by Gene DeWeese
The Vortex, one part of her mind screamed at her.
It is the Nexus, another part of her mind—another Guinan—whispered. You/I/we have never left.
Suddenly, she/they knew it was true.
And knew what the Guardian meant.
Tal’s Guinan, Picard’s Guinan and a thousand others on a thousand worlds in a thousand eras.
All were linked through that one brief instant when they had been trapped in that seductive domain beyond space, beyond time, in the heart of pure joy and contentment.
All were linked in that one brief instant before her/their physical body was torn free and plunged back into a reality she/they had by then come to despise.
All were linked in that one brief instant that was also forever.
You must look into yourself for the answer, the Guardian of Forever had said.
At last, she knew what it had meant.
She must look into that part of herself that still existed there, in that eternal instant that stretched from the beginning of time to the end and perhaps beyond—that part of herself that was, she realized, the source of her feelings.
In this life and all others.
Allowing herself to remember that which she had struggled for decades to forget, she let fall the barriers she herself had erected in those agonizing moments of her “rescue.”
And was overwhelmed once again by the memory of what she had lost when the Enterprise-B’s transporters had torn her physical shell free of the Nexus: an eternity of unimaginable bliss.
But with the memory of that lost bliss came also the answer she sought.
An answer that spanned more than three centuries.
Kirk must return to the Vortex.
The Nexus.
Not to be killed but to be called forth to help Picard seventy-five years later.
For Picard was himself essential to restoring what was. He and he alone, with his rudimentary link to the Borg, could pursue the Borg back in time and prevent them from assimilating Earth and creating this abortive yet essential timeline.
Do that, and her world would die. El-Auria would die and Earth would live, and all would be as it was.
But not yet as it must be.
The words came not from the Guardian but from the deepest core of her selves, that self that always had and always would exist within the Nexus. The words flared through her entire being, tearing aside the final veil and exposing the horror of what yet could be, a horror beside which the destruction of the world she had for a few brief centuries thought of as her home was of no more consequence than the death of a single drone would be to the entire Borg Collective.
She/they knew what must be done.
And, for the first time, received a fragmentary and soul-chilling glimpse of why.
Twenty-Five
GUINAN’S EYES snapped open to find Picard and Crusher standing over her worriedly. Kirk stood to one side, his face unreadable.
As she realized she was once more alone in her mind, a bleak feeling of loss and isolation swept over her, just as it had when she had been torn from the Nexus. But this was far less intense. She had been separated now only from another part of herself, not from a universe of endless bliss. And her sense of urgency was so strong that, this time, she was able to force the feeling aside in an instant.
Sitting up, she swung her legs off the biobed. “We have to return to the Vortex,” she said, standing up before either of them could press her back onto the bed.
“What the devil—” Picard began while Crusher brought the medical scanner back into play.
“I’ll explain later,” Guinan said, “if I can still remember it later.”
“But what happened?” Picard persisted.
“Her readings are unchanged,” Crusher said, shaking her head.
“I—we spoke with the Guardian. The only way to restore the original timeline is to—” She paused, turning her head to look directly at Kirk. “The only way to restore the original timeline is for you to be sent into the Vortex you were rescued from.”
Kirk nodded, his expression unchanged. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Can I assume that just killing me still isn’t acceptable?”
She shook her head, repressing the urge to tell Kirk that it wasn’t death that awaited him in the Nexus but something far more wondrous, something she envied him more than she had ever envied any living being. Feelings aside, however, she knew that for the true nature of the Nexus—the Vortex—to be known could be nearly as dangerous as for the existence of the Guardian to be public knowledge. And Kirk, knowing that the only alternative was to be destroyed or captured by the Borg, had already indicated his unequivocal willingness to surrender himself to the Vortex.
“No matter how willing he is, Guinan,” Picard said, “it can’t be done. The Borg are everywhere. It would take a miracle to get within a parsec of the Vortex now.”
“I know that’s what you think, Captain, but it is essential that we do.”
“But you have no suggestions as to how?”
“I’m sorry. All I know is that the Guardian claims there is no other choice. And that there is even more at stake than you know, more than you can imagine.”
Picard continued to look at her, directly into her eyes, for a second, then another and yet another. Finally he nodded, not so much in agreement as in capitulation, but before he could more than tap his combadge to speak with the bridge and order the necessary course change, she lowered her eyes and swept past them all to the turbolift.
So, Kirk thought as Picard headed for the turbolift himself, issuing orders as he walked, the Guardian really doesn’t want me dead. It wants me sent into the Vortex.
Which at this late date just happens to be impossible.
Without a miracle.
And isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that I happen to know just where to find the number one card-carrying miracle worker in all of Starfleet?
“Captain Scott, I owe you an apology.”
Scotty looked up from the drink that had been sitting before him for several minutes, his hands clasped around the glass as if it needed to be held down in order to keep it from leaping, unbidden, to his lips. Guinan stood across the Ten-Forward bar from him. Somehow it didn’t surprise him that she had gotten there without his noticing.
