As he ran down the ship's corridor, Alexander felt his anxiety grow in intensity. Footfalls and palpitations seemed to sound off in unison, and beads of sweat began to roll down his neck. The little Klingon was so preoccupied with his father's sudden change in behavior and his own fear that he didn't see Counselor Troi approaching. Everything came to an abrupt halt when the two ran right into each other.
Seeing the look on the child's face and sensing the mixture of emotions from the boy, she asked calmly, "Alexander, is there anything wrong?"
"It's Father," Alexander panicked with tears forming in his eyes. "He's acting real weird. He didn't yell at me when I got a D on my test. He was acting all nice and ..."
"And what?"
"I heard him talking to himself."
"He was probably thinking out loud.," Troi replied.
"He was standing there talking to someone who isn't there! There's gotta be something wrong with him!"
Troi took a second to think, and she remembered the three officers that had already come to her reporting that Worf was behaving strangely. She also recalled the brief sensation she had experienced and dismissed in the Rediroom. Realizing there may very well be something wrong, she drew in a deep breath and knelt before the mini alien.
"I don't think there's anything to worry about, Alexander," she said primarily to comfort the boy. "Your father may be under a lot of stress right now. Why don'choo go and play; I'll see what I can do, all right?"
Alexander simply nodded before running off, and Troi started for the nearest
turbo lift. In a matter of seconds, she made it to the Rediroom and pushed the button that activated a high pitched beep, informing those inside that someone was about to enter.
Hearing the pulse, Piccard leaned back in his chair and called, "Come."
The doors slid open, and Troi stepped in. "Captain," she began, "I need to talk to you."
"Of course, Counselor, sit down."
"Captain, I'm very concerned about Lieutenant Worf. Ensign Parsons, Chief Keavert, and Lieutenant Stewart have all come to me reporting that Worf couldn't find his quarters; Alexander is all upset that his father is acting strangely and talking to himself."
"Could he have possibly contracted a parasite during his last Away mission?"
"I don't think so. During the briefing, I sensed something, disorientation and. intense fear."
"If you sensed something was wrong, why didn't you report it at the briefing?" Piccard was curious.
"I didn't think anything of it. I believed he might be under a great deal of stress. Once I saw him recoil from Beverly's tricorder, and when I heard all these reports, I became quite concerned. unless we do something about it, Worf could suffer a mental breakdown."
"What do you suggest we do, Counselor?"
"Captain, I would like to suggest that Worf undergo a series of psychological and physiological tests."
"Agreed." Piccard tapped his com-badge. "Piccard to Lieutenant Worf." There was no response, and Piccard spoke more sternly. "Mr. Worf, acknowledge!"
"Uh . . . Worf here." Sam's voice emulated from the captain's badge.
"Will you join Counselor Troi and me in Sick Bay?"
"I'm comin'," the leaper answered timidly.
Piccard and Troi had entered the ship's medical facility to find Dr. and Wesley Crusher engaged in casual conversation.
"Captain," the young, former cadet turned to acknowledge his friend and role model.
"Mr. Crusher," Piccard simply answered as he faced Wesley. "I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to visit with you while you've been on board."
"I understand, Sir," Wesley nodded. "You're a busy man."
"And I'm afraid that my being here now isn't for social purposes either. Counselor Troi and I are concerned that there may be something wrong with Worf. Doctor, we would like you to run a series of tests on him."
"What's the matter with Worf?" Dr. Crusher asked as she approached the captain.
"We are hoping the tests will give us an answer," Troi added.
Concerned for the alien he had always found fascinating, Wesley requested, "permission to stay during the exams, Captain."
"Granted," the superior officer replied.
Just then, the doors swished open and Sam stepped into the room. "You wanted to see me, Captain?"
"Yes, Lieutenant. Dr. Crusher would like to run a battery of tests on you to see if--"
"That's not necessary; I'm telling you I'm fine!" the physicist protested. "I don't need any te--"
"I'm giving you an order, Mr. Worf!"
"Yes, Sir," Sam sighed.
"It's going to be all right, Worf," Dr. Crusher assured the uneasy time traveler. Before producing her tricorder, she explained in a gentle tone, "Don't worry, I won't hurt you."
Noticing the apprehension that ran across "Worf's face, Wesley glanced at Troi and whispered, "He's afraid of a tricorder? What's his problem ... I mean, Mom's run these tests on him hundreds of times."
Seeing the readouts that came up on her hand-held device, Dr. Crusher looked up at Piccard. "Jean-Luc, I would like to have Worf admitted for further testing."
"Is there something wrong, Beverly?"
"I'm not sure. I'm getting some very unusual readings here. If I didn't know better, I'd think Worf was a human."
Sam's eyes were two hazel saucers of surprise, and his entire face froze at the doctor's last sentence: after all, he had to have everyone believing he was the person he had replaced in order to leap.
"The tricorder might be faulty," the ship's commanding officer suggested as he headed for the door. "Keep me informed, Doctor," was the last thing he said before exiting.
For the next two hours, Sam found himself undergoing every physiological exam imaginable and plenty more that he had never heard of before. The curious gadgets the doctor used on him seemed very frightening. Dr. Crusher tried to make the ordeal as relaxing as she could, but her explanations and comforting words didn't begin to make Sam feel better. In fact, his Confusion and nervousness grew worse when Troi began to ask him several questions that only his Klingon counterpart could answer. Leaving her very tired patient to rest in bed, Dr. Crusher summoned the captain, and he joined her in her office along with Troi and Wesley.
