Starfleet uniform. His limbs felt weak and rubbery, as if they weren’t used to gravity anymore. His heart leaped in excitement.
“Is this for real? Did it work?”
To his right, Captain Kirk looked back at him. He looked equally thrilled to be back in his own body. “So it appears, Colonel. We’re us again.”
But what about Spock? The Vulcan was sprawled on the floor between them, looking distinctly out of it. McCoy crouched over the fallen officer, scanning Spock with one of his futuristic medical gizmos. Spock groaned weakly. He clutched his head.
“How is he, Bones?” Kirk demanded, sounding every bit the captain of a starship, despite the profoundly unsettling experience they had just shared. “Will he be all right?”
“I think so,” McCoy said cautiously. “His vital signs are normal, by his half-human standards, and he seems to be coming to. I think he’s just in shock.” He called out to Chapel. “A stabilizer, stat!”
“That will not be necessary, Doctor.” Spock’s eyes flicked open. He sat up with as much stoic dignity as he could muster. His face was pale, but the green was already coming back to it. “The experience was… unique, I admit, but Vulcans are not easily shocked.”
“In a pig’s eye,” McCoy muttered. “You’re not going anywhere until I give you a thorough checkup.” He swept his gaze over the three patients. “And that goes for all of you.”
“Whatever you say, Doc.” Shaun lay back down, succumbing to gravity. “But don’t think you can keep me here forever.” The trip from Klondike VI to Saturn had been a long one, even by twenty-third-century standards. “I have a ship — and a mission — to get back to.”
“You needn’t worry about that,” the doctor said. “I doubt we’re sticking around.” He turned toward Kirk, the real Kirk. “You probably ought to know, Jim, that Starfleet hasn’t actually sanctioned this little jaunt into yesterday. We figured it might be easier to find you first and ask for permission later.”
“Probably a good call,” Kirk said. “You know how the brass is frowning on time travel these days. They don’t want to risk changing history, not after some of the close calls we’ve had in the last few years. We’ll probably have some explaining to do to that new temporal investigation agency when we get back. They seem to think we’ve been abusing the privilege lately.”
“Imagine that,” McCoy said wryly. “So, when are we heading home?”
“Soon,” Kirk said. “But I have a few promises to keep first.”
“Where is he? What’s taking so long?”
Fontana was climbing the walls, waiting for she didn’t know what. Hours had passed since Shaun — or was it “Captain Kirk”?—had vanished from the cockpit in a sparkling column of light. Supposedly, there was another spacecraft nearby, just out of sight, but for all she knew, Shaun’s body had just disintegrated right before her eyes.
“He should have been back by now, shouldn’t he? If he was coming back?”
“Relax,” Zoe said, floating cross-legged above the flight deck. “It will be okay. He seemed to know what he was doing.”
Fontana couldn’t believe how calmly the other woman was taking this. “Don’t you get it? We don’t even know who this ‘Kirk’ is, where he came from, what he was doing here, and, oh, yeah, what the hell happened to the real Shaun?” She stared anxiously out the cockpit windows, looking for answers somewhere beyond Saturn’s glittering rings. “This whole thing is insane!”
“I know,” Zoe sympathized. “But look, just a few hours ago, we were all booked for a kamikaze cruise to oblivion, but hey, we’re still here. The way I see it, everything from now on is gravy.”
“Maybe.” Fontana almost envied Zoe’s pathologically breezy attitude. “But what are we supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Make out?”
Fontana’s jaw dropped. She bumped into a bulk-head.
“Geez, Fontana! It was a joke.” Zoe rolled her eyes. “To lighten the mood, you know? No offense, but you’re not my type.”
“I’m crushed,” Fontana said, recovering. “Truly.”
She wondered if Zoe was actually more freaked out than she was letting on. Hadn’t she said something once about cracking jokes whenever she was scared? In that case, it could be Open Mike Night on the
As if in answer to her prayers, an unearthly hum suddenly filled the flight deck. A coruscating pillar of sparks, about the size and width of an adult human being, manifested in the middle of the compartment, only a few yards away from the two women, then coalesced into a figure of flesh and blood. A familiar face looked around in wonder, as though amazed to find himself back on the ship.
“Shaun?” Fontana asked. “I mean, Kirk?”
“Right the first time.” His face lit up at the sight of her. “It’s really me, Alice. I’m back.”
He rushed forward to embrace her. One kiss, and all of her doubts evaporated. She didn’t need to quiz or interrogate him. She could tell at once that this was no impostor. This was the real Shaun, come home to her at last. Her heart gave her all the proof she needed.
“Whoa there,” Zoe interrupted. “Get a room.”
Fontana shot her a warning glance. “If you
“Got it,” Zoe said, gulping. “My lips are sealed. As you were.”
Pausing for breath, Fontana gazed into Shaun’s warm blue eyes. Questions swirled inside her. “Where have you been all this time?”
His eyes devoured her, as though he hadn’t seen her in weeks.
“That will have to be our little secret,” he said. “I made a promise to some new friends to keep quiet about certain things, for all our sakes. But don’t worry. I promise to give you the full story soon.” He hugged her tightly. “It’s taken me a long time to get back to you — months, in fact — but now we have all the time in the world.”
“Months?” she echoed. “But it’s been a week at most since that probe zapped you.”
“For you, maybe, but for me… I’ve had a lot of time to think about us.”
She took his word for it. Right now, it was enough that they were together again.
“What about me?” Zoe asked. “Don’t I get a scoop?”
“Hang on,” Shaun said, smirking. “You’re in for a surprise.”
The eerie hum returned. A shower of sparks enveloped Zoe, then whisked her away, leaving the two astronauts alone on the flight deck.
Fontana gaped in shock. “What the—? Where did she go?”
“Remember those new friends I mentioned?” Shaun seemed not at all taken aback by Zoe’s abrupt disappearance. “Well, they need her help with something important.”
Twenty-nine
2020
The walled compound, tucked away on a remote island in Puget Sound, had once belonged to an obscure doomsday cult that had gradually drifted apart after the world stubbornly refused to end when the Mayan calendar expired in 2012. Abandoned for years, the grounds and buildings had since been claimed by the Human Extinction League, whose members were not inclined to wait expectantly for mankind’s demise. They aspired to hurry it along.
Tera O’Herlihy had been HEL’s unwilling guest for months now. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the sun, the stars, or anyone who didn’t want the human race to go the way of the dinosaurs. Since spring break, she’d been confined to an underground bunker beneath the compound’s faux — Mayan temple. Concrete walls defined her world. Posters of past environmental disasters — Chernobyl, Bhopal, the Gulf spill, global warming
