Title: Proof of Existence: Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Still don't own 'em, still don't want to.

Authors note: Thanks to Paper Parcel for suggesting the joke about the real function Nurse Chapel has on the ship. I should explain that I never could get into any of the Star Trek series except the original. So if there's anything in this that contradicts anything from later series, sorry, but that's the way it is in my universe.

Stardate 4524

James Kirk was not having a good day. In fact, he was having a particularly bad one.

It had started when he got up and brushed his hair. And spotted grey. Grey? How could that be? Surely he was to young for grey hair. Wasn't he? Certainly he was, it must have been his imagination. Or so he told himself, but his suspicion remained.

Then when he sat down in front of his terminal to get the day's news, the top headline was Carol Marcus getting some sort of scientific award. Kirk mostly tried to forget about Carol, who wanted him so thoroughly out of her life. Most of the time he was successful. But having to confront her image this early in the morning, before his coffee… hurt. Angrily he snapped off his terminal and grumpily made his way to breakfast.

He thought his day had made a turn for the better when he spotted Dr. McCoy, and slid into the seat next to him. But he soon realized his mistake. Dr. McCoy was in one of his famous bad moods, the ones that made timid ensigns take to faith healing or massage therapy rather than run the risk of asking for a headache pill, the moods that made braver members of the crew joke that the real function of Nurse Chapel was to keep her boss' meds in balance, but that occasionally she slipped up. One of those moods.

Kirk fled as soon as decently possible. Even worse than McCoy's blistering comments on his captain's life style choices (and all he had done was mention Carol, he hadn't been looking for sympathy, well, not much at any rate.) was the realization of the root cause of the doctor's dudgeon, not, as the jokes would have it, chemical imbalance, but the most dreaded job of any Department Head. The Quarterly Reports.

Quarterly reports which, Kirk now realized with dawning distaste, it was soon to be his task to read, edit, amend, sign, seal, duplicate, and send to Star Fleet. Along with his own quarterly reports.

God, he hated paperwork. Even though there was no longer any paper involved. And there was only so much that he could push on to his yeoman. Delegation only went so far. Wasn't it one of the presidents of the old United States who had the sign on his desk that said "The Buck Stops here"? Well eventually on the Enterprise the buck stopped with James T. Kirk.

It was only when he sat down, stylus in hand, that he remembered the reason why these quarterly reports were particularly to be dreaded.

They were the final quarter Quarterly Reports. When all three previous quarters had to be summed up and reported on. Including the one report he dreaded the most, the one that probably had put McCoy into his foul mood.

The casualty report. The list of every death, every crippling or debilitating injury suffered by crew for the time covered. Space was dangerous. Everyone knew that. The death tolls were high. Very high. And they were his people, his command, his responsibility. Every name on the list felt like a personal failure. It made him feel… old. Maybe that had been a grey hair this morning after all.

Kirk rubbed his eyes. He was starting to get a headache. Momentarily he thought of going to sickbay for something, and then remembered McCoy's mood. Maybe a nice massage was a better idea? Or a stop for a prayer at the ship's chapel?

And at that point Kirk's day really went to hell.

Suddenly, without warning, he felt himself slammed from the command chair. For a few moments there was pandemonium. Officers and crew scattered across the bridge deck, klaxons blaring, but within seconds the crew were back in their seats.

"What just happened?" Kirk barked out.

"Sir!" Ensign Checkov was the first to react. "Ve haf come to a total standstill in space!"

"Confirmed, Captain." Mr. Spock added.

"Minor casualties reported on all decks, Captain." Lieutenant Uhura reported. "Cuts and bruises, one possible broken arm in Life Support. Nothing worse. No reports of damage to the ship."

Kirk hit a switch on his command chair. "Engineering, report. Scotty, what's going on down there?"

"I canna' say" Commander Scott's familiar brogue cut through the hubbub. "Nothin' actually seems at' be wrong. It's more as though we've simply been caught and held."