“Aye, perhaps you do, lassie. If you had not been at that Glasgow bar…” He shrugged, lowering his eyes and renewing his grip on the drink.
“If I hadn’t delayed you those few minutes,” she continued for him, speaking softly, “you wouldn’t have met that young ensign and you wouldn’t have—”
“His name was Matt Franklin,” he said, his eyes still on the drink, a touch of anger in his voice. “And if I hadn’t met him, I would not have been on the Jenolen and I would have lived out my life in my own time. I would not have been on this Enterprise, I would not have found that Klingon ship, and I could not have come back here and caused all this with my bloody meddling!”
He broke off, his stomach knotting even more tightly as the urge to down the drink in a single swallow, then grab the bottle and drain it in stinging gulps grew more powerful.
“Tell me something I do not know!” he grated, the anger boiling up.
“Very well,” she said, her already soft voice becoming even quieter, almost a whisper, as she leaned closer over the bar. “In this timeline that you created by saving your friend Kirk, my world survived. The Borg bypassed it. You could say that, by delaying you those few minutes, I traded my world for yours—and for the entire Federation.”
“But you couldn’t have known—” he began, then stopped as he remembered what he had told Kirk about this seemingly ageless woman. Strange things happen when she’s around.
“You did know?”
Guinan hesitated, steeling herself. The “feelings” had, over the centuries, demanded many things of her. They had driven her to warn friends and enemies alike of known and unknown dangers. They had forced her to keep secrets from friends w
hile blurting them out to strangers. At their behest, she had ordered and cajoled and pleaded and tricked. She had even withheld information and used words to obscure the truth rather than reveal it.
But she had never been required to lie.
Until now.
“I did know,” she said. “I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I knew my world would be saved. What I didn’t know was the price for its survival.”
And she waited, knowing that what Captain Scott would do in the next few hours was crucial, not just for a few dozen worlds in and around the Alliance but for billions. In those hours, he had to decide whether he would continue his slide into the depths of guilt and self flagellation that had started on the bridge of the Enterprise-B or pull himself together and become again what he had once been.
For it was only then that he could fulfill the destiny she had glimpsed on the Guardian’s world, the destiny that was the reason they were both here, the reason she had, all unknowingly, shepherded him to this time and this place, all to insure that he would, somewhere and someday, do or say or inspire something that would tip the balance of the universe for all time. The effect of that action, whatever it turned out to be—or perhaps the effect just of his presence—might not be seen for a dozen years or a dozen generations, but it would come, directly or indirectly.
He would make his indelible mark.
If he somehow pulled himself together in the next few hours.
And she, by uttering that meager handful of words, by shouldering part of the burden of guilt he had until then borne alone, had done her small part in nudging him toward recovery, even rebirth.
Or so her “feelings” told her.
What they did not tell her was how he—or any of them, no matter what decision he made—could survive the next few hours, let alone elude the Borg and deliver Kirk to the Nexus.
A mixture of relief and anger swept over Scotty as the meaning of the woman’s words sank in: relief that he had not been solely responsible for this Borg hell, anger that she had tricked him.
“And now that you do know the price?”
“The original timeline must be restored.”
“Aye,” he said, his voice filled with sarcasm, “is that all? I don’t suppose you’d have any idea how that wee task might be accomplished?”
“It’s simple, Scotty,” a familiar voice said from just behind him. “You have to put me back where you should have left me—in the Vortex.”
Scotty spun around on the bar stool. “Don’t be daft, Captain, I couldn’t—”
“You have to,” Kirk said flatly. “Or somebody has to. The decision is in. Your friend here just talked to the Guardian, don’t ask me how, and it says getting me back into the Vortex is the only way.” He looked questioningly at Guinan. “Right?”
She nodded but remained silent.
“And you trust her word?”
Kirk’s eyebrows shot up quizzically. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”
For a moment Scotty was ready to blurt out what Guinan had just told him, but he held his tongue. Even if her delaying him in that bar had been a deliberate act, he was the one who had made the final and indefensible decision to slingshot back and disrupt time. She had merely given him the opportunity.
Scotty shook his head, his stomach churning at the thought of actually doing what Kirk had just told him was necessary to remedy his “mistake.”
Kirk looked from one to the other. “All right, then. It’s agreed?”
“Aye, Captain, but—”
“But me no buts, Scotty. If we don’t do something in the next few hours, we’re all going to be either dead or, if we’re really unlucky, a bunch of Borg zombies. And tossing me into the Vortex is the only idea on the table. Unless you have something else in mind.”
Scotty shook his head desolately.
“Besides,” Kirk went on, giving Guinan a momentary glance, not quite a wink, “now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, I’m not all that sure that a dive into the Vortex is necessarily fatal. If all the timeline needed to snap back was for me to be dead, there are a lot easier ways of accomplishing that than by running a Borg gauntlet. As an old friend of ours likes to say, Scotty, ‘It’s only logical.’ And Guinan tells me the Guardian specifically vetoed the idea of simply having me killed. Just like her own ‘feelings’ did.”
