Story Notes:
Disclaimer: (c) 2007 Rabble Rouser/Harmony_bites. All rights reserved. This work may not be archived, reproduced, or distributed in any format without prior written permission from the author. This is an amateur nonprofit work, and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by Paramount or any other lawful holder.
This was the first story I ever wrote in about 2001 (and never revised, so keep that in mind). A special thanks to betas, Laura Michelle Hale and Seemag, for looking at the first two parts of this story and to Jat-Sapphire for poring through all of it and making this story much, much better—and for being my smut guru—but I'm still responsible for the clumsiness that remains. And thanks to Istannor for allowing an offscreen cameo.
Written as Rabble Rouser.
"Actual events are nowise so simply related to each other as parent and offspring are; every single event in the world is the offspring not of one, but of all other events, prior or contemporaneous, and will in its turn combine with all others to give birth to new: it is an ever-living ever-working Chaos of Being, wherein shape after shape bodies itself forth from innumerable elements." Thomas Carlyle.
v v v
Janeway was woken by the tremors of the ship. They had been getting more frequent and intense as the ship approached the source of the waves of time disturbance. She squinted at the chronometer and forced herself to come to full wakefulness. Dressing quickly, she grabbed the visor she would need to work in the ruddy light of the ship without strain.
She groaned as the hot air blasted her when her cabin door swooshed open. She could never acclimate herself to that heat. Lt. Paris told her she had only herself to blame. "Kate, if you just kept the temperature at ship normal you'd get used to it in no time." Janeway answered that she couldn't sleep in a furnace. The truth was she resented the necessity. The majority of the crew was human. Even if technically the ship were Vulcan and under a Vulcan command crew, she thought it unfair that the lighting and temperature were Vulcan-normal. Keeping her cabin's climate controls at Earth-normal was a way of exerting control over her own space at least. The only accommodation made to the human contingent was a compromise in the gravity and richness of the air.
Before heading to the bridge, Janeway went to check on several projects that were underway in the ship's labs. Because she was human, she had already risen as high as she could in the service. The Vulcan government felt uneasy that so many humans were serving on their ships and wanted to ensure they kept control. Humans could serve but not lead on Vulcan Science Academy ships. Like so many centrally made decisions, what may have seemed logical on a planetary headquarters was unworkable in the field, and the VSA ships quietly worked around the rules. Logic dictated that inefficient bureaucratic dictums be ignored.
As with many senior human officers on VSA ships, Janeway held far more responsibility than her rank and title would indicate. Although she held the rank of lieutenant, she acted unofficially as the ship's science officer. Vulcan prejudice and fears denied her the outward marks of her real authority. The result was a constant struggle to exert control over the Vulcans on her staff that wore on her.
Captain Tuvok acknowledged her presence on the bridge with a nod as Janeway took her place at the science station. Tom Paris swiveled and smiled a welcome before turning his attention back to the helm.
Janeway braced herself as the ship convulsed again. On the viewscreen the planet came into view looking as ghostly and dead as a lunarscape...or dead as Earth now looked. A pang passed through her at the thought. Even though Earth had been destroyed well before she was born, she felt a deep loss.
And now even Vulcan was threatened. The Romulans and Klingons had been waging a war of attrition against the Confederation for generations, and recently the Cardassians had added themselves to the list of enemies. If Vulcan would only lead, or had let Earth take the lead, Janeway thought acidly.
Vulcan had founded the Confederation out of the logical necessity of a military alliance. But Vulcan remained xenophobic, inward looking, and reluctant to give direction. Earth had called for a united Starfleet that would keep the peace for all member worlds. Vulcan had pushed instead for an alliance of separately maintained and autonomous fleets. With the destruction of Earth and most of her fleet battling V'Ger and the necessity of using what few ships were left to protect and supply far-flung colonies, there were now more humans serving on Vulcan ships than in their own fleet. Indeed, many Vulcan ships now found themselves crewed mainly by humans.
For all their vaunted pursuit of reason and logic, Vulcans aren't drawn to exploration as we are—they wouldn't be able to fill their ships without us. Of course, Vulcans might point out it's that very itch to explore that came back to bite us. She found it bitterly ironic that their ship, one of the first Vulcan ships to be given an Earth name, was named "Voyager"—the same name as the early space probe that returned to cause so much destruction as V'Ger.
