Star Trek: The Original Series: No Time Like the Past

by Greg Cox

  “Would and have,” Kirk admitted. He’d been stranded in the past himself on occasion. Painful memories from the Great Depression brought a pang to his heart; he shoved them out of his thoughts. “More than once, in fact.”

  “Then you understand the delicacy of my situation,” she said, “and the urgency to return me to my proper coordinates in time and space.”

  Kirk considered their lovely guest, whose cool self-possession seemed almost Vulcan. According to her abbreviated account, she’d been exploring some vaguely described alien ruins at an unspecified time and place in the future when she had accidentally triggered an abandoned time machine of some sort, which had transported her across time and space to Yusub in the twenty-third century. His gut told him that she was being honest with him, as much as she could, but he still had plenty of questions.

  “If you’re so worried about changing the future,” he asked, “why did you save my life down on the planet?”

  “The Enterprise requires James T. Kirk, at least for the present. Put simply, it was not your time.”

  He refrained from asking her when exactly his time was. Frankly, he didn’t want to know.

  “I want to believe you,” he said, “but I need to be sure.” He glanced at Spock, who was sitting across from him. “Perhaps a mind-meld to verify her story?”

  “That would not be advisable, Captain,” she protested. “There is too great a risk of Commander Spock learning more than he should about future events and technology.” She viewed Spock with a certain detached caution. The Yusubi idol, which she had refused to part with, rested on the table before her. “You may trust me on this, Captain. I have some experience of Vulcans and their gifts.”

  “She is quite correct,” Spock stated. “A meld is not a surgical instrument. It is a profound union of minds that, by its very nature, transcends individual boundaries. There is no guarantee that I would extract only the relevant information . . . and nothing more.”

  “Would that be so bad?” Santiago asked. The diplomat had also changed into a fresh suit following their close call down on the planet, but he was obviously still on edge. His fingers drummed restlessly on the tabletop. “Advance warning of future crises and disasters could save countless lives in years to come.”

  Kirk could see how that could be tempting, especially to a man like Santiago, who had spent his entire career trying to bring peace and security to many worlds and civilizations. He hadn’t witnessed firsthand the havoc time travel could wreak on reality.

  “That would be a violation of the Temporal Prime Directive,” Seven stated emphatically. “The consequences could be severe.”

  Santiago was unconvinced. “But the potential rewards . . .”

  “That’s a debate we can have in due time,” Kirk interrupted, not wanting to get sidetracked into a discussion of alternate histories and temporal paradoxes. “Right now I’m more interested in verifying that our guest is indeed from the future. No offense, miss.”

  “None taken,” she replied. “Your caution is prudent.”

  McCoy spoke up. “What about testing her story against an automated accuracy scan?” He attempted to explain his proposal to Seven. “We can program a computer to monitor your brainwaves, as well as other physiological signs, to determine whether you’re telling the truth or not.”

  “I am familiar with the procedure,” she said. “It is primitive and imperfect, but non-invasive.” So far, she had not allowed McCoy to examine her, insisting that she had come through the firefight on the planet unscathed. The prosthetics on her face and hands remained unexplained. “I will permit it . . . in the interest of gaining your trust.”

  “That’s big of you,” McCoy drawled, bemused by Seven’s attitude. He looked her over. “So, no relation to Gary, I take it?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Never mind.” McCoy let out an exasperated sigh. “Ordinarily, I’d have a medical technician assist me, but under the circumstances, I suppose Scotty and I will manage.”

  “Aye,” Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott declared. A pronounced accent matched his surname. “Ye can count on me, although I confess I have no love for the infernal device.”

  Kirk couldn’t blame him. The same procedure had been employed to cross-examine Scotty when he was accused of murdering those women on Argelius II. Although the engineer had ultimately been cleared of all wrongdoing, the whole experience was no doubt one that Scotty would prefer to forget.

  “I appreciate that,” Kirk said. “The fewer people who know about this, the better.”

