STAR TREK - 75 - First Frontier

    by Diane Carey and James L. Kirkland

    Foreword

    STAR TREK and dinosaurs... what a combination!

Each brings forth visions of adventure and fantastic

worlds--one in the vision of a promising future, the

other shadowed by the mists of time.

    But what is the connection? STAR TREK is

science fiction, stories of a boundless future with

infinite possibilities.

    Dinosaurs are science fact, an extinct

group of diverse animals that dominated this planet

for 160 million years.

    Each is a glimpse into an unattainable world.

    As a child, I owned every dinosaur toy on the

market, which in the mid-sixties was a very limited

selection. My mind was filled with images of great

beasts fighting it out on a landscape loaded with

volcanoes. On one of my trips to the library,

searching for another book by one of the great dinosaur

hunters like Edwin H. Colbert or Roy

Chapman Andrews, I stumbled into science fiction.

    Soon I was reading every SF book I could find.

I began to liken the alien world of Earth's

Mesozoic Era to an alien world in deep space,

each attainable only through my imagination.

    When STAR TREK hit the airwaves in

1966, I was hooked. The stars were ours

to explore, a new vista revealed each week.

STAR TREK has become a lasting success because

of the interplay of real characters in this marvelous

unexplored panorama. Like the very best of

science fiction, STAR TREK examined mankind

while mankind examined the universe.

    As I pursued a career in science, my

perception of dinosaurs matured. I began to see

a lot more than a bunch of giant reptiles. The

Mesozoic Era was not just one world, but an immense

succession of worlds, with ever-changing atmospheric,

oceanographic and climatic conditions to rival an

alien world. Life was as diverse as today, but alien and

unique. If we went back a billion years,

we couldn't even breathe Earth's atmosphere.

    I realized dinosaurs have no more in common with

reptiles than do birds or mammals. They were the

most successful creatures in history, but not just because

they happened to be there. They were dominant because they

outcompeted all others, including mammals. In

fact, they're still not extinct. They survive today in

the form of their descendants, the birds.

    .dinosaurs were too successful to have died out because

of any earthbound mechanism. They were driven out by an

extraordinary event--the impact of an asteroid

ten miles or more in diameter. During the past

decade, evidence has led to discovery of "the

bullet hole," a crater 185 miles across and more

than 12 miles deep on the north side

of the Yucatan, known as the Chixulub crater.

    This changing view of the Mesozoic world has

caused a revolution in dinosaur paleontology.

It is my good fortune to have witnessed and to now play a

role in this revolution.

    As far as dinosaur paleontology is concerned,

these are the "good old days."

    As my perspective of the past has matured, so

has the STAR TREK universe through books,

movies, and new TV series. I've followed

all these permutations. Many a night around the

campfire, discussions of the ancient world would shift

gears as the stars above beckoned, and we would start

talking about STAR TREK.

    After graduate school, I became a gypsy

scholar and hoped for a permanent job. For a popular

subject, paleontology has always offered few

jobs, so I considered myself lucky when I landed a

job actually doing paleontology.

    The Dinamation International Society (Dis)

was the brainchild of Chris Mays, President and

CEO of the Dinamation International Corporation.

DIC is world famous for its traveling robotic

exhibits of which the dinosaurs are the most famous.

Chris formed a nonprofit organization

dedicated to promotion of earth, biological and

physical sciences, and particularly that most

interdisciplinary of all, dinosaur

paleontology. I was hired by Executive

Director Mike Perry as DIS'S first

employee, to oversee a participant-funded

dinosaur research program. Dinamation's

Dinosaur Discovery Expedition program

provides manpower and funding for dinosaur research

and gives the amateur public a chance to dig

dinos. We've worked with host institutions in

Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona,

Mexico, and Argentina, and have programs pending in

England, Indonesia, and perhaps Morocco. We're

now the largest organization conducting dinosaur

digs. Now, I'm teaching people from every walk of life

who love dinosaurs and the process of discovery.

There's nothing more fun than watching someone uncover

something new to the human experience. If you'd like to know

how you can get your hands and knees really dirty and

live to tell about it, call 1-hjj-DIG-DINO.

Even more exciting than working with such an enthusiastic

audience is the fact that we've made several

important discoveries. It was excavating a new

dinosaur discovered by amateur fossil

hunter Rob Gaston that unexpectedly led me,

Don Burge, and my other colleagues from the

College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric

Museum to the discovery of Utahraptor. Now,

here's the kind of dinosaur to discover if you want

to make a big splash with the public! One of the most

sophisticated hunting machines the world has ever

known, the dromaeosaur--or "mptor"--was a

terrifying dinosaur. At twenty feet long and

1,000 pounds, Utahraptor was the largest

raptor ever found. We released the story and were

feeling pretty pleased with the worldwide coverage, when

I got a call from Diane Carey.

    Diane had read an article about Utahraptor

in Discover magazine and wanted to know how the heck

I knew that this animal hunted in packs. Now,

I knew here was someone who wanted the inside

scoop. Not many people will call the editor of a national

magazine and harass him until he gives up the

phone number of a source. In fact, Diane is

the only person ever to phone me as a direct

result of an article. .i explained that

raptors were fast and coordinated, as anything that

killed with knives on its feet had to be, and that the

best-known raptor, Deinonychus, was known

from a site where five were buried with a much larger prey

animal Certainly they were specialists in killing

animals much larger than themselves. If you'd like to see

the life-sized robotic Utahraptor in all its

gory splendor, visit us at the Devil's

Canyon Science and Learning Center in Fruita,

Colorado, just off Exit 19 on I-70, by the

entrance to the Colorado National Monument. The

conversation with Diane ultimately strayed to her line

of work, and for me this was too good to pass up. I told

her about a story line I'd come up with during one of

those long nights around the campfire. The story was

based on an intellectual exercise proposed

by Dr. Dale Russell of the National Museum of

Canada, who noted that the most intelligent of

dinosaurs, the troodonts, may have had the

potential to evolve into a technical species had

their stay on Earth not been cut short by extinction.

I related my idea to Diane, who suggested we

collaborate.

    She and her husband, story developer Oreg

Brodeur, and I molded the original story line

and finally developed the story you now hold in your

hands.

    A percentage of the royalties from First

Frontier will go to Dinamation International, to help

continue our explorations. We've merged the STAR

TREK universe with that of Earth's past, and in our

own way expressed my long-held belief that, when

we look closely, deep time is not at all

different from deep space. See you in the future,

and in the past ....

    James I. Kirkland, Ph.d., Dinamation

International Society, 1-hjj-DIG-DINO

    Prologue

    A SC-ENT OF ENEMIES over the

ridge. Sounds. Scents. Vibrations on the harness

sensors. Even before the instruments told her, her

instincts were there to tell her. Living things over the

ridge. Not many, but enough. A science outpost

wouldn't be populated by very many. The real question was not how

many, but how many what. And how strong, how determined,

how armed. Mythology blistered the air. Whispered

rumors, legends of an opportunity so outlandish

they had barely spoken about it even among themselves

during their entire voyage to this region of space.

There was no room for failure. Even after the loss

of nearly half their crew, she pushed them on,

searching for a technology older than any known

settled planet, a place so out of the way

that no one wanted it. If it still existed. I insist

in my mind that it does. "Oya,... don't ..

lag!" The technicist bowed her head in acknowledgment

of the director's snap. A silent answer to buoy

her silent doubts.

    Until now the terrain had been spongy, pierced

with rocks. As Oya's footpads would sink into the

moss, a stone would press up and push her off. Her

bad leg would buckle, and she would thrash for balance.

The others had been struggling, too, twenty-two

thick tails swinging in exaggerated arcs. Now the

ground was hard, but her feet were SO-RE and her

thighs ached. She wished there was more cover. This whole

planet was barren, ugly and gray. At least they

had left their bright livery on the ship. These

polished utility harnesses, launcher gauntlets,

spatterguards, and shell belts were the least color

she could convince them to wear. They were on a stealth

missionsentirely against their nature. Spikers

didn't like to be quiet. They were too young and SO

impatient that it had become custom to paint only

two colors on their faces, and in time the

two-colored face had come to identify them. And

Oya disdained being in back, but that's always where she

was. Always behind the ones who got to fight

first, to eat first, and to rest first. Instinct needled her

forward, to slash and kick her way up there, to be a

leader. She watched the bright yellow, red, and

bronze necks and heads of the female directors,

and she let envy chew at her. The males were

hungry. There was no eating before a maneuver, but no

males had ever gotten used to that. Their heads were low

with frustration. Their necks curved and swayed. They

swiveled their eyes back and forth, willing to snap

at rodents in ,the rocks or anything else they

saw. Hunger crowded their minds. "Rusa." She

waited, but there was no response. Again she said,

"Rusa." The director nearest her glanced

back. On Rusa's face three bands of colored

paint identified her quickly, even in the oblong

shadows cast by these ruins. Oya hissed, "Keep

control of them." Rusa arched her neck. "Don't

tell me my work." The scent of prey teased

Oya's nostrils, and she caught glimpses of

movement beyond the rocks... not rodents. Enemies were

there, real ones, very close, shifting back and forth,

talking, working. t," she said, pushing a growl on the

end of every word. "We'll never have this opportunity

again. You keep control!"

    Rusa drew up sharply, her eyes

dirty with resentment. "You are a technicist. That's

all."

    "This is my mission."

    "I don't care about you. This place doesn't

look like the legends say. We're in another wrong

place. If we get a fresh meal out of it, good."

comOya took a long step to draw herself out of the rear,

lowering her shoulder to push the spiker in front of her

down and out of the way. "This is the right place! You know

how difficult it was to hold orbit!"

    "So what?"

    "You know the theory! The doorway is on a dry

planet

    "Theory, legend, all the same."

    "It's not the same." Oya had to draw her

voice inward just as she wanted to spit. They could be

heard from here. "This is the place! You must keep

contr--" Her bad leg folded, and she stumbled, but

she was able to right herself without falling. Two of the

spikers and one of the other female leaders glanced

back at her, but none made a SO-UND. They

didn't care about her any more than Rusa did.

They hated her authority, that she could tell them

to retreat or order them onward, outpost after

outpost, until they found the right one or ran

out of supplies and died in space. Or until they

were caught and humiliated before the civilized galaxy

even more than they already were. Two-thirds forward through

the silent, swaying line of brown bodies and bright

necks, Rusa twisted her long neck and made

motions with her tail and hands, gesturing the spikers

into position. The single file broke up. The

spikers fanned out. One by one they sank into hiding

places among the rocks. Oya drew her head

downward and lowered her tail. Her legs folded, and

her body settled down onto them. Cool rock

cradled her thighs. The scent of their targets entered

her nostrils, flowed back into her sinuses and down

along the rims of her tongue, and now she could taste

them, too. Sweat. A touch of salt. The taste

made her want to pump forward, attack, rip, and

gulp. What must it be doing to the young males? They were

panting, shaking, shifting their weight more than they should

be on a stealth mission. Carefully she moved her

head enough to look down at her readings on the

harness-mounted sensors. A handful of living beings,

moving casually... scattered temporary dwellings

around a large ellipsoid rock formation...

massive, sprawling ruins, very old... some

concentrations of metal and synthetics--

probably scientific equipment. Upright beings,

bipedal, about the height of the spikers, a head

smaller than the females of her team. No

tails. Keeping low, Rusa moved back toward

Oya and kept her rough voice low. "What are

they?" Oya kept her own voice low and her head

down. "Mammaloids. Could be Vulcan...

Klingon... Terran Romulan. Can you see their

heads?"

    "We will smash their heads," Rusa hissed. The

fire in her belly shone in her bright eyes.

"Easy kills."

    "They have no precautions against attack," Oya

confirmed. "Keep one of them alive for me."

Rusa's bright yellow throat tippled. Rough

abutting scales flickered above her armored vest.

Her eyes were heavily shaded under their protective

brow plates, but the excitement glared through. "I'll

keep one head." She folded a clawed hand and

motioned Oya back. Oya straightened her neck

until her eyes were on a higher level than

Rusa's. "The mission is mine. I have authority,

too. I deserve to provoke."

    "You're not in training as a spiker leader

anymore." Rusa's expression flared.

"You sucked on six or eight generations of

respect because of it, but those days are shrinking. This

batch of youngsters has no respect for you. To them

you're only a technicist. They won't follow you.

I won't follow you either."

    "Then they must do exactly as you tell them. You

must keep control of them? "I will."

    "That's what you said the last time!" Rancor

boiled in Rusa's face. "I'm saying it again.

Go away, thinker."

    "Make them use weapons," Oya persisted.

"And take prisoners." She turned her head and

angled back into the locks, taking the chance that Rusa

wouldn't slice her team technicist's head off and

call it a casualty. Anticipation shuddered through the

crouching spikers, each a mottled ball jutting from

a crevice. Hunger enflamed their young eyes,

left their mouths slightly open. Their lips

quivered and showed the tips of ivory ripping teeth.

Beyond the rocks, the prey were moving. The spikers

twitched, hunched their shoulders, dug their claws

into dry dust. Rusa raised her large head and

stiflened her stance to hold them back. Oya watched

with ripening envy. She remembered how it had been,

training to lead the spikers before the accident that

crippled her leg,. Now, all she could be was a

scientist, to sit around day upon day and think. ,And she

had thought up this mission. Presented it before a

leadership desperate enough to listen. And here she was.

She pressed to the cliff abutment and wallowed in

umbrage. If this mission dissolved, her people would

slip back again to living in the bushes just as they had

before--cycle after cycle for millions of years. The

ugly image grew crimson in her mind. At

least as a technicist she was a valuable evil, a

modem necessity--one of those who sit and think. A

step above those who only sit. She would eat

humiliation raw if she could be the one to keep the

backsliding from happening again. "Attack," she

murmured. "Attack!" Rusa and the other female

leaders cranked their long necks around to glare at

her, but too late. The spikers erupted around them

and didn't care who gave the order. They were young,

their blood was hot, and they were no good at stealth.

Hissing and snapping as their senses took Over, the

males flushed over the rocks and jumped into the arena

around the big rock formation.

    "Weapons only!" Oya bellowed.

    As soon as she cleared the rocks, she saw their

targets and the research outpost they had

established. A dozen or more mammaloids, small

eyes wide with shock, some frozen in place, others

diving for cover.

    The mammaloids scattered. The spikers shot

incendiary darts from their cuff launchers as they had

been so carefully drilled to do. Flames skittered

on the tents and on some of the mammaloids" clothing,

driving them to the ground.

    Head crests bristling, tails whipping,

slash-claws flexed, the heavy-legged spikers

pounded into the camp. From where Oya stood back against

the rocks as ordered, she saw only two of the

spikers but could hear the others and the panicked noises

coming from the victims.

    The mammaloids were maneuverable beings, quick

to understand what was happening to them. They were good fighters.

Oya thought they were all male, but she couldn't be

sure. This slim upright anatomy was common in the

settled galaxy, and these could be any of a hundred

species, a thousand races.

    Can there be so many of the conqueror kind, and so few of

us?

    The spikers whirled in calculated

half-circles, balancing in a beautiful way,

one foot at a time on their two walking

toes, and they fired a volley with each pause.

    The mammaloids were good hiders and quick with their own

weapons--phasers. Recognizable. Very

effective. Needle-thin and unforgiving.

Phasers... that's right.

    Streaks of glowing energy lanced from the fog Oya

kept her head low and tried to sift the scene for more

clues, but the confusion and spurts of movement blended

to make this almost impossible. She held her breath and

reassured herself with what little she already knew.

    So far the spikers were channeling their

aggressiveness into extreme speed arid risk. They

plunges and rushes, more foolhardy than the method

of the female directors.

    Bodies littered the ground stunned and heaving with

effort. Weapons only, weapons only.

    She chanted the order in her mind and thought it might

hold, until one of the mammaloids--a thick,

muscular one whose eyes were dark and mane nearly

black--pounded from a hiding place with some kind of

knife in his hands. The blade was short but sharp.

    "Bring him down!" Oya shouted to the spiker he was

running toward. "Turn around!"

    The sound of her voice startled the mammaloid, and

he veered away from her but didn't stop his

charge. He raised the sickle blade and swung it

high, forward.

    But the spiker had heard her, too, and to him her

voice was more than just the hissing roar it was to the alien

guard. He swung around, arching his tail outward in

a reflex that would sweep the area clear by the time his

throat and chest were in line with the charging enemy. The

tail came in contact with the big blade.

    The mammaloid saw that he had lost his chance

to slice the spine of his target and managed to control

his blade as it struck the spiker's swinging tail,

putting all his weight into redirecting the attack.

His blade made a hollow whistle as it swept

downward at an angle. The spiker dropped back

a step, and only that saved his life. The blade

sliced across the spiker's shoulder, rode across his

throat, and was deflected finally by the heavy harness

covering his chest.

    Red blood sprayed the mammaloid in the face.

He was driven to one knee by the inertia of his attack

and had no time to raise the heavy sickle again. The

spiker bellowed, a passionate thanks for breaking

him free from standing orders. Pain acted in his favor

and made him move faster toward the alien who had

attacked him.

    He roared over the being's head and reached down.

"Hold back! No slashing? Oya called to him.

When he ignored her, she swung around. "Rusa!

Control them! Control them!"

    But the spiker plunged forward in ram-slash

style, spread his hands wide, extending the claws

on his fingers, and got the mammaloid by the face.

He slashed his victim from throat to groin with the big

claw on his foot. Torn fabric rolled back

and entrails pushed out the gash. The creature's

white eyes widened. Oya charged forward. She had

to separate them. The spiker slapped her aside.

Before she could recover and use her greater mass against

him, he pushed his snout into the mess and shook it

back and forth. His growls were answered by the roars and

thrusts of other spikers suddenly ram-slashing other

victims. Contagious wildness blurred their minds.

The leaders didn't bother to stop them. Blood had

been spilled, and the females were hungry, too. As

the craving clouded their thinking, they stopped caring about

how a feast would leave them or about why they were here in the

first place. The scent enticed Oya and made her

want to join the young fighters, to club-kick and slash

her way to that succulent passion she smelled and heard

from the spikers and their leaders. She raised

her bad leg and lowered her mouth to it, taking the

crippled foot in her teeth. The taste of skin and

dirt... the scent of free-flowing blood... If

she could bite off her own foot she would taste what

the spikers were tasting and push herself into the riot. In a

few moments wound-shock would set in, and she wouldn't

care whether it was a victim's limb or her own:

Suddenly, there was blood everywhere. The males roared

and plunged, driven by their own pain, every pierce of their

own hides or their enemies' thin skin, every thunderous

volley as the victims fought back against the headlong

attack. Salvos of phaser fire still skittered

along the hard ground, answered by shells from the spiker

leaders' leig-launchers, but the scene was under

domination by the spikers now. Battling for control over

her own mind, Oya used her tongue to push her

foot out of her mouth and gritted her teeth hard. The

smell of blood and shredded flesh muddled her

thoughts, but she clung to her purpose. She had

to move and function, or her instincts would make her

forget why she was here. Blood sprayed and ran

along the rocks. Strangled screams bounced across

the clearing. Limbs of the butchered mammaloids

littered the ground. The dwellings were on fire, the

mammaloids no cover other than the

rocks, and they couldn't run fast enough to outrun the

spikers. Two spikers were using their ripper claws

to hack at a small standing structure, probably

a supply bin, and Oya realized that one of the

mammaloids had locked himself inside it. A flash

of hope punched through the daze of be. instinct. She

dodged and barely missed the ripper-plunge of one

of the spikers who had lost his ability to distinguish between

friend and foe. He took a sidelong hack at her

with a foot claw, but she whacked back with her large

hand. He Igot the message and angled away.

Ignoring the phaser volleys streaking across the

clearing, he pushed his blunt snout into a mass of

slaughtered enemy and began to gore. Oya stepped

over the young spiker and his lunch, ducked through pulsing

cross fire, and struck out toward that supply bin.

Two other spikers were tearing at the bin with their

hacking claws and pounding at it with spent launcher

casings. She would have to fight them off if she was

to save that mammaloid inside the bin for questioning.

    Had there been time for a distress signal? Why was

this outpost here? What were the purposes of these old

rock formations? were the legends right?

    The questions caused her to salivate. She clamped

her mouth dosed and banished the heavy scent of

blood and bowels; she was nearly there. There were fewer

screams now.

    Almost all the victims were finished. The silence

triggered a deep afkill hunger, and she had

to battle that down, too.

    She fixed her eyes on the variaegated tails

of the two spikers pounding on that bin. The creak of

metal spurred her forward, and she jumped. A touch

of that old spiker training surged back and even her

bent leg responded. Pain belted through hot

hips, but she slashed her way between the two spikers.

A yellow and black tail struck her across the

face, driving her down. Her knee cracked against

the base of the storage bin, but as she went down, she

lashed out at one of the spiker He fell sideways,

she fell forward, and the metal bin vibrated against her

harness. The downed spiker lay on his side and

kicked, confused about whether he was standing or not. Oya

shoved her elbow into his thigh, levered herself back

onto one foot, and blunt-kicked the other spiker

in the ribs. He staggered back, red-rimmed eyes

blinking at her like mechanical flashes. Oya

vaulted up and reached inside the gashed supply bin.

