Lt. Commander Zabrowlski punched two more keys, and his frown got deeper. Still not satisfied, he ran the program one more time. His hands twitched as he waited for the computer to make the trillion or so checks he'd asked it to. Things like this don't happen in Command Security, at least not on his watch. Not a demerit to his record, and promotion just down the road, he couldn't botch it now!

Again the computer flashed the same response. There was no doubt—someone had broken the Omni Ten's security program. Without taking his eyes off the disheartening screen, he signaled the top office.

"Admiral Shrildev's office," came the voice, and Zabrowlski turned to see the ensign on the screen.

"Mr. Perez, I must speak to the admiral immediately."

Perez hesitated. "Sir, protocol requires your requests to be channeled through your immediate superior. If you like..."

"Damn it, Ensign! This is a class fourteen emergency."

Perez' face showed his confusion. "Uh, class four..."

"Fourteen, Ensign! And if you don't put me through right now, you'll be swabbing the head on some cargo cruiser!"

"One moment, sir," said the frightened aide, and the screen went blank.

A few seconds later it brightened with the Admiral's blue face almost filling it. Her antennae were at a tilt Zabrowlski wasn't used to—amusement or just focusing on him? She effected a fairly human smile and said, "Commander, just what is a class fourteen emergency?"

Zabrowlski smiled sheepishly. "It's something to get past your aide as quickly as possible with something important."

"Since it is obviously too important to go through normal channels, I assume you have discovered a dangerous security breech."

His smile evaporated as he got to his task. "Affirmative, Admiral. There's been a break in the main and secondary security protocols."

The Andorian's antennae jerked in surprise. "From an officer of your record I do not have to ask for confirmation, as I'm sure you've made every check. Do you have a fix on the break?"

"Negative, sir. The computer is working on it now. I thought you should know right away."

"Very well, Commander. How much data was breached?"

"That's the strange thing about it, sir. No data was accessed."

Again the antennae twitched. "Explain."

"As far as I can determine, the Omni was used for some complex multi-parallel synchronic calculations."

The admiral's eyes scanned to the side, as Zabrowlski was used to when she was thinking hard about something. A moment later she said, "Do you have any of the computations?"

"Negative, sir. Whoever did this used our own security protocols to cover his tracks. I did recover one fragment of an entry only because the spy was unaware of the subprogram which pulls out the names of any known criminals when they appear in any computation."

"And?"

"I'm afraid this only gets stranger, sir. The data contain a list titled 'Convicted Felons, UFP' for part of this year." He paused and consulted the terminal, even though he knew what was written there by heart. "The problem is that only 47 of the names listed there correlate with memory banks as being convicted felons, and 31 of the remaining names are not in the banks anywhere, including the latest UFP census figures."

In his pause she said, "Analysis Mr. Zabrowlski?"

"I'm afraid I have none. I have to do a cryptanalysis on one other fragment—it appears to be the password the spy used to enter the files. Obviously he was also unaware that all passwords are triply saved."

"But why the cryptanalysis? Do you think the password is a code?"

"Negative. I simply can't read it."

"Patch it over," she said, turning toward her desk terminal.

Within seconds Zabrowlski heard the bell-like chime that he recognized as Andorian laughter, and the admiral turned back to face him. "It's Vulcan, Commander," she said, smiling.

"Vulcan! It must be a Romulan using Vulcan to throw us off!"

The admiral's smile broadened and she shook her head. "Negative, Commander. If my rusty Vulcan can be counted on, the password means something like 'What took you so long?', and it's Captain Spock's signature, plain as day."

Spock! Jim Kirk's Vulcan sidekick? Zabrowlski was confused and said so. The admiral explained, "Mr. Spock must have had some calculations he needed the Omni for. I know he has clearance to use the H'Gal on Vulcan, so he must have decided to create Omni clearance for himself."

Zabrowlski stiffened in his chair. "Should I issue an arrest warrant, sir?"

"Negative," laughed Shrildev. "First of all, he's off on that emergency mission to Nimbus III, and secondly, I'm sure he has the program to plug the leak he found, all ready for us to implement. It won't be the first time his computing skills have saved us from embarrassment and danger."

