“That is the choice you face, Shaiyu. Blame whomever you like for Lakina II—the Fethetrit, the Aegis—but you and you alone are responsible for what you do here and now . . . and what you become as a result of it.”
She stared at the captives, paralyzed. Only minutes remained before the bomb went off and buried them under tonnes of rubble. “How can I live with not acting?”
“You were a victim, Daiyar. One of many. We cannot rid the universe of tragedies. We cannot avoid being shaped by them. The only thing we can choose is what we let them turn us into.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “All that has been in me for so long has been this quest. I don’t know what my life would be without it.”
He took her hands, turning her toward him. “You had a life before this quest. Not all of it is gone.”
“Yes. All of it. My trust in the Aegis. My friends and lover on Lakina. Riroa—who so often made me wish I could return her love in the way she wanted. All of them are gone.”
“Their legacies live on in you, Daiyar.” He touched her cheek gently. “And Riroa’s love lives on in me.” Sensing her consent—her need—he leaned in and kissed her. It was a deep, Deltan kiss, connecting them in flesh and mind alike. He felt the void within her spirit, and he let the part of him that was Riroa flow into it. It was not enough to fill the chasm of her pain . . . but it was a beginning.
Though it felt like a day, the kiss was over in moments. Gasping, weeping, Daiyar recovered and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to disarm the bomb.”
“There are only moments left,” he said, jogging after her. “You could be caught in the blast if you’re too late.”
“I know that. But this is my responsibility. You don’t have to come with me.”
But Ranjea stayed with her all the way down the stairs. Just before they reached the other building’s rear entrance, he clasped her hand. “I’m not going anywhere, Shaiyu.”
With one, quick nod, she accepted that commitment. Together, they went through the door and headed down toward the bomb . . .
April 12, 2385
Aegis observation post
Teresa Garcia swallowed a gasp at the sight of Ranjea’s face as it now appeared on the monitor. His beautiful, flawless dark skin had become heavily lined and leathery—but they were lines of smiling, of contentment lived in long and well. “This is a . . . revised draft of the original report I recorded for you and the Department, my dear Teresa. Edited and amended with the additional perspective of sixty-one standard years.
“In case you’re wondering, I was not stranded in the past. Daiyar and I succeeded in disarming the bomb. We made sure Tseechin was well, then disabled the subspace suppression field and returned to Daiyar’s ship once it dissipated. She beamed the two captured Aegis agents back to headquarters safe and well—after informing them that we had completed their task for them, so that no corrective intervention would be needed. After that, there was nothing to prevent Daiyar from bringing me back to my time and releasing me.
“But this is why I have felt the need to explain this to you personally, Teresa. Why I have redrafted and re-recorded this message so many times over the years, trying to get the words just right. I may not have another chance to do so, however, so this will have to be it, for better or worse.
“I could not abandon Daiyar to her grief. The part of me that is Riroa still loved her, and now she was finally willing and able to accept that love. It was what she needed in order to heal. And, yes, as an agent, I felt the need to stay with her so that her grief would not drive her to tamper with history again.
“Daiyar and I remained in the nineteenth century and settled on an Aegis colony world, an enclave for those rescued populations—Deltans, Tomika, and others—that did not volunteer to be bred into agents and merely chose to live peaceful lives under the Aegis’s protection. Our Aegis sponsors knew the full story, but our friends and neighbors did not. I suppose it was a prison sentence of sorts, with me as her warden; we did have Aegis monitors watching over us, occasionally showing up in the form of neighborhood cats, pestering us for food and sitting on our laps as we sat and read outside. I have earned enough of their trust by now to have seen their true forms, to know their kind’s true name—but of course that trust prohibits me from revealing it, and besides, in many ways I prefer the cats. It’s a role that suits them well.”
