Kirk straightened on the transporter pad. "Energize," he said.

  It was night on the side of the planet where they rematerialized. They reoriented themselves and saw that there was no hostile force waiting to attack them or to take them hostage. In fact, there seemed to be no one there to meet them at all.

  "Efficient, well-run world," McCoy said sarcastically.

  "Belay that, Bones. They don't have transporters, yet. Let's hope they know what they're doing and gave us the right coordinates." Kirk eased open his communicator. "Mr. Scott?"

  "Aye, Captain. Everything all right down there?"

  "So far, Scotty, as far as we can tell. We may have to transport again, though, so stand by. Kirk out."

  The night air was rich and cool. The jungle around them rustled and buzzed with night-insect and animal noises. Two of the planet's three moons could be seen hanging in the sky through an orange mist. With two suns and three moons, it could never become truly dark here, Kirk reflected. Or cold.

  The underbrush they began picking their way through was wet, red and maroon in color, and the ground was soft and shadowed, and squished beneath their boots. Spock's tricorder whirred.

  "We are several miles from the ocean, Captain. And there is a primitive city less than a kilometer due south."

  This last announcement was not really necessary. They could hear and smell this center of activity, as music, smoke, and the aroma of roasting animals came faintly filtering through to them, over and through the bending trees and hanging vines.

  There was a spring in Kirk's step; he felt light and relaxed. Could the strain and worry of the last few weeks have dispersed so rapidly? More likely, he thought, it was this planet's small size and weaker gravitational pull that made him feel so lighthearted. Earth was larger, and the gravity simulation unit on the Enterprise made for a stronger pull than this.

  McCoy caught his sleeve on a double-pronged blackthorn, and swore as a lizardlike creature darted its tongue out at him round a tree trunk and disappeared into a hole in the rough purple bark. "Crazy Federation cloak-and-dagger diplomacy! This is an important world? So backward they can't even manage a road to the city?"

  "I think there is one. We're just slightly off the mark." Kirk smiled. "Don't worry, Bones. You read the reports. None of the animals or plants are poisonous."

  "You mean none are lethal," the doctor grumbled. "There are many poison pills a man has to swallow that won't kill him."

  "Indeed, Doctor," Spock said. "And after the unpleasant barrage of pills and inoculations you gave us on board, I should think we are all well protected against anything short of an avalanche."

  McCoy did not deign to respond.

  Complain as he might, Kirk knew that the doctor would have been hurt and disappointed if he had not been included on the mission. There had been reports of incredible advances in jungle medicine made by the rebel government, the coordination of programs of inoculation, hospital building, and geriatric care, all of which McCoy wanted to investigate firsthand.

  Spock held his tricorder close to the trunks of the tall, winding trees as they passed. "As expected, Captain. These trees contain high concentrations of the chemical argea. This forest is a veritable gold mine for chemical developers.

  "And doctors," McCoy put in.

  "Argea?" Ensign Michaels said. "Does that come from this planet? I don't remember it being mentioned in the report."

  "It doesn't have to be mentioned, boy," McCoy said gruffly. "Everyone knows that Boaco Six has supplied the Federation with raw argea for over a century. Or at least they did until two years ago. Naturally, they stopped selling it when the revolution came along. But Federation interest in this world started way back when scientists discovered how argea could be used to keep the human heart and spleen healthy."

  "There is a sad irony to the situation," Spock commented. "The precious argea brought little profit to the Boacans themselves. Only to the foreign companies who purchased it and would strip and destroy whole forests for it. And since the chemical was processed far from their planet, it is one of the many medical supplies they have never had."

  "That's why the revolution came as such a shock to the Federation," Kirk said. "There are other planets that have argea-producing plants. None sell it as readily or as cheaply as Boaco Six used to. But once the revolutionary council took power, they sent the companies from the other stars packing."

  Michaels frowned and shook his head. "Seems too important for the report not to have mentioned it," he said at last.

