Hearts and Minds

by Dayton Ward

  Same story, different day.

  As for this new problem, the first priority was determining the alien spacecraft’s origin. That it had defied even the Beta 7’s attempts to identify it was troubling, but that might be due to a simple unfamiliarity with the vessel itself. A proper scan of the ship and its occupants would provide more than enough information for the advanced computer to make a determination, even if that required the machine to contact its remote monitors on the Aegis homeworld. He had at least been able to conduct a scan and send that information to the Beta 7. With luck, the computer would have answers for him by the time he returned to his and Koroma’s base of operations on the Isle of Arran in Scotland.

  The second problem was in denying anyone else access to these mysterious visitors. That was the more challenging aspect of McAllister’s mission, and he had failed it. Now the only thing left for him to do was make a run for it and hope he could elude his pursuers long enough to call for extraction. Once he was back on Arran and his injuries treated, he and Koroma could devise an alternate plan for dealing with the new arrivals, along with the Marines and anyone else who would shortly be taking an active interest in them.

  Not so fast, Jonny.

  Feeling a wave of dizziness beginning to rush over him, McAllister stumbled and reached toward a nearby tree in an attempt to steady himself. His eyes started to blur, and the forest around him seemed to dance at the edges of his vision. The pain in his side had subsided to a dull, constant ache, and his pulse rushed in his ears. His breaths were coming in short, shallow gasps, and it was becoming more difficult to inhale. Despite his effort, he ended up falling against the massive trunk of the towering pine tree.

  I think he got a lung. Damn.

  He needed to get out of here, and fast. If the Marines found him, McAllister knew he would have to face tough questions he did not want to answer. His capture would only force Koroma to devote time and effort to rescuing him that might be better spent carrying out another mission of greater importance to the Aegis and, by extension, the people of Earth. Further, there was the problem of the bullet hole in his chest, the bleeding that did not appear to be stopping, and his increasingly labored breathing.

  You’re in a bad way, Agent. Call for extraction.

  Not wanting to ease his right hand’s pressure on his wound, McAllister fumbled with his other hand for the left breast pocket of his dark jacket. He tore open the pocket’s Velcro flap and reached for his servo. The futuristic device, engineered to resemble and even operate like an ordinary if somewhat outdated fountain pen, was his primary lifeline. He needed to trigger its emergency recall function in case he lost consciousness so that the transport system could find and pull him back to Arran.

  McAllister’s hand found nothing. The servo was gone.

  A check of his other pockets told him that the device was no longer on his person. He must have dropped it back when he was shot. If the servo was discovered by one of the Marines, they might not understand at first what they had found, thinking it to be a simple pen. They might accidentally activate one of its many advanced features, perhaps harming themselves or another innocent bystander. McAllister could not allow that to happen.

  Of only slightly less importance was the possibility that the servo might be delivered to someone higher up in the Marines’ chain of command; someone who could recognize the device for what it was. Within the governments of the major powers around the world, a select few individuals were aware of the Aegis agents and their mission. These were trusted allies, cultivated over many years to be informants and in some cases partners as Koroma and McAllister carried out their various missions. Some of these people had knowledge of the agents and their activities going back decades, recruited or otherwise befriended by predecessors such as Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln. What McAllister could not count on was any of those confidants being the ones who came into possession of strange items like his servo.

  “Damn it,” he said, pushing the words between gritted teeth. He had to go back.

  Think, Jonny.

  He did not need to attempt finding the servo. There was the emergency burst transmitter, surgically implanted within his right ankle bone. It was encased in a substance that mimicked the properties of human bone so as to be invisible to various types of metal or frequency scanners and trackers. All he had to do was push on the right spot and a short encrypted signal would be sent to the Beta 7, triggering immediate extraction. Once he was home, he could instruct the computer to deactivate or even destroy his wayward servo before it fell into the wrong hands or hurt someone.

  So how come my ankle looks so far away?

  Sagging against the tree, McAllister allowed himself to slide to the ground, bracing himself with his left hand in an attempt to keep from toppling over. He was not entirely successful, and the sudden movement as he lurched to one side reignited the pain in his chest. The bullet. Where was the bullet? There had been no exit wound, so far as he could tell, which meant the round had lodged itself somewhere inside him. What other organs had it damaged?

  His breathing had grown even more difficult, and now his eyelids felt heavy. McAllister pushed himself back up to a sitting position, wincing at the stab of pain beneath his blood-soaked right hand. The new pain forced a sharp inhalation of breath, which he was only half able to complete. Spots danced in his eyes, and for a moment he was certain he would vomit. His vision was narrowing, closing in on him, and all he wanted to do was go to sleep.

  Then McAllister felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Jonathan.”

  It was a deep voice, one McAllister recognized, and enough to jar him back from the haze threatening to swallow him. He jerked his head up, forcing his eyes to focus long enough to see the face of the person who had found him. It was a man, dressed in dark clothing all but identical to his own. His gray-and-black hair was worn in a style that had not changed in all the years McAllister had known him, and which he knew was just long enough to hide the tips of the other man’s pointed ears.

