by Generations
Picard turned. "Guinan," he said with sudden urgen- cy, "can I leave the nexus?" She blinked, astounded. "Why would you want to leave?" "Can I?" "Yes," she allowed slowly. "Where would you go?" He hesitated, confused. "I don't understand." "I told you, time has no meaning here. If you leave, you can go anywhere... any time." A faint smile spread over his face. "I know exactly where I want to go--and when. Back to that mountain- top on Veridian Three--before Soran put out the star. I have to stop him." He hesitated. "Only tell me before I go... Only a part of you is here. So you're also on the ship. If you're still here... then the ship is all right, isn't it? It must have outrun the shock wave." All traces of the smile ebbed from her face; she gazed at him solemnly a time before answering, "No, Jean- Luc." He closed his eyes again as the sound of Robert's laughter wafted from the dining room once more. When he could speak again, he whispered, "Then it's done. I'm going back." She laid a hand gently on his forearm. "What makes you think things will be any different this time? What if you fail again?"
"You're right." He straightened, squared his shoul- ders. "I'll need help. Guinan--will you come back with me? Together, we couldre" "I can't leave. I'm already there, remember?" He bowed his head in frustration, casting about for some other option, some other way; when he looked up, Guinan was smiling enigmatically.
"But I know just the guy.... "
"My God," McCoy breathed with delight, peering through the cracked doorway. "They're all out there, Jim. It looks like a Starfleet retiree convention." James Kirk gazed another second through his trans- parent bedroom wall at the glittering view of San Francisco Bay at night. Boats twinkled as they skimmed across the water, which lay black against an indigo sky.
He turned, smiling. "Spock made it?" The doctor, his nose pressed to the crack in the door, wore the expression of kid sneaking a peek at the presents under the tree before Christmas morning. He seemed to have grown younger in recent years; grandparenthood and retirement sat well with him. His hair was still completely silvered, but the shadows beneath his eyes seemed to have eased, the lines on his brow to be less deeply etched. "He made it, all right.
Sitting right up front. Scotty's there with him--and Uhura and Chekov." He crinkled his forehead, squint- ing. "But who's the woman sitting on his other side?" "Woman?" Jim strode over to the doctor's side.
"You're kidding.... " "Tall woman. Reddish hair. You mean she's no rela- tion?" McCoy angled aside to let Jim take a look.
He put one eye to the crack and stared. Beyond, the spacious living room had been cleared of its usual furniture and garlanded with white roses and gardenias; a small podium had been set at one end, and in front of it stood rows of chairsmall of them occupied. It was a room he had also loved, but had never appreciated as much as this moment, when it was filled with those who were most important to him. He grinned at the sight of his friends in the front row; all of them looked as rested and content as McCoy. Even Spock, who appeared as always ageless, without a single wrinkle or strand of gray.
The Vulcan sat one seat from the aisle, with Scott on one side--and the mysterious woman on the other. She was human, striking, lean and light-eyed, with a long veil of copper-gold hair that fell straight to her shoulders. As Jim watched, she leaned over and whispered something into Spock's ear; the Vulcan listened attentively, impas- sively, then nodded.
"I'll be damned," Jim said softly, and grinned with pure pleasure. "He asked if he could bring a friend.... " "A friend?" The doctor pushed him aside in order to take a second look. "You mean he brought a date?" "I didn't say that," Jim protested, quite unable to erase the smile on his lipsmnot just because of Spock and the woman, but because of everything: the fact that it was his wedding day, and he was here with McCoy, in this wonderful place.... "You're jumping to conclu- sions, as usual. Maybe she's a... fellow scientist." "In a pig's eye." McCoy glanced up from the doorway and looked up at Jim with bright blue eyes--eyes happier and more mischievous than Jim ever remem- bered them being. He looked the way Jim feltm intoxicated with pure joy, delighted by everything sur- rounding him--even though each of them had only had a sip of the vintage Dom Perignon the doctor had smuggled into the room. "Never thought I'd see the daymSpock bringing a date. I'm gonna tell Carol to throw him the bouquet." "She's not carrying a bouquet," Jim said.
