Unscrupulous

Chapter Three

James T. Kirk watched with intense curiosity and puzzlement as his chief medical officer worked on their unexpected guest. The captain never thought he would ever see John Christopher again and his mind was full of unanswered questions: How did he get on the ship? The Enterprise was nowhere near Earth or Star Base Nine, and the black hole that nearly destroyed their ship in the past year had mysteriously and inexplicably disappeared. Why was the twentieth century airman here and how did he come into this time frame? Why was he in pajamas and why was he unconscious? Kirk knew that McCoy could possibly answer the last question.

First Officer Spock had been summoned from the bridge soon after the discovery and after the much older version of John Christopher had been whisked to sickbay. Upon entering the room, the Vulcan raised an eyebrow as he contained his own astonishment when he recognized the new arrival. Even though Christopher appeared to be at least forty years older than he was at their first encounter, he was still recognizable.

"What is his condition, Doctor?"

"He's out of danger. I managed to purge his system of most of the sedatives he ingested." McCoy answered, looking as puzzled as the captain. "It was close, though. He almost died."

"Sedatives?" James Kirk asked with concern. He rather liked Christopher when he was first aboard their ship and couldn't imagine him trying to do himself in.

McCoy nodded in the affirmative. "Yes, Jim. There is every indication that Mr. Christopher tried to kill himself. He ingested a large amount of doxylamine succinate, a powerful antihistamine. It was also a common sleep aid in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century."

"Why would he do that?" Kirk asked impulsively.

"How should I know?" McCoy responded gruffly, then composed himself. "You can ask him when he wakes up in about six hours."

"Bones...could he have remembered what Spock said about him not making any relative contributions and got depressed about that?"

"That is unlikely, Captain." Spock said. "Although depression is a possible motive for attempted suicide, all his knowledge of our existence was erased when we used the slingshot effect to turn back time and used the transporter. He probably does not remember us at all. Something else must have triggered his suicide attempt."

Nurse Chapel had quietly entered the room as they were speaking. She peered at their new patient with interest and also with a certain amount of curiosity.

"I know why he tried to kill himself." She interrupted softly, still staring at their new arrival.

The two men looked at her with surprise.

"How would you know, Miss Chapel? This man is from the twentieth century." Kirk asked, watching as McCoy waved a small medical scanner again over the new patient.

"It's in our family history. He was my great, great great grandfather. He lost his job when he told the media that he saw a UFO. Soon after that, he vanished for a couple of days." She smiled a little. "The mystery of where he went has finally been solved." She shook her head in amazement. Time travel was still such a new thing they were dealing with, and she found it incredible that she was actually going to get to talk with one of her ancestors.

"Fascinating." Spock responded, looking into her deep blue eyes. She certainly could have some of Christopher's DNA. "Doctor, can you verify that? Do you mind, Nurse Chapel?"

"Not at all, sir." She answered with another little smile. McCoy smiled back, adjusted the scanner for DNA readings and waved it over John Christopher and then at the head nurse.

"Confirmed." He said with astonishment. "Even after several generations, Miss Chapel has some of John's DNA. However, there are several mysteries yet to be solved, such as why he would be here and how he got here."

"Mr. Spock, I also must tell you that you were inaccurate about his son going to Saturn. The early twenty-first century had not yet developed that kind of technology. It was his grandson, Sean junior who went."

McCoy grinned.

"Wow, another historic occasion!"

"I stand corrected, Nurse." Spock responded with a sigh. "Now the question of why he is here and how he got here must be answered."

"Agreed, Mr. Spock." Kirk nodded in agreement, following Chapel's gaze.

The Q vanished from sight, but not until he gave Rasmussen some instructions on who he was going to rescue from the original starship Enterprise. Christopher had long been Burlinghoff's childhood hero, even though most people he knew thought he had made a fool of himself on national television in the early part of the twenty-first century. He found it incredible that he was actually going to meet the man, and while everyone else thought Christopher was nuts for believing that he saw the Enterprise in the sky, Rasmussen secretly believed him. Soon after the Q being vanished, the ship took off, and Rasmussen found himself right in front of the Enterprise. He had never completely mastered the intricacies of the time travel controls, so he had no hope of setting them to his own time so he could get home and leave Christopher where he was. He really didn't want to do what the alien had asked him to do. He wanted to go home. He sighed and then thought this might be fun, considering this time frame was still over a hundred years past his era. He frowned as the sensors on his time ship indicated to him that the starship's shields were immediately raised. Apparently, his appearance startled them. He then considered that the raising of the shields might be standard procedure, being he appeared from out of nowhere and they didn't know whether he was friend or foe. Rasmussen thought that they were both lucky that the Enterprise was not traveling at warp speed, but was at impulse, obviously in no particular hurry to go anywhere. He was given instructions by the Q that he should pose as a time traveling historian like before when he was aboard Picard's Enterprise and that he should tell Kirk's crew that he was there to pick up Christopher and bring him back to his own time. This was no big stretch for Rasmussen, for while he was incarcerated, he had honed his skills at lying and thievery.