Admiral Morrow was called to Pulaski VI to investigate the apparent sabotage of a Fleet dilithium production facility, so the scheduled appointment was canceled at the last minute. Finding himself with a morning suddenly free, Jim Kirk decided impetuously to see how Dr. Taylor was getting along. Besides, he argued with himself when his conscience began to question his actions, he had barely used the new skimmer he recently bought. It was a Moravian Calypso, the finest sub-light made. Large enough to sport full galley, bunk area, and passenger seating, it was small enough for one person to pilot alone in any circumstance. The only workout he'd given it was that quick trip to the Moon right before his birthday for Chuck Dorsey's wedding. Gillian was sure to be impressed. Before his conscience could interrupt again, he started for the hangar.
When he neared the Hawking, he radioed the con tower and was informed of the bearings of the shuttlecraft, six kilometers to the northwest. A minute later he piloted his skimmer alongside the shuttle, which was stationary, about five meters above the rough waves. A bay in the floor of the craft was open, and two people were wrestling with a tangle of cables, which ended with a basket of what looked like electronic sampling gear. Jim switched his scanners to infrared and immediately picked up George and Gracie, who were four klicks away, swimming steadily toward this spot. Ahah! An ambush.
He watched as Gillian and the other person untangled the cables with one hand while they hung onto a safety rope with the other. The mess had clearly happened after deployment, and the knot of cables was positioned in such a way to prevent hauling them back into the shuttlecraft for repair. Neither of them had noticed the visiting skimmer, which was certainly inaudible to them over the noise of the sea and the whine of their own vehicle. Jim thumbed open a speaker channel and said, "Gillian! Hi! It's Jim Kirk!"
The two of them looked up, and Gillian pointed and waved at the skimmer. A sudden gust of wind at that instant caught her head-on, and she fell, grabbing onto the basket just before she plunged the rest of the way to the water. Her companion slid down the cables to the equipment basket and reached out an arm to her, but she was hanging from the bottom of the basket, and he was unable to get closer due to the equipment between them. Jim's hands flew over his control boards. He double-checked the dials, then pushed dual levers forward. There was a jumble of lights behind his chair, then a groan of surprise as Gillian found herself crouched on the transporter pad instead of hanging over open sea. She looked up and smiled at Kirk. "Thanks for the rescue."
"My pleasure. Welcome aboard."
She slowly unfolded herself from her position and stood up. Running her hands down her sides, she said, "Sorry for the appearance. I didn't expect visitors."
He studied her for a moment. Her coveralls were wet with salt spray, and her hair was concealed under a stocking cap. She wore thick navy gloves, and her eyes sparkled. "You look great," he said, not lying. "This work must agree with you."
By now she had made it to his side, and she saw Ron still hanging from the cable through the glass of the foreport. "That's my R.A., Ron Fairbanks," she said.
"Shall we help him up?"
"Might be nice," she laughed, sitting in the seat he indicated to her.
He thumbed open the channel again and said, "Hang tight, Ron, while I get your transporter coordinates."
A moment later he activated the controls, and Gillian turned to face the transporter pad. "Where is he?" she gasped when the machine's musical whine had failed.
"On your shuttle. Can he fly it?"
She rolled her eyes. "He taught me."
"Good. Strap in." He flipped several switches, and the skimmer banked away from the shuttlecraft.
"Hey, wait a minute!" she cried, buckling her harness against the sudden gee force. "Where are you taking me?"
"Paris," he said, pushing a lever.
The vehicle began climbing and accelerating at a dizzying rate. "Paris!" she screamed above the roar of the engines, "Are you crazy?"
"Yes," he replied, turning his chair to face her. "I'm crazy about onion soup, and you can only get real onion soup in Paris. How about lunch?"
"You are crazy! Lunch? Just like that? Dressed like this?"
He gave her an intense grin and said, "So you like the idea, too? Great!"
She tightened her face and said, "Jim Kirk, you take me back to my shuttlecraft this instant!"