That's when the laughter began, loud and manic. Uhura gave a small shriek of pain as she pulled her ear-bug out. "Sir! That's coming from every speaker in the ship!"

The laughter segued into speech "That's right, little predators, you're stuck here."

The voice was strange. Childish and adult at once, with a menacing tone of glee.

Kirk addressed the air in front of him. "I'm Captain James T. Kirk, and this is the Starship Enterprise. We…"

"I know who and what you are, little predator." The voice chuckled gloatingly. "It's taken me a long time to find you and arrange for the fun we're going to have now."

"If you know who and what we are," Kirk continued, "Then you know our mission is peaceful. We mean you no harm…"

"But I mean you a lot of harm. Just like you hurt me. You'll be sorry but it'll be too late. And it'll be fun."

Kirk struggled for words. "If we've hurt you in some way…"

The voice cut him off before he could say more. "You made me lose my best friend. Trelane's mother and father won't let him play with me any more." There was a collective gasp as the crew recognized the name of Trelane, otherwise known as the Squire of Gothos.

Kirk tried again. "If any harm came to you or Trelane through us…"

"Harm? He was my best friend. I could get him to do anything." There was an emphasis to the words that was decidedly unpleasant. "Now I have to try and find a new friend to help me. And that's not fun. And more parents are telling their brats 'Don't play with Grylock'. So I'm going to have my fun with you, little predators."

The voice laughed again. "Down on the planet below, there's a little present for you. Better find it before it's to late. 'Cause if you don't, you'll really be sorry. Some of you just won't be here any more. I lost my friend, so now you'll lose friends too."

"Planet below us? What planet? We're out in open space, there's no planet below us!"

"There is now!" Lieutenant Sulu's alarmed voice cut in. And we're heading right towards it, sir!"

"Plot an orbit and lay in." Kirk snapped. Sulu and Checkov's hands flew over their consoles.

"Ve are in orbit, Keptain." Checkov reported. His voice sounded shaky.

The voice, which had been silent, laughed again. "Now you just need to find your present. And figure out what to do about it." It chuckled.

Then it got more reflective. "The one thing I could never get Trelane to do was mess with the Long-ago. Scaredy-cat. He was afraid to get caught. But I'm not afraid of the Long-ago. So you'd better find your present really fast, little predator,. "Cause the Long-ago can change."

Kirk swallowed, hard. "How long do we have?"

The laughter came again. "In ten of your days, you lose this round. And then when I see what happens, I'll think of something else for you to do."

There was one more gale of laughter, then, blissfully, silence.

"Sensors" Kirk snapped. "What can you tell about that planet?"

"Very little, Sir." Spock replied. "There seems to be some sort of interference field. Undoubtedly to make our task harder. However, I can say this much. It is small, barely the size of earth's moon. But it has a gravity approximately that of Earth, and a breathable atmosphere. At first glimpse it appears to be lifeless."

"All right, Spock, whoever this 'Grylock' is, he seems to be the same type of creature as Trelane. So I want you, McCoy, and everyone else who met Trelane, down in the main briefing room in an hour. That's Uhura, Sulu, Lt. Jaeger, Lt. LaSalle, and Yeoman Ross, I don't think there was anyone else. Also I want Dr. Noel there, I think we're going to need some psychological input."

He hit the switch on his chair. "Scotty? How's everything down there?"

"Everything seems to be normal, Captain." Mr. Scott replied.

"Then I need you on the bridge to take the com."

"Aye, sir." Scotty wasn't happy, Kirk could tell, to leave the engine room, but Kirk wanted him on the bridge since neither Spock nor he would be there.

An hour later the assembled group sat around the large briefing room table.

"I want this patched in to all decks." Kirk said. Uhura made some adjustments to the communications equipment. Kirk continued "Anyone with any thoughts feel free to break in. Spock, will you recap the Trelane incident for everyone?"

"The entity who called himself Trelane, the Squire of Gothos, was a non-corporeal intelligence of vast power. He was, however, essentially just a child. He had been studying Earth. And was pleased when he found real humans to "play" with. Fortunately his game was broken up by the arrival of his parents."

