Something in Cochrane slowed and was still. Three hundred and thirty-six years. He was not surprised it was coming to an end.
“From what you have told us about the Companion, in her first form, we’re wondering if it is possible she had some symbiotic relationship with her home. You said she could maintain the temperature, and air, and gravity as long as she was there, but when the Orion pirates injured her, her control failed. That could be a sign that she was bound to that place and that place was bound to her.”
Cochrane nodded. Life and habitat were always intertwined. Anything was possible. His existence was proof of that.
“We can take you to a starbase where there are medical facilities more advanced than what we can offer.”
Cochrane smiled sadly. He had seen this ship’s sickbay. Medical facilities more advanced than these belonged only to the gods.
Perhaps that was where the larger path led. Eventually.
Cochrane swallowed, preparing his throat for the effort of speaking. Picard waited attentively, respectfully. In his mind’s eye, Cochrane saw Kirk stand beside him. That man would have been raging, consumed with frustration at not being able to save his passengers. He wondered at the difference between them. Two so unlike, yet so much the same. One so full of timeless youth and confidence, forever searching, full of passion. One so seasoned by his years and measured doubt, forever considering, full of timeless wisdom.
Youth and maturity. Not just the men but the culture they inhabited. A common culture. The Federation. But at different stages. Following its own larger path.
And it was time for Cochrane’s interception of that path to end. He knew that now.
“Could you move the ship?” he asked in a whisper. “So we can see the stars as we would see them from the planetoid.”
No rage. No bluster. Acceptance. “Of course,” Picard said gently. “I will make it so.”
Cochrane thanked him silently. He was weary. The Companion lay warm and at peace in his arms. But just once more, he wanted to see the stars.
Who knew? Perhaps they would sing to him one final time.
SEVEN
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 EN ROUTE TO NEURAL III
Stardate 3858.7
Earth Standard: ≈ November 2267
In the conference room, at the end of two hours, Admiral Kabreigny offered Kirk a cup of coffee. Kirk took it as a good sign. Maybe some progress had been made during this meeting after all. The nerve pinch had not been mentioned at all.
Spock declined her offer. McCoy accepted, but he looked as if he’d rather be having a mint julep.
“And so,” Kabreigny said, staring intently at Kirk, “I will be able to report unequivocally to Starfleet that no information about the future was transferred to our present?”
“None,” Kirk said firmly. His bridge crew had been sworn to secrecy. The name of the ship that they had encountered in the black hole would never be revealed. In that way, Kirk could be truthful in saying no information had been passed from one age to another. After all, he would never lie to Command.
Kabreigny appeared to accept his assurance and sipped her coffee.
“I am curious, Admiral,” Mr. Spock said. “What will you report?”
Kabreigny shrugged. “I will have to seek out advice on that matter. Obviously, since a ship from the future penetrated the event horizon in a trajectory that brought it to you and the shuttlecraft, someone in that time knew that the shuttlecraft would be there. I don’t want it publicly known that Zefram Cochrane is on board, so we’ll keep your secret of your meeting with him as you originally intended. The last thing we’d need is for one of Thorsen’s collaborators to drop a few antimatter bombs through the event horizon to try and destroy him. Before he gets rescued the way you observed he already has been rescued—will be rescued.
“Perhaps we could say that Starfleet dropped a science package into the event horizon,” she continued. “We could then ask that it be recovered on whatever date the shuttlecraft’s original trajectory would have brought it closest to the event horizon.”
Spock looked skeptical. “You are treading close to a causal loop, Admiral.”
Kabreigny actually smiled at Spock. Kirk thought it was the first time he had seen a real smile on her face. “Which is why I will seek out advice, Mr. Spock. Starfleet is very cautious when it comes to time travel. And this is a good example why.”
Kirk saw his opening and decided to take it while the mood was auspicious. “How does Starfleet feel about conspiracies?” he asked.
The smile left the admiral’s face. “It would appear that I need to seek out some advice about that as well.”
“At least there was a conspiracy,” McCoy said, trying to be helpful. “It wasn’t just some paranoid delusion.” His smile faded, too, as he realized no one was sharing it with him.
“The conspiracy didn’t originate within Starfleet, Doctor. For which we can all be grateful. But Colonel Thorsen was able to exploit an unsuspected weakness in our security and it could take years to build in the proper safeguards.”
“In the meantime,” Spock said, “Adrik Thorsen might still be at large.”
That possibility did bother Kirk. When the Lexington and Excalibur had escorted the Enterprise from TNC 65813, there had been no sign of the second Klingon battle cruiser, and no way to know which of the two cruisers Thorsen had been on. He might have died in the cruiser the Enterprise had destroyed in the black hole. Or he might still be free. Free to pursue Zefram Cochrane.
“I don’t think we’ll have Thorsen to worry about much longer,” Kabreigny said. “The Grigari nanomachines will take care of him, cell by cell.”
“Still,” Kirk said, “ ’the evil that men do …’ ”
Kabreigny shook her head. “There’s no room for evil in the galaxy anymore, Captain.”
“Science isn’t enough to guarantee that,” Kirk said.
