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

carrying a small rattan basket, filled almost to overflowing with a broad assortment of flamboyantly colored Capellan fruit.
    â€œI wish you to meet someone, Mak-Koy,” Naheer said, his enthusiasm having left him all but breathless. “This is Jeen, of the Miir Tribe. I have told her some of the tales of my tribe, and would listen to hers. Jeen, meet Mak-Koy.”
    McCoy noticed two things at once.
    First, Jeen seemed significantly older than Naheer—probably eighteen or thereabouts.
    Second, the comely young Jeen was favoring the doctor with precisely the kind of smile he imagined Naheer had been hoping to receive from her.
    â€œMak-Koy,” Jeen purred. “So this is an Earthman.”
    Uh-oh , McCoy thought.
    Extending her long, graceful arms toward McCoy, she offered him the basket. “Please. Take whatever you wish.”
    McCoy knew a double entendre when he heard one, even through the intermediary of the universal translator. I really have to get out of here, he thought. And right now.
    Taking one long backward step, McCoy spread his hands out in front of himself and executed a quick but gentlemanly bow. “Thank you, young lady. But I just finished filling up on roast lightningbeast. Maybe some other time.”
    Several Standard years from now, young lady , he added silently. Just to be on the safe side.
    Naheer’s expression revealed both surprise and dissatisfaction with the doctor’s reaction. Jeen extended her lower lip in an exaggerated pout.
    â€œI do not understand, Mak-Koy,” Naheer said. “Jeen wishes only that you receive a simple gift.”
    I’ll bet she does.
    Before McCoy could reply, Plait strode into the gap the doctor’s retreat had opened. “Doc, I think you’re being rude.”
    Jeen exchanged a look with Naheer, and they both shrugged. Then, with a swiftness that left McCoy experiencing a confusing mix of relief and disappointment, the young woman transferred her attentions to the tipsy science officer. She extended the fruit basket toward Plait as though that had been her plan all along.
    A brief flicker of motion in McCoy’s peripheral vision prompted him to look back at the crowd of revelers. Several of the nearest Capellans had lowered their drinking vessels or set aside their food, apparently intent on the exchange between Jeen and Lieutenant Plait. One of these unexpected observers, a particularly burly young adult male, began approaching in long, quick strides. McCoy noticed the gigantic, deadly-looking sword that the young warrior must have just drawn from the recesses of his expansive fur-trimmed cloak—and that the man’s lips were parted in a rictus that placed his preternaturally large white teeth on very prominent display.
    The doctor glanced back at the other onlookers. The sight froze the small hairs on the back of his neck somewhere in the twilight region between fight and flight.
    Every Capellan who was looking his way wore essentially the same expression as that of the approaching man.
    Dear God . Is that what passes for a smile on this planet?
    McCoy looked back toward Naheer, Plait, and Jeen just in time to see the science officer reach into the basket. Plait withdrew something that looked vaguely like a small chunk of blue cantaloupe.
    Something about the entire tableau struck McCoy as terribly, terribly wrong.
    He called out to the science officer. “Phil, maybe you shouldn’t—”
    But it was already too late. With a polite smile, Plait popped the fruit into his mouth. “Hmmm,” he said, talking around the morsel. “Not bad. Not bad at—”
    A heart-stopping, ear-splitting ululation interrupted him. And the source of the sound—McCoy now realized it was the approaching Capellan male—was now advancing at a full run. The burly warrior lofted his blade with a high, powerful upstroke. The sword gleamed in the firelight as it began its lethal descent, its keen edge