Chapter 8
Sheridan heaved a relieved sigh as the modest Eure house disappeared through the trees behind them as they rounded a curve in the road, which was no longer as rutted as the track they had entered Nashville on had been. He'd been afraid that they'd never get back on their way. Worse still, it seemed as if the fault in that delay lay with him.
They had pulled up the grassy drive to the single level clapboard farmhouse more than an hour after leaving town – an unconscionably long ride for a mere four miles, in a situation where timing seemed to be the critical factor. At the door, they'd been introduced to Dempsey Eure's small family, his wife Linda giving them all a suspicious once-over. The understandably proud father had made a point of showing off his two children, a serious, dark haired boy, and a baby girl who'd greeted her father with a hungry catamount's yowl.
Marcus and Garibaldi had made their way back to the road as quickly as politeness permitted, and trying to hasten their departure further, Sheridan had handed the farmer a pair of gold coins as payment for the ride. That had turned out to be a mistake; almost reverently pocketing the money, Dempsey invited them into his home – insisted upon it, in fact – for a glass of freshly made lemonade, and his wife's suspicious demeanor had vanished instantly as she served them. A smaller denomination of money probably would have been wiser, Sheridan reflected ruefully.
In any event, they were just now resuming their journey, having finally impressed their hosts of their need to make haste. The sun was definitely easing into the western sky by then, which confirmed their earlier impressions of the local time. In front of them lay another eight miles of road. Sheridan figured that under normal circumstances, they'd be able to cover that ground in about two hours at their steady pace – but if anything, it was hotter and more humid than it had been when they arrived, and their pace was anything but steady. He sighed again. At least they'd reach their destination before nightfall.
Marcus wiped a soggy rag that had been his decorative handkerchief across his forehead for what felt like the fiftieth time in the past twenty minutes. He'd been making a valiant attempt to keep up the facade of a proper English gentleman, but between the dust and grit of the road, and the rivulets of sweat running down his face, it was a lost cause. "Is it always this bloody hot down here?" he complained. To human sensibilities, Minbar was a cold world, but he'd gotten used to it, and as far as he was concerned, this kind of heat had no place on a civilized planet, let alone Earth.
"It's probably going to even worse for another hour or so," Crusher responded with a faintly vindictive smirk, looking up at the sun overhead. To her mind, the Ranger had been inhumanly cheerful for the entire first leg of their trip, and while pleasant enough at first, had begun to grate on her. She took some small satisfaction in watching him deflate even further. Taking pity on him, and on herself, she had to admit, she went on in a more professional tone. "Since it's only going to get worse, at least for a while, I think it's worth mentioning that none of us brought any water, and even in this humidity dehydration could be a problem."
She'd directed the comment at Sheridan, who was clearly leading this away mission in his own way, and he nodded agreeably enough. "I can't argue with that, Doctor. My mouth tastes like chalk, and I don't relish the thought of being in intensive care for the next week recovering from the local water." He managed a dry laugh at that, but meaning every word of it. The people around here might have natural immunity to most of the things living in unfiltered surface water, but for all of them, having lived their lives with water and food that was practically sterile in comparison, and consequently no immunity to it, drinking the water from the clearest stream could be a death sentence – at the least, an invitation to a host of unpleasant diseases. Not that he could see any sign of a stream anywhere in the vicinity of the road. But the thought of course brought his mind back to the lemonade they'd had back at the farmhouse, and his stomach did a flip-flop. Well, he'd worry about that when and if it became a problem.
Evidently, Crusher had the same thought, since she reached into her handbag, and dug out a hypospray. "Just a general antibiotic," she explained, injecting herself with a measured amount. "We'll have to watch what we eat and drink down here, because our immune systems aren't up to some of what's running around. A lot of the diseases that are still common at this time have been long since wiped out in our history; and yours too, I'd think."
The others proffered their arms to the same injection, which was a simple enough matter, when even Garibaldi had subjected himself to it, Sheridan glanced behind them to see that the farmhouse had since dropped out of sight completely. "The road's empty now, but I don't know how much longer that'll last, the closer we get to where we're going. If you want to check in with your ship, Doctor, now's a good time."