"Sir" Dr. Helen Noel, the ship's psychiatrist broke in. " A point. I've reviewed the reports of the Trelane incident. As terrifying as the events were in and of themselves, Trelane didn't actually harm anyone, until you had provoked him to anger. He did seem like a naughty, mischievous child, but not an inherently evil one. In fact, it seemed as though he simply wanted to play, and he expected you to enjoy his games as well. He was hurt when you didn't, and threw, essentially, a tantrum. But this Grylock seems different. He seems malicious. Malevolent, even. And we have his own words that Trelane's parents, and others as well, are keeping their children away from him. He sounds like a developing sociopath. In layman's terms, Trelane seems like the little boy who puts a frog down a girls blouse because he likes her. Grylock is more like the type of child who starts by torturing small animals and goes on from there."

There were dismayed sounds from around the table.

"All right everyone. What do we know about what Trelane could and couldn't do?"

"Well, we know he could instantaneously transmute matter, sir." Yeoman Ross put in. "I still have the dress he made for me. I was upset about it at the time, but actually it's rather pretty."

"He could teleport things up to the size of that small planetoid he was based on. And he had total control over its atmosphere and gravity." Lt. Jaeger, the geologist, put in. "And he spoke perfect German."

"And French" Lt. LaSalle added.

"But he never spoke to Sulu or I in either Swahili or Japanese." Uhura pointed out. "So apparently he wasn't reading our minds. But he had some ability to influence our minds, for instance the way he gave me the ability to play his harpsichord."

"He used the physical machinery that was hidden behind the mirror in his dining room, but he wasn't limited to it." Spock reminded them. "Of course, we have no idea how much of what Trelane could do, Grylock can as well. Or how much more. It is interesting that while Trelane was using a rouge planetoid, with no star, Grylock has put us in orbit around a planet in a small, but existing solar system."

"What do we know about the planet, Spock?"

"The planet, as I have said, is small, but with an anomalously high gravity, which Grylock may have manipulated. It is the only body circling this star. There is some sort of interference field being generated that prevents us from scanning more than a small part of it at any time, and which also makes it difficult to pinpoint anything with any degree of accuracy. I have programmed the sensors to continually scan sections for any sign of anything out of the ordinary, since we have no idea what the 'present' Grylock mentioned is."

"Can we make any assumptions about it, Spock?"

"His use of the term 'Long-ago' is suggestive of the possibility of something concerning time travel." Spock said gravely. "There is an additional factor that lends credence to that assumption."

"And that is…?"

"One of the first things that Ensign Chekov and I did after Grylock left us, was to attempt to determine our location by means of star charts.. We are, in fact, not far at all from where we were." Spock touched a control and the ship's coordinates appeared on the terminal. "However, in the process, we discovered something disconcerting. This entire solar system is apparently surrounded by an energy field, and outside that field, time appears to have stopped."

"How is that possible, Spock? He can't be powerful enough to stop time, can he?"

"Doubtful, Captain. Rather what I suspect is that he has created this pocket of space as a fold in the space-time continuum. It is not that time has ceased to pass, it is rather that this part of space exists separately from the rest of the space-time continuum. Just as it is attached at one particular physical location, the coordinates that I have shown, and when we leave this place we will be at those coordinates, so it is attached at only one temporal location as well, and when we leave, we will be at that point in time."

"Say that in English" McCoy broke in testily.

"Basically" Spock translated "As long as we stay here, nothing changes in the outside world, because when we leave we will return to the exact moment that we entered."

"You could have said that the first time." McCoy grumbled.

"I believe I did, doctor."

Kirk rubbed his forehead. "Gentlemen, now is not the time." McCoy made an apologetic grunt. "Spock, thank you." Spock bowed slightly. "McCoy" Kirk went on, "Do you have any medical report?"