  “Hell, I wish I didn’t know about it,” McCoy grumbled. “Time travel’s never been anything but trouble as far as I’m concerned.”

  Tell me about it, Kirk thought ruefully.

  Seven observed McCoy with what appeared to be amusement. “Are all Starfleet physicians so opinionated? I had not realized until now that this was such a defining characteristic of the profession.”

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” McCoy asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Merely an observation.”

  “I’ll have you know my bedside manner is impeccable,” the doctor muttered. “All of my surviving patients say so.”

  Several minutes were required to set up the apparatus needed for the interview. Scotty installed a witness seat equipped with verification hardware, while Spock assisted McCoy in programming the computer to monitor Seven’s physiological responses. She allowed a superficial scan of her person in order to establish a baseline for the computer. McCoy’s eyes widened at the readings, and he frowned as he gave her a long second look. Something about the scan seemed to have given him cause for concern, but he kept any new worries to himself . . . at least for the time being.

  “All right,” Kirk said, after the preparations were complete. “Please take the stand.”

  “As you wish.” She sat down in the chair. A sensor pad was located in an armrest. She placed her palm down on the pad without prompting. “You may proceed with the interview.”

  Kirk appreciated her cooperation. “Just to make sure the verifier is calibrated properly, please state an untruth.”

  “I was born in this century,” she said without hesitation.

  “Inaccurate,” the computer declared. The sensor pad flashed beneath her palm while indicator lights blinked on the box-sized computer terminal in front of McCoy, who carefully monitored the readouts as well.

  “Looks like she’s fibbing to me,” the doctor said. “As nearly as I can tell given our ‘primitive’ technology, that is.”

  Kirk understood that the verifier was not one-hundred percent reliable, especially when dealing with an unknown entity like Seven, but it was better than nothing. A psychotricorder, which might be able to download Seven’s memories of the last twenty-four hours, was not an option for the same reason the mind-meld wasn’t. They had to confirm her story—without learning too much about her past in the future.

  “Now state something true,” he instructed.

  “I do not belong here.”

  “Accurate account,” the computer verified. “No physiological changes.”

  The verifier seemed to be working properly, so Kirk got down to business. “Is the account you just offered, of how you were transported into the past by a chance encounter with an alien time-travel device, what actually happened?”

  “Will happen,” Seven corrected him. “But, yes, that is correct.”

  “Accurate,” the computer declared. “No physiological changes.”

  “And do you have any agenda beyond returning to your own time?” Kirk asked.

  She weighed her words. “There is a situation in the future that urgently requires my attention, should I be able to return to precisely when and where I left, but I have no desire to change history or achieve any other objective in this era.”

  “Accurate.”

  “So far, so good,” Kirk said. He was reluctant to press her beyond yes-or-no questions for fear of eliciting revelations
dangerous to the time line. He phrased his next query carefully. “And is there anything we should know that you’re not telling us?”

  She answered just as cautiously. “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Accurate.”

  Kirk was grateful for the computer’s watchfulness. Seven’s aloof, confident manner made her difficult to read. He wouldn’t want to play poker against her.

  “What about the Orions?” Santiago interrupted. “Or the Klingons or Romulans? Do you know of any major attacks or historical tragedies in our future?”

  “Naturally,” Seven said. “But those events are part of history from my perspective. They have already occurred.”

  “Accurate.”

  “How can you be so damnably cold-blooded about it?” Santiago lurched to his feet. The veins in his neck stood out. “We’re not talking about abstract metaphysics here. We’re talking about actual lives at stake . . . genuine, flesh-and-blood, sentient beings!”

  “None of which outweighs the Temporal Prime Directive,” Seven insisted.

  “Accurate.”

  “That’s enough,” Kirk ordered, before things went too far. “I think this interview has gone on long enough. We’ve learned what we needed to.” He nodded at McCoy. “Shut down the verifier.”

  McCoy flipped a switch on the computer.

