Card of the Week: Eight of Blades

When stressed, sometimes the best thing you can do is to not think, not wonder, not imagine, not obsess.  Just stay calm, breathe, and have faith in the belief that everything will eventually work out.

The Eight of Blades is a person in trouble, under stress, most likely as a result of external influences that are beyond their control.  With no apparent way out, finding a solution on one’s own can seem difficult or even impossible, or lead to acts of hopeless desperation that are ultimately counterproductive.  The best course of action may be to not act yourself, but to trust others to come to your aid.

Inverted, this card suggests that a seemingly terrible misfortune may be only temporary.  Reevaluate your constraints, and don’t let fear of success prevent you from testing your limits.

In “Wolf in the Fold” the Enterprise visits planet Argelius  II for shore leave.  A local dancer is found brutally murdered, with a delirious Scotty standing over her, still holding a bloody knife.  As the crime investigation proceeds, an Enterprise crewmember become a second murder victim, and the local Prefect’s wife a third, with Scotty the apparent killer each time.  But while the first two incidents left Scotty with clouded memories, the third event occurs quite abruptly and Scotty learns that some less-than-fully-corporeal entity is involved.  Enterprise computer records find similar crimes following humanity through space over centuries, and uncover the identity of an emotion-feeding alien calling itself Redjac that deliberately generates mass fear to feed upon.  Redjac is eventually subdued and transported out into empty space to die.