The Andorian tilted her antennae forward and asked, "Problem, Commander?"

"No, sir." His tone belied his words.

The admiral allowed a tiny smile and said, "You're upset that I appear to be letting a criminal off the hook aren't you?"

"Sir," began the security chief brusquely, then he warmed to her informal mode and said calmly, "Sir, breaking computer security comes under the espionage statutes."

The smile vanished. "Affirmative, Commander. But how often is Starfleet computer security breached?"

Confused at this tack, he answered, "Uh, well, there was the Farnow case a few years back, and there's the rumor of a leak in Weapons research, but..."

"And how often," interrupted Shrildev, "have our agents broken Klingon or Romulan computer securities?"

"Quite often," he replied with a touch of patriotic pride.

"Do you know why, Commander?" She didn't give him time to answer. "It's because of the unfair advantage we have in having the best computer experts in the known universe on our side."

"Vulcans," muttered Zabrowlski, finally seeing where she was headed.

"Affirmative, Commander. And much of our current computer security is based on modifications of the original programs, which in turn resulted from Captain Spock's testing them."

"You mean," he asked hesitantly, "that he tries to break our security codes and then tell us how to plug the leaks?"

"Precisely. Now, go issue a summons for Captain Spock."

"But you just said..."

"I said there's no reason to arrest the man. We obviously need to talk to him about his computations. If only half the felons on his list correlate with memory, something strange is going on. I'll contact Admiral Morrow and arrange a briefing. Have Spock report to him upon his return."

"Aye, sir."

Gillian's face was one big grin as Ron Fairbanks, who had been assigned to help her in the lab, explained the machinery she had been unable to figure out for herself. "And this, sir, is the mass spectrometer. It..."

"I know what it is. We had them, too. But not," she laughed, "the size of a deck of cards."

"Sorry, sir. I wish I was better at the history of science."

"Nonsense," she replied, "and can you please stop calling me 'sir'? It's hard enough for me to get used to being head cetacean biologist of the fleet without that. And anyway, in my time, they didn't address women in charge with 'sir'."

"No?" asked the young man incredulously. "What did they call them?"

She hesitated, her brow furrowed. "Well, there weren't that many, and things weren't worked out yet." She smiled. "'Sir' is a good solution, I think. But not for me here. 'Gillian' is fine."

Ron considered for a moment, then grinned and said, "Sure, Gillian. But officially you're 'Dr. Taylor.' I'm getting field credit toward my degree for this, and my university is fussy about things like that."

She'd taken an instant liking to this clever, good-natured young man, and she smiled warmly at him and asked, "What university is that?"

"U-Terr-Alpha-Mix," he answered proudly.

"You tear alpha mix?" she mimicked.

"The University of Terrestrial Sciences, at Alpha Mix," he laughed. "You know, Mixoloxi, on Camerron, third planet, Alpha Cenatuari?"

"Oh!" she drawled, slapping the side of her head. "That Alpha Mix!"

He blushed, then said, "Sorry again. You see, there's a Mixoloxi on Butta, in the Vegulon system, so they're called Alpha Mix and Veg Mix."

"And Mixoloxi?"

"Benjamin Mixoloxi, a great Farithian general. He died in the war with the Romulans. He was born on Camerron, but he married a Vegulonite and lived on Butta, so they both claimed him."

"Ron," she said, shaking her head, "there is so much for me to catch up on, I'm not sure I can do it."

"Listen, Gillian, you have to remember this goes both ways. You're missing a lot of history, but you're a walking museum! You've worked with animals we've never observed alive! Old books and tapes are great, but you have first-hand knowledge. You have more to teach than to learn."

"I'm not sure I'd go that far."

"Well, you should. After all, look who's in charge here...Sir."

She laughed, then said, "Since I'm in charge here, let's get to work!" Ron picked up a chip of data from the previous day's observations and popped in into the computer. Gillian turned to look at the monitor, which was filling with multi-colored graphs of parameters she hadn't even known of when she'd impulsively leaped onto Jim Kirk's neck...three hundred years ago. She grinned. Boy, was she ever going to enjoy this!

