Gillian frowned. Ron was busy assembling the equipment for another drop attempt. If the whales kept on course, they'd be below the shuttle in an hour. But she couldn't get her mind off that dumb virus. It had to be an oversight. Surely the virus didn't evolve in the last couple centuries. Certainly it had been around in her day, and they just didn't notice it. But Bryan Matthewson not notice the largest, most common marine virus?

Suddenly, her face brightened with a devious grin, and she grabbed the comm. Moments late the screen was filled with Jim Kirk's smiling face. "Gillian! How's the whale business?"

"Complicated," she answered, noting Jim's glance past her shoulder to Ron.

"Hi, Ron!" said Kirk.

The young man rolled his eyes and said, "Hello, Captain. Thanks for the lift the other day."

"Any time, son, any time," said Jim gleefully.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Ron said under his breath, then, "Gillian, I'm going down to the bay to try this stuff out."

Kirk grinned and said, "So, Gillian. What's up? Ready for Nice and Rome?"

"I wish," she said, her tone implying she really meant the words. "Jim, could you get me a little time on the Enterprise's computers?"

"Sure! Don't you have enough power?"

"It isn't computations I need, it's records. Everything here is pretty much focused on the life sciences. Uhura tells me you're known for your libraries."

He always felt humbled by the recognition of the Enterprise's collection, which he considered as much a part of her soul as her antimatter pods or cargo bays or anything else. In all his voyages with her he'd made extra effort to increase and diversify her libraries, but he felt strange taking credit for such an obvious task. Other life forms struggled to discover, catalog, and create. All he did is gather.

He nodded slightly and answered, "I'm just the caretaker, but the Enterprise has gathered the largest repository of the galaxy's knowledge in all her wanderings. Every time we dock, I have the entire library dumped, so the rest of the Federation is constantly updated. Starfleet here in Frisco has everything we do, but the Enterprise is a lot more comfortable than a stuffy old library building. Or would you rather I get Spock to arrange a link for your computers?"

At the mention of the Vulcan she remembered their conversation in Paris. If she could speak with Mr. Spock, she might get in touch with Vulcan cetaceanologists. "No, would it be a bother if I used the Enterprise's computers in person?"

"Bother? It would be my pleasure to show you a real starship."

They both laughed over their shared adventure in the Klingon Bird of Prey, and she said, "Great. Thanks, Jim."

"Hold on," he said reaching for something. "I'll have you beamed up in just a min—"

"Wait! I've got to tell Ron where I'm going."

"Oh. Right."

She shook her head and laughed. "Ron," she said into the intercom.

"Almost set, Gillian. This time we'll get it!"

"Great. Can you handle it alone?"

Even without visual, she saw his smirk. "Where're you off to this time? Moscow?"

"The library," answered Gillian.

"Ooh!" exclaimed Ron. "Hot date! Sure, go ahead, I can take care of this."

A minute later she was standing on the pad in the Enterprise's transporter room. When she looked up, she was surprised to see Mr. Spock himself at the controls, and said so. He answered, "Dr. Taylor, it is not at all uncommon for the executive officer of a starship to personally beam aboard a distinguished visitor, and when that visitor is also a scientist, it is not uncommon for the science officer to be on hand."

Gillian smiled at him, and he cocked his head as if confused. "Oh, go on Mr. Spock," she laughed. "You're a big phony and a sweet man."

Before he could form some denial, she said, suddenly all serious, "And you might be just the man to help me."

"At your service, Doctor."

She stepped off the pad and approached him. "I'm interested in a Vulcan cetaceanologist Ji...Captain Kirk mentioned. Maybe Sernak?"

"You must mean Sennak. But I'm afraid you cannot communicate with him. He is researching a large aquatic mammal on Syrrus IV, which is in a nebula which has been undergoing a severe ionic storm for the past two weeks."

Once again Gillian was amazed at the vast amount of information on which Spock stays current, but she turned to the task at hand. "Well, Captain Kirk suggested you might be able to help me with my problem."

"Problem, Doctor?"

"Well, they're two actually. First, the whales seem to be failing, just the way all the captive Humpbacks did when they became extinct."

"Interesting. I do not recall any biological failure. The last known Humpback died in the open sea."

"What about Barney?"

Something darted behind Spock's eyes, and he invited her to join him in one of the computer labs. He called up the historical files for the Humpbacks and read through as the screen scrolled at blurring speed. After ten seconds, he halted the computer and turned to Gillian. "Unfortunately, my memory seems to be in error."

Something in his tone made her attend carefully to his words. She asked, "Is it true Vulcans cannot lie?"

"Vulcans do not lie."

"But they also never forget."

"Normally, no."

"So what are you really saying, Mr. Spock?"

Spock hesitated, then said, "You said you had two problems, doctor?"

Was he really not going to answer her? But whatever he was up to, he still could help her with the whales. Perhaps. "It's the virus Oceanus."

"Oceanus." he repeated noncommittally.

"The most prevalent life form in the earth's oceans?" she tried.

Spock's hands flew over the computer controls and moments later a schematic of the virus' protein sheath and of its RNA sequencing appeared on the screen.

