STAR TREK: TOS #22 - Shadow Lord by Laurence Yep

Author:Laurence Yep [Yep, Laurence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-06T16:18:18.505000+00:00

Chapter Seven

They had been climbing steadily along the zigzagging track all that day so it was a surprise to Sulu when it suddenly sloped downward. “Steady,” Urmi called to the others who were helping to carry Mr. Spock on a litter improvised out of cloaks and spears.

They made their way around the other side of the mesa and Sulu could see, in the fading daylight, a series of sandstone shelves held suspended like the waves of a sea by some powerful magic so that they did not crash down on the valley below. A hundred kilometers long but only some twenty kilometers wide, the valley had been formed by a river that snaked its way between the mountain ridges before it plunged into a steep gorge.

Along the river’s banks, the fields showed as a smoky green. “After the badlands, I’d almost forgotten what the color green looked like,” Sulu said to Urmi.

“There are eleven villages in the valley,” Urmi explained. She pointed to a cluster of lights [154] immediately below them about five kilometers from the northern end of the valley. “That’s my village, where they raise the greenest crops and the brightest children.”

“And the biggest liars,” one of the militia women grunted. “My village has the best of everything.”

That touched off a heated, if friendly, debate among the militia. “It’s noisy,” Urmi said to Sulu and the prince. “But it’s home.”

Sulu was a bit surprised by the lush valley below. From what Urmi had been describing, he had been expecting drought conditions. “It looks like you grow enough crops to feed yourselves.”

“But we never get to keep much of what we grow,” Urmi said pointedly. “Most of it goes to pay for our rent or all of the emperor’s many taxes.”

Sulu clicked his tongue sympathetically. “It must drive you crazy to be surrounded by all that food and not be able to eat it.”

“That’s criminal,” the prince declared.

Urmi looked at Sulu but her words were meant for the prince. “Yes, I wanted you to see this for yourself. Now you know why we have to fight.”

As the track wound its way down through the shelves, they began to pick out more details in the nearest village. Its small whitewashed houses looked like so many little boxes tumbled together. They seemed to have been built on the owners’ whims so that there was no order to the streets, only twisting, winding lanes between the houses. Green and orange and purple fruits were drying on the flat thatched roofs.

Herds of gaya—long-haired, goatlike creatures, some three meters long—walked leisurely along the paths toward a nearby village, their heads nodding contentedly. The farmers, too, were finally leaving their fields, [155] their hoes or rakes over their shoulders. Some of them were washing on the banks of the river, but others were trudging wearily into the village.

“What’re these execution posts doing here?” The prince pointed to several posts dug into the slope. There were small nicks in the wood, as if from arrowheads, and there were dark, ominous stains on the poles and the ground.

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