Kabreigny put down her cup. “Captain Kirk, after all we’ve been through, is it going to end like this? With us still on opposite sides of the old debate?”
“It doesn’t have to,” Kirk said. “If your secret committee had shared with the rest of Command your concerns about a possible military plot in Starfleet, revolving around Cochrane and the Klingons and a warp bomb, we might have been able to stop this before it escalated as far as it did.”
“Knowing what we knew at the time, how could Starfleet’s science divisions trust the military branch?” Kabreigny asked.
Kirk folded his hands on the conference table. “Knowing what you know now, about how that lack of communication led to such a profound division between us, how can you not trust them?” Across the table, Kirk and Kabreigny faced one another. Neither ready to give way.
“You must not remain on opposite sides of the debate,” Spock said to the two of them.
“You can’t afford to,” McCoy added, damned if he was going to allow Spock to be the peacemaker.
“Admiral, we’re both part of Starfleet,” Kirk began after a long moment. “Perhaps the question is not whether or not we have to label ourselves as a military organization or a science organization. Perhaps we should just say we’re Starfleet and leave it at that. Something new. A label all its own. Let the conflict go. With Thorsen and the Optimum. Where it belongs. In the past.”
Kabreigny stood. Regal. “Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem today, but, Jim, my thanks for trying.” She paused, then held out her hand dramatically. Kirk stood to shake it with equal flourish.
“I wonder what kind of galaxy Zefram Cochrane’s going to find a century from now?” Kabreigny asked.
“A better one,” Kirk said. “I guarantee it.”
Kabreigny looked at him as if she were going to ask another question, perhaps to check again that no information had come back from the future. But she seemed to think better of it.
“Your guarantee,” she said. “That’s good to know.”
She gathered her data wafers toge
ther and slipped them into her attache case. “The Lexington is going to take me back to TNC 65813 before you get to Neural III,” the admiral said. “I have a feeling I’m going to be studying that particular black hole very carefully in the next while, trying to figure out where—and when—Cochrane’s going to come back.”
McCoy grinned. “Well, who knows? Maybe they’ll name the black hole after you, Admiral.”
Kabreigny simply stared at the doctor, then said good-bye to Kirk and Spock, and left.
As soon as the doors had slipped closed behind her, Kirk turned to McCoy. “Naming a black hole after an admiral? What were you thinking of?”
McCoy looked hurt. “That’s not any black hole. We’re in it. And Cochrane is in it. And that other Enterprise is in it. Right now. And for the next century.” McCoy’s smile returned. “Sort of makes you think, doesn’t it?”
But the concept stopped Kirk cold. He put a hand to his temple. “Gentlemen, I hate time travel.”
“It is not logical to have an emotional reaction to what is a natural outgrowth of the laws of physics.”
Kirk started for the door. “Mr. Spock, I think it’s time you took a long, relaxing leave. We’ll send you back home to visit your parents.”
As the doors swept open before them, Spock fell into step to one side of the captain, McCoy to the other.
“Good idea, Jim,” McCoy agreed. “Spock and Sarek can discuss logic all day, and play poker all night.”
“Doctor, I do not understand why you continually—”
But Spock stopped talking as Kirk suddenly laughed, for no other reason than that he was alive, and on his way to the bridge of his ship.
There was still so much more to be done.
And he intended to do it all.
EIGHT
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D THE GAMMA CANARIS REGION
Stardate 43924.1
Earth Standard: ≈ May 2366
“How are you feeling?” Picard asked.
“That is not an appropriate question,” Data replied, “ considering that I have no feelings to begin with.”
Picard smiled. La Forge looked up from his tricorder. “That’s Data, all right. No sign of the Thorsen personality at all.”
Data looked around the shuttlebay. The Preserver object was where Picard had last seen it, on the equipment cradles, near what was left of the counterfeit Borg artifact.
“Where is the Thorsen matrix?” Data asked.
“Back in the Preserver object,” La Forge answered.
“I can detect no programming residue from the Thorsen matrix in me,” Data said. “Is the ship’s computer system similarity free of residual effects?”
La Forge closed his tricorder. “Completely. A personality matrix isn’t like a program. It’s like human brain waves—analog, not digital—so it can’t be duplicated the same way. Only transferred. Like you and Lore.”
La Forge disconnected the positronic leads from Data’s open scalp and closed the access port there, carefully positioning Data’s hair back into place. “Of course, when the Thorsen matrix downloaded itself from the computer into you, it left programming codes behind, blocking access to certain ship functions, but that was all. And those codes were erased when we did a full restart of the system.”
Data got up from the workbench he had been lying on and checked his hands and arms, assessing his condition.
“The last thing I remember, I was sitting at the science station, trying to communicate with the matrix.”
“And as soon as it realized that you were a better host than the ship’s computer, it downloaded itself into you.”
Data moved his head back and forth in a series of short, jerky movements. “Geordi, have I been struck recently?” he asked.
La Forge looked away. “Uh, Worf tried to push you away from the controls.”
“I hope I did not do anything inappropriate while I was not myself,” Data said.
“You bear no responsibility for what happened,” Picard replied.
