STAR TREK: TOS - The Janus Gate, Book Three - Past Prologue

by L. A. Graf

  “He is sort of grim and morbid,” Smith agreed as they moved onward into the ice-sheathed corridors of the alien conduits. The last time Sulu had walked down this twisting ribbon of passageway, it had been filled with a floating mist of melted ice and he had been filled with relief at having just escaped Tesseract Fortress. Now he winced, remembering a rainy tropical night and a harsh Russian voice informing him that he and Chekov were the last two humans left alive on Basaraba.

  “You’d be like that, too, if you’d been through what he has,” Sulu said in defense of the man he’d gotten to know in that dark future. “It’s only been a few days since every single member of his starship crew was killed trying to stop a Gorn invasion.”

  He heard Yuki Smith take in an abashed breath, but what he could see of Chekov’s face didn’t look as impressed. “They were your starship crew, too,” he pointed out. It was a measure of how much Sulu had adapted to this strange doppelganger existence that [146] he understood which version of himself the young Russian meant. “And you’re not anything like him. You don’t walk around snapping at people and scowling all the time.”

  This time Sulu heard the emotion below the critical surface of Chekov’s voice, an uneasy mixture of embarrassment, regret, and fear, Is that what I’m going to grow up to be? was the question he was really asking, whether he knew it or not. Will I turn out like that no matter what future I end up living through?

  For a moment Sulu wasn’t sure what to say, but then an inner twinge of realization gave him the answer. For all of Captain Sulu’s calm demeanor and bittersweet smile, there was still an unbridgeable gulf between him and his younger self. And Sulu’s inexplicable shyness around the older man had come from his subconscious mind recognizing that fact, even if his intellect did not.

  “Actually, I think my older self is exactly like yours,” he told Chekov in a voice made more intense by the need to keep it down to a murmur. “Mine just knows how to hide what’s happened to him a little better than yours does.”

  “I bet that’s because he was the captain,” Smith offered with surprising insight. “He’s used to hiding what bothers him.”

  “Is that what it’s like to be a starship captain?” The voice from the shadows beside them startled Sulu, and not just because of its unexpected proximity. Young Kirk emerged from behind a shattered fall of ice and rock that the rest of their party had already [147] scrambled past. From Chekov’s guilty upward glance, Sulu guessed this was the waterfall he had fallen down to inadvertently discover the alien artifacts that lay beneath the natural Tlaoli caverns. “You have to hide everything bad that happens to you so no one ever knows?”

  The young man who would someday be their own starship captain—if their mission here succeeded—didn’t sound upset or intimidated by that thought, Sulu noticed. But he did seem a little startled, perhaps by the realization that a captain had to be more than just a brave and brilliant hero.

  “Not necessarily.” Sulu had spent a fair amount of time, since discovering that at least one future version of himself had made the jump to captaincy, thinking about this question. “You have to do whatever needs to be done to make sure your ship carries out her mission. And that means never letting the people below you see that you’ve given up, even if you have.”

  The young man stared at him with hazel eyes whose sudden fire reflected more than just the flames of their carbide lamps. “It would be easier to do that if you never did give up,” Kirk said, then swung away to scramble over the ice blocking the conduit as if embarrassed by his own sincerity.

  They followed him down the corridor into a silent world of utter cold. The wind had died away now that they had reached the heart of the cavern’s chill, and the crackling conversation of newly formed ice had been left far behind. The still air was as clear and [148] sharp as crystal and almost as painful to breath. The glow of their carbide lamps seemed to carry a little farther in it, or so Sulu thought until Smith nudged Chekov with an elbow and whispered, “The lights are back on.”

  Sulu followed her gaze to the side of the cavern and saw the muted glow of alien blue illumination running along the sides of the conduit. That hadn’t been there the last time he’d walked these corridors, but then the Janus Gate had been drained of its stored power by the transfer of himself and Chekov from the future. He’d expected the gate itself to be brighter on this trip, since they’d deliberately recharged it by letting it drain the Shechenag satellites in order to deactivate them, but he hadn’t expected the entire cave system to come alight with the same blue glow.

