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

stroke of luck that we’re here to see it.”
    Girard shrugged. “But you just said they do this every year. I mean, if we’d missed this year’s party, wouldn’t another one come along the same time next year?”
    â€œYou really have spent too much time staring at the rocks,” Plait said, shaking his head. “This planet orbits a pair of yellow giant stars at a mean distance of about twelve AUs. In the Sol system, that would place it somewhere between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo that makes the Capellan year over forty times longer than a Standard year. In other words, anybody expecting to catch this little shindig the next time it rolls around is in for one helluva long wait.”
    The geologist looked suitably chastened. Very quietly, he added, “It hardly seems worth the bother, whichever calendar you’re using. Except for some of the scenery, this party’s really nothing to write home about, at least so far.”
    â€œThe Capellans aren’t what I’d call a hasty people,” Plait said. “Maybe their parties just have a somewhat longer fuse than the ones you usually attend.”
    â€œWell, I hope that Subteer Usaak finds what he’s looking for,” Girard said. “Happiness has a way of making a man easier to negotiate with. Maybe once he’s married, Doc Wieland and I will have better luck hammering out that topaline-mining agreement with him.”
    â€œTo happiness, then,” McCoy said, raising his cup again as he idly scanned the milling crowd.
    He soon caught sight of Naheer moving among the throng. It quickly became obvious that the young hunter-warrior was conducting a diplomatic mission of his own—one focused entirely on one of the female guests, a tall and striking young woman whose improbably long fall of straight blond hair nearly reached the hem of her flowing, floor-length gown. Within moments, Naheer and the girl vanished as they passed farther into the general press of the crowd.
    Ah, youth , McCoy thought.
    Though still standing, the crowd began to settle down, quickly arranging itself into a broad semicircle that faced the canyon’s cliffside. A lone horn sounded a single high, sustained, clarion note, and the clash of sword blades abruptly ceased. Every Capellan male in McCoy’s line of sight dropped to one knee before the echoes had faded, while the women all remained standing at rigid attention. McCoy noticed that everyone had taken care to leave a broad, unobstructed gap, a thoroughfare that led straight from the rear of the crowd all the way down to the bowl-shaped declivity at the base of the hill.
    Usaak strode into view from the direction of the sparring area, his heavy fur cloak billowing behind him. The chief of the Canyonfolk Tribe and subteer of the Council of the Ten Tribes moved with swiftness and grace, just ahead of Subchief Keer. A half dozen or so other large, war-clad aides marched determinedly forward at Usaak’s flanks, their faces as uniformly inexpressive as cold stone. Unlike every other Capellan in the festival area, Usaak and his retinue kept both sword and kligat in plain sight, though their weapons remained sheathed.
    Turning his broad back to the granite cliff wall, the subteer of the Canyonfolk Tribe faced his assembled guests, all of whom were watching him in attentive, anticipatory silence. Unsurprisingly, Usaak’s address was both terse and brief, though it was obviously more than sufficient to set the next phase of the evening’s activities into motion.
    With the practiced precision of a military unit, the women formed a long queue before the subteer and his men. A graceful, dignified procession of lithe, gowned figures commenced as each young woman in turn walked past Usaak, who had taken a seat in a large, ornately carved wooden chair that had been carried out to him by a small group of his warriors.
    â€œIt’s good to