"That's it!" said Gillian. "Can you give me the history of how it was discovered?"

A moment later the text appeared. Spock read each screen in a second, then watched her eyes and scrolled it forward as she finished. The virus was first identified in 1991, but it not occur often in the records until the mid teens, when it was exhaustively studied. She asked, "Could it be that it wasn't around in any numbers until then?"

"Possible," said Spock, staring at the screen, which once again showed the schematics. "You did not know the lifeform?"

"No. And I studied under the greatest marine virologist of the time. He never mentioned it."

"Indeed. Dr. Taylor, I'd like to study this RNA in detail. If you'd like to use the library..."

"Thank you. Is Captain Kirk aboard?" she asked, hoping to thank him. Even if Spock found nothing, he'd already demonstrated that the virus might be new, however that was possible. And he was also hiding something from her. Maybe Jim knew what it was. He might or might not be able to lie, but she felt a lot more confident about getting the truth out of Jim then Spock.

"He was on the Hangar Deck. Take the turbolift right outside the lab."

Uhura paused outside her apartment door. Taking a deep breath, she palmed the security lock, and the door slid open. He was sitting on the couch, and he looked up. "Nyota," he said, his voice level.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, walking just far enough into the room for the door to close.

"That's all right. Won't you sit down?"

She felt so awkward, being invited into her own home. By this stranger. Her husband. She walked slowly over and chose a chair across from him, next to her Vulcan lyre. "It's Jack, right?"

He said, "Yeah, but you always call me Mgeni."

"Stranger?" she said, a bit surprised. Then, "You speak Kiswahili?"

His blue eyes sparkled, and a grin broke on his face. "Only the little bit you've managed to get through this thick skull—mostly those kanga of your grandmother's."

Bibi's proverbs? This...this...mgeni? She couldn't help smiling at the incongruity. "Good thing your skull's thick. I gave it a pretty good whack against the wall that night."

He laughed, "Bure mnanichukia, bahati nimejaliwa." You hate me in vain, I am blessed with luck.

She just stared at him.

He lifted the long blond hair from his temple, revealing only a small bald spot, still tinted that characteristic blue-green of the regeneration solution. "All healed. I guess I should've listened to Mack."

"What'd he tell you?" she asked, fighting down the urge to ask who the hell Mack was.

He shifted, relaxing into a more informal position. "He told me I shouldn't marry a military woman with martial arts training." He smiled at her.

She didn't smile. "Your mistake."

His face became all serious. "Hardly, Nyota." Their eyes locked meaningfully and held for several seconds. Then he smiled again and said, "Anyway, I told him that nobody would mess with me, or I'd sick you on 'em."

"Guess I lost the scorecard."

"You sure surprised the hell out of me."

"I surprised you?"

"Well, usually when I come home you give me a hug and a kiss, not a karate chop in the neck."

"It wasn't a karate chop. It was a llaekh-ae'rl maneuver. Lucky for you we humans never master the Romulan technique. It was originally designed to kill."

Their eyes met again, and he waited a moment to respond, "The doctor said you came by to see me in the hospital."

"You were still in regen. I just wanted to apologize. And to explain."

"Jim came by. He didn't know me either."

"It's all because of the time-space disruptions, and—"

"I know. He gave me Spock's gobbledygook." She smiled, and he added, "Jim was the one who married us."

Her head jerked. There was a long pause, then she said. "He gave me your message."

"It seemed weird, I mean inviting my wife to meet me at home."

"For both of us, Jack." She shook her head. "This is too much! Me? Married? I always thought I was married to my earpiece."

He laughed genuinely. "There've been times your career has come between us."

"Where'd we meet?" she asked, the strangeness wearing off as this man's honest warmth began reaching her.

"At a fleet party on Regula III. I was assigned to cover some galaxy-shaking research by Carol Marcus. She introduced us."

Uhura felt her gut tighten. Kirk had told her about David. For Jack, of course, David had never existed. Or for Carol Marcus! She forced a normal voice. "You're a reporter, right?"

"Head science reporter for Starfleet Press Corps."

"I just don't know," she said softly, reaching for the Vulcan lyre Spock had given her years ago and plucking a few strings.

"Nyota."

She looked up.

"If I understand Jim's explanation, your going back in time altered things, so you came back to a place different from the one you left."

"I know it sounds crazy, but..."

"No, not crazy. Actually, it makes a sort of weird sense. But some things don't. Like how come you were here? I mean, what's the likelihood that you'd have the same apartment there and here? Or should I say, then and now?"

"Both, as Spock explains it. It really is perfectly likely. I loved this apartment when I first saw it six years ago. I moved heaven and earth to get this lease."

His shocked stare made her ask, "What's wrong?"

He didn't speak for quite a while, and she could see that some understanding came over him. "Nyota, I've lived here for over ten years."

Her face mirrored his surprise.

Finally he smiled again. "But you did love it at first sight. I always wondered if you married me for my apartment."

She glanced around the room. "Could be."

He laughed loudly, and she joined in. Then he said, "Nyota, play something."

"What should I play?"

She saw the test written in his expression. "Sing our favorite Deltan ballad."

