LIEUTENANT UHURA'S ATTENTION drifted toward the other Nevisians in the hall. She was glad of the distraction they provided from Mudd's and the captain's argument. Not that it was unimportant, but she hated conflict and there wasn't much she could do about this one anyway. Besides, this was a perfect opportunity to learn more about another alien race. Even though they looked almost human, the Nevisians would no doubt have plenty of fascinating differences to intrigue a xenophile like Uhura. She loved to learn the customs and mannerisms of the beings she met in her travels. That was one of the reasons she had joined Starfleet in the first place.
She turned away from the group around the banquet table and sought out the nearest friendly face. It was sometimes dangerous to assume that a smile meant someone was approachable, especially with a race that differed so much from humans in facial characteristics, but the woman the Grand General had called Mistrae had smiled and laughed before at all the right times, so Uhura figured she was safe enough to assume at least no hostility in the expression. She stepped closer to her and said softly, "Your gown is beautiful."
"Thank you," said Mistrae, dipping her head slightly. "I had it made especially for today."
It was a light blue, floor-length dress, very full below the waist and somewhat tighter above, though the shoulders and elbows puffed out in loose folds. The whole thing was made of heavy velvet or something similar, but it must not have been uncomfortably warm because Mistrae seemed perfectly at ease in it.
"Is it a Distrellian or a Prastorian design?" Uhura asked.
Mistrae looked at her with a puzzled expression, and Uhura knew she had made her first mistake.
"Or do both planets have the same styles?" she amended quickly.
Mistrae said, "Aside from the color differences, you mean? I suppose there are a few variations in the way things fit, but you get used to them so quickly you don't even notice after the first few days. There's so much else to think about."
"I see," said Uhura, not at all sure that she did. "Which planet are you from?"
Again Mistrae gave her that look. "Originally, you mean? I started out on Prastor, but I'm a Distrellian now. I have been for nine years. I was only twelve when soldiers from Distrel attacked my home and killed my entire family, so most of my adult years have been spent here."
The woman spoke so matter-of-factly that Uhura didn't know how to respond. Sympathy seemed out of place, so she asked, "Were you kidnapped?"
"I fought honorably," Mistrae said, her words cold and precise. "As did the soldiers who attacked us. There were no captives."
Uhura lowered her head. "Excuse me if I have given offense. I just didn't understand why you came to Distrel after Distrellian soldiers killed your family."
"I had no choice," Mistrae said, as if explaining to a child why people breathe.
It still made no sense to Uhura. Mistrae wasn't kidnapped, yet she had no choice but to come here. Was there an economic reason? Some deep-seated custom? Or had she infiltrated the enemy's seat of government as a spy? Uhura wished she could ask, but she had already pushed too far for a casual conversation at a social gathering. One more mistake could cause a bigger scene than the one between the captain and Harry Mudd.
"You mentioned color differences between planetary clothing styles," Uhura said, hoping that would be safer ground. "Could you tell me more about how that works?"
Mistrae seemed relieved to get to a safer topic as well. She nodded and said, "Oh, it's quite simple, really. Prastorians wear red, orange, or brown, and Distrellians wear blue, yellow, or green. That makes it much easier to tell who you're shooting at in battle."
Wonderful, thought Uhura. They couldn't agree on what part of the Palko to eat, but they could agree on which colors to wear so they would make better targets. These people might appear human on the outside, but inside they were pure alien.
This wasn't quite the party Chekov had envisioned. Not at the moment, anyway. The Nevisians had apparently been enjoying themselves quite handily before the Enterprise crew showed up, but this business with Harry Mudd had derailed things. Chekov considered it his duty to get the festivities back on the right track, but he wasn't yet sure how to accomplish that. In some cultures one simply challenged someone else to a drinking match or started throwing food, but in others one had to proceed a bit more carefully.
And judging from Uhura's and Mistrae's conversation, this was one of those places where it was better to err on the side of caution. He felt bad for Uhura, whose every move seemed to drag her deeper into trouble, but he doubted if he would have fared much better. They may have learned the Nevisians' language, but they had definitely not learned their customs. Mistrae's take on things seemed nearly unpredictable. But Chekov thought he might have discovered the key to understanding her unusual attitude, so when Uhura paused to gather her wits after Mistrae's latest surprise, Chekov stepped forward and said, "Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. After all these millennia of war, you must have many glorious tales of battle."
Talking with aliens about war was one of the first things a cadet was warned against in the academy. Uhura gave Chekov a look of alarm, but that quickly melted to gratitude when Mistrae nodded and said, "Oh yes, of course."
"Do you have a favorite?" Chekov asked. "One of your own, perhaps?"
