by Dayton Ward
“Mister Mestral,” said Kirk as he and Lincoln drew closer. “It’s nice to see you again.”
The Vulcan, dressed in twentieth-century business attire, offered a formal nod. “It is agreeable to see you again, as well, Admiral. Miss Lincoln has explained to me the circumstances under which you have been brought from your own time to work with us. I must admit that I still find the concept of time travel to be most . . . intriguing.”
“It’s okay to say it’s weird, Mestral,” said Lincoln, smiling.
Kirk turned his attention to the Iramahl ship. With it now excavated from the ice that had been its home for more than a century, he was able to admire the simple beauty of its design. It resembled a massive arrowhead, towering above him as it seemed to reach for the room’s arched ceiling. The scars of its journey marred the ship’s hull from end to end, in the form of dents and gashes and even pieces of the outer skin that were missing.
Chief among the damage was the buckled area of the hull near the bottom and rear of the craft. It was easy for Kirk to envision what that section of the vessel must have looked like before its crash, which made its current appearance even more alarming. Severe inward buckling of the hull, as though a giant fist had simply collapsed that portion through brute force, told the tale. According to Spock’s readings upon their arrival in New York, that area of the ship had been a berthing compartment, where at least two members of the crew had been during the crash. They had stood no chance.
Despite the ghastly wounds inflicted upon the ship, Kirk could see no lines where hull plates or armor components had been joined, aside from the obvious circular section that Spock had already confirmed was an access hatch. There was an aesthetic beauty to the craft, as though its creator had been an artist as well as an engineer.
“This entire room is shielded,” said Lincoln as she moved to stand next to him. “It acts as a dampening field that lets us control any signals coming in or going out. So far as anyone who might be trying to track it is concerned, this ship just fell off the face of the planet.”
Kirk nodded in approval. “Is there any way to know if anyone attempted to respond to the signal? To communicate with the ship or access its onboard computer?”
“Not so far as we have been able to determine,” replied Mestral.
Lincoln added, “The Beta 5 hasn’t been able to interface with the ship’s computer.” She pointed to a table standing next to the ship, atop which sat a computer that appeared to be commensurate with present-day technology standards, though Kirk suspected the machine’s innards were far more advanced than anything 1985 Earth had to offer. Positioned atop the computer’s oversized, bulky display monitor was a green cube like one he had seen on the desk in Gary Seven’s office. Whatever powered it was giving the alien device a steady, pulsing glow, as though it might be communing with the comparatively primitive-looking twentieth-century computer.
The low whine of a tricorder heralded Spock’s appearance from around the rear of the vessel. Like Kirk, the Vulcan was dressed in contemporary civilian clothes, in his case tan trousers and a blue button-down shirt with black shoes. A windbreaker would complete his ensemble should he and Kirk need to leave the building, along with a wide-brimmed bucket hat that would do a serviceable job of concealing his pointed ears.
“What is it, Spock?” asked Kirk, noting his friend’s intense scrutiny of his tricorder readings. “You look troubled.”
Continuing his slow circuit of the craft, the Vulcan replied, “I am detecting a new energy reading emanating from the vessel, Admiral. According to my scans, it began shortly after Miss Lincoln modulated this building’s dampening field to block the ship’s transmission. The ship’s internal power systems have increased and energy is being directed to the propulsion system, though I find no evidence of the craft attempting to engage that system.”
Frowning, Kirk said, “But it’s obviously a reaction of some sort.”
“That seems a logical assumption.”
Mestral added, “It is also possible that the mere act of moving it from its previous location was enough to prompt a response.”
“To verify that,” said Spock, “we would need direct access to the vessel’s power and computer systems.” He stopped before the circular hatch set into the side of the ship’s hull near its midpoint. “We are still endeavoring to gain entry.”
“The Beta 5’s been chewing on it,” said Lincoln, gesturing to the green cube sitting atop the contemporary computer. “It’s been scanning the ship inside and out since we brought it here.”
Mestral said, “That may also have been the cause of this new energy reading.”
Behind them, Roberta Lincoln’s little green cube chose that moment to emit a series of pinging tones as though demanding attention, and Kirk saw on the computer’s monitor columns of green text scrolling past, almost too quickly for him to follow. Lincoln moved to the computer and tapped its keyboard, and in response to that simple command, the text froze on the display.
“Mister Spock, stop scanning,” she said. “Stop scanning right now.”
“What is it?” Kirk asked, hearing the alarm in her voice.
Turning from the computer, Lincoln stared at the ship. “It’s a self-destruct protocol. We had to have triggered it by moving the thing, and the dampening field is only pissing it off that much more.” She looked to the green cube. “Computer, how do we stop this?”
“Insufficient data to recommend course of action,” replied the stilted yet feminine voice of the Beta 5, its response coming from the desktop computer.
“What can you tell us about the self-destruct protocol that has been activated?” asked Mestral. “What would be the result of the procedure being executed?”