"Actually, as the away team leader, you're the one who should be contacting the ship," Crusher pointed out. "If I call the ship, they'll be prepping for a medical emergency before I have a chance to say so much as a hello."
"So you'll only make the call if someone gets themselves too mangled to tap their own badge?" Marcus asked.
Crusher paused to correct him, then shrugged. "That's about the size of it."
"All right, I'll just make the call myself then," Sheridan groused in a vexed tone while digging through his clothes to find the innocuous little chevron. Garibaldi made to hand him his, but Sheridan finally produced his own, glaring darkly at his security chief's smug look. He tapped the pin's face once, then hesitated, unsure of how to make the connection, but quickly settled on something obvious. "Sheridan to Enterprise."
The badge chirped, and Picard's now-familiar voice flooded the tiny pin with a surprising volume. "Picard here, Captain. We've been waiting to hear from you for a while now, so I can only assume you've got something of interest to report?"
"You could say that," Sheridan replied with a grin. "Do you want to hear about it?"
"By all means, Captain, we'll have the computer record the whole –"
"Captain!? It's about damned time you contacted us!"
Sheridan rolled his eyes at the even more familiar faint Russian accent that had abruptly replaced Picard's even tones. "Sorry about that Susan," he lied. The truth was that even if he'd been able to contact her earlier, he was enjoying this brief respite on Earth – albeit not his own – far too much to let her put a damper on things. "We just spent the last few hours finding out what's been going on down here, and then we all got a long wagon ride, so this is the first chance we've had to give you a shout."
"A wagon ride? John," Ivanova said, dropping all pretense at formality, "what the hell is going on down there?"
"Long story. Now that you know we're not all dead, do you think you could put Captain Picard back on?"
Ivanova's reply was oddly sheepish. "Uh, yeah, here you are."
"Your first officer can be very… determined, Captain," Picard said ruefully, causing Sheridan to shake his head in silent exasperation.
What did she do, rip the pin off his chest? Probably, he answered himself with a mental snort. At least whatever she had done didn't seem to have resulted in anything catastrophic. He'd already seen that Starfleet tended to be more laid back than Earthforce – still disciplined, certainly – just unobtrusive about it. But then, he realized that he was basing his impression of all of Starfleet off of two crews who seemed to know each other rather well. If Picard and his staff were doing the same thing… If Picard is doing the same thing I am, he's going to end up with a very interesting impression of Earthforce.
Marcus and Garibaldi had walked further along the road, but were still close enough to catch that last part. Garibaldi just looked faintly amused, but Marcus was shaking with restrained laughter. Ignoring them for the moment, Sheridan turned his attention back to his opposite number on the other end of the channel, and said, "Captain, we've found out some pretty disturbing things about this particular dimension. But I think your doctor here would be the best person to explain it all."
Crusher turned to regard him with a comically betrayed gaze, and as he handed her his comm-badge, she could practically read his thoughts in his eyes. I may have to make the call, they said, but at least you can do some of the talking. They continued on their way at a slightly reduced pace while she explained the situation to Picard, and when she finished at length, she brought them to a halt.
"Wait a moment." Almost immediately after returning Sheridan's comm-badge, a swirl of glimmering light swept across a patch of roadway, leaving a small pile of containers in its wake. Sheridan grabbed one by a conveniently placed leather strap, and hefted it, raising an eyebrow at the simple cloth-over-metal design.
"These canteens look like period pieces," he remarked, unscrewing the cap to take a deep drought of the ice-cold water within.
"I think they are," Crusher told him, while passing out the others to Marcus and Garibaldi. "Data outdid himself this time. The materials probably aren't accurate, but it's enough that if we accidentally left one behind, no one would notice."
"Which brings up a question," Marcus said, looping the strap around his shoulder. "I've been getting the impression that your people are on something of a first-name basis with time travel. Has anyone ever actually left something in the past that shouldn't have been?"