  Kirk wondered if young men were getting younger, or if it was just his imagination. Even if the kid was a math whiz and did so brilliantly at the Academy, they shouldn't have given him to me half-green.

  Michaels had not spent much time on any intermediate vessels. A well-liked and hardworking student at the Academy, he had struggled to live up to the flash of genius he had shown in early childhood, and convinced his teachers of his precocity. He had been sent almost fresh upon this, his first tour of duty on a starship. Though he'd been on board for only a week, Kirk had decided to include him on the mission. The life of an ensign was one of tedium and drudgery, a round of stints at guard duty, the cleaning and maintenance of machinery, emergency practice drills, and perhaps busywork in the labs or gardens. Normally, months would go by before Michaels's name would come up on a mission roster.

  But when a crewman first came aboard, Kirk liked to include him quickly on one important, exciting mission, as a taste of things to come. As the ancients had let children begin their studies with a taste of honey, licked off the page. It had been the policy of his own first starship captain, Captain Garrovick, and was one he had followed.

  The shadowy leaves under the orange night sky billowed and waved. Suddenly, one of the shadows came alive. Something large, furry, and rodentlike leapt down from a low-hanging branch with a screech and wrapped itself around Kirk's neck. Its legs were tipped with what had seemed, as it moved through the air, to be distended claws, but as they touched Kirk's skin they seemed to be clammy toes, spongy soft and clinging, like suction cups.

  "Captain!" The cry broke from Spock, packed with tight concern, anxiety kept barely in check.

  "Jim, get it off" McCoy yelled.

  Kirk sank his hands into the creature's mangy fur, and pulled. But its grip was firm—it seemed attached to the skin of his throat and shoulder. It smelled damp and rank. He could not see its head, it was brushing and rooting along his forehead. Although he knew his life was not in danger, he prayed that it had no stinger. Or sharp teeth.

  "What do you want us to do, sir?" Michaels cried, his voice almost hysterical.

  At last, Kirk pried the creature loose and hurled its fat body down into the underbrush. One of the security guards, who had been hovering, anxiously watching, now whipped out his phaser and blasted the creature full force. A white beam shot out, the small feral body glowed and lit up the ground, then vanished into air. The ground around it was sunken, the foliage charred.

  Kirk was shaken by the attack, but he frowned at the guard. "Easy, Thorton. There was no need for that. Everyone—phasers on stun. Especially now, as we enter the city."

  He was surprisingly rattled, and very glad that their group was moving out of the forest. Sap and twigs clung to his hair. Every leaf, vine, and tree now seemed to bristle with life; the eyes of small animals peered through the shadows that traced the edges of the semidarkness. But animal noises were giving way to human ones, to the sounds of laughter and music.

  "Do you think we're walking into a trap, Captain?" asked Michaels.

  "No, Ensign," Kirk shook his head. "Just into a very noisy town."

  The foliage around them grew smaller and less dense, and finally parted into a clearing. A mud road snaked around from the opposite direction, turning to brick as it ran before the buildings of the settlement, a hodgepodge of thatched huts, stone and brick houses, and rickety-looking taller buildings of stone and metal. Rising in several places above th
e other rooftops were monumental structures of a white stone, like marble, ornamented with pillars and statuaries. These buildings were torn and gutted—the reminders of a fallen regime.

  There were roasting pits in the streets, each in front of a cluster of the smaller houses, and in each pit there was a fire with a spit and a roasting animal. The meat smelled good. Women basted it with sauce. They turned it with knives, double-pronged like the jungle thorns. But one could see that, whatever animal was being cooked, it had six legs, three on each side, as the carcasses turned on their spits. Kirk felt an instinctive revulsion at the eating of non-four-legged animals that all his interplanetary travels had not cured him of. Lord knew what Spock, from a planet of vegetarians, felt.