For several moments she studied his eyes, then her hands began to glide across the lyre. The haunting strains of the song filled the room with a sweet, sensuous air. She saw his reaction, and began to sing. Their favorite.

Most of the hangar deck was dark. In one corner a bank of lights illuminated a small area. Gillian walked toward it. A lilting voice called out, "I'll be right with ye, Mr. Spock—oh, it's you, lassie!" Scotty stepped out from behind a shuttlecraft, wiping his hands on his coveralls. "And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

She could hardly just ask him where Jim was after that, so she said, "Mr. Spock is running something on the computer for me, and I thought I'd stop in and visit all my friends. Are you making some repairs on this shuttle?"

"Ah," he said, his chest puffing up with pride, "this wee bairn here is my special project."

Gillian chuckled to herself. "Oh, what kind of project?"

"'Tis a Gallagher class shuttle, from the early days of warp drive! I've retrofitted her from the shell to the carpeting. She's got all the grace and beauty of the old girls that you flew by the seat of your pants, but she's also got the most modern technical advances. Would you care to see her?"

"Sure," she said, taking his gallantly offered arm.

As they stepped through the hatch, she was overwhelmed by the cramped quarters. Almost every inch of the cabin was filled with consoles, panels, or machinery. Scotty led her through a wending aisle to the main controls. Each panel glistened, each readout sparkled. She smiled and remarked, "All shipshape! It's beautiful, Mr. Scott."

His eyes beamed. "Ah, lassie, you certainly appreciate fine workmanship. Why, that barbarian Sulu, he told me he dinna have room to turn around in here! Can you believe it?" He stretched out his arm and pivoted to indicate the whole ship. "Look, there's more than enough space in—" His hand slammed against a projecting control panel, and he pulled his arm down quickly, rubbing the skinned knuckles against his thigh.

She said quickly, "I'm sure that he was just teasing you. After all, what do you need with extra room on a shuttle? If you want exercise, you can open the hatch and go out."

"Not necessary with this lady," said Scotty with a sparkle in his eye. "She's got a state-of-the-art single platform transporter."

"Really?" she asked, her eyes searching for the necessary open space for a transporter pad.

"Well, you do have to crouch a wee bit," he explained, gesturing toward the meter-high transporter squeezed in between two other pieces of machinery under a protruding bulkhead.

"Of course," she agreed. "What else does she have?"

For the next half hour she was treated to an exhaustive tour of the remarkable ship, which boasted a warp drive in excess of Fleet specifications, ample, if crowded, living quarters, and even an automatic pilot program for the onboard computers, which Scotty wrote himself, and which, according to his description, would enable "even a Klingon" to pilot her. And Uhura was right. The computer and Gillian hit it off from the start.

Spock looked up when Kirk walked in. "Jim," he said, making it somehow a question.

"I just finished reading your findings. I'm so confused I don't know what to think. I keep coming to the conclusion that we made a horrible mistake, but then I think of the probe boiling off the earth's oceans, and I'm sure I'd do it again in a second, even knowing what I know now."

"I understand," replied the Vulcan, turning his computer screen so Jim could see it. "Look at this."

Kirk saw row upon row of complex organic molecule schematics. "DNA?"

"RNA," corrected Spock. "And most curious." He touched a few controls, and the computer superimposed another diagram over that one. "The first represents the RNA of a terrestrial virus," he explained. "The overlay is a typical nucleic acid sequence for Tellarite viruses."

"That middle section is a perfect match," said Kirk.

"Precisely. The entire rest of the chain is typically terrestrial, but that portion is unmistakably Tellarite."

"A hybrid?"

"Perhaps. My hypothesis is a crossover, in a terrestrial virus, with a Tellarite chain."

"Is that possible?"

"Unlikely. The Tellarite virus would have to inhabit the same cell as the terrestrial virus, and all Tellarite lifeforms have incompatible nucleic acids structures for earth lifeforms."

"Then what is it?"

"I believe that a Tellarite virus mutated under Earth's sun, which has a substantially different spectrum, enabling it to coexist with native lifeforms, and a portion of the mutated chain was incorporated into the terrestrial virus, probably in a host bacterium."

"Does anyone agree with you?"

"No one has considered the question. The virus is thought to be native to Earth. It has been known since the late Twentieth Century."

"What! There couldn't have been a Tellarite virus on Earth back then!"

Spock paused before answering; "There couldn't have been a Klingon Bird of Prey on Earth back then, either."

Jim turned abruptly. "Elaborate."

"It is only conjecture, but this Tellarite portion shows remarkable similarity to the genetically engineered virus known as koracht-uhng." When Kirk didn't recognize the name, Spock went on, "A deadly virus developed by the Klingon scientist MoraQ, lethal only to Tellarites."

"And you think there was some on that ship?"

"The probability is high, Jim. Dr. Taylor, who studied marine virology in her time, did not recognize the virus, and came to me to discuss it. I had never heard of it, but it was there in the computer record. It is quite likely that it did not exist in her time. Or in ours."

"But it's here!" exclaimed Kirk. Then he relaxed. "So what? You said it's only harmful to Tellarites."

"And then only in its original form. I've checked, and this virus is harmless to them."

"So why the fuss?"

"I was not fussing, Captain."