  “They’re brighter this time,” Chekov noted. “I wonder if—”

  “Zakritim, durak!” Whatever those Russian words actually meant, their icy snap struck Sulu and Smith just as silent as the red-faced younger Chekov. “From here on, no sound!”

  The rest of their party was waiting for them just around the curve of the conduit. Spock and Giotto were in the lead now, the security chief with his phaser rifle armed and ready beneath one shoulder. A slightly chastened-looking Kirk had been tucked firmly between Captain Sulu and Zap Sanner, several steps behind the leaders. The older version of Chekov motioned them to go on, but lingered toward the [149] back, as if he needed to keep an eye on the last three members of the team. Sulu felt his own face warm and tighten a little, despite the arctic chill of the air. Ensign Chekov no longer even looked embarrassed—his face had taken on a stolid stiffness that probably meant he wished he was anywhere but here. For the first time, he looked startlingly like his older self.

  The glow brightened as they continued down the ice-sheathed passage, until the walls and ceiling shone like blue mirrors in its glare. Craning his head to see around the rest of the group, Sulu caught a reflected glimpse of something black and angular on one of those bright walls. He bit down on the warning he badly wanted to shout to Spock and Giotto, and instead grabbed the older Chekov urgently by the shoulder and pointed at the image. The Russian gave him a quick, decisive nod, then vaulted past Kirk and Sanner with surprising speed and force to catch Spock and Giotto before they could round the corner ahead of them.

  The young Kirk turned to look eagerly at them. “What is it?” he mouthed without making a sound. Sulu shook his head and Chekov gave him a quelling look, but Yuki Smith put out her hand and wriggled her fingers in a silent imitation of a spider crawling. Kirk nodded and squared his coltish shoulders as he glanced ahead again. When the time came for hand-to-hand combat, Sulu thought, it was going to be hard to make sure that young man kept himself safely out of the way.

  [150] Spock had advanced his tricorder around the corner and now drew it back again to check its readings. His eyebrows lifted at what he read, and he turned to give the rest of the team a familiar Starfleet hand signal: wait until further notice. Sulu watched him and Giotto disappear around the corner with slow and watchful steps, the security chief with his rifle at the ready. But no shriek of phaser fire or crackle of Shechenag electric weapons echoed back to them. After a long moment, a crunch of footsteps returned, and Giotto reappeared just long enough to give them another silent hand signal: advance with caution, the way is clear.

  This time, Sulu accompanied Zap Sanner down the passageway. His older counterpart had pushed forward to catch up with young Kirk, who was nearly treading on the older Chekov’s heels in his eagerness to see what lay ahead. Sulu was relieved to see that both older officers kept a strategic distance from Giotto to make sure the boy did not plunge headlong into danger. As it turned out, however, their precautions weren’t needed. Around the corner, Spock was scanning his magnetically shielded tricorder slowly over a knee-high pile of jointed metal legs and sensors that had once been a Shechenag robot guard. Ice was already starting to accumulate around its crumpled form, and there was no sign of lights or activity anywhere on it.

  “Its power supply has been completely drained,” the Vulcan science officer reported in a low but audible voice. “Any additional robot guards that lie [151] between us and the Janus Gat
e are most likely in a similar condition. Follow me.”

  Their advance this time was considerably less slow and cautious, although it remained scrupulously silent. As they exited the last of the narrow conduit, the alien light rose to a phosphorescent glare that made Sulu shield his eyes with one hand and wish he’d brought some kind of polarizing lenses for protection. He wondered why the team members who’d seen the Tlaoli time transporter in action before hadn’t warned the rest of them to expect this. Until he caught the troubled looks on the faces of Sanner and Smith. His gaze slid past them to the younger Chekov, who gave him back a quick shake of his head, as if he had guessed what the pilot was thinking. Sulu read his answer just as easily: This was something none of them had seen before.

