Chapter Three
You her must stop!
A pair from Security was followed in short order by Lt. Reed, Dr. Phlox, Captain Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol, all of whom regarded the twin Auran women with varying degrees of surprise and interest. Before their arrival a shaken Tia Anlor had completely assured Trip of her identity by describing the events of just minutes before in his quarters, enough to thoroughly convince him which was the impostor.
But despite assurances, it was hard for Trip to deal with this. The unconscious young woman they had put on Tia's bed was absolutely identical to the one he knew so well. He looked from one to the other, over and over, comparing minutia and finding absolutely nothing different between them. It was beyond eerie.
They had barely gotten the second Tia onto the bed when the door behind them opened and two Security guards entered, phase pistols drawn. Finding nothing that needed shooting, they holstered the weapons, going from 'alert' to 'guarded'. Less than a minute later Archer, Reed and T'Pol arrived, followed seconds later by Phlox.
Nine people, though one was on the cot, made the small room very crowded indeed, so Reed signaled to the two guards that they could withdraw with him. Whatever was happening; and why there were two Tia Anlors in the room; it was at least not a dangerous matter – yet. Not with the suspected imposter unconscious. He would, however, run very thorough scans and tests; the fact that an intruder could get on the ship at all was not pleasing.
Watching from outside the open door, he looked carefully from the one standing beside Trip to the other laying on the cot. 'Two of her.' He thought. 'I didn't know when I was well off.'
"What can you tell me, Trip?" Archer asked.
"Not a whole lot, Cap'n. I walked in and found her," he pointed to the one on the bed, "pointing this phase pistol at Tia."
Archer noticed the pronouns his friend expressed; obviously he had decided which one was the real one. He wasn't so sure. "What is she?" He asked Phlox, who was examining the unconscious woman. "Is she a Suliban?"
"She Auran is." Tia declared, cutting off whatever Phlox might have said. She was so definite that Archer did not reprimand her interruption.
"How do you know?"
"I sensed her." The young woman looked about uncomfortably, unable now to keep silent. "When 'arrive' behind me she did, sensed her I did." Again that look, and now she admitted very reluctantly. "I sense you all not. I have never." Trip looked at her curiously, and she fought to keep from blushing.
"Phlox?"
The Denobulan looked up. "A telepathic sense?" He speculated carefully, looking then at Tia. "You've said your people know so well about each other, your feelings, that to speak of some things has become gauche."
Tia nodded reluctantly, wishing she did not have to admit it. "Feelings, emotions … presence. We … 'aware' of one another are." She addressed Archer directly. "She Auran is." She looked down at the unconscious woman on her bunk, unable to keep from admitting: "She me is."
x
Trip handed Archer a small rectangular device attached to a leathern band. "She was wearing this. When she went for it I stunned her. It was the only thing she had on her."
Recalling Tia's Auran predilections regarding fashions, and mores which were very different from those of humans, Archer very carefully schooled his expression.
The rectangular silver device was studded with a series of small buttons, four rows of five, with a single one set aside to the far right side. Each was labeled in tiny flowing script, very ornate curves that meant nothing to him at all. He held it up for Tia to see.
"It Auran is. The lettering. I what it is know not." She pointed but very carefully did not touch anything. "These rows," she said, indicating the top two, "'zero' to 'nine' are in your language. The others letters are, but I know their meaning not. Is full wernneuo - is full 'alphabet' not. Thirty-eight letters we have to your twenty-six."
"The first letters of commands?" Trip speculated.
"Daai." She agreed, admitting it was only a guess.
Archer handed the device to T'Pol. "Have this examined – carefully." He had several potential theories for how there could possibly be two identical women here at the same time, and he did not like any of them.
"If that's all," Phlox said, "I want to get her to Sick Bay. I can't do a proper examination here."
"What can you tell us?"
The Denobulan shrugged. "She's been hit by a phase pistol beam at close range."