"Sorry. Why are you investigating this virus?"

Spock steepled his fingers. "Dr. Taylor is concerned that this virus, which concentrates in Humpback whales, may be linked to the decline of the species, in her time and in ours."

"Is it?"

"Impossible to say yet. It would explain some anomalies, if it were."

"Explain."

"I am quite certain that the last Humpback died in the open sea, but historical records show a massive captive breeding program which ended with the death of a whale named Barney in an Alaskan marine mammalarium.

"It is logical to assume that when we went back for the whales, we introduced the virus, which was aboard the Klingon ship, into Earth's biosystems. It then mutated, joining with the terrestrial virus, and infected the remaining whales, hastening their demise. When Dr. Taylor's two whales were placed in the infected seas of this space-time, they too, became infected."

"Then our bringing them here doomed them."

"Perhaps. If this virus is responsible for the whale's decline, it is due to a gradual debilitation. The virus is not lethal in any sense, but exhaustive studies are necessary to determine if it contributes to an overall weakening. Several marine organisms which also concentrate the virus are clearly unaffected by it."

They were interrupted by Uhura, who stopped at the doorway. "Gentlemen," she said formally.

They both greeted her, and she smiled weakly. "I don't think I ever really apologized for my outburst."

"You had good reason to be upset. We understand, Nyota."

"I doubt it, Captain. I don't think even I understand. Anyway, I wanted to apologize. Especially to you, Mr. Spock. I was very rude."

"There is no need to apologize. I see that you have brought your emotions under control."

"No, I haven't," she answered, starting to raise her voice. Then she calmed and said, "There I go again. No, Mr. Spock. My emotions are still very much out of control, they're just different ones. Less loud ones."

Kirk asked, "Have you spoken with Jack?"

She nodded.

"He seemed like a nice guy," Kirk tried.

She looked up. "Are you surprised? You think I'd marry a creep?"

"No! I didn't mean that. I just meant that he seemed to take it pretty well when I told him that his wife had never met him before."

She gave a mirthless laugh, then turned to Spock, "But that's not true, or is it? Who did he marry?"

"You, Uhura, or, rather, your counterpart in this time-space."

"But who is she?"

"Now she is you. Prior to our arrival...It is not logical to pursue time continuum paradoxes too far, for they always break down in self-contradictions. Since you have no memory of marrying this man, it seems real to you that you did not, but he knows you, and he married you, and there is no one else in this universe who substituted for you, so, from his prospective, it was you."

"And now I tell him it wasn't." She turned back to Kirk. "Captain, can you imagine how weird it feels? He knows things about me I didn't know!"

"That's typical in a good marriage."

"But I don't even recognize him! I couldn't tell you his likes, his dis..." She paused, thinking of how that wasn't exactly true. "Anyway, it wasn't me."

Kirk asked Spock, "How does this work? Where is the woman Jack married?"

He didn't answer at first, and neither Kirk nor Uhura interrupted his contemplative silence. Finally he said, "Time displacement involves relativistic phenomena, but in many ways it is not unlike the physics behind our manipulation of matter. Both the transporter and the synthesizer use a computer template to rearrange atoms into a particular structure. In a very real sense, the model for the template is not the same as the resultant object."

Kirk replied, "You mean that spooky business the religious fanatics are always saying about how you die when you are transported, and an entirely new person is formed at the other end?"

"Precisely. And, in a way, they are right. But the 'new' body has every atom in exactly the same place, every memory, every behavior."

"Okay," said Uhura, "but what does that have to do with time-space disruptions?"

"It is possible to represent travel along the time continuum as remaining in place while one's environment is transported. The person remains the same, and his surroundings are reconstructed from a past or a future template."

"So, in one of these templates, I married this guy Jack, and when that template was used to organize this time-space around us, he's a part of it, with all his memories, even though I had nothing to do with it?"

Spock replied, "Essentially, yes. This is why the extent of the disruption of the continuum is so hard to determine, since we remain unchanged, and everything simply falls into place around us.

"If you will excuse me, my Omni Ten results are due presently." Spock took his leave, and Uhura came over and sat down across from Kirk.

"Well, so what do I do now?"

"What do you want to do, Nyota?"

She sighed. "That's what he asked me. Jim? How can I answer a question like that? It puts impossible demands on me. But then, he's being asked to tolerate some pretty impossible things, too, isn't he?"

Kirk nodded. "Can you just hang in there for a while? It's possible Starfleet will decide to do something about this situation, and everything might change."

She laughed genuinely. "I'd better not count on those bureaucrats helping me out!" She stood up to leave. "Jack asked me to meet him for lunch. I told him I might."

Kirk just raised his eyebrows in response.

"But he knew I'd be there." She moved to the door, then turned back and said, "He is a nice guy," and left.

"Do you have a moment?" asked Chekov from Jack's office doorway.

Jack's eyes brightened and he said, "Of course, Pavel! Come in." But his excitement dimmed and he added, "Only I guess you don't remember me either."

Chekov took the proffered chair and said, "Not de way you mean it, but I am somewhat a fan of your writing."

Not sure how to respond to this reverse deja vu Jack said, "I've always been able to count on you as my kindest critic."

