A/N: Thank you to those who left reviews!

CHAPTER 3

Chicago was enjoying a rare warm day for February, so the Pullman car quickly became stuffy after it pulled into the station. Trip miserably recalled that it would be another decade or so before the invention of air-conditioning, and not until at least the middle of the next century before it was in common use.

He tugged at the starched collar of his shirt before deciding to remove his frock coat - the era's longer version of a suit jacket - which he tossed over a chair. He thought he looked rather dapper in the Gilded Age apparel, but even his dress uniform would be more comfortable in this heat. He couldn't get used to all the layers. Not counting the coat he had just taken off, he was wearing a button-down shirt, tie, trousers, and a vest, and that wasn't even including the undergarments. He was glad that they had been able to keep their boots. Traveling all the way across the country with feet that hurt from ill-fitting shoes wouldn't have been any fun.

He chuckled as he recalled the interest of Flagler's valet in his and Jon's uniforms. The valet, who had been assisting them as they tried on their new clothing, had been impressed by the precise stitching of the dress blues, surmising that they had been sewn on a Singer machine. They had told him that their clothing was a new style of merchant marine apparel, which had been made in the Orient. Now those Starfleet dress uniforms, along with T'Pol's Vulcan robe and Travis' standard duty uniform, were packed away in suitcases stowed in a cupboard on the Pullman.

"Too bad we can't get off here for a while," Trip said as he pushed back a curtain and opened a window. "I could use some fresh air."

"I don't want to risk leaving the car if we don't have to," Jon said. He came to stand next to Trip to watch the throngs of people hurrying to and fro on the platform outside. "It would be just our luck we'd come back and it had been moved somewhere else."

T'Pol, Trip noted, had put on a hat that matched her dove gray dress before joining them to look out the windows. She definitely wasn't leaving anything to chance; the long ribbons from the hat's brim that tied under her chin more than adequately covered the tips of her ears.

"It is best that we minimize our interaction with the people of this time," T'Pol said.

She had no sooner finished speaking than there was a jolt that almost knocked them off their feet. Trip's hand shot out to grab T'Pol's arm to keep her from falling, while Jon steadied himself by holding onto one of the heavy chairs. A lot of the furniture, Trip belatedly realized, was bolted to the floor, the better to keep it from sliding around or tipping over.

Travis rushed into the car. "Sorry about that, sirs. They just told me they were getting ready to move us to a siding where we'll hook up with a different engine for the next leg of the trip. Here's a brochure."

As Travis handed a pamphlet to Jon, the car began to move backward.

"Come on," Trip said to T'Pol. "It might be safer to sit while this is going on."

They took seats in chairs on either side of the small table midway down the car. Jon and Travis sat in armchairs nearby.

"The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe," Jon read, raising his voice to be heard over the rumbling of the train engine.

Travis jumped up to close the window, lessening the noise as well as keeping out the smoke and ash that was spewing from the engine's stack several cars ahead of them.

"Santa Fe is in New Mexico," Trip noted. "That should take us to the southwestern part of the country, shouldn't it?"

"Eventually," Jon said as he looked at the brochure. "If this map is correct, we're headed for either St. Louis or Kansas City."

"St. Louis," Travis said as he sat down. At the others' inquiring stares, he added, "One of the porters told me that the more southerly route bypasses a lot of slow freight traffic that would hold us up around Kansas City."

Jon continued, "So, from St. Louis, it's west to Colorado, then south, and then west again. After crossing the Rocky Mountains, we'll wind up in Southern California near Los Angeles. After that, we'll have to go north to San Francisco." He frowned. "The map isn't very accurate. The scale is wrong, for one thing."

"Maps of this time weren't known for their accuracy," Travis said.

Something about the route still seemed off to Trip. "Shouldn't we be able to take a more direct route to San Francisco?"

"You mean the original Transcontinental Railway," Travis said with his customary enthusiasm. "That's what I thought, too, but apparently there's been a lot of snow in the mountains that way. We could be delayed or even stuck."

"So," Jon said, "it might take longer to get to San Francisco than we'd anticipated."

"It is logical," T'Pol said, "if the alternate route eliminates the possibility of longer delays that cannot be predicted." One of her eyebrows lifted. "I understand now why Mister Flagler has done well in business. The alacrity and precision with which he made preparations for this journey, along with consideration of travel hazards, are impressive."

"None of these robber baron guys would have made any money if they weren't smart," Trip said.

"Not to mention they had plenty of money to do things they wanted to do, like send us on this trip," Travis said.

Trip knew that was correct. He had seen the papers Flagler had provided, authorizing their travel as being of the highest priority, which Jon now carried in a pocket in his vest. They had carte blanche as far as where they needed to go by train. Flagler had told them that he had also arranged to send telegrams ahead of them to rail personnel along the line to expedite their journey. The relatively fast method of communication by telegraph also no doubt explained how Flagler knew to book the southern route because of bad weather in the Rocky Mountains.

The car came to a halt with another sharp jolt and a loud bang. Shouts from workers could be heard outside as the Pullman was unhooked from the rest of the train.

Jon passed the brochure to T'Pol. Trip leaned across the table, trying to look at the pamphlet, but all he could make out was a network of lines crisscrossing a map of the continental United States. The majority of railroad lines were concentrated in the eastern half of the country. The farther west they went, the fewer options they would have for rail travel.