"Standard docking approach, Mr. Sulu," said Kirk, glad to be able to put the whole Sybok affair behind him and resume his camping trip.

"Docking in two minutes, mark!"

"Captain!" called Uhura. "Priority message for Mr. Spock."

"Can't they wait until we get there?" complained Kirk. "All right, patch it through to Mr. Spock's station."

"Commander," said Spock quickly, "Put it on audio. It is likely that this concerns all of us."

McCoy laughed. "Now what have you gotten us into, Spock?"

The voice came from the speakers, "Captain Spock, you are requested to report to Admiral Morrow's office immediately upon docking. Confirm, please."

Kirk noticed the familiar dancing behind Spock's eyes which he had long ago learned to interpret as devious laughter. The Vulcan replied, "Affirmative. Tell Admiral Morrow I shall be there presently...and tell him that Security is to be commended on their efficiency."

"What the hell was that about?" demanded McCoy, but before he could answer, the speakers were alive again with welcome and instructions from Spacedock. The ship was berthed, and it was several minutes before Kirk could dismiss the rest of the bridge crew and the three of them were alone so the doctor could repeat his question.

"Obviously, Security has discovered my use of the Omni Ten, and..."

McCoy gasped, "You used the Omni Ten?"

"No, Bones," laughed Kirk. "He simply discovered a flaw in the Omni security programs and has kindly figured out how to plug the leak."

"I see," McCoy said scowling. "What were you doing, picking the winners of the Rigellian ymo races?"

Spock raised a brow and said tersely, "Doctor, one does not need the computing power of the Omni Ten to compute the probability schedules of such fraudulent activities."

"So what were you doing with it?" McCoy asked.

Kirk and Spock exchanged glances. "Go ahead, tell him, Spock."

"It may be unwise to involve the doctor, Jim. We have no way of knowing how intervoluted the disruptions in the time continuum might be, or how each of us may affect them."

"What disruptions?" shouted McCoy. "Have you two been playing around with..."

"No, Bones. We've just been worried about our tampering with the past."

"You mean that our bringing back those two fish has changed history?"

Jim was almost sure he saw Spock roll his eyes. The Vulcan said, "Doctor, I trust that your medical knowledge exceeds the oversimplified understanding you have both of marine biology and of quantum time manipulation."

Kirk stepped between them and appealed, "Gentlemen, gentlemen! There is no need for insults."

"Insults?" asked Spock innocently. "I was merely pointing out..."

"The only thing pointing on you is those blasted ears, and if you'd use them for a change you'd know that..."

"Doctor! Mr. Spock!" Kirk had to fight back a grin. "Enough! Now, Bones, Spock has uncovered some...anomalies since we returned from the Twentieth Century, and he is concerned about possible effects of our visit to the past."

"And how does the Omni fit into all of this?"

Spock answered. "I used a new program developed by T'Laq to correlate various alternate temporal projections from the locus of our removal of the two...marine mammals...and Dr. Taylor from the Twentieth Century." As he continued his report, McCoy's face became grim.

Jim added hopefully, "But we don't know for sure what we have a problem. And, even if we do, saving the Earth in this century may just be worth whatever changes bringing three individuals forward in time might have caused."

"I'm afraid there's even more of a problem than you're aware of." McCoy said sadly.

"Explain," urged Kirk.

"Well, Scotty and I...well, we needed that acrylic to build the whale tank..." He paused and looked at both of them.

Spock said, "I did wonder how you were able to obtain such a mass of polymeric material with no medium of exchange."

"That's just it," McCoy answered, "we did have something to exchange." He pulled a face and swallowed hard. "Scotty gave the manager at the plant the formula for transparent aluminum."

"You're kidding," groaned Kirk, then he looked to Spock for counsel, but the Vulcan was already bent over the computer console.

"Fascinating," he said after a moment. "Library reports that transparent aluminum was invented in the mid 1990's by a Marcus Nichols of San Francisco, who never revealed the research that led up to his discovery."

"Scotty said maybe he was the one who came up with it," McCoy said hopefully.

