"You shluha vokzal'naja! You won't get away with this!"
"Chekov..."
"You're all sons of slime devils! Let us go!"
"Chekov! Ug, my head hurts too much for all that yelling. Where are we?"
"They dragged us in to the middle of the town, sir. Beeg pit in the middle of the bwildings."
McCoy eyed the opening to the yellow sky above.
"Guess we're just lucky they didn't line the pit with spikes. Oh, help me up, would you?"
Chekov angled him up.
"You've got quite the goose egg, sir."
"Hmm. You're telling me." He reached to examine the lump at his temple, flinched, and went for his medical tricorder instead.
"They took your bag, our tricorders."
"Your weapon?"
"I ah... dropped it." Chekov offered a shy grin. "On the way in. They didn't know me out."
"Good man. No reason to introduce phasers to stone age society. Any sign of Parson?"
"No, sir."
"Damn."
"What do you think happened to him?"
"If our bulky friends up there had grabbed him, like they grabbed us, I'd bet that they would have tossed him in here too."
"So, what grabbed him?"
"That, my young friend, is the question of the day."
McCoy stood up with a groan. What would the Captain do about now?
Find a cute female to help him out of here.
Between Chekov and the ten limbed warthogs on the ground floor, he had no interesting in going that route.
"I'm going to regret this in the morning, hell, I regret it now, but Chekov, I want you to climb up on my shoulders."
"Vat?"
"Come on, come on. Quickly."
If the pit had been dug to contain a person, it was designed for the long, heavy bodies; about five feet across and about nine feet deep; it'd be cramped for one of those centaurs. Sides sloped a smidgen. Dry, hard packed earth. McCoy didn't let himself wonder why they'd have a pit like this in the center of their village.
McCoy laced his fingers together.
"Hurry up, man."
"I shouldn't step on a superior officer."
"Consider it an order then. Just peek over the edge, and see what you can see. Careful now. I've already got one bump on my skull, I don't need a collection."
The younger man gnashed his lip between his teeth as he settled his foot in McCoy's hands. He got the opposite knee onto his shoulder before they started wobbling back and forth.
"Take it easy up there, would you?"
"I would if you'd hold still," Chekov hissed.
Another unbalanced waver slammed the doctor's shoulder into the hard wall behind him.
"There, I've got an edge now." Chekov clambered up, the sharp heels of his regulation boots digging in painfully.
"Can you see anyone?"
"No, sir. I hear shouting. Towards the hill."
"Human shouting? Or centaur shouting?"
"I have no idea."
"Well do you think you can climb out, Ensign?"
"Oh... I'm not quite high enough."
Before McCoy could suggest they set him down and perhaps try digging foot and hand holds out of the dirt behind him, Chekov placed his dirty boot squarely on top of the doctor's head.
"Great. Now I'm a doctor and a step stool. Just get up fast, would you?"
With a shove to give him momentum, the younger man vaulted up the lip.
"Still no sign of anyone?"
Silence. Telling silence.
"Damn it man, if you've left me in here-"
McCoy ducked away from two gold-clad bodies tossed right back over the edge.
"Why Bones!" Jim blinked up at him. Bleary, and sporting a bright red goose egg of his own. "I've been wondering where you were."
"Well, you found me," McCoy grumbled. "Congratulations."
Chekov groaned.
"You will not escape," a big voice called down to them. Sounds more like a statement of facts, rather than a suggestion.
"Doesn't look like it, does it?"