  “Hold on there, Kirk,” Santiago protested. “You can’t just brush this issue aside. The potential implications for Federation security, for advances in science and medicine . . .”

  “Are not my concern at the moment,” Kirk said firmly.

  “Maybe they should be,” Santiago persisted. “We need to talk about this.”

  “In due time,” Kirk repeated. He wasn’t looking forward to that discussion, especially since he had his own mixed feelings on the subject. It wasn’t as though he didn’t realize how valuable and/or dangerous Seven’s knowledge of the future was. She was Nostradamus and Pandora’s Box all in one lovely package.

  He got back to the matter at hand. “Well, Bones, what’s your verdict?”

  “Well,” McCoy said, reviewing the data from the computer, “I can’t be positive, given that our star witness seems to possess some . . . unusual . . . characteristics and enhancements.” He regarded Seven with a somewhat troubled expression. “But all indications are that she’s telling the truth.”

  Kirk wondered what about Seven’s “enhancements” had spooked McCoy. He made a mental note to have the doctor scrub his recordings of Seven’s baseline physiology just to be safe. Any future changes to humanity were not something that needed to be made public knowledge. Kirk wasn’t sure he wanted to know about them himself.

  “All right, Miss Seven,” Kirk said. “You may step down. The computer and the good doctor both vouch for your honesty, so I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Thank you, Captain.” She returned to her original seat, by the idol she had brought back from Yusub. “And you may dispense with the honorific. ‘Seven’ will suffice.”

  Kirk gave her a winning smile. “Perhaps you’ll allow me to call you Annika?”

  “I prefer Seven,” she replied coolly. “If that is acceptable.”

  McCoy chuckled in the background. It wasn’t often that Kirk met a woman who was immune to his charm.

  I’m glad you’re amused, Doctor, Kirk thought.

  “No problem. Seven it is, then.” He took her rebuff in stride. “So how exactly do you propose that we get you back to your own time? I have to say I’m not keen on attempting to take the Enterprise on a voyage to the future . . . if that’s even possible.”

  Jaunts to the past were tricky enough, Kirk knew. A trip to the future opened up a completely different can of worms—and possibly an even bigger one. Granted, there was always the Guardian of Forever, but Kirk wasn’t about to reveal its existence to an enigmatic stranger or even Commissioner Santiago. As Kirk knew all too well, the Guardian was arguably more dangerous than Seven could ever be.

  “I’ll say,” McCoy said. “Talk about the cure being worse than the disease.”

  Spock added his observation. “For once, I must agree with the doctor. The future is an undiscovered country, and it should probably remain so.”

  “You are quite right, gentlemen,” Seven said. “And there other considerations, which I am not at liberty to discuss, that render the Enterprise unsuitable for our purposes.”

  It dawned on Kirk that she had avoided mentioning where in the galaxy she had encountered the ancient mechanism that had sent her here. It was possible, he realized, that it was in a distant region of space as yet unexplored by Starfleet, perhaps even beyond the Enterprise’s reach.

  “What’s the alternative?” he asked.

  “I have some ideas on that matter.” She called their attention to the idol she had retrieved on Yusub. “Shortly upon my arrival on the planet below, I detected a distinctive chronal signature emanating from this artifact.” She turned toward McCoy and held out her palm. “If I may trouble you for a laser scalpel, Doctor.”

  She had willingly surrendered her phaser upon boarding the Enterprise. It was currently locked away in the safe in Kirk’s personal quarters. McCoy fished a scalpel from his ubiquitous medical kit and handed it to Seven.

  “You planning to perform surgery on that idol?” he asked.

  “Precisely.”

  Kirk and the other men leaned forward to get a better look as Seven expertly sliced through the glazed ceramic exterior of the idol to expose an object concealed within. The object was a translucent violet wedge, like a one-quarter slice of a larger disk, made of solid crystal. Kirk remembered how light the idol had felt before. He had to assume that the hidden item did not weigh very much.

  “What the devil?” McCoy asked aloud.