  “Mestral?”

  3

  U.S.S. Enterprise

  2386

  Leaning back in his chair, Picard considered what he had heard. Much of it sounded as though it might have leaped from the pages of fiction, and yet he harbored no doubts that what Taurik was telling him was absolutely true.

  “A Vulcan, living in secret on Earth for more than a century before first contact,” he said. “I’ve read stories like this to my son, Commander.”

  He had spent many a night reading from just such a novel to his son, René Jacques Robert François Picard. Now the boy was devouring all manner of books on his own, but he still sought out this particular title from his father’s book shelf. Despite a fascination with the human space program of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Picard preferred reading nonfiction accounts of those eras, and his taste in fiction normally ran to classic literature. The novel, published more than a hundred years ago, presented itself as the real, “secret” first meeting between humans and Vulcans in the twenty-first century, which supposedly occurred decades before the encounter noted in modern history books.

  Taurik nodded. “I am aware of the novel to which you refer Captain, and have read it myself.” He cocked an eyebrow. “It is a most interesting story, despite its having no basis in reality.”

  “For the same reason I still read The War of the Worlds and Sunrise on Zeta Minor, Commander.” Picard offered a gentle smile. “My son is rather taken with those as well. As for this Mestral, you’re certain he was on Earth for all that time and never discovered?”

  Taurik replied, “As far as I was able to determine, his existence never became known to the world at large. It seems possible, even likely, that he was known to certain elements of the United States government and military, and perhaps similar entities from other global powers. Information on that period is somewhat fragmentary. Most of the information I was allowed to consult came from protected Starfleet archives, in
cluding the personal and official logs made by Captain James T. Kirk and Ambassador Spock during their tenure aboard the Constitution-class U.S.S. Enterprise. They provided detailed accounts of their interactions with Mestral during missions to twentieth-century Earth.”

  “James Kirk.” Picard shook his head at the mention of the name. “You know, rumors persist that the Department of Temporal Investigations was formed as a result of Captain Kirk’s various entanglements with time travel.”

  “I have heard those rumors, sir,” said the Vulcan. “You may be interested to know that when I was being debriefed by departmental agents, they neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of such unsubstantiated claims.”

  Picard could not help a small smile in response to the deadpan comment. “No, I don’t suppose they would do such a thing.” Leaning forward in his chair, he rested his hands on his desk. “You do raise an interesting point, Commander. I know you were questioned at length about the information you gleaned from the computer of the Raqilan weapon ship, and its impact on possible future events. Does this have anything to do with that?”

  “Sir, I am not at liberty to discuss details of what I found in those computer files,” replied the engineer. “However, I can tell you that this has nothing to do with the Raqilan or their weapon ship from the future.”

  Nodding, Picard allowed himself a slight sigh. “Well, I suppose that much, at least, is good to know.”

  In truth, he had been anticipating a conversation with Taurik since the end of the Enterprise’s bizarre encounter with the Poklori gil dara, an immense space-based weapon constructed by a race calling themselves the Raqilan. The Enterprise had discovered the massive vessel, seemingly abandoned, in interstellar space. Sent from the future to a point in time decades in the past, the ship’s crew remained in hibernation after its onboard computer failed to revive them at the proper time. Instead, the craft drifted for decades until it was found by the Enterprise. During their investigation of the vessel and its systems, Taurik accessed its main computer and stumbled across what he had only described as “information pertaining to future events.” He had not said as much, but it was easy to infer from the Vulcan’s refusal to share what he found that Taurik believed the impact to future history was significant. After quarantining and encrypting the data within the Enterprise’s main computer, Taurik had notified Starfleet Command and the Department of Temporal Investigations about his discovery.

  DTI’s original intention was to dispatch a team of agents to the Odyssean Pass for the express purpose of debriefing Taurik, but those plans changed when the Enterprise was summoned back to Federation space in order to assist Admirals Akaar and Riker with “the Unsung,” a cult of renegade Klingons who had begun causing trouble for both interstellar powers. Never prone to waste time—and hating anyone who made jokes about such things—DTI agents had taken the opportunity to bring Taurik to their headquarters, where he was subjected to extensive periods of questioning that, so far as Picard was told, covered the Raqilan affair in excruciating detail.

  “I take it the department is—or was—well aware of this Mestral and his activities on Earth?” asked Picard.

  Taurik replied, “They only went into detail with respect to this specific matter, but I gathered from their comments that they were only aware of his presence on Earth due to Captain Kirk’s report.”

  “And these other people you mentioned,” said Picard. “These Aegis agents. You’re certain that they were working on Earth for an extended period as well?”

  Taurik nodded. “The presence of the Aegis was also discovered by Captain Kirk, through a Starfleet-sanctioned temporal incursion to twentieth-century Earth. Interestingly, I was unable to find information about that specific mission in our memory banks.”

