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Part 4: A Man, a Plan, an Island
"I'm quite impressed," Dr. BenCour shook her head appreciatively. "Not many people would have realized what had happened to their crewmate."
"It is unusual," T'Pol sat across from her at Enterprise's conference table. Trip, Captain Archer, Hoshi and Travis occupied the other seats while Malcolm listened to the proceedings over the channel that Hoshi had managed to keep open even while the electromagnetic interference was at its worst. "However," she continued, "if one takes all the available evidence, no matter how seemingly improbable, into consideration, one can hypothesize a theory to fit said evidence."
Archer smiled. "Even if the theory is crazier than said evidence."
"It was Commander Tucker who put the pieces of the puzzle together and led us to von Braun's Bermuda Triangle hypothesis," T'Pol motioned to the engineer. "We have a basic understanding of what happened on the planet's surface but there are several key pieces of information we need before we can locate Lt. Reed and bring him home."
"And we only have 12 hours to do it," Trip reminded everyone.
"Have you told anyone on Onara what you've discovered?" asked Oula, looking from face to face around the table.
Archer shook his head. "Not yet. They haven't exactly been helpful. That's another thing we were hoping you could help with: why doesn't the Onaran government want to admit what happened here?"
Oula took a deep breath. "It is a long story, Captain Archer, and one my people are not particularly proud of."
"I, for one, would like to hear it," Malcolm piped up. He had informed them earlier that he had managed to construct a tent and furnish it with materials from the ship. It was haphazardly fashioned but it allowed him to shut out the ocean, at least in some small measure.
"I think we all would." The captain looked questioningly at Oula.
"Very well," she assented. "Onara, as you know, is a planet with some very unusual properties. We are also a planet with very little available land. Like most civilizations, we went through a period of intense conflict over that most valuable and limited resource. About 150 years ago our climate began to gradually change and our sea level rose. The fighting became more intense as there was less and less land to control. Those who had it guarded it jealously, those who were losing it became frantic as they tried to take over areas belonging to other nations. We didn't know it at the time but the environmental process was actually a blessing in disguise. Eventually our leaders realized that unless we worked together and pooled our natural resources, unless we developed a way to live with and in the seas, none of us would survive. It ushered in an era of peace for my people."
"Similar realizations were reached on Earth and Vulcan," T'Pol pointed out.
"Yes, well, unfortunately before Onarans reached this momentous decision, they did some pretty awful things. We created weapons of destruction that killed thousands. We released biological agents on one another. We built military ships for the sea and the air. We began to study the unique properties of our planet not for scientific gain but to try to gain a tactical advantage over our enemies." Dr. BenCour stood and began to pace the room, unable to hold back her disdain at the past actions of her people.
"For years there were stories about people and ships going missing. The difference between what happened on our planet and your…Bermunga Triangle?"
"Bermuda." The captain, Trip, and T'Pol all corrected.
"Of course. The difference between this and what happened on our planet is that as we became a more technological society we were able to confirm these stories. Ships were being thrown off course, people were going missing. Sometimes the vessels and the individuals turned up again, sometimes they were lost forever. Even after we understood what was happening it was dangerously unpredictable. We found that machinery that used radiation generators were particularly susceptible to disappearance, so we stopped building them. Most people wanted only to avoid triggering these events."
"But not everyone…?" Archer prompted.
Oula stopped pacing and crossed her arms. "During the worst years of our conflicts over land one of the most powerful governments, Onataru, began experimenting with these electromagnetic disturbances. They thought that if they could control all of the variables in the situation, they could direct the outcome."
"My god," Malcolm piped up. "They were making a transportation device!"
"Yes," Oula confirmed. "They wanted to secretly transport troops and weapons right into their enemies military compounds and cities. This kind of technology was highly illegal, and the Onataru soon discovered why. It was impossible to predict where or even if a ship or object would reappear. They lost thousands of people in their experiments—just vanished, never to be seen again. The main problem was that the Onataru could not control the temporal variance emitted by our electromagnetic field. Normally it's very small, but certain types of radiation and subharmonics can set it off, creating—"
"A gravitational time dilation," Trip interrupted excitedly. T'Pol glared at him.
"You knew about this?" Malcolm asked, offended.
"We suspected it was possible," T'Pol told him. She didn't want Trip to take the blame; she had agreed to withhold the information as well and she outranked the engineer. "We did not want to worry you until we were sure."
"Oh, right, because I'm otherwise so bloody unruffled at the moment."
Captain Archer raised his eyebrows at his commanders. "Back up a minute. What does this gravitational time dilation do?"
"It means that objects are not only lost in space," Oula explained. "They can also be lost in time."