Data gave him a curious look, concentrating on the splint on Picard’s hand and wrist. “Geordi, how did you induce the matrix to leave my system and return to the Preserver object?”
La Forge finished stowing away the delicate tools he had used on Data. “You were switched off, Data. When I made the connection back to the object, the matrix was drawn to the system where it could function. I didn’t switch you back on until all connections were broken. Your backup subroutines restored your own matrix, and Colonel Thorsen, or what used to be Thorsen, is now trapped.”
“What will you do with the object now?”
La Forge looked at Picard.
“One of the hardest things I will ever do,” Picard answered.
He walked over to the wondrous silver object and for the final time put his hand on it, wondering what other hands had touched it when it first had been forged. There was still not enough evidence to tell if it was a true product of the Preserver culture or not. Picard tried to tell himself that that should make what he had to do easier. But it didn’t. The only positive side to acquisition of the object was that he had had full sensor recordings made of its inscriptions, and of its provocative diagrams of science as yet unimagined. The real archaeologists would appreciate those. Though how they’d react to the news of what an amateur had done to the object was something Picard would rather not deal with at the next conference he attended.
He slipped off his communicator pin and placed it on the object. Two versions of the same warp function now adorned it—the Cochrane delta of his pin, and the alien version inscribed in its surface.
He stepped away.
Data was beside him. “Is it necessary to destroy it, Captain?”
“It nearly destroyed this ship, Mr. Data. And the creature inside it nearly destroyed humanity three centuries ago when it had its chance to control the world.” He looked at the android, knowing how human in fact Data was because of the compulsion Picard now felt to explain himself. “ ‘The evil that men do lives after them,’ “ he quoted. “Thorsen died centuries ago; now it’s time for his evil to die as well.” He spoke to the air. “Picard to Transporter Room Four.”
“O’Brien here,” the transporter chief answered.
“Lock on to my communicator, Mr. O’Brien. One object. Unknown composition. Set for wide-beam dispersal. Maximum range.”
“Transporter locked,” O’Brien acknowledged.
Picard took a last look at the object, so hauntingly beautiful, so full of mystery, of promise. “Watch carefully, Mr. Data,” Picard said, overcome with deep melancholy. “This is a lesson in life. Checks and balances.”
“Good and evil,” Data said. “I understand the equation, even if I do not feel the deeper meaning behind it.”
Picard nodded. Three and half billion years of history about to vanish. When would this chance ever come again? He looked at Data. “Then … could you … Mr. Data?”
“I understand, sir.” The android looked at the object. “Mr. O’Brien: Energize, please.”
The transporter harmonic filled the shuttlebay. The silver object dissolved into mist, into time, taking with it the past and the future.
Picard sighed and turned away from the empty equipment cradles. The galaxy was safer now that it had been a moment ago, but that didn’t help make him feel any better.
He left the shuttlebay, thinking that some days he didn’t like his job at all.
Beverly Crusher called him hours later, during the middle of ship’s night. She told him it was urgent. He came at once to Cochrane’s stateroom.
Dr. Crusher was there, in her blue medical coat. A medical kit lay on a table nearby. And in the bed, Zefram Cochrane, a giant of his time, now out of time, his eyes turned to stare without seeing to the stars beyond the viewports, just as they would have appeared to someone on the surface of planetoid 527, one hundred years ago. The Companion lay beside him, her hand in his, eyes closed, barely breathing.
“They’re goi
ng quickly,” the doctor whispered.
“Is there nothing you can do?” Picard asked. There had been too much death this voyage. Any death was too much.
Crusher shook her head. “I told him earlier that we could try putting them both into transporter stasis and get them to a starbase to try some experimental treatments, but he said no. And I have to respect that.”
“He’s come so far,” Picard said. “Done so much.”
“No one ever does it all,” Crusher said softly, to comfort him.
“No,” Picard agreed. “I suppose not.”
He sat with the doctor then, at her side, in the darkened room, keeping watch on the passengers from another age.
Sometime in the hours that followed, beneath the starlight, the doctor took the captain’s hand. It felt right. To reaffirm life so close to death.
Sometime in the hours that followed, Jean-Luc Picard stared out at the stars, trying to remember the first moment he had noticed them. As a child, he supposed, in the fields near his home. Walking out with his parents. He would always remember his parents. One generation to the next. But now even more generations whispered within him, the final echoes of Sarek and the minds the legendary Vulcan had touched in his long life. Picard reflected upon that expanse of time, and wondered what his own legacy would be. How it could possibly measure up to all that had gone before.
Sometime in the hours that followed, Beverly Crusher squeezed his hand. “Jean-Luc,” she whispered. “Look.”
Picard turned his eyes from the stars and looked across the stateroom where Cochrane and the Companion lay.
But there was something different. Something about the lighting…
The bed was glowing. Their forms were glowing.
Picard stared in amazement. A glowing halo of some dazzling golden energy was rising from the Companion’s frail body. It danced in delicate rhythms, casting flickering fairy light on all that was in the stateroom.
Cochrane slowly turned his head to the light. Picard could see the strain on the man’s face as he looked up into that energy. Cochrane let the Companion’s fingers slip from his grasp and raised his hand instead to touch the cloud.
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