  “I’m not surprised, given the nature of the mission and its obvious risks.” Even the records of his own ship and crew’s encounters with various temporal phenomena were almost always stored in protected archives within the Enterprise’s main computer, with access available only after authorization from himself or Commander Worf. Attempting to retrieve archived logs or reports of another starship’s run-in with similar time-related oddities almost always triggered a host of alerts and hand wringing from someone at Starfleet Command and the DTI.

  Taurik said, “According to the information I was given, Captain, this group had representatives on Earth beginning in the mid-twentieth century. Their goal seemed to be one of indirect influence on various world affairs, in the hopes of assisting your people through one of the most turbulent periods in Earth’s history: the development of nuclear weapons, their rapid proliferation, and eventual widespread use during your Third World War.”

  “You said indirect influence,” replied Picard. “So, they weren’t there to prevent any of these events from transpiring?”

  “They did prevent certain events from occurring, or ensured that others did occur. Most of their actions could be described as course corrections of one sort or another, sir; intended to keep humanity on what might now be looked upon as a predetermined path.”

  Picard was unsure what to make of that. A group of outsiders, working in the shadows? Surreptitiously guiding the people of Earth toward . . . what, exactly?

  “Are you saying they precipitated World War III?”

  “It is impossible to know for certain, sir,” replied Taurik, “but based on the information we have about the various Aegis operatives and their known actions, I would doubt it. A more accurate conclusion might be that the conflict was inevitable from their point of view, but the actions they took mitigated the severity of its lasting impact and perhaps even set the stage for the events that came later.”

  Even as he started to respond to the engineer’s comments, Picard stopped himself. Was what Taurik described all that different from Starfleet’s observance of the Prime Directive? How many primitive societies had he observed? On some occasions, circumstances had required him and his crew to act on behalf of the unknowing civilization. Then there were the rarer instances when he was obliged to stand by and do nothing, even in the face of calamity. Such occurrences haunted him, even as he struggled to remind himself that the Prime Directive—the mandate for Starfleet and the Federation to refrain from becoming involved in a less-advanced society’s natural progression—was a laudable goal with noble intentions. Picard had seen firsthand the results of sidestepping or violating the directive. While there were times when it was the right thing to do, there also were the few, indelible occasions when such action had ended in total disaster.

  Had Earth actually suffered at the hands of such interference? Or had humans simply chosen their own fate as a consequence of their collective childishness, while the observers were forced to stand by and watch as war engulfed the planet? As horrific as it sounded to him, Picard preferred the latter scenario. At least in that regard, humans had learned their own violent lesson, ultimately emerging from the hell they created to become a mature society and eventual member of a vast interstellar collective, the United Federation of Planets.

  That was what he wanted to believe.

  Rising from his chair, Picard moved from behind his desk to the replicator set into the ready room’s rear bulkhead. After instructing the computer to produce a cup of hot Earl Grey tea, he glanced over his shoulder to Taurik. “Considering the sensitivity of this information, I’m surprised the DTI provided you with such insight. In my experience, that sort of accommodation is unusual, to say the least.”

  Taurik turned in his seat so that he faced Picard. “Given the somewhat unique nature of my situation, the agents who debriefed me seemed happy to offer this information to facilitate my speaking with you. I have been granted a status of ‘provisional liaison’ to the DTI and the admiral. However, I was told that time travel or other temporal activities are in no way involved with our current mission. My orders in this regard are to monitor our activities and report anything I feel might have a bearing on the advanced knowledge I possess. As a cons
equence, Admiral Akaar has also used this as an opportunity to inform me about our current situation, so that I could in turn brief you.”

  “There’s obviously a connection between what you’ve told me and where we’re headed,” said Picard. “What is it?”

  “I have not yet been fully briefed on that aspect of our mission, sir. Admiral Akaar has given me only the information I need to facilitate this discussion, while assuring me that I will receive additional details as warranted.”

  Picard did not like the sound of that. “Based on whatever you report to him.”

  “That is correct, Captain.”

  Retrieving his tea, Picard did not return to his seat, but instead moved to the narrow viewing port set into the bulkhead behind his desk. From this vantage point, he was afforded a view of the distant stars, distorted though they may be by the subspace field generated by the Enterprise as it moved at warp. “Provisional liaison,” he said, after a moment. “That sounds like a fancy term for ‘errand boy.’ I can’t say I’m pleased with the notion of Admiral Akaar placing an informant among my crew, Commander.” As he was facing the port, Picard was able to see Taurik’s reaction thanks to his reflection in the transparasteel barrier. Despite his staid emotional control, the Vulcan engineer still managed to shift in his seat, as though trying to make himself more comfortable.

  “I do not believe that is my role, Captain.”

  Now annoyed, Picard attempted to force back the abrupt feeling as he sipped from his tea. The tactic was not working, and he seemed to have lost his taste for the beverage anyway. Turning from the window, he set the cup and saucer upon his desk.

  “Nevertheless, that’s the role you’ve been asked to play. Why did you not report this to me sooner?”

  His composed features once more in place, Taurik replied, “Admiral Akaar ordered me not to do so, sir.”