  The security guards, who brought up the rear, became more watchful as the landing party entered the moving mass of people. Children with unwashed faces and tattered clothing shrieked and chased each other, and tumbled underfoot. Their parents eyed the strangers cautiously but did not call the children away or hide them indoors. They obviously remembered the Federation uniform and did not consider it one to fear. At least they haven't been brainwashed to that extent, Kirk thought.

  One grizzled old man, at their approach, pulled off a thin, leathery belt with inlaid stones and a metal clasp. He waved it in the air and called out, "Hey! Spacemen! Look! Come buy authentic artifact, with ethnic design, made by native of Boaco Six."

  His neighbors laughed. Spock raised a questioning eyebrow, and the landing party moved on.

  "Sarcasm, Captain?"

  "Maybe he was serious. Since the revolution and the break with the Federation, I'd imagine there's been quite a falling off on the tourist trade."

  As they walked on, many people smiled at them, and waved.

  "You see that, Spock?" McCoy said. "Even with all the tension between their world and ourselves? You see the kindness and neighborliness of ordinary folks?"

  Spock appeared unmoved by his goading and did not respond.

  "That's the saving grace of the galaxy, really," McCoy continued reflectively, innocently. "The simple homey virtues that so often go unrewarded. Warmth and friendship, given freely to strangers, gratis." He stared off, as if pondering this point.

  Spock, at last, raised a bemused eyebrow. "Indeed, Doctor? Your great emotionalism and sentimentality tell you so. But logic would indicate that the local people are glad to see us for the reasons the captain just mentioned—for the promise of tourist trade and industry our presence seems to bring."

  "Humph. So I'm overly emotional and sentimental, am I?" the doctor demanded.

  "Unquestionably."

  "Well, amen to that," McCoy said emphatically.

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen," Kirk said, and smiled.

  Local nightlife seemed easy and pleasant. Girls leaned out of windows on their elbows and chatted with young men. Families were sharing their meals in groups, children tearing messily at the meat; some were skeletal, grossly underfed. Many of the women and a few of the men wore the rich embroidered native garb. Others, especially the children, wore torn and soiled suits from the Federated Planets, designed for the wild, of strange synthetic cloths manufactured far from their world. And one little girl, playing a game by herself, something like marbles, wore a dress of obviously Klingon design and make.

  "Captain, look! That kid's jumper …"

  "I see her, Michaels. But we need to concentrate on reaching this Council of Youngers."

  "I suggest, Captain, that the council chamber may be housed there," Spock said, pointing to one of the gutted ornate white buildings. A guard was posted around it.

  "Remember, keep cool," Kirk urged his men softly. They headed for the building, past a sagging metal-and-wood structure covered with moss and hanging vines. It seemed to be some sort of tavern. Men and women were laughing and talking inside, and drinking. Probably that black sparkling Boacan brandy, Kirk thought, rare and expensive in any other quadrant. There had been a two-year embargo.

  "Well, at any rate, Federation reports of oppression and starvation under the rulers seem to have been exaggerated," McCoy remarked drily.

  "This isn't the whole world. This may be a model area they wish us to see." Kirk would form no firm opinions until he spoke to the council.

  They ascended the soiled and crumbling steps of the old building. Beneath the arch of its doorway, two guards, a boy and a girl, armed with crude firearms, suddenly appeared and aimed at them. Both were about sixteen years old, wearing expressions of fierce pride. With a slight motion of his hand, Kirk indicated to his own men that they were not to draw.

  "We're here by invitation," he said mildly, "to see the Council of Youngers of Boaco Six. Could you conduct us to them?"

  The young man nodded. "I can. But first, you must give us your weapons."

  Kirk considered for a moment and then gave the order to comply, against McCoy's sputtering. They followed the boy and the girl down the hall, the security guards looking foolish and uneasy as only security guards deprived of their phasers can.

  Massive wood doors rose before them.

  "Wait here," the girl said, and disappeared through one of them, in her arms a harvest of phasers. The boy stood guard, his crude gun still trained on the men of the Enterprise. Playing soldier, Kirk thought. But this revolution has half the kids on the planet in on the game.

