As sensor resolution improved, the configuration of the new vessel became evident. It was a silver-hued cylindrical vessel ringed by a toroidal propulsion system. “They’re Vulcan!” Sulu breathed.
“Indeed,” Spock said, noting the advancement of the design. “And evidently from the same future era as the Thorn.”
“Sir, they’re hailing,” Uhura said.
“Onscreen here, Commander,” Spock told her.
The face that appeared on the viewer was unexpectedly familiar, yet even more unexpectedly different. “Greetings, Spock,” the gray-haired Vulcan woman said in a rich contralto roughened by time. “I thought that might be you . . . though I am fascinated by how little you have changed.”
“Greetings to you as well, Commander T’Pring,” Spock said, recognizing the rank markings on her uniform. “I am gratified to see that you remain in good standing within the Protectorate.”
“There was some uncertainty on that count at first,” the aged T’Pring told him. “But in the final analysis, you enabled me to give my people something far more precious than the confluence technology we denied to them.”
“The Kir’Shara was found, then?”
“With some difficulty. V’Las bombarded the T’Karath Sanctuary in our world as in yours. When we excavated the artifact, it was damaged, incomplete. But the copy you provided allowed us to reconstruct the rest. And Surak’s true word has transformed the Protectorate over the past century. We have learned that control of others is a poor substitute for control of ourselves—and that peace within ourselves facilitates peace with others. Even the Romulans among us have benefited from this message. We are more unified than ever.”
“Indeed,” Spock said. The idea that the Vulcans’ long-lost cousins had the potential to be restored to the family, as it were, was a compelling one. “However, it appears that your enmity with the Compact remains.”
“Only the extremist splinter group to which your attackers belong, Spock. They refused to accept the peace treaty the Compact signed with us, even after we granted Andor its independence. But they are few, and their acts of terrorism are usually averted and have little impact on the peace.”
“Fascinating. You have even achieved peace with the Klingons?”
“It became necessary for them to accept our aid when—” T’Pring broke off. “I should not say more. Our past may not be your future, but there may be certain commonalities. Our own experiences with time travel have shown us that the future is best discovered at its own pace.”
“A wise principle,” Spock told her. “And one we hope to act upon in short order, thanks to your intervention. We are engaged in an operation to dissolve this confluence and should be ready to begin within minutes. I recommend that you and the Thorn evacuate the area immediately.”
“We will take the Thorn in tow.” T’Pring lifted her brows. “It is gratifying to see you once more, Spock. But I understand why it cannot continue.”
“Yes.” It was a sigh of regret. But she had given him hope, in more ways than one, and he was grateful for that. He raised his hand in the Surakian salute. “Live long and prosper, Commander T’Pring of the Vulcan Protectorate.”
She returned the salute, and there was an incongruous warmth in her eyes. “I have done both, Spock. Thanks to you.”
Timeship Two
“We should be ready to synchronize fields within two minutes, Captain,” Scott’s voice came over Kirk’s communicator. “Even with the walloping we’ve taken, Spock says we can still make it work now things have quieted down. We’re movin’ out of the confluence zone now, ready to anchor you in normal space.”
“Good, Scotty. We’re ready on this end.”
While Kirk’s attention was on the monitor room controls, Lucsly glanced down the ladder to Dulmur, who had deactivated his isolation suit and removed the helmet so Lucsly could see him. His partner gave him a thumbs-up as he talked on his communicator, no doubt to the restored Everett. Lucsly released a tightly held breath. The timeline was safe again.
Thanks, he reluctantly admitted, to James T. Kirk.
He turned back to Kirk and found the man’s eyes on him. “We’ll be collapsing the confluence in a few moments,” the captain said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “You should . . . go back to where you came from.”
“Gladly,” Lucsly said. “But you have to give me your word that you will reveal nothing of what you saw here.”