The Captain's comm whistled. "Captain, Vorik here. Commander Stevek has rendered the officer on duty in the transporter room unconscious and beamed down to the planet."
Janeway turned to watch her Captain. Given how closely Humans had been working with Vulcans, all who served on her ships were aware of what for centuries had been closely guarded cultural practice. Vulcans did not speak of it to outworlders, but everyone on the ship, Human and Vulcan, knew the implications for First Officer Stevek of the death of his bondmate although no one had known he was this close to Pon farr. Janeway found it hard to understand why Stevek had allowed things to go so far without help. Had Stevek, with the instincts of an animal, run away to die?
Tuvok rose and snapped out orders as he moved to the turbolift. "Lt. Janeway, Mr. Paris, with me. T'Lel, call Ensign Kim, Lt. Commander T'Hela and Healer S'Fal, and tell them to meet us in the transporter room for landing party duty."
Two of the few unbonded Vulcan females on the ship, Janeway noted. She was curious as to why Tuvok included any Humans in the landing party. But then, maybe he felt that in his condition, Stevek would see any male Vulcans as a threat. He might even fear that Stevek in his madness would not respect the bond of any female Vulcans—and strangely enough, Tom Paris and Harry Kim were Stevek's closest friends on the ship—as she was T'Hela's. Stevek, along with T'Hela, had been one of the few Vulcans on the ship who had sought out the company of Humans and tried to understand their ways.
Janeway felt the familiar swirl of excitement at the prospect of a new planetfall. This was why Humans eagerly sought to serve on Vulcan ships in spite of the lack of opportunities for advancement, rigid Vulcan discipline, and harsh ship conditions. It was a chance to do more than supply Earth's remnant colonies—to be explorers rather than just truck drivers and cops. However, because the war was demanding more and more resources, some in the Vulcan government were calling for scaling back scientific exploration and research. Janeway feared a largely human-crewed VSA would be one of the first targets.
v v v
They beamed down to the same coordinates set on the transporter by Stevek, right to the center of the waves of time disturbance that had first drawn them to the planet. Those waves played havoc with readings from the ship. Unfortunately, it wasn't much better on the ground with their handheld tricorders. Silently the party fanned out in search of Stevek.
Above them was a cloudless sky full of stars. Before them were plains that stretched to the horizon. Ruins and indiscriminate rubble were scattered all about them. The most prominent feature was an irregular torus-shaped structure that glowed from some inner source.
Janeway tried not to observe T'Hela too obviously. Years of experience in serving with Vulcans in general, and T'Hela in particular, allowed her to detect the subtle signals of expression and posture that revealed her friend's disquiet. T'Hela was more readable than most Vulcans in any case. Janeway knew T'Hela felt strongly drawn to Stevek. She wondered why Stevek had not just discreetly sought out T'Hela.
But then, his bondmate's death had been both recent and violent. Janeway winced at the memory. Vulcans were not susceptible to the Klingon's mindsifter. So with Vulcans, they resorted to more "old-fashioned" means—torture and rape. T'Paya, her throat slit, was left where she would be sure to be found. Not surprising that all that had disrupted Stevek's cycle. No doubt Stevek was not thinking very clearly right now. Even a Vulcan would acknowledge the cause as sufficient.
Or he's just decided to die. Janeway forced her mind away from that line of thinking. For all that Vulcans denied to Humans they felt emotion, it was notable how often one half of a bonded pair did not long survive the death of the other. Healer S'Fal, on the other hand, as a disciple of Kolinahr, was beyond the passions of Pon farr. She could hardly serve as a mate for Stevek, but at least she could stand by coolly unaffected.
Janeway frowned down at her tricorder. "Captain, the source of the time distortion is coming from that one object, yet I'm not reading any energy emanating from it. How can that be?"
A BEFORE YOUR SUNS BURNED HOT IN SPACE AND BEFORE YOUR RACES WERE BORN, I HAVE AWAITED A QUESTION.
The powerful voice did not come from the structure—it surrounded them on all sides.
"Who are you?" Tuvok asked.
I AM THE GUARDIAN OF FOREVER.
BEHOLD.
