So why hasn’t that happened? McCoy thought, throwing himself back down onto the sofa. He’d asked himself the same question over and over again in recent days, and always he came back to the same answer: he had changed history. But how? How could he possibly have affected events in Japan, a continent and an ocean away? For ten years now, he’d believed that a man had stolen his phaser and accidentally dematerialized both himself and the weapon, and that the event had altered the past and trapped McCoy here. But how could that have had an impact on Japanese foreign policy? On the face of it, McCoy thought that the idea sounded absurd.
On the radio, the morning program News of Europe began. McCoy leaned forward, dropping his elbows onto his knees and his chin into his hands. He listened as the commentator described in chilling detail the devastation in London as a result of Germany’s Christmas Eve offensive four days earlier. France had been occupied for more than a year, and Germany had invaded country after country: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, Yugoslavia. The Nazis had also gone into the Soviet Union, where they’d so far captured numerous cities, including Minsk, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, and Sevastopol. Both eastern and western Europe were falling.
“Here at home,” the commentator intoned, “the American Pacifist Movement will stage a mass rally tomorrow morning at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, coinciding with a planned visit there by President Roosevelt. The group, instrumental thus far in keeping the country from going to war, will continue to purvey its message of peace, a spokesman said. Movement founder Edith Keeler is expected to speak to those assembled.”
McCoy leaped up from the sofa. Edith! He crossed the room to where he’d set the large, peaked radio atop a narrow table. Placing his hands on the device—its smooth, stained wood felt warm, almost hot, to the touch—he waited for additional information.
“Meanwhile, the Douglas Aircraft Company has been awarded a contract to build a military transport version of its famed DC-3—”
McCoy reached down and switched off the radio. He felt sick. Edith, he thought again. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He’d saved her life, and she had changed history. It seemed so clear now. Edith had founded what had become the largest peace movement in the United States, preventing the country not only from entering the war, but from assuming as strong a military posture as it otherwise would have. The Japanese government hadn’t felt the need to attack Pearl Harbor now because the U.S. had not yet become a big enough threat. And with no surprise attack, and the American Pacifist Movement urging neutrality, President Roosevelt hadn’t found a way to convince the people of the country that they needed to take the fight to Hitler and Nazi Germany.
What’s going to happen? McCoy thought. Is Germany going to win the war? Will Hitler conquer the world?
McCoy strode to the front door and headed outside. By the time he’d reached the end of the stone path that led to the street, he’d broken into a sprint. He sped across the crossroads of Carolina and Main, across the commons and Mill Road, and raced into the general store.
Inside, Turner Robinson looked from where he stood at a display table near the front. “Morning, Doc,” he said, peering over a stack of small boxes. “Newspaper truck hasn’t come in yet today, if that’s what you’re looking for,” he said.
“No. I need maps…road maps of South Carolina and Georgia,” McCoy said in a rush. “I’m going to Atlanta.”
Thirty-Seven
2282
Even this late on a Tuesday night, Madame Chang’s had a foyer filled with customers waiting to be seated. Barrows had never patronized the venerable restaurant when that hadn’t been the case. She and Leonard had already been here for twenty-five minutes, and she hoped that Dorsant and Olga arrived soon, otherwise their table for four might go to some quartet whose members had already shown up tonight.
“I say if they don’t get here by the time our names get called, we take the table and their meals,” Barrows joked. She sat beside Leonard on a cushioned bench in the restaurant’s dimly lighted entrance hall, among at least a dozen other would-be diners.
“I’m so hungry, I could probably eat my own dinner and Dorsant’s,” Leonard said with a smile, though even as hungry as Barrows felt herself, she doubted the veracity of his claim. A Chenari, Dr. Dorsant had a massive body and a stunningly energetic metabolism. The physician normally ate a dozen small meals throughout the day and an enormous dinner at night; even in the project lab, she didn’t think she’d ever seen him very far from food. On the other hand, Dr. Zhuravlova, the team’s second physicist and a petite human woman, ate—as Barrows’s Aunt Beatty used to say—“like a bird.”
“If you can eat all of Dorsant’s meal,” she told Leonard, “you should consider giving up medicine and finding a job in a carnival somewhere, because an act like that belongs on a midway.”
“Step right up, folks, and see the human who eats like a Chenari,” McCoy said. “Is that it?”
“Something like that,” Barrows said. “You know, if—” McCoy’s communicator beeped twice, signaling an incoming message.
“Excuse me a second,” he said, quickly rising and pulling the device from his hip. He didn’t open it, though, instead stepping outside, obviously not wanting to disturb anybody in the restaurant. After just a moment, he came back in, his communicator tucked away on his belt once more. “Well, that was Olga,” he said. “She and Dorsant aren’t going to make it. Apparently neither one of them feels like going back out.” The two team members had finished their project work for the day about three hours ago, and both had decided to go to their respective homes before the group’s scheduled dinner, Dorsant down to Half Moon Bay, Zhuravlova up to Mill Valley.
“So much for the team dinner,” Barrows said. “Should we tell the maître d’ it’ll be just the two of us, or should we call it a night?”