"Sorry," he said, still grinning. "I can't do that."
"Why not?" she demanded.
"Why not? Why not...Uh, because we just crossed into Alaska, and flight changes over the tundra are not permitted in vehicles over sixteen megaphotons."
"I don't believe you."
"You don't? Well, I'm sorry, but that's the law, and you wouldn't want me to break the law, would you?"
"Is there a law against kidnapping?"
He made a thoughtful scowl. "Kidnapping? Hmm, I think there may be something about that, but I happen to know that there is a special exemption concerning beautiful young women from the past who have been working too hard and are being kidnapped for the purpose of taking them to lunch in Paris, all expenses paid."
"I see," she said, her glare softening. "Very convenient. But I'm not going anywhere, especially not Paris, dressed like an overtime mechanic."
"Ahah!" he cried, releasing his harness and jumping from his seat. "Right this way, madame." He indicated the hatchway at the rear of the cabin, and she reluctantly released herself and went on through.
It reminded Gillian of a luxury stateroom. Beautifully appointed, compact, trim, it even had a circular port, through which she could see nothing but a solid cloud cover far below and a strange, inky sky. He saw her glance and explained quickly, "We're at the edge of the atmosphere. It makes for a smoother ride."
She turned from the glass. "Are we really over the tundra?"
He reflected a moment. "Probably water by now, or ice rather. We should be in sight of Scotland within half an hour."
She raised her brow, but said nothing. He pointed, "This is a synthesizer. Are you familiar with them?"
"For food, yes."
"This is for clothing."
She looked shocked. "You make all your own clothes?"
He laughed, "Well, not all of them, and not all the time, but a vessel capable of flight anywhere in the system needs either extensive stores of various gear, or a synthesizer. This one is state of the art."
"I see," she said with a smile, moving to touch the controls. A menu came up on the screen, and her eye fell immediately on the entry "Ladies' Evening Wear". She gave him a prim look and said, "You never know when you might have to crash land in a nightclub."
"Uh, yes," he mumbled, reaching over her shoulder to touch the entry "Women's Casual".
Soon Gillian was engrossed in the myriad fashions scrolling across the screen, and when she could finally make up her mind, she looked up to see that Kirk had left her alone and closed the hatch behind him.
Gillian looked up from her plate and caught Jim smiling goofily at her. "Problem, Captain?" she asked with a grin.
"Uh...no, no," he mumbled, fumbling with his glass. "I was just...thinking."
"Oh? About your mission to Nimbus III?"
Regaining his composure, he replied, "No, actually. I was thinking how beautiful you look in that dress. I don't remember ever seeing you in a dress."
"Well, you have, but I think you had other things on your mind at the time—like your skin-diving Vulcan friend."
Kirk smiled and picked up his glass. "So, how do you like your soup?"
"It's exquisite." She met his eyes. "Thanks, Jim. I needed to be kidnapped."
He saluted her with his wineglass. "Any time, milady."
"You know you have a weird century here."
"How so?"
"Well, you call ranking women 'sir', but you take them to sidewalk cafes in Paris call them 'milady.'"
He grinned and replied, "We've learned that women have more than one role."
"What about men?" she parried.
"Also, of course. I once knew a guy who was in the Merchant Marine. He was married to his ship's skipper, but they both belonged to the Myrmaq religion, which is prevalent among the working classes in the Sagittarius sector. The priests of this religion are considered superior to the commoners. He was a priest. Made for some interesting arguments."
"I imagine," she chuckled, but then she became very serious. "Jim, what's bothering you?"
He started to deny, then said, "Am I that transparent?"
She shook her head. "No, but I've seen you worried, and I've seen you happy. This is phony happy."
He saluted her again and said, "There was a woman I knew once. I met her in the past, Earth's past." Gillian put down her spoon and met his stare. "She was an intense, very much alive woman who had grand dreams for herself and for mankind. And by going into the past, some of us caused an interference in the time continuum, and she became involved in that interference.