"What!" Malcolm sounded less unruffled with every passing moment. "Where the hell am I?"
Oula was on a roll and kept going, ignoring Lt. Reed's distress. "As I said, normally the temporal variance is quite small, but the Onataru developed a way to amplify the effects. Their intention was to be able to send objects all the way to the other side of the planet, though of course it never worked the way they expected." She stopped pacing and sat down heavily. "They never admitted to what they'd done. After the wars no one wanted to disrupt the peace process with something as controversial as the Onataru experiments. They were quietly purged from the records.""How do you know about them?" Trip asked.
"I did a lot of digging, a lot of research before I implemented this project. I knew that some subharmonic frequencies could be dangerous so I wanted as much information as I could get before I tried anything with them. When Lt. Reed disappeared I realized that I must have missed something…then when Minister Krevet came to see me I knew I had stumbled onto something I wasn't supposed to know about."
"Did he threaten you?" Archer wanted to know.
"No, not exactly. He asked me a lot of questions about the subharmonic frequencies and insinuated that I was to put the project first, the rescue of your crewman second." Dr. BenCour smiled slightly. "I knew something was wrong, he was far too interested all of a sudden. As soon as I could, I snuck off the ship. I had to know what was going on, and I finally found it." She produced a small data node and handed it to the captain. "I want you to know, captain, that I broke several laws to get that information." She sighed. "My career as a scientist is probably over, but I couldn't be responsible for the loss of your crewman."
Archer took the node. "I will do everything in my power to make sure you practice science again, doctor," he told her emotionally. T'Pol knew he meant it: she had noticed that humans admired bravery and that it often encouraged them to act in kind. "What did you uncover?"
"I said the Onataru came up with a way to amplify the effects of the temporal variance. They created resonance emitters that not only intensified the effects of subharmonic or radiation bursts, they also widened the range of frequencies that would trigger a gravitational time dilation. Once they realized that the effects from the resonance emitters were impossible to control they didn't just get rid of them—they mined them along the ocean floor." She paused and let this information sink in.
Trip was the first to make the connection. "My god…any ship passing near them and emitting even a low subharmonic burst…would disappear." The thought was staggering.
"You can see why my government is not anxious to explain the events that have transpired," Oula said. "The exact locations of many of the emitters are still unknown; they never even searched for many of them. They don't want anyone to know what happened here. The Onataru didn't just take prisoners of war, they didn't just kill people on the opposing sides…they exiled them into nothingness. All those people, still alive on the other side of the temporal rift, with no means of returning. As I said, this is not a moment in Onaran history of which to be proud."
"I don't mean to be rude, but again…where am I? And more importantly, how do I get back?" Malcolm asked.
"If you describe your surroundings and the ship you encountered, I believe I can pinpoint your location in our history," Oula assured him. "In fact, if you are on uninhabited islands I can already determine that you are at least 300 years in the past. After that point there was no uninhabited land on Onara. Once we figure that out, I think we can get you back, though I will need the assistance of your crew, Captain Archer."
"You know you have it," he told her. "How long will it take to locate Lt. Reed's position in time and space and pull him back into our continuum?"
"To locate him? A few hours. To bring him back? About ten years or so," Oula said calmly. Everyone around her stopped and stared.
"Ten what?" Malcolm called from his comm link.
"We do not have the technology to reverse the effects of the temporal disturbance," the Onaran explained. "Even with the information from the government experiments, we would be building a highly theoretical and very dangerous equipment to attempt it. Frankly, neither of our peoples have the means to create such machinery. On Onara, that's the reason the displacement project was eventually stopped."
"We don't have ten years," Archer pointed out. "There has to be a faster way."
"There is," Oula cocked her head, "but you aren't going to like it."
The captain had no doubt this was true. "I'm open to suggestions here, Dr. BenCour. Start talking."
"We allow the reclamation project to run its course." Trip started and she raised a hand. "It's the only way to re-create the conditions of your lieutenant's disappearance. If we can locate him, go to his position, and reverse the subharmonic pulse being used to channel the current flow, we might be able to force Mr. Reed back into our timeline."
"Might?" Malcolm asked.
"I thought the next stage of the project was very destructive?" Trip asked. "The Tubat's not even going to stay in the area. How will we monitor the surface, much less disrupt that subharmonic pulse? Sensors will be useless because of the atmospheric and electromagnetic distortion."
"We would have to be very close to Lt. Reed's location for this plan to work," T'Pol added. "The pulse will have to be extremely localized, over a range of less than one kilometer," she held out a datapad on which she had tapped calculations.
