“It takes time to polarize the chronitons to oppose the vortex!” Lucsly shouted back. “It could be a lot worse!”
They kept up their pace as best they could under the turbulent conditions. But soon, Dulmur began to stumble. It was as though the force of gravity was shifting beneath him. Perhaps it was being canceled out by the pull from the vortex. But as he tried to adjust, he found himself unable to control his body, and he fell forward, hitting the ground painfully. With difficulty, he wrenched his head around and saw the others stumbling as well. Only Lucsly retained his footing, though he was standing stock-still. “Wh-what’s ha-ap-pening?” Dulmur said, finding it a struggle to get the words out.
“Tem-temporal narcosis,” Lucsly said. “Chronitons . . . distort time . . . body’s perceptions . . . motions . . . dependent on time sense.”
Dulmur understood. If time around his feet was flowing at a slightly different rate than around his head, then his brain and his legs would be getting their signals crossed. Somehow, knowing that was the problem made it possible—though not easy—to adjust and regain some semblance of normal footing. Around him, the others were managing it too, with some difficulty. “Okay,” he said, “n-now let’s get . . . back to the ship.”
But around him, the landscape seemed strange, unfamiliar. He could see the runabout ahead, but somehow he couldn’t tell which direction it was in. He stumbled forward in what he thought was the right direction, but found himself no longer facing the ship. “Why . . . why can’t I tell . . . ?”
“Time . . . space . . . motion . . . all parts of the same thing,” Lucsly said. “Chronitons . . . shift axes of space . . . and time.”
The cure was starting to seem worse than the disease. Though Dulmur reconsidered that when the ground convulsed beneath them and a nearby tree fell over, narrowly missing them. “How do we get back?” Dulmur cried.
Lucsly’s face showed intense concentration. “I know the way.”
“How?”
“Don’t confuse me. Just . . . keep them calm. Follow me.”
What followed was a confusing time of uncertain duration. With the ground, the sky, even his own body unstable, Dulmur followed the one thing around him that was constant: Agent Lucsly. Trusting him to handle space and time, Dulmur handled the people, speaking to them reassuringly, projecting confidence and authority to guide them forward even though he didn’t know where they were going.
Finally they found themselves in the runabout, its shields protecting them from the chroniton field, and blessed normality returned. Lucsly looked around, confirming that Dulmur had gotten everyone inside. “Good job,” he said.
Dulmur smiled. “You too. How the hell did you keep track in all that?”
He got a shrug in return. “I just do. Keep track of things.”
Dulmur clapped him on the shoulder. “Good enough for me, partner.”
Lucsly stiffened slightly, but gave him a nod of thanks before turning to Kadray. “The vortex?” he asked.
“It’s dissipating,” the commander replied. “It took a minute, but once I calibrated to its metric, I was able to counter it completely. If it comes after Mr. Manheim again, we can shield him more easily.”
“I don’t think it will,” Lucsly said. “The Enterprise has reported no second vortex incident even though Picard got away.”
“That’s right,” Dulmur said. “This force was acting on instinct, not malice. Probably didn’t even understand why it was targeting these people. And maybe getting pushed back by the chroniton field will stop it from trying again.”
Kadray shook her violet-maned head. “Still . . . it’s a shame we couldn’t have made contact with the entity. Studied it and its dimension of origin. There’s so much we could’ve learned.”
Dulmur rolled his eyes. That was Starfleet for you, always letting their curiosity get the better of them. All he cared about was that the danger was past, and all he wanted to do now was go home, file his report, and take a long weekend with his wife.
He met Lucsly’s eyes, and he could tell that, aside from that last part, the older agent was thinking the same thing. Maybe, he thought, this partnership will work out after all.
PRESENT TIME
STARDATE 58699.8 to 58738.9
V
13.18.14.1.15 (Long Count), 13 Mac (Haab), 12 Men (Tzolkin), Mayan Calendar
A Sunday
DTI Headquarters, Greenwich
10:41 UTC
Director Laarin Andos sat at the desk in her underground office, her legs straddling Earth’s Prime Meridian. Across from her sat two of her top agents, Dulmur in the Western Hemisphere, Ranjea in the Eastern. It was, of course, a completely arbitrary distinction, but it brought Andos some comfort. Her Rhaandarite people had a strong sense of spatial as well as social orientation, and in her position it was reassuring to feel herself physically anchored by the centrality of her location.