"It's hard to explain, but somehow Spock got hold of the records of two different futures, both based on the past in which I currently was living." He stopped here and sipped his wine, breaking the stare.
Gillian drank from her glass and said, "At first I thought you were talking about me." She caught his eye. "You loved her."
He nodded.
"What was her name?"
"Edith. Edith Keeler."
"So, what happened?"
"McCoy went back in time first. As soon as he did, the Enterprise, the Federation, the Universe as we know it disappeared."
"What? How?"
He signaled her for patience. "Spock and I went back. We finally discovered that Edith Keeler was the principle force behind America's refusal to enter the Second World War."
"But America did ent...Oh."
"She gave her whole soul to pacifism. She was convinced that mankind's future lay in the stars, not in bombs and bullets. She was right, of course, but she couldn't have been more wrong. Hitler was victorious, he used his V-2 rockets to conquer the world, and the rest was history, but not the one I had learned."
"So you had to convince her to stop?" she asked when he didn't go on.
He shook his head. "Remember, I told you Bones went first. He...he saved her life, kept her from being run over on the street."
Gillian gasped. "You mean that if she had lived, all that business about Hitler would have happened?"
"It did happen, Gillian. That is, until Spock and I went back in time."
"You didn't...?" she started, then realizing, she said, "Of course you didn't. But what did you do?"
His eyes glistened, and his voice was barely audible. "We stopped Dr. McCoy when he tried to rescue her."
Gillian blinked back tears and said softly, "Don't say any more, Jim. I know how you feel. The guilt, the anguish. When my mother was pregnant with me, my baby brother ran out into the street during a Fourth of July picnic. She took off after him, but she just missed grabbing him in time. Until the day she died, she never forgave herself for those two seconds."
Kirk shook his head. "But at least she tried, Gillian."
"And you didn't?" She looked him straight in the eye. "You succeeded, Jim! The easy thing would have been to save Edith."
"It's hardly the same! Your mother had to face that she couldn't get there in time, but I had to stand aside and let it happen, knowing exactly what would happen."
She reached over and took his hand. "And you've had to live with it since. Oh, Jim, what a sacrifice!"
He put his other hand on hers and forced a smile. "A selfish one. I had to watch Edith die, but if I hadn't everything and everyone else I knew and loved would have ceased to exist, and I would have been marooned in another time."
Her tears bounced off her cheeks as they raised in a grin. "Being marooned in time isn't the worst fate there is."
He smiled and released her hands. "Forcing your way onto a ship as stowaway hardly counts as being marooned."
"And rescuing a damsel in distress hardly counts as kidnapping. Jim, thanks for this."
He nodded and said, "Enough depressing talk. It's a beautiful afternoon, and we're in Paris. What would you like to do?"
She laughed. "I'd like to stroll the Champs Elyssée, visit the Left Bank, hop over to the Riviera for a dip, then dine in Rome."
"You're on!" he said excitedly, jumping to his feet.
"But!" she laughed, pulling him back into his chair. "I'm not going to do any of those things. I've been away from George and Gracie too long, and I've got to find out what's happening to them."
"Happening to them?"
Her face lost all of its mirth. "Yes, Jim. They seem to be failing, the way all the last Humpbacks did. And we haven't been able to figure out why!" Her eyes went wide, and she did smile. "Oh, Jim! I just remembered Ron. I wonder if he's got the cable untangled yet. The whales must have passed by long before he did."
Kirk shrugged. "That's what research assistants are for. Can't he handle the rest of the day?"
"Probably, but then I'd have to admit that he knows more than I do—which is true—but I'm determined to catch up."
He thought for a moment, then said, "Have you talked to Spock about the whales?"
She shook her head. "I haven't seen him since your hearing. Does he know about whales?"