A twinge of hope tugged at the knot in Scotty’s stomach. It was logical.
But it was also hopeless. “Even if you’re right, it can’t be done. The Borg—”
“The Borg are an obstacle, I admit. But you’ve overcome obstacles before and saved my hide more times than I like to remember. One time too many, in fact, so now you have to un save me.”
“But how—”
“I don’t know,” Kirk said with a laugh. “You’re the miracle worker. And this superdeluxe version of the Enterprise you have to work with is practically a miracle in itself.”
“Aye, and that’s the bloody problem! I don’t even know how this Enterprise works. I told you what a mess I made of things when they first brought me on board. If you don’t believe me, just ask Commander La Forge.”
“So when did not knowing how something works stop you before? You think I’ve forgotten how you jury-rigged the Bounty? You hadn’t had so much as a basic Klingon Technology 101 course, and still you practically rebuilt that bucket of bolts and made it do things the Klingons never even dreamed of—like hauling a pair of whales back from the twentieth century!”
“But—”
“I told you, Scotty, but me no buts. Look, maybe you’ll fail, but so what? You’ve failed before, not often, but you have. The one thing you’ve never done, old friend, is give up without even trying! And you’re not going to start now! There’s a lot more than just Earth at stake, so get yourself down to engineering and plant yourself in front of a terminal or rip some control panels apart or do whatever it is you engineers do when you want to find out how things work or you’re looking for inspiration. You’ve got all of six hours to find a way for Picard to get us past the Borg, or through them, or whatever!”
Impossible, Scotty thought, but he knew—had known all along, somewhere deep inside—that the captain was right about one thing. He never had given up without at least trying, and now of all times was not the time to start, especially since he was the one who had, albeit with a little help, created the problem in the first place. He might—probably would—die in the next few hours, but he would at least die trying.
Standing up abruptly, before he lost his nerve yet again, he pushed the still-filled glass and the bottle across the bar toward Guinan.
“If you have any influence on this Enterprise, lassie,” he said, “you may have to use it with Commander La Forge to get him to let me back in engineering at all.”
Scotty stared in frustration at the words and formulas and diagrams as they flashed by on the screen. After Guinan’s promised intercession, a harried La Forge had reluctantly directed him to an out-of-the-way terminal in engineering, where he had been rooted ever since, almost three hours now, but it was looking more hopeless by the minute. It was true he now had a better idea how the Enterprise-D’s version of the warp drive worked, but compared to La Forge, he was still in kindergarten. If La Forge hadn’t been able to nurse a few more decimals of warp speed out of it by now, there was certainly nothing Scotty could do to help.
In theory, Kirk had been right, but not in reality. In theory, no one should give up without even trying, but in reality there was damned little chance that it was going to do any good. Even if there was a miracle waiting to happen somewhere in the new Enterprise, Montgomery Scott wasn’t the one to find it. Every “miracle” he’d pulled off on his Enterprise had been grounded in solid scientific and technological knowledge and reasoning, even if his so-called intuition had allowed him to now and then skip a few steps. He had had a deep, hard-won understanding of the equipment, an understanding of what the rules were and why they were, and that had given
him the freedom to bend or break those rules in order to get results the designers never intended. Even on the original Bounty, the rules had been the same and even most of the Klingon technology had not been all that different from that of Federation starships.
But even if the Borg’s speed could be matched or exceeded—as La Forge was still struggling unsuccessfully to do—there was no way the lone Enterprise could flash past dozens or hundreds of Borg ships without being vaporized. And even if it could get past them by sheer speed alone, it would have to drop out of warp, lower its shields and become a sitting duck long enough to transport the captain into the Vortex. Even if he could find a way to bypass the shields with the transporter, as he had in the Jenolen and again in the Wisdom, transporting from a ship moving at warp speed to someplace not moving at warp speed hadn’t worked in the days of the original Enterprise and it still didn’t work. There was simply no way a transport could be completed in the milliseconds they would be within transporter range. That was one rule that was neither bendable nor breakable.
It was not even possible—according to Guinan and the Guardian, at least—to send the entire Enterprise, with Kirk on board, into the Vortex at maximum warp. It had to be Kirk and only Kirk.
No, the only way to get at the Vortex was to get the Borg to go back to ignoring the Enterprise. Or to become invisible, which would have been easy enough if he hadn’t mis-laid the Bounty 2. Since no one in this timeline except one small group of Cardassians had stumbled across “standard” cloaking technology, the Borg had probably never developed a defense for it, only for interphase cloaking, which wasn’t, technically speaking, cloaking at all but a form of dimensional shifting.
But the Bounty 2 was gone, probably wiped out along with everything else in that now-defunct timeline, and there was no way of building a cloaking device for the Enterprise, not even if he had six months instead of six hours.
Unless…