Unscrupulous
Chapter 15
The Q didn't really want Sean Jeffrey Christopher, Jr. to find the box he had hidden aboard the spaceship that was bound for Saturn, but he also didn't want any of Gary Seven's agents to wreck his plans to give Nurse Chapel a better life as a wealthy heiress. In the new reality he had created for her, she had married Dr. Roger Corby1, who had not gone to Exo Three and had not, at the moment of death, had his knowledge and personality implanted in an android replica. The Q was quite infatuated with Christine, and wanted her to be happy. He never appeared to her, for it was not yet time for humans to know about his species. He also was under the mistaken impression that humans in her era were still obsessed with money and that it brought happiness.
For a while after marrying Roger, Christine was happy, but only because of him and his love for her, not because she had lots of money. After a few years, Roger's work as an archeologist had begun to take up most of his time and he was away from home for days at a time. Christine had a good job of her own, even though she didn't need to work. She had the need to feel useful and to not be a snobby rich heiress. Her job as the head of Starfleet medical on Earth kept her busy. Even though she was an intelligent person and still a nurse, she felt discriminated against because of her wealth and could not serve aboard a starship because of her marital status. Even though she had everything that money could buy, she was still a lonely woman. She still loved Roger, though, so the Q stayed out of her life, but looked in on her from time to time. Christine wished that things could be different between her and Roger and wished also that Starfleet would change it's outmoded policies of not letting married women serve aboard starships. She suffered from low grade depression most of the time and knew that most of her office staff and colleagues did not understand. Some were jealous of her, called her names like "poor little rich girl" and that jealousy clouded their perceptions of her. Often, to compensate for her acute sense of loneliness, she decided to pour herself into her work as an instructor at Starfleet medical, trying with some measure of success to find meaning in her somewhat empty life. The Q did not understand all this, though, so when Riley and Miss Lincoln visited Christine's ancestor, John Christopher, he spirited the stolen items away and replaced them with toys that he borrowed from a twenty-first century die hard Trekkie, who had them stored away on a top shelf of a linen closet in her home. Having outgrown them, the woman he borrowed the toys from did not even know they had disappeared. However, the Q knew that Gary Seven was not going to give up after only one try, so he decided to disguise himself as Sean Christopher Sr., making his appearance on Sean Junior's TV look like a recording, admonishing him to not let anyone know about the real items. After the Q knew the coast was clear, he transported the real items from the spaceship to the attic in Sean Jr's inherited mansion, and when Seven and his crew weren't looking, transported the toys back to their rightful owner.
Supervisor 194 was not expecting his agents to return so quickly, but for a few moments before opening the little silver box and inspecting the items within, was relieved to see it and them. After getting over the shock of finding out that the items were fake replicas, he addressed the two agents as he typed information into his large interactive computer.
"Mr. Riley, Miss Lincoln, you will have to return to the future for the real items. If you are not successful, history will be permanently altered."
"Sir" Roberta asked curiously, "Did someone actually make these things for kids to play with?"
"Yes, Miss Lincoln. Also, there are many adult collectors. I don't know where these came from, but from the looks of them, these items were borrowed from an adult collector. Some items were still in the boxes they came in and they have a layer of dust on them from being stored away,"
"It's a shame they weren't the real articles." Riley added quietly. "However, it was fairly obvious to me that Mr. Christopher really thought they were. I don't know about Roberta, but I don't feel right about going back to him and bugging him about this again."
"This time you and Roberta won't be going back to John. You will be going to Sean Junior after he gets back from Saturn."
"What's at Saturn?" Roberta asked curiously. "Isn't it just a big ball of gas with pretty rings around it?"
"Oh, it's much more than that, Roberta. There is a mysterious pentagonal shaped formation at the planet's north pole that formed in the early part of the twenty-first century. Deep within the planet's rocky core, there is a secret base that our alien friends use when monitoring developments here on Earth. They are using the planet's thick gaseous atmosphere as a shield. They have informed me, however, that the five-sided formation at the pole is not their doing. It is not a natural phenomenon and they are just as mystified as the twenty-first century scientists who discovered it when they sent unmanned probes to learn more about Saturn and it's rings. You and Riley will be going to the year 2050 to try and retrieve the stolen items. Since Sean Jr. is our only remaining lead in getting them back to their rightful place, you and Riley will have to convince him to give them up."
"That's a tall order, sir, but we will try. I wonder who made the formation." Riley said.
"My guess is the Q. He has a lot of power and he told me once that his species gets bored easily."
"That is an intelligent guess, Miss Lincoln, and you might be right. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the formation appeared soon after Christopher and Roykirk began to 'invent' the devices that made Christine Chapel a wealthy heiress in the future, thus altering her history and everyone else." With that, Seven waved them back into the vault transporter and set the controls for the house of Sean Jeffrey Christopher Jr.
1"What are Little Girls Made of?"