Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Time

Fourteen

2020

Kirk examined his new face in a mirror. Only a couple of days had passed since he had found himself in Shaun Christopher’s body, and he was still getting used to it. He wondered if he ever would.

Oddly familiar blue eyes stared back at him. Shaun resembled his father, whom Kirk had met just a few years ago, although, paradoxically, Shaun was noticeably older than Captain John Christopher. Gray hair infiltrated his temples, and decades of experience had added both creases and character to his features. Kirk calculated that Shaun was probably in his early fifties, although it was hard to tell. People in the past tended to age faster than the humans of his era, where the life expectancy was considerably longer. Although he was in excellent shape for a man his age, Shaun’s body was still older than Kirk would have preferred. He felt as if he had aged thirty years overnight.

Not quite as bad as that time on Gamma Hydra IV but disturbing nonetheless.

The crew’s personal quarters were on the upper deck of the habitat module, above the gym and the infirmary. He had been relieved to discover that NASA had been thoughtful enough to provide each of the astronauts with his or her own private compartment, probably not a bad idea on a flight of this duration. The small, rather monastic cell was only a fraction of the size of his stateroom back on the Enterprise, but that was made up for in part by making use of the walls and ceiling as well. A personal grooming area, complete with mirror, occupied one corner. A sleeping bag was tethered to a wall. A narrow corridor connected the compartments. Kirk kept his door open. He didn’t want to appear to be hiding.

Stubble dotted his cheek as he attempted to shave in zero gravity, which was trickier than he had anticipated. He carefully applied a dollop of water, procured from a wall dispenser, to his face, then squeezed a little NASA-approved shaving cream from a small tin-foil packet. In theory, the mixture would cling to his whiskers without floating away and would also stick to the razor blade. He would have to keep wiping the blade clean and roll up the hand towel to keep the shorn whiskers from getting loose. He started work on his chin but accidentally dislodged a tiny blob of shaving cream.

“Damn.” He chased after the blob with the towel. Starfleet zero-g drills had seldom focused on matters of personal grooming and hygiene.

“Having trouble?”

Zoe Querez floated into his quarters without waiting for an invitation. She executed a midair flip so that they were oriented in the same direction. Her slender fingers snagged the elusive blob, then wiped it on her shorts. She had no quarters of her own, he had learned, but was spending more and more time outside the brig. Nobody really had time to babysit her anymore.

“A little.” He handed her the towel so she could wipe off her suit. “Thanks for the assist, Ms. Querez.”

Even though he had since learned who she was, he remained dumbfounded by her presence on the ship. So far, the Lewis & Clark’s mission was playing out very differently from what he recalled from the history tapes. A stowaway? A briefly glimpsed alien probe? None of that was in the official accounts of the mission, let alone history as he knew it. Which just made his current predicament all the more challenging. How was he supposed to avoid changing the past when that past wasn’t what he thought it was?

All he could do was try to get through this mission without blowing his cover, then find some way to send a message to the future. Perhaps a letter in a safe-deposit box, to be delivered to McCoy at an appropriate date hundreds of years from now? Or a time capsule built to survive World War III? Or, better yet, an old-fashioned radio message directed to where a starbase would be two hundred fifty years from now? In theory, his SOS would arrive at just about the right time for Starfleet to receive it.

Granted, the brass increasingly frowned on unnecessary trips to the past, for fear of wreaking havoc with the timeline, but surely they would grant the Enterprise some leeway in this case. He hoped that Spock and the others would come looking for him. Then maybe they could deal with the little matter of putting his mind back into his own body!

In the meantime, he had to keep pretending to be Shaun.

“What’s with this ‘Ms. Querez’ stuff?” Zoe asked. “We’re not on a first-name basis anymore?”

Oops, Kirk thought. “Sorry. Just a little distracted.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” She hooked her foot into a wall loop to keep from drifting around the chamber. Her striking brown eyes inspected his unshaven face. “Maybe you should just let it grow out. A little stubble looks good on you.”

“Thanks,” Kirk said. “But given the length of this cruise, I need to shave sometimes or end up looking like Rip Van Winkle.” Except that Rip woke up in the future, he thought, and I’m stuck two centuries in the past.