  The Janus chamber, which Sulu remembered being full of mist and shadows, was seething now with brightness. The illumination glittered off icy walls and made a fiery blue lake of the frozen floor. And it didn’t all come just from the blazing heart of the Janus Gate. All around the dark metal device, wisps and shreds of sizzling blue swept the air like billowing shreds of ash blown by an unfelt wind. The chamber looked as if it should be hot as a phaser torch, but the cold emanating from that phosphorescent light was actually so intense that it burned against Sulu’s cheeks.

  “Fascinating,” said Spock as he stared into the glare. From the expression on Giotto’s face, Sulu [152] guessed that was not exactly the word the security chief would have chosen to describe what he was seeing. “It appears you were right, Mr. Sanner. The Shechenag satellites must have had larger energy cores than I estimated from their force field output. We have clearly overcharged the power storage systems on the time transporter.”

  “And how,” was the geologist’s awed response. “Is there any space left to walk around in that mess?”

  “I believe so, but it is not great.” Spock leaned out a little into the glare and eyed the edges of the cavern. Sulu could see a ring of evenly spaced crumpled robots there, the remnants of a Shechenag perimeter guard. “Mr. Giotto and Mr. Smith, what is the status on your power supplies?”

  The security chief glanced at his rifle, then let out a muffled curse. “Down to zero already,” he said. “But it was fully charged a few moments ago!”

  Yuki Smith went down on one knee behind Sulu, the younger Chekov squatting beside her to help her shed and open her heavy pack. She scrambled among the power supplies she had brought, then gave Spock a troubled glance. “The ones with the magnetic shielding are all right, sir. All the rest are dead.”

  Spock nodded somberly. “Please attach a shielded power supply to your rifle, Mr. Smith, and station yourself in this archway with it. You will be our lookout.”

  “Do we need a lookout, Commander?” asked [153] Giotto. “If none of the Shechenag’s mechanics can survive the power drain in here—”

  “We will be safe from attack for as long as the Janus Gate remains charged,” Spock agreed. “However, the Shechenag may have retreated only as far from the Janus Gate as the chamber above, which is where they were waiting when we brought Lieutenant Sulu and Commander Chekov back from the future. As soon as we exhaust the gate again by sending James Kirk and his escort to the past, we may find ourselves once again confronting them.” His glance swept past the older Sulu and Chekov to rest on their younger counterparts. “At that point, with Mr. Giotto and I locked into the Janus device, it will be up to you to guard us from any interruption. You must prevent that, at any cost. If we are interrupted, there is a strong probability that we will lose all chance of retrieving Captain Kirk from the past. Do you understand?”

  “Aye-aye, sir!” Chekov said, the unthinking response of a cadet responding to a drill order. Sulu saw the older Russian give him an odd, rueful look, but he made no comment in either Russian or English.

  “Aye, sir,” Sulu echoed. “Do you want us here, or stationed around the outside of the chamber?”

  “If the Janus Gate continues to absorb power, anywhere you stand inside that chamber might become the site of a subspace rift,” Spock replied. He carefully adjusted his bulky tricorder so it lay against the [154] front of his caving suit, then looked past Giotto at the older Captain Sulu. “You remember the protected channel that leads to the viewing slot. It will doubtless be much narrower now than it was before.” He widened his address to include the older Chekov and young Kirk, as well as a frowning Giotto. “When you follow Captain Sulu, stay as close to the cavern walls as possible, with your arms held tight to your sides. Any straying into the field of light around the Janus Gate could pull you into a subspace instability without warning. Walk exactly where Captain Sulu walks. Do not cut any corners or take your eyes off the person in front of you. Is that clear?”

  “Aye, sir,” said Giotto, echoed by the older Chekov and, a little hesitantly, by young James Kirk as well. Then the teenager glanced over his shoulder toward the younger Chekov, obviously trying for a casual, grown-up good-bye.

  “Thanks,” he said. “For showing me the ship, and everything.”

  Despite his best efforts, the stress of the moment made his adolescent voice break, shifting it momentarily into a much stronger tenor. It sounded like their own lost captain speaking to them, and for a moment even Spock looked startled. Kirk swallowed and turned back toward the older Chekov and Spock. “Ready when you are,” he said bravely. And although his voice had gone back to its usual boyish register, Sulu could still hear the echo of the man he’d someday grow up to be.