Ranjea was quiet for a long moment before taking a deep breath and resuming his narrative. “Daiyar came to her bodily end a few days ago. She allowed me and my Deltan lovers to commune with her in our way, so her love, her spirit, and her memory live on in me, and in others. The same will be true of me when my time comes, which I feel will be soon. And we live on in another way—in our daughters, Riroa and Teresa.” Garcia bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“So do not weep too heavily for me, dear old friend. I have had a wonderful, long life, and the love I created and shared with others will live on in the universe. You gave me so much of that love, even though we never experienced each other in full. And a very large quantity of my love resides in you, though we knew each other for so brief a time. Carry it with you always, and keep it alive by giving your love to others. Not only in your personal relationships, but in the love that drives your work to keep the timeline safe.
“Oh!” After a few moments, he blinked, realizing something. “In my later drafts, I tend to forget this part. You and dear old Gariff and Marion are no doubt wondering about the time drive Daiyar stole from the Eridian Vault. My mission was to retrieve it, after all. Don’t worry, I succeeded in that. With some Aegis assistance—Gary Seven’s grandmother, in fact, although her surname isn’t Five—I arranged to conceal the time drive on a cometary body in the Sol system’s scattered disc. Its orbit should bring it fairly close to Eris by 2385. Its exact orbital parameters are encrypted in this message, set to upload directly into your temporal tricorder, Teresa, and be decrypted by your optical biometrics.” He sighed. “I always thought you had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen on a human. It seemed a fitting tribute.”
A sleek, smoke-gray cat jumped into Ranjea’s lap and meowed at him. “Yes, my friend, thank you. Best not to drag it out too long.” He turned back to the visual pickup. “Thank you for being my partner, Teresa. I learned as much from you as you did from me. Now go out there and keep doing our good work.” His eyes crinkled in one last, beautiful smile. “Goodbye, dear friend.”
It was a long time before she could speak. Finally, she said it very softly: “Goodbye.”
* * *
Dulmur found Rodal outside, holding Meneth in his arms and stroking her head as he gazed over the burned-out ruin of Tanka Misata. “We do what we can,” Rodal said once he registered Dulmur’s presence. “Bad things happen anyway. When the Aegis was young, it tried intervening more aggressively, but it usually made things worse. Sometimes far worse.”
“That’s why we have the Prime Directive,” Dulmur replied, but without judgment in his voice.
“The Aegis could not be so passive either. We have honed our methods over ages to find the best balance. To intervene with the lightest possible touch, to help others help themselves as much as possible. Maybe the Federation will find that balance one day, and not have to hold yourselves back quite so much for fear of your mistakes.
“But the cost of that light touch is the same as the cost of the Prime Directive: you can’t help everyone. Giving a society the freedom to live gives it the freedom to make bad choices or to harm others. Letting go of a mature society to function on its own means that, sometimes, it will be harmed or destroyed. All we can do when the worst happens . . . is to keep trying. To do what good we can.”
Dulmur furrowed his brow, thinking. “Still . . . Maybe it’s my narrow human sense of time, but it seems to me that Lakina II is in the future. That means it’s just one possibility. The timeline branches going forward.”
“Yes—but you know that branches created by time travel have a way of overwriting their originals in many cases. Lakina II’s future is someone else’s past. That is how the Aegis sees it. We cannot recklessly tamper with those others’ history. Your own personal timeline, and Lucsly’s, would be altered without Daiyar’s theft.”
“True. I don’t know if things would’ve gotten so serious with my fiancée if I hadn’t needed her support getting through the time-lock incident.”
“And what of Ranjea’s long and happy life as a consequence? Do we have the right to efface that?”
“To save tens of thousands more, he’d be the first to say yes.”
“But he is just one of billions whose worldlines could be altered. We cannot risk it.”
Dulmur looked across the gorge at the ruins of the cliffside town. “What about what you did here? You saved everyone you could in a way that wouldn’t be noticed by history. That wouldn’t change anything significant. Maybe you can’t save Daiyar’s loved ones on Lakina . . . but there must be some you can . . . recruit, like you did with the Tankans.”