“I may not be Chenari hungry,” Leonard said, “but I’m still hungry.”
“So am I,” Barrows said.
Leonard changed their reservation, and ten minutes later, they’d been seated at a table for two. Surprisingly, they’d been placed along the glass wall that overlooked San Francisco Bay and provided a breathtaking view of the Golden Gate Bridge—normally difficult seats to come by, but obviously it had simply been a matter of timing. “Look at this,” Barrows said. “Leonard, you sure have good luck when it comes to windows and views. First your office, then the lab, now this. I suppose your apartment looks out on some spectacular vista too, huh?” She glanced down at her menu.
“Well, I, uh…” Leonard stammered, and she realized that she’d made him uncomfortable.
“I was only joking,” Barrows said. “I wasn’t asking to see your apartment.”
“I didn’t—” Leonard started. “I’m sorry.” She thought she heard remorse in his voice, and she couldn’t believe it.
“Leonard, we’ve been working together for more than two years now,” she said quietly, peering over her menu. “How can this be a problem now?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose it’s because I feel badly about how I treated you.”
“When? On the Enterprise?” Barrows asked, putting her menu down and leaning over the table. “That was fifteen years ago.”
“I know, I know, but…” He set his own menu down. “Tonia, I behaved very poorly. I hurt you unnecessarily…carelessly…and even though it happened a long time ago, I just want you to know that I’m sorry.”
Even in the spare light of the restaurant, Barrows thought she could see regret in Leonard’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “You didn’t need to tell me that, but I appreciate that you did.” She held his gaze long enough to demonstrate whatever forgiveness Leonard thought he needed—she felt no need herself to forgive him—and then she scooped up her menu. “Unless you want to have to apologize for starving me, though, we should order.”
Leonard agreed. In just a few minutes, their appetizer—a larg
e serving of sizzling-rice soup—had been delivered to their table. As the waiter poured the crisp rice into the hot vegetable-filled broth, causing a flourish of hissing and crackling, Barrows quipped that they were getting dinner and a show. After they’d been served individual bowls of the soup, Leonard asked, “So how did you end up here anyway?”
“In Madame Chang’s?” she asked. “I always call ahead.”
Leonard smiled. “I meant, how did you end up with a doctorate in subatomic physics?” Although they’d been working on the chronometric-particles research project for more than two years now, Barrows and McCoy had spent almost no time together outside of the lab, and they certainly hadn’t been alone with each other in anything but a professional setting. Consequently, their conversations—after their initial meeting in his office—had never wandered into personal territory.
“Oh, that,” Barrows said. “Well, you know from when I was on the Enterprise that I’d developed an interest in the sciences. I never cared for it much as a girl, though, and I ended up in Starfleet because I was looking to travel, looking for some adventure…you know, the romantic notion of life aboard a starship. But they don’t tell you when you sign up that there’s an awful lot of nothing between star systems, and even at warp six, it takes a long time to get from place to place.”
“No, they don’t put that in the recruitment brochures,” Leonard said. “But still, a starship crew really does get to travel to exotic places and meet alien cultures.”
“True,” Barrows said. “Even a starbase run mostly by humans is a long way from Wichita.” Barrows had grown up in the small Kansas metropolis. “But even if a ship goes to exciting places, that doesn’t mean that everybody in the crew will get to visit there. That’s especially the case for lower-level personnel like yeomen.”
“Unless you’re assisting the captain,” Leonard noted.
“Yeah, but I didn’t get to do that very often,” Barrows said. “After…what was her name? The captain’s primary yeoman when I came aboard?”
“Rand?” McCoy said. “Janice Rand?”
“Right, Janice,” Barrows said. “After she put in for a transfer, the captain rotated assistants for a while, at least while I was there. I got to be in a landing party only a couple of times.”
“I know at least one of those times was pretty exciting,” McCoy said. He picked up a chopstick from the table and mimed running it through his chest, evoking the memory of the artificial knight driving a lance through him.
“Mister Spock’s ‘amusement park’?” Barrows shook her head and laughed. “You know, I’ve often thought about going back there myself to study the process they use to create objects. The level of molecular engineering must be pretty astonishing.”
“You sound about as much fun on shore leave as Spock,” Leonard said.
“Now, now,” Barrows said. “You know better than that, don’t you?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She’d meant the question as a simple tease, but it once more raised the specter of her failed romance with Leonard. He appeared embarrassed. It seemed odd to Barrows that he suddenly seemed to have such difficulty dealing with the brief relationship they’d had so long ago. After their initial meeting on the project, there had been no awkwardness between them, and she’d perceived no indication that Leonard ever even thought about their shared past; certainly she had put it behind her.
Wanting to change the subject, Barrows returned to Leonard’s question about her career. “Anyway,” she said, “once I started living aboard starships—I don’t know if you remember, but before I came to the Enterprise, I served on the New York and the Chawla—I got to observe a lot of scientific activity, and I started to get interested in it. I decided I wanted to do more than just be a yeoman, and Captain Kirk let me take the officers test and transfer into the sciences division. I ended up working for Faith Homeyer in the Enterprise’s physics lab. When I transferred to the Gödel, I stayed in the discipline and found that I had an aptitude for the subatomic and quantum side of things. I got some great experience aboard the Gödel, and when my tour ended, I told Starfleet that I wanted to pursue my doctorate. They were very supportive.”