  The girl reappeared a moment later and eased open the creaking, elaborately carved doors.

  "Tamara Angel will see you now," she said.

  Chapter Three

  THE OPEN DOORS revealed a large, high-ceilinged chamber. A long wooden table ran down the center of it. And sitting on the table was a young woman.

  "Come in, gentlemen. Take a seat," she said.

  Kirk chose a chair a few feet away from her, and his men filed in behind him and sat down. Tamara Angel pivoted to face them, hugging her knees up to her chest. She, too, was surprisingly young. She wore a military uniform. Her long black hair was coiled in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Her radiant face wore an expression of amusement and confidence. Her boots beat a tattoo on the table.

  "So, after arming our oppressors, and seeking to sabotage our revolution and our government, the beneficent Federation of Planets has decided to contact us. Which of you is called Captain Kirk?"

  Kirk rose. "I'm Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. We come in good faith, acknowledging that there have been differences between us, but in the hope that we can reach an understanding."

  "You come to spy. And to manufacture propaganda for the Federation, which would have the galaxy think it means to deal fairly with us."

  "Miss Angel …"

  "You may call me Tamara." She flashed a mischievous smile, which Kirk could not penetrate. He instinctively knew that his own considerable ability to charm would be of no use here.

  "Tamara." He decided to adopt a more authoritative tone. "As I say, we have come in good faith, and expected to be conducted to the ruling council of this planet. Instead, we were beamed down to an obscure area, found our way here on our own, and would now appreciate an interview with your superiors."

  "I have no superiors," she replied blandly. "In the council we are all on equal footing. I am the minister of interplanetary relations. Whatever message the Federation has given you, you can relay to me."

  "What other ministers are there?"

  She sighed and counted on her fingers. "Minister of health, minister of public welfare, minister of relations with Boaco Eight, minister of finance, minister of justice, minister of education, minister of religion … we may create more if new situations call for it."

  "And, of course, you're all elected very democratically, once you 'create' these ministries for yourselves," McCoy interjected.

  Tamara Angel's face became harder. "We are leading our planet out of a time of chaos and war. Healing factions. Mobilizing massive drives against illiteracy, disease, crop failure, rabid animals, starvation. There is little time for us to go on the campaign
trail." The sly smile returned. "Besides. The people of Boaco Six are used to old-style government. Like that of your old friends, Anator, Markor, and Puil, our former rulers who you did such good business with. No one here has yet heard of democracy. Perhaps sometime soon they will learn, and we can have elections."

  "Once you've brainwashed them all to support you!" Michaels burst out. The ensign was out of line, but Kirk did not rebuke him. After all, protocol never stopped McCoy from putting in his two cents.

  It was Spock, who had been sitting beside Kirk silently, who now steered the conversation in a more constructive direction. He rose. "Tamara. You accuse us of spying. Yet the only way we can possibly build trust and understanding is if you let us learn more about you. It would do your government no harm if you let us observe the changes you have made that you are so proud of."

  Tamara Angel gave a curt nod. "Yes. We let you beam down to the outskirts of our city so that you could get a sense of the people of Boaco Six. This is our capital city, Boa. It is the largest city on this landmass. You may think it primitive, but it sprawls on for miles. Our people are changing, rebuilding it.

  "To your Federation, our planet is just another number, another galactic pawn. A source of argea and other raw materials. To understand us, you must see how old and complex our culture is. And at the same time, how young we are. This is a revolution of youth. You see, for centuries"—she became tight-lipped, then continued—"the life expectancy here has not been very high. We are hoping to change that. But for now, it is a world for the young. Only the young can reshape an entire planet. Because they do not know the rules, they reinvent them."

  Kirk was impressed by the intelligence and conviction with which she challenged him. The seeming irreverence she brought to affairs of state was matched by an absolute belief in the justice of her cause.