“Of course,” Kirk said, and it was startling to Lucsly to see how truthful, how natural, the promise was. Kirk had never had any intention of abusing the knowledge Lucsly had exposed him to. “And don’t worry,” Kirk went on. “Only Spock, Scotty, and I know the details of what we did to generate the time field. We’ll keep it to ourselves.”
Lucsly nodded. “Thank you.” He hastened down the ladder to join his partner.
“I heard what he said,” Dulmur told him softly. “So that explains it. That’s how Kirk and his people were able to slingshot in other ships. Because we showed them how.”
“Don’t remind me,” Lucsly said. “Let’s get back to the Everett before I throw up.”
XVI
U.S.S. Enterprise
Stardate 7675.8
March 2275
After the tumultuous buildup, collapsing the confluence field was rather anticlimactic. Once Spock confirmed that the two ships’ gravitomagnetic fields were correctly aligned, it was a simple matter of cutting power to the Vedala drive. All that happened at that point was that the timeship did not disintegrate, detonate its antimatter stores, and tear the fabric of space a new hole. Instead, the Enterprise towed the timeship out of the confluence zone and the crew watched as the disturbed patch of spacetime gently settled back to normal.
Shortly thereafter, Kirk received orders from Star-fleet to place Admiral Delgado and his crew under arrest. Delgado offered no resistance; his latest failure seemed to have taken the fight out of him, and he ordered his people to cooperate with the Enterprise crew as they scanned and surveyed the research station and Timeship Two to gather evidence for the criminal proceedings to come.
All of that had to take a back seat late the following day, however, when the Enterprise sensors detected another confluence effect forming near the station. “Is it coming from the timeship?” Kirk asked as he rushed to the bridge, sharing the turbolift ride with McCoy.
“Negative,” Spock’s voice replied. “A much larger confluence field forming a hundred and ninety thousand kilometers off the starboard bow.”
“Could it be the Protectorate again?” McCoy mused.
“Their T’Pring destroyed their confluence drive, remember?” Kirk asked.
“Oh, right,” McCoy grumbled. “This keeps up, I’ll need a scorecard . . .”
The lift doors opened onto the bridge and Kirk came up short at the image of the shimmering blue orb that now appeared on the main screen. “Captain,” Spock reported as he ceded the command chair, “it is a Vedala planetoid. An inhabited one.”
Uhura turned from her console, holding a hand to her earpiece and speaking in a stunned hush. “Sir . . . message from the Vedala. They’re requesting the presence of yourself, Mister Spock . . . and Admiral Delgado. They’ve provided beam-down coordinates.”
“Spock,” Kirk said with a gesture toward the turbolift. After all, when the Vedala made one of their rare invitations for a visit, you accepted. Especially under circumstances like these. “Mister Sulu, you have the conn.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Well,” Kirk said once he and Spock were in the lift. “Here we go again.”
Spock’s brow lifted. “This time, however, I very much doubt the Vedala will be requesting our aid.”
Vedala planetoid
When the Vedala had recruited Kirk and Spock for a mission five years before, their concern for secrecy had been so great that they had caused their recruits to forget its details not long after they were returned to their respective ships. But Kirk still largely remembered his
time on the Vedala worldlet before and after the mission, when he and his teammates had first met and later said their good-byes. He didn’t remember what had been discussed, but he remembered his teammates Sord, Em-3-Green, and especially the striking huntress Lara. And he remembered the setting, a blue-carpeted forest clearing surrounded by purple trees, red bushes, and giant multihued mushrooms. He had seen no devices of any kind, and yet their Vedala host had been able to show them holographic images and transport them . . . somewhere . . . with nothing but a gesture. Perhaps their technology was so advanced as to be invisible, and they chose to live in a natural environment. Or perhaps they had restricted their visitors to the forest glade in order to maintain their strict privacy.
This time, however, Kirk, Spock, and Delgado materialized on a rocky plain ringed by low hills, mostly barren aside from patches of the familiar mossy blue ground cover growing in cracks in the stone. The aurora-like atmospheric glow that was the planetoid’s primary source of light gave a blue tinge to the entire landscape. The hills were close; on such a small world, they would have to be in order to be visible past the horizon.