Chekov shifted in his chair and said, "I remember a recent article on conditions of Starfleet prisons, where you interviewed inmates in max security holdings."

Sapir shook his head, "No...I did a piece on their state of the art security system. But it's a great idea." He laughed nervously, "You wouldn't have a copy of my article would you?"

Chekov's laugh dispelled some of the awkwardness of the situation, and he answered "I recall dat Admiral Bregstein arranged for de interviews as part of Starfleet's PR push."

Jack said, "Of course! Étienne is always trying to get me to write things to make Starfleet look better!"

"So, you think de admiral will arrange it in this altered time-space?"

Jack was already writing the first paragraph in his head. "Sure. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

"Uh...Mr. Sapir?"

"Jack, please."

"Jack, we have a bit of a problem."

"I thought you had a big problem!"

"Yes. With many little parts. Admiral Morrow has arrested Hikaru for treason."

Jack slammed his fist against the desk and said, "Damn it! I should've figured."

"Excuse me?"

"Blue Leader was going to contact him. Only your Sulu must've blown it."

"Blown vhat?" Chekov asked.

"There's been a leak in Weapons that I was researching. Sulu decided to help me out. He was working undercover so we could discover who Blue Leader was. We thought that Blue Leader had to be the Klingon mole."

"So can't you tell Starfleet? Von't dey free him?" Chekov began excitedly.

"Free someone accused of espionage on the word of a reporter?" began Jack realistically. "No, I'm going to have to help you guys get back to your own time before you all get into trouble."

"Funny you should say dat...Is it still true dat prison security is based on a d'Vrie's field?"

Jack, not sure where this was heading, said, "Yes, it effectively scrambles any transporter beam."

Chekov smiled. "Except a focused beam with double buffered pattern enhancers."

"What's that?"

"A little bit of technology dat didn't transfer to dis time-space."

"I see," said Jack, afraid he really did.

"But," explained Chekov, "de target has to have a subspace transponder, vich just so happens to give sensors de same signature reading as de new, state of de art Svobodny Multiphasic Subspace Resonance Transceiver...a Russian inwention much in demand by remote reporters and vich did make it to dis time-space."

Jack laughed, "For all the good it does me! Not on my salary!"

Chekov remained serious. "De SMSRT is not permitted in prisons...in my space-time."

It was Jack's turn for sobriety. "I see."

Now Chekov grinned, pulling a small box out of his tunic.

Jack swallowed twice—with difficulty. "So this was not a social call."

Spock, McCoy, and Kirk met Gillian in the Enterprise's transporter room. "Oh," she remarked, stepping off the platform, "not just the executive officer, but the commanding officer and chief medical officer this time."

McCoy looked questioningly at Spock's inscrutable face, but Gillian saved the Vulcan by asking, "So, what's up?"

Spock replied, "We asked you to come to review some interesting findings we have made concerning this Oceanus virus. If you'll accompany us to the computer lab..."

"That's incredible!" she cried when Spock finished demonstrating his hypothesis. "Then if we hadn't brought George and Gracie back here, they'd be fine!"

Kirk suggested, "If you'll recall, Gillian, our arrival on the scene had a negative effect on a certain harpoon's trajectory."

"Okay, Jim, but damn it! We brought them here to get sick!"

McCoy said, "Don't worry Gillian. I've already worked out an antiviral. By tomorrow you can give it to your friends, and they'll be fine. We aren't even sure the virus is detrimental, but the antiviral will eliminate that possibility."

"But I don't understand! How did this alien virus get here in the first place? Spock showed that it's been around since the early nineteen nineties at least."

The three men exchanged meaningful glances. Kirk opted to respond. "Gillian, it was on the Klingon ship, and that ended up interfering with your century, as you know."

"Yes," Gillian agreed, "But how could the virus have entered the oceans when the Bird of Prey never entered the water?"

"It appears that I may be the answer to that question," said Spock, startling the rest of them with this revelation. "I have tested the blood samples Fleet medical personnel took on all of us when we returned." He paused, and everyone stared expectantly. "Everyone except Dr. Taylor was already infected with the virus when we crashed into the bay, which means that any or all of us could have introduced this virus into Dr. Taylor's time. I for one am known to have entered the waters of her world."

"In the aquarium!" Gillian exclaimed. "The tank is...was vented to the open sea!"

"Wait a minute, Spock," said Jim with one of his pensive, time-for-analysis looks. "What about this business about the time continuum pushing things back into place so we can't alter it very much? If your entering the tank infected the water, which, paradoxically, helped the Humpbacks to extinction in the next century, which, paradoxically, brought the probe to Earth two centuries later, which, paradoxically, necessitated our going back to Gillian's time, which paradoxically, is when you infected the water, then it was your swim with the whales that brought us to Gillian's attention, and, paradoxically, probably enabled us to get the whales to bring back! It looks like it had to happen!"

"Paradoxically," added McCoy.

"Unfortunately, Captain," said Spock, ignoring the doctor's comment, "there is a flaw in your logic. The argument only holds if we assume that certain parameters of this time-space represent elements which the continuum would preserve in any alteration. I have had time to run T'Laq's equations for the virus, and it is present only in the zero-line. It would appear that our going back is the only reason the virus exists, and if we hadn't, it wouldn't."

