Spock bent toward Kirk. “Were those not a birthday present from Doctor McCoy?”
“And they will be again, Spock,” Kirk said. “That’s the beauty of it.” He joined the owner on the other side of the shop. “How much?”
“They’d be worth more if the lenses were intact,” the antique dealer said. “But I might be able to restore them. It would take some research…” He glanced at the glasses again. Jim could tell he wanted them. “I’ll give you two hundred bucks, take it or leave it.”
“Is that a lot?” Jim asked.
He looked at Jim askance. “I think it’s a fair price,” he said defensively. “But if you don’t like it—” He offered Jim the glasses back.
“My companion did not mean to impugn your fairness,” Spock said. “He has been…out of the area…for some time, and I am only visiting. I am not familiar with prices, or with your current word usage. What is a buck?”
“A buck is a dollar. You know what a dollar is?”
Neither Spock nor Kirk replied.
“The main unit of currency of the good old U.S. of A.? You can buy most of a gallon of gas with it, this week anyway, or most of a loaf of decent bread, or a beer if you choose your bar right. Either you guys have been gone forever, or…did we ever meet in the sixties?”
“I think not,” Spock said.
They were getting out of their depth. “Two hundred bucks would be fine,” Kirk said quickly.
“You aren’t interested in selling your belt buckle, are you? Does it have any age on it, or is it contemporary? I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but it looks a little bit deco.”
Jim felt tempted, but he had already pushed his luck by selling his spectacles. McCoy had had the lenses ground to Jim’s prescription in their own time. Jim had no idea what an analysis of the glass would show, but he doubted that the results would resemble something from the eighteenth century any more than his belt buckle would look like an alloy from old date nineteen-twenty.
“No,” he said. “It…doesn’t have any age on it. I don’t think it would be worth much.”
“Okay. Let me draw you a check for these.”
Jim followed him to the back of the shop. The antique dealer sat at a beautiful mahogany roll-top, opened a black lacquer lap desk, took out a spiral-bound book, and unscrewed the top of a fountain pen.
“Who should I make this out to?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What’s your name, man?” The owner frowned. “I have to know your name so I can write you a check so you can get your money.”
“Can’t I just have the money?” Jim said.
The owner turned in his chair and hooked one arm over the back rest. He gestured toward the spectacles, glittering gold on his desk. “Look, man, do you have any paperwork on these?” His voice held a hint of suspicion.
“Paperwork?” Jim said, confused.
“You know, like a sales receipt? Any proof of ownership? I’ve never had any trouble with stolen stuff, and I’m damned if I want to start now.”
“They aren’t stolen!” Jim said. Spock’s story was wearing rather thin. “I’ve…had them for a long time. But I don’t have any paperwork.”
“Do you have some I.D.?”
At least he knew what I.D. was, unless the usage had changed between now and then. He shook his head. “I…er…lost it.”
“What about your friend?”
With perfect serenity, Spock said, “I have lost mine as well. Our transportation lost our luggage, thus we find ourselves in our present difficulty.”
The dealer’s attitude changed abruptly. “Jeez, why didn’t you say so in the first place? What a bummer. Did you come all the way from Japan? I always wanted to go there, but I never made it. I spent a lot of time in Asia. Nepal, Tibet, and, well, Nam, but I hardly ever tell anybody that anymore, they think you’re going to wig out in front of them, you know?” He cut off his words. “Sorry,” he said shortly. He closed his fountain pen and put the checkbook back into the lap desk. He gazed at Jim closely. “You know what?”
“What?” Jim said, not sure he really wanted to know.
“Those glasses better not be stolen, man, because I don’t want any trouble with the cops. Or the narcs. Or the feds. The feds are the worst, man, I don’t want anything more to do with the feds, ever again. So if you’re screwing me around, and you’re really a couple high-class cokeheads ripping off your rich friends for your next score, it’ll go on your karma, you got that?”