“Good point,” she agreed. “Probably not a great look for you. Why hide that rugged, Right Stuff mug of yours?”

Kirk raised an eyebrow. Was she flirting with him?

Despite his unusual circumstances, he couldn’t help being intrigued. Zoe was an attractive woman. And he was going to be stuck on this slow-moving spacecraft for weeks to come…

But how would Shaun react to her overtures? Was he married, engaged, or otherwise attached? Not for the first time, he wished he had access to the Enterprise’s computer banks. Back on his own ship, he could have called up all of the particulars on Shaun in a moment. By contrast, the Lewis & Clark was too far away from Earth even to have access to — what did they call it these days? The Interweb?

“I tried growing a beard one summer,” he divulged, assuming that revelation was harmless enough. What human male hadn’t stopped shaving at some point? “It was not a universal success.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She reached for the razor. “Here, let me help.”

Taking the razor from his hand, she leaned in closer, and he caught a whiff of a delicate fragrance. She deftly shaved his cheeks and chin with a gentle touch. His two-day-old shadow was quickly transferred to the razor blade and from there to the towel. Not a single stray whisker escaped into the closed environment of the ship. When she was finished, she paused to admire her work. “Yeah, that’s more like it.”

Kirk checked himself out in the mirror. He liked what he saw.

“I have to agree. Thanks.” He rubbed his chin, which was now as smooth as a Deltan’s cranium. She hadn’t nicked him once. “Where did an intrepid journalist-slash-stowaway learn to use a razor like that?”

“Hello?” She smirked at him. “Have you seen my legs?” She wiped the razor clean and handed it back to him. She gave him a sly look. “Maybe you can return the favor someday.”

Kirk grinned. “I think I’d like that.”

“Ahem.” Fontana appeared in the doorway. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Not at all,” Zoe replied, completely unruffled. “How can we help you, astronaut?”

Fontana ignored her and spoke directly to Kirk instead. “Daily mission briefing in five minutes, remember?” She scowled at Zoe. “If you’re not too busy.”

“Right,” Kirk said. “The briefing.” He was still learning the ship’s routine. “Thanks for the reminder. Guess I’m still a bit foggy from that zap the other day.”

He wondered how much longer he could milk that excuse. Certainly, it was plausible enough. Powerful electric shocks were known to cause memory loss. Should he take advantage of that angle more, or would that risk affecting the mission in a significant way? He wouldn’t want to get Shaun relieved of command on grounds of partial amnesia or suspected brain damage. That might have a serious impact on history.

“No problem,” Fontana said, her tone softening. She eyed him with obvious concern before finally acknowledging Zoe’s presence. “If you could give us a few minutes.”

It was not a request.

“Sure. Whatever.” Zoe shrugged. “I need to brainstorm my next blog, anyway, not that I’m going to be able to post it anytime soon.” She rolled her eyes. “You’d think a spaceship this high-tech would have free Wi-Fi, at least.” She winked at Kirk as she glided out the door. “Don’t forget. You owe me.”

Fontana watched to make sure the other woman left. Her feet claimed the loop Zoe had been using before. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing,” Kirk said, unclear if he was fibbing or not. “She was just helping me shave.”

“Since when do you need help with something like that?”

Careful, Kirk thought. He wasn’t sure what Fontana’s problem was. Did she simply disapprove of him socializing with the stowaway, or was it more than that? Once again, he wished he knew more about Shaun’s personal life. How was he going to fake this for the rest of the voyage? He didn’t know enough about who he was supposed to be.

“I was just being polite,” he assured her. “After all, the four of us are going to be in close quarters for a long time. We might as well try to get along.”

“I suppose,” she said doubtfully. She peered the way Zoe had gone. “But I still don’t trust her. She doesn’t belong here.”

Kirk couldn’t disagree. “You can say that again.”

That seemed to mollify her. “I’m sorry. I know I must sound like a stereotypical jealous ex, but…” Her eyes moistened, and she drew nearer. “Oh, Shaun. I thought I was never going to see you again.”

Her face was only inches away from his. Her lips parted expectantly.

Kirk didn’t know how Shaun would respond. “Fontana… Alice…”

“I know, I know.” She seemed to take his hesitation in stride. “We both agreed that it was a bad idea, that our careers — and the mission — took priority, but that was before I watched you drifting off into space. I almost lost you, Shaun.”