Archer mentally started to count. He doubted he'd stop long before a thousand.
xx
When they reached Sick Bay, a gurney having transported the unconscious young woman, things did not drastically improve. Phlox and Ensign Dina Samuels from Life Sciences, who was acting Nurse on this shift, got her onto a biobed, and began the examination her while Archer and Trip waited with barely contained impatience. Tia got closer and closer to her twin until she stood beside her, unable to pull her eyes from the Auran.
Phlox worked on in silence on the other side of the bed, with Dina beside him, but only until Tia actually took the hand of the other woman. Finally his patience waned and he put down the molecular scanner he was using. "Tia, please. It is hard enough, when you stand so close, to distinguish between two sets of bio-signs so similar as to be virtually identical, but if you insist upon touching her I will not be able to work at all."
"Anston, Doctor." She said, withdrawing her hand. She took about half a step back.
"Miss Anlor?"
She looked back to where Captain Archer and Charles were standing an appreciable distance away. "Daai?"
"Please return to your quarters." When she'd withdrawn so little, he decided this was the best method of getting the Doctor's answers as quickly as possible.
"Mosti?" She asked, astonished; unable to believe her ears.
"We will send for you when the examination is completed." He promised. She turned to face him squarely, outraged.
"Nyas! Kil ri sei! Li yue dupris nyasi!" Archer's expression did not change, but Trip's reflected his shock. He understood Tia's refusal. Archer did not need to see his friend's face, nor did he need to know the words 'This me is. I will leave not!' The tone was enough.
"Miss Anlor; you will please return to your quarters." His tone clearly told her that he had not wanted to repeat himself and had no intention of giving her a third chance.
"Honey, please." Trip urged.
Keeping her silence against mounting outrage, she gathered what dignity she could and stalked past them, repressed fury like a thunderhead around her. But as the doors opened before her, she stopped and turned. "I her to sense wanted. Her feelings I you could tell." She turned and strode down the corridor, her anger high.
Trip turned to Archer. "I know; I'll talk to her."
Archer shook his head. "No, don't worry about it. I can imagine how I'd feel if it were me on that bed."
"And if you'd pulled a gun on yourself."
xx
Tia strode down the corridor to her quarters, her mind blazing in fury. Archer had ordered her back to her quarters like she was an Atasiu, a child. This was her on that bed, and though she had to admit that Phlox had been right, this was herself on that bed, a self that had drawn a phase pistol on her!
She would follow the Wrenaouq's order. She would go to her palysre as ordered. And there she would wait exactly six point four three piwu, which she had learned were the 'traditional' five of their minutes, and then she would return to get her answers.
As she entered her room, her thoughts were jolted to sudden alertness, her body assuming an automatic defensive posture as she encountered another unwelcome intruder. This one was a man about 40 human years old as she had learned to judge human age, wearing a Starfleet uniform. He had the same complexion as most of the humans she knew, had brown hair cut in the usual fashion, though he did weigh a bit more than most Starfleet crew. His uniform was accented with red piping, and he wore the rank studs of a Lieutenant. "Peace." The man urged, holding up one hand. "I won't harm you. I have a proposition for you."
"Who are you?" She demanded, frustration and anger driving any thought of patience from her mind. He was not one of the eighty one humans aboard; they had not met any other ships in many polus; and she was in no mood for tricks or human 'doubletalk'.
"My name is not important, but what I have to offer is."
"So you say, but I you believe not. I by myself have been visited, and she me to shoot tried." She analyzed him with a critical eye. He was an icad taller than she was, perhaps thirty two lison (or forty human kilos) heavier, but there were over twenty excellent targets in easy striking distance. A right fist to his third left rib would split it completely in half; left hand hard to his carotid pulse, grasp his left hand and twist backward an icad short of snapping the wrist-bone and she was certain he would tell her everything she wanted to know.
x
The man was taken aback by this unexpected development. There was not supposed to be another version of Anlor in this temporal continuum, but clearly there was. He had to think quickly if he was going to succeed against this suspicious woman.
