First Contact

Chapter 4


"I'm sorry, but did you say 'the island of Never Land?'" Dr. Crusher asked.

"Yes, I did," Elizabeth Griffiths replied.

The foursome gave each other looks of disbelief.

"Dr. Griffiths," Captain Picard began as he approached her, "the island of Never Land is a fictional place found only in the writings of-."

"-author J.M. Barrie, yes I know, I have his book in my library." she finished. "However, Never Land is real and you are here on the island."

Captain Picard began to suspect the intervention of his old nemesis, Q. Perhaps this is another of his games, he thought. It would be very much like Q to place them in such a situation, not unlike the incident in Sherwood Forest. However, Q usually announces his intentions and then whisks away the players against their wills using his powers. He wouldn't bother with such an elaborate ruse such as sensor readings to bring them here. That simply wasn't his modus operandi.

"Doctor Griffiths, could you please explain how this place came to be known through Mr. Barrie's writings?" Picard asked trying to ferret out the deception.

"Mr. Barrie was an acquaintance of the Deorwine family," Dr. Griffiths explained. "Peter brought the children here so they could have adventures and Wendy could tell stories."

"Deorwine?" Geordi asked.

"Oh, yes, my apologies," she said, embarrassed. "Mr. Barrie changed the name to Darling for his book so that the family could live without interruption."

"Are you saying that Peter Pan is real?" Picard started to ask.

Dr. Griffiths rushed passed him towards Data. "Oh my, are you ill? You look positively jaundiced." She turned and spoke to Dr. Crusher. "How can you call yourself a physician when this poor man is suffering? He looks to have liver failure."

This is why Picard wanted Data and Geordi to stay hidden. He chose to deal with this situation by trying to change the subject while simultaneously motioning to Beverly to remove Commander Data immediately. She took Data back into the shuttle.

"Tell me, Doctor," Picard began, "in what year were you born?"

"In the Year of our Lord 1881, why do you ask?" Dr. Griffiths replied.

Eighteen eighty-one? That would make her more than five hundred years old, Picard quickly determined. No human could live so long. Not even with modern technology could so many years be attained. Picard wondered if this was all some kind of illusion to deter them from finding the source of the strange energy readings. His theory that alien life forms lived in this pocket universe might be validated. They could have tapped into his mind, found memories of the text Peter and Wendy, and used it as a template to create this world to protect themselves from the intruders, namely himself and his away team.

As a Starfleet Captain, Picard was many things: an explorer and scientist; a diplomat; and when necessary a combat strategist and tactician. The best starship commanders knew when to best to be each one and how to balance them at any given moment. Right now, he was an explorer, but he also had an obligation to determine if any threat lay in this pocket universe. This meant he was also acting as a military strategist and combat officer. Yet if there was an alien society living in this place, he also had to balance both of those roles with being a diplomat.

As he thought about how best to proceed, Picard noted that if these aliens did exist and could read his thoughts, then they surely would have been able to determine he and his away team was no threat. Of course, some sentient beings just want to be left alone no matter how benevolent the visitor.

"Doctor Griffiths, where were you born?" he asked.

"The City of London," she replied. "St. Mary's Hospital to be exact."

"And where did you attend school?" Picard pressed further, hoping to confound the woman and perhaps reveal herself or her true nature, whatever it may be. It did not go as planned.

"King's College," she replied. Her face turned suspicious. "Did you not intend to come to Never Land?"

"I beg your pardon?" Captain Picard replied.

"You said earlier that you thought Never Land was a fictional place," she stated. "Clearly that means you had no intention of coming here."

"Yes, that is correct."

"Then what brought you here? Are you pirates? If you are, you will find nothing of value here," she said firmly. "You are welcome to leave in your vessel just as you came. If you choose not to, I can summon the cannibals to assist me."

"Yeah, how did you do that?" Geordi asked. "I mean, they're cannibals, they eat people. What did you say that made them turn around without so much as a fight?"

"As I said earlier, it is a game they play," she answered. "Usually with the Piccaninny Indians or the Lost Boys."

That name sounded quite familiar to Picard. After a moment of searching his memory, he remembered that this was the name of the Native American tribe described in the book and play of Peter Pan. Her reference to the Lost Boys, the young boys that Peter "commanded" as his men seemed to confirm his earlier question that initially went unanswered. Picard had gotten some useful personal information out of Dr. Griffiths, but he was annoyed that he could only get answers that led to more questions.

"Who are you really?" he demanded. "You cannot be Dr. Elizabeth Griffiths. No human can live so long. Now who are you?"

"I am precisely who I say I am," she replied, sounding deeply insulted. "And how dare you question my veracity? You are hardly a military officer, as I have never seen such ruddy looking uniforms. I can only assume you are a pirate who has commandeered this vessel with a fine name attached to it. Now good to you I say." She stomped her foot for emphasis.

Picard turned to look at the shuttlecraft. She spoke of it as though it may float rather than fly. It would be in keeping with someone from her era since space flight didn't come to prominence until the 1960's. Still, it could all just be a masquerade for something else. Picard decided to end the questions there, with but one more.

"Dr. Griffiths, are you related to Dr. Jonathon Griffiths?" he queried.

"Yes, now please leave, whoever you are," she said, pointing angrily to the shuttle.

"Of course," he said with a smile and turned to walk away.

Geordi followed dutifully, but seemed a bit perplexed. "Are we leaving?" he asked.