"Only he wasn't," replied Spock, "or, at least he wasn't in history as we know it." The other two waited for the facts they knew would come. "Transparent aluminum was first theorized in 2020 by a brilliant, young, first-generation lunar physicist, Nguyen Lefkowitz. The first industrial production took place in the Old Brazilian Lunadome several years later. I just checked the computer, and inthis time-space, Nguyen Lefkowitz was fired by Lunar Metals, Inc. In 2019."

"Wait a minute!" McCoy protested. "How can that be? I mean, how can you remember one thing, and the computer another? Why doesn't everyone remember the way it was?"

"Because it wasn't," answered Spock with strained patience. "For everyone here, history is what the computer records. We were in the past when the change occurred, and we brought our version of the present with us, including what had been history. Until we changed it."

"Okay," said Kirk, grabbing hopefully, "so what if someone else discovered transparent aluminum? None of your projections showed any problems with that, did they?"

The Vulcan turned a somber face on the captain. "Jim, in our history, Nguyen Lefkowitz went on to become the head of a huge manufacturing empire, which his granddaughter consolidated as the Outer System Mining and Manufacturing Concern."

That name clicked in both McCoy and Kirk's minds. OSM&MC had been a pioneer in mining the solar system asteroids, and much of the colonization of Mars had taken place at their funding and support. After another consultation of the computer, Spock added, "A mind as keen as Lefkowitz's wouldn't sit idle, I so I just ran a profile on him. He underwent rehabilitative bioengineering and emigrated to Earth from the Moon. He soon was head of the United Nations One Planet Board."

"What's that?" they asked in unison.

Spock checked the console once more. "It became the most powerful governing body on Earth, and its efforts and legislation prevented the Eugenics Wars." Before either could respond, Spock said, "I neglected to tell you before we left for Nimbus III that in my research of historical records I turned up a reference to a felony conviction earlier this year. The prosecuting attorney was Starfleet Col. Khan Noonian Singh."

"Impossible!" cried McCoy. "It has to be a spooky coincidence, that's all. Look, Spock, either the Wars were prevented or they weren't. If they never happened then Khan wouldn't have been in the Botany Bay, and he wouldn't have been revived, and he wouldn't have..."

"Doctor," Spock said calmly, "While you were offering your...analysis of the situation, I took the liberty of researching it. He was, or is, actually, a product of early Twenty-first Century eugenic experimentation, the leader of a group fired into space in an early cryoship in a desperate attempt by mankind to preserve the species in case the then-current wave of genetically engineered plagues wiped out the species on its home planet. The starship Omega, captained by Elsbet McCurdy, revived most of the group eleven years ago, and Khan entered the Academy. He achieved commission and his law degree simultaneously two years later. He made colonel four years ago."

McCoy glared at him, but Jim replied, "Spock, so what's wrong?"

"Wrong, Captain?"

"Yes! So the Eugenics Wars never happened—good riddance! And so Khan is in Starfleet. I always thought it was such a waste that he wasn't on our side. Where's the problem? Let's just leave things alone."

Before Spock could answer, Jim shouted, "David! Spock, if Khan is on our side, there wasn't any Genesis Planet! And no Klingons chasing the Genesis device. David is still alive!"

The Vulcan turned his eyes, then glanced back. "Jim. I've already checked the records. Carol Marcus never had a child. There is no record of David Marcus in this time-space."

"But, Spock!"

"That's not all, Jim," said Spock, consulting his terminal, though both of his companions were certain he had the information memorized. "Therewas a Genesis Planet, created when one of Dr. Marcus' experiments went awry. Kruge did come to steal the secret of the Genesis device, and when Admiral. James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise engaged him in combat, one of the Klingon's shots damaged theEnterprise's warp engines, and...I was forced to enter the radioactive reactor chamber. You were able to disable Kruge's ship, but he escaped. You met him again at the Genesis Planet when you...appropriated the decommissioned Enterprise to recover my...remains, which had undergone an unusual transformation." He looked back at Kirk. "The rest you can infer."

Kirk furrowed his brow. "Then it all happened anyway. Your death, the theft of the Enterprise, our trip back to Vulcan in the Bird of Prey..."

McCoy interrupted, "That doesn't make any damned sense!"

"Sense, Doctor?" queried Spock. "We know that the time continuum can only be pushed to a small degree. It reforms around any alterations so that its preponderance remains the same."

