Chapter 40


Bok left the unconscious and bleeding human quite literally in the dust and wandered away. If the boy died, it was none of his concern. Rummaging through the boy's small pack of belongings, he grabbed the control device needed to return with the Pedestal, and then reconsidered and just dropped it into his pocket. The odds were the humans had once again confiscated the Pedestal on board the Aldrin. The last thing he needed was a one way ticket back into Starfleet custody.

He knew that a small space port lay to the east of the bar. He could avoid seeing Mayer and catch a ride off-world. From there, the galaxy would be his to travel freely again. He would re-build his wealth and be more influential and admired than ever before. Bok smiled to himself. The plan seemed like a good one.

Then his feet began inexplicably to steer him toward the bar, no matter how much he intended to walk in the opposite direction. It was at first infuriating, but then once he realized the cause, he became highly anxious. He couldn't stop it. His thoughts became blurry, and he knew that it was Mayer's singularity technology that was influencing his movements. Before Bok knew it, he was standing in the doorway looking into the crowded bar, just as he had on that fateful day. It occurred to him that this was in fact that fateful day, and that Mayer would be waiting inside for him.

Unable to stop himself walking forward, he lifted one foot and then the other until he was standing in front of a table. Seated at the table was a middle-aged human male with long ratty blonde hair and a large hideous scar on the right side of his face where his ear had once been.


Mayer tilted his head upward and fixed Bok with his piercing gaze. In the palm of his hand was a spinning black orb. Bok knew it very well. Too well, in fact. Even more than revenge it's peculiar influence had been the reason he had destroyed Picard's life in such a complete way. It was the reason for everything. "Where is the boy?" Mayer asked in his quiet voice. He did not seem at all surprised to see Bok. "The one who intended to stop me?"

"Wha-what do you want?" Bok stuttered, his eyes bulging with the effort of trying to fight the singularity device's hold on him.

"Your antics have put me at risk, Bok," Mayer continued in his deceptively quiet tone. "You failed to end Picard for all time, and now I am a hunted man."

Bok frowned. "Picard cannot hunt you—he is very likely to die soon in any of the timelines in which he is now at risk. In fact at Maxia I believe he intends to return to Malkata and attack the General's stronghold. He is suicidal."

"Picard will be dead soon, I agree," said Mayer. "In fact, I may pay him a visit in the past and ensure he meets his demise in 2355 as we originally intended before your failure…but no, it is not Picard who hunts me, Bok, it is someone far more powerful. And if he finds me, I will tell him of your role in this and you will be his prey as well." Mayer smiled, and revealed toothless gums. "Now, where is the boy?"

"I left him in the desert to die," Bok sneered.

Mayer said nothing, but then his eyes alighted on something or someone over Bok's shoulder. Bok turned to see, and felt his ears buzz. It was him. Bok. His past self had walked into the bar and was looking around curiously. But past-Bok hadn't yet noticed Mayer or his future self yet. Bok turned back to Mayer, unable to keep the fear out of his eyes.

"Have you ever heard that theory, Bok…the one in which you meet an exact replica of yourself, and because both of you cannot exist in one universe, both instantly cease to exist?"

"No—no."

Mayer laughed. "Well it is just a theory—and a false one at that. Believe me, I have met myself a thousand times over since I found and perfected this technology," he said, examining almost lovingly the small singularity still floating in the palm of his hand.

Bok sighed with relief. "Good," he said. "For a minute I thought—"

"You know, Bok, this time, when we meet and I sell you the Singularity Net, I might do a few things differently. Sometimes you need two or three tries to get things right. It's just all part of the experiment."

Bok glanced at his former self. "I should leave then…before I get here, that is."

Mayer smiled his toothless grin again. "No matter, you can stay right where you are," he said. "I only need one version of you alive Bok. Don't look so surprised—of course you can be killed in one universe and still exist in another. Sometimes….Besides, this version of you knows far too much."

Mayer flicked his wrist forward almost casually, and the back orb shot straight through Bok's body, and then returned to Mayer's hand as though it were on a string.

Bok looked down and watched in horror as his body was sucked and swirled into the strange hole in his torso the singularity had produced. It was a bizarre way to expire—to be drawn into a black hole where your own belly button had once been. But before he could even cry out, it was all over.


2355 Maxia System

At first Picard was fine; clear-headed and focused on his goal. He intended to destroy General Unh and his base. Would it stop Unh from using the Singularity Net in the first place? No… but if destroyed Unh's base, the Malkatans would not be able fuse the Net and Federation technology and then invade Federation space twelve years later in 2367, as Riker and Beverly explained had occurred.

It occurred to him that if he destroyed the Singularity Net, which he knew to be in orbit around the Malkatan moon instead, the result might be the same. Either way he considered the possibilities, he knew it was possible that his child with Beverly might not survive, but then again she might not survive if the Malkatans destroyed the Federation she was only just being born into.

His mind continued to race as he piloted the Stargazer back to the source of his anguish and humiliation. Although in his world, he and Beverly had already conceived a child, it was only allowed to happen because he had been captured by the Malkatans in the first place. Time had already been changed when Beverly visited him that night. Time was changed again when Beverly and Riker returned to the past, and when he met Brom in person—the once anonymous Ferengi he had been "meant" to kill in this life.

Would he change time again to the extent that his child would disappear? If he died over the Malkatan moon, would another Picard live on in the future? Could there be more than one of him?

He was so focused on his troubles and all of the possibilities, that he didn't hear the perimeter warning beeping until it was too late.

The plasma blast came out of nowhere and suddenly the bridge of the Stargazer was on fire—again. His shields had been down. He raised the shields quickly and then shouting, he jumped up from the helm and rushed for the fire suppressant. "Dammit!" Zev had used it up putting out the fire during battle with Brom's ship. He tossed the empty container to the deck and then returned to the helm. He scanned the area, but could detect nothing. The heat from the fire made sweat roll down his forehead.

The ship shook again from another plasma burst. On the view screen he could see the green energy burst emanate seemingly from out of nowhere. "A cloaked ship," he murmured. A ship that could engage weapons while cloaked was nearly unbeatable in most situations, not that he'd ever been faced with such a situation until now, as such ships were incredibly rare. And under these circumstances, the odds were very poor.

"When you can fight, fight like hell, and when you can't fight…run," he announced to the empty bridge. He coughed as smoke began to crowd out the oxygen in his lungs. He quickly programmed the photon torpedoes to deploy in a scattered pattern and fired. He wasn't going to wait around to see if he'd hit his disguised attacker; instead, he engaged the warp engines and sped toward his destination.