"No, Mr. La Forge, we're going to do some research," Picard answered.

~O~

Once inside the shuttlecraft, Captain Picard questioned his away team members.

"Dr. Crusher? What did your medical scans reveal?" he asked.

While the away team had been speaking to the woman, Dr. Crusher had quietly opened her medical tricorder and gathered readings on her. When she took Data back inside the shuttle, Beverly examined the information and found nothing out of the ordinary. As far as her medical tricorder was concerned, Dr. Elizabeth Griffiths was a human woman in her mid thirties in good health. The only anomaly was a trace of radiation.

"What kind of radiation?" Picard asked.

"The type consistent with nuclear weapons," she answered. This revelation unnerved Picard, as it was wholly inconsistent with her testimony concerning her birth date and age. Furthermore, Dr. Crusher's tricorder exam revealed that the woman had aged only thirty plus years and that the radiation exposure occurred just recently.

"Is it harmful?" Geordi asked.

"No, the levels aren't enough to be dangerous, but she should get inoculated as soon as possible just to be safe."

Now why would aliens attempting to conceal themselves add such an extraneous detail, Picard asked himself. It wouldn't help their cause at all. Any alien species capable of reading their minds would know that medical tricorders would be able to scan for such a thing.

"Could it all be an elaborate illusion?" Picard asked the other three.

"Possibly, but not likely," Geordi replied first. "Either Data or I might be able to see through the illusion." Geordi, having been born blind, was fitted with special ocular implants that allowed him unique vision that went beyond human sight. Data, being an android, could see even more than Geordi.

"Our tricorder readings do not indicate any technology capable of rendering such an elaborate illusion, Captain," Data offered. "If such an illusion were introduced through mental telepathy, as an android, I would be immune."

Picard nodded. "Yes, of course." Data would have noticed immediately that the illusion was a mental projection. He would have then taken all necessary steps to alert the captain or remove the other three from the island to a safe distance.

"All of our tricorder readings thus far read as an earth identical environment," Crusher furthered. "It's almost as if this biosphere were a clone of our home planet with several varieties of plant and animal specials brought together and co existing in close quarters. Even the chemical makeup is the same, although I could give you a more definitive answer with the computers on the Enterprise."

The shuttlecraft computer chirped. Geordi checked the read out. "Captain, the sensors are picking up that energy signature close by. It's faint, but definitely outside."

Dr. Crusher turned to look out of the window and saw that Dr. Griffiths was still on the beach waiting for them to leave. She seemed most animated. "It looks like she is talking to someone, but sensors don't show another life form on the beach," she said. "Just the energy reading…, right next to her."

The shuttle sensors did record the presence of the cannibal horde within the vicinity, but they were at a safe distance. Only Dr. Griffiths and the unique signature were nearby. Then, the signature vanished.

"I wonder what's going on out there?" Geordi asked rhetorically.

Picard sighed for a moment, and then opened a hailing frequency to the Enterprise. He updated Lt. Commander Franklin of what they had found and told him to relay that information to Starfleet Command. Then he asked Franklin to search all available databases for one Dr. Elizabeth Griffiths, born in 1881 at St. Mary's Hospital in London, England, attended King's College, graduated with degrees in Botony and Zoology and possibly related to Dr. Jonathon Griffiths.

"Look for any legal records such birth and death certificates, marriage licenses or university documentation," he instructed. "Also, search for any pictures of a person matching the description, include photos or paintings."

"Aye, sir," Franklin replied before Picard closed the line.

"Well now, it seems we will soon get an answer about our Dr. Griffiths," he said.

~O~

It wasn't long to wait before information from the Enterprise began to feed through to the shuttlecraft. Franklin had done his due diligence and provided a wealth of information on Dr. Elizabeth Griffiths. Included in the data stream was her birth certificate, which did indeed indicate that one Elizabeth Griffiths was born in 1881 to father Martin Griffiths and mother Elizabeth Windham Griffiths.

"Looks like she was named for her mother," Beverly observed.

Picard also found hospital and school and university records, a mailing address, a few newspaper clippings concerning her father, who was also a scientist. However, something was missing. Franklin explained that no death certificate was ever filed for her, or her father. One was made for her mother who died as a result of complications from childbirth and another for a younger brother who perished the same day.

Jonathon Griffiths was a distant relative, a famous entomologist whose groundbreaking work in studying insects greatly expanded the field.

"Looks like being a scientist runs in the family," La Forge commented.

"Geordi," Data began, "it is likely that the interests of the parents were passed on to the child through regular exposure of the-,"

"Mr. Data!" Picard snapped.

"Yes, Captain." The android stopped rambling.

Jean-Luc went through the pictures and photos that were available. The first one he came across was a sepia toned photo of Elizabeth when she was a baby. She had a cherubic face and a silly smile. In the next she appeared to be about nine years old and had pigtails in her hair. A later photo, this one in more traditional black and white showed a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She looked exactly like the woman who was outside still waiting for the ship to depart.

"It would seem that we have a five hundred year old woman in our midst," Picard said.

"So now what do we do?" Beverly asked.

After taking a deep breath, Picard answered. "We tell her what year it is, about us and about Starfleet. And we confirm if this is indeed Never Land."


I'm sorry this chapter took so long to post. I've been busy with household repairs, distracted by school and usually very tired from it all.

I do hope that you found this chapter enjoyable. Thank you for reading and following this story.

Note: Deorwine is an Anglo-Saxon name meaning "Dear Friend."