Kirk responded, "But then everything is all right! The few changes which occurred can't alter the bulk of the continuum!"

"Unfortunately that is only true for the continuum considered in its entirety. Any one stream within it can be significantly altered, with lasting effects. As we have been discovering."

"Bones is right! There is no sense to it. David never existed, Uhura's got a husband...whole worlds vanish!"

Spock stared at him, and Kirk was sure he saw his eyes soften before he answered quietly, "Jim, I'm sure I don't have to point out to you the cruel paradoxes of time displacement."

"You mean," he answered almost inaudibly, "wherein preventing one catastrophe can lead to other tragedies."

Suddenly Jim heard the screeching of ancient car brakes, and he felt McCoy's frantic writhing as he held him back, but he shook himself loose from the memory and argued, "But this time, this time is there anything other than a personal loss?"

Spock suggested, his voice still low, "Whole planets not in the Federation? Entire systems not colonized? Billions of people who don't exist?"

"But you also said others are in the Federation, and others are colonized. Billions of different people exist, Spock!"

"Jim, logically we cannot assess the situation until we have checked as many parameters as we can. On this voyage I was able to complete a check of two hundred sixty-seven thousand four hundred fifty-seven, and I am finding more and more differences all the time between what we remember and what current history is."

A call to the bridge from Uhura in Spacedock interrupted, "Mr. Spock, a security detail is here to escort you to Admiral Morrow's office, only they claim to be an honor guard. What have you been up to, sir?"

Kirk thumbed the intercom. "Tell them James T. Kirk will escort Mr. Spock. And wait there for us, Uhura, and get Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov, too. You're in this with the rest of us."

They heard her address the security detail, "I never met the man, actually," but a moment later her laughing voice replied, "Affirmative, Captain," and the connection broke.

Spock and Kirk moved toward the lift, but they turned to face McCoy when he remained where he was. "Bones?" coaxed Jim.

"I...I'm afraid it's even worse than you think."

"That'll take some convincing," Kirk tried to joke.

"Well, back in Mercy Hospital, when we were looking for Chekov? I medicated a woman."

Kirk said slowly, "You mean, you medicated someone who would not have been treatable by the doctors of that time."

McCoy just nodded, but Spock said, "Captain, although any single tampering of the continuum can be disastrous, each additional instance affects the outcome geometrically."

McCoy looked up. "You mean that the result of everything we did is greater than the sum of all the individual changes?"

"Exactly, Doctor. And you take too much blame upon yourself," said Spock. Jim gave a weak smile at this show of compassion. "All of us had multiple impacts on that time, much of which we are necessarily unaware of."

Kirk nodded agreement, and the three of them entered the lift in silence.

The biochem lab aboard the science ship Hawking throbbed gently with the low-frequency hum of the centrifuges which were processing Gillian's samples. It didn't rock with the waves, however, due to the inertial dampening system, which was standard for all naval vessels, and Gillian missed the oneness with the sea that she'd always felt when shipboard. She was slumped over a console, her eyelids barely open, but she literally jumped to attention when the computer's klaxon sounded. Her lab assistant ran for the control board and began touching controls while she tried to make sense of the flashing red messages on the terminal screen. Ron called over, "It's in the protonucleic series! I programmed it to alert us to any variances from the values we he had in the files. What do you make of it?"

Gillian stared at the undulating graphs. There was a definite rise in two parameters, and a disturbing dip in a third. What do I make of it? she asked herself silently. Where I come from, mitochondrial studies were just starting, and here they have software to analyze functions we didn't even imagine. She glanced over at the young man. He was waiting for her learned advice. "Uh, I...don't like the look of that E3 line."

"Neither do I," replied Ron, frowning. "It almost matches the graph of Barney."

"Barney?" questioned Gillian, looking up again from the screen.

"Yeah," laughed Ron. "Sorry, I forgot. He was the last Humpback. Died in captivity in 2108."

"What'd he die of?" she asked, her concern overcoming her discomfort over once again having to learn the history of a century in the future.