"Spock knows about everything. But more importantly, he...well, you see, Vulcans are kind of like walking computers. They often can figure out things that...wait a minute! When we first figured out what the probe was up to, he mentioned that he wished he could speak to a Vulcan...Sernak? I can't remember, but I'll ask him."
"From what I know of Vulcans, a Vulcan cetacean biologist would be a big help at this point. But if there is one, why hasn't Ron mentioned it? He wants to help George and Gracie as much as I do."
"I don't know. What's his background? Is he really a cetacean specialist?"
"A great one. He said he's from...it sounds so silly to me...U-Terr-Alpha Mix."
"That explains it then," he said, as if she'd just spoken a self-evident truth.
"Huh?"
"Camerronites are terribly provincial, and their whole culture is pretty xenophobic. You see, the Centauri region was colonized by humans before we came into contact with any intelligent aliens..." He paused and thought to himself that is, if Zephram Cochrane even existed in this timeline. Then he shook it off and continued, "I bet most Centuarans have never met a Vulcan. It just wouldn't occur to him to consider Vulcan help. And don't be surprised if he's a bit reticent to accept it."
"Hey! Who's in charge, anyway?" she said, standing up.
"That's the spirit!" he laughed. "Are you sure you won't reconsider St. Tropez and Rome?"
"After you've been so nice to me, dare I ask, some other time?"
"Any time would be fine, Gillian," he replied with a grin, but the grin faded as his words echoed in his mind—any time would be fine...
Dr. McCoy pushed the viewer aside and frowned. No record of gamma catalase therapy. Or catatheracyanovon. Or Vulcan antirepressives. Library never heard of Dr. Simeon Waast, or K'Lun-gil, or even Sharzuu-wan-hikl! And there's all that stuff about Rigellian fireworm extracts for Kapula fever or some such nonsense. How could he continue to practice medicine? He might prescribe something that doesn't exist! Or lose a patient when a drug he never heard of was sitting on the shelf.
It had seemed so...logical at the time! Earth was being vaporized by that alien hunk of metal because there were no whales. So go get some. Hunk of metal goes home. Everything's fine. "Right," he muttered aloud.
"What was that, sir?" came a pleasant female voice.
"Oh, Kelly, I didn't hear you come in. Is something wrong with the kids?"
"They're all fine," she replied with a smile. "I just came to see if you needed something." She really just wanted to be near the doctor. Oh, she didn't have a crush on him or anything, though she did think he was kind of cute, for somebody older than her grandfather, that is. She simply learned so much whenever he was around, and she found the fact that he spent whatever free time he had helping out at Starfleet Children's Hospital inspiring. When she finished her degree, she wanted to be a pediatric surgeon, and Dr. McCoy's skill was admirable. She felt an all too familiar wrench in her gut as she considered that it was his experience with child casualties of war and disaster which had honed his skill, but she knew he felt it, too. She could see the pain in his eyes when he smiled, trying to cheer up an injured kid, or when he had to break bad news to some parents. Behind his gruff, crotchety exterior she could see his heart of gold, and she knew that tonight it was more than his midnight vigil with the children. Something was bothering him.
"No, thanks. I think I'll go check on that little Andorian girl." He started to get up.
"I just checked her," she said quickly. "She's sleeping fine. That tissue culture did the trick. Where'd you learn that? I never saw it the whole time I studied on Andor."
He chuckled, "They don't have Carrington's Syndrome on their native planet, so they don't teach the cure. Only the Andorian exos know about it. That culture business was developed in a tiny Andorian colony in the Perseus sector. Local doctor and I were trading tales at a starbase once, and he explained it to me. I guess I should write it up sometime."
She broke a puzzled frown. "But you did, doctor. Just before you...just before you went back into the Service. I found it in the files a minute ago."
He stared at her, then gave a weak smile. "Oh, right. Must be getting senile," he joked.
She smiled back, but she knew he wasn't joking. And he wasn't going senile, either.