Dr. McCoy shook his head. "There were no serious injuries reported. The worst was an ensign with a broken arm. I agree with Dr. Noel's psychological impressions, by the way. Trelane made me want to put him over my knee and give him a good old-fashioned spanking. But this Grylock is on a different level altogether."

"Excuse me, sirs. Lt. Freeman from engineering." A voice broke in over the intercom. "I'm wondering, is it likely that this 'present' might be people that Grylock's pulled through time?"

"Quite possible, lieutenant. We'll have to be conscious of that possibility." Kirk agreed. "Does anyone have anything else to add?" No one did.

"All right then. Spock, continue scanning the planet. Unless something else occurs, we'll adjourn now, and meet again tomorrow at this same time. Dismissed,"

Time moved slowly. Kirk spent most of it restlessly pacing, or staring moodily at the image of the planet on the view screen. To kill time he even tried working on the quarterly reports, but he couldn't concentrate. The rest of the day passed, and Kirk forced himself to try and sleep. He didn't like feeling this helpless. It made him cranky. He slept badly.

The next morning there was no change. When the time came for the second briefing, the only new thing to report was that Spock had scanned half the planet without finding anything other than rock, sand and water. Kirk adjourned the second briefing, and went back to staring and pacing.

Then, halfway through the afternoon, Spock suddenly looked up from his scanner.

"Captain. I believe we have found something."

All activity on the bridge ceased. "What is it, Spock?"

"Two life forms. Possibly human, but the interference is making it difficult to be sure."

"Can you pinpoint an exact location?"

"Negative. The best I can do is somewhere within an area of roughly one square mile. Once on the planet's surface it might be possible to focus more precisely.

"Well then we'll have to go down, won't we?" Kirk said cheerfully. Anything to finally be taking some action. "Spock, you and I will beam down together."

When they arrived the planets surface was just as Kirk had imagined, bleak, windy, and rocky. Spock took tricorder readings.

"That way, Captain." he indicated. The two officers set off.

It had been a little over an hour of walking, with Spock pausing for occasional tricorder readings, when he stopped and looked up.

"Captain, I heard a shout." They scanned the horizon. "There. On the top of that hill." Spock pointed.

Kirk could just barely see two figures. One was waving its arm in the air. As they watched, the two figures began to pick their way toward Kirk and Spock.

"Well, come on, Spock, let's go meet our… 'present'."

The two strangers didn't make very good speed. Kirk realized why when he saw that the one in the lead was leaning heavily on a cane, barely able to move its right leg. By the time he realized that, he's also seen that the two figures -men- were wearing some sort of uniform.

"Spock, can you identify what they're wearing?"

"Earth. Middle twentieth century. I'd say, Second World War. British, I believe. Beyond that I would not care to speculate, Captain."

"Looks like Freeman was right in his guess. At least they're the good guys."

Now the men were close enough to see clearly. The one with the cane, in the lead, was a tall, sandy-haired man. A face that should have been young and handsome was disfigured by lines of pain, and by a large scar that covered his left cheek. Another scar cut down his forehead, and the hand that held his cane was similarly disfigured. He moved stiffly, plainly in a great deal of pain. He barely looked at Kirk and Spock, his efforts clearly going into keeping himself moving.

Behind him and slightly to the side, the other man was both older and smaller. He had dark hair, thinning, and parted severely in the middle. Although obviously exhausted, he moved much more easily than his leader, and his eyes, dark with worry, alternated between watching Spock and Kirk, and the man he followed.

When they had reached each other, the younger man stopped, pulled himself up rigidly straight, and snapped out "Captain Brian Ash, Royal Engineers. And this is Sergeant James." His accent was British, clean and crisp. His voice was a light tenor.

Kirk smiled in what he hoped was a friendly, non-threatening manner. "I'm pleased to meet you. I'm Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, and this is my first officer, Mr. Spock." Spock stepped forward.

Captain Ash's face drained of all color. He swayed for a moment, and his cane dropped from his hand. Then he simply crumpled up and collapsed.