A fine mist formed within the structure and thickened, finally shaping itself into images of Vulcan's often violent history. Quickly it jumped from to battle to battle, from massacre to massacre, in scenes that had a depressing sameness until an image disclosed Surak at the Conclave at Gol.
All along, she had been scanning the object. When she looked down to check her readings, she realized that by doing so she had been recording living history. Janeway sent up a silent prayer to whatever deities existed that what she was recording wasn't beyond the capacity of her tricorder.
The images then shifted, and as they did, Janeway bit back a cry. The history of Earth, her forever-lost homeland, appeared before them. The slow struggle from barbarism to the beginnings of a civilization on the brink of a space age flowed before them. All for nothing, Janeway thought bitterly.
Stevek suddenly erupted from behind one of the pillars. Faster than even another Vulcan could react, he flung himself within the portal. The images winked out as he disappeared within the mists.
"Captain!" Ensign Kim cried out. "I have lost contact with Voyager."
"Explain," demanded Tuvok.
"They've simply vanished," Kim replied.
HE HAS CHANGED WHAT WAS.
"Guardian, can we follow Stevek back in time and attempt to put things right again?" Janeway asked.
YES, MANY JOURNEYS ARE POSSIBLE. LET ME BE YOUR GATEWAY
"Guardian, if we succeed, will we be returned?" Tuvok asked.
ALL WOULD BE AS IT WAS.
Tuvok gathered all of them together. "Commander T'Hela: Lt. Janeway and I will attempt to find Commander Stevek and prevent or undo the damage he has done to our timestream. Ascertain how much time we can stay here based on supplies on hand, and if we do not return by the time that period is halfway through, then you and Lt. Paris must attempt the same, and then Mr. Kim and Healer S'Fal in their turn. Use your tricorders to make sure you arrive before Stevek does. T'Hela, you at least have the advantage of having been born and raised among humans. Healer S'Fal, if you must make the attempt, you will have to rely on Mr. Kim completely. He will be in charge. Do all of you understand?"
"Captain Tuvok," interjected S'Fal, "given the human propensity for violence and emotional indulgence..."
Tuvok cut her off. "Do not question my authority in this, S'Fal. I am aware that giving a Human authority over a Vulcan is unprecedented. However we are dealing here with Earth, her people and history. Given your background, I doubt your ability to have much insight into what may be required. I do not think you would be the right member of the pair to be in charge in spite of your seniority."
S'Fal inclined her head. "I submit to your logic, Captain."
"Good luck Captain, Kate," called Paris. T'Hela hailed them with the Vulcan salute. "Live long and prosper, Tuvok, Janeway."
Janeway and Tuvok stood before the gateway into time. Janeway moved her eyes between the images in the reformed mists and the tricorder to give the word when to leap. "Now!" Janeway cried, and she and Tuvok linked hands and leapt within.
v v v
Garish colors, a babble of voices and blares of horns, strange smells, and the jostling of the crowd engulfed them. In front of them was a wide thoroughfare split in half by a concrete island with a small squat structure sitting on it. Signs marked it as a military recruiting station. Surrounding them on all sides were giant gaudy billboards advertising everything from Calvin Klein Jeans to a movie called "ET: The Extraterrestrial." Janeway found she was still tightly gripping Tuvok's hand in her own and it took an effort for her to let go of that anchor.
"Do you recognize where we are, Lieutenant?"
"It looks like vids I've seen of Times Square in the New York City of the late Twentieth Century." Janeway grinned. "That would explain why we're managing to not draw much attention—probably the only other city in late Twentieth Century America that would take any such bizarre sight as us in stride would be San Francisco." Indeed, when they had appeared in the midst of the crowded street the only reaction had been a couple of double takes and a shake of a few heads—as if their owners were trying to clear themselves from a touch of vertigo. Even Tuvok's ears barely got a second look.
"For now, until we get oriented, I will have to follow your lead," Tuvok said. "What do you recommend?"
Janeway squared her shoulders and began to briskly tick off the order of business to Tuvok. "We must set up shop here as quickly as possible. That means rooms, electronic equipment, food, and especially..." Janeway moved her eyes over both their uniforms. "dressing like the natives. And that means money." At Tuvok's inquiring look she explained, "Tokens of exchange for work or goods traded. Think Ferengi—they have a similar economic system. I don't know how long we may be here but we're going to need 'seed money.'"