"That was not you. That was a fake." He lied, not certain it was going to hold. "Someone wants to stop you from fulfilling your greatest dream."
"Lie you do! Know I could." She seethed. "My 'greatest dream'? What know you my 'dreams' of?"
"I know a great deal about you, Tia Anlor."
"I you know of nyasura; nothing. Nyasura but that you my questions answer will, before angrier I become!"
"I'm from your future, 362 years, to be exact. I have been assigned to help you to prevent the conquest of your planet."
x
Tia was rocked. She had heard from these humans of others that traveled the Time Lines, performing vast wonders. One had lived among them for weeks before she'd arrived, before revealing himself as an agent from the future. Was this another?
"What say you? And is this how I was here pointing at myself a phase pistol?"
"You know there are many opposing factions in this war. Some want to stop you."
"Met I one of your warriors have. Tried he to all of us kill did. Why should I you believe?" She demanded; her patience already at an end at this second invasion of her privacy. This man was not Auran, he was human. He was wearing a Starfleet uniform, but was not a member of the crew. She did not trust him; his sweet words or his sweeter promises.
"That was not one of ours. That man was from a faction that –."
"Vlis!" She commanded furiously. "Faction and faction; heard I from these humans over and over again of 'factions'." She clenched her fist, measuring exactly the distance to his rib, and how much force was needed against his human body to break it cleanly in half. "Say plainly; I you one final chance give!"
xx
"Well, Doctor?" Archer demanded with strained patience as the Denobulan stepped away from the unconscious woman.
"She is Tia Anlor." He told them. "As much as is the young woman we were just with. I am firmly convinced that these two women are the same person."
"How can that be?" Rather than answering immediately, he led them back to where she lay, standing on the other side of the quiescent body, Dina stepping away to make room for them.
"This woman matches, as closely as I can determine; the physical characteristics of both the other who was just here and our medical records – with one notable exception."
"And that is?"
"She is at least eight months older."
xx
The man smiled disarmingly; seemingly supremely confident she would not attack him. "I am a temporal agent from the future, sent back to help you. I can make it possible for you to save your people." His voice was gentle, mild, and she recognized it was meant to be soothing. In fact, she had to admit that it was soothing, but she did not want to be soothed. Yet for some reason she also found it strangely compelling. "I have the power to help you free your planet. Or, more accurately, to make sure the subjugation of Aura by the Silurians never occurs." His voice was full of silky seductiveness, which further flamed her suspicions.
"Tinkasla!" She declared in lessening though still smoldering rage that it was 'impossible'.
"Not so." He said mildly, gently, surprising her that he knew what she had said even without the UT activated. Unless, of course, he had one she could not see. If he was really from the future, they would certainly have improved the hand-held device. In fact, his tone was so mild, so pleasant, that she found with a measure of surprise that she was not as angry as she had been before. "We have the power, and the desire, to help you. To make certain that your home world never falls prey to the 'klusert ku vorklis', your 'demons from hell'." But the memories of what had happened so recently on far Vendikar, and before they had reached Caldis III, were still too fresh in her mind for her to be taken in by his seductive tones.
"You of the 'temporal war' are." She meant to protest this very sharply, but could no longer manage to raise the outrage to do so. It was as if she was starting to be convinced that he was right … but this was wrong. There was something wrong here. Some part she could not grasp. "But the ones Shar-les worked with not. You of the others are; the ones who to kill us tried."
"No. That was still others. We are not them." He smiled a very mellowing smile. "We prefer to think of our job as maintaining the balance of the universe." He continued on in those same smooth tones, his voice compelling, calming; relaxing. "There are some who would allow the injustice of the universe to continue unchecked, allow the strong to prey upon the weak, allow wrongs to go unrighted, allow abuses to go unpunished. We do not subscribe to that." He stepped closer, his eyes holding hers compellingly. "I believe you are a kindred spirit. Certainly the abuse of your people by the Silurians is an outrage that should be checked."