“I got that,” Jim said. He got the message, even if the details eluded him. “The spectacles are not stolen.” He hoped he was telling the truth. It occurred to him that it was perfectly possible that sometime in their long history his spectacles had been stolen.
“Okay.” The antique dealer rose and strode to his cash register. It flung itself open with ringing bells and the crash of its drawer. “Here’s your money, no questions asked.” He handed Jim a wad of green and gray printed rectangles of paper. “Small bills.” He suddenly grinned. “I guess I’ve got a little anarchy left in me yet.”
“I guess so,” Jim said. He took the money. “Thank you.”
As he stepped out into the sunshine, Jim drew a long breath and let it out slowly.
“Thank you, Mister Spock,” he said. “I’m not sure we got away clean, but at least we got away.”
“I merely spoke the truth, Admiral,” Spock said. “Our transportation did destroy my belongings. The Enterprise held virtually everything I possessed.”
“Yes…” Jim did not want to think about the Enterprise. “Spock, I’m not in command of anything right now. You’ve got to get used to calling me Jim, at least while we’re here. Calling me Admiral might draw attention.”
“Very well,” Spock said. “I will try to form a new habit.”
They rejoined the rest of their group, being more careful about crossing the street.
“We were about to send out the cavalry,” McCoy said.
“The cavalry, even in its mechanized form, ended some decades ago, Doctor McCoy,” Spock said.
“No!” McCoy exclaimed. “Really? I’m devastated!”
Jim fended off another quarrel by showing everyone the money. He explained what he knew of its value. He divided it as evenly as the denomination of the bills allowed among the three teams. He gave seventy bucks—dollars?—to Uhura, seventy to Sulu, and kept sixty for himself and Spock. Perhaps he should have kept strictly to rank order and given the tank team money to McCoy or to Scott, but in all the years Jim had known Scott, the engineer had never had an iota of sense about money. As for McCoy…Jim did not know what was going on with McCoy. He almost wished he had kept him on the whale team, where he could keep an eye on him. But then he would have to act as buffer between McCoy and Spock, and he did not know how long his temper would hold if he had to do that.
“That’s all there is,” he said, “so nobody splurge. Are we set?”
Like him, they put a good face on it. He worried more about sending his people into the past of their own world than he ever had about sending them to the surface of a completely alien planet.
He and Spock headed north. The crush in traffic eased. Ground cars still filled the streets, but the masses of people in quasiuniform gave way to a more casual crowd.
“Well, Spock,” Jim said, “thanks to your restored memory and a little bit of luck, we are now in the streets of San Francisco looking for a pair of humpback whales.”
Spock did not reply. He certainly did not laugh.
“How do you propose to solve this minor problem?” Jim said.
“Simple logic will suffice,” Spock said. “We need a map. That one should do.”
Showing not the least surprise at discovering one immediately, he led Jim to an enclosure. It sheltered a bench on which a number of people sat. Near a list of street names, some of them still familiar, and numbers, none of which meant anything to Jim, a diagrammatic map had been painted.
“I will si
mply superimpose the coordinates on this map and find our destination.”
Spock glanced at the map, as if an instant of casual attention would solve the problem. Then he looked more closely. The streets and boundaries had been drawn in a formalized way that had little connection with the true geography of the region. The thick colored lines painted over it helped not at all.
As Spock puzzled over the map, a larger than average ground car pulled up. It belched oily smoke, further polluting air already saturated with suspended fumes and particulates. The doors of the vehicle folded open and the people on the bench lined up to enter it. Jim realized this must be contemporary public transportation.
Then he read the sign on the vehicle’s side: “See George and Gracie, the only two humpback whales in captivity. At the Cetacean Institute, Sausalito.”
“Mister Spock,” he said.
“One moment, Admiral. I believe that in time I can discover a solution—”
“Mister Spock. I think we’ll find what we’re looking for at the Cetacean Institute. In Sausalito. Two humpbacks called George and Gracie.”