“Welcome again, Captain James Kirk and Commander Spock,” came a soft feminine voice. Kirk spun. The speaker was a Vedala, all right: a white-furred felinoid in an orchid-hued jumpsuit, resembling a bedraggled lynx rearing up on its hind legs, its head hanging below its shoulders like a cartoon caricature of dejection or hunchbacked old age. The gray fur that formed tabby-like stripes atop its head and rings around its golden, slit-pupilled eyes looked familiar to Kirk; could this be the same Vedala he had met five years before, or were the patterns a common species trait? His memories of his first visit were not clear enough for him to be sure. “And thank you for coming, Admiral Antonio Delgado. We will be joined by two others shortly.”
Kirk turned to see that Delgado was contained within a transparent rectangular prism. “Why is the admiral being confined and we are not?” Kirk asked the Vedala.
“You have made your integrity clear by reversing the damage caused by the abuse of our technology, Captain. An abuse for which the admiral’s responsibility is to be investigated.” The Vedala pricked up its large ears at something unheard. “Along with one other.”
She raised her forelimbs and made a snarling cry, and a flash of golden light filled Kirk’s view. When it faded, two other humanoids were present: T’Nuri, the long-standing chair of the Federation Science Council . . . and DTI Director Grey, confined in the same glassy box that held Delgado. The box had doubled in size to accommodate them both with room to spare. “Welcome, Councillor T’Nuri and Director Meijan Grey,” the Vedala said. “Thank you for attending voluntarily.”
“Fascinating,” Spock murmured to Kirk. “The power required to transport them here directly from Earth . . .”
“Now we know why nobody turns down an invitation from the Vedala,” Kirk whispered back.
“Councillor,” said the Vedala, “you are here as a witness, as are Captain Kirk and Commander Spock. Since the crime committed here defies your laws as well as ours, you are entitled to question the accused, and once the truth is established, they will be remanded to your care and disposition.” Naturally, Kirk thought. The Vedala were so isolationist that they would prefer to let others handle their own wrongdoers.
The Vedala turned to the confinement box. “Director Grey, Admiral Delgado, you are here to explain your continued possession of Vedala property in breach of your earlier promises. Be sure to speak the truth, or we will know.”
Delgado had been about to speak, but at that last sentence, he fell silent, trading an awkward look with Grey—an apology? Spock had told Kirk how the admiral had seemed willing to take the blame onto himself to protect Grey—something Kirk was hard-pressed to understand.
Grey stepped forward. “The responsibility is mine,” she said. T’Nuri showed no surprise at the revelation; by now the councillor had been briefed on the confession Spock had elicited from Grey. The prisoners had no trouble breathing or being heard from within the glassy box, suggesting it was some kind of force-field construct. As Grey spoke, the Vedala lowered herself into a quadrupedal stance, resting on the knuckles of her hands. It seemed to be the posture their bodies were best adapted for, the bipedal stance perhaps being a courtesy to bipedal visitors.
The DTI director went on to explain how she had sent a special team to the abandoned Vedala planetoid to retrieve one of its damaged confluence drives, and how she had conspired with Arthur Manners and Delgado to arrange for its disposition in secret. Delgado joined her in explaining how he had drawn on his political and intelligence connections to organize a sub rosa revival of the timeship project, employing personnel who had previously retired from the service or who then did so as cover for the project, and reallocating excess starship components manufactured for the massive fleet-conversion project that was still under way so that Timeship Two, even as a civilian craft, would have the most modern technology available to maximize its ability to withstand the strains of slingshot. “Fortunately,” Grey explained, “the admiral’s lobbying had thrown up enough red tape to delay the dismantling of the first timeship prototype. It had remained in its hangar at Warlock Station until . . . well, until I decided to help Antonio.”
