The truck heaved to a halt outside the white house. Gillian put the parking brake on and locked both doors, then headed up the driveway to her house. The smell of fresh paint all but obscured the faint scent of marijuana in the air. She sighed. Deedee's loser husband Barry had been visiting. She'd have to fight with Deedee again. She scanned the front of the building, looking to see new paint. The porch light turned on as she mounted the first step and she heard Deedee call "Don't touch the railings, I've repainted them," and opened the door.
Deedee was a petite woman with dark hair and generous curves. There was a small amount of family resemblance to Gillian's sister Annabelle but little to Gillian. "How was your date?" Gillian held up the pizza box and Deedee laughed. "I knew it was bad when you were home at this hour, but you didn't eat?"
"I'll tell you the gory details after the kids are in bed." To her surprise, the kids were already in their pyjamas, watching TV. They were happy enough to share the pizza though. Once Deedee tucked them into bed, she and Gillian ate the remains of the pizza at the table in the tiny kitchen and Gillian related her encounters with the charming but strange Jim Kirk who lied every time he opened his mouth and his enigmatic but sincere friend. I'm out of time, he'd said. How could time travellers be out of time? He had sounded most sincere when telling the most outrageous statements. And seemed most awkward when attempting to act normal.
Deedee was fascinated. "So, you think he might be a time traveller from the future?"
Gillian frowned into her tea cup. "It sounds unbelievable. I guess I thought time travellers would be better organised but the other alternative is they are both certifiable. Which I suppose is a possibility."
"Are you going to go with them?"
"If they can prove they are from the future, yes. I need to save George and Gracie."
"What about Uncle Mike?" Deedee asked.
"Um, you could write him some letters from me. I know you know how to forge my signature." Deedee flushed red and her eyes dropped to the table. "I'm so sorry about that. You know I am. I'm going to pay you back. I redid the railings and I sanded them first this time."
"Did Barry help you?"
Gillian was surprised at her head shake. "No, that was my other news. He signed the divorce papers. And gave me full custody"
"That's fantastic news," said Gillian, delighted.
"Yes." Deedee bit her lip. "I mean, I had to be nice to him first and I told him you threatened to throw me out of the house if I didn't get them signed so he might come round to your work again. But he signed."
Gillian grinned. She was prepared to throw Barry out of the Institute as many times as necessary for him to get the message, assuming she was still here. She hoped Deedee hasn't let him knock her up again. She could start at Nursing School next year once her youngest was in school.
She'd write a few letters herself, she thought, saying the important stuff. She snuck a look at Deedee and wondered how she'd go without Gillian here to help her. She'd come so far from the night she'd turned up bruised and bleeding on Gillian's doorstop. Desperate for help but out of options due to all the times she'd stolen from her family. Even Gillian's parents wouldn't let her stay overnight anymore.
After another rehash of the day, she went to her room. The doorknob came loose in her hand. Barry must have jimmied the lock when he was here. She turned at Deedee's gasp. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. I swear." Gillian pushed the door open, unsurprised at the mess in her room. All her drawers hung open, the contents rummaged through. The jar she kept loose change in was empty. She sighed, it would take a while to clean up, but she didn't keep anything valuable in there anymore. Not while Deedee lived there. She picked her way across the room, jiggling the drawer until it slid in, folding her clothes and stacking them in piles. To her surprise, Deedee, instead of whining about how it wasn't her fault, returned with a bag and picked up the broken pieces of the frame around Gillian's favourite photo. Gillian and Tony the morning he left for boot camp, arm slung over shoulder, grinning into the camera with the careless surety of youth.
As they were fitting the final panels in place the next morning, Spock heard Commander Scott yell "Admiral, we have a problem." And Kirk turned on the visuals to the exterior of the ship. Dr Taylor was yelling "Admiral Kirk, Can you hear me. I need your help" and banging on the landing gear of the 'Bounty'. Kirk beamed her aboard and Spock decided that qualified as contamination of the time line. He would not have to object if she came with them on their journey home.
"Hello, Alice. Welcome to Wonderland." Kirk introduced Dr Taylor to the ship. Spock wondered why he called her Alice, but the thought triggered a memory, one of the old ones not reinforced by the Reldai. One of his mother's favourite books, Alice in Wonderland had the heroine of the story fall into a strange world "Oh, it's true, what you said," breathed Dr Taylor.
"Yes it is. I'm glad you're here but I must admit you picked a hell of a time to drop in. Oops, take it easy. We need your help." Kirk helped Dr Taylor who had tripped getting off the transporter pad.
"Is any of this real?" Dr Taylor was gazing, amazed at her surroundings.