"But, Spock!" shouted McCoy, "If we hadn't gone back, Earth would be vaporized!"

"Curiously," answered the Vulcan calmly, "that scenario occurs in only two of the first seven runs of the equations."

"I've had enough of your damned Vulcan equations, Spock! The fact is that if we hadn't gone back, Earth would be dead."

Gillian, who had been quietly trying to absorb all of this, spoke now. "Not quite, Dr. McCoy. My coming back was not part of the original plan." She gave Kirk a sad look, then added, "Maybe if I hadn't, none of this would have happened."

"Spock still would have contaminated the water!" protested McCoy.

"If he did, Bones," said Kirk, feeling once again more a referee than a commanding officer. "But I still am struck by the damned if we did and damned if we didn't aspect of all this. Spock? Didn't you say that history, before we went back, was that the whales became extinct anyway?"

"Affirmative. And we know both from my memory and Dr. Taylor's experience, that the Oceanus virus did not exist before we went back."

There was a moment of silence while they all contemplated the impossible intervolutions of all this, then Gillian asked, "But since you did go back, the virus does really exist, and it helped wipe out the Humpbacks, right?"

"Affirmative, Doctor."

"Then what about all the poor whales back there?"

"What do you mean?" asked Kirk.

"Now they're all infected! They need Dr. McCoy's antiviral!"

Kirk turned to Spock, who replied, "Doctor, the whales of your time have all been dead for hundreds of years."

"Two of them are swimming off the coast of Alaska right now!" she snapped back, then she quickly added, "I'm sorry. This is all so confusing."

"Confusing?" said McCoy, getting up to pace. "Why should you be confused? We went back to save the whales, which made them become extinct, which made the probe come to boil the Earth, which made us go back to get the whales, which we did, only we infected them with an alien virus, which we now can cure, only it's too late, and they all would have died anyway without it."

"Precise, if inelegant," commented Spock, eliciting a glare from McCoy.

"But what do we do about it?" lamented Gillian.

"I'm afraid there's little we can do," explained Kirk. "Any attempt to make right the alterations we have caused in the continuum would only abet the problem, and, in any case, only Starfleet has the resources to try, and it's unlikely that they will opt to do anything, since from their point of view, everything is well now."

"That's awfully self-centered, isn't it?" said Gillian. "I mean, do they really only care about themselves and their time?"

The sincere concern in Jim's eyes softened his words, "Have there been many governments in history which had the foresight to set as high priority the welfare of future generations, let alone past ones?"

She frowned. "Not in my time, that's for sure. But...but I was hoping things had improved."

"They have!" he assured her. "But it is difficult to argue that present and future concerns should be subjugated to past ones."

For a moment she looked as if she was going to argue, then she made a pouting face and said defeatedly, "I guess. It's so confusing to even be thinking of making policies based on concern for the past! You have one crazy century here!"

"And now it's yours too," said Kirk.

She started to smile, then frowned instead. "Then I have to act responsibly, too, don't I? To past, present, and future?"

"Now, listen here!" said McCoy, giving his best Southern gentleman smile, and increasing his drawl, "Don't y'all get yourself worked up about all these political confusions. Let's leave it to the bureaucrats to do the bureaucrating. Why don't we all go on down for some refreshments?"

"Sounds good to me!" agreed Kirk. "Spock? Didn't think so. Come on, Gillian, I'll show you a first-class starship dining hall."

Uhura gazed across the savannah, which extended as far as the eye could see. An occasional acacia tree stood here and there as a lone sentinel. A herd of antelope sprang across her view, running as if pursued, but after they passed, she still could see nothing chasing them. It was a world of brilliant blue sky and muted brown earth. It was gorgeous. As she watched a family of elephants playing at the watering hole, Jack came up behind her and laid his hand on her shoulder. She turned and said breathlessly, "When you said a picnic in the park, I never thought you meant the Pan African Wildlife Preserve!"

"It's always been one of your favorite places."

She pulled away from his light touch and faced him. "I have to keep fighting the urge to ask how you know these things."

He nodded silently, and she turned back to the elephants. The smallest, still an infant, was trying to spray water over its back with its trunk. She laughed, then said, "In Gillian's day, the African elephant was almost extinct. But here they are."

Jack put his hand back on her shoulder and replied, "It was nice of you to arrange an interview for me with her."

She turned again. "It was the least I could do. All your colleagues got their stories while you were regenerating."

He laughed out loud. "Then it was well worth it! I made enough on my exclusive to cover plenty of transporter tickets. Let's come again tomorrow."

She didn't answer, and a moment later she heard the whine of a transporter. "A thermocase!" she said in surprise as it materialized on the ground next to them. She leaned over and said, opening it and sampling the tantalizing aromas wafting out, "How'd you get it past the sentry circuits?"

"Your friend Lt. Heisenberg over in Old City Station beamed it in on a coded frequency."

"Oh, my!" she said with a grin, "I'm afraid I've started him on a life of crime. It's illegal to bring food into the park. The scanners will pick us up for sure."

