Star Trek: The Rings of Time (23 page)

At the moment, all he could do was keep his mouth closed and hope for the best.

Where are you, Spock? I could use a hand here.

Fontana yanked him roughly away from the flight controls and propelled him across the flight deck like a weightless sack of potatoes. He slammed into a hard steel bulkhead at the rear of the compartment. Dazed, he winced as she tethered him tightly to a ladder leading down to the mid-deck.

“No need to be so rough,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You bet you’re not.” She pushed back to inspect her work. “So, you ready to talk yet?”

“I’m not sure what else I can say. You seem to have made up your mind . . . unfortunately.”

“Don’t make this about me. You’re the guilty party here.”

Kirk tried his restraints. There was no give in them. Fontana had known what she was doing.

“I know you think you’re doing the right thing,” he said. “I respect that.”

“Screw your respect!” She yanked John Christopher’s dog tags from his neck, snapping the chain. “You don’t deserve to wear these!” She clenched her fist around the tags. “God, when I think that I almost . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to complete the sentence.

“I told you it was complicated,” he said.

O’Herlihy cleared his throat. “What now?” he asked, sounding defeated. “What are we to do with him?”

“Throw him in the airlock with the other trespasser, what else?” She chuckled bitterly. “You’ll like that, won’t you? I’ve seen the way you look at her, ever since the probe. That was another giveaway, incidentally. Shaun wasn’t interested in her that way, but you were. I could tell. And then, of course, things were different between us.”

Hell hath no fury like an astronaut scorned,
Kirk thought wryly. He should have known the messy love triangle would blow his cover. No doubt Spock would
have something pithy to say about the folly of human emotions.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Well, it’s too damn late for that, isn’t it?”

She unhooked him from the ladder and shoved him toward the hatch. “Come on, Marcus. Help me get him to the brig. I want this bastard out of my sight!”

Kirk couldn’t blame her one bit. The whole situation was spiraling out of control, not unlike Saturn’s rings had been. Now he was looking at three months of captivity while he tried to figure out what to do next and worried about his real ship, somewhere far in the future.

If I never get stuck in the past again, it will be too soon!

2270

“I want to say you look like your father,” McCoy commented, “but I guess that’s not really the case.”

“Tell me about it,” Shaun said. His fingers explored the unfamiliar contours of Captain Kirk’s face. It was like a sore he couldn’t stop picking at. He supposed he ought to be thrilled to have a newer, younger body, but he didn’t feel that way. He wanted his old body back, and he wanted out of this so-called sickbay. He paced back and forth across the futuristic hospital room. It felt strange not to be floating. “I still can’t believe you actually met my dad.”

“Time travel.” The doctor snorted. “Don’t get me started.”

Shaun wasn’t sure how McCoy could be so blasé about it. Personally, he was still trying to get used to the idea that he was really hundreds of years in the future and in another man’s body, no less. Not that his hosts had actually let him see much of that future. He had been confined to quarantine for what felt like days.

“How are you holding up?” the doctor asked. He seemed a decent sort, with a distinct hint of Georgia
in his Southern drawl. Shaun found him easier to deal with than that alien iceman, Spock. If nothing else, McCoy had a much better bedside manner.

“Besides going stir-crazy?” Shaun gazed at the sliding door cutting him off from the rest of the ship. He had tried to open it, but apparently, it had been programmed not to release him. Ditto for the guards posted outside. “C’mon, Doc. You can’t keep me cooped up here forever.”

“I know,” McCoy said. “But bear with us. Like I explained before, we need to limit your exposure to our time if we ever want to return you to your own place in history. We learned that lesson with your father.”

“How’s that going, anyway? Am I going home any-time soon?”

The doctor’s pained expression warned Shaun not to expect good news. “To be honest, that’s sort of on the back burner at the moment. I’m afraid we’re in the middle of an urgent mission right now, and that’s caused an unavoidable delay in dealing with your situation.”

“What sort of mission?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, for your own good, as well as history’s.”

“But it’s serious, right? An emergency?”