  [155] The older Sulu nodded and edged his way out into the Janus chamber, brushing the wall with one shoulder and keeping himself angled to stay almost parallel with that metallic surface as he went. Giotto followed, with Kirk and the older Chekov close behind. Spock waited until they were most of the way around the perimeter of the cavern, then began circling the other way. Just as he reached the channel of clear air that Sulu could see glimmering off to the left, the Vulcan made an odd gasping sound and stopped.

  “Spock, what’s wrong?” the older Sulu demanded from across the chamber. “Sulu, can you see him?”

  “It is ... insignificant.” There was a harsh tone to Spock’s voice that contradicted his words, but after another moment he continued on his way to the dark alien device in the center of the cavern. Sulu stood on tiptoe, bracing himself against Chekov’s shoulder as he peered through the glare, but he couldn’t detect any visible wounds or injuries on the Vulcan’s tall figure.

  “He looks all right,” he told his waiting older self. “But he’s moving a little slower than before.”

  “I did not impact any part of the Janus field, if that is what concerns you.” The harshness was fading slowly from Spock’s voice, replaced by a distinct note of asperity. “Some of the Shechenag robots have mechanical cutting appendages with extremely sharp blades. I happened to encounter one of them.”

  [156] “Step over that,” the older Chekov said to Kirk quietly, and Sulu heard the young man’s boots crunch on ice as he obeyed. The older Sulu continued picking his slow and careful way through the shifting billows of blue light, until he stood inside the curving gyroscopic arms of the alien time transporter. He drew Giotto in beside him, then carefully directed Kirk and Chekov to stand as close together as they could in back.

  “You have to hold onto these arm-supports,” the former starship captain told the security chief. “Don’t let go, no matter what you see. It will look like you’ve beamed somewhere completely different, but you won’t really be there. You’ll still be able to hear and talk to Spock.”

  “Understood,” the other man said, so shortly that Sulu guessed that the inferno he was facing had unnerved him. “I’m holding on.”

  Sulu glanced across the central fire to the lone figure on the other side. “We’re ready when you are, Mr. Spock.”

  “One moment. I need to adjust my calculations to take into account the higher power levels we have inadvertently created.” Spock’s fingers flickered across the alien device’s control panel with their usual velocity
. “I have located what appears to be a major life-crisis, Mister Giotto. What do you see?”

  “It’s dark, really dark. And closed in, like a cave or a mine. I can’t smell really well, but there seems to be [157] some kind of chemical or acid in the air ... This isn’t Grex, Mr. Spock.”

  “Very well. I am adjusting the controls.” There was a pause. “What do you see now, Mr. Giotto?”

  “Fires in the distance. Tall buildings, all dark because there’s no power, and streets full of people running ... yes, this is Grex. But I don’t remember ever standing in this particular street.”

  “That is because I have adjusted the controls to send you some distance away from the place where you were injured. I do not want to further complicate the timestream by having your crewmates see two of you,” Spock replied. “Does your current location look like a relatively safe location?”

  “It’s pretty well deserted,” Giotto said doubtfully, “But in this city, on this night ... there’s really no safe place to send us.”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Giotto.” That, surprisingly enough, was young Kirk. “Once we’re there, I’ll be able to get us to the embassy to meet my dad. I spent all summer wandering Sogo city instead of studying astrophysics like I was supposed to ...”

  “Then it will be up to you, James Kirk, to get yourself back to your proper place,” Spock replied soberly. “I am engaging associative transport now.”

  Blue-white light flared lightning-sharp inside the Janus chamber, followed by a thunder-crack as startled air slammed into the space formerly occupied by bodies. Four bodies, Sulu realized in shock and sudden despair. He didn’t know whether Chief [158] Giotto had forgotten to hold onto the stabilizing supports, or whether the overcharged Janus Gate had simply malfunctioned. Either way spelled disaster.

  Having sent both young Kirk and Chief Giotto into the past, there was now no way at all to bring their own version of Captain Kirk back to the present.