Janeway glanced down at her grandmother's heirloom ruby ring. She swallowed hard, knowing what duty required of her, and decided to hunt down a policeman and ask for directions to a reputable pawn shop and perhaps a safe place to stay for the night.
v v v
It wasn't too easy setting up shop. Fortunately it was late enough in the twentieth century to be able to get cheap and accessible electronic equipment. She and Tuvok quickly got jobs as programmers with enough in wages to sustain themselves and obtain the computers Janeway struggled to adapt to their need. She was grateful that at least they hadn't set down in the age of vacuum tubes.
She and Tuvok had checked police stations and hospitals as discreetly as they could. It wasn't as if they could just inquire about any recent patients or inmates with green blood and pointed ears. They placed a circumspect ad in some of the papers—not just for Stevek's sake but in case their shipmates had to come in search of them. Both of them chafed at the time it took them. As the weeks passed, Janeway feared that Stevek might have already arrived and stolen their future out from under them without their knowing. Janeway could only hope the Guardian had placed them where they could make a difference and hope the data in her tricorder could help them sort things out.
Janeway also had personal reasons for hoping this interlude would soon come to an end. All they could afford in those first weeks was a small, one room efficiency. In their close quarters, she was finding herself aware of Tuvok in a way she had never been before. He seemed to fill up the entire space. It seemed she couldn't turn sideways without brushing up against him. No matter how early she awoke, he'd be up already—there was no time or space in that apartment that was hers. Given the Vulcan need for privacy, her own territoriality, what she should have felt was annoyance. But the source of her disturbance was quite different. She'd notice his strength and grace as he went through Vulcan martial exercises. She would start as she caught herself staring at him. From the corner of her eye she'd sometimes catch him looking at her with an unsettling concentration that caught at her breath. She found it hard to sleep and found herself listening intently in the dark to the cadence of his breath going in and out from across the room.
Careful, Kate—getting involved with a bonded Vulcan—and your commanding officer is *not* smart. She thought ruefully that even though it had been a long time since she had been with someone, she didn't think she'd be so desperate that Tuvok would start looking good to her. She decided it must just be the stress they were under.
She had always found him stiff and inflexible on the ship. Although now that she was spending so much time with him, she saw nuances to his behavior she had never noticed. A kind of dry humor in his observations of life in Twentieth Century New York City, the way he was able to relate easily to their coworkers and pick up idioms at their job, or even the way he let her take the lead in so many of the decisions small and large they made here. Without other Vulcans around, he slowly seemed to be loosening up his rigid command demeanor. And he never once complained about an air that must of felt like soup, or the frigid temperature of their apartment. She hated to admit it, but he seemed to be adapting to their surroundings better than she was.
There were other complications. One day Tuvok returned from work with an eye swollen shut. He had been rousted by two police officers who claimed to find his movements suspicious. One of the officers made the source of his suspicions very clear. Janeway did not relish having to decode for Tuvok the references which she knew all too well from the literature of the period. When she finished explaining, Tuvok held himself very still and a tense silence mounted.
"Lieutenant Janeway. If you knew of this cultural proclivity of your people, you should have warned me that my dark coloring could place me in difficulty."
"It's not as bad here as it once was or ever will be again, and it's not something you could do anything about." Janeway knew her response was inadequate. She felt an acute embarrassment as well as anger at herself for not being upfront about the problem. Oh yes, she had known. She felt the shame turn into rage at Tuvok's condemning silence.
Janeway's face burned. Now at least you have a taste of the prejudice Humans on Vulcan ships endure every day. "It is unfair to judge us so! Earth is not Vulcan. Our geography is more varied, separating us and causing different challenges. You have never had the cultural variety; the different languages, ideologies, and creeds we had. You never had the unequal and uneven distribution and development of technology that lent itself to exploitation between different populations. Before Surak, your history is more violent then any on pre-Space Age Earth. You wiped out entire clans." Janeway's voice trailed off, embarrassed. Why did she feel the need to defend this?
"I will not be lectured this way. What do you know of Vulcan?" There was a clipped, stiffness to the words and a coldness in his face she hadn't seen since the ship. Janeway felt slapped.