Oula examined it, nodding. "You are correct, Commander T'Pol—we must be close to Lt. Reed's geographic position before attempting our rescue. We'll need to be on the surface. I have already arranged a vessel, though it is somewhat smaller than the Tubat. It's going to be a rough ride—I certainly hope everyone knows how to swim."
Through their bond Trip felt a sudden twinge of apprehension. He knew T'Pol was less than eager to spend time on Onara, now she was being asked to get in a very small boat on a very dangerous sea. He tried with all his might to send her reassurance through their bond and had to physically restrain himself from placing a hand on her shoulder.
T'Pol glanced at him and he felt a wave of gratitude wash over him. "We do, Dr. BenCour," the Vulcan responded. "We should begin our preparations. Try not to worry, Lt. Reed," she added as an afterthought.
"About what?" asked Malcolm. "The fact that I'm lost somewhere in the timeline of a strange planet and may never return home, or the fact that I may have just eaten three hundred year old rations?"
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"Four hundred and seventy-two years," Malcolm said again incredulously. He just couldn't wrap his mind around it. That was how far in the past Dr. BenCour believed he had gone. It had actually taken a very short time for her to determine this, as she recognized the ship he had discovered from his description.
"The Molat!" she had exclaimed. "It has to be!" She went on to explain that in the past Onarans had genetically engineered trees to be used as ships. These trees, called yuwas, could regenerate if damaged and would provide the crew with fruit and building materials as they sailed. Yuwas pulled their own nutrients from the sea, so the relationship was mutually beneficial. Grown on special seawater farms to mimic the shape of an actual ship, the yuwas could hold crews of up to 25 people.
"They kind of sound like mangroves," Trip had commented. "I'll bet it's amazing!"
"It's a thrill a minute," Malcolm told him grumpily. He was grateful, though, to have stumbled across a ship that had a specific history that could be traced.
The Molat was something of a legend in Onaran oceanic lore. It had gone missing for no apparent reason and turned up weeks later off the coast of a large southern island chain. The crew had vanished without a trace, leaving no evidence as to what happened or where they might have gone. Theories ranged from a mutiny to a strange disease to pirate abduction, though no proof was ever found. Dr. BenCour sounded a little disappointed that Malcolm wouldn't be able to shed any light on this mystery, though he promised to search the ship thoroughly before the rescue attempt. Right now, however, he was recalibrating the Onaran communicator array to send out a homing beacon that would be detected through the temporal rift that would hopefully soon be opened.
"Did you set the frequency modulators to a wide dispersal?" Hoshi asked, trying to keep the lieutenant occupied and on-task. "You need to do that before you remove the outer casing of the array."
"What? Oh, yes, I've done that. At least, I think I have. I'm a little nervous about using schematics for a five hundred year old computer!"
"Oula says these computers were in use for over a hundred years after they were introduced," the ensign reminded him. "And you said yourself it's in perfect working order."
"What were humans doing on Earth five hundred years ago?" Malcolm wondered. "1650. They were just colonizing the new world, creating nation-states, reading printed books, fighting off waves of plagues…and the Onarans were building computers."
"So were the Vulcans." This was beginning to get frustrating. Hoshi knew Malcolm had been trapped alone on that island for almost three days at this point and tried to keep focused for his sake.
"Hmm. I suppose you're right. Never thought of it like that."
"Lieutenant," Hoshi began.
"I wonder who else was building computers and warp vessels by that time?" the tactical officer's mind—and mouth—kept meandering. "Maybe the Klingons, though I doubt—"
"Malcolm!" Hoshi finally snapped.
"What? Oh, I'm sorry, Hoshi. I'm just a little stir crazy, I guess. Um, let's see, where were we? The casing. We were about to remove the casing. I'll have to find something to pry it…"
The comm officer stopped and listened to Malcolm babble about removing the casing. He sounded tired, anxious…and alone. Silently she chastised herself. She was supposed to be the communications genius and she had missed the most important message of all: her friend needed reassurance. He needed someone to talk to, to vent his worries about the upcoming mission, and here she was nagging him about the communications array. It would get done, of course, but surely it could wait a few minutes.
"Malcolm?" Hoshi asked, breaking his stream-of-consciousness account of his progress.
"I can't seem to get the casing off, Hoshi. Hold on, I'm going to look for something to wedge between the outer layer—"
"Why don't we take a break?" she suggested. "Let's talk about something different. Why don't you tell me about…" she searched her mind for an appropriately off-topic subject, "about your first school dance?"
There was a long pause before Malcolm replied. "It wasn't that exciting…""Then how about…" Hoshi thought for a moment. A-ha! "How about the work you did for Starfleet Intelligence before coming onto Enterprise?" she asked. "I'm sure that's exciting!"