Kirk stalled. “I’m sorry to put you through that.”

“It just got me thinking, you know.” Her eyes entreated him. “Did we make a mistake, Shaun? Are we wasting precious time?”

Time is definitely an issue here, Kirk thought. The oddity of his situation was not lost on him. Had he really traveled two centuries into the past to find himself in the middle of a complicated love triangle? And the devil of it was, he had no idea which, if either, woman he — or, rather, Shaun — was supposed to end up with.

Good thing McCoy isn’t around to see this. He’d never let me hear the end of it.

The video-com buzzed.

“Paging Christopher and Fontana.” O’Herlihy’s voice interrupted the awkward moment. His face skyped onto the miniature video screen. “What’s keeping you two?”

Kirk tried to conceal his relief. “We should probably get going.” Fontana looked disappointed and maybe even a little hurt. He gave her a smile to ease the sting. “We can… talk more later.”

If Zoe didn’t get to him first.

“Roger that.” She gave him a funny look, as if something wasn’t quite right, before hitting the speaker button on the comm. “Hold on to your horses, Marcus. We’ll be right there.”

Kirk hoped that she would chalk up his reticence to ordinary human misunderstandings and relationship issues. That would certainly be the most likely explanation as far as she was concerned. How could she possibly guess the truth?

He could barely believe it himself!

“Don’t forget your lucky dog tags,” she reminded him.

“What? Oh, right.” The metal tags, which had apparently once belonged to Shaun’s father, were tethered to a hook. Kirk wondered if they were the same tags John Christopher had worn when he was beamed aboard the Enterprise. He placed them around his neck. “Can’t forget these.”

“You never did before,” she said.

The briefing took place on the ship’s flight deck, since the Lewis & Clark lacked the space for a separate conference room. Kirk couldn’t help comparing it with the bridge of the Enterprise. Like the rest of the ship, it seemed remarkably cramped and primitive by comparison. There wasn’t even a yeoman to serve coffee.

“There you are,” O’Herlihy said as Kirk and Fontana arrived. He had the copilot’s seat turned toward the back of the module. “Dare I ask what was keeping you?”

Kirk sighed inside. Did everyone on this ship know more about Shaun’s private life than he did?

Probably.

“Nothing that you need to know about.” Fontana adopted a light tone that was probably at odds with her true feelings about what had just happened. She took a place on the ceiling, where she could keep an eye on the two men. “Don’t be a dirty old man.”

“Occupational hazard,” O’Herlihy quipped, not unlike McCoy. “Just ask my wife.”

“Sorry for the delay, Doctor.” Kirk settled into the pilot’s seat. He guessed that was Shaun Christopher’s usual spot. “My fault. I guess I’m not exactly at the top of my game.”

“Don’t apologize,” O’Herlihy said. “If we were back on Earth, you’d already be on medical leave, if not under observation twenty-four/seven.”

Yes, Kirk decided. He definitely reminds me of Bones.

“We have a job to do, Doctor. I intend to do it.”

He had already started covertly studying the ship’s operations manuals. The technology was remarkably simple by twenty-third-century standards. Scotty would have been appalled by the unsophisticated systems and engineering. Why, they were still getting by on a first-generation impulse drive. Zefram Cochrane hadn’t even been born yet.

If nothing else, Kirk reflected, he had been given a front-row seat to space history in the making. The Lewis & Clark was a covered wagon compared with the Enterprise, which just made its crew’s dedication and courage all the more impressive. Fontana and O’Herlihy, not to mention Christopher, were true pioneers, venturing out into the unforgiving void with nothing but a crude titanium hull to protect them. They had no deflectors, no phasers, no photon torpedoes, no transporters. Not even artificial gravity or universal translators.

I need to appreciate this opportunity, he thought. Not take it for granted.

“All right, then,” O’Herlihy said. “Let’s get down to business.” He leafed through a stack of printouts. “We’ve received the latest updates from Mission Control. Seems they’re keeping a tight lid on any info about that probe, and they expect us to do the same.”

“So, they’re keeping the whole thing quiet,” Fontana said. “Just like they did about our unwanted guest earlier.”

