T’Nuri pondered. “I shall discuss the matter with President Lorg. At the very least, Director, Admiral, you shall both be required to resign your posts. Though not simultaneously, for that could raise questions. Perhaps one of you could be transferred to a sinecure position for a time, with no responsibility and under close monitoring. And there shall be a detailed audit of the practices of both the Department of Temporal Investigations and Starfleet Science Operations.”
“That’s only fair,” Grey said. “My greatest regret is the damage I’ve done to my department’s reputation. I pray that the DTI as a whole doesn’t pay the price for my foolishness.”
“This is satisfactory,” the Vedala said. “If that is all, Councillor T’Nuri, we now permit you to escort the prisoners back to Earth.”
“Thank you, Madame Vedala,” T’Nuri said, raising her hand in the Surakian salute. “Peace and long life to you.”
“That is most likely,” the Vedala assured her. Again she raised her forelimbs and growled. The golden light seemed to emanate from her body and engulf the councillor and the prisoners. When the light faded, only Kirk and Spock stood with the Vedala on the barren plain.
Kirk cleared his throat. “Rest assured, ma’am, you will have my crew’s full cooperation in removing your drive mechanism from our spacecraft.”
“Thank you, Captain, but that has already been done.” She gestured, and a hologram appeared in the air before them: the confluence drive within a spherical drive chamber, being tended to by more Vedala than Kirk had ever seen in one place (or in total) before. “The drive is already back with us. We will heal it and restore its purpose.”
“Fascinating,” Spock said, brows climbing high. “Then you do not consider its ability to transcend temporal dimensions to be a useful purpose?”
“It is not what these drives are meant for,” she replied. “It hurts them. It leaves them lost.” Did she mean, Kirk wondered, that they already had other mechanisms for doing the same thing—and more?
Kirk took a step closer to the Vedala. “We apologize for any . . . distress we caused. We didn’t know.”
“That is the nature of the young. Your apology is appreciated, as is your willingness to amend your mistakes. It shows promise for your civilization.”
A small smile played across Kirk’s lips. “Thank you.”
The Vedala rose higher. “But we elders are slower to adapt . . . slower to forgive. We have trusted your Federation in the past, but that trust has been shattered. You, James Kirk and Spock, will be remembered for your services to the Vedala. But your Federation will not see us again. Not until you have outgrown your impetuous youth. Farewell.”
She roared, and the golden light was the last thing James Kirk ever saw of the Vedala.
U.S.S. Enterprise
Stardate 7695.0
Montgomery Scott personally operated the tractor beam controls to decelerate Timeship Two out of orbit of the neutron star. It was the least he could do for his old bairns. There was no formal scuttling ceremony for the vessel, for it had never been a commissioned Starfleet craft and had no legal right to exist in the first place. But the bridge crew all stood at respectful attention as they watched it spiral down under the neutron star’s pull, faster and faster until it was torn apart by the tidal stresses. Blinding flashes of light erupted on the neutron star’s surface as fragments of the craft struck the surface at high velocity, accelerated by its mind-boggling gravity. The soft X-rays of the flares were essentially harmless, but the light show, which would continue for several minutes as the fragments continued to rain down, would serve as a fitting memorial pyre for the erstwhile Enterprise engines.
“I hate to spoil the mood,” Doctor McCoy murmured as he stood alongside Scott, Kirk, and Spock watching the pyrotechnic display. “But destroying the old engines doesn’t really change anything, does it? We have the formula for making a time field with any engines.”
“But no one has to know that, Doctor,” Scott told him. “And it’s best for everyone if the Federation thinks the secret o’ time travel died with those engines.”
“We still know it,” McCoy said. “How soon before the temptation to use it becomes overwhelming?”
“There may come a time when it’s needed, Bones,” Kirk said.
McCoy stared. “That you of all people would say that . . . surely it’s clear by now that time travel causes nothing but trouble.”