"Yes it's real, take a look." Kirk showed Dr Taylor the immediate vicinity of the ship, including where Mr Scott was assembling the walls of the tank.
"Storage tanks for your whales. We'll bring them up the same way we brought you up…"
She interrupted "Admiral, they're gone."
"Gone?" Kirk echoed.
"Last night I wasn't told. They're in Alaska by now."
Kirk turned away, head dropped. "Damn."
"But they're tagged like I told, you. I mean, you can go find them right?" Dr Taylor's distress pitched her voice higher.
"We can't go anywhere," said Kirk, despondent.
"What kind of a spaceship is this?" demanded Dr Taylor.
"It's a spaceship with a missing man," lectured Kirk, stung at the implication of criticism.
"Admiral, full power has been restored," Spock interrupted.
"Thank you Mr Spock."
He stood in front of her with his Vulcan features uncovered for the first time. "Dr Taylor. Welcome aboard." He could feel her shock from across the room. She had not had any idea. She forced the emotion down and turned her attention to the task at hand. Something any Vulcan woman would do without thinking, he found it arousing.
A transmission form Uhura regarding Chekov's whereabouts interrupted the conversation. "Admiral, are you there?" came Uhura's voice over the comm system.
"Yes Uhura. What's wrong?" asked Kirk.
"I've located Chekov, sir. They're taking him to emergency surgery now," Uhura reported.
"Where?" asked Kirk.
"Mercy Hospital" This meant nothing to any of the enterprise crew but Dr Taylor knew the location. "That's in the Mission District."
"They report his condition as critical; he's not expected to survive." Uhura's voice displayed her upset at this thought. Dr McCoy climbed the ladder into the transporter deck "Jim, you've got to let me go in there. Don't leave him in the hands of 20th century medicine."
Spock broke in, "Admiral, may I suggest that Dr McCoy is correct. We must help Chekov." Spock moved towards closer, catching Dr Taylor's attention at the same time. She couldn't stop staring and took a deep breath.
"Is that the logical thing to do, Spock?" Kirk asked
"No. But it is the human thing to do." Spock replied and Kirk responded with a relieved smile. "Right."
Kirk turned to Dr Taylor "Will you help us?"
She dragged her eyes away from Spock and looked at Kirk. Being the focus of her attention pleased Spock though he knew it was because she had never seen a Vulcan.
"How?" she asked Kirk but McCoy answered and garnered her attention "Well, we're gonna have to look like physicians." The three begin to plan Chekov's rescue.
As Mr Scott attempted to triangulate the radio transmissions from the Navy to transport Dr McCoy, Admiral Kirk and Dr Taylor to the Mission District, Gillian turned to Kirk with a query. "How many ships are collecting whales from this time period? Aren't they able to help?"
Kirk gave her an ingenuous smile. "It's an emergency situation. A probe from a race of ...Space Whales, I presume is attempting to communicate with the Humpbacks. Whatever method of communication they are using is disrupting the global power grid all over Earth and evaporating the oceans. People are dying and it will continue if we don't take back some Humpback Whales to reassure them. I'm sure there will be attempts to repopulate the species with preserved DNA..."
Gillian broke in. "You have a data bank of whale DNA? Is it just Humpbacks which are extinct or all whales?"
Spock replied "There is no data bank. I believe the Admiral speaks of attempting to extract DNA from samples of whale bone. All whales are extinct, some through overhunting, others from nuclear fallout…" He broke off at the discordant jangle of the keys Gillian drew from her pocket. "The Cetacean Institute has a DNA bank containing blood samples from over 1300 whales. I took many of them myself during my doctorate. The samples are in a cryogenic freezer unit, about 4 feet square. It you could connect them to power source here on this ship…"
Spock took the quick sketch she made of the location of the freezer unit, and performed the calculations to transport Commander Uhura to Dr Taylor's office in the Cetacean Institute. She used the communicator 3.2 minutes later and Mr Scott beamed her and the freezer aboard. It had not been a difficult assignment; the label on the front of the freezer matched the code Dr Taylor had given them. Mr Scott finished installing the tank while Sulu walked to Dr Taylor's truck. He removed the battery from under the bonnet and searched the cab for loose items. The joggers passed from sight and he signalled and Spock transported the truck into the buffers. The truck's pattern would deteriorate over time but might be salvageable. Spock sent the signal to fuse Chekov's phaser into a mass of metal then carried the freezer from the transporter to a cargo area where Mr Scott had attached the freezer to the truck battery which made an acceptable power source for the freezer. Even if it hadn't, fresh dried blood was a better source of DNA than dried bones.
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