Kirk observed that Zoe had not been invited to the briefing. No surprise there. He wondered what the enticing stowaway was up to at that moment. Just working on her “blog,” whatever that was?

“Exactly. They don’t want to stir up any more controversy about this mission, especially since we didn’t manage to retrieve the probe.” O’Herlihy clucked in regret. “A pity it zipped away like that. Just think of all we could have learned from it!”

Don’t worry, Kirk thought. We’ll run into it again — two hundred and fifty years from now.

“It’s completely gone?” Fontana asked. “There’s no sign of it?”

O’Herlihy shook his head. “LIDAR tracked it to the edge of the solar system before losing it. Hubble has lost sight of it, too. It’s long gone.”

Kirk frowned. He hoped that they hadn’t also lost their best chance of putting him back where he belonged, both physically and temporally. He remembered how battered and decrepit the probe had appeared in his time. What if the future version of the probe was too damaged to reverse whatever it had done the first time?

Is it already en route to Klondike VI, he wondered, or does it have other errands to attend to first? Maybe some other gas giants to observe?

“I wonder where it came from,” Fontana said. “And what it was doing here.”

“We may never know,” O’Herlihy said sadly. “In the meantime, however, NASA wants us to continue with our mission and complete our observations of Saturn and its moons. And, Lord, is there plenty to observe.”

“Such as?” Kirk asked.

“Take a look at this.” O’Herlihy relocated to one of the auxiliary terminals and called up an image on a monitor. Kirk and Fontana looked over his shoulder. “These are our latest photos of Saturn’s north pole, taken during our last pass.”

The famous hexagonal vortex looked just the way Kirk remembered it from the future, spread vibrantly for thousands of kilometers atop the planet. It looked just like the travel photos and calendar shots he had seen his entire life, not to mention his own personal memories.

“It’s back to normal,” he realized. “Just like before.”

“That’s right,” the scientist confirmed. “What’s more, I’ve been running an analysis of the rings. They’ve also stabilized. The vast majority of the ring matter has already fallen back into its usual formations.”

“Just in the last day or so?” Fontana stared at the monitor. She voiced the thought they were probably all thinking. “Was it the probe? Did it do something?”

“Possibly. Probably.” O’Herlihy scratched his beard. “There were those energy pulses right before you ran into difficulty, Shaun. As nearly as I can tell, the pulses were directed at the planet’s north pole, right into the heart of the vortex.”

Kirk pondered the scientist’s report. “What kind of energy, Doctor?”

“I’m not sure,” O’Herlihy admitted. “Possibly a stream of charged particles or directed plasma waves. Like a laser, almost.”

Or a phaser? Kirk wondered. Actual phasers would not be developed by Earth science for at least two centuries. Had the probe fired some variety of phaser at Saturn? Spock had not detected any defensive systems aboard the probe, but perhaps its phaser banks operated on different principles and were not recognized by the Enterprise’s sensors. Or maybe the beams were simply a previously unknown type of directed energy. In either case, they would be beyond O’Herlihy’s experience.

“So, the beams rebooted the hexagon somehow?” Fontana speculated, apparently more interested in their function than their nature. “Which stabilized the rings? That’s fantastic!”

But not unheard of, Kirk thought. He recalled the alien hieroglyphics on the probe and that obelisk back on Miramanee’s world. Once activated, the obelisk had projected a powerful deflector beam that had kept the planet from being struck by an oncoming asteroid. Was it possible that the probe had been designed to serve a similar purpose, fixing Saturn’s deteriorating rings? Or, more likely, resetting some other mechanism hidden somewhere deep within the mysterious hexagon?

“You may be on to something,” he told Fontana. “Perhaps the probe was here to repair Saturn’s rings.”

“And it left once it completed its mission?” Marcus seized on the idea, visibly fascinated. “But who sent the probe? And what interest would they have in maintaining Saturn’s rings?”

Good questions, Kirk thought. He wished he could tell O’Herlihy and Fontana more about the Preservers, not that there was much to tell. The ancient aliens were a mystery even in his own time. Had they anticipated humanity colonizing this solar system in the future and wanted to keep Saturn and its moons stabilized for Earth’s benefit? Or did they have another motive for fixing the ringed giant? Perhaps they simply wanted to preserve one of the sector’s natural wonders for conservation or aesthetic reasons. It would be funny, he mused, if the Preservers ultimately turned out to be some sort of cosmic park service.