  Seven presented the wedge for the group’s inspection. “This appears to be a fragment of the device that transported me across time and space to Yusub. I suspect that it has been hidden in the past . . . for reasons that remain obscure.”

  “Fascinating,” Spock said, producing his tricorder. “Allow me.”

  He scanned the object, while Kirk waited impatiently for his report. Santiago, who had grudgingly returned to his seat, eyed the procedure intently. His fingers started drumming on the table again. It seemed to be a nervous habit.

  “Well, Spock?” Kirk asked.

  “I am indeed detecting unusual energies within this object,” Spock said. “The nature of these energies, as well as the technology generating them, are unknown to me, and certainly not native to Yusub.”

  Kirk took his word for it. If Spock didn’t recognize the technology, then it was undoubtedly unknown to Federation science, at least in this century. Kirk regarded the object warily.

  “So where is the rest of the device?” he asked.

  “That is what I propose we discover,” Seven said. “Clues planted in my time and yours led us to this fragment. If I can find the remaining three components, I may be able to reassemble the device . . . and reverse the process that brought me here.”

  McCoy scoffed. “So what are we talking about? Some sort of interplanetary, cross-temporal scavenger hunt?”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” Kirk conceded. Part of him was intrigued by the prospect, while another part balked at the idea of his ship being diverted onto a quest laid out by unknown parties from who knew where or when. He didn’t like being manipulated—by Seven or anyone else. “What makes you think the Enterprise has nothing better to do than set off on what could be a wild goose chase?”

  “I believe it is in both our interests,” Seven said, “to work together on this endeavor. I have need of a starship to seek out the three remaining fragments, while you can surely see the necessity of protecting the time line by removing me from this era . . . and preventing my knowledge of the future from falling into careless hands.”

  She glanced pointedly at Santiago, who glared back at her. He huffed and crossed his arms across his chest. He was repute
d to be a tough negotiator; Kirk didn’t expect him to cave easily.

  “But why the Enterprise? Why my crew?” Once again, Kirk felt certain that Seven wasn’t telling him everything, albeit for good reason. “How do we fit into this treasure hunt of yours?”

  “Let us just say that I have reason to believe that you and your ship have an important part to play in rectifying this situation.”

  “And that’s all you’re going to say about it?” McCoy challenged her.

  “That is all I can say, safely.” She addressed Kirk forcefully. “I assure you, Captain, that I do not make this request lightly. Trust me when I say that lives are at stake in my own time . . . and may be lost if I cannot get back to where I belong.”

  “But those lives belong to people who haven’t even been born yet,” Santiago said sarcastically, turning her own earlier argument against her. “And whatever future crisis you’re worrying about might never happen. It’s just a hypothetical possibility . . . from our perspective, that is.”

  Touché, Kirk thought. He could see how Santiago had earned his rep as a canny diplomat. The man could obviously hold his own in a debate.

  “At the moment, I’m more concerned with the present,” Kirk said, “and the effect a misplaced time traveler could have on it.”

  Santiago didn’t back down. “Need I remind you, Captain Kirk, that you already have a mission?”

  “Believe me, Commissioner, I haven’t forgotten that slaughter down on the planet, but I have to wonder whether your mission is still salvageable after what happened at the conclave.”

  “Maybe not,” Santiago admitted. The memory of the bloodshed took some of the wind out of his sails. He sighed ruefully. “I’ve already been in touch with some of the surviving chieftains, and I’m afraid that our negotiations went up in flames with that camp. It could take months, or even years, to bring all concerned back to the table again. . . .”

  “In which case,” Spock observed, “there is little to be lost by turning our attention to Seven’s dilemma, which may pose an even more serious threat to reality as we know it.”

  Kirk couldn’t fault Spock’s logic—or his priorities. The ongoing problem of Orion piracy in this sector was a serious matter to be sure, but it paled before the potential danger to the time line. He and his crew knew better than most how much damage even a single displaced individual could do to the course of history and how much it could cost to restore the time line.