“But time travel has also enabled us to solve those troubles, Doctor,” Spock said. “Someday there may come a crisis that cannot be solved any other way.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, Bones,” Kirk said. “But I’m a soldier. That means it’s my job sometimes to do things I don’t like for the greater good. Delgado wasn’t wrong that our enemies could discover time travel someday. So it’s worth keeping the knowledge we have in reserve—just in case.”
McCoy glowered and made a skeptical noise. Scott turned to him. “And you’re wrong, Doctor, to say that doesn’t accomplish anything,” he told him, gesturing at the blaze of glory onscreen. “It lets my engines rest in peace at last.”
“More than that, Scotty,” Kirk said. “It restores their honor. And maybe the Federation’s as well.”
Epilogue
DTI Headquarters
Greenwich, European Alliance, Earth
Stardate 7677.0
March 2275
“Meijan Grey’s departure from the post of director will be little remarked by the greater world,” said Deputy Director Simok—Director Simok now, Laarin Andos corrected herself—“but its impact within these walls will be keenly experienced. I know many of you are concerned that Director Grey’s decision to resume her field studies, and the impending retirement of Arthur Manners, will leave our already small department critically shorthanded. However, I have confidence that those of you who remain are capable of rising to the new responsibilities placed upon you.”
Andos hoped Director Simok was correct. Until now, the young Rhaandarite had been the most junior clerk in the DTI, and she had little real expertise in its fields of study; she had been assigned to the department at its founding only because she had happened to be cataloging past temporal research for the Science Council when it had been formed. But she had applied herself diligently to her assigned duties, for accepting one’s duty was the way of her people. And now, at the tender age of 154, she had reached the rank of junior researcher. Director Grey had even told her she had potential for an administrative position one day—not surprising, for such tasks came naturally to Rhaandarites, but still a gratifying affirmation from her superior.
Yet now the comfortable hierarchy of the DTI had been disrupted, two of its founders leaving the young organization within weeks of one another. It puzzled Andos, for there had been no prior warning of the change. Or had there? Grey’s microexpressions and body language had often seemed uneasy, even secretive, in recent months. And Manners’s activities and location had become difficult to track. Still, it was the nature of the DTI to deal in classified matters. Andos knew she would need to gain multiple levels in status before she would have clearance to know everything that went on in the department. And Simok had always been a reliable, reassuring administrator. His words now brought her comfort.
“Many of us have also come to perceive Director Grey as synonymous with the DTI,” Simok went on, and Andos noted his shift to the first person plural to create a note of empathy. For a Vulcan, he was perceptive of the needs of emotive species. “There is concern over whether our goals and ideals can survive now that she has taken a different path. But Director Grey laid down those goals and ideals in the very foundations of this department. From the beginning, she was motivated by the need to understand not only the laws and mechanics of time, but our own responsibility for their safe management. This has been a learning process, and like any learning process, it has not been smooth and effortless.” Beside Simok, Grey lowered her eyes, her cheeks flushing. It almost seemed like guilt
to Andos, but Grey had never been the easiest human for her to read. More likely a very human sense of self-recrimination about past performance. On that score, Andos felt Grey was being too hard on herself.
Indeed, Simok proceeded to put Andos’s thoughts into words. “But Director Grey brought the department through its turbulent beginnings and guided it to a place of stability. So if she believes her work here is done, we cannot refute that conclusion. We can only pledge to move forward—and to pay close heed to the lessons we can learn from Meijan Grey’s choices and actions.”
Yes, Laarin Andos thought, joining the rest of the small audience in a spontaneous round of applause in tribute to the outgoing director. Grey’s example had always inspired Andos, and she had a feeling it always would.
“And so, in that spirit,” Simok continued, “as the second director of the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations, I pledge to recommit this organization to its vital purpose of monitoring the timeline and guarding it against threats to its integrity. This will not be an easy task . . .”