Crusher nodded uncomfortably. "It's been known to happen on occasion. When we get back to the ship, you can ask Data about that." At Marcus's apparent interest, she shrugged and smiled slightly. "His head is five hundred years older than his body." Before he could voice his obvious question, she went on, "That's why even though this isn't either of our universes, Captain Picard is taking pains to obey the Temporal Prime Directive."
Garibaldi put two and two together first. "You mean you've actually got laws against screwing around with time?" His brows were knitted anxiously as he asked, "Just how often does this sort of thing actually happen?"
"More frequently than it probably should," she conceded. "The Department of Temporal Investigations isn't the biggest government bureau out there, but it's not exactly the smallest either."
Sheridan frowned, setting that issue to the side for the moment. "You called it a 'Temporal' Prime Directive. That usually implies that there's another one."
They had started walking again after retrieving the canteens, and Crusher slowed her pace so as to walk alongside Sheridan. "The Prime Directive is Starfleet General Order number one. In short, it forbids interference with cultures that haven't yet discovered warp drive on their own."
"But you contacted us, and we've never invented anything like it," Sheridan pointed out, seeing where this was going already.
"You're a… special case. We've never learned how to generate stable wormholes, like you do, so you already had interstellar flight."
"Following the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of it?"
Crusher sighed ruefully. "Out on the fringes of known space, captain's discretion usually counts for more than an order issued almost two hundred years ago. If there's good reason."
"I do understand how that works, Doctor," Sheridan said with a chuckle. "I spent a few years on the fringes of known space myself on my last tour of duty. Despite appearances," and here, he tried to grin roguishly, "I haven't been a desk jockey my whole life."
"That whole 'captain's discretion' thing sounds like it leaves a lot of grey areas," Garibaldi commented over his shoulder, "and grey areas make me nervous. They always leave plenty of room for more than one almighty screw-up. Not that I have anything against captain's discretion," he added hastily. "After all, we've been living by that rule ever since we broke away from Earth, and our captain hasn't botched up yet, so I think we'll be good for a few more weeks."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Michael," Sheridan grumbled in mock hurt.
"Hey, any time, Captain," Garibaldi shot over his shoulder with a broad grin. "That's what I'm here for."
"No, you're just the guy I brought along to draw fire in case anything happens," Sheridan retorted.
Marcus rolled his eyes at the both of them, turning around entirely, and walking backwards so he could address the doctor directly. "Why have that kind of rule in the first place? Call me excessively British," he said, his accent growing briefly thicker than normal, "but wouldn't you be doing those races a favor? Spare them some of the grief we went through working up to where we are now, at any rate."
Looking saddened, Crusher shook her head. "It isn't that simple. We found out the hard way, and they only created the Prime Directive because we made some pretty big mistakes." She left off there, apparently disinclined to continue on that thread. The party fell into a silent rhythm of walking then, trudging along the dusty lane wordlessly.
"What kind of mistakes?" Sheridan asked, finally, looking for any excuse to break the suddenly uncomfortable pall that had fallen over them.
The Starfleet doctor didn't answer immediately, and he began to wonder if she planned to ignore him. But finally, she looked up. "I'm no historian, but there's one that's still used as the main example in the Academy of why we have the directive." She paused to take a gulp of water from her canteen before resuming.
"Every year, a ship is sent off to a planet near the edge of Federation space, out near the edge of the galaxy, where planets are few and far between. It's a typical M-class planet – that is, Earth-like – not much different than thousands of others. When that ship gets there, to a place we labeled – and its inhabitants have permanently named – Sigma Iota II, it collects a full twenty percent of the planet's entire GNP in the name of the Federation."
"Bloody hell," Marcus muttered, aghast. "What justifies that kind of extortion?"
"Oh, we funnel it all back into their own economy, discreetly of course, and through social programs, universities, and medical institutions," Crusher told him. "More than two hundred years ago, one of the first exploration ships from Earth discovered that planet populated by a very human-like race in a pre-industrial age, and made a layover. Their ship was destroyed a month later, and since they sent the signal with conventional radio, it was another century before anyone found out that they'd left a few things behind."
Garibaldi winced, working out some of what might be coming next.