Sulu was already at Starfleet Headquarters, sitting outside Admiral Morrow's office. He wanted to see him before the others got there. He knew that the captain and Mr. Spock were working on this time displacement problem, but his experience yesterday was something he needed to talk to the admiral about alone. He wiped his sweaty palms and glanced at the admiral's secretary. He was busy at his terminal, but he must have sensed Sulu's stare and looked up. "He'll be here soon, Mr. Sulu," said the young man with a smile.
"Thank you. I don't mind waiting," he lied.
"Would you like me to log you in, then you could go for a cup of coffee or something?" He reached for the console.
"No!" shouted Sulu, his nervousness getting the better of him. "No, thanks. Not in the computer, no. Thanks."
The secretary gave a quick, puzzled smile and went back to his work. Sulu wiped his hands again and tried to calm down. That was close.
He jumped to his feet when Admiral Morrow walked briskly in. The admiral took one look at Sulu and said, "The meeting is scheduled for 1300."
"Yes, sir. I was hoping to have a minute with you beforehand."
He glanced at his secretary, then back at Sulu. "Very well. Roger, get me my coffee, and post all messages to my terminal. Mr. Sulu?" He waited for Sulu, then followed him into his private office.
As Morrow sat down he gestured for the nervous Sulu to take a seat. "Well?" he urged.
"I'm afraid there have been many more changes in the time continuum that we thought."
Morrow frowned. "As I understood Mr. Spock, the changes could be legion."
"I think he's right."
"Elaborate."
"Well, yesterday my computer flashed a Code Gamma priority."
"Who was it?" the admiral asked excitedly.
"Somebody calling themselves 'Blue Leader,' but they wouldn't identify themselves."
"Impossible! Anyone authorized to use Code Gam—" He stopped himself, understanding washing over his face. Under the desk he pressed a button with his foot.
"I know," continued Sulu, clearing his throat. "It appears that my...my...counterpart in this altered continuum is in a bit of trouble with organized crime."
"I see."
"Well, sir, I don't. I mean, the message was a threat, and in a stolen code, and it demanded certain military secrets."
"I see," repeated the admiral with a strange look on his face.
"Sir! I don't even know the things it was asking me to tell! And I never would tell if I knew!"
"Mr. Sulu, I must warn you that this confession can be used against you at your court martial."
"Court martial!" screamed Sulu, jumping from his chair.
At that moment the door whooshed open, and three security guards entered, phasers drawn.
Morrow stood and said with a grin, "We've been looking for the Weapons leak for a long time. It was good of you to come clean like this—it'll go easier on you for your cooperation."
"Admiral! I'm not cooperating! I mean, I am cooperating, but I'm not guilty. It's the other Sulu, the one from this time that must—"
"Mr. Sulu," said Morrow with forced patience, "this is the only time I know anything about, and you're the only Hikaru Sulu I know. Guards, maximum security and no unauthorized visitors. Especially not Captain James T. Kirk, or Captain Spock."
Sulu tried to speak calmly. "Admiral, I must protest. You know that we are engaged in a study of the effects of our time-space displacement, and that in actuality I am not from this time-space, since I arrived from an altered—"
"Mr. Sulu. I am aware only of the fact that we have had a breach of security, which we traced to several crime lords, two of which are Klingon. You have admitted your role in this crime." Sulu started to speak, but he drowned him out, "AND you are the only Sulu I have to prosecute. But this is the Federation, not your beloved Empire, so you'll have your fair day in court. Take him away."
All that was visible of Chief Engineer Scott were the soles of his boots, which were protruding from an opening in the side of the vintage shuttlecraft. Spock stood by, holding a tricorder. Scotty's muffled voice asked, "Is she holdin' steady, man?"
"Negligible variation in both sine and steady waves," answered Spock.
"We did it!" came the muffled shout of joy, followed by a grunt and a curse as Scotty bumped his head trying to extricate himself. When he was finally out, rubbing his scalp, he complained, "I sure dinna understand why they used to make those access ports so narrow!"