“Resulting explosion sufficient to destroy significant portion of this building and surrounding area. High risk of casualties, as well as infrastructural and ecological damage. Area rendered uninhabitable due to radiological contamination.”
Kirk sighed. “We should probably try to avoid that.”
“Computer,” Lincoln said. “Deactivate the dampening field.”
“Warning. Eliminating dampening field increases risk of signal detection.”
“All right, then lower the field’s intensity until you detect a change in the ship’s energy readings.”
Spock renewed his study of the alien ship with his tricorder, and after a moment said, “Readings are stabilizing. Though the protocol does not appear to have been rescinded, there is a noticeable reduction in the power being routed to the propulsion system.”
“Like a holding pattern?” asked Lincoln.
The Vulcan nodded. “That is an apt analogy.”
She eyed the computer monitor. “The dampening field’s still active, but only at thirty-six percent.”
“That should be sufficient to thwart most current monitoring or tracing equipment,” said Mestral, “but the Iramahl or Ptaen should still be able to detect it.”
“Good,” said Lincoln. “If it’s transmitting to the Iramahl, they’re going to want to know why their ship was moved. It’s obvious they kept it around in case they needed it for something, otherwise they would’ve destroyed it a century ago.”
“Perhaps,” replied Spock, “though the ship’s usefulness is limited. Its propulsion system is insufficient to escape Earth’s gravity.”
Lincoln said, “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to get around the planet. At the very least, it makes for a decent enough emergency shelter.” She shrugged. “Of course, all of that’s dependent on any of the Iramahl still being alive.”
“So,” Kirk said, “I guess our best play for the moment is to wait.”
“And if they are still alive,” replied Lincon, “that means the Ptaen are still looking for them, so we wait for them too.”
It was as good a plan as any he might devise, Kirk decided. If they wer
e going to shift this protracted game of hide-and-seek to their favor, they would need to take actions such as what Lincoln had put into motion.
“You do realize, Admiral,” said Spock, “that in addition to increasing the risk to our personal safety and that of Mestral and Miss Lincoln, our presence here also carries the potential to be a hazard to time itself.”
“Of course I realize that,” Kirk said. He released a sigh and forced a smile. “Look on the bright side. We’ll be talking to our friends at Temporal Investigations again when this is all over.”
Assuming we don’t end up destroying the space-time continuum or something. This should be fun.
Twenty
Grover’s Mill, New Jersey
August 12, 1985
The alert tone roused Drevina from slumber, and for a moment she was uncertain she had heard anything. She stared up at the cabin’s wooden ceiling, listening to the breathing of her companions, before the alarm sounded again.
“What is that?” asked Canderon as he awakened and sat up, the blanket he used to cover himself falling to his waist.
Drevina rose from her own sleeping area on the cabin’s floor. “It appears to be an intercepted transmission.” Crossing the room, she moved to the table where Glorick had positioned their lone remaining communications scanner. Its flat display had begun a continuous scroll of text along with a rapid succession of computer-generated imagery.
“It is from the ship.”
“Are you certain?” asked Glorick, who also had shaken off sleep and now moved to stand beside Drevina at the table. “After all this time?”
Drevina replied, “It would seem so.” As humans measured time on Earth, it had been more than one hundred forty years since she and her companions crash-landed in the planet’s inhospitable Arctic region. They had salvaged as much as they could carry from the wrecked vessel, but Drevina had elected not to destroy it. There still were items that could one day be of use, and components from the ship itself might also be recovered if needed. Canderon had put the craft’s onboard systems into a hibernating state, reducing its energy output to the absolute minimum needed to power the distress beacon they would use to keep track of the ship’s position. If his calculations were correct, this configuration would allow the craft to transmit via the beacon for at least another century. With the vessel as secure as they could make it, and already half buried in the ice thanks to the violence of its crash landing, Canderon took the additional step of using the pulse weapon from one of their survival kits to melt the ice around the craft so that the ship settled even deeper into its resting place. The process had taken hours, after which the craft rested within its icy tomb. Occasional checks over the decades were enough to tell Drevina and the others that the vessel remained—more or less, due to shifting ice in that glacial region—where it had landed.
Using the scanner’s touch-sensitive interface, Drevina instructed the device to answer the signal and request a report on the vessel’s current status. It was the first time she had done so since their arrival, due to the additional drain on the ship’s limited power systems. When the scanner returned its results, Drevina stared at the data for a moment, not believing what she was reading.
“The ship has moved.”
Moving to stand on her other side and better see the scanner, Canderon said, “Moved? Has someone found it?”
“Or perhaps the glacier on which it resides has melted or broken apart, and the ship has fallen into the sea?”
It may have sounded like an odd scenario, but the glacier that was the ship’s resting place had moved thanks to melting, new ice accumulation, and refreezing over the decades. Whereas the ship had been several kilometers from the nearest water at the time of the crash, the glacier had flowed south toward the sea during the ensuing decades. That much had been evident from Drevina’s periodic checks of the ship’s beacon.