The creature inside hacked at her, but her arm was

long enough that none of the blows reached her neck

or face. She would pull him out, save him forw

She was hit from behind, a blow across the neck. One of the

spikers bumped past her, then the other, both hissing

and snapping, to the torn metal opening in the bin and they

fought over the captive inside. One of them put his

foot on Oya's neck and pressed her to the dirt.

Energy shells sheeted the ground near her legs, and

she realized other victims were still fighting. Their

screams told her the spikers were earning their name. Not

many weapons here, not a heavily defended outpost.

Could this be the right place? Doubts chewed at her.

The place they soughtwanyone with sense would defend it

to the extreme. Or someone might come and try what

she intended to try. But could such a dry, dead place

be the portal to paradise? A wild scheme, but her

people were half wild and willing to snatch at a chance.

She would give them that chance if she could. If she could

get past these two brats. The creature inside the

bin had some kind of weapon to fight with, a club or

shard of metal. The spikers flinched as their faces

and arms were hacked every time they reached inside, but they

kept grabbing. Suddenly one spiker got a metal

point in the eye and stumbled backward, half his

face torn. Blood pumped out of the eye socket.

Oya pushed him out of the way. In spite of

his injuries, his instincts had hold his of him and he

tried to punch forward again, but she kept him back with

her own outrage. She grasped the shoulder of the other

spiker and pulled. He arched his back and neck,

keeping his head inside the hole. His shoulders

flexed as he pushed deeper, and the bin shuddered with the

gasps and thrashing of the mammaloid i inside.

No!" Oya roared. Again she scrambled up, this time

aiming for the spiker's legs. He felt her grip his

lower leg and kicked at her. Intoxicated and

combative, the spiker beat her back with three

limbs and his tail, with the other arm buried in the bin,

slashing at the captive. Hope fled as Oya

heard the screams from inside dissolve to gagging, then

chop to silence. A dirty kill. She dropped

back. The spiker kicked maniacally at her, then

turned to concentrate on his task. He pulled

away from the bin and with both hands pulled out his winnings.

The captive was now carrion. Its body was cleaved

almost in half, its head unrecognizable, sliced

at least three times from ear to chin. One of its arms was

missing. The spiker drew the corpse out and was chewing

on its ribs even before its feet cleared. Blood

splattered Oya as the spiker whipped around with his

prize and retreated to indulge. The bywords

of her culture throbbed through the scent of blood and

entrails. Full belly, empty mind. She still

didn't know what species this was. She still

didn't know if they had raided the right outpost. It

didn't fit the legends of lush scenery, vaulted

mountains, temperate air, and burgeoning prey.

Here there were only rocks lying against a yawning sky,

with air made stale by so little plant growth. . Around

her the spikers and their female leaders crouched .

over gushing lunch, overgorging themselves on their

victory. It would be hours before their heads cleared.

If a distress call had been sent and another

enemy group came, all these would be dazed and

helpless. Oya clamped her mouth shut. The smell

of blood, bile, and discharge made her mind

sizzle, but she forced herft to beat down her desire

to eat. These others wouldn't get their minds back for

hours after surfeiting themselves. She had been afraid

of this since first rising from her saddle in the

spacecraft. The seats weren't as comfortable as

everyday furniture that supported their necks and

tails, too, but comfort wasn't the idea. Space

travel was only a purpose, not a luxury, and it

was the most advanced of their science s to be able

to leave their home planet and trundle out

into space, possibly to take advantage of one

technicist's crazy idea, a chance to give their

race the great destiny promised by nature. After

months of living on blocks of frozen meat and

nutrient tablets, could she beat them back from fresh,

salty, wet meat when they got it? Well, she could

try, if she wanted a look at her own innards.

She moved cautiously across the stinking clearing,

battling to keep her mind, to survey the large rock

formation at the center of the outpost. Frustrated and

doubtful, she shook her head and turned back. She

moved toward Rusm The big female leader had

pushed her large head almost inside the stretched,

gaudy corpse of a mammalold who had been cut

lengthwise from neck to knee, and she was wobbling back

and forth to force the guts out. Staying out of tail-slash

range, Oya circled around into Rusa's

periphery. Rusa's eyes were glazed as if

drugged, her face pasted red with the blood of the

vanquished. Her large face turned slightly

toward Oya, and she blinked. Through the glaze her

eyes focused a little. Oya made a motion with her

handsin nothing overtbut enough, she hoped. Rusa

seemed to go back to her meal but then reached up,

punched the dangling head of her victim

until it snapped loose, and batted it toward

Oya. Oya scooped the head away from Rusa, then

picked it up an moved well out of hacking range.

The smell filled her senses. Just one lick ....

i'ilShe brushed the blood-matted hair away from

the ear. Not Vulcan... not Romulan. disi.

    Saliva dribbled from her back teeth out the

corners of her mouth. She pressed her tongue hard

to her palate and shuddered. She pushed the hair away

from the top of the victim's head. Not Klingon. The

open eyes were blue. Not native Rigelian.

She smelled it. The scent rolled back into her

skrull and il turned into taste. Terran.

Probably Terran. Human. She lifted her

head to i'. fill her nostrils with the scent. And there

against the sky she saw the circular formation of stone that

would be the saving of her race. " "This is the

place," she said through a convulsive shiver. "This is

the place..." She looked closely at the round

formation again and forced herself to think like a scientist, past

all the trappings of legend, to the facts before her.

"Rusa," she said, "this is the place. Say

good-bye to be everything you've ever known. No more

shame for us. Today, everything will be different." The

spiker leader tilted toward her, looked at

her, but kept "comchewing at the ribs of her headless

meal. Her eyes were glazed. Oya tasted in the air

all the primitive instincts that had curtailed her

culture and the bitterness of their slow development.

No more. There would be domination as nature intended.

She looked down and turned the head in her hands

until the face no longer gaped up at her. The

passion rolled through her. Her thoughts swelled and

turned to fog. Dreaming of the coming hours, she gave

up and pushed dis.her snout into the exposed flesh.

    PART ONE

    HIGH WARP

    Limitless power mad with endless rage

    Withering a soul; a minute seemed an age. He

clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail

Thinking that comfort was a fairy-tale ...

    --John Masefield

    "BATTLE STATION'S. All hands ready for

incoming fire." Apprehension needled the ship's

bridge. Something about that old-fashioned way of using

ready as a verb. Worked every time. The captain heard

his own voice throb through the dozen-plus primary

decks and the dozen more engineering decks far below, but he

felt detached from the sound. The communications officer

would gladly have done that job -- probably

should have and announced general quarters, but at times like

these the captain liked to do it himself, let the crew

hear his voice just before he plunged them into thunder. It

was almost an apology before the fact, testimony that

he was here, on the bridge, putting his own hand into the

fire first.

    Trying to be deadpan without being spiritless almost broke

his neck. Battle stations. Battle stations.

Okay, people, general quarters. Cool, not

hard-hearted. Controlled without being soulless. There should

be a class at the Academy on this. Dispassion

202. He almost stuck a finger in his ear to ratfie

out an itch, then thought about what that would look like.

"Raise shields," he added. He tapped the

communicator on his chair's arm console.

"Engineering, confirm you have shield control." The

voice of an assistant came through, a little cocky.

"Shields confirmed routed through warp engines, sir."

    "Stand by." He'd never had to practice being an

inspiration in emergenciesmhe could do that. His

natural ability to rouse a crew had won him

both awe and contempt. But this was different. This was

inviting destruction to come on over and take a

potshot. "Yellow alert lights creased the

bridge's upper level, casting amber

slashes upon the half-dozen faces most familiar

during day watch and three or four others assigned

to subsystems stations by their department heads. The

captain drew a breath into his muscular, compact

body and felt it almost immediately pushed back out. He

needed another dose of medication and almost turned to the

ship's surgeon standing behind the command chair, but his mind

was on the incoming fire and that's where he insisted it

stay. "This is Captain Kirk of the Starship

Enterprise, authorizing full-impact attack.

You may fire when ready, Gridleys."

    his(beridley One, aye. Starship Exeter

preparing to fire, Jim. Gridley Two, take

position and acknowledge."

    "Gridley Two, Captain Phillips,

U.s.s. Farragut, acknowledging."

    "Captain Phillips," Kirk said,

"congratulations on your first field assignment."

    "Thank you, Captain. I'm ready when you both

are."

    "I think we just said we were ready," Kirk

muttered flatly. "Stay sharp, everyone." He

leaned hard on his right elbow and glared restlessly at

the forward screen. The black rectangle showed a

beautifully generated picture of space

before them--well, maybe a little down and to the right--where

two starships hovered on two different planes of

attack. It was disquieting to look at the other

ships, perfect --if slightly newer--echoes of the

Enterprise, with starlight flickering on their

dish-shaped primary hulls" white plates and the

stiff spines of those nacelles going back like strong

chalk marks above the low-slung engineering hulls.

They'd been in war games before. Enterprise had

always shown herself a tough customer, taking more than she

was designed to take. One of only twelve in a

mighty big galaxy, the first of her kind, older, more

battered, and more hardened than anymthe starship was their

life. Letting somebody take shots at her plied

against the grain of any crewman's mettle. So

let's get to it. Ready, aim, fire. What was

taking so long? "Lieutenant Uhura," he

began, swiveling to see the woman at the

communications console, "cut off the chatter. I

don't want to know when they give the order to fire.

That cancels out the worth of the test."

    "Yes, sir," the graceful woman said and had the

noise blanked before her own voice finished.

"Actually, it doesn't, Captain," a low

voice drummed from the upper deck at his

right. "The new shield technology's reception of

impact from any angle has no relation

to surprise." Kirk glanced up there. "But it has

a relation to me. Thank you, Mr. Spock." His

Vulcan first officer regarded him with those

unaccommodating dark eyes set in angles beneath

gunshot-black brows that were also angles. The face

of a thousand subtleties. Not grim exactly.

Earnest, with spice. He didn't look like

anybody else here, hovering above them with his helmet

of black hair and that blue uniform shirt the only

science entity on the bridge. Everybody else

wore the command old or the bright red of engineering--

No, that wasn't right. Kirk swiveled and glanced

to his left at Leonard McCoy. The doctor

was also in blue but wearing a short-sleeved,

tight-fitting, glossy medical smock. Well,

so he couldn't count his blues today. Or maybe

Spocck just wore it differently. McCoy was

looking down at him as though he could read his mind.

"Want another treatment, Jim?" the doctor

muttered, holding his voice down. No sense

blurting out to the bridge crew that their captain was under

the weather. Though no one said anything or even glanced

at him, Jim Kirk knew they had all

registered his reddened eyes, the glaze of fever on

his cheeks, his Academy-trim sandy hair now

sweat-drenched and flopping in his eyes, and the bulb of

swollen leg he tried to hide under the other boot.

That's what he got for going first into inclement

planetary conditions instead of letting some brawny

yeoman go first. "Not now," he said. "You can't

fight this off," McCoy insisted. "This is the bite

of a hairy thriLlkiller scorpion. Now, how do

you figure that animal got its name? This isn't a

hangover. You know what this means?"

    "Means it hurts."

    "Means it's seventeen times as toxic as the

bite of a king cobra and about forty times harder

to cure, and the victim had better cooperate with his

friendly dockside physician. What you're feeling

is inflammation of the joints. You should be convalescing."

    "I don't even like the sound of the word, Doctor.

I'm not that sick." McCoy waggled a writing

stylus at him. "Only because we live in these times.

That bug thinks he killed you. He'd be right if I

wasn't around."

    "The test first." His elbows were shaking. He drew

them closer to his ribs and tried to position himself

casually in the command chair. "Well, what's

keeping theme" the doctor beefed. Kirk pivoted

his chair back toward the main screen. "That's a good

question. Ship to ship."

    "Ship to ship, sir," U-hum echoed. "Kirk

to Exeter. Is there a delay?"

    "Newman here. No delay--we're just

coordinating our firing sequences." Kirk glanced

up at Spock for that flicker of tacit agreement

that was always there. Almost always. 2O

    Understood but I would suggest, gentlemen, that enemy

fire is rarely coordinated." Point taken, but,

we don't want to hit you with too much too fast. his

    "I wish you would." Hearing the crab in his voice,

he glanced at McCoy. His plundered leg throbbed.

"Field testing these warp-powered shields with starships

would be a waste of time if we didn't throw all we

had at them. Especially considering the next step."

    Since you're the man who's going to take that next

step," Douglas Newman responded, "we'll do

it your way. Prepare for random fire."

"Acknowledged. Kirk out. All right, everyone, this

is it. Let's not have anyone get carded away and

start returning

    A faint thump on the lower starboard deck beside

him drew his attention, and turning his head

displayed a sore neck that hadn't been sore a

minute ago. Captain, if I may"--Spock

appeared beside him, hands clasped behind him--

"respectfully suggest I relieve you for " the

duration of the warp-shield testing." His expression was

mild, or maybe Kirk just saw the mildness under the

severity of Spock's reputation. "Thank you,

Mr. Spock, but either I'm up on the bridge with a

bad leg and a fever, thinking about the tests, or I'm

in my quarters with a bad leg and a fever, still thinking

about the tests. Since I can't get away from it, I

might The fever took him by the brain and blurred the

screen before him. Fever? With one hand thrust out and

down, he kept himself from rolling. It was a phaser

hit. McCoy was picking him up. As he was stuffed

back into the command chair, Kirk noted with

gratitude that the doctor had the sense not to ask him

out loud if he was all right. "Friendly fire," he

grumbled, his eyes fixed upon the wide forward

screen. "Pardon, sir?" In front Of him,

Helmsman Sulu leaned toward him without really

turning. Kirk pressed his back against the warm

black leather of his chair. "Nothing, Lieutenant.

Present all shields to them in random sequence.

If there are any weak points in this

technology, I want them found right now."

    "Aye, sir. Executing-was Spock bent over

his panel's viewers and warned, "Second volley

incoming." "Brace yourselves," Kirk snapped. This

time he clung hard to his chair. The phosphorus

blue lights of twowthree--full-strength phaser

bolts bloomed from Exeter's outer hull, made a

true line to the Enterprise, struck their new

shields, and crackled around the ship. Dipping far

to port with the seizure of the hit, the ship fought against the

artificial gravity that was their unseen lifeline.

She righted herself almost immediately, compensators howling.

Kirk wiped his brow. "Good shields." The two

other ships veered off their positions on separate

angles, one sideways and one on the z-minus.

He suddenly envied their moves, the action of the

game. His job was to be the sitting duck and take the

hits. "Sulu, hard port, one-half

impulse." The helmsman's shoulders tucked a

fraction; the Enterprise moved. "What are we

doing, Jim?" McCoy asked quietly. "Might

as well make the lesson worthwhile on their

sides, too. Let them hit a moving target" The

other ships didn't hail them. They just responded.

There seemed to be an extra lilt to the

phasers crashing along Enterprise's shield

envelope now. "Mr. Nourredine, shield

status?" At the engineering subsystems monitor,

a gangly mideast-ern ensign said, "Mr.

Scott reports no drains and no sign of

overload whatsoever on the warp tie-in.

Space-time element seems to be working right along with

warp theory

    "Thank you. Uhura, notify Exeter and

Farragut that we're warping out. I want to see how

the tie-in works when there's a hyperlight drain on

the warp engines." Spock straightened and turned.

"That is not in the test program, sir." Kirk

looked up at him. Spock tipped his head.

"Logical." "Go to warp one."

    "Warp one, sir," Sulu responded. The

starship hummed around them, more a feeling than a sound,

and dipped gracefully through open space. Salvos

from the other two Starfleet vessels pounded against the

new-tech shielding at undiscussed angles,

causing the phasers to distort as they skittered across the

impact plane. Starfleet phasers at this

proximity were terrifying weapons and Kirk sensed his

crew's fears. No one knew better than

Starfleet people how exterminatory their own

weapons could be. It was easy under enemy fire

to believe those doing the shooting were insufficient or behind

the times, but today they were ordered to take a full-power

pounding from their own science and that was different. Big

different. Kirk indulged in a few glances

to measure the expressions of his bridge team. Of

all Starfleet, the twelve starships were supposed

to be the best, strongest, tightest operations in the

flying galaxy, by attrition their crews the best of

each profession. But the reputation, implied or

earned, didn't provide much armor at times like this.

He saw them bury their personal fears by keeping

their faces cool and blank. It was a dead

giveaway. Spock had more expression right now than

anybody else. So Kirk got up and hobbled

over there. "Report, Mr. S pock." The first

officer didn't turn this time. He responded

only by changing his posture as he gazed into his

readout screens. "Warp tie-in stable, forward

shielding unfazed... Midships and aft shielding

show fluctuations within the one one-thousandth percent

range, stabilizing now." He moved to another part

of the computer complex, summoned a readout with a fanning

touch, then said, "Hyperlight compensators show

nominal strain." Kirk leaned on the

bridge's circular red rail and turned.

"Engineering?"

    "Mr. Scott reports the strain is

negligible, sir," Nourredine said. "He'll have

numbers for you 'within five minutes."

    "I'm not waiting for it. Helm, reduce speed

to sublight. Advise Exeter and Farragut

to cease fire and regroup. All departments report

any changes to the first officer. Ladies and

gentlemen, prepare for stage two. Fifteen

minutes from now we'll know exactly how much these

shields can take. Assuming we survive."

    "A fifth-magnitude sun, one of the most

powerful natural forces in the galaxy. The

gravitation is strong enough to hold twenty planets the

size of Jupiter. Megatous of debris move

at extreme speed as they are drown inside. As

we pass near the blue giant, they will have to absorb

that intense gravity, ward off any solid

objects, plus deflect heavy X-ray

bombardment. The problem with conventional deflector

shielding is that overload can occur. These new

shields, powered through the warp engines, can dissipate

energy through space-time. Extreme gravity tends

to change the physical laws of space-time,

magnifying uncertainty in any equation. At this

point, physics will be based not on certainty, but

on probability. This will be the final step in the

test, the culmination of years of lab testing, field

testing on drones and modified cargo vessels.

We will be passing closer to a blue giant than

anyone ever has. If the warp shields can stand up

to this, we will consider them a success. Only a heavy

cruiser starship is powerful enough to engage the

phenomenon at this proximity with any hope of

survival."

    "Thank you, Mr. Spock. Is that clear,

gentlemen?"

    "Very clear, Captain Kirk"

    "As clear as a nonphysics major can soak

up, Jim. I'm glad you have Spock on your

side, since you're the ones going across that monster."

    "Appreciate that, Doug. It'll be good to know you

and Farragut are out there in case anything goes

wrong."

    "I hope we're completely useless, otherwise

we'll be here to record your extermination. And I

don't like that idea very much." Jim Kirk stuffed a

groan back down his throat and willed his swollen

foot to stop hurting. He won with the groan,

but the foot ignored him. He refused to let the

pain show on his face. On one of the monitors over

Spock's station, Newman looked a little older

than the last time they'd had contact, around the eyes

mostly, but that was forgivable. U.s.s. Exeter had

been supporting a line of defense on the Klingon

Neutral Zone almost singlehandedly for eighteen

months, and that was aggravating service. Not war, but a

very tense situation.

    On the other screen, Farragut's new captain

showed another kind of strain -- guilt, maybe--at

not being the ship to go into the big fire. Kirk knew that

little guilt, and he hated it. He'd volunteered

all his life for the dangerous missions just to avoid that

feeling, the sensation that he should've gone instead of

somebody else and didn't... and somebody else

died. McCoy was observing him. Kirk swiveled

the chair away from the doctor's ice-blue incising

eyes. "We're not betting on extermination," he

said, "so don't call up your ship's logs just

yet." On the port-side screens, both

captains smiled. "No, we won't," Newman

said. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

    "No difference," Kirk told him. "My ears

are clogged up

    "Captain Kirk," Phillips said, "it's within

our mission schedule to give you time to recover from that

injury if you like."

    "And have you two tell headquarters that I let a

six-inch scorpion slow me down? Not on your

life."

    "It was nine inches," McCoy muttered.

"Captain," Sulu interrupted, "we're

approaching the vicinity of the blue giant."

    "All stop."

    "All stop, sir."

    "Adjust forward screens for safe visual.

All hands, yellow alert. Stand by, Captains."

He didn't wait for their responses before motioning

to Uhura to cut off the communications. He wanted

to sweat a little and wince a couple of times without their

seeing it. Both screens went blank. On a

third monitor, Exeter and Farragut wheeled

around to Enterprise's starboard bow and held

position. "Engage main screen to show us the blue

giant." Sulu Danced at his board just to make

sure the compensators were on line ,and he wasn't

about to blind what might be the finest bridge crew in

Starfleet, then activated the screen. "There it

is," the captain uttered. "Izell."

    "One of the brightest stars in the heavens," Spock

filled in. "Fifty-one thousand five hundred

times as powerful as Earth's sun. Its diameter is

roughly ten million kilometers." Before them, a

ball of neon blue-white energy, glowing with

mindless, unthinkable power, incapable of comprehending its

own beauty. Maybe that's the mark of nature,

Kirk thought. The line that divided man from everything

else--that we appreciate ourselves. With its center of

strontium-white and its electric-blue rim, the

star shined with such perfect violence that it created the

illusion of having another sun inside and the sensation that

they could hear it sizzle. A constant flow of

debris washing toward it from open space to disappear

inside the licks of blue fire. For a moment, the

captain and his crew were caught up by the meer dumb

triumph of the thing. No one said a word. They stood

at their posts and let it burn. For centuries

artists had struggled to convey the stunning presence of a

blue giant on everything from canvas to glass

to crystallized fabric. No one had done it.

