As he got better, Scott began to wonder what he would do when he got out of the hospital. Nothing was familiar to him, so he would have to start from the very beginning in order to get a job. He wondered what he was good at. Meanwhile he got to know Tom quite well, and his family, too, as they came to visit. His wife, Melissa, was petite, blonde, pretty, and vivacious. His three children were young and active but polite and well-mannered. The oldest was a 12 year old boy named Philip, a tall, quiet, freckled child who resembled his mother and, according to his father, was torn between two loves, baseball and airplanes. Morganna was a nine year old beauty with large, angelic blue eyes and long, curling brown hair, but she was, according to her mother, a mischievous little prankster, besides being extraordinarily intelligent at math and languages. The baby of the family, two year old Shirley with pale blond curls and soft brown eyes, was, everyone agreed, an angel. When this little family learned that Scott was lacking friends, relatives, and a place to live, they decided, after a whispered conference, to have him come stay with them.
"Now, then, I couldna come an' intrude on ye," he protested.
"You're right," Tom smiled. "It would be impossible for you to intrude. Now as an honorary member of the family, it would be your rightful place in our house."
"Please, Mr. Scotty," Morganna begged.
"It would be just great if you could come," Philip interjected quietly.
Scotty looked over at Tom and Melissa. There was no note of hesitation or uncertainty on their faces. Finally he smiled. "All right," he agreed. "And it's thanking you very much I am. But I reserve th' right to kick meself out if it becomes a problem."
Tom and Scott were discharged from the hospital on the same day, and Scott was installed in the Churches' home. Soon everyone in the family was calling him Scotty, a name which pleased him a good deal, for he seemed to vaguely remember friends calling him that, especially the one called Kirk.
"The first thing," Tom said, "is to get you a job."
Scotty smiled wryly. "I dinna ken what kind of job I'm fit for, and no records have been found t'indicate what I've done. What do ye do for a man who has no identity? I canna get—what did ye call it?—social security because I haven't a number, ye've got t'have records, I think, t'get your unemployment…"
"Everything's being done to find some record of your identity," Melissa said. "You're Scottish; inquiries are being made in England and Scotland. You appear to be a military man; inquiries are being made among the military also."
Indeed a large scale search was being executed across two continents, but little was found by way of results. Many Scotts and Scots were located; none knew of this particular Montgomery Scott, nor was his face recognized by anyone in search of missing relatives or friends. Meanwhile the Churches found that Scott fit in well with their little family. Morganna was thrilled with his Scottish accent, and began to adopt it herself. Shirley, usually shy around strangers, loved him. And their parents often found Scotty working with Philip on his airplane models. Scotty was constantly marveling over all these old planes, like the Boeings and Concordes and fighter planes Philip loved, and puzzling Tom and Melissa with his words. The newest planes seemed old to him, the new spaceshuttle, readying to go into space, he called antiquated, even primitive. It perplexed them, and him, to no end. He had no idea how he knew so much about the latest flight technology and why it seemed so obsolete to him he kept coming up with strange words to describe technology, like "matter-antimatter," which Tom told him was impossible because it would create such a large reaction—larger than a nuclear bomb. At which Scotty snorted, "Nuclear! Those old nuclear bombs weren't worth what it cost t'build 'em. Good thing we came up wi' photon torpedoes. There's nae way we could do anythin' wi' nuclear bombs. They'd just crash up against th' shields…" He stopped, shook hs head, looked bewildered. "What was I talkin' about?"
"I have no idea," Tom said, eyes wide. "Photon torpedoes, shields…you called nukes old, as if…" He trailed off, staring at Scotty.
"As if," Philip, who'd been following the conversation, said, "he was from the future."
"Philip," Melissa said gently, "I think you've been reading too much science fiction."
"Well, why not?" the boy demanded. "Just because time travel has never been done doesn't mean it can't be done. In the future, things like that could be possible. I've been thinking about that. Scotty doesn't have anybody here who knows him, but everybody has got somebody who knows him, unless he was sent from the future into the past. And he keeps talking about things from now as if they were really old. Like we would talk about a—a horse and buggy, or one of those really big boats with sails like they used hundreds of years ago."
Melissa was about to protest again, but Tom stopped her. "Who's to say that's not so? After all, we don't know all of what's possible? What do you think, Scotty?"
"Ships," Scotty murmured. Then he looked up abruptly. "I say it could be possible. But if it's so, it's my friends who'll have to be findin' me, because there's nothing I can do here to find them."
"What do you mean, ships?" Philip said. "Navy?"
"I've got an image in me mind of a ship, a sleek, white lady. I love her, this ship. She's verra bonny." He picked up a pencil, took a napkin from the napkin holder on the table and sketched on it, drawing, erasing, scrutinizing, frowning and finally smiling in satisfaction at the finished result. "She's like this."
The three others leaned forward over the table to look, expecting to see some sort of ship that floats. Instead they saw something that did not even resemble a ship as they knew it. A saucer-shaped hull in the front and two slender cigar shapes in the back were attached to the stouter cigar below them. It was only a rough drawing, but it looked real…it looked legitimate, not like something invented by a crazed brain. They stared at it, then they stared at him.
"That's not a ship," Melissa blurted.
"Yes, it is!" Philip exclaimed. "Look at it! It's a space ship! How big is it?"
"I'm not sure…" Scotty stared at the picture he'd drawn, and something tickled his brain. "Four—four hundred people?"
"Four hundred?" Tom exclaimed.
"A space ship?" Melissa echoed.
Philip was already scrambling for a larger piece of paper and colored pencils. "Can you draw it better?"
"Weel, I'm nae an artist, I know that, but I'm thinking I can make technical drawings." He chose a grey pencil. "I dinna remember what she's called or what she's there for, but I ken every meter of her, inside an' out." He drew carefully, with Philip watching his every stroke of the pencil. "This is the saucer hull, th' main part o' th' ship. The wee bulge at th' top is the bridge, where they control here, and the rest is composed of decks, wi' th' crew quarters, sickbay… These two are nacelles, where th' matter-antimatter engines are. I'm in charge of th' engines, I can make 'em work better than anybody."
"You are remembering a lot," Melissa said.
"Aye, in pieces. It's like—" he paused a moment, "it's like a piece of material that's mostly holes. I can remember threads of things here an' there, but the most of it is gone. I can remember th' ship because she's verra important to me, but why she's there, when she exists…all gone. It'll probably come back, as this is comin' back." Several minutes later he held up the finished drawing. It was in much more detail than the first sketch.
"Does it have a name?" asked Melissa.
"She does…but I dinna remember it."
Both Tom and Philip remembered something at the same time and started to speak simultaneously. Tom gestured to his son. "Go ahead, Phil."
"Those clothes you were wearing when they found you in the park," the boy said excitedly. "Could they be some kind of uniform for your ship?"
"Hmm. I think so. You want t' get them? Top bureau drawer."
He dashed off, and Tom said, "I just recalled the man you called Kirk. Do you think he's your captain? You called him a commander several times."
"Captain Kirk," Scotty said. "That's him. He belongs t' th' ship as if he was born there."
Philip came dashing back, the red shirt, black pants and boots in his arms. Scotty took them, held up the shirt, traced the symbol on the front. "Engineering. That's what red is for. Colors, Tom! Green and gold are command, red is engineering and security, blue is science."
"That's logical," Melissa commented. "If you have four hundred people on your ship, you'll want to know what a person does if you need to consult him."
Scotty suddenly smiled. "Logical. What does that word remind me of? Some laddie who's always using it, thinks humans're faulty because we're not perfectly logical. He's a wee strange…"