"That's the thing," the student explained, turning off the fourth centrifuge and punching for a printout. "Everyone thought they'd saved the Humpbacks with their captive breeding program, but one by one they started to fail. They turned two of them loose, but they both died shortly after. They tried everything on Barney, but he kept on declining until he went, too."

While he was talking, she'd called up on Barney's file and was perusing the graphs. "Look here!" She cried, pointing to a strongly undulating line. "The E5 and K7 series both match George and Gracie's, if you extrapolate six months at current figures."

Ron leaned over her shoulder and snorted. "The E6 doesn't look far off, either. Computer, compare the 6-line, Barney with George and Gracie."

"Working...Complete match in twenty-one weeks at current rates."

Gillian turned and said, "They're dying, Ron! We hauled them here in that Klingon rustbucket just to have 'em die!"

"Hang on!" he answered, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Just because a few parameters match up doesn't mean they're dying. Maybe these are normal fluctuations. Nobody ever successfully correlated the protonucleic changes with cause of death."

"Then it's up to us to figure out what's going on!" she said, turning back to the terminal. "Computer, run full spectral analysis, E and K series. And print."

Moments later the printout began racing from the slot, and Gillian and Ron grabbed it eagerly.

At their meeting with the admiral, Kirk explained his concerns, and Spock supplied ample data to infuse concern in the others. When he explained the significance of the remnant Zabrowlski had found in the computer, Admiral Morrow gave top priority to an analysis of the differences between history as he knew it and history as the whale rescuers remembered it. All of the Bounty's crew were uneasy with his announcement that any decision made by Starfleet would be based on an analysis of the net gain or loss this interference with the time continuum had caused. Captain Kirk actually voiced their collective concern, "Net gain or loss? By what standard? What's best for Starfleet?"

"What other standard can we use, Captain?" answered Morrow.

"I can think of several, Admiral," he'd replied testily.

"Look," Morrow said, trying to defuse the situation, "We'll have more to discuss when we have the facts. I'll have my secretary make an appointment for early next week, a whole morning. Meanwhile, I'll get a nutshell history of the last three centuries written up, and you six get some R&R. You and your memories will be the most use to us if you're well rested. No decisions will be made until we know exactly what we're up against here. Any questions?"

They all shook their heads somberly.

"Okay. Dismissed."

None of them were in any mood to continue hashing over the maybes and might-have-beens, and Uhura said, "Well, no matter what has happened to the time continuum, Gillian is still here, and despite all her enthusiasm, she's still bound to be homesick. I'm going to go check on her. Anyone want to come?"

Jim moved to speak, checked himself, then said, "Good idea, Uhura. Give us a call if you think we could help cheer her up. Mr. Spock? Bones? I seem to remember an interrupted camping trip. Our park pass is still good. Shall we get our gear and beam on over?"

"Great idea!" chimed in McCoy, glad to have something cheerful to think about.

"I have my calculations to..." started Spock, but Jim held up a hand and said, "Negative, Mr. Spock. This is a matter of the highest security, and Admiral Morrow told us to wait until we had his report, and then we were to work together with him. He warned us against any more private analysis." He smiled self-satisfiedly.

"Captain," Spock said patronizingly, "I still have my projections to run. The admiral agreed that they would be useful data for our joint analysis next week."

"Ahah!" exclaimed Kirk. "You just said it yourself! Next week. Now, honestly, how long will those projections take?"

"Impossible to say, Captain. There are infinite projections, so the time required is also infinite. My task is one of selecting which projections to run."

"But you face a situation of diminishing returns, certainly."

Spock's face, long not inscrutable to Jim Kirk, showed he was following Jim's line of argument to its logical conclusion, but Spock would not give up ahead of time. He replied, "Of course. But probably not until the third order of magnitude at the earliest."

"Very well," said Kirk, assuming a feigned posture of defeat. "And how long will it take you to select, say, four orders of magnitude of parameter projections?"

Spock hesitated. "Eighteen point three hours to select and preprogram them."

Kirk's face broke into a gigantic grin. "We'll expect you at our campsite tomorrow afternoon. Bones, come. We've got to go shopping."

"Shopping?" asked McCoy, moving in next to him as he strode away.