Although at times like this, it could drive home just how distant and unreachable the forces arrayed against the stability of the timeline could be. “The U.S.S. Titan has renewed contact with the Vomnin Confederacy, an interstellar coalition based in the Gum Nebula,” she explained.
“I recall hearing about them,” Ranjea said. “Isn’t Titan’s current course somewhat beyond their territory?”
“As it was when the ship first encountered the Vomnin a year, six months, and four days ago, just in the other direction. Like us, the Vomnin explore far beyond their borders.”
“Though as I recall,” Ranjea said, “instead of seeking abstract knowledge, they seek ancient technologies they can use to advance their own.”
“I guess it’s easier to scavenge other people’s leftovers than invent anything themselves,” Dulmur opined.
“Their own civilization was based on advanced ruins left behind on their homeworld by a colonizing race,” Ranjea chided gently. “It’s no wonder that they’d see value in recovering and developing such technologies rather than letting them decay into dust.”
“But according to Titan,” Andos said, “what the Vomnin have found now is more hazardous than an ancient ruin.” She copied the data to their padds. Titan’s sensor scans showed a luminous sphere, not quite matter or energy, surrounded by gravity-lensed distortions of the background stars. “Its occupants call it the Axis of Time. It takes the inversion of spacelike and timelike axes to a rather literal extreme. Beyond that interspatial portal is a pocket dimension where movement forward or backward along its main axis takes the traveler forward or backward relative to our universe’s time. It spans millions of years, allowing communication, commerce, and travel between widely separate eras.”
“Holy shit,” Dulmur muttered. “Sorry, ma’am. How is it that the timeline can even survive something like this?”
“That’s what we need to investigate,” Andos told them. “Reportedly, the occupants of the Axis have policies that they claim are adequate to protect history. President Bacco is not convinced of that, nor is she convinced that the Vomnin can be trusted to use the Axis responsibly, given their hunger for ancient technologies. At her request, Starfleet has authorized the use of a Vesta-class starship to deliver a DTI team to the Axis at slipstream velocity.” The agents’ eyes widened. Quantum slipstream was a new, experimental technology dependent on extremely rare benamite crystals, so Starfleet tended to limit its use to special circumstances.
Andos resisted the urge to rise and pace about her office. Her two-point-four-meter height could be intimidating to conventional-sized humanoids, and though Ranjea and Dulmur were veteran agents and colleagues, she still considered it a matter of courtesy to stay close to their altitude. If nothing else, it helped her resist the temptation to think of them as children. “Ranjea,” she said, “we need our top diplomat to manage negotiations with both the Vomnin and the Axis occupants. That’s you.”
“I look forward to the challenge,” Ranjea said, predictably enough. Deltans had a way of looking forward to every new experience. Even fear, pain
, or death was simply a new sensation to discover. Andos hoped this situation would not be so extreme, though.
“I have another challenge to add to the experience, Ranjea,” she went on. “Agent Garcia is due for her first field assignment. Are you up to handling her?”
Ranjea brightened. “I would certainly appreciate her company. I’ve been very impressed by her potential.”
Andos had to agree. Of the newest batch of trainees, Garcia showed the most promise as an agent, though it was by default. I’stel Borah had dropped out of the training program after seven weeks, and Teyak had fallen short in the physical and psychological aspects of field training, grudgingly choosing to shift gears and become a researcher along with Felbog Bu-Tsop-Vee. Garcia had struggled as well, and for a time, Andos had feared they would get no new agents out of this group. But the young human had stuck with it, showing an admirable determination and self-discipline, and finally earned her badge as a provisional field agent eight weeks ago. She’d spent that time like many novice agents, making the circuit of DTI branch offices across the Federation to study their procedures and get up to speed on their open cases, but it was high time to test her out for real.