He had not missed the yellow alert lights flashing inside sickbay or the obvious tension in McCoy and Nurse Chapel. Even Spock seemed slightly on edge in his own spooky Vulcan way. Shaun could tell
something was up. The
Enterprise
felt like Area 51 right after the DY-100 was hijacked.

“Yes,” McCoy admitted. “But as soon as this matter is settled, one way or another, you’ll be our top priority.” He tapped Shaun’s chest. “Trust me, we want to get our captain back where he belongs.”

Shaun believed him. “And you really think he’s back in my time, in my body?”

“That’s the theory, believe it or not. And if Spock thinks there’s something to it, then I wouldn’t want to bet against him.” McCoy heaved a sigh. “He’s annoying that way.”

Not for the first time, Shaun tried to imagine this James T. Kirk character back aboard the
Lewis & Clark
with Fontana, O’Herlihy, and Zoe. Everybody seemed to think Kirk was a stand-up guy and a first-rate captain, but Shaun still didn’t like the idea of somebody else taking over his mission and his body. Nobody would tell him what history recorded about the Saturn mission. Shaun hoped that wasn’t a bad sign.

Take care of my ship, Kirk. Whoever you are.

He plopped down into a seat by his bed. He was still getting used to gravity again, but at least Kirk’s body had not been debilitated by months of weightlessness. The
Enterprise
’s “artificial gravity” had just caught him by surprise before.

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime, Doc?”

He had always been an active guy. Just sitting around doing nothing was driving him nuts. His
fingers drummed impatiently on the arm of the chair. His feet tapped against the floor.

“I’ll see what I can do about the library viewer,” McCoy said, calling his attention to a portable TV screen by the bed. The monitor was attached to a movable arm. “We can’t give you full access to the ship’s library, for obvious reasons, but we should be able to set up a filter program that will allow you to call up a wide variety of recreational reading and programs.”

Shaun got the idea. “But nothing after 2020, right?”

“That’s the idea,” McCoy confirmed. “Of course, somebody else is going to have to program the filter. I’m just a simple country doctor, not a computer whiz.”

Shaun wasn’t sure he bought that. He guessed that everybody in this era knew more about computers than Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Sumi Lee put together.

“So, I’m stuck watching reruns for the duration?” Suspended animation on a sleeper ship sounded better. He shook his head. “Can’t you even tell me if Buck Bokai beat DiMaggio’s record?”

“‘Fraid not,” McCoy said. “I don’t even know what that means.” He shrugged. “Look at this as a chance to catch up with your reading.”

“Now you sound like my ex-wife,” Shaun said. Debbie had always urged him to read more. “You married, Doc?”

“Not anymore,” McCoy said dourly.

Shaun recognized the tone. “Guess some things never
change, no matter what century it is. Sounds like we have that much in common.”

His fingers beat out an impatient rhythm.

“You keep doing that,” McCoy noted with a touch of professional interest. “A nervous tic?”

Shaun glanced down at his hand. He stopped tapping his fingers.

“Not that I’m aware of.” He had barely noticed he was doing it. “And I’m pretty sure the space shrinks back at NASA would have called me on it before.”

You didn’t get placed in command of a seven-month mission to the other end of the solar system without a thorough psychiatric evaluation—or ten. Frankly, he didn’t need to talk about his feelings and childhood issues ever again.

“So, this is something new?” McCoy asked.

Shaun felt as if he was back on the couch. What was it about doctors that made them think everybody was on the verge of going space-happy? Not that he wasn’t entitled to a nervous breakdown right now, considering. He thought he was holding up pretty well given that he wasn’t even himself anymore.

“I’ve just got this stubborn drumbeat stuck in my head,” he tried to explain. “Like a catchy melody you can’t shake, you know?”

At least the
Enterprise
didn’t seem to be afflicted with Muzak. That was something, although he had to wonder what constituted easy listening in the twenty-third century. Lady Gaga was probably considered classical music these days.

“And how long has that been going on?” McCoy asked.

Shaun thought about it. His eyes widened. “Ever since that probe zapped me here,” he realized. “Now that I think of it.”

Glancing down, he saw that he had automatically starting drumming his fingers again. He fought to keep his feet from joining in.