"When the next ship investigated, they found that the entire race, their whole society, had based itself around a single book left behind by that first ship. Apparently, they'd used a few other science textbooks to recreate the Chicago of the nineteen-twenties – on a planetary scale. Their whole planet was run by a collection of mobster bosses."
"You're joking!" Marcus was gaping openly, and only resumed his forward facing when he nearly tripped over a rock in the road. Sheridan couldn't blame him – he knew that he must be wearing a similar expression. Garibaldi simply looked doubtfully bemused; no doubt not believing a word of it.
"I wish I was," Crusher said dourly. "And it didn't stop there. The captain of that ship worked out an arrangement where we 'Feds' come to collect our piece of the action every year. Unfortunately, the doctor on that ship left his communicator behind. When I went through the Academy, I heard that they were working on their own warp drives, though they hadn't had any successful tests."
"When you guys slip up, you really slip up, don't you?" Garibaldi whistled.
"I actually asked Admiral McCoy about that," Crusher admitted, "when I was working under him during my tenure at Starfleet Medical. He says," her lip twitched into an odd smile, "that it's tough to remember a minor detail like a missing communicator when one has a tommy-gun pressed into one's back."
"And that's why you have this Prime Directive of yours?" Sheridan asked, trying to drag the conversation away from what seemed like an impending bout of nostalgia. "Because you turned a planet upside-down?"
Shaking her head emphatically, Crusher stopped him there. "That's the point; it wasn't just that one planet. That's just one I can remember off the top of my head. So, because of us, we will never know what their culture would have been like had we just left them alone. Anything they might have been on their own was replaced by a copycat social structure."
Marcus shrugged, and said, "How many of their people were saved because they had advanced technology without having to spend several hundred years clawing their up?"
"How many of them were killed because they had access to automatic weapons without even the discipline that comes with developing that technology by themselves?" Crusher countered.
Sheridan quelled the rebellious-looking Ranger with a glance, and silently thanked Garibaldi for maintaining his own council. The last thing they needed was to get involved in a messy tangle of ideologies. And since he knew that they needed Picard and his crew, at least for the moment, alienating his chief medical officer would be… unwise. From what he'd seen of Crusher so far, he didn't think she was the type to hold a grudge, but one never could tell.
"Save your breath, Marcus, we've still got almost six miles to go by my count," he said. Wiping the back of his hand across his forehead and glancing up at the sun, he forced himself to remember that back on the ship, he'd agreed with Crusher's insistence on walking where they could, to raise the fewest eyebrows possible. With that burning heat roasting his shoulders, a fine talcum-like dust choking his throat, and a raw blister taking shape inside a boot that had literally never been walked in, it wasn't an easy task.
*****
"Delenn?"
"Yes Lennier?" The Minbari ambassador turned lightly in the White Star's command chair to glance at the back of the bridge. What she saw brought her up short, and she closed her mouth before her puzzled demeanor became unseemly. "Lennier, is there something I should be told about?"
Her aide ducked his head in a short bow, then shook it. "No Delenn, merely an experiment. It is of no concern." Looking up, and gauging her reaction, his gaze dropped down at himself, taking in a greasy smudge on one sleeve, an ugly-looking scorch mark blackening the hem of his tunic, and a tear in the fabric that extended from his chest and ran up along a split seam at the right shoulder. Realizing that his unusual state of disarray was the cause of Delenn's reaction, he smiled wanly. "It is a very complicated experiment."
"I can see that," Delenn replied doubtfully, nodding slowly. "I trust that if this… experiment should become a concern, that you will inform me about it?"
"Of course, Delenn," he assured her hastily.
She nodded again, acceptingly, this time, and said, "In that case, Lennier, what is it that you wished to see me about?"
He hesitated a split-second at a strange shimmering sound that made itself known at the very edge of perception, then continued since it was gone almost immediately. "I merely wished to request permission to grant Commander LaForge access to the internal jump-engine diagnostic computers."
"Is that necessary for your experiment?" she asked quizzically. "I do not mean to imply a lack of trust Lennier, but if I allow this, you will oversee his activities?"
"Of course, Delenn," he said again. "His access is not required, but it will expedite the process."