DTI Headquarters, Greenwich
Stardate 60159.8
February 2383
A Monday
“. . . for there is still much that remains beyond our control and beyond our understanding. All that can be asked is that we pursue the task with diligence, dedication, and patience; that we honestly accept our own limitations and not blame ourselves for failing to achieve the unachievable; and that, above all, we never lose sight of the founding principles laid down by those who came before us.”
“Wow,” Marion Dulmur said, leaning in to study the image on the situation room screen. “Director Andos was a lot shorter then.”
“Yes, I was,” Andos said as she strode through the door. Lucsly paused the playback.
“Uhh, sorry, ma’am,” Dulmur said. “I didn’t mean anything . . .”
“No offense taken, Marion. Why, look at that gawky child! I didn’t really grow into my features until, oh, around a hundred seventy.”
The director studied the image on the monitor and sighed. “I remember that speech vividly. But now I hear it in such a different way.”
“Yes,” Lucsly said. In the five days since the Timeship Two incident, Lucsly had despaired of ever understanding why Meijan Grey had chosen to compromise her principles and help Delgado. The facts had been too thoroughly buried—as irretrievable as the Vedala themselves, who in their own languid way had drifted out of known space altogether, so gradually that it took decades for the Federation to realize they were leaving. But now, watching this familiar speech in a new light, he realized that maybe he didn’t need to know why she’d strayed. “I always assumed Simok was pledging to follow in Director Grey’s footsteps. But now I realize . . . he was creating the myth of Meijan Grey, for the good of the Department. He didn’t want our image of ourselves to be tarnished by her mistakes. He wanted the DTI and its actions to be defined by the good side of her legacy, not the bad.”
Dulmur stared. “That’s the most philosophical thing I’ve ever heard you say, partner. Meeting James Kirk must’ve really had an effect.”
“Well, you know what the old stories say.” It was Teresa Garcia, breezily entering the room with Ranjea close behind. “Once you’ve been with Kirk, you’re never the same.”
The others laughed, but of course Lucsly didn’t. “That’s hardly appropriate.”
“Aww, come on, Lucsly,” Garcia said, leaning across the table, her dark eyes wide with interest. “We’re all dying to know. You met James Tiberius Kirk! The Time Pirate himself! You talked to him! You’ve got to tell us what he was really like.”
“Yes, please do, Gariff,” Ranjea said. “All we know are the legends. You’ve seen the truth. You could tell us so much. What was it about him that made you trust him with the knowledge you shared? What was it that convinced you, Gariff Lucsly, to do the one thing none of us ever imagined you would do?”
Lucsly pondered the question in silence. The truth was, he no longer knew what to think of James Kirk. On the one hand, Dulmur had been right; Kirk was far more responsible, more concerned for the integrity of the timeline, than he was painted in DTI or even Starfleet lore. Yet it had been Kirk’s impulse to use the future knowledge Lucsly had given him and contaminate his own time with it. But under the circumstances, there had been no other choice, had there? And Kirk’s crew had used that knowledge to help the Federation in later years, most notably to retrieve the humpback whales whose communication with a powerful alien probe had been necessary to save Earth. If Kirk hadn’t violated his promise to Lucsly and used that knowledge, then Lucsly might never have existed. It was all very confusing.
But one thing Lucsly knew: uncertainty could be fatal for a DTI agent. Maybe that was the value of the myths that had grown up around the department’s origins: they replaced messy reality with clear, inspiring messages. Just as the myth of Meijan Grey motivated Lucsly and his fellow agents to guard the timeline with quiet, solemn discipline, so the myth of James T. Kirk served as a cautionary tale, reminding them of what was at stake if they ever relaxed their scrutiny.
“Trust Kirk?” he finally said. “Not a chance. The man was a menace. I had to use all my training and control to avoid revealing any unnecessary information about the future. If I hadn’t ridden tight herd on him every step of the way, we would’ve all been doomed. In fact, I wonder just how many other temporal crimes Kirk managed to keep out of the history books . . .”
