Chapter 6: Other Time Displaced Persons

Now: Story and waffle time

"So why is it called the Three whales?" Max asked as she dug into her Belgian Waffles while the Bolsic teen of indeterminate gender poured her a Bajoran tea that apparently went well with breakfast food.

"Bit before my time that story I think hun," the Bolsic said.

"Actually I can answer that," Ranjea said from across the table after he had finished his mouthful of waffles.

"Really?"

"Indeed it involves other time displaced persons," Ranjea explained. "George, Gracie and their son Harpo."

"The whales?" Clare asked. "Oh I know I'm not suppose to but I do love this story."

"One of the few instances where time travel was a positive force without question," Ranjea said. "Except of course for the transparent aluminium question and the glasses."

"You've lost me," Max said.

"You aren't the first time traveler from the area," Ranjea explained. "Late last century a ship of mysterious origins entered the solar system and began transmitting a message to earth, it did not receive the response it wanted. It started to play havoc with all earth based systems. Thankfully an inbound ship figured out the message was not meant for humans ears."

"So who was it for?" Max asked.

"Humpback whales," Ranjea said.

"But they went extinct in the 2040s," Max said. "Some places were getting desperate for food, even though the whale population had been holding steady for thirty years we as a species still took to much."

"Well that ship I mentioned had the means of saving them from extinction," Ranjea said. "Spock who had invented time travel and Captain James T. Kirk."

"Who were they?"

"You'll learn about them soon enough," Clare assured her.

"Long story short they managed to locate a breeding pair and return with them to their own time frame. In fact according the reports they rescued George, Gracie and the unborn Harpo from a whaling vessel off the coast from here during the ninteen-eighties."

"Wait this ship didn't look like a giant green bird did it?" Max asked.

"How do you know that?" Clare asked.

"I got told the story about why it was called the two whales as a kid by a guy who used to be a whaler," Max said. "He joined Greenpeace after some aliens took an interest in humpback whales or at least that's what he told me and Chloe."

"The ship was Klingon yes," Ranjea said. "But all crew were human or had human heritage."

"Were they at least pirates?" Max asked.

"I suppose considering they were crewing a prize vessel, they were wanted by both the Klingon empire and the Federation at the time and they time traveled to basically perform a kidnapping I guess you could say that yes they were pirates. Anyway the first sighting as the whales traveled north after arriving in this time frame was by the Diner's owner at the time, she took it as a sign to stick with it though she had been considering leaving earth entirely at the time."

"This Spock and Kirk sound like my kind of people," Max said as she grabbed a small furry paw that was trying to abscond with her last waffle. When she saw what the paw was attached to she kind of lost it.

"Kitty," she said. "U can no haz waffle."

"Uh," said the young caitian whimpered.

"You have to excuse Max," Clare explained. "She's from the 21st century."

"You can haz cheeseburger if you take me for a ride on your boat."

"Okay," M'arshda said as she slipped free. "We did our history lessons on early computer networks last year. Humans took pet videos much to far."

Ranjea turned to see T'ler and the rest of the 'deep space exploration' crew. He turned his head puzzled.

"Excuse me but are you wearing nose plugs?" he asked.

"A logical precaution when dealing with species that have pheromones that may have a debilitating effect."

"T'ler," young David said as he came up behind the Vulcan girl. "I was wrong I'll need some plugs."

"I will not say I told you so," T'ler said neutrally.

"Thanks for letting me try captain," he said as he placed the device in his nostrils.

"Please drop my science officer Ms. Caulfield."

"But...kitty...?" Max shook off whatever had come over her. "I'm so sorry, that was embarrassing."

"For the both of us," said M'arshda as she dropped down onto the seat next to Max. "Sorry I tried to take your waffle."

"That's okay they are very good," Max said. "Not quite as good as Joyce's."

"These are almost as good as Deltan group bonding," Ranjea said. "Are you saying they used to be better?"

"I don't know maybe Joyce put more love into the recipes."

"Which brings up the reason we are here," T'ler said. "It would be illogical to waste the opportunity to learn more about a fragmented part of our local history while we have a first hand source available."

"Well lets start with Joyce, her two husbands and her daughter," Max said with a smile. "And we'll see how far we get before I have to go."

Uptime: History

Stormy was escorted through the corridors apparently the computer didn't mind her searching for some things but the one thing she needed to know was off limits. The computer was more than happy to explain that it would be a violation of the Temporal Prime Directive. So she had requested an audience with her hosts. She disliked the armed escorts but she guessed it was protocol. Her discomfort didn't last long as the security guard halted as she went through the door to the Admiral's ready room.

"Ah Chloe I knew I'd see you sooner or later," Admiral Ducane said as he put down his padd and took his feet off his desk. "You have questions?"

"Yeah do you have answers?"

"Of course," he said. "You understand I may not be able to give you all of them."

"The Temporal prime directive?"

"Time travel is fraught with dangers," Ducane explained. "I'm sure you are aware of the dangers in meddling in the past."

Stormy nodded, she had chosen to sacrifice herself to save Max and Arcadia bay because of those dangers, Vanilla her alternative self existed because of such dangers.

"But there's more to it than that isn't there."

"Ask your self this, is it a good idea to know your own future?"

"Hmm, I guess it depends on when you found out the information."

"An interesting answer."

"So is that why the computer won't tell me anything about Max?"

"Partially," he said. "I'm sure you are aware why some information about Max would remain classified."

Chloe nodded, "I guess its rare for Max to be able to do what she does without all the tech around here."

"We know of a few species that can," Ducane said. "But none of them are the equivalent of a base line human without a shred of augmented DNA in her family history."

Stormy thought for a moment and a massive grin crept across her face.

"I'll be seeing Max again."

"Well I certainly didn't tell you," Ducane said with a smile. "Now is there anything else?"

"Yeah actually can you put time travel for dummies onto one of those padd things for me?"

"Actually how about you indulge and old man and let him teach you what he knows, one time traveler to another?"

"Yeah okay," Stormy said. "Longer I'm up here the less opportunity I have to strangle Chloe. And please call me Stormy while there are still so many of me around."

The Admiral chuckled a bit then set to the lesson.

"Regular causality a leads to b leads to c," he began. "Introduce time travel and suddenly action c, event b or consequence a can now be at the start of the chain..."