"Yes," he answered, sure that the Vulcan ears could still pick up their conversation, "for marshmellons."

The voluminous analysis offered little help, and by the time Ron fell asleep on the floor, where he'd stretched out the meters of computer-generated graphs, Gillian was succumbing to both exhaustion and despair. She didn't hear anyone come in, so she jumped right out of her seat when Uhura touched her shoulder.

"Nyota! You gave me a heart attack! I thought you were off on that emergency rescue mission."

"Just got back. We saved the galaxy, as usual. Didn't you hear the news?"

"Uhn uhn. We've been pretty busy. So everything worked out?"

Uhura frowned slightly. She knew Gillian was simply asking about the release of the hostages. She didn't even know about Sybok's hijacking the Enterprise and their trip to Eden... but as she looked at her tired, excited friend from the past, Uhura couldn't help thinking of a lot more. Even if they hadn't been warned not to discuss this precarious situation with anyone, she never would have been able to add the burden of the problem on Gillian, the person who both most affected and was affected by it. She forced a smile and understated, "Sure. Say, you really jumped. Were you asleep?"

"No, or maybe. I don't think I can tell anymore."

Uhura grinned. "If you don't quit working so hard, you're going to fall behind, not get ahead."

"You don't understand," complained Gillian, waking up now that she had a new focus. "It's George and Gracie—they're dying!"

"What?"

"Well, we can't be sure, but it's just like Barney."

Uhura tilted her head. "Look, honey, you've been working too hard. Why don't you just go home and..."

Gillian interrupted and filled her in on what she and Ron had discovered, and Uhura listened quietly to the story, but when Gillian was done, she helped her up from the chair and said, "You're not going to do anyone any good if you don't get some sleep, especially not George and Gracie. I'm taking you to your bunk." She paused and looked over her shoulder at the prone young man. "Is he all right like that?"

Gillian laughed, "I don't think he'll wake up until late tomorrow."

Ever since Spock beamed down to the campsite in Yosemite just before dusk, the three of them had been trying to act relaxed, trying to pretend that the fate of the galaxy didn't hang in the balance, with their shoulders carrying most of the weight. It wasn't working, of course, and finally McCoy couldn't take it anymore. "Listen, you guys," he said, pulling out a craft phaser and aiming it at the pile of wood Kirk had just finished arranging.

"Hey!" Jim shouted, grabbing his wrist. "What do you think you're doing? I didn't spend all that time on the fire to have you light it with a phaser!"

"Why not?" grumbled McCoy, pocketing the tool.

Spock looked up from the designs he was drawing in the dirt with a twig. "Doctor, the captain is attempting to nourish his neolithic tendencies with these allegedly minimum technology feats he has been performing."

McCoy shot Spock a strange look. "You mean like climbing El Capitán with his bare hands and feet?"

Spock nodded, and Jim protested. "Hey, I was wearing boots!"

"And so was Spock, thank the stars!" McCoy retorted.

Jim allowed, "Okay, sometimes technology can be useful."

McCoy grinned and reached for his pocket, but before he could withdraw the phaser, Spock had gotten up and was leaning over the wood. After a moment he selected a slender stick from the pile and laid it against one of the rocks edging the firesite. Applying his Vulcan strength, he drew the shard of wood quickly across the stone. As the tip passed the edge, it burst into flame from the extreme heat of friction. He handed it to Kirk, who stared dumbly for a second, then touched the flame to a few strategic spots in his tinder arrangement.

"You'd have made a hell of an Indian, Spock," said Kirk, casting a grin at McCoy, who scowled and rolled his eyes.

Jim laughed and said, "You were about to say something, Bones?"

"I was about to say that we aren't going to have one bit of fun on this too-short vacation if we don't ask Spock about his computations so we can all just forget 'em for a couple of days."

"A useful prescription, Doctor," he answered, turning to Spock.

"The Omni Ten is running the projections and will finish in twenty-one point seven three hours."

"Phew!" whistled McCoy. "And who's footing the bill for a day of Omni Ten?"

Spock glanced at McCoy as if at a minor annoyance. "Starfleet security has an open account with the Omni Ten," he answered, then said noticeably to Kirk alone, "I believe that those data will give us a good idea of the choices from this point, but our memories will have to be the major factor in deciding if we should allow this version of the continuum to continue to unfold or not."