Spock eyed him carefully and replied, "Perhaps when this vessel was designed, people were smaller."
Scotty looked at him quizzically, considering the possibility of a Vulcan joke, then shook his head and said, "This craft is not that old, Mr. Spock." To his raised brow Scotty answered, "She's got plenty of life left in her, especially now that I've installed the new dilithium chamber!"
"Computer simulations confirm a warp upgrade of twenty-three point one percent, minimum."
"Bah!" grunted Scotty. "Simulations! Pretty pictures is all that lot is! Do we have time to shake her down?"
"Negative. We are due at Admiral Morrow's office in point three two hours."
"What! I better go get cleaned up. Here, take this." He handed Spock the greasy tool he'd been holding and headed briskly out of the hangar. Spock opened his hand deliberately and looked at the dark smudge on the palm. He raised one brow and walked slowly away from the shuttlecraft.
Pavel Chekov checked the time. He could make it to the library and still get to Starfleet Headquarters for their appointment. He looked down the street. The nearest Express entry lift was two hundred meters away. With a flash of smile, he jumped over the divider and onto the walkway, grinning self-satisfiedly as he snapped his body forward, countering his sudden motion and keeping his feet. An old woman turned to give him a disapproving scowl, but he grinned back, feeling as young and reckless as she probably thought him to be.
At the library he called up the reference, then frowned when the screen flashed "Incorrect Entry, Try Again." "Dumb machines, can't even understand a Russian accent," he griped, then said loudly, "Russkiy yazik, pozhaluysta!" The computer answered in Russian, and he asked for the book. Again it failed to respond. Mumbling Slavic imprecations under his breath, he went to the desk. "Dis computer kennot find vun of de most popular nawigation textbooks in de galaxy!" he complained.
The librarian offered to assist, and he gave the name of the book. When he showed no signs of recognition, Chekov added, "By Dmitrov?General Dmitrov? Of the Romulan campaign? Dis is Starfleet Library, yes?"
Still nothing. With a shrug, the man keyed in the reference. "Sorry," he said, "there's no record of that book. Perhaps a different spelling?" he suggested.
Everyone turned to stare as Chekov raised his voice and said, "Spelling? Dere is only vun way to spell Dmitrov!" His eye caught a chrono on the wall, and he said, "Forget it."
But he couldn't, and he made a mental note to ask Captain Kirk about it.
Gillian looked up from the screen and rubbed her eyes. "I'm ready for a break. How about lunch?"
Ron grinned. "Sure. Only I'm afraid all we've got are some sandwiches. No onion soup."
"Sandwiches would be fine." She scrolled a few more graphs on the screen, then shouted. "Ron! What this thermal data from?"
He stepped over and looked. "Oh, that's George's basal temperature over the last fifteen hours."
"How'd you get that?" she asked, turning in her chair to look at him face on.
His grin got bigger. "Well, I knew I wouldn't get that mess untangled myself...so, I rigged a substitute heat probe and dropped in into George when the whales swam under the ship."
"You dropped it by hand?"
"Sure," he chuckled. "I hung by my feet from the bay and reached over the cables to drop it. It was just like that old kids' game...what was it? I saw a vid of it once. Mumbles...mumble pig..."
She laughed, "Mumbledy-peg!"
"That's it! Anyway, it worked. I was hoping to hit Gracie—the data would be better from her, since it would give us a good idea of when she was about to calve, but I couldn't tell 'em apart from way up there."
He handed her a sandwich, and while she munched she kept calling up data in a random attempt to find something that would give them a key to the problem with the whales. Ron was busy putting together another probe package, since they had had to cut all the cables to fix that mess.
About a half hour later Gillian was looking at microbe counts (and marveling to herself how this computer was able to project a micrograph on the screen that the best scanning microscopes of her day would have been unable to produce) when a very unusual picture came up. She halted it and called for contrastive highlighting. It was obviously a virus, but its protein coat had a helical projection at the top, like the tip of a snail shell. The computer had tagged it as a virus in the Oceanus series.
