A Matter of Timing by Eve Robinson
Part 2
Three hours later the officers reconvened to report on their investigations.
"We have found no trace of the intruder, sir," Worf snarled with barely-pent frustration. "He was not aboard the Enterprise at zero hundred hours, he did not use the Enterprise transporters to beam on or off the ship, and he is not aboard now."
"There's no trace of any interference with the transporter logs, Captain," LaForge offered. "Nor anywhere else, as far as I can tell. I've run a full scan of all crucial systems, and I've got two teams checking through every inch of wiring on the ship to see if we're carrying anything we don't want to be carrying, but so far, the ship's clean."
"I can find no faults in any of the ship's functions," stated Data, his calm tone contrasting with the chief engineer's mellow, musical voice, "although it appears that all computer functions in the Observation Lounge were disabled while the intruder was in there, as there is no record of his having been present aboard the Enterprise. However, there is one unexplained matter. According to the navigation logs, while we were unconscious, the Enterprise altered course to investigate an anomalous reading on the far side of the Trigan system. A photon torpedo was fired."
Worf bristled with fury. How dared anyone fire one of his torpedoes!
The captain leaned forward. "On whose authority?"
Data hesitated for an instant. "On yours, sir," he answered matter-of-factly.
Picard sat back incredulously. "On mine?" One hand smoothed over his scalp. "Could we be talking about some sort of shapeshifter? Dr Crusher, your analysis."
"I wasn't able to pick up many traces, Captain," she replied, "but there were fingerprints and a few cellular remnants on the hypospray, which incidentally," her eyes flashed angrily, "came from the Enterprise Sick Bay. Whoever he was, all his genetic traces register him as fully human. If he was a shapeshifter, Captain, he must have been an extraordinarily capable one."
"I don't believe he was a shapeshifter," Counselor Troi interjected at this point. She was as baffled as the others, but unlike them, could not regard the intruder with unremitting hostility and suspicion. "What I sensed from him was in essence what I sense from all of you. I mean, from the humans on board. I'd say he was an ordinary man, Captain."
"Then what the devil did he want?" Picard said irritably.
"I don't know, sir, but..." Deanna hesitated.
"Please go on, Counselor."
"From what I sensed from him, I'm convinced he had no wish to harm anybody on board. In fact, he could not have hurt us."
"But the bomb? Miklonite and nitro-glycerine would pack a hell of a punch," Riker interrupted.
"Yes, Commander, but what that Ensign brought on board was not miklonite and nitro-glycerine," she replied mildly. "It was chocolate."
Troi was beginning to find the whole incident rather funny, but it was apparent from the explosions of wrath around the table that she was alone in that view. The reactions she was sensing from the Klingon security chief almost scorched her extrasense. To be held up by a bandit wielding a bar of chocolate was not something that appealed to Worf's limited sense of humour. Then again, nobody else seemed particularly amused either.
"All right!" said Picard, quieting the noise. "So we have an undetected intrusion by an non-existent human being who put the ship's senior officers out of commission for two hours, apparently so that he could take the Enterprise a few million kilometers off course, fire a photon torpedo, and then leave! Can anyone think of any logical justification for any of this?"
Everyone was blank.
"Then I propose we return at once to the site of — "
Lieutenant Powell to Captain Picard. Sir, we're detecting a temporal — no, wait, a ship has just appeared off our port side, matching us for speed.
"On my way." The captain swung himself out of his chair and made for the bridge. The others followed.
"Let's see it."
The ship that appeared on the viewscreen was like nothing they had ever seen before. It appeared to be a small torus with a sunken but filled-in centre: its diameter was barely larger than a shuttlecraft, facetted with gleaming hexagonal panels.
"Analysis, Mr Data."
The android worked at his console, and his brow furrowed.
"I cannot scan the ship, sir," he announced. "There appears to be some kind of shielding in place... I am attempting to recalibrate the sensors to rescan. Captain, I am unable to define the size of the ship or its power capacity, or to locate its weapons, if it has any. It does not appear to match any known technology encountered by the Federation..." His voice tailed off unexpectedly, and his hands flickered over the console once again. "Sir, I believe I have discovered a correlation. Some of the readings do bear a resemblence to the ship we encountered on Stardate 45344.1, the ship piloted by the person who called himself Rasmussen."
Picard stilled as the realisation swept over him. "The time traveller!"
"Yes sir. That ship is not of the same construction as Rasmussen's vessel, but there appear to be certain common factors. I believe it is a ship from the future, sir."
There was a moment of profound silence on the bridge.
"So what the hell do they want with us?" muttered an uneasy Riker.
"Captain," Worf's voice, rich with apprehension. "We are being hailed."