Spock turned to him, more puzzled than before. “How do you know this?”
“Simple logic,” Jim said.
The driver leaned toward them. “You guys getting on the bus or not?”
“Come on, Spock.”
Jim led the way through the front doors of the bus.
A moment later, fuming, he descended from the rear exit.
“What does it mean,” Spock said, perplexed, “ ‘exact change’?”
Sulu followed Scott and Doctor McCoy down the street. Scott forged ahead as if he knew where he was going, but if he did he had not let Sulu or McCoy in on the secret.
“Would you mind telling me,” McCoy said, “how we plan to convert the cargo hold into a tank?”
“Ordinarily,” Scott said, “ ’twould be done wi’ transparent aluminum.”
“You’re a few years early for that,” Sulu said.
“Aye, lad, I know it. ’Tis up to us to find a twentieth-century equivalent.”
Sulu wished that Scott would stop calling him lad. They walked along in silence for another fifty meters. Halfway down the next block, a billboard loomed over the street: “Can’t find it? Try the yellow pages!”
Sulu pointed to it. “What about that?”
Scott squinted to read it.
“Does look promising. But can ye tell me,” he said, “what’s a yellow pages?”
“Beats me,” Sulu said. “We’ll have to ask somebody.” Preferring a straightforward approach, he headed toward the nearest pedestrian.
McCoy grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute,” the doctor said. “That billboard—you’re obviously supposed to know already what yellow pages are. Or is. For all we know, maybe we’re supposed to know what ‘it’ is, too. If we go around asking questions blind, somebody’s bound to get suspicious.”
“ ’Tis true,” Scott said.
“So maybe they’ll think we’re a little strange,” Sulu said. “Maybe they’ll think we’re from out of town. But I don’t think we have to worry about anybody’s suspecting that we’re space travelers from the future!”
“Out of town…” McCoy said. “Sulu, that’s a good idea.” He regarded Sulu, then Scott, speculatively. “Which one of us is most likely to be able to pass for somebody from out of town?”
All their clothes were just different enough to stand out, but not different enough to attract inordinate amounts of attention; none was physically remarkable in comparison to the general population of San Francisco.
“Mister Scott,” McCoy said. “I think you’re elected. Your accent—”
“Accent!” Scott exclaimed. “Ye canna be sayin’ that I speak wi’ an accent!”
“But…” McCoy let his protest trail off. “Everybody here does, so in relation you’ll sound like you’re from out of town. It’s that, or I’ll have to do my Centaurian imitation—”
“Never mind!” Scott said. “If I’m elected, I’m elected.” He straightened his uniform jacket, glanced around, and left their group to speak to the next pedestrian.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said. “But I’m from out of town, and I was wondering—”
The pedestrian walked past without acknowledging Scott’s presence. Scott watched him go, frowning. He rejoined Sulu and McCoy.
“What d’ye make of that?”
McCoy shrugged. “I can’t imagine.”
“Try again,” Sulu said.
Again Scott straightened his coat; again he approached a pedestrian.
“If I might have a moment of your time, sir—”
“Get out of my face!”
Scott backed off, startled. The pedestrian stormed away without a backward glance, muttering something about panhandlers, tracts, and street crazies.
“This isna working,” Scott said to Sulu and McCoy. “Doctor, maybe ye’d better attempt the Centaurian imitation after all.”
“Come on, Scotty, once more,” McCoy said. “Third try’s the charm.”
Scott approached a third pedestrian. As he neared her, she dropped something. Scott picked it up.
“Excuse me, ma’am, ye dropped this.”
She turned back. “Are you speaking to me?”
“Aye, ma’am, that I am, ye dropped this.” He offered her the folded leather parcel.
“That’s very kind of you,” she said, “but I’ve never seen that wallet before. Maybe we’d better see if there’s any identification inside.” She took the wallet, opened it, and looked through it.