“But why?” Kirk asked her. “Why would you of all people want to assist Delgado in tampering with time? What did he say to bring you around? What kind of . . . incentive did he offer you?” He noted her use of his first name, the affinity she seemed to show toward the man who had once been her rival. He knew Delgado was a manipulator and a ladies’ man—and Grey was the kind of woman who might hunger for that kind of rare attention.
Grey smiled. “Nothing, Captain. He convinced me by asking nothing.” She grew wistful. “I know what you think of him, and it’s not without truth. He spent years cajoling me, trying to play me. Flirting with me just enough to make me feel flattered without going far enough to make his intent obvious—or so he hoped.” She smirked. “I’m a realist, Captain. I always knew a man like him could do better.
“But then . . .” She sighed. “We were in the middle of an argument when V’Ger came. This giant, living ship filling the sky, surrounding the planet with deadly weapons, shutting down all our planetary defenses as effortlessly as we would brush away a gnat. It looked like the end.”
Delgado put his hand on her shoulder. “And at that moment, when I thought I was about to die, I had nothing left to push for, no agenda to pursue,” he said. “No reason to play any more games. I . . . I dropped my guard. Maybe for the first time in my adult life, I let someone else in. And she was there for me. She comforted me, and asked nothing in return.”
“It wasn’t romantic, Captain, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Grey went on in a tone of subtle chastisement that Kirk had to admit was warranted. “But from that point on, we were friends. There was a bond of trust.”
She blinked away tears. “Something else happened that day.”
“My daughter died,” Delgado said. “She was serving on one of the orbital defense platforms when V’Ger shut them down.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know why Angela joined Starfleet, when she hated me so much for putting it above my family. Maybe she wanted to prove it wasn’t Starfleet to blame, just me. But I’ll never know. She made a spacewalk—incredibly risky with no power to the airlock or the sensors, but she had an idea to try to jump-start the platform’s weapons.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “It didn’t work. We still don’t know exactly what happened, but she . . . she went out, and never came back in.”
Grey held his hand in silence for a moment, but then remembered the Vedala listening impatiently. “After that, I kept expecting him to push harder to restart the time-travel research, so he could go back and save her. But he never asked.”
“I couldn’t,” Delgado said. “That was the sort of thing that drove my family away in the first place. Every time I tried to manipulate matters to fix things, I just made them worse. I couldn’t risk as
king that again—and I couldn’t risk jeopardizing this fragile new thing I had with Jan. This honesty.”
“But I saw how it ate him up inside,” Grey went on, “knowing he’d never have closure with Angela. So when we learned about the confluence drive last year, I had a thought that . . . maybe if we could master timeline-jumping, it would give him a way to find her again. Maybe find a version of her that still welcomed him in her life.” She gave a little scoff. “Well, that and all the potential scientific gains, of course. The potential fascinated me. I’ve spent so many years simulating alternate histories that the prospect of visiting them was compelling. Between that and my concern for Antonio, I convinced myself that it could be done safely.”
Grey released Delgado’s hand and stepped forward as far as the clear walls around her permitted. “But obviously I was wrong. I allowed my objectivity to be compromised by personal considerations and betrayed my responsibilities as DTI director. And I stand ready to accept justice for my crimes.”
“As do I,” Delgado said, moving up alongside her again. “Maybe I didn’t ask her for this, but I was eager enough to go along when she offered it.”
“Your confessions are appreciated,” Councillor T’Nuri told them. “However, there will still need to be legal proceedings back on Earth.”
The Vedala rose up again and turned to her. “That may be difficult,” she told the Vulcan council chair. “We cannot allow the United Federation of Planets to retain knowledge of our technologies. As before, all records of these events must be purged. All technical details of our propulsion engines will be deleted from your computers and from your minds. The very fact of their existence must be absent from your governmental and historical records. We appreciate that this will impede the normal operations of your justice system, but it is necessary. Surely recent events demonstrate that you are far from ready for the knowledge we possess.”
Star Trek: DTI: Forgotten History Page 27