Tourist agencies still ran shuttles of high-paying

sightseers out here, because there was nothing like the real thing.

coneaKirk cleared his throat. Adjust for

ultraviolet spectrum. Spock made

one of those barely there motions with one flmd, and the main

screen changed. Ultraviolet waves illowed

outward from the great mass, delineated in what

Ippeared to be beet red pulses. :::. "X

rays." Another change. Flowing pulses of green

to silver. :. "That's a sight to see," McCoy

murmured. "It's laughing at us. If we

explode during this test, we won't even register

:; that thing. It has the power to rip a neighboring star

to bits. "It probably has," Kirk muttered.

"That's all the debris

    , McCoy leaned on the command chair in a moment

of commonality. "It's even bigger than Rigel."

    "Yes," Spockk confirmed from up there, as if

anybody had asked . "I-Iwever, unlike

Riel, which supports fourteen 'VO-RLDS, ten

of which are habitable, Izell supports only

eight 'i Planets, none of which bears life or

has been colonized."

    "We wouldn't want to tamper with somebody's

sunshine," Kirk clipped, then tossed over his

shoulder, "Bones, be if you want to give me a

treatment, now's the time." . "You should come down

to sickbay for treatment," McCoy said. "You know

it's a thirteen-minute process."

    "It only takes thirteen minutes because you stop

to give me your mission philosophy every four

minutes. Just get me through the next ten, and all this

will be over." ylus down on the command chair's arm ,

and wrestled in his medipack for a hypo. Obviously

he " hadn't o win this one and had come prepared.

"Hold still." He pressed the hypo to the inside of

Kirk's elbow. . The captain held his breath.

Shots didn't usually hurt, but -- this one burned

gooing in and kept burning all the way up his arm and

into his neck. At least it distracted him from his

throbbing foot and its unhappy ankle. "That'll

hold the fever and infection down for about forty

to minutes," the doctor said. "Enough for you to get us

in real

    trouble." He pointed at the captain's glazed

face, then at the turbolift door. "You,

sickbay. As soon as this test is over." Kirk

felt his mouth pull into a grin. "Understood. Now

for the hard part." He shifted again and eyed the figure

hovering over them on the upper deck. "Mr.

Spock."

    "Captain?" "Come down here, please." Spock

moved to the captain's side but stayed a step farther

back than usual. His patinaed features

were strained. Ignoring McCoy's silent

curiosity and what the third presence might cost

Spock, the captain lowered his voice. "All

right... what is it?" The Vulcan hesitated,

glanced at McCoy, then drew his slashed brows

together. "I beg your pardon?"

    "Whatever's bothering you." Spock looked as if

he'd been blsided. "Sir..."

    "You haven't slept in six days," Kirk said.

"You've downloaded all the information available about this

test and run it again and again in your quarters. Yes--

I know you're thorough, but seems to me you're also

uncertain about this. I assume you've found nothing

wrong with the tests up until now, because you haven't

stopped us. As science officer, that's your

prerogative, but you haven't done it. But everything

you've said is laced with... let's call it

suspicion. So there must be something else."

Resistance plied Spock's face. He went from

one foot to the other, put his hands behind his back again,

and spoke with particular deliberation. His voice was

low, almost gravelly. "There is always a frontier

of science," he began, "especially in physics,

which can only be understood through experience. Very often the

experience does not match the theory.

Extreme gravity and intense energy conditions

change our equations by changing space-time around us.

The more elements thrown in, the more unknowns, and the more the

equation may distort."

    "Are you objecting to the test?" By asking, Kirk

gave him the option to get them out of this, just as

McCoy could supersede the captain on medical

grounds--and looked like e might any minute. ::

Spock paused, seemed almost to be considering that, then

made a decision he wasn't happy with. "I have

no basis on which to object. There are certain

assumptions dealing with "disuantum probability

matrices, but while a 'guess" will ""lccasionally

be correct and may even allow a shortcut, it

con.nzill more often provide the reverse. I prefer

a system of thought." , "In other words," Kirk

added, "you think that in the long run we're better off

with the facts in hand?" McCoy leaned forward. "You

won't admit you've just got a hunch, will you,

Spock?"

    Spock looked at him as though the question were serious.

"I cannot countervail the test based on unease,"

he said. .

    Now he looked down at Kirk, and his eyes

turned decidedly rmpathetic. "Unless, of

course, your unease, Captain."

    "Thank you," Kirk told him, "but I've already

decided to ride it out. After this is all over, I can

put my leg up and read -- a good book without

preoccupation." . "Usually," McCoy needled,

"it's you, Mr. Spock, with that hybrid

physiology of yours that's so susceptible to xotic

bugs." :: He waited for the smart response, the

cutting comeback, the intellectual razz--usually

the best show on the ship--but seconds ticked by,

and... "Yes," Spock said. "Excuse me,

gentlemen." They watched him go. He didn't

look back at them but reached for his computer consoles

with both hands and sank atinst the units, eyes fixed

on the readouts, one knee bent conalinst the bulkhead

as though to push events his way. .mcCoy continued

to watch Spock as the first officer fine-tuned the

ship's computers. "Well," he sighed, "I

guess verybody's entitled to a little forbearance now and

then."

    "He'll trust my hunches," Kirk pondered,

"but not his

    The doctor came forward and leaned closer. "Should

we lastpone the blue giant?" No "matter the

doctor's low voice, no matter the

distracting and horrific beauty of the great star showing

its spectra like a dance hall girl flashing her

petticoats before them, the words somehow carried.

Kirk sensed the attention of the crew around him, though

no one looked at him. They didn't have to. But

they were listening. "This is our job," he spoke in

measured tones. "We're explorers, but not only

of the concrete area of open space. We're also a

tool for the most hair-brained plots of Federation

science. It's our job to run these gauntlets,

to court disaster on purpose. To be rash with

dignity."

    "We're plucky," McCoy chimed. "Willing

to prove we're red-blooded... Oh, sorry,

Spock. Red and green."

    "I should be writing this down," Uhura droned.

McCoy cast her a look. "This is how

Zephram Cochrane stumbled onto the space

warp. While looking for something else."

    "Which he never found," Sulu added. "I don't

think he missed it any." Kirk pushed out of his

chair and with his tone brought them back to the task of the

moment. "Mr. Sulu, plot us a course across the

equatorial region. Feed the engine control

directly into the navigational computers.

Plot three alternative elliptical courses

and two more courses directly away from the blue

giant at thirty-degree angles."

    "Aye, Captain," Chekov said just as Sulu

said, "Aye, sir." Kirk tapped his chair's

communication panel. "Bridge to engineering." A

few seconds ticked by. That told him they were

busy down there, and the engineers and assistants had

been told not to answer the bridge hails themselves, but

to leave that to the chief engineer. "Scott here, sir.

"A solid voice. That Caledonian

know-what-I'm-doing rumble. "Mr. Scott,

we're putting as much on automatic as possible

on the bridge, and I want you to do the same."

'greed, sir."

    "We're plotting two angled courses away from

the blue s tar in case we get in trouble.

Coordinate your engines to trigger with those

navigational lines and give us a surge of power in

order to break out of the gravitational pull."

    "Makes good sense, sir. I'll feed it through

to the bridge within two minutes."

    "Acknowledged. Sulu, make sure the forward

screen is adjusted to go black if the light

becomes too intense for us to tolerate and still

do our jobs. We're going to get... rather busy.

    He slid the thigh of his good leg onto the black

mat of his chair but didn't settle too deeply.

Moving only his eyes, he communicated wordlessly with

Spock on the upper deck, then fixed his attentions

forward. "Let's march up the cannon's mouth.

Warp factor two."

    "Warp factor two, sir," Sulu echoed. As

the ship turned into the face of Izell and jockeyed

for position to run across the dangerous belt, Kirk

heard the echo of his own words and clung to them for all

they were worth. This was part of their job. To be

daunfiess in the face of nonenemies as much as

enemies. To die, if necessary, for a test. To follow

orders so others could call them valiant.

Chivalry? Not exactly. The screen went

dimmer, though the blue giant burned nearly white

as they turned toward it. They vectored across its

equatorial region on a great arch that closed

kilometer by kilometer. Energy and gravity yanked

at them and tried to push them away at the same time.

The ship began to shudder as the new shields channeled

all that energy through the warp effect and dispersed it

into space-time like the flickering of candles in an

infinity mirror. Readouts started to change

so fast that the crew couldn't follow them. Dizziness

washed over Kirk's body and fogged his mind.

Maybe he should've taken that treatment. Then he

looked up and saw McCoy sway, and Nourredine

at the station above had his eyes closed and was shaking his

head. McCoy's stylus slid off the command

chair's arm. Kirk looked down at it, and his

gaze locked there. Suddenly he couldn't move his

neck, couldn't look up again. He spread his

fingers, leaned on the chair, and reached for the stylus.

In the middle of all this, why was he reaching for a

writing implement? Leave it on the carpet-- Two

frames of mind collided in his head. One said they

were fine, hadn't even started the test yet. The other

pushed forward into his imagination--they'd started the test

and were skimming the vast blue equator. But that was

real. Wasn't it? He straightened his back,

tried to move his neck so he could look at the main

screen. The stylus held his attention. He wanted

to look at the main screen, but his neck still wouldn't

move. Had the scorpion bite won out? McCoy

said something about joints freezing up-- Kirk

swallowed a couple of times to see if he had

control over his muscles. He pushed a groan up

through his throat to check on his voice. Still

something there, but all he could do was look at the stylus

as it lay there on the command chair's arln. It tipped

over the edge of the chair arm and fell again. Again...

again. Kirk tried to turn his head, but he might as

well have been sculpted from granite. Unhinging his

jaw was like manipulating iron. "Spock! Time...

warp!"

Chapter 1

    "LAUNCH MUST BE DONE from the highest

ground. We must keep them moving."

    "You do your science. I will keep them moving," The

spikers had eaten, so they were still lazy. The key was

to get them to work just when they were getting a little hungry

again but before they lost their minds. Rusa had said that

three times already. "I'll keep them moving." But

Oya was plagued with doubts and tensions. This

place... they could lose their minds here. Such a

different place from where they had begun, yet somehow just

a step away. Midheight mountains, continental

fragmentation, heavy plant life, at least two

major continents separated by a seaway. Much

animal migration going on. Very hot air. Super

tropics dripping with moisture and life. High

sea level. Warm saline water carrying less

oxygen than cold water, deep, sluggish,

oxygen-starved ocean basins. If only there were time

to study But there would be. There would be. This was spiker

paradise. In a few days, they would all be able

to pour themselves into this land and live here without effort.

Paradise. No more rocks, no more ruins. They had

come through the doorway and the galaxy would be theirs. If

only the spikers could be kept from losing their minds

before that. Rusa would keep control of them. Oya

pushed herself onward through the lush vegetation, demanding of

herself that she ignore most of what she saw around her

and that she only glance from time to time at the sensor

equipment on her harness. There would be time. All her

life.

    Heavy scents of animals swarmed around the team

as they hauled carts overladen with equipment. They

had brought everything with them when they stepped throughm

launchers, backup launchers, firing mechanisms

and sequencers, computers and sensors, mapping

equipment, nutrient rations to keep the spikers from

hunting, antenna grid, guidance system, beam

emitter, loading plate, crystal housings,

particle accelerator, focusing shell, arming

console, intermix chamberm

    "Teehnieist! Are you thinking again, or are you

walking? You're falling behind."

    Oya was shaken brusquely from running her roster

of equipment for the tenth time. The spikers and leaders

could keep up a pace without strain, but for her to keep

that pace required concentration.

    "Yes," she mumbled to herself, "I'm walking."

    Heavy air. Wet. A smell of life. The

taste of it rolled on a thrifty breeze. With every

step, the spikers grew hungrier. Already the males

were snapping at insects, from time to time getting one.

Every few minutes a domed head would lash out to the

side or even directly behind, long muzzle leading

outward, snaggled teeth clashing, and each time a

tail went whipping out or up to compensate. They

wanted to stop, setup the equipment here, and be done

with it. Each time they growled and paused, Oya would have

to insist for higher ground, fewer trees.

    Before her, Rusa and a couple other female

leaders trod through the bushes, then the line of young

spikers struggled on, some trailing a loaded rig,

and in front of them two more females. Their heads

shifted fore and aft with each stride, arms folded

tight against their chests, hands hanging limp at rest.

Their legs were doing all the work today.

    Here, in this uncivilized place, there was room

to stride and stretch, a relief from the ordeal

of getting here. 'Space

    travel had always been uneasy because of their

bodies" wide turning radius. Some career

spacefarers, what few there were, had their tails

amputated for that reason but inevitably paid for it in

loss of balance.

    Not a bad place. Hot, wet, overgrown,

volcanic. Frogs, lizards, salamanders, were

everywhere. The spikers were snapping up a few of those

here and there, too.

    There would be plenty of food here after the mission.

They could survive on fleshy animals, on fish,

shellfish, insects, planktonmany other treats this

environment could provide the healthy carnivore.

There were plenty of hot-bodied animals. Smells

of them, in life, in death, were everywhere. Plants could

be spices and flavorings, but food was best

fresh-dead and still warm.

    Something came out of the sky and flapped down to whack

across the line of spikers and sent them all snapping and

hissing, but the creature swirled back into the sky

even before Oya could get a good look at it.

Small, fast, and apparently curious. If it

tried to strafe them again, its curiosity would make it

lunch. With luck, only one spiker would

catch it. If two got a grip on it at the

same time, there would be a fight.

    That would take time. Oya sighed in aggravation and

admitted to herself that she wasn't sure enough of her

calculations. How much time would they really need to set

up the launcher? Would the automatic targeters work?

She either had a few minutes or a million

years, and only her mind, her wild calculations that

couldn't be put together on any machine held her

accountable for today's success and the future's wonder.

    Suddenly two of the spikers dodged to one side,

both snapping at the bushes. Leaves rattled, and

before Oya could see what was happening, a shapeless

piece of bloody flesh spun through the air and

slapped her in the eye ridge. Had they attacked

each other?

    "What happened! What is it?" she demanded.

An aroma of raw meat and red blood swelled her

nostrils as she pawed strings of ripped-up muscle

off her face.

    Rusa whirled toward the attraction, smacking the

young males out of the way, forcing them to stay in line.

"What is it?" Oya asked again. Pausing and

looking downward at the base of a spikey plant with

one lonely flower, Rusa said,

"Carrion." Desperate, Oya raised her head.

"Don't let them eat!" Too late. Three of the

spikers were already picking at the carrion around

Rusa's massive legs. Their eyes began

to glaze as they licked, gulped, and forgot their

purlx. "This is new kill. Whatever did it,"

Rusa said, raising her own head to look down into the

valley, "is still nearby."

    "Let's hunt them," one of the female leaders

said. "No time!" Oya protested. Rusa

swiveled her head to look at her. "You don't know

that. We could have a thousand years." Oya shook her

head. "This is how we lose chances."

    "No," Rusa said. "This is how I keep

loyalty. There's no harm in letting them hunt.

If they turn on me in a bloodlust, there'It be

no leader to push them forward, and your mission will be

over. They'll give up and satisfy themselves with

gorging and sleeping. Then where will you be?"

    "In a few days, that will be all they have to do

forever," Oya grumbled. "Why can't the males think

beyond instinct?"

    "They're good at what they do. Mind your

business." Despite the contempt her species

often held for tech-nicists, thinkers,

designers, Oya realized the faith that had been

put in her to devote an entire field team to her

theo13t and for Rusa and the others to donate their

lives to cause. No matter how they leered at her

or bit off attempts to explain, they had all

given themselves up. They would live out their lives here.

The divine superiority would be the Clan's, as those

who had borne them to their planet first had always

intended. Until now, they had failed to achieve their

foreordination. Until today, there had been nothing but

stalled prosperity for them, for they were contained by their

lessers. Today, at last, they had a future.

    An animal roared in the distance--a large one--a

sound like metal grazing against gravel. A twinge of

apprehension rattled through Oya's chest. The rest of

their lives, here... Eventually their food would run

out, their equipment would break down, and they would sustain

themselves on the abundance of life here, unless the

abundance decided to prey upon them. She shuddered from

harness to footpads. The Clan had been called

primitive by many in the settled galaxy, called

unevolved, underevolved, even devolved. She and

her kind knew it wasn't true. No matter the

likeness between Clan and creatures in the distant

past, no matter what the others thought, the

Federationers, the Klingons, the Romulans--the

Clan knew who they were. From now on, everyone

else would, too. Oh, she dreamed! She let her

thoughts roll with the scent of blood. She dreamed of

knowing what would happen, of seeing all the wondrous

revelations that would occur--the magnificent

accomplishments, conquests, superiority that would

release upon the Clan after today. Such a future!

At last, at last. "Look!" One of the spikers

raised his long hand and pointed. "There they are!" In

a shallow valley to their left, a rustling in the

leaves rippled through wide-leaved undergrowth and all

at once they saw a half-dozen small faces.

For a..moment Oya thought they were looking at a

flock of birds, but the faces were leathery and

greenish brown, eyes-forward and toothy. "What are

they?" one of the other females said. Her name was

Aur, and she didn't talk much. There was a shudder

in her voice. "I know what they are," Oya said.

Rusa swung around, her tail echoing the movement of

her head with less than grace. "Then what?"

    "Flocking predaters. In books, I've seen

fossils of them."

    "Let's take them on!" a spiker gushed,

hunger in his eyes. "We can make them

fight us." The others bobbed their heads and gargled a

cheer. Oya pushed forward. "Rusa, Aur, I'm

begging you." "Spikers need sport as much as they

need food," Aur said. Without waiting for the

females to argue among themselves, the spikers shed their

harnesses. Moments ago they had been sluggish and

exhausted, but they suddenly discovered an energy

reserve. The taste of blood and meat had done that

to them. "Half of you go," Rusa said. "Front of the

line, stay here." The front spikers howled and

argued. Rusa waved them down and they complied,

rumbling with dissatisfaction. Even as females

went, Rusa was large and had a mastering nature.

In seconds the spikers were down to bare skin and

crowding the edge of the incline. "No, Rusa, this is

bad!" Oya shook her long, narrow hand in the air.

"Those are advanced predators. This isn't a game

to them! Don't you see what they are?"

    "Animals." Rusa shook her heavy head.

"Mind your science. The rest of you, go. Bring meat

back, and we will not stop again until we find the

ptace to set up the launcher." Half the line of

young males rushed over the edge of the incline and

scrambled down toward the valley. They had worked for

months on this project, traveled weeks

in space, willingly given up their place in

society and sacrificed their futures for this, and now

they wanted only to play. Ten spikers shuffled in

a rush down the incline, their broad backs warmed

by the envy of those left behind. The others folded their

heavy legs, settled forward upon their resting bones,

retracted their arms, and lined up to watch. In the

bushes below, a flurry of heels and tails

answered the spikers' rush. Whistles and squeals of

effort chased them like the attention of wild admirers.

The spikers rattled through the brush, teasing,

snapping, stomping, and breaking as many branches as they

jumped over, making loud noise to attract the quick

little predators. When they reached the bottom of the

valley, they turned abruptly to the right and pounded

toward open ground. The small predators launched

into broad pursuit, as though they too thought they had

fallen on playtime. But there was a ferocity about their

play. Their necks were extended fully out, their

teeth gritted and leathery lips pulled back,

eyes wide beneath bony protective plates,

forearms reaching and long claws touching at the air before

them. They had crescent-shaped claws on their feet

also, held back as they ran, but theirs were much larger

in comparison to their body weight than the

spikers', and the sight of the claws clacking against

rock gave Oya the shiver of the lame. They would've

been on her by now. They would've torn her to pieces

by now. "Rusa," she said tensely, "get the

spikers back."

    "It's a game, Oya." "No, it's not."

Below, the running spikers divided into two groups and

drew the predators into division also. But they failed

to confuse the smaller ones. Several Clan males

glanced behind, expecting to be gaining range, yet

gaining none. The predators hadn't so much as

paused. They separated in almost perfect

symmetry, dividing like a leaf torn in half by the

wind. The spikers gargled a reaction and ran

faster, enticing the predators into the open. "At

least," Oya began again, "draw your weapons."

    "On lizards?" Rusa spat. "Primeval."

Oya pushed sideways past other hungry spikers

chomping as they watched and made her way to Rusa.

She lashed out toward the valley with one specifying

finger. "Those are not lizards! Those are

warm-bloods! Intelligent! Look at the resting

bones! Look at the position of their eyes! How

their brains are set upon their necks--Rusa, take

your weapons out!"

    "It's a game. They're animals. The divine

nature of the Clan is to dominate. Sit on your

bone, relax, and watch." It was Clan nature

to feast on the vanquished, to waste time eating the

conquered. This was part of the strong instinct that had slowed

them down scientifically and let others take control

of the galaxy. The Clan were good hunters, the top

of the food pyramid on their planet, and had to force

themselves to use intellect. Once bellies were

full, they would fall behind.

    Oya was a thinker and most of her life had lived

with the stigma of that. The Clan could be more brilliant,

pound for pound, than Terrans or Romulans or

Orions or anyone else, but instinct had always

overwhelmed them. Most of their science had been

borrowed, kept alive by types such as her, the lower

caste, the necessary evils. The most admired were the ones

with blood-cunning. The superior eat.