"She ought to. There are enough flowers out there. She could impro~" McCoy started as the door was pushed partway open from the outside. "Well, I'll be. The preacher's finally here." He stepped back to permit Hikaru Sulu into the room.
"Captain." Jim clasped the uniformed younger man's forearm and rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's good to see you again." Sulu revealed a crescent of white teeth. His golden- skinned features were almost as unlined as Spock's, and his black hair had barely begun to silver. "Sorry about the delay, sir. I got held up by a little... company business." "No problem." McCoy picked up his sweating cham- pagne flute from a nearby dresser and lifted it waggishly.
"We were enjoying ourselves so much we didn't care if we ever got around to the wedding part." "Speak for yourself," Jim said.
Sulu laughed. "Well, I think we can get started when- ever we want. Everyone's all here." He paused. "Are you sure, sir, that Mr. Spock doesn't mind my performing the ceremony? I just thought--" "You should know by now you can't insult Spock," McCoy hurried to answer, with a gleeful look at Jim.
"Besides, he's got a date." Sulu's eyebrows rose swiftly in surprise. "A date?" "A date, "the doctor answered, at the very instant Jim corrected:
"A friend." Sulu glanced dubiously from McCoy's face to his former captain's. "Ah. Well... the universe never ceases to amaze me." He gestured toward the door.
"Gentlemen... shall we?" McCoy threw back his flute and took a quick gulp, then set it down with a definite clink. "Let's get out there," Jim said.
He followed Sulu and McCoy out the door and over to the podium, pausing to nod at each of his friends--at Scott and Chekov, Uhura, and especially Spock, whose stoic expression dawned into the palest ghost of a smile as his gaze met Jim's. And there were his brother Sam with his wife, Aurelan, and their son, Peter, tall and bearded and looking impossibly adult in his Starfleet uniform... and Will Decker and his father, Gary Mitchell and his family, and two dozen other dear faces, the sight of which filled him with a joy almost impossible to contain.
He felt not even the slightest flicker of nerves, only elation as Sulu took his place beside the podium. With McCoy beside him as witness, Jim stood in front, then turned to face the assembled groupmand smiled down the aisle at the sight of Carol, who emerged from the opposite end of the room.
She wore white, like the roses that lined the aisle, like the gardenia and baby's breath tucked into her hair. Her cheeks were flushed pink, her eyes radiant, shining, her arm twined around that of her escort.
In the instant before she met Jim's gaze, she laughed softly at some comment whispered in her ear, and looked up at her golden-haired witness~her escort, her son--with frank love and happiness.
For an instant, David returned his mother's gaze; and then he lifted his face and looked down the aisle at those waiting there--at Sulu, McCoy, his father.
In the brief time he had known his son, Jim had been struck by the anger that seemed permanently etched in the young man's features. David had always been in- tense, restless, inexplicably furious at his father.
But there was no restlessness, no anger in David's blue eyes now. He grinned and shot Jim a knowing, impish look, an affectionate look that could only be shared between two men who loved the same woman. Then Carol looked up, and smiled.
"Stop," Jim whispered, feeling a surge of heart- pounding euphoria so great he could no longer bear it.
He closed his eyes. "No more.... " It was, of course, the way things should have hap- pened, the way they should have been. He could no longer remember when it had first begun, but he had learned to stop questioning it, and now freely amused himself by going back to correct the past. Every crew member he had lost was now saved, e
very wrong deci- sion righted, every opportunity missed, taken. Every iota of pain he had ever caused a lover was erased, replaced by happiness.
Sometimes the woman was Carol; sometimes, Ruth.
Once he had returned to the far past, to Edith Keeler, and done the impossible: spared her life, without dis- turbing history's flow.
Through it all, he was consumed by joy.
Though he could not remember how long ago the universe had turned magical--it could have been a year, a century, a millennium--he still had vague memories of another reality, a true, concretized past. He remem-
bered the Enterprise-B, and his last few moments there, rerouting the deflector circuitry, hurrying back down the corridor. And, of course, the explosion.