But Dulmur, here due to his role as Garcia’s sponsor, had a less sanguine reaction. “Hold on,” he said. “You’re pairing Garcia with him? Sending them off alone on a mission? You really think that’s the best idea?”
“Don’t worry, Marion,” Ranjea said. “I promise I’ll have her home by midnight.”
“Don’t joke about that. Don’t you even joke about it.”
Ranjea grew more serious. “You know I would never take advantage of a human like that.”
“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be for her lack of trying. The kid is madly in love with you, you know. And you know how cut off she feels, and how driven she is.” Dulmur smirked. “Frankly, I’m as worried about your honor as hers.”
“Dulmur,” Andos said. “Garcia’s infatuation with Ranjea is the one serious concern that remains about her capabilities as an agent. If she can’t overcome it and learn to work with him in a healthy way, she’ll have no future with this agency.”
The human agent grimaced. “So you throw her in the deep end, is that it? Sink or swim?”
“We need to resolve this as soon as possible. And I have faith in Ranjea’s ability to manage it.”
“And what if it goes wrong? This Axis thing, it sounds pretty delicate. What if her infatuation makes her a liability?”
“I don’t believe it will,” Ranjea said. “This is an exercise in trust, Marion. And the only way to prove trust is to extend it.”
“There’s a more basic issue here, Agent Dulmur,” Andos said. “We’re shorthanded, and Garcia’s our only new agent this quarter. I’m not going to bench her because of a personal issue, especially when it’s an issue that’s best confronted promptly.”
Dulmur crossed his arms and sulked. “I still don’t like it.”
Yet Andos recognized from his body language and tone of voice that Dulmur was no longer arguing, merely making a final declaration of his feelings on the issue. She had anticipated exactly such an outcome before the meeting began. Human emotional and social dynamics were rather straightforward by Rhaandarite standards, tending to operate on only a few levels at a time. They were thus very easy to predict.
Deltans were a rather more socially mature species, their behavioral patterns more nuanced, but that was why Andos trusted that Ranjea would be able to manage Garcia’s highly predictable responses. She would certainly attempt to seduce him during the journey, but Ranjea had abundant experience at letting humans down easily. Moreover, Andos was well aware of his deeply felt determination to live up to his responsibilities. He had failed to do so once, and though he managed the guilt in a healthy manner as one would expect of a Deltan, she could see that he never let himself forget it. Nor would he let himself fail in his obligations toward Garcia and the Department.
Once Andos dismissed the two agents, she stood to stretch her limbs at last, and again took the time to concentrate on her position in space, straddling the meridian that defined time for an entire civilization. Even though stardates were the official standard, twenty-four-hour universal time was still a convenient, linear way of marking the intervals of the day. There were those who questioned the use of the old British Empire’s chronometric standard for the timekeeping of an interstellar civilization, feeling that a human standard was ethnocentric enough without it being one created to facilitate one nation-state’s cultural, economic, and military domination over others.
But Andos found Greenwich Mean Time to be a more positive symbol. The time standard developed here had been in response to a fundamental problem of navigation on the high seas. Mariners had always navigated by the stars, but without knowing the exact time of day, it was impossible to know one’s exact longitude based on stellar orientation. Thus, the British accomplishment of creating precision timepieces was not merely a tool of empire, but a tool of exploration, a vital step forward in the understanding of the universe. It was a triumph of precision over uncertainty. And it was the special conditions of this ocean-girt planet, the need to navigate without landmarks, that had made it not only possible but vital, more important to progress than it had been on arid Vulcan or icy Andor, say. So continuing to use a Terran maritime observatory as the benchmark for a universal time standard struck Andos as entirely fitting.
There was a certain irony, though, to be standing here as she contemplated the hazards posed to the stability of the continuum by another sort of Axis of Time. That was just one of the many associations that raced through Andos’s pronounced frontal lobes as she pondered the problem. A pocket reality in which all times were effectively simultaneous, the Axis was reminiscent of the spacetime discontinuity known as the Nexus, but was far tamer and safer to access, making it far more dangerous in potential. As an easy passage to eras throughout history, built by unknown ancients, it also reminded her of the Guardian of Forever, which in turn reminded her of the very beginnings of the agency she now ran. She had been there from the start, a junior clerk for the Federation Science Council, though at the time she had not been privy to the classified events that had led to the Department’s founding.