    Since she had never been able to compete

physically, Oya had developed her mind. She

had studied societies that developed faster,

discovered that not every other living thing was only food. The

deities had put her people on their planet to be the

top eaters, and as such they had never been eaten.

    They had never been able to find a genetic

link between themvs'and their own planet. They had been

put on their planet without ancestors. They were the

children of a higher purpose.

    But when they first ventured out into the galaxy to conquer

there too, they'd been driven back, held away from

their purpose, their destiny as the chosen ones left

unfulfilled.

    Held back for generation after generation by the Federation.

By the humans. Humans... who tasted the same as

the little scurrying, crawling animals on the Clan

planet.

    A flush of humiliation made Oya's skin

ripple. It was the same flush that had driven her

to conceive this plan, to go before the leaders, explain, then

explain again, then wait until after lunch, then

explain again.

    These young spikers were just right for this. They'd been

chosen from among the hatchlings five years ago and

raised to be here today. The strongest legs, the leanest

bodies, not too bigtjust right for space travel,

then long hikes through jungle, wilderness, or this

hot, crunchy land.

    Only she herself, Oya knew, was not up to this. But

she was the one who had disthought of it. Yet, as she

watched the spikers rushing through the bushes

    below, she still felt the tug to be one of the

hunter-chasers, one of those who always had enough to eat.

    Around her, the nine remaining spikers were foaming

at the teeth and quaking with excitement. Would Rusa

be able to hold them back? They wanted their turn.

    She screwed her eyes shut. She would never have

her chance. Forever she would rely on the scraps

tossed by others.

    The carrion was making her wild! She glanced at

it and at Rusa standing guard over it.

    Oya settled down on her bone and pressed her

chest forward almost to the ground. Cold anticipation

crawled through her body until she shivered in

spasms.

    The predators were anxious to get to the open area.

The spikers let themselves be driven forward, whisthng

with the rapture of the game. In a moment they would turn

on their pursuers and attack.

    The bushes fell away and the running spikers

came out into the bowl of the valley, an area with

scrubby growth where sand was kicked up in great puffs

by pounding feet and slashing claws.

    "Rusal" Oya shouted, vaulting to her feet.

"They're being eaten! Rusa, go after them!"

    Even in the early tribal wars, before the

planet squared away against the galaxy, they never

ate each other. They

    even burned their enemy's dead. None shall be

devoured. "Rusa!"

    But Rusa was staring, too, entranced by a spray of

blood and slashed skin rising out of the dust cloud.

"Weapons out!" she shouted. "Go down! Weapons

out!"

    The shocked males here on the ridge looked at

each other, at Rusa, at the valley--they

didn't understand. Below, the dust began to spread,

to flatten against the land, giving rise to the heads and

thrashing tails of the spikers.

    Bloody heads, shredded tails. The scene

opened to view, parting in a dozen places as a flower

opens and releases its scent, but this flower was

blackened, soured. From before them and from the sides, the

spikers had been corralled by more than twenty

predators--twenty more. Chased to

    haustion by a fleet they thought they were leading, the young

males were trapped in a flurry of coordinated

attacks. Every few seconds, one of them reared from

the dust cloud, skin shorn and punctured, throats

slashed, and they were drowning in the dust.

    Paralyzed, Oya gasped at what she

saw, her mouth open. Dust collected on her

tongue and the rows of her teeth.

    Rusa fired wildly across the valley, sending a

stream of energy spiraling over the scene of carnage

below, serving only to scatter a few of the predators.

Almost instantly they realized they weren't hurt and

whirled around to leap upon the panicked spikers again.

The attack was brutally coordinated, quick. There was

nothing of the arbitrary here, nothing of individual

animals seeing to themselves. This was teamwork, and that took

intelligence.

    The spikers were falling to their knees, each covered

with five or six small slashers whose

crescent-shaped hind claws sliced between the

spikers' ribs, creating lacerations like gills that

wheezed precious breath out. The spikers were going

down on their forearms like puppets whose strings were being

cut.

    "Go! Go!" Rusa roared, slamming her fists

upon the backs of the spikers around her. Each time she

struck, one of the young males came to his senses,

brandished his weapon, and rushed down the hill into comthe

flurry of whipping tails and archirig spines.

    When five were gone, Rusa held back the rest.

"Use your weapons!" she called to the fresh

team. "Fire! Fire!"

    Two of the young ones skidded to enough balance to use

their weapons. Spirals of energy blurted into the

slaughter, blasting the small predators away from

their prey, but not enough.

    "Look?" Oya shouted. "Morel"

    Out of the bushes, ten, twenty, twenty-five more

predators came flooding at the fresh spikers,

some only to be slaughtered in the beams of the weapons.

But even the fresh males couldn't move fast enough

to take down so many organized attackers. The

energy weapons whined and spat. Flesh blew away.

Shattered bones flew off and dug furrows in the

sand.

    The dust cloud rose again. Weapons clunked to the

ground, spent, useless. Others fired with blunt,

spitting deliberation.

    Gradually the slashers gave up and scrambled for the

cover of heavy overgrowth. The spikers gained

control over the site.

    "Come back! Hurry!" Rusa waved her

weapon over her head to break the trance of the shocked

youngsters below. "Leave them and hurry back here!"

    The confused, horrified spikers scrambled up'the

hill, flushed with panic as they turned their

backs on the bushes below and were wheezing when they reached

Rusa and huddled behind her, peeking out at the valley

floor.

    Within moments, the bushes rattled again. The gaggle

of slashers nosed their way out, eyeing the top of the

ridge, and made their way to the site of the slaughter.

    And they began to feed casually upon the twitching

bodies of the dying youngsters.

    Shivering with violent energy, heart pounding and mind

aflame, Oya reached across the backs of two

spikers, nearly climbing them as she did--and she

might have pierced skin herself had she not realized at the

last instant what she was doing--and managed to snatch

Rusa's weapon out of its holster.

    "We can't let it happen!"

    A blunt force cracked across her face. The

impact rolled down her long neck into her shoulders

and sent her stagger

    "It's done," Rusa raged dreadfully, her

voice sibillating, "It's over. We'll lose

even more if we try to save them. Spikers, in

linerain line! Harnesses on! Double the rigs; discard

the camp equipment. Take only the science gear;,

stop looking over the edge! Do your jobs! Aur!

Take the lead! Oya, stop looking down

there. We'll go to your high ground now."

    Here on the ridge, dumb with shock at what they

saw below, the terrorized spikers slowly gathered their

harnesses and doubled their loads, slipped into the hauling

yokes, and took on the duties of those who had gone

off in sport and ended up cut to pieces. Rusa,

Aur, and the other females

    goaded them forward, anxious to get out of here before

those fast devils below decided to climb the ridge.

They weren't used to this. None remembered any age

in which Clan had been overtaken by predators. They

had always been the toughest on their planet. Now

what? Even with weaponsmwhat? How long could their

weapons last? History had just changed below them.

No paradise. For the first time in their history,

Clan were being eaten. Legs shaking like winter

twigs, heart shattering in her comchest, Oya rested

downward and lay her extended hands upon the ground,

wracked with hate for what they were being forced to do. This was

a decision she knew was beyond her. She would have

committed every last spiker, every last leader, until

all were shredded by those smart killers below. They would

all be dead. The mission would be over. The future

would be set. Rusa was right, Oya took her place

at the rear of the line, eyeing the guard at her

side, who was eyeing the feasting predators below.

Ahead, the familiar shuffle of doubled rigs full

of equipment began again as if nothing had happened.

Limping forward, she stepped over discarded equipment

that now was too much for the shrunken team "to haul. She

scooped up one of the rig yokes and drew it over

her own head. As she pushed forward, her head hung

low and her feet moved to the cadence of spurting

blood below.

Chapter 2

    Jim Kirk heard the ship's emergency-disengage

switches trying to cross over from the new shields

to the old ones, but the switch wouldn't complete. He

kept trying to reach for them, to help or confirm the

override, but the movement kept repeating. Yet he

was aware of doing it. Each movement wasn't

entirely new. He felt each occur, then

recur. His hand hovered over the stylus again, down

there on the carpet next to McCoy's black

boot. McCoy was trying to move. Kirk sensed the

attempt but couldn't look. The doctor's hand

passed in front of him, and for an instant there was a

hint of touch on his arm, then things changed again.

Lights from separated spectral bands passed across

the carpet and McCoy's leg and what

Kirk could see of his own nose as he looked down.

The reflection off his own cheekbones nearly blinded

him. For a moment he saw the main screen as though he

were still standing straighttthe first few seconds of passing

across the blue giant. Then he was looking down again,

but no sense of movement lashed the perceptions together.

The stylus tipped and fell again. His innards pu as

he realized what was happening. Some slices of time

were caught like eddies on the banks of a rocky

river, but others were moving forward, and the moving ones were

hiring the stalled ones. Now that he knew what was

happening why was it? As human beings they had trouble

accepting hopelessness, the concept that their lives might

be unsalvageable, their ship irrecoverable. They'd

cheated death so many times, maybe they didn't

believe they could be killed. Maybe they wouldn't work

hard enough against the confusion and repeats of the immediate moments.

He'd have to talk to the crew about that. He squeezed

his eyes. These thoughts weren't threading together right. This

wasn't the time to get philosophical. They had

to get away, gain space. The engines howled louder

now, fighting for the ship's life, shutting down system

after system and stealing the power, demanding of her own

guts that she not be sucked past the point of no

return. She'd rip herself inside out

to keep that from happening. Kirk sank all his hopes

into that one chance--the ship. She had no perceptions

to confuse, no vision or hearing to be distorted, and

didn't care how many times she noted the same thing

happening She'd fight the scrolling events again and

again until she escaped or was

    He would have to talk to the crew about that. Talk about

that. The stylus fell again. This time McCoy stumbled

and landed on top of it. Kirk reached out to catch him

but only brushed his knuckles against the doctor's

bare arm before things started to change again. Talk to the

crewu The ship bellowed so loudly he thought his

eardrums would burst. Again he looked uptand this time

his neck moved Vermilion lights damned his every

motion. Spock was crossing the upper deck,

plunging toward the stabilizer monitors. The

urgency of his plunge was offset by Kirk's damning

knowledge that there was almost nothing they could do. Everything was up

to the ship now, and her ability to override each

surge of time within microseconds. That was the only

way ground could be gained. They were down to measuring their

movements in half-centimeters, and only the ship

could count those as progress. What felt like

recurrence to him might be progress to the ship. That

goddamned mightmhe hated it. How many

times had he clung to it? He'd have to talk to the

crew. Suddenly he fell on one hand and a knee

on top of McCoy. With the other hand he caught the

bridge rail. The howling of the ship changed. The

engines picked up a roar of confidence and the ship

tilted to starboard, enough to throw everyone sideways. The

peal of red alert knelled against the braying of hull

strain and engine's bull roaring. The sounds started

pulsating in his head.

    Spock's voice. Kirk turned. Turned

again. And again. Finally he saw Spock in his

periphery and managed to keep him there. "Accretion

disk!" Spock called, forcing every syllable.

"Accretion... disk!" The tone told Kirk that his

first officer wasn't having time glitch his words

into repetitions. He had said it twice on

purpose. Forcing his neck to twist until his

muscles felt twice their length, Kirk pulled

toward the forward screem The composition of Izell

had changed. A ten million-kilometer-diameter

blue giant star... had changed Great arms of

pearly fire had been blown off the star in blue and

white streaks and were being sucked into what appeared to be

a swirling disk in space. The only definition

of the disk was the matter and energy it yanked

off the star by the megaton, but this was nothing like watching the

natural beauty of a nebula or a swirling

cluster. This was pure violence. The star was being

pulled apart before their eyes--by something that hadn't been

there a few seconds ago. Nourredine crawled

forward on the bridge rail and gasped,

"ImpossibleI"

    "Source, Spocld" Kirk shouted. His tongue

felt like a wad of glue. "A black hole?"

Spock managed to shake his head once, very

deliberately. "No source of collapsed mass

--"

    "Then what is it?" What he was really asking

was, How do I fight it? And Spock knew that.

Whatever it was, even if they couldn't find it, the

force was behaving something like a black hole, except

that there wasn't any black hole. How could there be

enough gravitational force to form an accretion disk without

a black hole?

    "Impossiblemimpossiblemimpossible!" The young

engineer crawled forward twice more, three times, then

recoiled from what was happening to him and shoved himself

aft wward his post, shocked by the repetition.

"Captain!" Spock had miraculously moved from

his station to the steps between the upper and lower

bridge deck. and was hanging on to the rail.

"Speed of light--- gravity..."

    Kirk pulled toward him. "Say it again,

Spock!"

    "Gravity reacts at the speed of light," the

Vulcan struggled. "If we turn into it at high

warp--" Kirk cranked around. "Sulu, comply!"

he called, speaking fast, determined not to let time

repeat itself before he could save his ship. "Turn

into it, emergency warp factor nine!" The order

didn't make sense: turn into the accretion disk

instead of angling away? Head into it just as those streams

of crackling blue fire were doing? Would Sulu

believe him? Or think it was more distortion and do what

he was trained to do? Summoning his will muscle

by muscle, a finger, a joint at a time, Kirk

shifted one hand to Sulu's chair and dragged himself

toward the helm. He went through the motion twice but

got there. Sulu's eggshell complexion had gone

to white shellac. His hands spread over his controls

as he tried to pinch the ship harder starboard. He

knew what Kirk was thinking, but his hands kept

repeating the motion. "Setting automatic--engaging

high warp--" On the screen before them, the accretion

disk's fabulous gravitation yanked off

solar flares the size of entire solar systems,

cutting into the Izell's surface and peeling off

strands of steely fire as if that was easy. "Keep

doing it," Kirk choked. "Keep doing it... do it

again--"

    "Aye, sir," Sulu rasped. "Aye, sir,

sir, sir, aye sirw"

    "Push your... velocity."

    "Warp seven, sir,... warp eight...

nine..." Kirk pulled back toward Chekov. The

young navigator's eyes were fixed on the forward

screen and he was working his controls by feel, resisting

the urge to use one of those preprogrammed escape

angles. He had been asked by his leaders to do the

insane, and that's what he was doing. His face was

screwed into a grimace. At this point physics

is based not on certainty, but on probability.

"Work at it," Kirk uttered not too loud, or they

might try to glance at him, and that could be fatal.

They might spend their last moments glancing over and

over again instead of pinching the ship out of this mess. The

Enterprise clung to her reputation. Strong and

determined, able to take those body blows with dispassion,

she shot toward the accretion disk even as it ripped

the giant star's gorgeous inferno off like a

cheap wig. A maneuver like this could peel the hull and

melt the structural members. She howled as she

climbed successive tiers of compensation. Now that

she'd gotten her orders straight, she was

scrambling to obey, slamming forward into the intense

gravitational field at immeasurable speed.

Caught on the side of a slippery hill, she

scratched and bit her way toward her master's

voice. "Come on," Kirk murmured. "Come

on." All at once, time snapped. Jim Kirk

swore he heard the craclc Suddenly the star was behind

them and they were plunging through open space. A sharp

mechanical howl pumped up from the engineer-big

bulkheads on the port side, then dropped off.

With it went the pulling sensation holding them all down.

Kirk stumbled--his weight was suddenly cut

by nine-tenths.. He caught himself on the command chair

and shouted, "Shipwide compensation! Safe distance,

Sulu!" The helmsman only managed a nod, but

it was the right kind of nod and freed Kirk to turn his

back on the helm. At engineering, Nourredine was

crawling along the bulkhead, pulling himself toward the

controls. Engineer Scott would be doing the hard work

many decks below. "Minimum safe distance,

Captain!" Chekov gasped.

    "All stop! Stabilize!" Ten seconds

later, the red alert's hunting-horn bawl was all

that was left of the screams of near death. Breathing like

an old man, Kirk hobbled up to the engineering

subsystems on the upper deck and helped the

lieutenant bring down the top ends of his readouts.

Gradually the starship settled down around them, though

twice as many lights were flashing as usual as the

root system of mechanics throughout the ship clamored

for attention, each fiber seeing itself as the most

important. Around him, Kirk's crew was gasping

and groaning. Luckily, Sulu had let the ship

coast on impulse past the minimum safe line and

into a better zone of stability, and Chekov had

kept them from piling into any debris on its way to a

close encounter with that blue monster back there. "Good

work, both of you," he tossed off as he reached down

for McCoy. "Bones?"

    "Fine, no problem," the doctor coughed. "Just a

minor broken neck..."

    "Damage control." Sluggish, Uhura nodded.

"Aye, sir damage control parties, this is the

bridge..."

    Stumbling past McCoy and favoring his bad

foot, Kirk used both hands to drag himself,

limping and sweat-drenched, to the starboard upper deck

and to his first officer's side. "Spock? All

right?" he asked.

    "Ship's condition seems stable for the moment, sir."

    Kirk paused. "Good, but I was referring to you."

    The Vulcan met his eyes in a blunt but candid

fashion. "I am quite well. Thank you very--"

    "What happened to us? How could there be an accretion

disk with no source of collapsed mass? Do you

know?" Spock seemed to take security in having

been asked. He held his finger out to a scale that

came up on one of the monitors. "I have yet

to isolate the cause of the accretion disk, but when we

reached the point at which our conventional shields would have

collapsed, the force of gravitation and warping of

space-time went off all scales. Our conventional

shields would have shut down at this point, but the warp

shields allowed us to approach the apex of the star's

equatorial region. Then the warp drive

weakened, and the shields started failing. The engines were

bombarded with X rays, therefore could no longer

support the shields. We were plunged into an

effect of almost unreality as the shields broke

down. Somehow, space-time was distorted by our

actions."

    "It's that 'somehow" that bothers me," Kirk said.

"At times even the hull looked transparent. I

kept seeing myself doing what I'd done five

seconds before." Spock nodded. "When the shields

started failing, they not only stopped acting as

shields, but began acting as a lens, focusing energy

back upon the ship rather than dissipating it, and trapping

it inside the shield sphere. The ship was nearly

incinerated. Only veering into the... "object" within

four seconds saved us. Because we could move faster

than the gravity moving at the speed of light, we

actually passed through it before it had a chance to crush

us."

    "That's pretty good for a ten-second

analysis." Looking tired and relieved, Spock

tilted his head graciously. "Thank you,

Captain." Burying a shudder, Kirk allowed himself

a long breath. "So much for warp shielding. Intense

gravity seems to throw all our probability

equations out the window."

    "Obviously there are unforeseen flaws,"

Spock said quietly. "A minuscule

probability became nearly a certainty, and the

technology broke down. It will take years

to unravel exactly what happened to the

shields." "Somebody else's years, Mr.

Spock, not ours." The captain glanced around at his

people as they coddled the ship into turning off some of those

bells and jangles. "That's what tests are for."

He pivoted toward Uhura. "Go to yellow alert.

Report all major damage up here."

    "Yellow alert, sir," Uhura answered. She

pressed back a flop of black hair that had

twisted into her way and gathered her composure.

"Secure from red alert... Repeat, secure from

red alert. All hands go to yellow alert... yellow

alert... Report minor damage to department

heads, all major damage to the first officer."

Kirk listened to the sound of her voice and let the

regulation evenhandedness crowd out little fears that still

shivered in the corners of his mind. "Spock, see

if you can figure out what happened."

    "I will, sir." Stunning how sharply something like this

could be on them and then over with. As Kirk and Spock

stood together and waited for those damage reports, the

bridge crew began to move with more control, burying

their shaken nerves in the therapy of their work. The

crisis had hit, they'd fielded it, it had flown,

and now there was nothing to do but coil lines and tidy the

deck. They had lived. One more time, they'd

pulled out at the last second and earned solace.

And the damned stylus was finally staying on the deck.

"Captain!" Irritated, Kirk looked sharply

down at Chekov. "Ensign?" "Exeter and

Farragut--Captain, they're gone! They're both

gone!"

Chapter 3

    "EX-PLAIN that!"

    "No vessels of any kind within sensor range,

sir," Sulu confirmed, scrambling to cross-check

the navigator's discovery. "Not even at extreme

range." Unclamping his finger from the edge of the

library computer housing, Kirk pushed off the

console. "Spock, confirm that reading. Sensor

failure?" Spock squinted into the readout hood.

"Sensor systems are somewhat scorched but

accurate. No vessels registering at all,

sir." Squinting until his eyes hurt, Kirk

drew a breath. "Red alert." U-hum looked

at him for an instant, then turned away and

funneled that pedal-toned voice through the ship. "Red

alert... all hands, red alert. Man general

quarters... Red alert--" The amber flashers on

the walls suggesting that they were on the edge of trouble

turned to bright electric red. Prowling the

main screen, Kirk became abruptly

suspicious of everything. The blue giant was still out

there, spooling merrily its blazing gases, so the

Enterprise hadn't been thrown light-years away

by some unguessed power. So what happened to the other

ships? "They can't have run out of our scanning range

so quickly, not even at high warp. Full search

pattern, all stations. Wide-range sensor scan

of the area." He paused, his instincts twitching, and

added with great deliberation, "Adjust for disaster

beacons or wreckage." McCoy was watching him,

face white and eyes wide. Everyone else was

working, putting out a thousand feelers through space. That

wide black expanse before them teased their awareness

of how fragile they were out here without the protective

islands of their vessels to keep them alive.