“Aye, ma’am, I’m sure ye’d know what’s best to do wi’ it, but I’m from out of town, and I was wondering—”
“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “There isn’t any identification, but look at this.” She displayed a wad of bills. “There must be a thousand dollars in here!”
Scott had not yet got used to twentieth-century money. It all looked the same to him, so all he could tell was that there was a good bit more of it in the wallet than Admiral Kirk had given Sulu. He shrugged.
“I’m sure ye’d know better than me,” Scott said. “In the meantime, could ye tell me what the term ‘yellow pages’ means?”
“Look, if we turn this in to the police, they’ll just disappear it even if somebody claims it. Why don’t we split it? We’ll both put up some of our own money to show our goodwill, and—” She stopped. “What did you say?”
“I asked ye if ye knew what ‘yellow pages’ means.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“I told ye that, too,” Scott said, wishing he could figure out why it was so difficult to get a simple answer to what he hoped was a simple question.
“Where are you from?”
“Why, Scotland.”
“Don’t they have phone books in Scotland?”
“What’s a phone book?”
“A directory of phone numbers. The yellow pages are the commercial part. You don’t have those in Scotland?”
“Nay,” he said. Her expression indicated the necessity of some further explanation. “ ’Tis all computerized, ye see.”
“Oh.” She shook her head, bemused. “I suppose your money is computerized, too, and you don’t have any cash on you. I bet you don’t have any cash money in this country at all.”
“Aye,” he said, then suddenly wondered if he had said too much. “Why d’ye ask?”
She sighed. “Never mind, it isn’t important. If you need some yellow pages, all you have to do is find a phone—you do have phones in Scotland, don’t you?”
“Aye,” he said, “I mean, well, in a manner o’ speaking.”
“Phone.” She turned him around and led him to a tall, narrow, glass-sided box. He stood before it, waiting for the door to open. She reached out and pulled the handle, folding the door.
’Tis mechanical, Scott thought, startled by its primitiveness.
“Door,” she said. She hoisted a heavy, black-covered book that h
ung by hinges. She put it on a shelf, opened it, backed out of the booth, and pointed again. “Yellow pages.”
“Thank ye kindly, ma’am,” Scott said. “Ye’ve been of great help.”
“Just call me a good Samaritan,” she said. “You have a nice day, now.” She started away.
“Ma’am?”
“What is it?”
“That wallet—ye seemed to think ’twould cause ye difficulty. Would ye want me to turn it in for ye? I could try to find the time.”
She cocked her head. “No,” she said. “No, don’t worry about it. I know what to do with it.”
“Thank ye again.”
She raised her hand in acknowledgment and farewell, already striding down the street.
Scott went into the phone booth and paged through the phone book. After a moment, McCoy and Sulu joined him.
“What was all that about?” McCoy said.
“All what, Doctor?”
“What took you so long?” the doctor snapped. “I thought you were going to take her out on a date.”
“I wouldna jeopardize our mission wi’ such a digression,” Scott said, affronted. “Nay, she found a wallet—I mean, I found a wallet—” As he began to get his bearings in the yellow pages—he found it easier if he thought of it as a printed technical manual—he repeated the conversation to McCoy and Sulu. When he finished, all three agreed that the encounter was incomprehensible.
“Hah!” Scott exclaimed, pointing to a section of a yellow page. “Acrylic sheeting! ’Tis bound to be just what we need. Burlingame Industrial Park. Off wi’ us, then.”
A few blocks and a few phone booths away, Chekov found what he was looking for. He clapped the reinforced cover of the phone book shut and rejoined Uhura on the sidewalk.
“Find it?” she asked.
“Yes. Under U.S. Government. Now we need directions.” He stopped the first passerby he saw. “Excuse me, sir. Can you direct me to Navy base in Alameda?”
The man looked at Chekov, looked at Uhura, and frowned. “The Navy base?”
“Yes,” Chekov said. “Where they keep nuclear vessels?”
Duty, Honor, Redemption Page 57