"Well...Here, before you open that again—" He pulled a small metal cylinder from his pocket and extended several arms from it. Then he placed it on the ground and activated a switch. Uhura's skin prickled for a moment with a familiar static charge.

"Force field," she said, laughing.

"Yep. Nothing will pick us up, not even that simba's hungry nose."

"What lion?" she asked, glancing around. There, at the shimmering edge of the force field sat a huge lioness, licking her chops. "I guess I should've waited to open it."

"No harm. She'll give up when she can't smell it any more. Now, let's eat!"

When all the food had been spread out and Jack had started in, Uhura sat back with a strange look on her face. He noticed, put down his plate, and asked, "What's wrong?"

She bit her lip, "Jack, the groundnut stew, the honeycake, it's...it's an exact duplicate."

"What's a duplicate of what?"

"This meal. It's exactly what I prepared at my grandmother's one hundred twenty-fifth birthday feast."

Now it was her turn to ask what was wrong when she saw his shocked face. He replied, "I had to go alone to Bibi's birthday. You were on that special communications conference on Sagan IV."

He stared at her, but she looked away and stood up. "Did Bibi understand?" she asked, her voiced hinting at crying.

"Of course," he replied, getting up also. "You know she always insists her family tend to their own lives and careers. You weren't the only one missing. Evan wasn't there, either."

Now she did cry. "Damn it!" She turned and began pummeling him on the chest with both fists. "How do you know all these things? Who are you?"

He grabbed both her wrists and looked down at her tear-covered face. "I'm Mgeni," he whispered gruffly.

Their eyes met, then their lips, and she melted against him as he collected her in a tight embrace.

"I can't believe that a week ago I didn't even know how to start the engines," said Gillian, smiling at Scotty as she deftly maneuvered the shuttlecraft out of a lunar orbit and into the course trajectory he had given her.

"Aye, lassie, you've done very well. And today, you'll master warp drive."

"Scotty!" she protested, "You didn't tell me that."

"I know," he replied grinning. "I wanted it to be a surprise."

"It is! Are you sure you want to trust her to me at warp speeds?"

"I'm not sure I'd trust myself at warp speeds without the computer, and it will be doing most of the work."

"Don't I always?" came the nasal voice of the main computer.

Gillian laughed and Scotty said, "Will you stay out o' this you heap of corroded metal synapses?"

The computer retorted, "If I stayed out of things around here, you'd be in big trouble, you overgrown leprechaun."

"Leprechauns are Irish," whispered Gillian, hiding a grin. Then she said to Scotty, "Where'd you get Archie anyway? He's obviously not your run of the mill helm computer."

"Ah," he groaned. "'Twas my only mistake in outfitting this beauty. I picked it up cheap at a used parts auction."

"A mistake am I? How'd you like me to shut down life support systems for a while?"

Scotty's face turned red, but Gillian smiled to herself at his thinly-veiled affection for the machine and quickly said, "Come on, now, Archie, please behave."

"Well," came the twangy voice, "since you asked nicely, okay."

Scott asked Gillian, "Where did you get that name for it, anyway?"

"Oh, he reminds me of someone I once knew."

Scotty said, "Whatever you call it, it's one of the best damned navigational computer there is. Even Chekov's fancy navcomp can't do some of the things this one can."

"Really?" asked Gillian. "Like what?"

Before Scotty could reply, the computer said, "Like plotting the best route past Federation starbases!"

Gillian laughed abruptly, and Scott snorted, "The former owner was a smuggler."

The computer continued, "And I can even plot a slingshot maneuver to warp across the time-space continuum."

Scotty gasped. "Where did you learn to do that?" he demanded.

"Spock taught me," answered the mechanical voice.

"Ach, I knew I should never leave that Vulcan alone with my computers!"

Gillian said, "Uh oh! What's this reading mean?"

The computer quickly answered, "It means we're coming up on warp drive in fifteen seconds. Mark!"

Scotty quickly explained what she had to do, and exactly on time she expertly inserted the shuttle into hyperspace. Once the warp engines were fully operational, she sat back and asked, "Where are we going, anyway?"

Archie answered, "Alpha Cent."

Scott explained, "It's nearby."

"Can we visit Camerron?" she asked, eager to see the famous provincials and their You Tear Alpha Mix.

"Why not?" replied Archie, eliciting a thump from Scott's fist on the main console.

"I'm in command here, you mess of frayed wires and broken chips!" he yelled. "Do you know how much it costs in fuel to exit orbit around Camerron?"

"Hit me again, and I will turn off life support," answered the computer, flicking the lights for effect.

"Now, now, you two!" said Gillian, trying not to laugh. "This is my first warp piloting, and I don't want you ruining it. Archie, thank you for the information, and Scotty..." She smiled at him so warmly that he had to smile, too. "Scotty, thanks for letting us go to Camerron."

"Now who's in command here?" said Scott, but there was a grin in his voice, if not on his face.

Diane Sterling pushed a chair forward for Spock. "Thank you for coming, Captain. If I hear one more bureaucrat babble on about the time-space continuum, I think I'll scream! If they knew half as much about physics as they do about their constituencies, we might be able to get somewhere."