“You really took control of your life,” Leonard said, with apparent admiration.
“I always had control of my life,” Barrows said. She felt a flash of resentment at Leonard’s characterization, but quickly brushed it aside. “What I was finally able to do was find something that I enjoyed, that challenged me, and that I wanted to pursue as a career.”
After the waiter had cleared away the soup bowls and brought their meals—a Buddha’s feast for the vegetarian Barrows, and beef with pea pods for Leonard—the conversation turned to her schooling. Leonard asked about her graduate and postgraduate work, and she told him. As the evening progressed, though, Barrows realized that they’d largely talked about her, and she found that she wanted to know more about Leonard. “So tell me,” she said, “how did you end up in medicine? Was it a lifelong calling?”
“Not really,” McCoy said. “I was sort of directionless when I went to college. In some ways, I didn’t even want to continue my schooling.”
“Then why did you?” she asked.
“Um…my father,” Leonard said, but he didn’t explain any further. Barrows had just enough time to recall that he’d always been tight-lipped about his family, and then he quickly moved on. “But during my first year, I witnessed an…accident…and I ended up helping the victims. I ended up with my hand inside somebody’s torso, holding an artery closed. It was an incredible experience—a formative experience, I guess you could say. I found it very empowering to help somebody in that way. I guess that’s really what started me.”
“Wow,” Barrows said. “You don’t usually hear stories like that. In my experience, doctors and nurses often tell you that they’ve wanted to go into their fields since they were children. Speaking of which, how’s Joanna?” Back when Barrows had served aboard the Enterprise, Leonard had told her that his daughter intended to become a nurse.
McCoy hesitated. “I forgot that I’d told you about Joanna,” he finally said.
“You told me a little bit about Jocelyn too,” she said.
“I did?” McCoy said. “I honestly don’t remember. I don’t generally talk about my former wife very much, and back then, I didn’t talk much about my daughter either, probably because our relationship was so unsettled.”
“But it’s better now?” Barrows asked.
“It is,” Leonard said. “I still don’t get to see her as much as I’d like, but we talk fairly often. And yes, she became a nurse. She’s the head of the Organ Donation, Synthesis, and Transplant Department at Ravent General Hospital on Mantilles.”
“Mantilles?” Barrows said. “That’s a long way out.”
“That’s one of the reasons we don’t see each other much,” Leonard said. She thought she detected a hint of sadness in his voice, and she wondered if he had the relationship with his daughter that he truly wanted. Their conversation soon moved on to other topics, though, making it difficult for her to assess her feeling.
After finishing their meals—they eschewed dessert because of the lateness of the hour—they headed outside. Under a full moon, Leonard asked if she planned to take the monorail home to Sausalito, and she said that she did. Playing the role of the southern gentleman, he insisted on walking her to the station. Once there, they stood on the platform, waiting for the next monorail—it would be along in three minutes, according to the display—and discussing the lab agenda for tomorrow.
When Barrows saw the headlamp of the oncoming monorail, she moved toward the boarding area, and Leonard followed. “I had a really nice time tonight,” he told her.
“I did too,” she said, turning to face him. She reached up and casually squeezed his arm. To her surprise, he reacted by pulling her forward, leaning down, and kissing her.
She kissed him back.
Even though she’d dealt with her feeling
s for him a long time ago, the same things that had attracted her to him more than a decade and a half ago still attracted her to him now. She appreciated his intelligence and sense of humor, as well as his weathered good looks, and she’d always been taken with the persona of the humble country doctor that he wore. On top of all that, he’d turned out to be a skilled researcher, with whom she’d enjoyed working these past two years.
Barrows felt the rush of air behind air as the monorail arrived at the station. She stepped back and looked up into Leonard’s deep blue eyes. “Well,” she said.
“Tonia, I…” Leonard managed.
“You better not say you’re sorry.”
“I’m not,” he said. “As long as you’re not.”
“No,” she said, “but I think we’d better talk about this.”
“Sure,” Leonard said. “How about dinner tomorrow night?”
“Okay,” Barrows said, glancing over her shoulder at the arriving monorail. “I’d better go,” she said, and she stepped across the platform and into the monorail car. As the doors started to shut, she said, “But not Chinese food. I just had that.” The doors closed, and then the monorail started to move. Leonard smiled and waved, and she did the same.
Once the monorail had left the station, Barrows found a seat. She fell into it, exhausted, and yet she felt exhilarated at the same time. It had been quite some time since she’d been involved in a relationship—if that’s where this was headed—and she certainly hadn’t expected anything like this to happen, particularly with Leonard. And even if she had thought that he might be interested in her again, she doubted that she would’ve expected herself to respond to his advances.
Crucible: McCoy Page 51