"Lieutenant Uhura," Kirk began quietly,

"audio scan of subspace. See what you can

hear."

    "Aye, sir." She pivoted to her station,

adjusted, listened, adjusted again, frowned, touched the

earpiece linking her to the outside galaxy, adjusted

some more, but didn't like what her instruments drew in.

"Captain, this..." She paused and fine-tuned again.

Dissatisfaction creased her dark eyes.

"This doesn't make sense." She swiveled around

and looked at him. "I'm not picking up any

subspace noise on conventional channels at

all." He moved toward her. "Garbled?"

    "No, sir, not garbled. Just... nothing. Empty

space. I can't explain it. I can't even catch

drifting residual signals on Starfleet or

Federation channels at all. Not at all." She

turned from him long enough to run an emergency

flash-diagnostic just to make sure her systems were

at least talking to each other. There was nothing worse

for a communications professional than to hear nothing.

"This simply can't be. Subspace signals linger

for years sometimes!"

    "Keep searching, Lieutenant," Kirk said.

His calm was a lie. "Prepare to send high-warp

hails, emergency scramble. Call for immediate

rendezvous, these coordinates."

    "Aye, sir."

    "Captain," Spock said, stepping in behind him,

"no disaster beacons, no propelled or drifting

wreckage of any kind, and no life pod carrier

loops."

    "Then they didn't collide with each other."

    "Space is unthinkably large for such

an occurrence, sir." Spock's way of agreeing.

"Jim!" McCoy gripped the command chair. "Could

that incident have done something to us?" Kirk shot the

same glare at Spock. "Time warp? Have we gone

either forward or back? Have we been thrown any

distance?" Spock looked embarrassed that he hadn't

thought of that but vectored back to his station, tapped his

panel with three or four touches, then hovered over

the readout hood. Its frosty blue light washed

across his eyes. "Calibrating relative position

of stars. Negligible changes. We experienced a

time shift of only... four minutes, twenty-one

seconds. Our location is also stable, since

Izell is still within sensor range."

    "All that was only four minutes?" Kirk

moaned. "Four minutes during our encounter with the

blue giant."

    "Then where are they? If this is Doug Newman's

idea of a joke, I'll have his hide." Still bending

over his station, running program after program through the

computer, eliciting the machine's help in coughing up

possible causes for a four-minute vanishing of two

ships, Spock dealt with his own subtle

incredulity. "I doubt even Captain Newman

could engineer the total disappearance of two

starships. Even a cloaking device produces a

ripple effect."

    "Can they be hiding behind the blue giant?" Spock

frowned at the idea. "Certainly not in four

minutes without residual trail from their warp

drive."

    "I know. I just wanted to hear you say it."

    "Sir, long-range sensors snapping on,"

Sulu interrupted. He squinted into his own

readouts. "Large vessel approach-

    "About time. Identification." Their flashing hopes

and "assumptions cracked to pieces when Spock

said, "Unknown configuration..." Suddenly he

looked up. "Romulan signature." Levering on

one hand, Kirk leaned on the bridge rail to get

his bad leg out of his way. He dropped to the command

deck. His jaw hardened. "Battle stations," he

said.

Chapter 4

    "RAISE SHIELDS." Sulu turned. "Warp

shields, sir?"

    "Negative. Conventional shields. I'm not

taking that chance until we know what happened to us.

Arm everything we've got."

    "Phasers armed... Photons armed...

Ready, sir." Diagnostics flashed across the

upper rim of the bridge, sifting the incoming ship, but

there was heavy shielding on that ship, too, and every little

detail became a win. "Captain, they're

attempting to scan us," Spock said. "Jam it.

I want to know who they are." Kirk swabbed a

clammy hand across his face and blinked the sweat out of

his eyes. The bridge was hot, muggy. "Confirm that

signature, Spock," he said. "I want to be

sure."

    "Standard warp drive... Slightly richer

formula than usual... Vessel is double-hulled,

double-shielded, heavily armed... Communication

echoes specifications..." Bent over his console,

Spock half turned to meet the captain's eyes.

"No doubt, Captain." Gritting his teeth,

Kirk grunted, "All right, then... maximum

visual. Let's have a look.". The forward screen

shifted its star pattern, and suddenly they were staring

head-on at a pit bull of a space vessel.

Even at this distance, the ship looked twice the size

it should have on this magnification. That made it almost

twice the size of the Enterprise. Kirk pressed

his spine against the black leather of his command chair. The

vessel was shaped like a crouched cat, with arched

weapon launchers for muscles and two forward

viewports for eyes, dark blue with yellow markings

disguised as lights, so only a close look showed

where the lights really were. There were great stylized

wings painted onto the hull, archirig up in contrast

to the shape of the ship itself. A war bird's wings.

Those, at least, were familiar, but all the

reassurance of familiarity was a lie. The rest of the

paint, the nondecorative colors, was designed

to make the ship look smaller than it was and to confound

the eye during visual targeting, angled where there were

no angles, dark where there were no shadows, except

for those two glowing portals, like an eagle's eyes

in the dark. Pretty good effect. "Romulans in

a ship like that?" McCoy blurted. "Since when?"

    "Could be renegades," Noureddine suggested.

Tight as a drawn bow, Kirk pulled forward.

"Display all Starfleet codes, pennants, and

signals. Imply minor distress so they don't

take us as hostile. Request flagging and home

system I.d."

    "Aye, sir." Uhura's voice, like

Noureddine's, pretended to be calm. She was a

lot better at it than the engineer. "Open hailing

frequencies, audio only."

    "Frequencies open, sir." Kirk cleared his

throat. "This is Captain James T. Kirk,

commanding U.s.s. Enterprise. You are in Federation

jurisdiction. Stand down your weapons and identify

yourselves immediately." He paused and waited. This was always

the bad time. Uhura perked up suddenly.

"Receivin response... Seems to be some kind

of warning or challenge... Definitely native

Romulan, sir." Having confirmed that, she touched

her earpiece and frowned. "But I don't think they

understand what we said." MoCoy leaned toward him.

"If they're Romulan, they should know passable

English. Why can't they speak to us?" The pain in

Kirk's leg was pumping for attention again.

"Uhura, universal translator."

    "Engaged, sir. Go ahead."

    "This is Captain James Kirk of the United

Federation of Planets. You are in violation "This is

the Imperial Guard. You are in the war zone.

Identify yourselves and your purpose." The alien

voice thrummed across the bridge. "I just did,"

Kirk muttered. "This is James Kirk, commanding

the Federation Starship Enterprise. You are in

Federation space. Explain yourselves."

    "We have never heard your language.

What is your homeworld?" Kirk and McCoy

exchanged a glance, then, just for security, he

looked up at Spock. Spock looked down at

him and all but shrugged. With a silent nod, Kirk

passed the shrug on to the alien craft. "Earth,"

he said, more flippantly than he meant. On the

upper deck, Spock appeared more troubled. He

bent to double-check what he already knew--and he almost

never did that. "There is no 'Earth." What is your

true homeworld?" Kirk ran a finger along his lower

lip and allowed himself time to think. He motioned

Uhura to go silent and leaned on an elbow.

"Well, hell," he murmured. Why did it

seem so long since he had a captain to do his

worrying and thinking and make decisions for him? He was

so tired today... He tried to think. Large,

heavily armed alien ship, apparently Romulan,

hadn't heard of Earth-- "Chekov," he said,

"man the defense subsystems station." The

Russian navigator jumped up from his chair with a

faint "Aye, sir" and hurried to the starboard bow

quarter, up the walkway from Spock's station.

Kirk glared at that big ship coming at them and drew

a deep breath. His chest hurt now, too.

"Uhura, take navigation." Her chair

made a faint squeak as she turned, then stepped

down and slid into the helm chair at navigation.

"Spock," Kirk began reservedly, "opinion.

Are they lying? Testing us for some reason?" The first

officer kept tight to his instruments but glared with

plagued fascination at the encroaching vessel. "I

cannot conceive of any such reasoning. Federation space has

been well marked for decades."

    "What can it get them?" McCoy offered.

"Maybe they're trying to foment a dispute."

    "There's no dispute here, Doctor," Kirk

said. "They're well inside our territory. The

question now is whether or not they represent the

Romulan Empire as they claim to. I've

never heard of anything called "Imperial

Guard," Romulan or otherwise. All right,

we'Have do it the hard way. High frequency

all-points display. Warn them off. I want a

sphere of clear nonentry. Range?"

    "Five hundred thousand kilometers, sir,"

Uhura reported. "Sir!" Sulu blurted.

"I'm getting a firing sequence. They're opening

fire! Quadramegaton salvos!"

    "Evasive action. Emergency warp five."

Kirk pushed to the edge of his chair, intending

to stand, but at the last second his foot sent pain

stabbing up into his hip and kept him down. Huge

white globular bolts were launched from the Imperial

ship and bore down toward the Enterprise, but the

starship wasn't waiting around. Sulu angled the

ship off and pressed her into high speed. "Photon

torpedoes," Kirk ordered. "Narrow dispersal."

    "Targeting, sir," Chekov said. "Fire

torpedoes one and two." The ship bucked twice,

buffeted by her own firing system coming into action in the

middle of a very tight turn. Bright salvos plunged

in on some kind of acquisition program, dodging

after them no matter how the starship plunged and veered.

One salvo was losing power, but the second held

integrity and flashed in at them. The bulkheads

shuddered, structural members hummed. Straining

to hold course, the ship skidded to one side and sent

her crew smashing into their consoles. Kirk held on

to his chair and managed to grab McCoy and hold

on before the doctor stumbled into the helm. "Engineering

section" Nourredine choked. "Possible str

ructural rupture--"

    "Another incoming, sir!" Sulu shouted over their

voices. A heartbeat later the second hit

struck. The ship jogged slightly to one

side, then continued building speed. "Glancing blow

off the port nacelle, sir," Spock called

over the noise. "Stabalizing."

    "What about our shots?" Spock straightened and

turned. "Both direct hits. They made no

attempt at all to evade our fire. Damage

is uncertain."

    "Negative. They seem to be topping off at

warp seven."

    "I'll take it. Mr. Sulu, warp

factored"

    "Captain, another contact!" Uhura

interrupted. "Dead ahead!" The screen dropped the

departure angle and flashed to a garish picture of

what could're been the same ship, but stationary in

front of them. Kirk pushed to his feet. "Same

as the ship behind us, sir," Sulu confirmed. "Sound

collision."

    "They're blocking us," Sulu said, effort rising

in his tone. Kirk gritted his teeth. "Ram them."

The helmsman didn't dare turn from his instruments

because things were happening too fast. "Say again--"

    "Ram it? "Aye, sir!" Sulu gasped,

raising his voice over the whine of instruments and

warnings. "Brace for collision!" Everyone

grabbed for a handhold as a moment of horror reared

itseft that even a starship couldn't survive.

Holding his breath as they relapsed into danger,

Kirk made a mental bet on his helmsman that

Sulu knew better than to ram anything head on and

would find a way to glance off that monster. Get out of

my way. He grasped the arm of his chair and hung

on.

Chapter 5

    The huLITTLE pushed up at him, the carpet

pressing upward into his aching foot. On the

screen, the big menace tilted at a bizarre

angle. A turbolift nausea worked on his

stomach. He held on to the chair with both hands and

damned the lights flashing in his mind. The hit went

straight to his bones. Where had the two ships

struck? The primary hull could take a lot, but

those nacelles--if they were knocked off alignment

by so much as a centimeter-- He leaned forward, found

the back of his chair, and wrapped an arm around it as

though clinging to a friend. The forward screen was full of

stars. Open space! "Status? he choked.

"We're clear, sir? Sulu gulped. "Aft

view!" The main screen shimmered and brought them a

picture of the second enemy ship, spinning

awkwardly, driven by the impact, one of its big

weapon-launch arches sliced open to reveal sizzling

veins of energy pouring into space, crackling with the

change in temperature. "Damage report,"

Kirk demanded. "We grazed the underside of our

primary hull, sir," Uhura said. "Forward

port quarter." Spock quickly straightened. "No

compromise in maneuverability or thrust,

Captain."

    "Mr. Sulu, get us out of here," Kirk

gasped, holding his tone down. "Warp eight."

Sulu swallowed a lump. "Warp eight, sir."

A sharp turn to starboard threw them all

sideways, but they'd heard the order and everybody

managed to cling to something. The ship's massive warp

engines vibrated through the hull and into the crew's

bodies as speed piled upon speed. "We're leaving

them behind, Captain." Spock's deep voice was not

only the knell of security, but a plain relief.

"At least we know we can outrun them," Kirk said

with an involuntary shudder. At engineering,

Lieutenant Nourredine stared at the empty

screen, breathing hard. "We ran..." Looking up

at him, Kirk noticed for the first time the youth and

freshness up there. He hadn't really paid

attention before. He'd never questioned Engineer Scotts

choice of post assignments or the crusty department

head's habit of shuttling very young engineers to the

bridge for instant experience. Sometimes they got

caught in a vise. Like now. "Of course we

ran," he said. Paying the price of bridge

duty, the engineer blinked. "No... no disrespect

intended, sir. I just thought--"

    "You thought the good guys never retreat. As a

matter of fact, it's the good guys who know when

to retreat, in my experience." Kirk settled

back in his chair and let his shoulders ache. "All

through history there are episodes of clever saves."

    "I... didn't know that, sir."

    "I'll tell you the stories sometime."

    "Thank you, sir."

    "Damage report, anyone?"

    "Oh--" Nourredine shook himself and cloyed to his

work. "Minor damage across almost the whole port

side of the engineering section. No major hull

ruptures discovered yet, but sensors have taken

a.beating. Long-range sensors are reduced

twenty-two percent, but looks like short-range

sensors are down completely."

    "Put the hull stability on

priority."

    "Yes, sir." "Captain," Spock

interrupted quietly from his post; "if you would,

please." Kirk glanced up and anchored himself to the

complex, solid expression of his first officer. There

were answers up there, he saw in the black eyes and the

frictionless posture. Troubled answers, but

answers. He pulled himself up with a grip on the

back of Uhura's chair. "Lieutenant, take

your post and see if you can contact Starfleet Command

on a scrambled frequency. I want to know what's

going on. If they don't know, I'm going to tell

them."

    "Yes, sir, I'll try," Uhura

murmured, moving behind him. Spock waited until

the captain limped to the steps, then reached down

to help him to the upper deck. He kept his voice

low, private. "We're most fortunate that we

evaded head-on strikes by those salvos," the

Vulcan said. "Quadmmegaton force is

sufficient to break our shielding and possibly

inflict majpr damage with one blow. I am at a

loss to explain the Romulans' access to such a

weapon. There are no reports from Starfleet

Intelligence of any such possession."

    "I'm aware of that. What else?"

    "I believe I know what happened to us." With a

disbelieving smirk, Kirk asked, "You analyzed

what happened to us at the same time as we were under

fire?" Spock looked perplexed, then a little

guilty. "I had begun the analysis when the other

vessel--" "Never mind. Let's hear it."

    "If you would attend monitor number three...

the ship's automatic recording system captured

this series of events. The pictures are not the

usual quality. Energy was being tapped from this system

to the hull plate shields when the warp shields

began to break down."

    "Yes, it saved our lives." Kirk couldn't

help a little squint, as if that would help. The

accretion disk was there as well as miles-long

licks andblue solar flares and solid mass being

torn off the giant star. But there was an added

element. Something the big forward screen hadn't

registered the first time around. This time there was a slice

through the picture, as though a scalpel had been

drawn from top to bottom at dead center of the

accretion disk. Kirk leaned forward. "What's

that?"

    "Computer analysis revealed this

central spool," Spock said evenly. "As we

arched across the blue giant's heavy gravity field

at warp speed, with the new shields operating as they

did, we began to generate a change in the gravity,

in fact yanking material and energy toward ourselves.

We created the accretion disk, which then began to drag

us toward it. In essence, we created a node."

He paused, letting the word sink in. "Do I have

to ask?" Kirk prodded. "No, sir. A node,

theoretically--is a period of stabalization for

cosmic string." Kirk actually backed off a

step. Even the talk of this kind of blind power made

him nervous. A kind of scientists' tall story.

Spock watched him. "As you know, cosmic string

exists between layers of space-time. Our new warp

shields work by displacing energy through space-time."

    "And we catalyzed it..."

    Turning, Kirk motioned to the center deck.

"Doctor, come up here. I want you to hear this.,

McCoy's eyes were already fixed on the small

monitor. He moved toward them, keeping one hand

on some part of the bridge--a chair, the rail, and

finally the captain's elbow. "I'll bet you're

going to describe to me how many broken bones and

concussions are waiting for me in sickbay,"

he muttered, but he wasn't being funny. "Did you

hear what Spock was explaining?" Kirk asked.

The doctor nodded vaguely. "Something about...

cosmic yarn." Indulging in a sigh, Spock

clasped his hands behind his back. "Cosmic string.

Primordial matter so tightly spun that

    it manifests itself in immeasurable gravity slicing

through the levels of space-time, much as a knife

might go through paper. It is so dense that it actually

bends space and time. In the proximity of cosmic

string, nothing works as we know it. Thousands of

trillions of tons per centimeter, traveling at

nearly the speed of light, it is indescribably

small--" McCoy glared at him suddenly.

"Try." The challenge lit Spock's black

eyes. "It could pass through a planet and not

collide with a single molecule."

    "So what? What's a molecule, more or less,

among friends?" The doctor glanced at Kirk. "So

it passes through."

    "As it moves," Speck went on with false

tolerance, "it would crush the planet to the size of a

walnut. The poles would rush toward each other at

ten thousand miles per hour. If an atom were as

large as a nebula, cosmic string would still

be the diameter of a becteriumm"

    "That's enough." The doctor looked like he'd been

slapped. "I got those last two--"

    "This doesn't make sense," Kirk

interrupted. "There's no string in this solar system.

We would've picked up its X-ray and

gamma-ray distortion--comor at least we'd have seen

its gravitational effect on every star in the area as it

passed by. If it just passed near a planet,-it

would yank off the atmosphere and half the surface

mass."

    "That is precisely what it did, sir,"

Speck said, "to Izell. It consumed nearly a

quarter of the star's mass."

    "Yes, but space is a vastly empty place,

Speck. You said that earlier. It's filled with

mostly nothin The odds of string appearing here, at this

time, this space--they're trillions to one." With

damning ease the Vulcan said, "And we are the

one." Every now and then, when two like moods were in the right

equinox, Spock would make a joke, but as

Kirk and McCoy gazed at him, they realized quite

abruptly that this wasn't one of those times. "In

fact," Spock went on, "we attracted the string

to this space-time by creating the node of

stability for it. As it traveled through dimensions, it

was momentarily caught .. here."

    "Sounds to me like it's almost the same as a black

hole," McCoy said. Some of the color was coming

back into his face.

    The Vulcan nodded briefly. "True. But

unlike a black hole, it has no dimension."

    "But how did we survive being so close to it?"

    "By moving at hyperlight speed," Kirk said.

"Gravity moves at the speed of light. We were

within a million miles of the string. At warp nine,

that distance was traveled almost instantaneously. The

crushing waves tried to act on the ship at the speed

of light, but by turning into it we were actually dragged

into the string and passed through it faster than its gravity

waves could crush us."

    McCoy stared and shook his head. "That's

phenomenal... I can't conceive of that!"

    "Neither can I," Kirk said bluntly, "but that's

what saved us and I'll take it." With a bitter

knot forming in his gut, he lowered his voice.

"Spock, could the cosmic string have destroyed the

Exeter and the Farragut?"

    The prospect reared its inhumane snout and

cracked them like a whip. All of a sudden the

speculation had a foul solidity.

    Finally, under the eyes of the whole bridge crew,

Spock faced the captain. "I am only assuming

that physics acts as we know it under such

circumstances, Jim," he admitted. Worry

showed in his eyes. "I am not that sure of these

details." At least he was brave enough to say it.

    Kirk freed him with a nod. Something on the

bridge was starting to whine, and the forward screen was losing

its picture.

    "Captain," Uhura said, and only then did he

realize she'd been watching them, trying to catch his

attention and find a good place to interrupt.

    "Report, Lieutenant."

    "Sir..."

    "Say it."

    "Sh', I can't pick up Starfleet on any

channel. In fact, I

    can't pick up anybody at all on any

Federation channel."

    "You mean there's complete silence?"

    "Oh, no, sir, I'm catching ragged signals

on other channels, but it all seems to be

scrambled. My translators aren't recognizing

a single code. I'll... keep trying."

    He saw the fear behind her confusion and her

determination to reach out into space and find something.

    That expression on the faces of his crew--that

decipherable fear, asking him to take care of them,

to come up with the missing piece to the puzzle--the burden

seemed iron hard today.

    "Tampering with space-time," he murmured,

"dimensions... We could're caused any number of

wild things to happen... Did those two alien ships

slip through a dimensional crack when that string paused

here? Have we loosed them on our own galaxy without

event"

    "But they were Romulan!" Chekov bolted.

    "Yes, sir," Sulu added. "Even though we

didn't recognize the ship, they weren't from some

other dimension. We know who they are."

    "Yes," the captain uttered. "Romulans."

    The whine got louder. It was blocking his thoughts.

"Course of action, sir?" Spock asked.

    He could barely hear now. He fought to think.