Spock nodded solemnly. "It is often difficult for a scientist to communicate the important issues to government officials."

She grinned. "If that's Vulcan for 'they're a bunch of egocentric sons of bitches', I agree! They argued for three hours this afternoon over whether we should develop a weapon capable of destroying the probe, then send you and your whales and their Twentieth Century friend back!"

"I had feared that they would not grasp the finer points of the paradoxes of time-space alteration."

She laughed. "I love your understatements! Anyway, I wanted to get it straight from you. How much is changed?"

"All of my research indicates that the focus of the disruption is indeed Earth. There are significant changes in the makeup of the Federation, and of the Klingon Empire near the Neutral Zone. We have uncovered numerous historical differences, and there are some alarming technological discrepancies as well as several medical deficiencies. Overall, I would say that the galaxy is considerably worse off than in the time-space we remember, although it is still on the same course and approximately the same in its wholesale design."

"And if we try to reverse the alterations?"

"According to T'Laq's equations, we cannot. Were we to attempt to return Dr. Taylor and the whales to the late Twentieth Century, that act in itself would be an additional disruption, not a cancellation of the earlier one." He paused dramatically, "The effect could be disastrous."

Dr. Sterling stroked her chin. "Then the best solution is no action?"

"I prefer not to commit myself. I believe that the losses in this time-space relative to my own are significant, yet it is possible that Dr. McCoy, Engineer Scott, and I can sufficiently instruct the appropriate industries to compensate, but fifty years of research and development cannot be replaced overnight."

She leaned forward. "Mr. Spock, I never realized! You and your friends feel out of place here."

"Of course. This is not our world."

"Then you are all marooned here as much as your stowaway from Old Earth."

"In a manner of speaking. It is more difficult for some of us than others."

"I've heard about that stupid business with Commander Sulu. Is there going to be a problem?"

"I do not know," Spock said rising abruptly. "Doctor, I have several computer chips here, which should answer any questions you have about the time displacement phenomena. Please feel free to contact me again if you desire additional information."

She stood up to see him out. "Thank you, Mr. Spock. And likewise, please call me if I can be of any help. To any of you."

He acknowledged this with a nod and left.

"Gillian!" called Ron from the other room. She left her samples and hurried in. "Look!" he cried, pointing to the screen, "All trace of the virus is gone, and look! All the protonucleic parameters are back to normal. You did it!"

"All I did is sprinkle some of Dr. McCoy's wonder juice into the water near George and Gracie. I'm amazed we didn't even have to inject it."

"Aw, most antivirals work like that. Try keeping them out of an organism! That's why they're so effective. Didn't you guys have antivirals?"

She became very serious. "No, Ron, and many people suffered and died because of it." But her mood couldn't last. "How about those water samples?"

"Computer confirms that viral die out is progressing at ten klicks a day. The antiviral is self-replicating normally, and by the time my kids enter school, if I ever have any, Oceanus will be a thing of the past."

"The past," repeated Gillian softly.

"Hey, what's the matter? You don't seem in a celebrating mood."

"I'm not. I can't, Ron. I keep thinking about all the whales that are going to die—even Barney." She noticed his perplexed look and said, "I'm sorry. I guess I have a different perspective since the past is very much alive to me, but I can't just sit back and think of all the whales dying, when this antiviral could save them."

Suddenly she brightened. "Hey! Why didn't I think of it before? Warp drive gives us the possibility of going back in time! All we have to do is send some of the antiviral back, pour it into the ocean, and—"

"Gillian!" laughed Ron. "'All' we have to do? Nobody has that kind of resources, except Starfleet, and they aren't about to spend them on a project like that."

Crestfallen, she replied, "Can't we just get a ship and—"

"Hold it! Do you know how many times people have used those high-powered starship engines to travel in time?"

"No," she answered with a shake of her head. "I figured that since—"

"I only know of a couple—though your friend Kirk is infamous for it. And there's at least one ship that tried it and was never heard from again. It's not your everyday maneuver, you know."

"Okay, it's risky, but it's worth—"

"Look, Gillian. What are you proposing? You gonna hop into our shuttle, which doesn't even have warp drive, loop around the sun, drop into your home time, spread the antiviral, and barrel on back? Or are you going to ask Jim Kirk to borrow the Enterprise?"

She didn't answer. She kept hearing his phrase "your home time". She thought about going back, not because she wanted to; she certainly wasn't homesick for any aspect of the Twentieth Century. But she'd caused so many problems by coming here. Take Nyota, coming home to a husband she never had. And something with the warp engines or whatever Scotty was telling her about. And poor Mr. Sulu! She didn't understand much of Mr. Spock's explanations, but maybe if she went back, everything would return to normal. But could she go back? Would she?

"Well," repeated Ron for the third time. "Hey, are you still with me, Gillian?"

"Huh? Sure. I guess it wasn't such a hot idea."

"Oh, it was a good idea all right, except it wouldn't work, and even if it would, we'd never find anyone to back it. You'd better concentrate on saving the whales here. Just because we have a pair and a calf on the way doesn't mean the species is safe, you know."

Suddenly shedding her melancholy, she quipped, "It worked for Noah," and laughed.

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