Gillian frowned and said, "Ron, what's this virus?"
He leaned over to see the screen. "Oceanus? It's the most common pelagic virus, kind of a marine E. Coli. We use it to calibrate scanners and stuff. Why?"
She was reading down the file she'd called up. "It says here that certain marine organisms, including Humpbacks, concentrate it in their viscera."
"Yeah. It's harmless enough, though it does attack a few common marine bacteria. Every inoculation study that's ever been done has found it harmless. Even humans can harbor it, and most coastal people have it in their gut."
"But why...Oh, never mind."
"No, Gillian, what is it?"
"It's just that I've never seen it before. True, marine virus studies weren't that progressed where I came from, but I took a course from this guy who was a virus nut. It was supposed to be marine ecology, but we spent most of the time looking at electron micrographs of viruses."
"Really? This is one of the biggest viruses there is. How come you people didn't find it?"
"Good question, Ron. And it might be significant."
"I doubt it. Those things are so common, they've been studied to death. By the time somebody finishes first semester marine virology, he's nauseous of them. Here, give me hand wiring this sensor, will you?"
"If you'll all take your seats..." said Admiral Morrow.
"Wait a minute, Harry," said Kirk. "Sulu isn't here yet."
"He won't be coming," said Morrow, and before any of them could respond he explained, "Mr. Sulu came to me earlier and confessed to being the spy who has been leaking Federation secrets to that Klingon crime syndicate."
"What!" screamed five of them.
Spock asked calmly, "To what crime syndicate are you referring, Admiral?"
McCoy turned on Spock. "The man tells us that Sulu is arrested for espionage, and you want to catch up on the news?"
Spock fixed a cold eye on him. "Obviously, we have come upon yet another alteration in the time continuum, doctor. Logically, if we can discover the details of the alteration, we can better understand how to—"
"Logic!" grunted McCoy. "The golden calf of green-blooded—"
"Silence!" cried Morrow. "Mr. Spock, since you have brought up the subject matter of this briefing, perhaps you will begin with the summaries you promised."
Everyone else glared at the admiral, but Spock looked him in the eye and said, "That would be illogical, sir."
"What?"
"Admiral, we cannot hope to piece together the puzzle of what has happened to the time continuum without the presence of all those who have come to this time-space from the unaltered one."
Morrow snorted. "I am getting tired of being told that I live in an altered time-space! You're the ones with the problem! As far as I can see, if we just leave everything alone, everything will be fine."
"Harry!" yelled Kirk. "You can't be serious. Spock has uncovered over six hundred vital differences between history as we know it and the records here, and thousands of seemingly less important ones. I certainly don't have to remind someone of your scientific training how disastrous even minute changes in history can be, or how—"
"Listen, Jim. I know this is hard on all of you, coming back to find everything different from the way you remember it, but think about it! We've been doing fine for three hundred years since you took those whales. Why can't we just live with the changes?"
"Correction, Admiral," came Spock's placid voice. "It is only zero point one four standard since we arrived and successfully saved this planet from the alien's probe's attack." Kirk shot him a grateful look, and the Vulcan went on, "Since we arrived at that point almost immediately after removing the whales from Old Earth, the disruption of the continuum occurred at that time, and it is too early to assess the full extent of that disruption."
"Too early?" demanded Scotty. "They've hauled Sulu off to the brig an' you canna assess the disruption?"
Chekov added, "And dey have never heard of General Dmitrov!"
McCoy said, "Admiral, many of the medical treatments I am used to using are unknown in your 'everything's fine' time-space here. I just hope you don't catch Capellan volcaniconiosus, since there isn't any catatheracyanovon around!" He muttered under his breath, "Or maybe I do!"
"Listen, guys," said Uhura, "I admit some of you have problems of cosmic importance, but to me it's no little matter that I left this place a free woman, but I come back to find the Uhura from this warped universe married."