When he first appeared here--wherever "here" was, for it constantly shifted--he thought himself dead, died and gone to some enigmatic heaven. After a time, he decided he had been blown into some strange temporal anomaly, courtesy of the energy ribbon.
Either way, it didn't matter. He no longer wondered; he simply accepted, and enjoyed.
"No more," he whispered, and even as he spoke, he felt the floor change beneath his feet, from soft carpet to hard-packed earth, felt the air against his skin grow bracing cold.
He opened his eyes to snowcapped mountains, vast against brilliant blue sky, and smiled.
FOURTEEN
But I know just the guy, Guinan said, and Picard glanced over his shoulder and up at a shrill, sudden cry. Against a backdrop of bright, cloudless sky, a hawk circled overhead, casting a shadow of its great spread wings over the frozen ground below.
Picard breathed in cold, pristine air scented with pine as he looked back, frowning, mouth open to ask Guinan what had happened to his children, to his homemand found himself alone, in a small valley surrounded by spectacular snow-laden peaks. Earth, instinct said, yet unlike the home he had just left, this place sparked no sense of familiarity.
He folded his arms against the chill and turned slowly, taking in the entire view. Behind him, nestled against a rocky berm, stood a rustic cabin. He had begun to circle it, wondering whether he should find the front door and seek its occupants, when he heard a nearby knocking sound, emanating from around the corner of the house.
No. Not knocking. Chopping; the sound of someone chopping wood.
Picard quickly rounded the corner--and stopped
abruptly in his tracks, releasing a silent gasp that hung as mist in the cold air.
It was, indeed, a man chopping wood. A Starfleet officer in a century-old uniform, to be more precise, who had removed his outer burgundy jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt in order to more comfortably wield the axe. But not just any Starfleet officer; this one had thick chestnut hair streaked with silver, hazel eyes full of quicksilver intelligence, and a broad, handsome face--a face that Picard immediately recognized from the count- less holos he had seen in classes at the Academy.
"James Kirk," he breathed, not realizing until after the words were out of his mouth that he had spoken. His mind could not digest the fact that this legend was actually standing before him. But how... ? Kirk had died three-quarters of a century ago.
Then he remembered: The Enterprise-B. Soran. the energy ribbon... Then Kirk had not actually died in the explosion, but been transported directly to the nexus, just as he, Picard, had been.
Kirk hefted the axe over one shoulder; the blade swooped down in a gleaming silver arc and split the log at his feet with a loud thunk. And then he paused, and raised his flushed, sweat-beaded face to study Picard with eyes full of radiant wonder.
Picard knew the look; it was the same he supposed his own face had worn, when he had gazed upon Elise and his five children around the sparkling Christmas tree.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" Kirk's question was not an attempt at polite conversation; he gazed up at the clear sky, at the mountains, the tall evergreens with such joyous appreciation that Picard was almost caught up in the euphoria again.
"Yes. Yes, it is.... "He forced himself to ignore the dazzling surroundings and focused his mind on those who had died to bring him here: the crew of the Enterprise, and the millions on Veridian IV.
Kirk pointed cheerfully to a log on a nearby woodpile against the house. "Do you mind?" Picard blinked, momentarily confused. "Oh..." He went over, retrieved the log and set it on the block at Kirk's feet.
"Captain..." He paused, searching for the most potent, direct words to explain himself and his need for Kirk's help, to dissolve the nexus's seductive hold on the famous captain. "Do you realize whatre" "Wait a second!" Suddenly galvanized, Kirk glanced at a point beyond Picard's shoulder. "I think some- thing's burning!" He dropped the axe and began to run.
Picard pivoted. Smoke was billowing out one of the house's open windows. Kirk rushed inside, leaving the back door open behind him; Picard followed, then paused in the open doorway, feeling suddenly awkward about barging into a strange house--even if that house happened to be the construct of James Kirk's imagina- tion.
