Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Time

He searched frantically for an escape route. Adrenaline gave him the strength to lurch to his feet, but the gravity still threw him off. He tottered unsteadily. Spock rushed forward to catch him, taking hold of Shaun under his shoulders. Shaun tried to break free, but his limbs were too heavy, and Spock was surprisingly strong. Despite the stranger’s lean physique, his grip felt like iron. More proof that the man wasn’t human?

“My apologies, Captain,” Spock said. “But I fear you are not yourself.”

His fingers pinched Shaun’s neck… and everything went black.

The captain went limp in Spock’s arms. He carefully lowered Kirk onto the transporter pad and scanned him with his tricorder. The device could not examine the captain as thoroughly as a specialized medical tricorder, but it reported that Kirk’s vital signs were within acceptable ranges for a human. There was no obvious internal bleeding or burns, although Spock counted on Dr. McCoy to conduct a more comprehensive analysis. He hoped that Kirk had not suffered any lasting brain damage or memory loss.

That would be unfortunate, Spock thought. For the mission and for Jim.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mr. Scott asked again. He abandoned the transporter controls to join Spock by the captain. “Is he going to be all right?”

“That remains to be determined,” Spock said. “But it would be illogical to assume the worst.”

Qat Zaldana crowded between them. “It was like he didn’t even know who you were,” she observed. “What did the probe do to him?”

An excellent question, Spock thought, but it occurred to him that it might be best if she was not present at the moment. If the captain had been seriously incapacitated, that was information that perhaps should not be shared with civilians — or the colonists down on Skagway.

“Lieutenant Mascali, please escort our guest back to her quarters.” He turned to Qat Zaldana before she could protest. “My apologies, but I’m afraid our examination of the probe will have to wait. The captain requires our full attention now.”

“Of course.” She backed away from the fallen captain. “I don’t want to get in the way.” She turned her veiled face toward Mascali. “There’s no need to accompany me. I can find my own way. Stay with your captain.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Spock said. “And I must ask that you keep what you have just witnessed to yourself.”

He did not want wild rumors undermining the crew’s morale.

She nodded. “Understood. My thoughts are with your captain.”

She exited the transporter room. Spock appreciated her swift departure. That was one fewer factor to complicate his computations.

“Maintain a safe distance from the probe,” he warned Scott and Mascali. “We do not need any more casualties on our hands.”

“Aye, that’s for certain,” the engineer agreed.

Stepping away from Kirk’s supine form, Spock scanned the probe with the tricorder. He detected no energy readings; the device now appeared to be completely inert. The ring around its equator had slowed to a stop and was no longer glowing. The flickering lights on its surface had gone dark. Key circuits and components now read as burned-out. Had the discharge that had shocked the captain expended the last of its energy? It appeared so, but Spock was not inclined to take chances.

“Have the probe transported to a secure force-shielded location,” he instructed Scott. “Take all necessary precautions.”

“That I’ll do,” Scott assured him. “And a few unnecessary ones as well.”

The doors whooshed open, and McCoy rushed into the chamber, clutching his medkit. His eyes widened at the sight of Kirk lying unconscious on the platform. “Good Lord! Is that Jim? What in God’s name happened here?”

Spock succinctly described the incident, omitting any irrelevant details or speculation.

“Dammit,” McCoy muttered. He glared angrily at the probe before kneeling beside Kirk. “We should have left that wretched thing alone.”

That was not a viable option, Spock thought, although he allowed the doctor his emotional outburst, which did not seem unwarranted under the circumstances. Confident that Kirk was in good hands, he headed for the exit. “Attend to your patient, Doctor, and keep me informed of his condition.”

McCoy looked up in surprise. “And where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“I am needed on the bridge,” Spock reminded him. “With the captain unwell, I must assume command and continue to carry out our mission. Skagway remains in jeopardy, and a solution has yet to be found.” He paused to consider the probe. “And our most promising lead has proven to be more problematic than anticipated.”

“You can say that again!” McCoy said.

“To do so would be redundant, Doctor, and time is running out. For Skagway and its imperiled population.”

The Vulcan wondered how he was going to explain the captain’s condition to Governor Dawson.

Twelve

2020

The cargo bay of the Lewis & Clark was much smaller than the storage facilities back on the Enterprise. A primitive-looking probe waited to be launched from the historic spaceship. The crude devices were definitely of twenty-first-century origin; Kirk remembered seeing models of them at the Smithsonian and Starfleet museums. The equipment bore antiquated NASA logos.

They looked brand-new.

Kirk couldn’t deny it any longer. Unless this was some sort of elaborate hoax, like the mock Enterprise that the rulers of Gideon had tried to trick him with a few years back, he was really aboard the very first Earth — Saturn probe, launched from Cape Canaveral way back in 2020, some two hundred fifty years ago.

Had the alien probe actually sent him back in time, not to mention space? But how and why?

The space doors sealed behind him, cutting him off from the vacuum outside. He floated across the cargo bay, struck by the lack of artificial gravity. He had taken part in zero-g emergency drills and exercises, of course, but it still felt odd to be aboard a spaceship that couldn’t generate its own gravity. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to navigate across a chamber like this, relying on his own momentum to carry him across open spaces. Grab rails along the walls, floor, and ceiling allowed him to control his flight. His spacesuit felt bulky and cumbersome.

An airlock sealed the bay from the rest of the ship. Its outer door slid open, and he drifted inside. Anxious faces stared at him through a small rectangular window in the sealed door at the opposite end of the airlock. The faces belonged to a handsome red-haired woman and an older man with a beard and a grave expression. He searched his memory for their names.

Fontana. O’Herlihy.

He would have to be careful what he said to them, Kirk realized, to avoid causing unwanted changes to history and the future. As he knew better than most, even a minor alteration to the past could send potentially catastrophic ripples down the timeline. He had learned that lesson the hard way. A lovely face surfaced from his memory, along with an aching sense of loss.

Edith…

He shoved the painful memory back. The door behind him closed. Moments later, a green indicator light indicated that the airlock had been fully pressurized. The door before him whooshed open.

“Shaun! Thank God!”

The woman, who had to be astronaut Alice Fontana, launched herself into the airlock. She hugged him tightly as they collided in midair, her momentum carrying them backward to the rear of the airlock. He could feel her