"Course of action... We'll go by the book.

Starfleet Catastrophic Response Code,

Section A: when all forms of communication fail

to establish a link between Starfleet vessels and any

Federation outpost, all personnel and

ordnancere"

    "Will attempt immediate rendezvous at Starfleet

Command," Spock completed..

    "Yes. Uhura, open all frequencies...

Scan continually for any Federation contact at all.

Sulu"

    "Jim!" McCoy caught his arm on one side,

Spock on the other. Kirk registered that his legs

weren't holding his weight. His thighs pressed back

on the computer housing.

    "You've got to let me treat you," McCoy

insisted, "or you're not going to be conscious to deal with

this."

    The doctor had gone no-nonsense, and there

wasn't going

    to be any more putting off. Medical authority had

just kicked in. "All right," Kirk wheezed, "all

right... Spock, do it." Still holding him up,

Spock turned to the helm. "Mr. Sulu, set a

direct course for Earth, warp factor eight."

    "Warp eight, sir." Sulu's response was a

buzz. As his head wobbled and the earpet reeled before his

eyes, Kirk tried to nod to Spock. "Good... be

sure to keep us out of trouble--" The last thing he

registered as they carried him off the bridge

was the life-buoy voice he would cling to in his

encroaching nightmares. "I will, Captain."

Chapter 6

    "APPROACHING THE SOL SYSTEM, Mr.

Spock."

    "Thank you, Mr. Sulu. Still no response from

Starfleet, Lieutenant?" The first officer

didn't turn for Uhura's answer. He knew

she wasn't ready to give it. The clicking and

straining of her computer complex told him she was still

reaching into space for messages, codes, symbols,

something familiar. Yet he had asked. As the words

left his lips, he tasted the illogic of asking.

An inefficient habit he had picked up after

nearly two decades of service in the company of

humans. She would have told him if there had been a

change. All the way here, past planets

colonized by the Federation, outposts, starbases--there

had been nothing but silence. No response to any

search or hail. Starfleet Catastrophic

Response Code demanded that they not stray

to investigate but head straight to Earth to rendezvous

with anyone else who might also find themselves alone in

the silence. "Nothing, sir." Uhura's voice was

heavy, soft with trouble. "No nearby

subspace communication of any kind, Starfleet or

private. This area should be teeming with

transportation. I don't understand it, sir."

Spock felt stiff, empty. "Understanding will come with

time, Lieutenant," he said. "For now we deal with

only the facts." He leaned forward in the command

chair, his brow tight as the planets of the Sol

system floated by in brainless innocence--and utter

lifelessness. Not a light, not a signal, not a

single colonial satellite. He spoke of

facts, but his hands were clenched, elbows pressed hard

to the chair. His chest felt hollow, and he did not

possess the logical answers with which to fill it.

"Status of tactical sensors now, Mr.

Nourredine?" "Only up to thirty percent, sir.

Mr. Scott wants six hours." "Acknowledge

that."

    "Yes, sir."

    "Sir, we're approaching Earth," Sulu said.

Everyone paused and looked up. Before them the

familiar solar system they'd all cut their teeth

on scrolled out, planet after planet, moons,

asteroids, and the tolerant yellow sun far beyond. And

Earth, home to them all in one way or another,

home to Starfleet, core of the Federation, a

sedate blue ball marbled with clouds and dashed with

spice-colored land masses-- "Mr. Spock,"

Chekov began, "where are the space docks?"

    "Where are the orbital stations?" Nourredine

echoed. "I don't pick up any lunar

installationsre"

    "Go to the dark side of the planet, Mr.

Sulu," Spock interrupted. Ordinarily, this would

have been a beautiful sight. Moving from the sun-bathed

side to the comforting nest of shadow, where glittering

cities shone their prosperity. through mindless patches

of cloud. No cities... Sulu turned, his

face blanched. "Could it all have been destroyed

somehow, sir?" For a moment Spock didn't

respond. The concept was too encompassing for a yes

or no. He would let the reassurance of science

put a frame around the outlandish moment.

"Tactical," he ordered. "Thirty percent will have

to do. Mr. Chekov, if you please." Chekov

slid out of his post and jumped up to the science

monitors. Seconds went by like surgical time.

"No wreckage or flotsam... No industrial

residue... No propulsion traces,

manufactured surplus, or sensor shadows."

Struggling with the idea as much as he struggled

with the English language, he turned and added, "No

sign of life at all, sir." Spock sat

back in his chair. "I assume you mean there is no

sign of contemporary industrial life, Ensign."

Chekov mentally retreated but seemed strengthened by the

demand for accuracy. "Yes, sir." Spock dug

deep within himself for the indifference that sustained him but found

it lacking. No one, not even a Vulcan, could

gaze upon an emptiness where once there had been

teeming intelligent life and roaring progress, the

roots of his heritage and the pediments of his

civilization, and remain passive. He had no

desire to be passive. But the people glancing at him

from all sides expected him to be their logical

foundation. He struggled for that and found himself wishing the

captain were here. He pulled his voice up. "Bring

us into orbit, Mr. Sulu."

    "Bones. his

    "Right here, Jimallyou'll be fine in a minute."

Kirk squeezed his eyes shut hard, then

concentrated on opening them. All he saw was a

pale gray haze. Maybe blue. Maybe

white. The walls in sickbay. Mechanical

biceps and whirs--the diagnostic panel. His

heart rate was up. He tried to raise his

aching head but succeeded only enough to catch a glimpse

at his own body, thick and muscular and lying

completely useless on the bed's black cushion.

The mustard-colored uniform shirt and his black

trousers beyond; his boots were still on. So it hadn't

been long since he collapsed. He let his head

fall back and winced at the memory of folding on

the bridgen't go down that way, slumping in front of

his juniors. How long? An hour? Two? How

much could go wrong in that much time? "Where are you?" he

rasped. A fuzzy blue pillar appeared, and for the

life of him Kirk couldn't figure out where from.

"I've got to get up there."

    "That's a laugh," the doctor popped back, as

though he'd been keeping the response in his pocket

for quick use. The slim blue pillar sharpened and

became McCoy, regarding him with a scolding

wisdom. "Captain, you've been very sick for the past

nine hours. You're not out of danger yet." Kirk

thrust himself up on an elbow. For a minute he thought

his arm would shatter under the strain. "Was I dead?"

The doctor paused, and blinked. "Well, how much

does proximity count?"

    "Then I want to be up on the bridge. You

get me up

    "Status?"

    "Orbital status at Earth, Captain.

Short-range sensors still seventy percent blind."

Spock's voice was subdued, indicative. They

instantly understood each other. Trouble. Nothing

solved yet. What Kirk had seen before he passed

out hadn't been an illusion or a glitch or even

a complete crash of their systems. The ship was still in

the middle of a great big wrong. Pulling his arm

loose from McCoy's custodial grasp, he

cleared himself of the turbolift and made it to the rail.

As Spock met him there, he anticipated what

he saw in his first officer's expression. "I'm

all right. Tell me what we've got." As the

soft orange lights from the low ceiling lay upon his

shoulders like warm hands, Spock glanced at the forward

screen. "We have no visible signs of current

constructed civilization at all. No space

docks, cities, or traffic of any kind, nor

are we picking up residue from propulsion or other

energy emissions. No city lights or other

artificial lightingre" "Power generation?"

    "None. This solar system is completely

pristine. Void of communication, current or

lingering, and all of our colonial

installations are absent."

    "What about life forms?"

    "Tactical sensors are still too weak to break

through the atmosphere."

    "Then we'll have to go down there for ourselves... and

look around." Kirk sensed Spock watching him

carefully, as though encroaching on a troubled prayer,

waiting to catch the captain's attention. After a

minute Kirk couldn't avoid it anymore and

looked at him. "May I suggest," Spock said,

"that I lead a science party down, sir, and

investigate in some depth." Anxiety ate at

Kirk's stomach as he watched the blue oceans and

sienna continents slide by under the white froth of

clouds--yes, the atmosphere was still there. Perhaps it was

a good sign that it hadn't been ripped away. It was

chafing comfort, but at least it was something. "Organize

your landing party, Mr. Spock," he said, "and tell

Scotty to come up here and take command. I want

to see this for myself."

    "Spock, are we in the right place?" Kirk

blinked and shielded his eyes. A tree bough wagg

overhead and cast a sharp movement on the blue

uniform tuniCan as the Vulcan turned away from the

eye-level sun and squinted at his

tricorder. "Longitude and latitude are

exact, I'm afraid, Captain." Before them,

overgrown hills and nestled pockets of grassland

rolled five miles out to a blinding blue-gray

bay. In the valleysBhuge, broad valleys

curtained by green crests --comentire square miles

of open lands were drenched in yellow flowers

spotlighted by the setting sun. McCoy came up

beside him. "The transporter officer must have made a

mistake." Favoring his bad foot, Jim Kirk

moved to the edge of the bluff. His throat was raw.

"You recognize the lay of the land, don't you?

We're right where I told you we were going."

McCoy stared at him, then raised his hand and swept

it to

    "Then where the devil... is San

Francisco?" The great western bay shimmered in the

middle distance as the sun sank. No Golden

Gate Bridge. No tangled ribbons of

municipal streets and skyways. No central

metropolis. No polished urban sprawl. No

buildings to catch and reflect the buttering sunshine.

And the no in those Phrases began to knell. Only

the whistle of water birds and the skitter of animals

in the darkening bushes -- an- endless

purgatory of pastoral. "At least the hills are

still here," McCoy rasped from beside him. "It looks

exactly as it's supposed to," Kirk said.

"All the right trees, grass, a blue sky, the

bay... just no buildings. No people."

    "Feels very void to me." "me, too. No one

here to appreciate it."

    "Jim, do you thinkBut" McCoy stopped as a

crunch of footsteps brought Spock back to them.

Spock came around in front of them despite that it

brought him so close to the edge that his boots forced a

handful of rocks to drop and rattle down the cliff

face. He anchored himself on the captain's gaze.

"Gentlemen, we're standing where the reception

solarium of Starfleet Command should be. Admiral

Landali's office

    there, Admirals Oliver and Nogura's

offices there, and the VIP sanctum just beyond. On the

tip of that hill should be the surgeon general's wing,

and in the valley to your left, the physical training

ground of Starfleet Academy and the Thomas

Jefferson Vintage Rose Garden." In their

minds the recitation went on, places and monuments,

trees and bridges they all wanted to be here. But

Speck had a point to make and had made

it. The three of them stood looking out over the

scrubby overgrowth that in their minds was a manicured

panorama of old roses whose seeds had been

smuggled through wars, hidden in family coffins and

ladies' gloves until they could be brought to bloom

in the bright new century. Now there was nothing but

overgrown grass and wildflowers, trees rustling in

the offshore breeze, sheets upon sheets of yellow

blooms waving like fabric as they caught the last

strong blaze of sunlight. Not bad, but not roses.

"All right," Kirk groaned. "We'll start from

scratch and work our way up. Rundown of crew

specialties, please, Mr. Spocko" Speck

started pointing at the line of bewildered uniformed

personnel, each already swiveling around with ghoulish

curiosity. They were an attractive group against the

bright daylight, all ages, decked in their bright

modern primary reds and blues, edged with black,

and the dot of shimmering gold Starfleet delta

shield on each breast. Each had a tricorterer

hanging from a thin black strap over a shoulder,

except the four security men who had full phaser

weapons and emergency packs. Very competent looking,

comforting, crisp against this crackling world that should have been

a core of modern development. This was a

place where someone would scratch out a campsight, not

plan the expansion of a vast and technical

civilization through the galaxy. "Lieutenant Mark

Rice, geology and geophysics," Speck

began, "Lieutenant Louise LaCerra,

paleontology and zoology; Lieutenant

Elizabeth Ling, botany and zoology;

Lieutenant Dale Bannon, anthropology;,

his assistant, Ensign Erica Smith; and Chief

Chemist eroston Barnes. Security detail

Ensigns Williams and MacGuinness, Yeomen

Rhula and Hardy."

    "You brought the whole university," Kirk said.

He knew their names, except for the newly

transferred botanist and one of the Security men, but

it helped to be reminded of their departments. "Spread

out, teams of two. You know the problem. Let's find

the answers." The murmur of yes-sirs and

aye-ayes was unenvigorated. They'd lost San

Francisco and had a pretty good idea they

weren't going to find it today. He had asked them to come

down and confirm that most of their families and

certainly all of their heritages were gone. Even the

normally cocky Security types meandered off behind

the specialists without even plowing into the

lead. In a moment Kirk was alone again with his two

partners in command distress, alone in a place that should

be home. "The city wasn't destroyed," he said

quietly. He bent with some effort and scooped up a

handful of overgrowth. "There's not so much as a broken

blade of grass. No signs of annihilation, the

atmosphere is still intact... Nothing's wrong with the

planet, except for the complete absence of San

Francisco."

    "There are no other cities either, Captain,"

Spock mentioned. "Despite shortages in

tactical sensors, we've been able to verify

empty land in place of Los Angeles, New

York, Boston, London, and Bangkok. There

are no pockets of organized habitation anywhere."

He almost sounded apologetic but checked himself before it

overtook his expression. Too late; they'd seen

it. "The climate's the same," Kirk said.

"Geography is still here... so where in blazes are

the people?"

    "Something tells me I'd rather be with them than where

I conam," McCoy murmured thoughtfully. He

plucked a bright yellow flower with a distinct black

eye and twirled the stem between his fingers as he gazed

into the valley. "I used to sit on a

lounge right over there and look down on my

daughter's house..." The words drifted away on

the breeze. Kirk turned away. "Spock,

let's get a wide-range detailed picture

if we can. Can't we bYP-ASS the tactical

sensor damage somehow?"

    "I shall attempt it." Spock pulled out his

communicator and flipped open the sensor grid.

"Landing party to Enterprise." "Lieutenant

Uhura, sir."

    "Tie my tricorder signal directly into the

library computer, Lieutenant." "aye, sir,

one moment."

    "Standing by." Spock started to say something else,

when the bushes behind him suddenly rattled violently

and a red flash burst out of the leaves, smashing into the

back of the Vulcan's legs. He was driven down

by a wild ball of red feathers with a long neck and

legs. It squawked in terror, veered away from the

bluff, and disappeared into a thick stand of bushes about

twenty-five yards away. Before McCoy could

react, Kirk was already at Spock's side,

hauling his first officer to his feet. "Are you

hurt?" "Not at all, thank you." Spock brushed

twigs from his uniform and scowled at the

rustling bushes. An instant later, the bushes

fell calm as though nothing had happened. As

McCoy hurried to them, Kirk pointed at the

bushes. "Bones, did you see that?"

    "Did it look like a short ostrich?"

    "Yes!"

    "Then I saw it."

    "That doesn't make sense," Kirk hissed.

"There's nothing like that in North America. Spock,

did you see it?"

    "Only a glimpse, Captain. Can you

describe it?" McCoy pushed between them. "It

looked like an ostrich, only the size of a goose

and the colors of a Rhode Island Red." Spock's

communicator twittered and he thumbed the exposed

controls. "Might it have been a wild turkey?

Excuse me--Spock here."

    "Could've been," McCoy drawled, "but it

wasn't."

    "Uhura here, Mr. Spock. You're tied into the

main computer system, all memory banks. The

tricorder won't be able to store much, but you have full

access as long as the channel is open."

    "Do I have sensor access as well?"

    "Yes, sir, Mr. Scott has tied

that in also. Short-range sensors are up

to sixty-three percent operational and rising."

    "Thank you. Spock out." He adjusted the

ricorder and made use of the vast encyclopedic

store of information logged in the computer system and the

ship's half-blind sensors, which struggled to scan the

planet from orbit. "Information is choppy, but coming

in, Captain." Feeling flushed again, Kirk

leaned back on a rock in a half-sitting

position. "Go ahead, Spock." Cupping his hands

over the tileorder to keep the sun off, Spock

paced a few steps while glaring into the tiny screen,

then paced back without looking up. "Continental

readings show low-lying everglades and deciduous growth

in the East and Southeast, prairie and grasslands in

the West... Mountains north of those. No

domesticated crops, however. In the far north there

is considerable tundra and barren land toward the

Arctic. Abundant sea life... Considerable

animal life... Birds, reptiles,

invertebrates--"

    "It's the North America we all

recognize, is what you're telling me."

Spock's eyes narrowed into black wedges. With a

twinge of cautious sorrow, he simply

said, "Yes." From down the hill, somebody called,

"Captain?" Their paleontologist was scratching

her way up the hill to their left, dirty up to her

elbows. Her knees were caked with mud. Kirk

extended a hand to haul her up over the blufls

edge. He glanced around for Spock, but the Vulcan

was striding across the bushy ground toward the other woman

on the team, who was signaling that she had something,

too. So he looked down into a pair of bright,

troubled eyes and said, "Report, Lieutenant."

    "Sir," the small-boned woman said, "Ling,

sir, Life Sciences Department. The wild

foliage is mostly correct, like the conifer

forests north of here, but there's no domesticated

growth. No cultivation. And something else bothers

me, sir,... I can't find the redwoods." With a

scowl, Kirk bent toward her. "Explain that." The

woman's delicate face crumpled. "I just can't

find any evidence of the major ancient sequoia

growth in the whole western coastal region. I

checked with the ship, but they couldn't find a single

giant redwood tree. Mr. Scott thought it

might have something to do with the sensors being partly down,

but... but I can't find any evidence of the redwood

forests in recent geology."

    "You wouldn't find any," McCoy said. "There

are no fossils in the Bay area."

    "I know that, sir, but I analyzed a pond

floor and I couldn't even find any ancient

redwood pollen. At least, nothing over the past ten

thousand years. I should be able to find something, and I

can't." She looked at Kirk. "Sir, why aren't

they here?" Kirk straightened, troubled. "And if they

were," he added, "what happened to them?" She

nodded. "There's abundant insect life, but I

can't find any of the wildlife that's supposed to be

here--no beavers, bears, or even squirrels.

There are some large grazing animals registering, but

I haven't seen them yet. But a minute ago I

was sure I saw a small primate."

    "A primate? Here?"

    "It just wouldn't make sense, sir! The

tricorder's giving me metabolic readings, but I

like to see things for myself."

    "Smart girl," McCoy dropped in. "All

right," Kirk muttered. "Carry on, Ling See

if you can't pinpoint the large grazers and we'll go

have a look."

    "Aye, sir." She seemed relieved to have

permission to go after the big targets and made

her way down the rock-and-weed slope. McCoy

toed the yellow wildflowers on the clifis edge.

Then he blinked, bent to look at the large

blooms, and said, "You know, this looks just like a

California poppy." The captain stretched his

sore back. "Is that supposed to mean something?"

    "I don't know. Except that poppies should be

bright orange. These are banana yellow."

    "Mmm."

    "Oh--there's a bee." McCoy withdrew his hand

from fondling one of the yellow flowers, then on second

look bowed lower over the flower, reached down, and

carefully snapped the stem. "Jim .... look at

this." On the black center of the flower was the bee,

industriously plumbing for nectar without giving the men

any attention at all. "So it's a bee," Kirk

said. "Look closer. Look at the colors." The

bee was a bee, perfectly formed for its purpose,

big, fat, fuzzy, single-minded, and well armed--

and colored bright yellow with white and green stripes.

Kirk tried to concentrate, registered what he was

looking at, but had trouble holding the thought. "A

green bee. Maybe'it came up from Mexico."

McCoy looked up at him, forgot the bee, and

dropped the flower. "Feel all right,

Jim? You look overheated."

    "I am. Why isn't the medication working?"

    "It is working. If you were in bed, in sickbay,

where you belong, you'd be fine. If you keep straining

yourself, you're just going to drag out the process of

recovery." His expression softened some, and he

added, "I don't like my patients making my job

harder." McCoy took his arm. "Why don't you

sit down?"

    "If I sit down, I'll stop thinking."

    "Yes, but I might be able to get the fever

down."

    "Not now--Spock's coming." Blue on black,

recognizable from a mile off, their science officer's

slim form was caught by the last shafts of hazy

orange sunset as he came toward them, his

trieorder in one hand, the other dripping with mud and

seaweed. His hair was a dot of stove black against

the wild landscape. Without so much as a house or a

hut to civilize the background, he looked like a

colorful Peg driven into the ground by a really big

child. "Geologist LaCerra has made a

discovery," he said as he approached. He had

to raise his voice slightly over the miles-wide

sizzle of crickets now rising as the

darkness settled in. "What've you got,

Spock?" Spock hesitated--not something that usually

happened when he had an answer literally in hand.

He paused, shifted from one foot to the other a

couple of times, and fixed his eyes on Kirk.

"Ammonites, Captain." Kirk squinted at

him. "What?"

    "Ammonites were cephalopods. Shelled sea

animals similar to the chambered nautilus. They were

bountiful in all bodies of water during the

Cretaceous period, roughly seventy million

years ago. Beaches were littered with them. There were

thousands of species."

    "So?"

    "With the extinction of the dinosaurs and several other

life forms, ammonites ceased to exist almost

instantly on the evolutionary time table. There are

billions of fossilized impressions of these

creatures below the K-T layer, but none above

it."

    "What's a K-T layer?"

    "Pardon me--the Cretaceous-Tertiary layer

is the point at which the two geological time

periods meet. There are billions of ammonite

impressions below this layerr"

    "And none above it. So they're extinct.

