Number One. So be it. I obey a higher law. I realize that you, who have not been touched by the light, will feel compelled to use your resources to attempt to thwart my mission.

I do not underestimate the mighty forces the Enterprise can bring to bear. I have therefore taken steps to ensure that you and your ship remain neutral in the coming struggle between good and evil. I have disabled the warp drive by removing the trilithium modulator crystals from the field damper circuits. These I have placed in my tricorder. I have altered its circuits in such a way that any manifestation of phaser energy or communicator frequencies will result in their immediate destruction.

It may be that once Kyros is purged, the gods will wish to use the Enterprise to bring the light to other systems. Their will in this matter has not yet been revealed to me. For the moment, you will remain in orbit and be prepared to render such assistance to my mission as I and the gods deem necessary.

That which the gods have ordained must come to pass. Be happy that you have been granted a small place in the carrying out of their will.

Let there be peace between us,

The Messiah (once known as Spock).

When Kirk finished reading, he raised his eyes slowly, saying quietly, “We have a problem, gentlemen. Please have all department heads meet me in the briefing room in five minutes.” With that, he turned and left the transporter room, his thoughts boiling with worry and fear for the mad Vulcan.

Every seat in the briefing room was occupied when Kirk entered and took his place at the head of the long table. Grim faces and worried eyes told that McCoy and Scott had been unable to keep the news to themselves. Several excited questions were flung at Kirk. He raised a hand for silence and in slow, measured tones, began to speak.

“Gentlemen, no problem is incapable of a solution if approached in a calm, logical way. Our situation isn’t good, but we’ve been in worse ones and won through to safety. Let me first make a brief situational analysis, then we’ll consider what is to be done.

“Mr. Scott, am I correct in assuming that with the modulator crystals gone, the warp drive is inoperable?”

“Aye, sir,” Scott replied, almost in tears at what had been done to his beloved engines. “The crystals are isotopes of our main drive dilithium crystals, and they keep the matter/anti-matter damper field stable. Wi’oot the field, the reaction would go critical in nanoseconds and there’d be naething left of the Enterprise but a burning ball of plasma!”

“So we’re stranded,” Kirk said flatly. “And with our sub-space radio out, there’s no way we can summon help. Mr. Helman, has there been any change in the forecast of when that front will peak?”

“Only for the worse now, sir,” the second science officer replied, shaking his head somberly. “I checked the computer not long ago and the probability is now .98 that radiation will reach one hundred rad by 20:00 hours, eight days from now. Duration estimate, according to the computer, has bottomed out at one month.”

Kirk leaned back in his chair and surveyed the sober-faced officers.

“It would seem then, gentlemen,” he said, “that circumstances limit us to two possible courses of action. First, we can abandon ship, an action I intend to use only as a final resort. If we do beam down, we’ll never be able to return to the ship. By the time the storm is over, she will be hopelessly—and permanently—radioactive. Further, if we are faced with abandoning ship, we won’t be able to take any of the usual survival gear with us. Since there are no uninhabited lands below, we would shortly be in contact with the native population. Thus, any use of, or display of any of our advanced technology would be a violation of General Order One.”

The room was silent as space as Kirk went on. “Therefore, about all we’d be able to take with us are the clothes on our backs—and they’d be Kyrosian clothes, at that—which means there’d be little we could do to resist Spock’s plans to dominate Kyros. He obviously intends to disregard General Order One, and his ultimatum implies that he wouldn’t scruple to use his vast scientific knowledge. Metallurgy down there is advanced enough to make the production of crude firearms a definite possibility. And finally, to make our situation even worse, it may well be that our last position report never got through to Starfleet because of the sub-space radiation front. Our chances of rescue, then, are exceedingly slim.