Mistrae blushed prettily and said, "No, my little skirmish was nothing spectacular. My family was caught completely by surprise, and we barely had time to defend ourselves before we were…overwhelmed. I fought hard enough to win my passage to Distral, but I didn't kill even one of our attackers. Not like Ginn Donan."
Taking his cue from the tone of reverence in her voice, Chekov said, "Ginn Donan. Now that sounds like a heroic name."
Mistrae nodded eagerly. "His full name was Ginn Donan Garreft Hap Elod Griff Ab Iandor."
A bit hesitantly, Uhura asked, "Did he win all those names for heroism in battle?"
"Three of them," Mistrae said. "The most anyone has ever earned. The first, Ginn, he received when he defeated seven trained Prastorian warriors who made a suicide raid against the Grand General of Distrel." She smiled toward the planetary leader and said, "This was a different Grand General, many thousands of years ago. Ginn was only eleven at the time, a ceremonial honor guard in training, but he kept his sword sharp and he used it when it was needed. When the official guards all fell to the Prastorians, he stood atop their bodies so he would be tall enough to fight and he killed them one by one as they tried to gain entry to the Grand General's audience chamber."
"Impressive," Chekov said, wondering how much of it was true.
"Indeed," said Mistrae. "The name Donan he earned a year later, as personal bodyguard to the Grand General, when he learned that one of the General's concubines was a Prastorian spy." Warming to her subject, she spoke louder and waved her arms for emphasis as she said, "The woman knew her secret had been discovered, so she went to the General before Donan could warn him and attempted to murder him in his sleep, but Donan burst in on them both and slew her just as she drew her scarf around the Grand General's neck to strangle him."
Uhura said, "So the General gave him another name for saving his life again."
"Not that time," said Mistrae. "The General was furious at Ginn for killing his favorite concubine, even if she was a spy, and embarrassed at being caught in so vulnerable a position, so he had Ginn beheaded the following day."
Chekov shook his head sadly. "Too many loyal soldiers earn their medals posthumously. But if he won two more names, then the people must have protested the way Ginn Donan was treated and forced the Grand General to honor him, yes?"
"No, no," said Mistrae. "This is the best part. Ginn won his names himself. He returned with a Prastorian army, stormed the castle, and killed the Grand General in hand-to-hand combat. Then he declared himself the new Grand General and ruled Distrel wisely for twenty years before he was in turn betrayed by a spy and went to his just reward in Arnhall."
That would be kind of hard for a beheaded man to do, thought Chekov, but he merely said, "That is quite a story. It reminds me of the way an ancestor of mine, the Czar Romanov, returned to Russia after long exile to lead his people away from socialism. Everyone had thought he was dead, too, but it had all been cleverly faked, so when he returned under the name of Gorbachev and—"
A loud clang from just a few feet away stopped Chekov in midtale. He turned to see what had happened, his hand dropping instinctively to his side for his phaser, but he was not armed. The two men who had startled him certainly were; they faced each other with their half-meter ceremonial swords drawn. One wore a bright blue shirt, the other bright orange. Apparently the friction between Distrellians and Prastorians wasn't entirely over yet. They didn't cross blades again, though, merely held their position while the one in blue said, "We need room," and the people nearest them backed away.
The Grand General stepped forward instead. "Here, here," he said jovially, "what's this all about? We're at peace now."
The Prastorian said, "This man insulted Ginn Donan."
"In what way?"
"I called him an opportunistic traitor," said the Distrellian. "He abused his knowledge of the Grand General's palace to stage an assassination and take power for himself. That is not the act of a hero."
The two men continued to hold their swords ready, but Chekov relaxed. Everyone else seemed interested but hardly excited about the situation; evidently this was some ritual way of settling arguments here in the Nevis system.
But moments later he realized how wrong he had read the situation. The Grand General said, "You are of course entitled to your opinion, and it looks like you're prepared to defend it with honor. I approve your duel, but please, move a bit farther from the table. We don't want blood on the roast smeerp."
The men obligingly stepped away from the table, moving together as precisely as a drill team at a parade. Their swords never wavered while they moved, nor when they froze into position again.
"Padishah," said the Prastorian. "I would be honored if you would give the signal."
"General?" asked the Padishah, deferring to his host.
"Certainly," said the Grand General, stepping aside.
The Padishah stepped forward—but not too close, Chekov noted—and said, "I charge you to fight for honor…for glory…for Ginn Donan—or not, as the case may be. Begin."
With a sudden clang of swords, the men immediately sprang into battle.
Dr. McCoy fought down his revulsion as he readied his medical kit. Somebody was going to need help soon, though by the looks of it the loser would need nothing more than a burial plot. This was no ritual staged for entertainment; these men were serious.