The door opened onto a kitchensnineteenth-century American West, Picard judged, with a few twenty-third- century touches thrown in for good measure. Copper pans hung above an antique cast-iron stove, upon which rested a dented, well-woru teakettle; nearby stood an outdated computer console, upon which rested a padd and a communicator of the sort Picard had only seen in the Starfleet museum.
The source of the smoke was a large cast-iron frying
pan on the stove. Kirk reached for it, swore and yanked his fingers away, then found a nearby dishtowel. He swathed his hand in it, successfully grabbed the pan's handle and, waving the smoke away from his face, dumped the pan and its contents into the old-fashioned sink.
"Looks like someone was cooking eggs," Kirk mused to himself, then glanced up and caught sight of Picard in the doorway. He smiled. "Come on in. It's all right." He gestured at their surroundings. "This is my house--or at least, it used to be. I sold it years ago." Picard entered, and decided to broach the matter directly. "I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise." As he spoke, a timepiece chimed the hour, making him think at once of Soran. Distracted, Kirk moved over to a nearby shelf and gazed in surprise at the sound's source, an antique mantel clock with a gleaming gold face.
"This clock..." Kirk whispered, entranced, and ran his fingers admiringly over its polished dark cherry surface. "I gave this clock to Bones.... "A beatific smile spread over his face as he turned toward Picard. "He said it was the best present anyone ever gave himtwith the exception of his grandchildren." "Captain," Picard said sharply, hoping to pull Kirk from his reverie. "I'm from what you would consider the future. The twenty-fourth century..." Kirk gave a vacant nod to indicate he had heard, but the lure of his surroundings held his attention fasL He started at a sudden sharp bark, then broke into a wide grin as a great dane bounded through the open back door and ran toward him, tail wagging.
"Jake!" Kirk crouched down and embraced the ani- mal, who gave his master's cheek a thorough licking, then sat and grinned, tongue lolling. "Jake, you misera- ble old mutt... how can you be here?, He looked over his shoulder at Picard as he scratched the dog's head.
"He's been dead seven years." Frustrated, Picard opened his mouth to speak, but another voice--a woman's, firm but playful, filtered down from somewhere upstairs.
"Come on, Jim, I'm starving. How long are you going to be rattling around in that kitchen?" Kirk rose and turned in the direction of the sound, his lips parted in amazement. "That's Antonia," he mur- mured to himself. He glanced over at the stove and the scorched pan in the sink, frowning faintly as inspiration came to him. "Wait a minute.... " He moved over to a drawer and pulled it open as he spoke to Picard. "The future.... What are you talking about? This is the past." As if offering proof, he pro- duced a horseshoe, adorned with a small red ribbon, from the drawer. "This is seven years ago. The day I told her I was going back to Starfleet." He raised his face and looked beyond Picard, at some invisible distant memory, then stepped
over to the sink and grasped the handle of the frying pan.
"These were Ktarian eggs. Her favorite." His expres- sion dimmed, grew somber. "I was cooking them to soften the blow... and I gave her this." He lifted the horseshoe in his other hand.
Picard stepped forward, impatient. "I know how real this must seem to you," he said, thinking of Elise, of little Mimi, her face reflecting the glow of the shimmer- ing tree. Seeing someone else seduced by the nexus was a revelation; now that he was distanced from his own
fantasy, he could see clearly now just how illusory, how false it all was. "But it's not. This isn't really your house.
We've both been caught up in some sort of temporal nexus." "Dill weed," Kirk replied, with sudden excitement.
He pointed at the pantry to Picard's left. "There's a bottle of dill weed on the second shelf to the left, right behind the nutmeg." And he promptly set down the horseshoe and scraped out the ruined eggs, then switched on the stove and set the pan on a flaming burner.
Picard faltered, uncertain. Recruiting Kirk was prov- ing more difficult than he expected. He was tempted to refuse to cooperate, to insist that Kirk pay attention to him now--yet instinct said to be patient. He was, after all, not losing any time by playing along; Guinan had said that he could always return to the precise moment before Soran launched the probe.