Delenn sighed, drumming her fingers against the armrest. With an effort of will, she stilled her hand. It was an annoying habit she had picked up from John at some point, and was trying to break. "Very well, Lennier. Be careful though," she cautioned with warm amusement, "If you should destroy this ship, and all of us aboard it, I shall become most displeased with you."
"Then I shall take the utmost care to ensure that that does not happen." There was a flicker of a faint smile on his lips, but it was gone before she could be certain. "Thank you, Delenn." He bowed and left, passing Ivanova as she entered.
Giving Lennier a long look as he passed, Ivanova strode up to the central chair casually. "Um, Delenn," she said, "Lennier, is he uh…?"
Delenn suppressed another sigh she felt building at her aide's behavior. Minbari in general were not prone to emotional outbursts, but Lennier was reserved even by Minbari standards. She distracted herself by focusing on what Ivanova had just said. "He is working on an experiment, so he tells me."
Ivanova squinted back at the doorway, no less mystified than she had been when she had first seen Lennier's trampled appearance. "Uh, right."
"Have you received any news from the surface, Susan?"
"Huh? Oh!" Her face lighting up suddenly as she remembered her purpose, Ivanova grinned and nodded. "They just called in a few minutes ago. They're fine. In fact," she snorted in mock irritation, "they went on a wagon ride."
"Wagon ride?"
"It's a primitive form of transportation; basically an animal-drawn box on wheels." Ivanova shook her head despairingly, adding, "And here they had me all worried that they might be in trouble. I should have known better. It's just like John to go somewhere outrageously dangerous, and end up having fun."
Delenn frowned softly, trying to picture this conveyance Ivanova was describing. "This 'wagon' does not sound as if it would be comfortable."
Ivanova's expression turned wicked. "I hope not."
*****
The distinctive jingle and clatter of approaching horses brought Dempsey Eure out of his barn earlier than he'd expected. Evidently, someone was in a hurry – it had been just over an hour ago that his four strange passengers had set off for Rocky Mount on foot. Stepping out into the still bright sunlight, he pulled the brim of his hat lower to shade his eyes from the afternoon glare, and watched the horsemen as they trotted up the lane toward him.
At the fore of the small group, one of the riders, who Dempsey could immediately identify as Nate Caudell, swung off his saddle unsteadily. He nearly made it to the ground, but his boot caught on the stirrup, and with a muffled oath, he connected the ground solidly with his rump, drawing a round of guffaws from the other riders. One of the laughing voices, higher and clearer than the others, caught his attention, but only for a moment.
Caudell climbed to his feet, and after dusting off the seat of his trousers, bowed deeply to the assembled group. "And now you know the real reason I was in the infantry," he announced to further laughs. He turned and shook hands with Dempsey, uttering a quick greeting.
Behind him, another of the riders dropped to the ground with much more aplomb, and called out, "Hullo, Dempsey!" in an accent that was distinctly north of Mason-Dixon. Henry Pleasants, formerly lieutenant colonel of the 48th Pennsylvania regiment, private in the 47th North Carolina infantry, and briefly a colonel again on the staff of Nathan Bedford Forrest, was still referred to as simply, "the Yank," by most folks. Those men (and woman, Dempsey Eure amended upon placing that oddly light voice) gathered around now had fought alongside him, and while they still called him a Yank, for them, it was nothing more than friendly teasing.
Pleasants grinned, and grasped Dempsey's hand in a firm shake. "What's all this I hear about more Rivington men? These horses here are pretty much every last one I own, so this had better be for real."
Dempsey nodded sharply. "I'm sure of it, Henry. How much did Nate here tell you?"
"Just about what happened back at Lile's place," Caudell said. "What we want to know is what you found out about those folk after you were on your way."