"Daai." She said softly, unable for some reason to mount a stronger tone. But even as she spoke, she realized she was having increasing trouble concentrating. He was right. Wrongs had to be righted. The weak had to be protected. What was bad about that? It was right.
But she was supposed to be suspicious of this man. He had intruded on her, presented his offer unbidden and unwelcome; so why was it getting so hard to not believe him? His compelling tones, his eyes that never left hers…
"Zilk tinkasla vas sei." She shook her head sharply, trying to fight whatever was clouding her mind, slowing her thoughts until it became very hard to translate simple English. "But impossible it is." She managed to repeat, remembering to use English. But why? He'd understood her before, or had he? But expressing herself in English was becoming a habit that was getting hard to break. "Defeated my people are. Li cassau caalyuau misa nyasi." She shook her head again, unable to clear it. She couldn't concentrate on translating. Something was very wrong, but she couldn't' think of what it was. "I them save can not."
"No. They can be saved. You can save them." He stepped closer still, his tone softening even more. She couldn't look away from his eyes. They were blue, and seemed so deep. So deep. So filled with truth; how could she oppose his truth? "You've fought all your life to save them, but in the end you failed. Now you can succeed. Now you can free your people."
Yes, she believed this mellow toned voice. He was right. His words were true. "Now you can restore to them the peace and prosperity and harmony and culture that had been taken away from them." He told her softly, seductively. "You can save them."
"Caalyuau cannau…" She heard herself whisper 'save them.' But it was wrong. Or was it? No, it wasn't. They could not be saved, no matter what he said. She tried to look away again from his deep, compelling eyes, to close her ears to his voice, but she couldn't.
She had to save her people. She had the ability to save them. She had the resources of a great starship. She had wanted for her whole life trying to save them, and after she'd been 'recruited' into the Muutuur (though very mush against her will) she'd been given the training to fight, but despite her very best efforts she had failed. Now she was being given the chance to succeed. She wanted this more than anything else in the galaxy. She had tried all her life to save her people, and now she could. Nothing else mattered. She was the one who could help them. She was the only one. The only one…
xx
"Bring her around." Archer ordered. Phlox shook his head.
"I'm afraid it's not that simple. I mentioned differences between this Tia and the one out there." He gestured toward the corridor. "I've found extensive bruising, lacerations, contusions, three broken and recently healed bones, stress-related systemic deterioration and other things that 'our' Tia does not have. But I have also found higher levels of nutrients and elements in her blood and organs that are unique to her planet, levels I was unable to bring her to here using artificial supplements. Furthermore, elements in our atmosphere, foodstuffs, et cetera, are reduced to the barest traces or are non-existent in her body. Her body is, in fact, approximately as it was when we first found her aboard the Krontis."
"In English, Doctor."
"I believe that she has spent at least eight months off this ship, and that she spent that time on her home planet."
The young woman was dressed in a flowing blue raiment decorated with floral designs that Archer had to admit, by his lack of recognition of it even from the Risan fashions she had taken to wearing or of the flowers depicted upon it, was most likely genuine Auran material and style. The woman's face, figure, golden complexion, everything was exactly as they had come to know her, ever since the change that had overtaken her during the luuru some weeks before.
"Which is why I need her conscious." He told Phlox firmly.
The Denobulan didn't quite sigh, though his tone conveyed the thought of 'I told you so' better than his words. "All right." He looked at Dina. "Would you prepare an injection of tinkalamine, twelve cc's?" He waited while the woman crossed the room to the medical supply cabinet. "This really is a bad idea." He insisted. He'd feel a lot better if the woman could recover from the effects of the phase stun on her own while he continued to examine her. When Dina returned, he accepted the hypospray and pressed the device to her neck. There was a brief hiss, and a moment later the woman's eyes flew open and she almost leapt from the biobed.