“Shaun,” O’Herlihy asked him, “you were out there when those pulses fired. What did you see before the probe shocked you?”

You mean, what did Christopher see, Kirk thought, before I set up shop in his body. In truth, his last memory before finding himself in orbit was of touching the probe in the Enterprise’s transporter room. He hadn’t seen the pulses O’Herlihy was talking about.

“To be honest, it’s all kind of a blur,” he said. “Sorry.”

Marcus sighed. He sounded disappointed but not too surprised. “I was afraid of that. A little traumatic short-term-memory loss was to be expected, I suppose.”

“Is that serious?” Fontana asked, sounding worried.

“I doubt it,” the doctor said. “Patients who have been in accidents often have little recollection of the actual events. It’s probably nothing to be concerned about, provided the rest of Shaun’s memory is intact.” He looked Kirk over. “You do remember who I am, right?”

He made it sound like a joke, but Kirk thought he heard something more serious underneath.

“A nervous mother hen?” Kirk said with a grin. “Seriously, I admit I was a little shook up, but I’m feeling better every day. Stop treating me like a basket case, both of you. That’s an order.”

“Fair enough,” O’Herlihy said. “But you’ll tell me if you’re having problems, right?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Kirk lied. He felt bad about deceiving the two astronauts. They deserved better. But he couldn’t risk changing history by revealing that he was actually a time traveler from the future. “But really, I just want to get back to work.”

Fontana looked relieved. “Okay, that’s the Shaun Christopher I’m used to.”

Kirk was glad to hear it. It occurred to him that if he had to impersonate a human of the twenty-first century, the commander of an exploratory space vessel was not a bad fit. He and Shaun probably had much in common, including similar instincts and training. Could be worse, he thought. I could be stuck in the body of an opera singer or a brain surgeon.

When in doubt, maybe he just needed to act like himself.

“On a lighter note,” O’Herlihy continued, “Mission Control also forwarded a new batch of personal e-mails from home. Not quite as good as a care package of homemade brownies, but they will have to do. There appear to be plenty of photos and videos to review at our so-called leisure.”

Interesting, Kirk thought. He looked forward to studying Christopher’s correspondence in private. He hoped they would tell him more about Shaun as a person.

Fontana flew down to the nearest computer terminal. “Duty be damned. I think we can take a few minutes out of our busy schedules to check out those e-mails right away.” She grinned at Kirk. “If that’s all right with you, Colonel.”

“Indulge yourself, Commander.” He figured that Christopher would say the same. “After what we’ve been through the past few days, I think we can all use a little taste of home.”

Too bad he wasn’t likely to have any messages from his real home.

Or century.

The crew members floated off to various terminals to enjoy their personal correspondence in relative privacy. Kirk was grateful that the other two astronauts were preoccupied with their own messages. That gave him a chance to skim Christopher’s messages without being watched too closely. He felt a twinge of guilt at reading Christopher’s e-mail but assumed that any assumption of privacy vanished when he took over the other man’s body. Besides, for all he knew, Shaun’s consciousness was residing at the back of his brain somewhere — if it hadn’t been erased or transferred elsewhere.

Was Shaun about to read these letters, too? Kirk hoped not. He knew from experience how hellish it could be to remain aware but helpless while another mind controlled your body.

I had enough of that on Platonius.

Shoving the unpleasant memory aside, he checked out the first missive.

“Hi, Dad!” the message began.

Kirk blinked in surprise. Shaun had children? Not too surprising, considering the astronaut’s age, he realized, but the filial salutation still hit him like a phaser on stun. He scanned the e-mails quickly, trying to get his bearings. Shaun seemed to have three kids, two in college and one much younger.

Color photos, attached to the letter, showed a Fourth of July picnic on a beach. The youngest boy, Rory, looked about eight years old.

The same age as David, Kirk thought.

Kirk had never met his own son. Carol preferred it that way. It dawned on Kirk that David — and his mother — would not be born for centuries. He found himself envying Shaun.