"Correction," said Jim, "your memory, Spock."

The Vulcan shook his head. "Negative. There are many places where my greater memory capacity will prove valuable, but..." Here he looked over to include McCoy again. "All of us who went back to the Twentieth Century will have specialized fields of knowledge, any of which could be crucial in Starfleet's decision."

"You mean their decision to leave Gillian and the whales here or not," said Kirk.

"What!" screamed McCoy. "I didn't hear Morrow say they were considering taking them back! What should we do, let that giant tin can finish boiling the whole planet?"

"There are other considerations as well," said Spock. "Even if we ignore the billions of people who do not exist now who would have if we had not brought back Dr. Taylor and the whales, and the billions who do exist now who would not have, we still must consider several disturbing facts. For example, how many cases are there of the rechanneling of great potential into history-altering endeavors, such as we saw in the prevention of the Eugenics Wars by the man who should have invented transparent aluminum?"

"So someone else got rich, and he saved millions of lives!" snorted McCoy.

"Hardly that simple, Doctor," retorted Spock. "I remember no history of massive epidemics of bioengineered plagues in the early Twenty-first Century. Perhaps some mind or minds otherwise occupied in our remembered history found other work to do in current history."

"Well..." started McCoy, but Spock went on.

"And in addition we have the disturbing projections involving Dr. Taylor."

"You mean that business of her disappearing from the records?" asked Kirk.

"Precisely, Captain. It is puzzling that in two such different scenarios she simply vanishes."

"But didn't you say," protested the doctor, "that the presence or absence of any particular individual in any particular history appears random with our limited analysis?"

"For any randomly chosen individual, yes. But Dr. Taylor is hardly a random individual. Indeed, she is the swingpin on which this entire situation balances."

"But, Spock," asked Kirk, "what if she were the individual randomly selected for one of your projections? What then?"

"Logically, her existence, too, would be subject to the apparently whimsical ebb and flow of the continuum," Spock explained, "which is why I told you that the convergence of those two projections on the matter of her disappearance from the timeline does not necessarily indicate the validity of either."

"What's all that mumbo-jumbo mean, Spock?" demanded McCoy. "Is she the crux of the problem or not?"

Spock turned cold eyes on the doctor and replied, "The apparent self-contradictions in a discussion of time continuum projections, while frustrating, can hardly be classified as meaningless incantations." He turned back to Kirk and said, "What is perhaps most disturbing is that we may find that we have so tampered with history up to this point that we cannot justify sacrificing it for the sake of one planet."

Kirk startled. "Spock! Are you saying that we might decide it was a mistake to bring back the whales and save Earth?"

"Yes, Jim. It is unpleasant to consider, but even the billions of lives involved might not warrant the changes produced by our rescuing the whales and the planet."

"Spock!" cried McCoy. "Your own father was on that planet!"

Again the Vulcan turned to face McCoy. "Doctor, are you implying that Sarek's life is worth more than any other?"

"To you, it should be!"

"To consider my personal investment in this matter is not logical," he answered.

McCoy was gearing up for one of his cold-blooded-Vulcan-without-a-heart tirades, but Kirk intercepted, "Spock. Even if you're right, and we find out something that makes us regret our action, Starfleet will never go along with our recommendation."

Spock was quiet for a moment before answering, "I assumed they would not."

Kirk studied his friend's face. Its usual greenish cast was eerily bronzed by the flickering firelight. "You can't be suggesting we take matters into our own hands!" he exclaimed in a whisper.

Spock did not answer, but McCoy yelled, "Are you crazy? You want another mutiny on our records? Look, I'm sorry I even suggested this. Let's change the subject."

Neither of the others said anything, and the doctor snorted disgustedly and threw a stick onto the blazing fire.

"Okay," Kirk suggested after a minute. "We're not getting anywhere, and Bones is right, we've got too little time as it is."

Spock picked up his Vulcan harp and began to pluck some notes.

"Are you going to play something?" Kirk asked.

Kirk and McCoy grinned as they recognized the first notes of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". The three began to sing.

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