“We save such interventions for nascent civilizations that need our help. It is too risky to use them more broadly. The Tomika are a mature starfaring race. Their fate is in their hands now.”
“And you don’t feel you bear any responsibility for the victims of the Fethetrit? Or any of the other warlike races you’ve ‘helped’? Not even when the victims are other charges of yours?” Rodal was silent—and so was Meneth, who usually did not hesitate to express disapproval. “I mean, one thing I’ve learned about the Aegis is that you have other jobs to fill besides field agents. I know all about that. The DTI is perennially understaffed and overworked. I’m eternally grateful for our clerical staff and the hard work they do. I sure wouldn’t mind having more of them around to help.”
Rodal and Meneth exchanged a long look, with some mutual murmurings Dulmur couldn’t make out. “Perhaps,” Rodal finally said, “we underestimated how disruptive our policies were in terms of staff morale. If Daiyar was disaffected, there could be others. You may have a point that some . . . reconsideration of our policies is worth taking under advisement.”
Dulmur looked between the Cardassian agent and the shapeshifting enigma purring in his arms. “Does that mean you’re going to help the Lakinans or not?”
“It means, Director Dulmur, that telling you our decision would entail revealing information about the future. I think we’ve strained the Temporal Accords enough as it is, don’t you?”
Rodal Eight turned and started back toward the outpost. “Now, come. Your work here is done, and we need to begin dismantling the outpost in any case. I shall see you and your agents off and send you back to Denobula.”
“All right,” Dulmur said, catching up. “But could you make it Eris? It sounds like we have a misplaced item to pick up . . .”
Epilogue
* * *
April 13, 2385
Dwarf planet 136199 Eris, Outer Solar System
Teresa Garcia had hoped she would feel some satisfaction in returning the time drive to its rightful place in Bay H26 of the Eridian Vault. But without Ranjea to share the emotion of the moment with, it felt cold and empty, much like Eris itself. At most, the successful completion of her last mission with Meyo Ranjea brought a mild sense of closure. But once that sense had passed, it left only the open question: What next?
Behind her, Dulmur spoke up with forced cheer, perhaps sensing her emptiness. “At last. Everything’s back where it belongs.”
“Except the path integrator,” Lucsly pointed out. “Doctor Warain tells me that Lant has filed a grievance with the Department, demanding either the return of his stolen integrator or compensation for its full value.”
“Oh, joy. That’ll probably land up on my desk.”
“And of course, we’re still looking into relocating the contents of the Vault, now that its location has been compromised. So this may not be the drive’s final resting place.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” Garcia spoke up. “ ‘Final’ is relative. We should know that better than anyone.” Unable to look at the time drive any longer, she spun and retreated to the far side of the aisle. “Maybe we should just destroy all these damn things. Look at the damage they’ve done just in the past year. What good does it do to keep them around?”
“We keep them so we can learn from them,” Dulmur said. “There are a lot of factions out there who understand time better than we do, and we need to study these things so we can have a chance of catching up.”
“And destroying them wouldn’t do any good anyway,” Lucsly said. “It wouldn’t do anything about the countless threats that are still out there—cosmic anomalies, ancient artifacts, reckless scientists, temporal extremists, all the rest. The Vault is a tangible reminder of the dangers we face.”
Dulmur put a hand on Garcia’s shoulder. “More than that—it’s a memorial to those we’ve lost along the way. A tribute to their work. This job takes its toll on all of us. This is where that toll is recorded—even if the rest of the galaxy never knows about it.”
Garcia contemplated his words for a time, then nodded, blinking away tears. “You’re right, boss. No matter what . . . we have to remember. And keep on doing the work in their name.”
Lucsly fidgeted, uneasy with the emotion behind her words. “Well. Speaking of work, I need to finalize the updated provenance records with Warain.” He caught Garcia’s eye for a brief moment and nodded. “Exemplary job, Agent Garcia.” He turned stiffly and strode off.