For centuries, the Vulcan Science Directorate had held the official policy that time travel was, if not a theoretical impossibility, then a practical one. They had concluded that it would require literally astronomical energies and that the divergent stress-energy tensor at a Cauchy horizon would vaporize any being or vessel that attempted passage. They had been proven wrong beginning in 2151 CE, when Jonathan Archer’s Enterprise had become embroiled in the twenty-second-century front of the Temporal Cold War. The knowledge of time travel had been highly classified, though, and the mechanisms employed by the uptime factions had remained unknown. Thus matters had remained for a hundred and fifteen years, until Stardate 1704, when a warp drive accident aboard the subsequent starship named Enterprise—James Kirk’s ship—had propelled it back in time three days, proving that negative time displacement was not only possible, but potentially achievable with contemporary technology.
In one of those mind-boggling coincidences that lent credence to the theory that time travel rendered an individual susceptible to subsequent chronal displacements, it was later that same year, on Stardate 3113, that a near encounter with the Black Star had sent the Enterprise back in time to 1969 CE. The same science officer responsible for the warp formula that caused the earlier time displacement, Commander Spock, had been able to get the ship back to its own time, but less than four months later, on Stardate 3134, the Enterprise had been the ship to discover the Guardian—and the existential threat it posed to all of history.
But Starfleet, being Starfleet, had been more focused on the opportunity for discovery. In short order, they had exploited both newly discovered methods of time displacement for research missions into the past—using the Enterprise again, of course, for at least they had the good
sense to keep the knowledge limited to those who already had it. Moreover, only the Enterprise’s engines proved capable of re-creating the temporal “slingshot” effect safely; whatever Spock had done to them on Stardate 1704 had apparently made a permanent change.
However, both research missions brought the timeline to the brink of disaster. Kirk’s well-intentioned meddling in an Aegis operation in 1968 CE had almost thrown Earth’s history off course at a particularly turbulent moment, and use of the Guardian had temporarily disrupted the timeline on at least two occasions, the Clan Ru incident and the historical expedition to the Empire of Orion. (And possibly more occasions as well; it was difficult to judge for sure where the Guardian was involved.)
Upon learning of the near-disasters resulting from Starfleet’s cavalier use of time travel, the outraged Federation Council had passed new legislature severely restricting temporal research, and in 2270 CE had authorized the creation of the Department of Temporal Investigations to enforce those laws. The Department had been instituted within the bureaucracy of the Federation Science Council to give it a low profile as well as access to the necessary expertise. The 149-year-old Laarin Andos, barely out of adolescence, had happened to be cataloguing the FSC’s past research into temporal physics at the time, and had thus found herself assigned to the new department’s Greenwich headquarters despite lacking any real qualifications in the area. She had started out as its most junior clerk (despite being chronologically its oldest member), but her keen memory and problem-solving skills had served her and the DTI well, and her innate knack for social processing had helped her navigate the bureaucracy as the nascent organization competed for resources. There were times when, with the Guardian and the Black Star cordoned off and the slingshot effect determined to be a rare fluke, it had seemed there was little need for a whole department dedicated to temporal management. Indeed, when James Kirk and his crew had saved Earth by bringing a breeding pair of Megaptera novaeangliae uptime from 1986 CE to placate the mysterious alien probe/organism that had reacted vehemently to their extinction, while somehow managing to avoid timeline alteration despite numerous examples of reckless behavior (including the consensual removal from the era of Doctor Gillian Taylor, the Temporal Displacement Division’s inaugural client), the whole underlying philosophy of the DTI that time travel was a hazard to be strictly regulated was called into question. But Andos’s political savvy had helped the Department survive until later temporal crises, such as the theft of an experimental protomatter weapon by renegade Aegis operatives on Stardate 8638 and the interspatial parasite infestation on Benecia on Stardate 9344, had proven its importance.
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