Star Trek: The Original Series: Seasons of Light and Darkness by Michael A. Martin Read Free Book Online

right here, at my uncle’s side,” Naheer said. “To see if Skyfather Gaar has yet decided whether he is to live or to die.”
    â€œI think your god has already made up His mind,” McCoy said quietly. “Naheer, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
    â€œI do not understand,” Naheer said.
    Cursing the circumstances that had cheated him out of any opportunity even to try saving this man, McCoy steeled himself to say what had to be said—
    â€”until he noticed with a start that the flower on the dead man’s belly was moving , though only very slightly and sluggishly. A moment later he realized why: The prostrate warrior’s chest was rising and falling, passing its slow, marginal movement along to the flower.
    The man on the catafalque was breathing , though only barely.
    â€œDoctor, I think this man is still alive,” Wieland said with a grin.
    McCoy nodded, relieved. “He’s just slowed his metabolism so much that we nearly wrote him off as dead.”
    â€œPerhaps it’s like the healing trance Vulcans put themselves in after they’ve suffered an intense trauma.”
    He had to concede it was a reasonable explanation. Activating his medical tricorder, he said, “Well, we’ve got work to do.”
    Wieland opened up his medikit. “We have Subteer Usaak’s blessing,” he said. “Let’s make the most of it.”

Seven
    Stardate 721.1 (August 19, 2254)
    Sword blades clattered and echoed in the distance while the aroma of roasting meat wafted across the designated festival area at the camp’s outskirts. Flames leapt from several broad fire pits and the late afternoon breeze bent the resulting plumes of woodsmoke toward the sinking twin suns.
    Basking in the warmth of one of the fire pits, McCoy stood between Lieutenants Girard and Plait. Science Officer Plait inhaled deeply, beaming with anticipatory pleasure as he raised a tankard that all but overflowed with one of the local ales.
    â€œOur hosts might not be the warmest people in the galaxy,” he said, “but they sure seem to know how to throw a feast.”
    â€œLet’s hope the other out-of-town guests feel the same way,” Girard said. He made a sour face as he batted a stray tendril of smoke away from his face.
    McCoy watched as the festival area—a wind-scoured, granite surface dominated by a wide natural amphitheater that radiated out of the base of a steep, rocky escarpment—was rapidly filling up with people he’d never seen before inside Subteer Usaak’s encampment. Doctor Wieland, Lieutenant Commander Aylesworth, and Lieutenant Shellenbarger were circulating through the gathering crowd, carefully minding the Capellans’ aversion to the shaking of hands. McCoy spotted young Naheer in the gathering scrum, not far from his dour-faced uncle Efeer, who’d made a nearly complete recovery from the lightningbeast attack. Like Efeer, the boy was wearing his Sunday-best cape, which he showed off proudly.
    McCoy scanned the rest of the still-growing crowd. Judging by the bright colors and complex stitching of the fur-draped raiment of most of the native guests, he had them figured for VIPs who hailed from some of the more influential nearby tribes. In the presence of so many of these large, stony-faced people, McCoy felt intimidated, but also reasonably sure that none of them were bent on challenging Usaak’s authority. In obvious deference to the subteer’s will, the newcomers displayed no weapons. Regardless, there was no polite way to eliminate entirely the possibility that somebody had secreted a dagger or a short sword into the folds of a cloak, or had stashed a kligat —one of those three-bladed throwing knives of the kind Efeer had clutched during his time in the Tent of Dying—inside a boot.
    Coughing, the geologist wrinkled his nose as he waved away another small cloud of invading woodsmoke.