“Mom is taking us to Colonial Williamsburg,” Rory wrote. “She says hi.”

From the sound of things, Christopher’s kids were staying with their mom while he was in space. Kirk read the passage again. Just “hi” from the mom? He wondered what the story was with her and Shaun. Were they married, divorced, separated, or had they never lived together at all? Scrolling quickly through the e-mail, he didn’t find a separate note from the unnamed mother. The other letter appeared to be from Christopher’s sister — and his father.

Kirk chuckled to himself. He couldn’t help being amused to receive a personal message from Shaun’s dad, retired Air Force Captain John Christopher. Only four years had passed, by Kirk’s reckoning, since he had bid farewell to Captain Christopher on the bridge of the Enterprise, but of course, decades had passed for Shaun’s father, who had not even conceived his son the last time Kirk saw him. And now Kirk was occupying Shaun’s body!

Talk about a small universe, he thought. Or should that be a small space-time continuum?

What were the odds that they would cross paths like this again, despite a gap of centuries? Kirk had to wonder if some cosmic intelligence was playing games with him, or was it just that time-travel conundrums were like some kind of persistent infection? Maybe once you caught one, you were always susceptible to a relapse? Spock would surely have a theory on the subject, possibly involving temporal linkages or chroniton entanglement. McCoy would probably just chalk it up to a bizarre twist of fate.

Maybe the truth was somewhere in between.

Over at an adjacent terminal, Fontana looked up from her own correspondence. “How are the kids? They having a good time with Debbie this summer?”

“Sounds like it.” Kirk wished he could pump Fontana for more details on Christopher’s family but changed the subject instead. “How about you? Any exciting news from home?”

“Not unless you count my idiot brother breaking his ankle snowboarding. And my mom has a new gallery opening next weekend.” She snickered. “I told her I probably couldn’t make it.”

“I suspect she understood,” Kirk said, relieved to be talking about anything other than Shaun Christopher’s mysterious loved ones. He resolved to scour the e-mail more thoroughly later for whatever personal info he could glean from it. “You’ll have to catch her next show.”

He wondered if Fontana’s mom was a painter, a sculptor, or what.

Watch out, he warned himself. Don’t let on that you don’t know.

“I just hope she’s taking good care of Gus,” Fontana said. “God, I miss the little guy.”

Wait. Fontana had a child, too?

“Any message from him?” he asked.

She looked puzzled by the question. “Last time I checked, bulldogs weren’t much on letter writing.”

Damn, Kirk thought. I got it wrong again.

“Well, you never know,” he said, trying to recover. “You can do wonders with dog training these days.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” she said. “Very funny — not.”

O’Herlihy sniffled over at the far terminal. His back was turned to the other astronauts. Kirk thought he heard the man choke back a sob.

He seized on the distraction. “You all right, Doctor?”

“I’m fine,” O’Herlihy insisted. He rotated to face them. “Just a little choked up, that’s all.” He wiped a tear from his eye and licked his finger to make sure it didn’t get away. “What can I say? I miss my family.”

Kirk had already picked up on the fact that the doctor was a devoted family man. He had previously caught O’Herlihy mooning over home-video footage of a wife and a college-age daughter. They had looked like lovely women. He couldn’t blame O’Herlihy for missing them.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Fontana said. “Every-thing okay with Jocelyn and Tera?”

“They’re well,” he reported, although his hoarse voice betrayed how powerfully the letters from home had affected him. He made an effort to regain his composure. “My apologies. I shouldn’t get so emotional.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Kirk said. “After all, you’re human, not Vul—” He started to say “Vulcan” but caught himself. “I mean, you’re only human.”

“We all are,” Fontana added.

“I know,” O’Herlihy said. He stared plaintively at the screen before him. “They just seem so far away sometimes. Like I’m never going to see them again.”

Kirk tried to remember O’Herlihy’s biography but couldn’t bring up the details. He just remembered the name from the mission logs.

“You will,” Fontana promised. “They’ll be there waiting for you when we get back.”

And so will Christopher’s family, Kirk realized. They were millions of kilometers away now, but what about when he got to Earth? How in the world could he face Shaun’s own flesh and blood?

He couldn’t even tell them what had become of the real Shaun.

If he even still existed at all.