None of this explained the vessel’s current location.
“It has moved more than four thousand kilometers from its previous position,” she said. Turning from the scanner, she moved to the table in the cabin’s kitchen and pulled from a stack of papers a map of the United States. Drevina had acquired it several months ago, applying to the fresh copy all of the notes and other markings she had made on previous versions replaced over the years once they became outdated or worn. Opening the map, she laid it on the table before taking a pencil and circling one area.
“New York,” said Glorick. “How is that possible? Your last check of the beacon showed it in its same position not a week ago. Could someone have found and repaired it so quickly?”
“No human could have done so,” replied Canderon. “That ship was incapable of flight without substantial repairs that are beyond their current level of technology.”
Glorick asked, “The Ptaen, then? Or someone from another advanced race?”
“It has been years since our last contact with any Ptaen,” said Drevina.
“That does not mean they will abandon their search.” Canderon shook his head. “If they are still here, then we are still a threat to them and of value to our own people.”
Until their last encounter with a team of hunters more than a decade ago, Drevina had almost allowed herself to believe that the Consortium had given up its attempts to find her and her friends. It was foolish to entertain such notions, she knew, given the impetus for the unrelenting interest in their quarry. That motivation was reflected at her each day in a mirror, and on the faces of Glorick and Canderon. That the three of them were alive after so many years spent on Earth was cause enough to drive the Ptaen to find them. The salvation of the Iramahl people flowed through her veins, and if the Consortium was still pursuing them, that had to mean there was still a civilization on her homeworld to save.
To that end, Drevina and her companions had made every effort to hide themselves not just from potential Ptaen pursuit, but also curious human eyes. Her limited ability to shield the truth of their alien nature only worked in situations with small numbers of humans. Crowds and gatherings were all but impossible, amplifying her constant fear that she might run across a rare human who was immune to her influence. She and the others had decided that it would be prudent to avoid humans as much as possible. This decision required them to move at irregular though frequent intervals, between which they were able to find suitable if temporary shelter. The cabin they had come across in the wooded area surrounding the small town of Grover’s Mill in rural New Jersey served their current needs well enough, but Drevina had already decided they would be moving again in short order.
They had come here after learning that the town had been popularized in some segments of American culture as the supposed landing site for an invasion by extraterrestrials decades earlier. The attack was fictional, but Drevina’s research had led her to conclude that many groups who believed their government’s elected and military leaders were conspiring to hide the truth from the citizenry had also concealed the truth of what had supposedly happened here. These conspiracy theorists were sure that evidence of the invasion was hidden somewhere in the vicinity, including remnants of advanced technology and perhaps even the remains of actual alien invaders. Even if no such evidence existed, Drevina had found the story fascinating, and she had persuaded her companions to help her investigate the possibility. She reasoned that if they did find something, it could lead to a way home. Finding nothing would have no deleterious effects, as they had been moving and searching for a new temporary safe haven anyway, and Grover’s Mill seemed a suitable location.
As it happened, Grover’s Mill ended up being little more than a place to hide. Still, Drevina liked it here, far more than some of the other towns and cities they had visited in their quest to escape possible pursuit. The small population made it easier to avoid contact, and the cabin had been a nice find. Based on its condition, Glorick guessed that it had been abandoned many years earlier, and it h
ad taken a moderate level of effort to make it secure against the elements. Its isolated location made it an ideal refuge, and in the months they had lived here, they had seen not a single human in the immediate area. Foraging for food and other supplies was easy enough, usually in the form of Drevina and one of the others accompanying her to the nearby town. Though necessity required them to acquire essential items, they endeavored to limit their theft to things of little or no value except in the interests of survival. Theirs was not the most laudable existence, she knew, but it was all they had.
The alternatives are even less pleasant.
An odd snapping noise erupted from the scanner, its display flickered, and Canderon grunted in irritation. “I think the data receiver is failing again,” he said, moving to the unit and inspecting it with a critical eye. Even from where she stood, Drevina could see the warning indicator on the scanner’s display screen. “I will probably have to disassemble it in order to locate the cause and make the necessary repairs.”
It had become a regular occurrence to see such alerts. Much like her and her friends, Drevina knew that the unit had survived well enough across the many years of their exile, just as she understood that the scanner was nearing the end of its useful life. Despite Canderon’s best efforts to preserve its functionality, the lack of viable replacement components to effect more than the most superficial repairs meant that there would soon come a day when the unit just stopped working. Though her friend had not stated with certainty that he would be unable to find suitable alternatives for the pieces needed to attempt yet another repair, Drevina could hear the resignation in his voice. Human technology, though it had evolved at an impressive pace since their arrival, was still generations behind Iramahl technological standards. She and the others had watched the first attempts at spaceflight with great interest, though they were both amused and saddened that the effort was driven not by a desire to explore and expand but instead to establish political, ideological, and military superiority among the planet’s nations.