Actually, they were both hardly more than boys. Barely twenty, if human developmental standards applied here.
Neither one was very good with a sword. McCoy had seen some true masters in his travels, people who could slice the clothing off their opponent without touching the skin, but these two merely hacked away at one another like jungle guides clearing a path. Sparks flew from their blades when they blocked each other, and blood welled from cuts when they didn't.
The people watching them didn't seem to care if they were masters or amateurs. They cheered at every stroke no matter which man made the attack. The issue they fought for seemed forgotten; only the fight mattered now.
After the first few opening jabs and parries, the Prastorian got in a lucky slice across the Distrellian's chest, opening his blue shirt and cutting deep into his pectoral muscles just below his collarbones. The Distrellian cried out in pain and lunged forward to counterattack, but his injury made him slow to raise his sword and the Prastorian easily blocked it. Blocked and then counterattacked; his sword bit deep into the Distrellian's side. The Distrellian fell to his knees, bright red blood leaving purple streaks on his shirt. He tried to rise again and continue to fight, but he couldn't get his feet under him, and a moment later he toppled to his side. His sword clattered to the floor.
The Prastorian raised his sword in victory—or so it seemed for a second, but then McCoy saw the muscles in his arms tensing and realized he was about to administer the coup de grâce.
"Hold it!" The words burst forth before McCoy had a chance to think about it. He rushed forward and caught the surprised Prastorian's arm. "You don't have to kill him," McCoy told him roughly. "You've won your battle already. Now let me save his life."
Without waiting for a response, he bent down to examine the injured boy. Multiple lacerations, two major veins severed, muscles and tendons irreparably damaged—and lifeblood gushing out of every wound. McCoy removed the portable protoplaser from his medical kit and trained it on the largest bleeders first, force-healing the blood vessels and staunching the flow.
The Distrellian had been in shock; now with returning strength came sensation. The pain must have been tremendous. "No…let me die," the boy said weakly, trying to push McCoy away.
"Nonsense," McCoy said, brushing his hand aside. "You aren't going to die. I've healed worse injuries than this." That was true enough, but it hadn't been on a banquet-hall floor with portable instruments. Fortunately the injured boy was young and resilient. Young and foolish as well, but the operative word was "young." He could take a lot of punishment and still have strength left to heal. McCoy continued passing the protoplaser over his wounds for a few more seconds; then, when he had stabilized his condition at least momentarily, he took his hypospray from the medical kit and gave him a shot for the pain.
"Why are you doing this to me?" the boy asked, his tone of voice clearly accusing McCoy of violating his person.
McCoy didn't let it faze him. "Because I can't stand to see people die for nothing," he said. He heard a gasp of indrawn breath, looked up and saw the crowd gathered around them, and said, "Stand back. Give him some breathing air here." To Kirk he said, "Jim, I need to get him back to the ship to do a proper job. He'll be a mess of scars if I don't use better equipment to close these wounds."
"Right," said Kirk. He took his communicator from his belt and flipped it open, but the Grand General put a hand on his arm.
"No," he said. "You've done enough damage. At least leave him his scars to prove that he fought bravely for his honor."
McCoy looked from the Grand General to the boy, who nodded and whispered, "Please."
"That's ridiculous," McCoy said. "You don't have to walk around with a road map across your chest. There are better ways to prove your worth."
"Yes," said the Distrellian boy. "I could have died and been halfway to Arnhall by now if you hadn't interfered."
McCoy looked up at the crowd again. Everyone but the Enterprise crew wore hostile expressions. These Nevisians were worse than Klingons.
But they had made the first step away from all that, hadn't they?
"Look," McCoy said, standing, "I know it's a stretch after twelve thousand years of war, but you're going to have to learn to live without violence now. And the first concept you need to understand is reverence for life. You can't just go around killing people because they insulted somebody, and you can't throw your life away for nothing anymore. There are more important things than—"
"That is enough," said the Grand General. His voice echoed in the immense hall. "We do not criticize your…your Federation behavior; kindly show us the same courtesy."
"Don't everybody thank me at once," McCoy muttered. He looked down at the boy, who had at least quit bleeding, and slowly put away his protoplaser and hypospray. "All right, you can have your scars if you want 'em. If you change your mind, you know where to find me." He looked over at the other swordsman, who backed warily away even though he still bled from his wounds. "I guess it would be a waste of time to even ask if you wanted any help."
Harry Mudd was shaking his head and making cluck-cluck noises with his tongue. "Doctor," he said gravely, "I'm surprised at your callous disregard for local customs." However, his expression was anything but grave. He looked smug as a cat with a mouse by the tail as he turned to Kirk and said, "And you, Captain. If you can't control your officers, I'm afraid I have no recourse but to ask you to leave."