T'Pol slid the brochure across the table to Trip before reaching for a small cloth bag.

"Interesting purse," Trip said.

"It is called a reticule," she informed him as she opened it.

Darned if she didn't look like a lady from this time period, he thought, admiring her smart traveling outfit of shirt, floor-length skirt, tailored jacket, matching gloves and hat, and the baglike drawstring reticule from which she was taking a pencil and paper. He watched as she wrote something in tiny, precise script on the paper.

Feeling his gaze, she looked at him and said, "It would be a good idea to have some written notes in case the veracity of our purpose for this trip is questioned."

"Just make sure they're in English and not Vulcan," Trip told her with a grin. He settled back in his chair to look at the pamphlet. "There's quite the schedule printed here, complete with arrival and departure times at all the stops."

"Yeah," Travis said. "The railroad companies got together and set up standardized times across the country. Before they did that, train travel was a mess. Every town kept its own time and-" He stopped speaking to look toward the sleeping berths at the front of the car.

Trip, following Travis' gaze, could see a shimmer next to the folded-up beds.

Jon had noticed the disturbance as well. He got to his feet. "Daniels?" he asked.

"Yes." The buzzing sound accompanying the forming image was almost swallowed by the rumble of the train's engine despite all the windows being closed, but Daniels' voice was, for the most part, understandable. "I'm still having difficulty getting through to you. I can't believe the Tlibrednav can cause this much trouble."

"For you or for us?" Jon asked.

"For me. And you, of course." The image solidified. Daniels gave a sigh of relief. "Finally!" He looked around. "I've always wondered what the inside of one of these was like. We don't have any visual records of it in my time. They were all lost when- Oops! Sorry. I can't tell you about that."

"That's fine," Jon said tersely, "because we don't care about that."

Trip silently commiserated with Jon. Daniels could be damned annoying at times, what with his condescending attitude because he was from the future and knew things that they didn't.

"What we're concerned about," Jon continued, "is how you're going to get us back to our time."

"I haven't quite got that figured out," Daniels admitted. "But you're on your way to San Francisco, so that's good."

Trip got to his feet to stand next to Jon. "Why San Francisco?"

"There's an energy vortex there," Daniels said.

"A vortex," Jon repeated. "You mean like a whirlpool?"

"That's a simplistic description, but accurate," Daniels said. "Suffice it to say that there are a great number of energy vortices on Earth. You haven't learned how to utilize them even in your time, but we in the thirty-first century have."

"Like the Bermuda Triangle?" Trip asked. "We still haven't explained that."

"That's one of them, yes. But I've said all I can say on that topic," Daniels said impatiently. "Just get to San Francisco. I hope to have everything arranged by then."

Trip noted that Daniels' image was more solid and steady than it had been when he'd appeared to them in Flagler's library. "You seem to be gettin' the hang of overcoming the Tlibrednav technological interference."

"Not as much as I'd like," Daniels said.

"What about Enterprise?" Jon asked suddenly. "Is the ship all right?"

With a pang, Trip realized that he hadn't thought about the ship, other than how they were going to get back to it. He could imagine the consternation caused by their disappearance. Malcolm, who had been left in charge, was probably fit to be tied. He could also imagine the agony Jon must be going through, worried about what might be happening to the ship and its crew.

"The ship is fine," Daniels said. "I briefed Lieutenant Reed on the situation. He's not going to open fire on Tlibrednav. Well, at least not yet," he added with a smirk that reminded Trip of Malcolm.

"Daniels!" Jon said warningly, taking a step closer to the apparition.

"Don't worry about it," Daniels hurriedly assured him. "If I work this right, none of this will have happened. At the-"

Daniels' image disappeared with a loud pop.

"Maybe I was wrong about him gettin' the hang of that," Trip said.

The car jerked backward. Trip and Jon quickly returned to their seats.

"From what Daniels said, he's working on a way to get us home," Jon said. He thumped his fist on the chair's armrest. "I hate that all we can do is go along for the ride."

Trip knew Jon didn't like the feeling of not having control over what was happening. Jon was a decisive, take-charge kind of guy, which was one of the reasons he was such a good captain. This situation had to be driving him crazy.

The fact that Daniels was trying to help them out of their predicament, instead of asking them to help prevent some Temporal Cold War act of subterfuge as had been the case in the past, didn't mean they had to like it. Jon, to judge by the scowl on his face, obviously didn't.

Trying to cheer him up, Trip said, "You have to admit that it's a pretty nice ride ... for the time."

Jon gave him a half-hearted smile. "Have I told you how much thinking about time travel makes my head hurt?"

"You get a good night's rest," Trip told him, "and everything will look better tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Jon said, then surprised Trip by laughing softly. "At least we're heading in the right direction – in more ways than one."

It took Trip a moment to understand what Jon meant, but he smiled when he realized Jon was right. Tomorrow was in the future, which was where they needed to go, and they were headed for San Francisco, which is where they needed to be. It might be a slow journey compared to warp speeds, but they were moving forward on those two fronts. All they could hope for was that they didn't run into any problems on the way, and that Daniels came through.

A few more days, Trip thought, and they'd be back on Enterprise.