"I've tried everything. Bio-scans, DNA and RNA scans. Even his vitals show the same thing."
"Which is?" Piccard inquired.
"There was nothing wrong with that tricorder. According to all the exams, Worf is a human. "His body temperature, his heart beat, his blood pressure, even his blood type isn't the same."
"What are you saying?" Piccard demanded.
"That man I just examined may look and sound like Lieutenant Worf, but he has the body and mind of a human."
"Beverly, that's impossible!"
"I'm telling you, Captain, That man is a human. He's a man in
his mid forties and is in excellent health. Also, when I examined his spinal cord, there was absolutely no evidence of surgical reattachment."
"Doctor, That operation took place years ago. He may have healed to the point that the surgery is undetectable."
"Captain," Troi intervened, "I also noticed something was wrong during the exams."
Piccard turned to face the Betazoid officer with prompting eyes.
"He couldn't answer the simplest questions: his birthday, family members' names, not to mention his duties aboard this ship. The emotions I sensed from him were quite unusual too. He was nervous and confused; the real Worf wouldn't let anyone see him in a vulnerable state of mind."
In the small cubical of a room, Sam found that lying around and resting was making him even more apprehensive. He tumbled out of the bed and began to pace the floor, all the time thinking about this situation and how he was no closer to finding out his mission than when he first leaped into this bizarre reality so many centuries from his own time. He knew Al might not be of any help, but he still anticipated that imaging Chamber door opening to reveal the hologram bearing good news for the time traveler. But Al did not show. Growing more tense by the second, Sam paced faster, and rivers of sweat poured down the back of his neck, and he didn't see the doors slide open to admit the four officers. When he heard the footsteps, Sam spun and jerked at the sight of the company that had just startled him.
"Don't do that!" he cried in terror, his head about to burst with the feelings that seemed to build up as does soda pop in a bottle that has been shaken. "Do ya have to sneak up on a guy like that!"
After seeing the glances from Dr. Crusher and Troi, Piccard sighed, "Yes, I see what you mean, Counselor."
Once he collected himself, Sam fixed his eyes on the redheaded doctor and asked, "Do you have the test results, Doctor?" At the silence, he continued, "Am I free to go now?"
None of the Starfleet personnel could find the right words to say without being blunt. Finally, after a brief pause, Dr. Crusher said, "Worf, I don't know how to tell you this, but . . . according to all the tests, they show that you're -- a human."
"No way!" the scientist snapped in denial. "I'm a Klingon! I always have been, and I always will be!"
"Counselor?" Piccard glanced at the dark-haired woman and prompted her to input her opinion.
"I think he's hiding something, Captain. There is something
he doesn't want us to know."
Yet, another brief pause with the empty sounds of silence had elapsed before Piccard broke the void. "Doctor, there seem to be
some discrepancies between the test results and what Mr. Worf is telling us. I think we should keep him in the brig until we can get to the bottom of this."
Catching piccard's wink, Dr. Crusher replied in agreement. "Yes, you're probably right, Captain."
Sam did not like the sound of this; the last thing he wanted to do was get Worf into trouble and possibly thrown out of Starfleet and into an asylum. After all, he had leaped in to put matters right, not to make everything worse.
"No!" the physicist burst out. "You can't do that. You can't
lock me up, Captain." Feeling cornered and seeing no way out of
such a difficult situation, Sam decided he would have to break the rules and confess his true identity. "Look, I can explain everything . . . . "
"Please do," Piccard prodded.
"I am not Lieutenant Worf. My name is Sam Beckett, Doctor Samuel Beckett. I'm a quantum physicist turned time traveler, and I 'leap' around from one year to another, reliving little bits and pieces of other peoples' lives. Whenever I put someone else's life back on track, I leap out and wind up in another person's time and body. That's all; I temporarily inhabit someone else's body and try to change their future for the better."
"You travel around in time?" the captain stared curiously into Sam's eyes.
"Yes, Sir. In 1995, I created a time travel experiment that would enable me to bounce around anywhere within my own lifetime, but something went wrong and I fell off my own time-line. That's why I'm here. That's why everything's so strange to me: your clothes, your gadgets,everything. I don't belong here, and I can't leap out until I put right what Worf did wrong."
"You know, " Wesley intervened, "I read about something like
that. Back in the late twentieth century, quantum physicists would theorize about time travel, but they never quite made it. A professor at a top technical school came up with a string theory on how to use quantum physics to enable a man to travel in time. He and a student of his believed that one day it would be possible to revisit one's own past and even wind up in one's own future. The professor's name was Sabastian Lonegro; they didn't give the student's name."
"I was that student. I was the one who came up with the string theory of quantum leaping; Professor Lonegro helped me," Sam insisted.
"Dr. Beckett," Captain Piccard rejoined the conversation, "if you've replaced Lieutenant Worf, then would you tell me where is he now?"
"He's back in my time. You don't have to worry about him;" Sam didn't want to alarm his present company by telling them that Worf could be dying, "my people are taking good care of him. Once I leap out, Worf will come back good as new. He might be a little disoriented and his memory might be a little fuzzy, but he'll be all right."
"Do you have any idea what your mission is in order to 'leap'?" Troi asked.
"I don't know. My contact is still working on it. Looks like I might be here for a while."
Still somewhat in shock after hearing the leaper's words, the three officers and Wesley passed long stares to one another. What could they make of this stranger? Was he telling them the truth? No one was sure.