"Whoa!" Trip urged, stepping close, grasping her shoulders to hold her down. "Take it easy. You're all right." She fought him for a moment; then stopped as his words filtered through her drugged brain and focused on him.
"Shar-les?" She exclaimed, as if unable to believe she was seeing him.
"Yes, it's me."
She sighed in profound relief. "Edali kiri …" She stopped sharply, shaking her head, forcing herself to remember the English words. "Did yintu … think see you I again would ailu … never."
It sounded like her; same voice, same inflection, same 'fractured' melding of English with Auran syntax, especially strong since she seemed to be trying to remember English. According to Phlox it was her, but she was in her quarters. "What happened?" He asked.
"Li vlis muuru ti re." She pressed her lips together, biting off a frustrated expletive. "I stop had to her!" She looked about urgently. "Where she is?"
"Your … other self? Probably in her quarters. We thought it best to keep you two separated in the first few minutes, until we get a handle on things."
She looked up at him in increasing urgency. "Time? What time is?"
"0947."
"Nyas!" She almost yelled, jumping off the biobed in a flurry of blue. But her body had not yet recovered from the phase stun and the drug used to revive her, and her legs gave out under her. Trip barely caught her in time. He held her as she tried to struggle to stay on her feet, but her legs would not support her. "Tuvi trinas nyasi!" She exclaimed, clinging to him. Her desperate eyes took in the others. "Tuvi trinas nyasi!" Only then did she remember to translate her thoughts. "You understand not!"
xx
"How I alyanti … 'help' my people misa … 'can'?" Tia asked, struggling to find the words; feeling like even her mind was fighting her. This was something she truly wanted to do, but knew it was impossible. At least, it should be. But it wasn't. She could do it. She could save her people. But that was impossible, they were slaves of the Silurians, and had been for over sixty palyis.
But here this man was, offering her the chance to fulfill her most ardent wish. She had meant to demand an answer to her question, but for some reason she could not. "I one person am." The protest seemed too soft even for her ears.
"The Vulcans have a saying: 'One man can summon the future'. You can be that person. With the right help."
"Suur alyanti?" She asked. She shook her head hard, trying to clear it. "What help?" Yes, she had to have help. She had to have his help if she was going to free her people. But how could she? How could he? It should be impossible. It was impossible. It wasn't impossible. She could do it. But if only she could think. Something was making it so hard to think.
He held out his hand. In it was a small silver device, rectangular, having on it many tiny controls. She had seen it only a half hour before, strapped to the wrist of the woman who bore her face. She tried to pull her hand away. The woman who had worn this had tried to shoot her. Something was wrong.
"Nyas! Suur saf sei?" She tried to shake off the feeling, but could not. "What that is?" It was like trying to think through soup, as if her brain were immersed in something that held her thoughts back, slowed them, would not let her drive them nor let them drive her.
"It is a chronotran; a temporal transporter. With it, you can reach Aura, and with this you can save your people." He handed her a holstered phase pistol, the fitted pouch on a short strap which would wrap about her arm. She realized, with a distant part of her mind, that she should have felt shocked to see it in his hands, but for some reason could not mount the distress the sight warranted.
This was the phase pistol the other had aimed at her. It had to be. How else could she have gotten it? She could not resist as he raised the left sleeve of her long, flowing garment and attached the straps of the holster to her upper arm, his eyes never leaving hers.
This was wrong. She had to stop this. She could free her people with this. She would free them. No, she couldn't. It wasn't possible. But it had to be. It had to be, because she had to save them. She was the only one who could save them. She had to!
Her hand actually came out of its own volition; or so it seemed to her increasingly muddled mind; and she touched it. She couldn't believe she had it strapped to her arm, even after touching it. But she needed it. She couldn't free her people without it. She had to have it, to use it, to free her people with it.
His eyes stayed locked on hers, and she really wanted to resist as he strapped the small silver device to her left wrist. She did not want it there; not when she had seen it on her doppelganger's wrist, but she couldn't summon the will to resist him, or to take it off. She didn't want it off. She needed it. She had to use it to free her people. Free them. Save them. She had to save her people.
