And the bazaar man by the Nile
He got the money on a bet
Gold crocodiles (Oh-Way-Oh)
They snap their teeth on a cigarette
– The Bangles (Walk Like an Egyptian)
=/\=
In March first of 2153, Deirdre and Carmen beamed on board the NX-01 and hid in the bathroom of the captain's Ready Room. They could hear Jonathan Archer dictating.
"Captain's star log, supplemental. The more I think about what has happened, the more I wonder if, rather than dodging a bullet, we just put off the wound. A message was sent by that, that, I don't know what you would call it. A ship, I guess, but it's unlike any ship I've ever known. But that message went out to the Delta Quadrant, according to T'Pol. By the time it's received, and the recipients come to us, it'll be another two hundred or so years. Have we condemned the mid twenty-fourth century? I worry that we have done just that."
He stopped to pet Porthos, his beagle, and then continued.
"As for the species, I'm not so sure you can call them a species, either. They are several species, cobbled together with some cybernetic implants, what Doctor Phlox described as thousands – perhaps millions – of voices, a chorus of hell, and, uh …" His voice trailed off as he noticed Porthos standing up and taking notice.
Porthos began growling at the bathroom door, smelling unfamiliar smells and hearing unfamiliar voices even though they were barely above a whisper. "Porthos?" Jonathan asked. "Do we have company, perhaps?"
"That's our cue," Carmen whispered. Deirdre hit the Transporter remote control and they beamed back to the Audrey Niffenegger just as Captain Archer was opening the door to the little bathroom.
=/\=
In 1986, Sheilagh clicked around. "Lockouts, lockouts, hmm, security protocols are pretty standard for the time. Our guy – uh, I guess we can call him Tamara's Dad – he has mid-level clearance."
"Is that good?" HD asked.
"I'll see if I can get root access." She brought up a DOS prompt and started typing in commands. "Okay, uh, root directory, C, uh, forward slash, huh, there's a security folder."
"Can you get into it?"
"Just a sec, uh, admin, pass, um, huh, if you were in NASA security in 1986, whaddaya think would be the password?" she asked.
"Isn't it Tamara-something or other?"
"That's just to get into this guy's account. The admin panel that controls security is under some other password. And this guy in Meteorology is obviously not the security sys admin."
"What are the names of the space shuttles?" HD asked.
"Uh, Columbia, Endeavor, Discovery, Atlantis, Challenger and there's one that was just a prototype."
"What was that last one called?"
"Enterprise."
"Heh, well I'll be damned," he said, "Maybe it's that one?"
And so it was.
=/\=
Once Tom had hopped over to the mirror side of things, the door between the two universes slammed shut as Malcolm watched. Rick then landed the Wells nearby. "Need a lift?"
"Yes, that would be helpful," he said, and boarded the time ship, "I don't suppose you can tell me a thing about your ship."
"Sorry, but I can't," Rick said.
"It's all right. Just need to know that it works," Malcolm said, "Do you, uh, do you know that that chap Thomas is considering how to propose to your sister?"
"I kinda suspected that," Rick said, smiling. "I like him."
"That's good. I'm always so thrilled with how well Lili gets on with my sister, Madeline. I know you can't answer this, but I shall tell you, I wish to believe that the fact that your sister Eleanor owned my cuff, and that you own Lili's key, is some sort of evidence that it's not just Neil and Joss who have descendants, but that my son, Declan, does as well."
"I can't say," Rick said, but that was definitely a correct assumption on Malcolm's part.
=/\=
Kevin, in 3110, bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Branch!"
The colony alien recognized the sequence of sounds and slithered along the turncoat engineer's wall. The engineer got up, not seeing the colony alien, and opened the door. The colony alien slid out. In a nearby alcove, the colony alien resumed human form again, once again appearing like Deirdre Katzman's first boyfriend, and walked over to Kevin's office, as if nothing had happened.
=/\=
"All right," Sheilagh said in 1986, "security override is in place. The lockout codes are erased. NASA should be able to get in with no trouble and launch tomorrow."
"So we'll beam back up to the Audrey II and then check the news tomorrow?" HD asked.
"Sounds good to me. But first, uh, we're not too far from Miami."
"And …?"
"And it could be fun. Let's go out," she said, "unless you don't like music and dancing."
"Very funny. This is after disco and punk, and before grunge."
"Are you speaking English, HD?"
"Er, kinda. Anyway, let's beam outta here and give Tamara's Dad back his computer."
=/\=
The flight back from 1957 was a fairly quick one. Polly stared at the control panel as Dan flew, watching the year on the display as it flipped past 2011 and beyond. "I'm tired," she finally said, "tired of letting people die. I don't know how Rick does it."
"He, uh, I guess he tries to cope. It's, uh, it's distasteful a lotta the time."
"Well, the alternative is worse," she said, "I mean, I think the whole idea of trying to somehow 'fix' time is a complete nonstarter. Even if it didn't mess anything up, I figure it would still be wrong. We, uh, as a species, we didn't get as far as we did by having things just handed to us. We worked for those things. We sweated to develop agriculture and tame fire and invent writing and take to the stars. I trust our ancestors. I'm not going to patronize them by claiming I'm somehow better than them. I am not superior to them, not by any stretch. And I think it's a dandy species of arrogance for anyone to behave as if they are."
She walked away, to the bedroom, and lay down. Dan did not join her. He just kept flying the time ship and then got an idea – it had been kicking around for a while, but it was getting to be a more insistent idea. He threw the ship into auto and fired up his PADD, and began to type.
=/\=
Foreign types with their hookah pipes sing:
Way-oh-way-oh-way-ooh-ah-ooh...
Walk like an Egyptian.
The blonde waitresses take their trays
Spin around and they cross the floor.
They've got the moves (Oh-Way-Oh)
You drop your drink then they bring you more
– The Bangles (Walk Like an Egyptian)