She hurled words back in accusation. "What little you have allowed outworlders to know. Everything I could read in the ship's databanks and what I could glean from T'Hela. More than you have bothered to learn of Earth's cultures and history in spite of over two-thirds of your crew being human."
"This gets us nowhere," Tuvok snapped. "What progress are you making with the tricorder data?" he said softening his tone.
Janeway sighed. "I loaded the data into the sort program I created. There's still a lot of information I'll have to go through myself. It may be a while before I'm able to give you any leads into exactly what Stevek did."
"It is not enough to know what Stevek may have done. I need to know the full context of both futures in order to avoid our inadvertently interfering in the timeline ourselves."
v v v
Tuvok left to sleep, but Janeway was restless and wanted to continue sifting through the data. The information was fragmentary and she wasn't sure what sources the Guardian drew from. It was a reference in a late twenty-first Century history text that put the stream of events into context for her and where she found the first reference to what could be Stevek. A berserk individual had appeared from nowhere in 1982 and assaulted two people. He was shot by police and taken to an emergency room where his alien nature was discovered. Hard to miss the green blood at least.
Stevek had escaped from confinement, but not before several samples had been taken of his blood and several medical tests had been run. The incident had been classified, but a government scientist, Parul Singh, had a breakthrough in genetics as a result. Of course, the first chance to examine a truly alien physiology and genetic structure couldn't help but act as a Rosetta Stone. He had found a way, later lost and unknown in both futures, to alter the genetic material even after birth. He sold that knowledge to the highest bidders, and in instituting his discoveries, created a race of supermen. This had to be it—her timeline had no Eugenics War—no World War III. If Tuvok and Janeway couldn't prevent Stevek's capture, billions would die who hadn't died before.
Holding to Tuvok's instructions, she settled herself down to read how these wars affected later events. She felt more and more disquiet the further she read. Terrible technologies had been unleashed in those wars and terrible destruction. But those technologies lent themselves later to the opening up of the solar system and humans' discovery of the space warp over a century before it had been discovered in her own timeline. The terrible destruction had changed the very fabric and ethos of human culture and governance. The system created was not unlike how things had eventually developed on her own Earth except it had taken much longer. In her timeline, Vulcan had swept by Earth and catalogued her as early as the late 21st Century, but the Humans were not contacted because the Prime Directive forbade contamination of primitive, non-spacefaring cultures.
Janeway flipped back and forth between the different timelines. In one, a Starfleet command team of Kirk and Spock had saved the Earth more than once and managed to make the galaxy safe for IDIC—well, if not single-handedly, then as part of a Starfleet her timeline had barely dared envision. In that timeline, Earth still was inhabitable and the cornerstone of the Federation.
Together, Kirk and Spock had even made peace with the Klingons. (After, Janeway noted with satisfaction, Kirk had kicked them in the pants several times.) By her time, Klingons had been so closely integrated into the Federation they were even serving on her ships! Janeway choked at the thought of working side by side with a Klingon. She envied what she could read between the lines of the depth and commitment of the partnership those two, Human and Vulcan, had with each other. After Kirk's death, Spock went on to have a distinguished career as an ambassador, building a bridge between the Romulans and the Federation. Janeway bookmarked for later reading a joint biography of the pair by Istannor, apparently the premier historian of this "Federation."
Janeway looked through the records of her own timeline. She felt her throat constrict. In that timeline Spock, a union of Earth and Vulcan, had never been born. Kirk had died as a boy in a holocaust on Tarsus IV, awaiting a rescue that, without Starfleet, never came.
What do I do now? Will Tuvok see it as I do? That it is this future that is worth preserving—not just for Earth's sake but also for Vulcan's? Can Vulcan pride admit it needs Earth?
Janeway then searched to see if there was a Voyager in the other timeline. When she found the reference, she felt as if as if an iron hand had squeezed all the breath from her lungs. She felt profoundly disoriented.
She couldn't keep this to herself until morning. Janeway went and woke Tuvok. She watched him closely as she explained what she had found.
Janeway pointed to the text on the computer monitor. "See...here, there's no mistake. The timeline that includes the Eugenics War and World War III has First Contact between Earth and Vulcan in 2063—a full century earlier than it happened in our own future. Thus Earth was a founding member of the alliance, which in this case grew to become a more closely knit, expansive, and powerful Federation. One with a Starfleet strong enough to keep the peace.