There was another long pause. Hoshi was afraid she'd offended him and was already formulating an apology when he answered. "Yes…now that is exciting. I assume I can trust you to keep this confidential, Hoshi?"
"Of course!" Hoshi assured him.
Malcolm seemed more than happy to take a mental breather. "In that case…I should start at the beginning, with my first mission in Marseille, though I can't tell you all of the details as some of them are classified…" Hoshi leaned forward eagerly to listen and the pair of them spent the next half-hour blessedly unworried about what the fate of a man trapped on an island.
----------------------------The door chimed again insistently. No matter how she tried to ignore it, T'Pol could never block out the sound completely. She didn't know if this was a product of her training as an officer or her acute Vulcan senses. Blowing out the candle before her, she rose and seated herself on her bed. Normally she would have stood to receive a guest, but she knew who was on the other side of the door and knew he would prefer a more informal atmosphere. Truthfully, so would she.
"Come in," she instructed.
Trip stepped in, giving her a little smile. "Sorry to disturb you." He eyed her candle, smoke still curling slowly from the wick. "I didn't realize you were busy."
"It's all right. You wanted something?"
He handed her a datapad. "Oula's latest calculations on the timing of our rescue operation. It'll have to be exact, down to the minute."
"I have confidence in the crew's ability to conduct a precision operation," T'Pol told him.
"We do work well together," Trip grinned. She felt his pleasure at her compliment through their bond.
She finished looking over the data and set the pad on the bed next to her. "I will examine the information in detail, thank you."
He nodded, then hesitated a moment before sitting down beside her. "Actually, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about." When she did not respond he glanced at her sideways and gave her a sly smile. "Which you probably knew, right?"
"It seemed logical, yes." He was very near her and she could feel his emotions brushing lightly against her consciousness. As always it was an unusual sensation, but not unpleasant. Personal space was very important to Vulcans, and yet here he sat, only inches from her—and she didn't mind. In fact, she envied his easy manner as he leaned back on his hands and surveyed her room.
"I was thinking…this mission, going to the surface of the planet during what Dr. BenCour says is going to be one hell of a storm…that can't be easy for you." Now he was surveying T'Pol—she could feel his eyes and his mind on her.
"I will perform my duties, I assure you."
"I have no question about that—you're about the most fearless person I know." Now it was T'Pol's turn to feel pride at his praise. "I just know it's going to be difficult for you."
"Commander—Trip, I may feel some unease while on Onara, but as a Vulcan I do not feel fear. You have no need to worry about me."
"That's not how this works," he told her quietly. "You know me well enough by now to know that." He motioned toward her now-cold candle. "I know you're a little anxious and you're doing your best to take care of it yourself. You're no damsel in distress and I have no doubt that you can do it on your own…but I'd like to help if I can."
T'Pol was speechless for a moment. He had a way about him, this human. Sometimes she asked herself why her unconscious mind—her heart, if you will—had chosen this illogical bond-mate. Sometimes, however, she knew exactly why, and this was certainly one of those times. Commander Tucker was what Hoshi had once described as "a keeper."
"Trip," she finally said, "I appreciate your offer, but I don't see how you can help."
"Well, I was thinking," Trip stood up and walked to where her candle sat on the floor. "Sometimes I feel you through our bond, right? I feel your influence on me, trying to keep me calm, keep me sane…couldn't I do the same for you?"
"Do the same…?" T'Pol looked at him questioningly.
"I've been around the water all my life," he explained. "I don't like the thought of being in a storm, sure, but the sea really doesn't bother me. Why can't I transfer my feeling comfortable around the water to you?"
T'Pol thought about this. "I don't know if it would work. You feel me in your mind because of my superior mental discipline."
"A guy offers you help and you call him an idiot," Trip grinned.
"That was not my intention. I simply meant—"
"I know, I know, it was a joke," the engineer raised his hands. "So I don't have Vulcan telepathic powers. As you pointed out, though, you do. You can send me your feelings, maybe you can access mine."
"You would allow me to do this? Trip, it's an invasion of your mental privacy!"
"It's not invasion if I want you to do it," Trip reached out and took one of her hands, pulling her up off the bed. "If I want you to do it, it's called sharing." He settled himself on the floor in front of the candle, pulling her down across from him. "And you'd better get used to it!"
Flattered, touched, and feeling decidedly emotional over her human, T'Pol simply nodded and reached for the lighting apparatus. It looked like she was going to be learning a lot about breaking the rules of personal space…and she couldn't say that she minded.