Her hands just would not move. She couldn't even really look at the thing. It was like she was seeing everything peripherally, her golden eyes glued to his blue ones. "This will give you the power to go anywhere, do anything. You can stop the Silurians. You can free your people. You can be the savior of your race."
"Avinyaan." She whispered. "Li caalyuau cassau misa. Li caalyuau cassau yue." She could not even think to translate 'I save them can. I save them will.'
"Yes."
"Riid?" She only managed, with great effort, to get the sigh out, wanting to ask 'how?' He pointed to a particular control.
"It's already programmed. Just push that button."
"Daai." She sighed.
xx
"Shar-les, you me must help!" She clung to his arm desperately, her legs useless. She couldn't even take a step yet.
"Help you how?" This was worse than madness. This was Tia, but …
"Vlis re! Oh, I mean 'stop her'. Stop her! Being seduced she is."
"What?"
"Seduced! Lied to. Wanted I my people to help, but failed I did. Prevented the first contact with the 'klusert ku vorklis' I did, but killing them by!" Trip would have pulled back in horror had she not clung to his arms. She looked at Archer, not releasing her grip on Tucker, imploring his help, his understanding. "Used I the phase pistol he me gave. Tried I the first encounter with the Relatui to stop did, tell them what happen did, but believe me they did not. Ignored me they did. Agree to let the Silurians come they did.
"Killed the first ones I did, right in the Relatu's chamber. But revenge they took! From space destroyed city after city until comply we would. Comply many did, but all not! For months we fought, but time after time cities they destroyed. Thousands they killed. Millions. It worse than the first time was. Doomed my people I did!"
The Enterprise crew was speechless with horror. She grasped Archer's arm, imploring his understanding. "Fought for months I did, trained those I could against those who to the surface came to enslave us, but failed I did! Then came to me someone did, someone who say he you know him do." Her words, barely remembered, were growing even more fractured in her distress. "'Daniels' he his name did say is. Repaired he the damaged 'chronotran'; program he it did. One chance he gave! Go the time 'before' agree I did to. I myself stop from agreeing must."
xx
Tia, unable despite her best efforts to take her eyes from the man's, reached to touch the indicated control with her fingertip.
xx
Tia turned to the stunned Charles Tucker, pleading. "I her stop must! Tried stun I her to did, take her place, refuse his offer. But now we her stop mu
x x x x x x
Commander Charles Tucker handed the status board back to T'Pol. They stood together on the platform that accessed the main control panel of the Warp 5 engine. "Well, you can tell the Cap'n everything's ship-shape down here. We're ready to go whenever he is." He told the First Officer.
"Fortunately, the Captain and Lieutenant Reed were able to retrieve the missing communicator, other instruments and the results of the medical exam without any casualties." Tucker tried to avoid glaring at her.
"If that's what you call it. We barely got there in time to get their necks out of nooses."
"But we did succeed, however." She told him, trying with her tone to extend a compliment she would likely never say aloud. It was only by his contribution to the mission that it had succeeded.
"I'm just glad the cloak on that Suliban cell ship held together long enough."
"Indeed." It was the closest to gratitude he supposed the woman was likely ever to come.
"I guess this is going to be the beginning of a whole new bunch of safety regulations. We can't be losing technology on primitive planets."
"No. The consequences are quite severe." Trip looked at her, wondering if her understatement was an attempt at levity. He decided it was not. "Well, I'll bring your report to the Captain."
"See you around." He could not resist the colloquialism, just for the opportunity to see the expression that greeted it. Sometimes, he thought, it was unfair how easy it was to throw her off.
T'Pol nodded; descending backward down the ladder. Trip watched her turn and walk away, taking a moment to enjoy an unobserved look at the trim Vulcan woman. 'Malcolm's right about one thing, though.' He thought as she walked out the door. 'She sure does have a nice bum.'