Dulmur stared after him. “Wow,” he said once the older man was out of sight. “That was downright effusive of him.” He turned to Garcia. “I think that’s the closest he’s ever going to come to an outward show of sympathy. He really does care, in his way.”
“Yeah . . . I guess I get that. It’s just that his emotions are kind of . . . minimalist, after four years with Ranjea.”
“I’ve never known a pair of DTI agents as sentimental as you two. But somehow, you made it work.”
“We did. It was . . . he was a . . . we were like two halves of the same person. If you can imagine what that means.”
“You kidding? That’s the definition of a partner.”
She stared up at him. “Even Lucsly?”
“Even Lucsly. He made me the agent I am today.”
“And Ranjea made me the agent I am.” She sighed. “So what do I do without him?”
“What every agent does when they lose a partner. You get another partner.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “Like who? The two trainees who made it through this year’s program have already been paired off with other agents. So who’s left without a partner? Lucsly?” She laughed again.
“Why not?”
Her eyes grew wider. “Are you serious? Me and Lucsly?”
“It’d be different, I know. For both of you. And maybe that’s what you both need. A clean break from the past. A fresh start.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Besides—don’t tell him I said this, but I think he’s lonely.”
“Lucsly thrives on solitude.”
“He thrives on having a purpose. And I think he’s a bit lost with the change in the status quo. Maybe passing on his experience to the next generation, so to speak, will help him feel relevant again.”
Garcia thought it over. “I suppose . . . maybe . . . maybe I need to recover a bit of my objectivity about my partners. Maybe Lucsly would be just the cold shower I need? Maybe. I don’t know. Have you even talked to him about it?”
“I brought it up earlier. He’s open to it if you are.”
Fourteen seconds of silence followed. “I’ll think it over.”
“Good.”
She put a finger on her chin. “You know, maybe it would give me the chance to ask about something that’s puzzled me. I not
iced that Lucsly seemed to know a lot about Aegis procedure and technology. He even seemed to have insight into their culture.”
“Sure he does. He’s been with the Department a long time, and he’s dealt with the Aegis as much as anyone has.”
“Yeah, but I can’t help thinking about what we learned. About all the populations the Aegis takes and breeds into agents.”
“Mm-hm?”
“And about how the Aegis closes up shop on a world once they decide it’s no longer in danger. Like how they left humanity alone once we achieved global peace.”
“Yes.”
“So what happened to all their human agents after that? Sure, some work other jobs, logistical support and such. Some just go back to those protected enclaves, I assume. But when Ranjea was filling us in on Daiyar’s account, he mentioned her saying that some of them went back to their ancestral homeworlds to blend in.”
Dulmur gaped as her implication sank in. “You’re not saying you think Lucsly . . . ?”
“I dunno. It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? I mean . . . couldn’t it?”
They stared at each other for a moment, then laughed and shook their heads. “Nah, it couldn’t be,” Dulmur said.
“No way. Couldn’t be.”
“Of course not.” He frowned again. “Could it . . . ?”
Acknowledgments
* * *
Once again, thanks to the various writers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for creating the Department of Temporal Investigations and Agents Lucsly and Dulmur, particularly Ronald D. Moore & René Echevarria. Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace introduced Gary Seven and his unnamed organization in the 1968 Star Trek episode “Assignment: Earth,” and Howard Weinstein fleshed it out and named it the Aegis in DC Comics’ Star Trek, Volume 2, Issue 50 (“The Peacekeeper, Part Two”), a number of whose events and elements are referenced herein. More of James Kirk’s interactions with Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln have been depicted in the novels of Greg Cox (Star Trek—Assignment: Eternity, Star Trek—The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh) and Dayton Ward (Star Trek—From History’s Shadow, Elusive Salvation). My thanks to both Greg and Dayton for their input on this novella.
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