Picard drew in a deep breath. "On screen."
The face that appeared was as human as his own, and even more worried. The man was perhaps sixty years old, with a grizzled beard.
"Am I addressing Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise?"
Picard swallowed his surprise at being hailed by name, and nodded.
"Captain Picard, may I come aboard your vessel? There is a matter of extreme importance which I must discuss with you."
"And who are you, sir?" Picard was in no mood to allow any more total strangers aboard his ship. Wherever, or whenever, they might come from.
"Captain, there are reasons, compelling reasons, why I must speak to you in private. Please..."
On the other hand, it did not look as though he was going to get any explanations via the communications system. And the captain had never been one to believe in coincidence. Perhaps this incident was connected to the disruption in the Observation Lounge. "Very well, you may beam aboard. Mr Worf, please go to Transporter Room Three to receive our guest. I'll be in my ready room."
The transmission ceased. Leaving the bridge to his first officer, Picard went to the replicator in his ready room. He felt an overwhelming need for a nice calming cup of tea.
When he turned round, cup in hand, he was not alone.
"Captain Picard," said the grey-bearded man. "Forgive me, I thought it would raise fewer questions in the long run if I circumvented your transporter system. My name is Thomas Thurssen."
Picard stared at the newcomer for a long, uncomfortable moment. "Would you care for some tea?" he enquired, at last, seating himself behind his desk.
"Thank you, no. Captain, I — what I have to tell you — oh dear, it is all going to seem so fantastic to you, I am not sure where to begin."
"Perhaps you should start by telling me where you are from." Picard took a leisurely sip of his Earl Grey. "Or should I say, when?"
"Ah." The other man looked relieved. The captain waved him to sit. "Then you have already recognised that my ship is from your future?"
"We have encountered a similar technology before."
"Quite. Well, my pilot assured me that this was the case, but I am heartily glad to have confirmation. You see, captain, we have certain rules, analogous to your Prime Directive. In essence, we are not supposed to make it possible for anyone from the past ever to know that we have been in their vicinity, and we must never interfere with any actions, we may only observe. I have always observed these rules, always, and yet this time..."
"This time you have chosen to reveal your ship to my crew, and to come aboard to talk to me. I assume there is a reason." Picard was beginning to grow impatient with this fussy creature. Surely this could not be a future Starfleet officer? His loosely-hanging beige garments did not appear to constitute a uniform, but who could tell where fashion's vagaries would lead in the future? Whoever Thomas Thurssen might be, Jean-Luc Picard wished he would get to the point.
"I need your help, Captain Picard." Thurssen leaned forward, an imploring expression in his pale blue eyes.
Now that was unexpected. The captain found himself sipping thoughtfully at his tea as he considered.
"You had better explain," he prompted the alleged time-traveller.
"Yes. Quite. Well," Thurssen rubbed his hands together. "My mission — I am a, uh, let me say, a scientific historian." He looked cautiously at the captain. "I had made an application to observe... a certain event which occurred on one of the moons of Trigo Four. It's an uninhabited system... Anyway, when we came out of, uh, when my ship, I mean, when we arrived, there was a battle in progress."
"A battle?"
"Yes, I don't know what ships they were, it doesn't matter anyway, the point is, they destroyed each other almost the instant that we materialised in our chosen site. Unfortunately, we had, uh, miscalculated our celestial position by a fraction, a small fraction, captain, really, almost insignificant, and we were hit by a, uh, projectile from the Seli vessel."
Worf to Captain Picard. Sir, there is no sign of the –
"It's all right, Lieutenant," the captain responded. "Our... guest has already arrived. Please return to the bridge." He could almost hear the Klingon's snort of anger, and stifled a grim smile as he turned his attention back to Thurssen. "Was your ship damaged? Do you require our help with the repair?" He found it hard to credit. How could his engineers help repair a ship they could barely even analyse?
"No, no, no, no, we sustained no damage. The projectile was absorbed by our shielding device, so my pilot tells me. No. The point is, that it shouldn't have been."
Picard looked at his increasingly unwelcome visitor. Thurssen cringed, and continued his disjointed tale. "What should have happened, what I was in fact present to observe, was the projectile impacting on the moon. It had some, er, highly interesting consequences, and I wanted to see..."
"And instead, by arriving in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, you have prevented the event from occurring at all," Picard summarised.
"Yes," said his visitor, miserably.
"So... in what way can the Enterprise be of assistance?" He was beginning to see where this was leading.
"Ah, yes. I need you to fire a suitable projectile at the third moon of Trigo Four. That will bring things back into their proper order," said Thurssen eagerly.