Nor is the Kirk-Spock pairing the only example of the value of Human-Vulcan teamwork—simply the most famous and fruitful. Among others was a Human-Vulcan team that invented the transporter a century and a half before our timeline. There must be something about the combination of Vulcan logic and clarity of thought and human imagination and intuition. Almost everywhere you look, there are scientific advances and technologies crucial to the Federation that either were never developed by us or were delayed by decades. We still don't have anything close to their hologram/replicator technology, for instance.
There is something else I need to tell you. There is a 'Voyager' in this timeline as well. That Voyager is commanded by a Captain Janeway, with a Lieutenant Commander Tuvok listed as an officer. The ship is reported 'lost' in the most recent of the records recorded. If we choose this timeline, I'm not sure what will happen to us. Will yet another 'Janeway' and 'Tuvok' be born over three hundred years from now and find their destiny on Voyager? Will we cease to exist once returned by the Guardian to the future, having 'died' on that Voyager?
Tuvok considered her questions. "It may be that we will be stranded in Twentieth Century New York. Furthermore I am not certain that the Guardian will send our crewmates after us or that we could intercept them in time. It may be we cannot even 'choose' this other timeline. Our intervention may cause it to branch yet again. And I am not convinced that this timeline is necessarily the desirable one."
Tuvok raised a hand to preempt her interruption. "We do not know if in the long run, in terms of millennia rather than centuries, our own timeline might not prove the more desirable one."
"Surely logic demands we choose based on what we know rather than on speculation," Janeway said impatiently, immediately regretting the passion in her voice. That's no way to reach Tuvok.
"I know it is not entirely logic that makes you advocate for a future with a Starfleet, with a living Earth, where you obtain a command of your own," Tuvok replied dryly.
Janeway stiffened. "If we choose this timeline, I will not be choosing that, but exile from my family, friends, time and place or very possibly non-existence," she answered quietly.
"If we choose this timeline, we choose what has never been meant to be. Surely the logical choice is to preserve the original time stream," Tuvok countered.
"It is not the 'logical' choice: the conservative choice, the safe choice, yes. How do you know which future was meant to be? You know that the Confederation is dying—the three Empires will crush Vulcan between them—it is only a matter of time. We can only do what any sentient creature should do. Choose life, and hope. For others even if not for ourselves."
Tuvok actually sighed—a sign of how deeply disturbed he was. Janeway felt a twinge of sympathy at the sound. She held herself stiffly. She could not afford to express a thread of feeling for him. Everything depended on her seeming to be motivated solely by reason and presenting a tightly woven net of logic and fact. The rapport they had built here could help Tuvok trust what she was saying, but only if there was not a whisper of emotional manipulation.
"I must meditate to assimilate and integrate all this information. You will abide by my decision?" Tuvok looked at Janeway for the first time with speculation, as if he was not sure of her answer.
Janeway locked her eyes on his. "Yes, I will."
As she gave her answer, she saw Tuvok's features relax. It was easy, for once, to relinquish control to him. Now that it was a matter of choice.
v v v
"Well, Kathryn. It seems that to save Vulcan we must abandon her and logic itself."
Janeway started at the use of her first name and finally expelled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Respect, Tuvok, but being human does not mean abandoning logic. Logic is a way of processing reality. We simply refuse to believe that emotion does not have a place in that process—and a place in making the reality of life more than mere existence. Nor is it that Vulcan is lost, but rather one is gained that allows a role for Earth and so allows its own preservation. It is not that Earth's way or Vulcan's way is better. It's that we are stronger together. Like Kirk and Spock. Or," she added softly, "like the two of us. Don't both logic and IDIC demand exploring such alternatives?"
"It seems we shall have plenty of time to do so," Tuvok said resignedly.
They would have to remain here for the rest of their lives. Janeway saw Tuvok finger the tips of his ears. So many changes will have to be made. Can he really adjust to human ways long term?
Tuvok quirked an eyebrow. "I expect we will live in interesting times, and I think we have much to learn from each other. I hope you do not expect me to learn how to smile?"
Janeway allowed herself a chuckle. "Hmm. Maybe we should work on putting contractions into your sentences first."
To be continued