U.S.S. Enterprise
Stardate 7677.4
March 2275
Kirk was in the botanical garden on Deck 20, sitting on the bench beneath his favorite Centauran oak and staring out at the prismatic streaks of the stars in warp, when Spock found him. “The latest updates from Earth have arrived by subspace,” Spock informed him. “Among them was a notation that Simok has officially taken over as director of the Department of Temporal Investigations.”
“Hmm,” Kirk said, taking it in. “You’ve worked with him, Spock. What’s your take on him?”
“He is an excellent physicist and an excellent administrator. I have no grounds to doubt his diligence or his integrity . . . with the proviso that his discretion can be relied upon when the cause warrants it.”
Kirk threw him a sidelong look. “So you’d say . . . the future of the DTI is in good hands?”
Spock tilted his head. “Were you attempting a pun, sir?”
“No . . .” Kirk did an annoyed double take, then let it go and went on. “Never mind, Spock. Just thinking about what might lie ahead.”
Who was that mysterious, drab man who helped me shut down the confluence? Kirk wondered in the privacy of his own mind. Spock had deduced that Kirk had gotten help from the future, but it was not Kirk’s place to reveal the specifics; he was a man who kept his promises, even when he didn’t know to whom he’d made them. But was it possible that the gray man represented some future incarnation of the DTI, that odd little government department that seemed to have been created specifically to second-guess Kirk when he stumbled across something time-related? Could that explain why the gray man had seemed so . . . so angry at him?
“There you are, Jim.” It was McCoy, strolling across the footbridge spanning the brook that burbled through the botanical section, just this side of the little pool where Crewman Spring Rain splashed her webbed feet happily. “Spock.”
“Doctor.”
“Jim, I thought we were gonna meet for dinner.”
“Oh, sorry, Bones.” Kirk rose from the bench. “I lost track of time.”
McCoy took in where they were standing, one of Kirk’s favorite spots for contemplation. “What were you lost in thought about this time?”
“Apparently the future,” Spock supplied. “Understandable, given recent events.”
“Hmp. I’ve thought enough about the future lately to last a lifetime.”
“But Doctor, the rest of your lifetime will be in the future.”
“Not at all, Spock. Every s
econd of it will be in the present.”
“Doctor . . .”
“Gentlemen,” Kirk said, leading them toward the exit. “Dinner.”
They followed, but Kirk stayed quiet, lost in thought. Once they were in the turbolift, McCoy said, “My, you are preoccupied tonight, Jim. What is it about the future that you’re so worried about?”
“Oh, this and that,” Kirk replied with feigned breeziness. “For instance . . . do you ever wonder what people will think of us in a hundred years or more? How we’ll be remembered?”
The doctor let out a puff of breath. “Is this about your reputation again? I thought you’d gotten over that. I say don’t worry about it. History will always get things wrong. The truth gets lost under the exaggerations and the oversights and the self-serving lies. For instance, the future will never know about what Delgado and Grey almost did. Hell, even the Vulcans forgot what Surak really taught until his real writings turned up, in either universe.” He scoffed. “For that matter, I’m not convinced our Vulcans have the whole story even now.”
Spock’s gaze was stern. “Doctor, the Kir’Shara was long ago authenticated as the actual writings of Surak.”
“Maybe so, but those writings are still subject to interpretation. People always pick and choose the parts of history that support the myths they want to believe, and forget the rest. Vulcans as much as anyone.”
“Then how do you explain the swift reformation that swept through Vulcan society as soon as the Kir’Shara was revealed?”
The turbolift doors opened, but McCoy went on unheeding. “How do you explain that there are still Vulcans who act like they did a hundred years ago and don’t really buy all that diversity stuff?”
“Spock! Bones!” Kirk clasped their shoulders and led them out into the officers’ lounge. “If you ask me, sometimes it’s better not to have too many answers about the past. And I think we can all agree that the past is best left where it is.”
Star Trek: DTI: Forgotten History Page 28