"I see." The captain thought for a moment. "I will have to discuss the matter with my senior staff."
Thurssen seemed to shrink within himself. "I suppose... since you have already encountered a, uh, time traveller..."
"The concept is hardly beyond our understanding," said Picard dryly. "Come with me."
He swept back on to the bridge and straight across to the briefing room, summoning the senior staff with a jerk of the head and slapping his commbadge to call Dr Crusher to the Observation Lounge.
Once his officers were assembled, Picard gave a succinct summary of what he had learned from Thurssen. Then, noting with some satisfaction that the hostile demeanour of his head of Security was having an unnerving effect upon their visitor, he continued: "I think our first order of priority is to satisfy ourselves that this man really is who he says he is. After all, our last visitation by a time traveller very nearly had disastrous repercussions."
"But Captain!" protested Thurssen.
"I have no intention of committing an act which may profoundly affect the future, at least, not unless I have very good cause to believe it necessary."
Their visitor sat, slack-mouthed with dismay.
"Captain," ventured Lt Cdr Data, "I am not sure that it will be possible for us to verify that Mr Thurssen —"
"Doctor Thurssen," came a weak protest.
"— Doctor Thurssen is indeed from the future. We have no means by which to verify any information he may give us from beyond our own present,"
"I wouldn't tell you anything anyway," came the rather sullen rejoinder from the foot of the table.
"Isn't there some procedure to follow in this situation, Doctor Thurssen?" asked Riker, masking his distaste.
"Of course not! This situation is not supposed to occur!"
"Mr Worf, would you escort our visitor to my ready room for a few moments," the captain requested mildly.
As the Klingon loomed out of the room in close proximity to the understandably nervous Thurssen, Picard looked round at his remaining officers.
"Counselor?"
"As far as I can tell, he's exactly who and what he says he is, Captain," she replied. "He's very unsure of himself, but I think that comes from being in a situation he's not equipped to deal with."
"I must say I would have expected someone a little more competent," commented Riker. "This man hardly seems like an authority. I'd have thought only the very best would be allowed to travel through time."
"Rasmussen was more convincing," mused the captain.
"And more annoying — by a whisker," added Commander Riker.
"All right, so we'll agree to take him, cautiously, at his word. The more pressing matter remains. Are we to solve his problem for him?"
Riker looked grim. "I'm not sure that we should, sir. Our mission to Veldor is important, we already know that. People may be dying there. He's talking about an uninhabited moon orbiting an insignificant planet in a galactic backwater."
"I think it's more significant than that," said Troi. "He's very frightened."
"Hmm," said Picard thoughtfully, "I get the impression he's at least as worried about what his superiors will say when he gets home as he is about rearranging the future."
"That may be true, sir. He is a small man, self-obsessed, but I think he is concerned about the bigger picture here."
"We need another perspective," the captain mused. "I wonder who else is on that ship? Mr Data, please hail the ship," Picard commanded.
"Yes, sir," said the android, his fingers moving with rapid grace over the control panel. "I am sorry, sir," said Data, "I am receiving a reply but it is audio only."
Picard looked grim. "Very coy, these time travellers. Very well. This is Captain Picard of the Enterprise. Please identify yourself."
Jake Edwards.
The captain's face tightened. "Mr Edwards. I assume you are familiar with the reasons for Dr Thomas Thurssen's presence on this ship."
Yep.
"I am not prepared to grant his request unless and until I am convinced that it is genuine," Picard snapped. "Please make yourself available to answer some questions. In person! Picard out!"
A moment later, a new visitor stood at the foot of the table. There was a collective intake of breath. He might now be clad in a shimmering grey jumpsuit, but with his red hair and once-broken nose, this was unquestionably the mysterious Ensign who had burst into their lives not six hours ago.
"Captain Picard," said their new arrival, identifying the captain without hesitation. "I'm Jake Edwards. Pilot of the Taurus." His face registered alarm as he took in the blatant hostility from all the faces at the table. Even Data's mechanical body was poised to suggest accusation.
"Then, Mr Jake Edwards, I think you owe us all an explanation," said Picard, evenly.
The pilot swallowed, and squared his shoulders. "I assume Doctor Thurssen has given you his explanation of the navigation error," he began. "There was nothing I could do to avoid the collision. The projectile was less than two kilometers from our shields when we downlined, and –"
"That can wait, Mr Edwards!" Picard thundered. "I require an explanation for your previous excursion to this ship! You boarded the Enterprise without invitation, threatened the lives of my officers, drugged us all into unconsciousness and –" he broke off. The time traveller was gaping at him in patent bewilderment.
"I'm sorry, captain," said Jake Edwards, "but I haven't the vaguest idea what you are talking about."