Morrow said, "You were surprised to find out you were married to Jack Sapir?"
Chekov said, "Jack Sapir? The science reporter?"
Uhura asked curiously, "You know him?"
Chekov shook his head. "No, but I've read many of his pieces. You know, it's funny—a few years ago he did an article on female starship officers, and I wondered why he didn't interview you."
Uhura laughed. "He got more than an interview the other night. I almost broke his larynx when he surprised me at home. Thought he was breaking and entering."
Scotty nodded, "Aye, you poor lass! That's almost as bad as my fright when I checked on the Enterprise's antimatter pods. It's a wonder this place hasn't blown itself up! Can you believe it—they're still using Germanium access ports! It's been at least fifty years since we had to use anything so primitive! I go away for a few centuries, and everything goes to hell around here!"
"Curious," said Spock with what might have been a frown. "Germanium access ports? When I was interfacing one of the computers at Starfleet Library, I found a Holbrook junction in the mainframe interlocks. That technology dates from the same time as Germanium ports, but the computer was brand new." He turned to Morrow and said, "Admiral, it would appear that the alterations in the continuum have affected Starfleet technology sufficiently to place it considerably behind that of the Romulans, and perhaps even the Klingons."
Kirk jumped in, "Let's hope that they haven't discovered that yet."
The admiral asked Spock, "The thought that the Federation has lost technology in the time disruption is disturbing. But how can I know what you're saying is true?"
Kirk responded, "Harry! He's a Vulcan, dammit! What do you think, we're all Klingon spies?"
Morrow eyed him strangely, but before he could say anything, McCoy said, "This is ridiculous! I never thought I'd say it, but I wish we'd stayed in that barbaric place where they drill holes in people's head to fix a ruptured meningeal artery!"
Uhura added, "Gentlemen, we're supposed to be discussing the alterations in the continuum, not arguing. There is no longer any doubt that extremely major changes have been made by our going back for the whales, and now we have to figure out what we're going to do about it!"
The admiral, angered by the lack of control he'd had in this meeting, said quickly, "No, Mr. Uhura. You are not here to figure out what to do about it. That is up to Starfleet. If you will all leave the data I requested, I'll submit it and get back to you when they've made their decision."
They all started talking at once, and Morrow shouted, "Enough! Just leave your findings. Dismissed!"
For one mutinous moment several pairs of eyes glared at the admiral, but at Kirk's initial example, the Enterprise crew dropped their computer chips on the table and stalked out quietly. Spock brought up the rear, and as he reached the door, he turned and fixed Morrow with an upturned brow. "Admiral," he said almost placidly, "I did not want to alarm the others unduly, and I could not put such a tentative conclusion in my report, but several of my alternative projection studies have indicted the possibility of a Klingon-backed civil war in the Federation within the decade. Now that I've learned of the sorry state of your technology here, I've discovered the missing piece of the puzzle."
"What's that," the admiral said coolly, "the Klingons use their superior technology to lure planets away from the Federation?"
"Precisely, Admiral. Frontier worlds are always low on appropriations priorities. And many of them are nearer the Empire than the heart of the Federation. It is economically, as well as politically, expedient for the Klingons to supply them."
The admiral answered with a smirk, "How do you know that the Klingons aren't even more backward than you remember them in this 'altered' time?"
"Because," replied the Vulcan, his brows tight together, "one of the laws all of T'Laq's work is based on is that the magnitude of the effect of a time-space disruption is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the locus of the disruption in space, and directly proportional to the square of the distance from the locus in time."
Startled, Morrow asked, "You mean that the longer we go on after the disruption, the worse it gets?"
"Affirmative. And Earth, where the disruption occurred, is hardest hit. The Klingons will have suffered few if any alterations."
The admiral stared at Spock for a moment, then sighed loudly. "Whales," he muttered, dropping into his chair.
"Indeed," agreed Spock, taking his leave.
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