“What the—?” He gazed anxiously at McCoy. “What does this mean, Doc?”

McCoy frowned. “The hell if I know.”

An intercom whistled.
“Dr. McCoy,”
a female voice paged.
“Please report to the landing deck. The first wave of evacuees has arrived. Some of them require medical attention.”

“Evacuees?” Shaun echoed. That didn’t sound good.

“Not your problem.” McCoy pressed the speaker button on a wall-mounted intercom unit. “McCoy here. On my way.” He headed for the exit, then paused to look back at Shaun. “You going to be okay here?”

“Sure,” Shaun lied. Aside from being trapped in the future with an alien beat stuck in somebody else’s head, he had nothing to complain about. “Go ahead. Do your job.” He relocated to his bed and stretched out on it, staring at the ceiling. “I’m not going anywhere.”

McCoy looked uncomfortable abandoning him. “I’ll have Chapel look into that viewer,” he promised.

The door slid open before him. Shaun caught a glimpse of a larger medical facility before the door
whoosh
ed shut again, closing him in. His spirits sank
at the prospect of being cooped up with nothing but his thoughts for company. An overwhelming wave of homesickness, for his own time and place, washed over him. He wondered if he would ever see his friends and family again. In theory, his dad, his kids, and his crew had all been dead for centuries. He choked back a sob. A beautiful face surfaced from his memory.

Fontana,
he thought.
Alice.

He wished he could have said something to her before he disappeared.

2020

“Feel like a bite?”

O’Herlihy ascended into the flight deck bearing a meal on a tray. Magnetic utensils clung to the reusable metal tray, which also held slots for various disposable foil and plastic containers. Fontana caught a whiff of rehydrated macaroni and cheese, along with freshly nuked apple cobbler. O’Herlihy had brought ketchup and Tabasco sauce, too. Life in space deadened the taste buds for some reason, so most astronauts tended to pile on the condiments and seasonings to compensate. The sticky food stayed in place in zero g.

“Not really,” she said. Dejected and not particularly hungry, she sat in the cockpit while reviewing the preflight checklist for their trip home, which was now scheduled for 0700 tomorrow. She was not looking forward to being the sole pilot for the next three months, let alone explaining to Houston why that was the case. She was still trying to figure out how to break the news to Mission Control that she had confined the ship’s commander to the airlock on suspicion of being possessed by an alien probe.

They’re going to think
I’ve
gone crazy, not Shaun.

“Eat something anyway,” the doctor urged her. He sat down beside her, occupying her usual seat at the helm. “You need to keep your strength up. You’ve had a rough day.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” The aroma from the food did little to restore her appetite; her stomach felt tied up in knots. Second thoughts tormented her. She fiddled anxiously with Shaun’s father’s dog tags. “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you? We had to lock him up, right?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said wearily, sounding appropriately saturnine. “This entire trip has been one shock after another. I feel like I’m at the end of my rope.”

Fontana knew the feeling. This wasn’t the carefully planned mission she had signed on for.

“He didn’t even know his own kid’s birthday!” she blurted, unsure whom exactly she was trying to convince. “On top of everything else, like forgetting my dog and the fire on the
Mir
and what we meant to each other . . .”

It felt odd speaking openly of her history with Shaun, but frankly, that was the least of her worries. A little scandal and gossip was nothing compared with what had happened to Shaun, whatever that was. She just wanted the old Shaun back.

“I can’t explain any of that,” O’Herlihy admitted, “unless the jolt from the probe really did wipe his memory clean. Electroshock is well known to induce various degrees of memory loss.”

“No, it’s more than that,” she insisted. “I know
Shaun, better than anyone on this ship, and that’s not him. I can feel it in my gut, even though I know that doesn’t sound very scientific.”

“I fear we left conventional science and logic behind a long time ago,” he said. “Perhaps when Saturn’s rings started unraveling and then snapped back into place.” He pushed the tray at her. “Really, Alice. You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” She appreciated his concern, but food was the last thing on her mind right now. If anything, she felt sick to her stomach. She waved the tray away. “Maybe later, okay?”