"Don't know that I can make heads nor tails of it, Henry," Dempsey told Pleasants directly, "but maybe ya'll can make more sense of it." He lifted his had slightly to scratch his head, setting the feather on top bouncing erratically, and went on, "Something in the newspaper they had shook 'em up but good. Didn't hear much more than that, on account of that English fella and I got to talking a bit. He says he's on his way back to England. So I asked him why they were going all out to Rocky Mount, and he started saying something, but the big feller, the leader, I think, jumps in, real fast-like, and says they're all off to Richmond, to see him off." Dempsey's brow furrowed, and he added, "The English dandy though, he was wearing this big 'ole pin with a big fancy gem in the middle. I asked him what it was, and he goes and says some damnfool thing like 'itzill-sah' or somethin' like that."
Caudell frowned, and ran a hand through his beard in concentration. "That's doesn't sound like any kind of English word," he finally pronounced. "Could be French, but I've never heard a word like that before."
"Well, I've been working railroads for years, and those coolies – the Chinamen, I mean – have some absurd words, but I've never heard a word like that even from them," Pleasants noted absently.
"That may not mean anything, Henry, could be a word you just never heard before," Caudell cautioned.
Pleasants nodded agreeably. "There's truth in that, by God. But what about that newspaper?"
Dempsey grinned and reaching into one wide trouser pocket, pulled out the rolled-up paper. "It's a little worse for wear, but they left it in the wagon, and plum forgot about it when they left." He unrolled it, and stabbed one article with a dirty finger. "I think this here is the one that got 'em all riled."
Frowning as he read the title on the passage, Pleasants snorted irritably. "Well, it's damn shame, but the US and Brits have been going at in for years up in Canada. Why would that startle them?"
Shrugging, Dempsey said, "They said they'd been out near the Indian Territory these past few years. Maybe they just didn't get any news out there," he offered, not really believing his own words.
"Hogwash," Caudell said more forcefully. "Anyone who ain't dead knows about the war up there. Besides, the Indian Territory still belongs to the Yanks, except those bits an' pieces Stand Waite's redskins are still fighting over."
"How long ago did they leave?" Pleasants asked, moving back to his horse. "I don't know if they're Rivington men, but something's awfully strange here, so I think they bear some following." Hoisting himself back into the saddle, he looked down at Dempsey. "Interested in coming along?"
"They left a bit more'n hour ago," Dempsey said. Then he sighed theatrically, and tipped his hat. "Much as I'd love to come along and probably get shot at some more," some laughs answered that, "I really cain't be leaving the farm now. Unlike the lot of you, some of us still gotta work to put food on the table."
"Aw hell, Dempsey, it can go a couple days," the fourth and final rider called out from his elevated position.
Embarrassed to admit that he hadn't recognized the voice earlier, Dempsey peered over Caudell's head at the other two riders. "It might be that way for you, Ruffin, but some of us don't have big strapping sons to do most of the work for us."
Caudell frowned at that, but didn't say anything: he believed that everyone's children should get as much education as possible, to make sure they could at least read and write. But then, Ruffin Biggs had never cared much about what Nate Caudell or anyone else thought.
Biggs laughed, but didn't have a chance to respond before Dempsey switched tracks to turn a look on the other rider, who out of all of them, was dressed in butternut rags with a corporal's stripes stitched haphazardly to the sleeve. "Well, hullo there, Melvin, it's been a very long time since we've seen you 'round these parts. A body would think you didn't have any other clothes but that uniform, though," he said mock-critically.
The former Mollie Bean, now Mollie Caudell, reddened visibly. Everyone present knew Mollie's secret wartime identity, but they were within earshot of the Eure household, and it would be better for everyone if no one else was let in on the secret accidentally. "Hullo yourself Dempsey," she called. "But that's Corporal Bean to you, private," she teased.
"I was a sergeant," Dempsey reminded her.
"Only one of us is in uniform, so to speak, right now."
"Uh, yessir!" Dempsey returned with a grin and a salute snappier than most he'd afforded real officers.
Pleasants waited until Caudell had climbed back into the saddle, and brought his horse around purposefully, waving backwards in acknowledgement, when Dempsey called out, "Be careful, y'hear?"
"It's about time we were on our way," Pleasants remarked loudly enough to be heard by the other three riders. And that was the last word spoken for some time as the horses' hooves beat a quick and steady rhythm on the road towards Rocky Mount.