Spock," Kirk interrupted with a telling groan,

"tell me bluntly what the problem is." The

Vulcan paused, but not because he had been drawn up

short. He clamped his lips and simply extended

his hand. Embedded in seaweed was a baseball-sized

coiled shell, not particularly attractive, but

polished and streaked with variegated color and clearly

not made of millions of years worth of sediment.

"Captain," Spock said, "this ammonite is

alive." Kirk stepped closer. "Alive? Are

you sure what you've got?" He poked at the

specimen in Spock's hand. "Jim," McCoy

interrupted, "do you smell something?" He was squinting

through the fresh twilight at the clumps of overgrowth.

He stepped toward the bushy tangles.

"Manure..." Dread crawled over the captain as

he let the little shelled animal fall from his mind and

hurried to McCoy. "Phasers. On stun."

    "Captain," Spock said, "should we engage our

lighting implements?"

    "No," Kirk told him. "Let's not disturb

the natural goings-on. If we turn lights on,

half the wildlife will hide." Spock offered about

a third of a nod. "Logical." The

underbrush caught Kirk's insteps and forced him to work

for each step. His arm tingled as he held his phaser

above the leaves. The musty smell of manure grew

suddenly strong. The crickets had stopped

clicking. Silence blanketed the hillside,

maybe too much. "Captain," Spock began, his

head tilted slight, "I hear something.

Respiration... Increasing now." Between them,

McCoy stiffened. "I thought it was the breeze."

Kirk turned to the direction Spock was facing and

extended his phaser. "There's no breeze.

Spock, back off... slowly." When Spock had

managed to shift backward a few steps through the

tangled bushes, Kirk mouthed, "Tricorder."

The slim dark form of his first officer moved with

cautious stealth, lowering the phaser and bringing up his

tricorder. A few seconds passed, then

Spock clicked the tricorder's power on. And the

tiny mechanical click was all it tookt. The

night cracked open with a single loud shriek. The

bushes parted before them. A wide black mound rose

to eye level, brisfiing in the starlight. It wobbled

briefly, then forced itself upward out of the bushes like a

seismic eruption, and in seconds it was over their

heads. The shriek dropped to a blistering

roar and got louder. McCoy dropped backward and

disappeared, but Kirk never saw what did the pushing.

He heard the whine of Spock's phaser and raised

his own but was struck in the left shoulder--how could

something so big move so fast! Before the thought set in,

he was lying on his right hip with his elbow dug into the

underbrush and his good leg pinned under him. Above, against

a muted sky and a cloud of flies, rose the outline

of a giant head with a five-foot-wide bony

frill and a scoop-shaped horn as long as he was

tall. And Spock's phaser whined again through the

darkness. The sound fortified Kirk. He twisted his

upper body, brought his arm close to his earmhis

own phaser was still somehow in his hand--and he closed his

fingers on the firing mechanism. The night opened up

with an electric orange streak that sizzled. The

beam struck the giant black shape hovering over

them as the animal swung around again and roared. The

sound climbed his bones. Even growing up in the

woods and farmlands of rural Iowa, he'd never

heard a sound like that befma cross between the long call

of a moose and the shriek of... well, a hell of a

shriek. The animal was turning but not toward him.

Toward

    Kirk felt its huge feet stomp the

ground unevenly, maneuvering to attack the

Vulcan, and something inside him snapped. Forcing

himself upward until he could see over the grass,

he changed his posture, gripped the phaser with both

hands, and aimed where he thought the animal's spine should

be. I'm the captain. If you want meat, come

get me. And he opened fire again.

Chapter7

    THE massive animal's howl was counterplayed

by the whine of Starfleet phasers. Why wasn't it

going down? The phaser was designed to neutralize

--suddenly the night sky wobbled. The

black-on-black mass shuddered, tilted to one

side, dropped partially down, then all the way down

with a great humph. The bushes snapped, and other

animals, unseen in the darkness, skittered out of the

way. With a huge breath, the animal gave up the

fight and lay heaving in a clearing its own weight had

just created. Breath after breath, it huffed the

proclamation that it wasn't down for good. Kirk

rolled onto his side, then forced himself up onto his

knees, grabbed a handful of branches, and pulled

himself up. Fighting to catch his breath, he pushed through

the bushes toward where he had last seen McCoy.

"Bones! Spock! Where are you?" About ten

yards away, Spock rose from the overgrowth,

dragging McCoy to his feet. Kirk tried

to knee his way through the brush to them. "You all right?"

    "Yes, sir," Spock said, but he seemed a

little surprised. "Bones?" Stumbling to his feet,

Leonard McCoy staggered to the ramned creature and

circled it, keeping clear of the twitches of cloven

hooves. He breathed heavily as he lifted each

of his legs high and made a series of little jumps that

brought him to the animal that had nearly gored

Spock. "Captain, take a look at this!" The

creature was massive--the size of a buffalo. In

fact, it had the thick hide and hair of a buffalo,

four-toed hooves of a rhino, but also a wide

sweeping horn arching out from a faceplate, and a neck

crest that must have been five feet across. The

creature's tiny eyes rolled, a leg twitched,

but otherwise it lay still, heaving. McCoy reached for the

frilled edge of the neck crest and shook it. It

barely moved. Just the neck and head were the size of a

Starfleet cargo crate. He fingered the animal's

hair. "Look at thistit's hairlike, but it's

not hair. It's insulation of some kind... probably

developed in response to an ice age."

    "Most insulation evolved from scales,"

Spock said. "Some mammallike reptiles

developed true hair; some flying reptiles, a

hairlike material; and some small meat-eating

prehistoric animals may--"

    "Look, I know there's never been anything like this

on Earth!" McCoy wheezed. "Prehistoric or

otherwise!" Without wasting time on pointless

agreements, Kirk snapped up his communicator.

"Spock, who's the zoologist ?"

    "Lieutenant La cerra is senior zoologist

and palentologist, sir, just transferred from the

science vessel John RocMand. Lieutenant

Ling ist"

    "Kirk to LaCerra." The communicator buzzed

faintly. When no response came, he switched

frequencies. "Kirk to Enterprise."

    "Lieutenant Dewey here, sir."

    "Where's Uhura?"

    "Off watch, sir, but she's down in engineering

trying to sort out the communications dysfunctions."

He drew a stiff breath. Reassurance washed through

him that martial structure was still in play, watches

were still being maintained, and all the time-honored,

traditional, systematic orderliness that kept a

ship's crew from cracking

    under pressure were still in operation, even in the bowels

of catastrophe. "Dewey, contact Chief

Barnes and get me Lieutenant LaCemi. Have

her beamed directly here. I've got an animal

I want her to look at." 'ye, sir. Stand by,

please." Keeping his communicator grid open,

Kirk fingered the controls of the phaser in his other hand.

The smell of the heaving animal at their feet was enough

to choke a dead horse. "Both of you, put phasers

on kill. Obviously we can't anticipate the

usual North American wildlife we've been

used to. Either of you have a theory about this thing?"

    "It appears to be a slow-moving grazer,"

Spock said. "Possibly related to the woolly

mammothre"

    "Or a rhinoceros," McCoy added. "Or a

stegosaurus! Look at this tail!" He. reached

into the grass and came up with both arms coiled around

a shocker of an extra weapon: a tail as big

around as a man's rib cage, armed with a single-rowed

rack of flesh-colored spikes the size of

swords. "Incredible!" Kirk limped through the

grass and put his hand on one of the spikes. 'Today

categorize this creature as ceratopsoid,"

Spock said. He ran his tricotaler

over the smelly, fly-clouded mass. "Large

bony cranial frill plate protecting heavy

neck and shoulders... Forward-mounted facial

horn... Massive low-hanging head, but with a

blunt snout, squared off for ttzing, though most

ceratopsoids had parrotlike beaks." Making a

passing wave at the flies, he knelt beside the

animal's huge head. "To my knowledge there has never

been a creature like this on the Great Northern

Plains, even in prehistory. There are antlered

animals here, but none with horns."

    "Or there should be none. Spock, reanalyze.

Have we retreated in time?" Spock peered through him in

the darkness, and his tone was solid. "Absolutely

not, Captain."

    i"...i All right... what took it so long to go

down under

***

The Vulcan's expression betrayed his

racing thoughts. "That forejudgment may be premature,

sir."

    "May be too obvious, you mean?"

Spock snapped a look at him, gratified.

"Yes, sir." Kirk hobbled toward the huffing

animal, his voice hardly more than a choke.

"What did we do?"

    "Jim," McCoy interrupted, "how do you know

we did anything?" He turned to his doctor.

"Because," he said, "we're here." The statement fell

on the shimmering remnants of sunset and was consumed.

Spock didn't say anything, but the captain could

tell that his intuitive officer found no remedy in that

conclusion. Cold with deep mortal panic that somehow

he had gummed up the universe by botching one

experiment, Kirk felt his throat knot up. Every

man at some time in his life wonders if things would be

better off without him. As a starship captain, his

successes and certainly his blunders had always been

magnified. This, thongh--be could barely grasp the

scope. "If we went back and shot Adam and

Eve, it wouldn't affect this much," Kirk pressed.

"These bizarre animals can't be just the result of

lack of humans. The sky is filled with birds,

just as it always has been."

    "Evidently," Spock said, "even here they

outcompeted the flying reptiles."

    "We're not that sure of the science we've

been tampering with. Somehow we caused ourselves to jump

into a parallel universe or caused our own

universe to change." As an embedded chill

gripped his spine, he limped between his two officers

and looked over the undeveloped landscape. "What

if we're not lost... but humanity is? It's one

thing to accept that we've marooned ourselves

interdimension-ally, but if we've destroyed the

civilization around us... I feel damned obliged

to fix it." The statement fell on the broad glazed

bay. He started to say something else but chopped his

own thoughts away with a motion that whipped his

communicator up. It chittered at him. "Kirk

here," he barked before the instrument was finished making its

sound. "what's the problem with that beam-over?"

Frustration rolled through his limbs and tightened them.

He determined to win out over the poison in his body

ffhe had to dig for leeches and bleed hmfmffthere were

still leeches. And he would make a decision, no

matter how bitter, if he could stitch together a

theory. Forward movement of kind--would he have

to strangle a wild guess out of Spock?

"Barnes here, sir..."

    "Barnes, what's going on with the zoologist?"

"Bannon just came up from the valley

floor, sir. Is it possible for you to beam over

here?"

    "Why?" Kirk demanded. "Captain,"

Barnes's voice croaked over the distance between them,

"Lieutenant LaCerra's been killed, sir."

    "We killed about... half of them, sir. But they

got to LaCerra before we could drive them off. Some

of them went that way... Sir, if you'd come with me."

Chief Chemist Barnes's uniform had been shredded

in sevral places, leaving ragsides dripping

all over his chest and loose threads clinging like vines

around what was left of his trouserlegs. McCoy was

eyeing the bloody streaks on the man's arms and chest

but didn't try to get between him and the captain yet.

"Anybody else hurt?" Kirk asked.

"Bannon's real shook up, poor kid. This

way, sir." Barnes was in a hurry but moving in a

fatalistic way, as though he knew hurrying

wouldn't help. He seemed more anxious to hurry

himself out of the command ring and get omebody else to take

over the situation. "One of these things started to chase

LaCerra," he said, huffing like a racehorse.

"She tried to get away from it, but he didn't

realize it was deliberately driving her into a pack

of others hiding in the tall grass. There

must've been eight or nine of them."

    was On a depressed portion of tall grass, as

though fallen on the brink of a pond, lay

Lieutenant Louise She could're been dozing in the

moonlight, so was her face. Her body had been

slashed open from under one arm to the point of her hip, and

from the underside of one breast across and down to the cup of

her pelvis. Her uniform had been slit open and the

material was curled back, baring the white lips of

open wounds cleanly meant to disembowel--not random at

all. McCoy didn't even bother to kneel by the

corpse. There just wasn't any point. And he

didn't want to get too close to that thing lying beside

her. Tucked sedately into the warm body was the

clawed foot of an animal that lay beside her in a

deceptive caress, a creature with skin like a

snake and a face like a lizard but eyes wide open

that looked like a cat's eyes. Its forepaws were

gripping LaCerra's shoulder, dug in to the

knuckles. Almost as long from nose to tip of its

blunt tail as its prey was tall, the animal had

a gaping mouth that showed rows of pointed teeth gleaming

in the moonlight. Tiger-striped hide and a bare

white belly were like a reptile, but certainly

weren't the colors of any known Earth

lizard. And those sure weren't the eyes of a lizard.

"There are six more of those things lying around here, sir,"

Barnes reported, fighting his emotions down. "I

mean, if you want them." He shuffled into the grass

and kicked another of those animals, phasered to death,

out into the open at the captain's feet. It flopped

like a sack of sand. "That one next to her drove her

to all these others. Then they were on her like fire

ants. She never had a chance." Kirk moved away

from the animal, away from the boiling misery rising in

his mind that this girl who had gone into space with spirit and

bold initiative, willing to risk her life as far

from Earth as a person can get, had died right here, within

hiking distance of where she had been educated and trained.

He found something of a betrayal in that. He sidled

toward Speck. "A precise and coordinated

attack," Speck commented, keeping his voice low.

"A man eater--if you'll pardon the crude

colloquialismmmst be smarter, faster, and better

9O

    armed than what it eats. These animals may be

the smartest life form on the planet under these

conditions. They may be as intelligent as leopards,

perhaps even chimpanzees. Driving prey toward an

ambush is partly instinctive but

definitely partly learned as a hunting

technique." It's a sprinter," McCoy said.

"Look at those long, strong hind legs. And the

slashing foreclaws and ripping teeth... and what it

did to that poor girl. These things know how to disable their

targets--"

    "While minimizing their own chance of injury,"

Speck interrupted. "But it's not a mammal,"

Kirk said. He pushed down a surge of irritation

at Speck for being a little too fascinated and not

angry enough. "I don't see anything that's a

mammal."

    "They may be here," Speck suggested, "but kept

in check by the creatures like this." He nodded again to the

animals slaughtered in defense of a giri. "It

may be interesting to transport to the Amazon

region. Arboreal primates may be quite

successful under these conditions."

    "This isn't a field trip." Kirk spun to the

other Starfleet personnel. "The rest of you have

anything to put any light on this problem?"

    "Yes, sir, I do. Bannon, sir," the

red-haired fellow with the buck teeth said. He was

trembling. "Anthropology."

    "Report, Bannon."

    "I've got some data here I'd like Mr.

Speck to have a look at. his

    "Why? Just tell me what you've got."

    "Well... because I think I've picked up

trace evidence of worldwide natural

catastrophe." He winced at his own words.

Bannon said "think," but he meant he was damned

sure he'd picked that up and he knew he sounded like

a lunatic when he reported it. You mean there was a

civilization here?"

    "That's right, sir!" Bannon shook his

tricorder. "I've been tied into the ship for a half

hour, and all the wide-range readings come up for an

organized prehistoric civilization. Then they

all... just up and died! Or maybe killed each

other." Kirk waved a hand impatiently. "Tell

me why you think this. Spocok, listen to this."

    "The ship's lab is reading several layers of

development up to a point," Bannon said, "both

manufactured and natural, and then a cutoff,

encroachment of nature, then another gradual rising

of a civilization, with all the steps we'd expect,

then the same cycle of destructiom All the

evidence is in the center of the continents, mostly in

South America and Mrica, and it's

several strata down. It's all been covered over,

but I had them do some overlays, and we think there's

evidence of wooden structures, then later a

surge of sophisticated metallurgy. And above

those, traces of wide-range warfare." Kirk

tried to hold on to his expression. "War?. Are

you sure?"

    "Yes, sir, real big war. It runs in the

same cycle, over and OV-ER The

anthropologist's ruddy face screwed into a

frown. "It doesn't make any sense! There

wasn't any industrial life on Earth that long

ago. There wasn't even rudimentary tribal

life, never mind sophisticated battle

capabilities. Seismology indicates

deeply embedded geological evidence of

destruction on the large scale... possibly

nuclear!"

    "Well," McCoy blurted, "now we know what

happened to the redwoods." Suddenly angry that there

wasn't the hum of a city beyond the crackle of

crickets and the whistle of birds, Kirk pressed

his lips tight. "How old is this evidence of

destruction?" Bannon managed to keep his voice

steady. "On the order of ten to twenty

million years." McCoy pushed toward them.

"That's ridiculous left-brace his

    "Much earlier than tribal hominids," Spock

said. "So it certainly wasn't a human war,"

Kirk snapped. "Could someone have colonized the

planet and made all those wars?" He turned.

"Chief Barnes, what do you have to say about the

atmospheric chemistry?"

    "Not much, sir," the older man said. "It reads

just as Earth's atmosphere should red under these...

apparent conditions. No trace pollutants from

early fossil fuel usage, at least not on the

surface, and no artificial sculpting of land

masses."

    "No evidence of space travel?" Barnes's

reddened eyes widened. "No, sir, nothing like that."

"Doesn't mean it didn't happen... after ten

million years," Kirk said, "anything could clean

itself out." Spock scanned Bannon's tricorder

screen. "Preliminary sensor sweeps confirm

radiation abnormalities at different places in

different strata all over the Earth. W, call

these "welded-glass horizons" The ecology

rebounded in every instance, though there were at least four

major periods of continentwide

obliteration. Given enough time, nature always rebounds.

With new forms of life, of course, but it does

rebound. Many of these animals may be the result of

radiation." In the deep background, an animal--

one that had never lived on this planet befmshrieked

at the moon. Alien insects rattled like bacon

frying. He primed his communicator again. "Kirk

to Enterprise." "Dewey, sir."

    "Launch a lighting flare, five kilometer

radius. I want to see this valley floor."

    "Aye, sir, one minute." The sounds of the

landscape were damnddingly familiar. The ratcheting of

frogs, the chitter of neocrickets, the soft brush

of breeze over long grass that was once the grass

of his childhood. Jimmy, put down that fishing

pole and get the lawn tended. You only have one thing

to do, so why haven't you done it? And the smell of it

allrathe bay, the air, the grass. It played

games with his mind as Kirk fought to swallow the

reality of what their science told them. He felt as

if he were letting go of something he would never

retrieve. He'd had this feeling since the Exeter

and Farragut disappeared, and he'd seen it in his

crew's faces. The creased eyes, the pursed

lips, the guarded fear that something had

happened that they couldn't correct, that finally tampering

with science on too big a scale had exacted too

big a price. Mankind had run that risk for a

long time. Had they gone one step too far? Had he

given one order too many? "There it is, sift'

Barnes shouted, pointing almost directly over his

head. In the slate sky, even smaller than the

stars, was a moving pinprick. They watched as it

wobbled and spiraled, changing its path with the vagaries

of the stratosphere, drifting this way, then that;

volleyballed by thermals that argued above the water and

land. Then the flare's altitude trigger kicked

in, and it popped --they could almost hear the crack--

and a sizzling strobelike light burst over the

entire valley floor, nearly five miles

across. Suddenly the planet was like an old-time

movie, east in gray and opal, and a black wedge

of San Francisco Bay anchoring the farthest

point. Startled heads rose over the grass, huge

heads with six-foot horns, neck plates, and

tiny eyes. Beyond that, two long-necked relics

placidly chewing stalks they had pulled from a

tree. They might have been giraffes, except that

their heads were smooth and elongated. Their bright

white-and-yellow necks arched, long

throats constantly working, thick balancing tails

lapping slowly from side to side, and spindly legs

poised in place. They were patently disinterested in the

sudden brightness or the odd little observers way over

here. They froze in place and stared but continued

to chew. An ungodly racket far to the left went

up like a cannon shot. A pack of LaCerra's

new-age banshees were cornering a slothlike

animal with a leathery face and a forejaw that lanced

downward as a weapon instead of front teeth. It

hacked downward again and again now that it could see what was

attacking it, then screamed as the relentless

predators ganged in on it. Some distracted it

while others plunged in and ripped its spine open.

Suddenly all Kirk could think of was the girl he'd

failed to protect. Half the banshees kept

hacking away with their foreclaws, ignoring the light that

had whacked on overhead and was wobbling on the

thermals, but the other half were shocked by it and their

intelligent minds told them to beat it. Kirk

watched them pause, look, squint, try to make the

decision between fear and famine. Some even looked at

the light, then at the prey, then at the light again.

About a third of those ran away. The rest decided

to ignore the hoverin white light and feast

on that which they had so diligently pursued. There was the

evidence, plain as--day. Creatures swept with

instinct, consumed by raw nature, yet smart enough

to make a conscious choice. They were on their way

to being able to think. Creatures with skin like snakes and

minds like leopards. The flare would have kept lighting

the landscape for six or eight more minutes, but a

sharp puff of inland wind blasted it out over the water,

and the sudden lack of thermals brought it crashing into the

bay with an audible ftzzzzz. The last they saw of

it was a thread of smoke twisting toward the moon.

Darkness fell in again. A few feet away, someone

sighed heavily. Someone else made a worried

whew. But no one actually said anything. James

Kirk and his crew stood listening to the snapping of

bones and the arguing of smart predators. They might as

well be standing on a planet millions of

light-years from here. "All hands," Kirk said,

"collect any specimens or information you need right

now. We're leaving. You have ten minutes. Stay

together." A cloud of miserable "Aye ayes" rose

and dropped away. The captain moved to the edge of the

mesa. He absorbed the slate sky, called with his

mind to the empty enameled bay, listened to the shuffles

of his command as they gathered what they could. "This

is like a dream inside a nightmare," McCoy

sighed. "A pleasant place, decent weather,

nice sky... on a forgotten planet."

    "We haven't forgotten it," Kirk snapped.

"Something's wrong. I'll fix it if I can

figure out how." He limped a few feet away

to the brink of a hillock and peered through the trees at

a sliver of San Francisco Bay. His eyes

felt as though they would pop out if he held his

breath. "Earth," he uttered. "The cornerstone of the

Federation completely barren of intelligent life."

"This has been the wish of countless human beings for

centuries," McCoy said. "A pristine Earth,

untouched by the hands of men, free to grow, live at

its own pace--"

    "Only the wish of those who regard intelligence as

a contaminant," Kirk defendedThis is

beautiful, yes, but our Earth was beautiful, too.

There are trees and animals by the millions there,

too. This... it's not all that different from the Earth

we know. The same trees, the same grass, the

same deserts, not in much different amounts.

Mankind isn't a plague on Earth, any more

than the Federation is a plague in space. We of

all people should be ready to admit we've done

some good out there. Humanity is part of nature.

Without people, this is an empty, savage,

unappreciated place7" Silence coiled around the

drained thoughts. "I agree," Spock said.

McCoy turned to look at him. "You do?"

    "Of course."

    "I wouldn't have expected that from you, Spock.

You're usually so quick to point out humanity's bad

judgments--anytime anyone points out to you that you're

half human, you feel obliged to be ashamed."

    "Bones," Kirk said, "leave him alone."

Everything about Spock was suddenly understated, yet

poignant in his alien way. He seemed

heavy-laden, deeply disturbed, more than either of his

companions would have expected. He specialized in

taking even the wildest of occurrences in stride,

fielding all the unimaginables of space travel with

grace, working by the book, taking things one at a time

--well, fifty at a time but in logical order.

Tonight he was different. Finally he visibly let his

guard

    down a little and blinked into the flames. "A world

without intelligence is a primitive place,

Doctor, not an enchanted place. Intelligence

is part of the advancing scheme of evolution.

Without it, nature reaches a plateau very quickly and

does not progress beyond raw survival. The full

flavor of possibility goes unsavorecLike And

that... is a true shame." McCoy offered a

grin. "Well I'll be." Beyond the tiny opal

solace of the moon was a moist landscape dotted with

pockets of fog Kirk raised his eyes again to the

dark and chirping landscape, and his mind leaped ahead.

"I feel like I'm staring at an accident where

somebody diedk? Am I still in that coma$9"

    "If you are, Jim," McCoy said, "we're in

it with you."

Chapter 8

    "Leave the Solar System, Mr. Sulu,

one-third sublight."

    "One-third sublight, aye, sir. Destination,

sir?"

    "None yet. All right, Dr. McCoy, get

to work. Make it fast."

    "Yes, Captain. Just stand still and don't breathe

too

    ,Lieutenant, I want the ship at yellow

alert until further notice."

    "Yellow alert, sir. Attention all hands, go

to yellow Repeat, yellow alert."

    "go ahead, Mr. Spock- We're all

listening." The bridge was a buzzing haven, bright and

soothing after the pristine world they had just left. This was

home now, their only home. A little more crowded than

usual, since Barnes, Bannon, Ling, and the other

scientists from the landing party were here, too, dispirited and

grim. Ordinarily, this would've been done in the

briefing room, but Jim Kirk wasn't about

to leave his bridge in what had suddenly become

hostile space. While McCoy applied

hypospray after hypospray and fed him little cups of

medicated liquid, each of which gave him a new

flush or chill, Kirk sat in his command chair and

felt his eyes redden. He should be lying down for the

treatment, but he refused to have a cot brought to the

bridge. His health was at the bottom of his

priority list right now. "Go ahead, Spock," he

urged, determined that ship's business come before the

hissing and the slurping and the sweating. Above, on the

circular quarterdeck, Spock stood in elegant

repose at his station, his shoulders slightly rounded.

"Positions of the continents are unaffected. South

America's thorny forests are intact, but there is

minimal rain forest. Nearly nine-tenths less than

we had, in fact. Africa's grassy

savannas, deserts, barren land, and jungles are

relatively unaltered. Here is some of the

planet's wildlife. Western Ethiopia..."

Pictures were popping on and off three science station

monitors, high-altitude shots that quickly zeroed

in as the ship's tactical sensors picked up

life forms right down to heart rates. "Quite a large

population of burrowing and/or colonizing

creatures," Spock began, "relatively

small primates that are somewhat squirrellike.

No rodents, though there are multituberculates with

prehensile tails. Billions of insects with

appreciable evolutionary changes. In the Orient,

Lieutenant Ling has singled out dwarf versions of

recognizable sauropods, theropods, and

ornithopods. I have yet to find any large roaming

predators. There are some sizable grazers, but

predation is dominated by small pack-attackers;"

    "No tyrannosaurs," Kirk muttered, "but

there are wolves." Spock looked down at him.

"If you're speaking in the poetic sense, yes."

He let the screen continue showing pictures of

hippo-sized animals with long necks and heavy

tails. "Obviously sauropod descendants.

Not as large, but clearly related."

    "But no large primates, sir?" Lieutenant

Ling broke in from behind the captain's shoulder. There were

tears in her eyes. Nobody could blame her.

"Nothing that highly evolved?" Spocok shifted his

feet. "What is "highly evolved" depends

upon your point of view, Lieutenant. The

squirrel-sized early primates are the most

advanced we've found so far. And the oceans..." He

tapped the controls, and all three screens switched

to water shots with creatures shipping through heavy

rollers and coasting on crests. "I don't

understand!" Bannon croaked, his voice cracking.

"That's a twenty-meter pliosau How can that thing

possibly be there? How can it be there, sir?." He

turned to Kirk, his face reddened and hot, eyes

orrow-blinded. Kirk flung a blistering glare at

him and dared him to lose control on the bridge.

"Control yourself, Lieutenant." Like a slapped child

who was suddenly relieved to know where the boundaries

were, Bannon murmured, "Yes, sir."

Spock ticked off ample seconds, then

blanketed the bridge with his fluid voice. "We

have found large plankton eaters, large-mouthed

monosaurs, or rather their descendants, a breed of

surface dwellers similar

to elasmosaurs... billions of Mesozoic

shellfish, ammonites, and countless relations On every

body of water, including fresh water, and you'll

11ote here some four-meter to eight-meter floating

mounds. " 'l"...1108e living colonies,

probably similar to the Portuguese

to llan-o-war, with sweeping fibrous tendrils as

long as fifty There are sharks, also, of course, as

they are among oldest of predatory creatures.

Many marine animals are "equals Jltvced

versions of--"

    "It's a very nice zoo, Mr. Spock,"

Kirk bluntly cut in, "but it's not ours. Can you

give me a conclusion? Something I can use?"

Spock snapped off the screens and let the void

fall. Behind him, the darkened screens were emblematic.

"These animals are unknown, but familiar," he

told them, "almost traceable to Earth's Mesozoic

background, but dearly they did not exist as they are

now on Earth at all, even in prehistoric times.

And with the exception of some ocean dwellers, most of these

creatures are smaller than their Mesozoic

relatives. Our most substantive theory," he

finished, "is that they are descendants of an

alternative universe... one in which the

dinosaurs never died out." The bridge sounds

elieked and whirred in purposeful peace,

amplifying a human silence after he finished. No

one said anything. What could be said to that? Spocok was

being charitable by using the word theory; it softenexl the

ghastly blow that what they had seen was real, that they had

nowhere to go, no Federation to turn to. If he had

said fact or conclusion, he might as well have

slapped them each in the face with the nonexistence of their

homes and families, their nations, their histories,

their homeworld. "Captain," Sulu said, his voice

heavy, "clearing the solar system, sir."

    "Ahead standard." Kirk anchored himself

to Spock's opiate expression. "Standard, aye,

sir." Spock came a step or two closer and

gazed down at him. "Sir, when the evolution of

animals provided no clues, I went to the next

most obvious level of analysis: geology. The

Earth itself." Noticing the inflections in his first

officer's voice, the glint in his black eyes,

Kirk sat forward slightly. "You've got something,

haven't you?" Spock raised a single ink-slash

brow. "I've roughly correlated the data we

collected on the 'new" Earth and run a

comparison with physical conditions of Earth

as we know it. Our Earth shows geological

evidence of cosmic dust, molten Pellets of

tectite glass, or shocked quartz, and a thin

layer of iridium in the K-T layer of strata.

The Earth beneath us now has none of these ballistic

details."

    "Oh, Jesus," Bannon uttered, and he and the

science specialists looked at each other.

Squinting, Kirk asked, "What does that do for us?

What happened?" What did not happen, sir,"

Spock corrected, plainly hopeful under his

mantle of poise, his emphasis nearly poetic.

"Iridium is very rare on Earth, but extremely

common in asteroids." i "What's that supposed

to mean?" Kirk glanced around. Spock and the others

seemed to be waiting for him to catch the meaning. Finally

Spock shifted from one foot to the other. "Sir, it

is commonly known what killed off the large-bodied

animals and much of the sealife of the Cretaceous

Earth." . "Well, common it to me." Everyone around

him seemed embarrassed for him, but he didn't

care. And what was that look McCoy was giving him?

Had he grown horns? What was one asteroid, more

or less, to a starship captain? Flagging his hands in

protest, he said, "It's not my venue.

So what?" McCoy gestured at the upper deck.

"Come on, Spock, we're playing with millions

of years here! A million this way or that, ten

thousand, a century... What are the odds? One

asteroidre"

    "Gentleman," Kirk said with starch. They looked

at him. Spock nodded heavily. "Roughly ixty

to sixty-five million years before now, an

asteroid ten to fifteen miles in diameter struck

the Earth at a point that is now under water, just off the

north coast of the Yucatan :. Peninsula in

Mexico. The crater, known as the Chixilub were

forster, is nearly one hundred eighty miles in

diameter and i histo " hidden under the Gulf waters

for millennia. The impact "beii shocked quartz

and teerite glass fragments similar to evidence at

sites of nuclear detonation and notable in a layer

of Earth's strata. When the dust finally settled, the

age of dinosaurs was snuffed out. But here,

***

    ones who stayed in our universe while everything

else was changed around us?"

    "That's a blue giant of a coincidence,"

McCoy drawled. "Precisely," Spock said.

    Kirk put a hand between them. "Is Izell

changed in the previous time line then? Was the cosmic

string ever there now?"

    McCoy shook his head. "You can't ask for every

answer, Jim!"

    "Yes, I can. I'm still not sold on the idea that

we didn't cause this." He felt the changing

light from the forward screen move across his flushed

cheeks. "We know how to go back in time. We also

know how dangerous time travel is. Touch the wrong

thing, cross the wrong street, cause the wrong

person to live or die at the wrong time, and all

history changes. We can use the slingshot

effect around a sun to take the ship back, then use

photon torpedoes to duplicate the effects of an

asteroid impact or stop the interference from stopping the

asteroid, whatever the interference was. That event would

have to happen in space, so we'll need the ship."

    McCoy shook his head. "The slingshot effect

is fine when we're dealing with a century or two, but

how will it be with multimillions of years? You

don't know what that'll do to

    US."

    "We know a slingshot effect takes us back in

time roughly a hundred years to the minute. Spock,

run it down for us. Sixty-five million years.

Six hundred fifty thousand centuries-was

    "Six hundred fifty thousand centuries would

take ten thousand eight hundred thirty-three point

three hours," Spock said, suddenly monotone as

he calculated. "Which would be... four hundred

fifty-one point three eight eight days."

    As his hopes crashed, Kirk felt his shoulders

sink. "A year and a half in the dream-stasis of time

travel... The crew would starve."

    "We wouldn't live long enough to starve," McCoy

pointed out. "Dehydration would kill us within days.

Add to that the

    fact that you don't even know exactly when this

asteroid hit--it could be sixty-two million and

twenty years or sixty-eight million and four

years. To show up within a thousand years would be

fantastically accurate!"

    "And the slightest deviance in trajectory,"

Spock added, gazing at McCoy with surprised

appreciation, "movement of the fifth place after the

decimal point could put us off the mark by hundreds

of years."

    Troubled, Kirk looked at them. "And what if

we dare take a guess, kill off the dinosaurs,

then the asteroid hits anyway? What would two

impacts like that do to the Earth? To evolution?"

    Plagued, McCoy frowned. "I don't like where

this is going, Jim."

    "There are even simpler factors, gentlemen,"

Spock said. "Four hundred fifty point three

eight days of gravitational and time-distortion stress

on the ship, in her current condition--"

    "We'll have to find some other way," Kirk said,

sharpening his voice. In as dramatic a gesture as

he could make it, he hauled himself to his command chair

and slid into it, then faced the helm. "What's your

heading, Mr. Sulu?"

    "Currently three seven mark one, sir.

Straight across the

    most populated area of... well, our

galaxy."

    "Hold your course."

    "Aye, sir."

    "Forward view."

    "Forward view, sir."

    The screen abandoned the solar system they knew as

the hub of their lives and turned outward the way they

were heading, to the unfamiliar galaxy. As the ship

wheeled on her way, Kirk gazed at Spock in

silence. No one was doing any more analysis of the

Earth they were leav'mg behind. Even Spock had seen

enough of it.

    A mechanical twitter at his shoulder broke

their eommunication--McCoy's medical scanner.

    Captain," McCoy began, "your temperature

is back to normal, for the time being I'd like you

to remain seated as

    much as possible for the next three hours or so, and

even though I might as well be talking to myself,

I'd like you to get some sleep."

    "Tell yourself you're dreaming. I--"

    "Captain!" Sulu sang out.

"Long-range scanners hitting us, sir! They

tracked us somehow!" Glowering at the screen, at an

enemy he couldn't even see yet, Kirk said,

"Shields up." "Shields, aye."

    "There has never been a Romulan this close

to Earth!" Chekov spat, his rage stumbling over the

English words. McCoy gathered his med pack under

one arm and held tight to the command chair with the other.

"Tell them we're parked in a no-Romulan

zone."

    "Belay that," Kirk snapped. "Sound general

quarters." The klaxon erupted through the ship, the

glow of red alert lighting engulfed the bridge, and

Uhura's voice announced the incoming danger with a

deceptive calmness. The whole ship started to throb

with activity. "Where are they, Mr. Sulu?" "Ten

degrees substarboard abaft the beam, sir...

bearing three-one... range, four point one

parsecs and closing. No cloaking device, coming in

at high speed."

    "Put them on the forward screen, maximum

visual." The screen shifted from what was in front

of them to what was coming up on their starboard quarter. Not

a full second later, one of the neo-Romulan

ships they'd evaded before came plunging

down upon them out of deep space. "Sensors on

full capacity. Arm phasers."

    "Phasers armed... ready--"

    "Ready the photon torpedo guidance systems."

    "Photons armed... Ready, sir."

    PART TWO

    DAMAGE CONTROL

    "Why me? I look around that bridge... see the

men are waiting for me to make the next move, and,

Bones... what if I'm wrong?"

    --lames Kirk, Balance of Terror

Chapter 9

    "Intrcept course!" Chekov called out.

"Evasive. I don't want to fight here unless

I have to. We don't know the politics of this

situation--who's right and who's wrong." From behind him

McCoy mumbled, "If it's that simple."

    "Evasive, aye," Sulu responded, and the

ship plunged away from the enemy. "They're in

pursuit, sir." Kirk didn't look away from

the screens but knew Spock had glanced at him.

With a grim eye on the forward screen, he leaned on

his chair's arm and tapped the comm. "Kirk to

    "Engineering, Scott here, sir."

    "Mr. Scott, we're engaging a

hostile up here. We've outrun them before and I

want to do it again. Power up for high

    "No problem, sir, we'll have it." Very good.

Kirk out."

    "Their weapons are armed, sir," Spock said from

the upper deck. "They're preparing to fire."

    "Mr. Sulu, warp factor six as soon as you

can get the power."

    "Aye aye, sir... warp two... three...

four... Captain!"

    "Three more ships, sir!" Chekov shouted.

"Dead ahead!"

    "lielay warp eight--forward visual." Kirk

was aware of the eyes flicking at him from different

points on the bridge. They were watching him to take

their cues from him. Critical, yes, how his enemy

perceived him, but also and even more immediate was how his crew

perceived him. "Continue evasive." He turned his

head slightly to starboard without taking his eyes off the

screen and spoke in a manner that would get

Spock's attention. "Just like those animals. They

led us to the pack."

    "Some things," Spock answered quietly,

"remain efficient through the eons." Pressure hit

them as Sulu was forced to angle the ship

downward and to port to avoid two of the ships, but by the

time he did that, the other two ships had closed in

on his heading. "Do what you can, Sulu," he said.

"They're boxing us in, sir," Spock said at the

same time, making it clear that he didn't think

Sulu could do much by way of maneuvers alone

to dodge the big ships. "We've got the speed, but

they're not letting us use it." Kirk gripped his

chair's armrest. "All right, if that's the way it

is. Come about starboard."

    "Coming about. Helm's answering."

    "They're flringl" Chekov interrupted. On the

auxiliary scanners, ships plunged in and out of

frame, circling like vultures. "Incoming

salvos!" His eyes were fixed to the screens as a

wide arch of coordinated shots from two of the enemy

ships crashed toward them. The starship bucked and

whined, then recovered and heaved out of the way of the

second wave of shots. "Incredibly tight

movements for big ships, sir," Sulu gasped,

all his muscles twitching as he forced the starship

to pivot "Now I see why they don't have high

speed," Kirk said as he and McCoy both clung

to the command chair. "They've sacrificed it

to close-range maneuverability. Jam

their sensors, Mr. Spock. Mr. Chekov, you

handle the weapons, multiple targeting... Fire

at wilLike"

    "Aye, s" The young officer climbed up the

tilted deck to the weapons subsystems station and

pluned into his purpose, playing the four enemy

ships like me pieces. Within seconds he was keeping

any ship from getting within five thousand miles without

paying for it. He managed to detonate a few

incoming salvos in time to give Enterprise a clear

path to fire hack before she had to dodge again. But the

starship couldn't room to gain any way. The four

ships had done this before and were good at it. Kirk leered

at the forward screen, then at the coordinated

monitors. He'd never known Romulans to behave

in coordinated attack patterns at all, much

less in this persistent pack-dog fashion.

"Photon torpedos, automatic guidance, Mr.

Chekov. Wide dispersal. Fire!" Tense

seconds flashed by as Chekov fired four times.

"Two direct hits," Spock droned, his face

cast in blue light from the sensor hood as he bent

over it, "one glancing blow, one clean miss.

Damage uncertain--" Suddenly the ship heaved

to starboard and seemed to ate to a stop--at

hyperlight speed! The vessel around them howled her

protest and yanked and chewed at what was holding her.

"Tractors, Captainif' Spock shouted above the

mechani-

    "Hit them with feedback," Kirk said. "Break

those buns." ulcan crossed the bridge to the

engineering station and shouldered Nourredine aside. With-

moments the ship whined again and scrambled to fget her

feet under her, but the strain showed itself in the wobbling be

whine of the mechanic "Tractors are down forty

percent still affecting a drag on us. May be able

to break them down further with maneuvers."

    "Do it, Sulu," Kirk said as if the

helmsman didn't have enough weighing on him.

"Trying, sir," Sulu chokeds well have been

pushing the ship with his hands. Squalls of enemy fire

peeled protection off by energy layers the thickness of

fingernails. With each hit, the ship was a fraction

less protected. With each harsh burst, something was

rattled deep inside her, but like a wild horse

she held on to freedom and would do it until she

went mad. "Double-load torpedoes. Fire."

Chekov bent over his controls, his young face

screwed into a bitter mask. "Double firing

mechanism is nonopera-tional, sir!"

    "Then random-fire the single salvos in tight

succession. Pick targets on their hull sections

and hammer the same place."

    "Aye, sir, targeting."

    "Don't burn out the firing mechanisms,

Ensign. We may need them later."

    "Oh--aye, sir." The bridge became a

flurry of bolts, responses, orders, wound

shocks, and backhandings as the four heavily armed

ships struck and struck again. The black pit in the

bottom of Jim Kirk's stomach began to ferment.

His ship and crew oould beat off the dogs for a long

time but not forever. That was the tactic the enemy was using--

scratch and fall back, strike and dodge away,

until the prey bled to death. Within minutes the

ship's power levels would start to slip, her shields

to crumble, and all she could hope to do was take one or

two of the enemy down with her. Here there was no one to come

to their aid, no chance of calling out into space for

reinforcements. Hits on her primary hull

wracked the ship as the threat turned into a

    "Sir" Nourredine called. "Mr. Scott

says the magna-tomics are taking overflow from the

firing chambers!"

    "Inform him he has permission to lock

those down, or we

    won't be here very long," Kirk said, soulsick

at knowing Scott would have no choice but to deplete the

weapons systems long enough to make that repair. Even

if it only took thirty seconds, they couldn't

afford to cease fire that long. Raw desperation and a

dollop of fury came into his mind. "Mr.

Sulu, shields double forward. Pick one of those

ships and direct all fire to it. If we disable one

of them, maybe we can slip by--if we can manage

to keep from getting our stern blown off."

    "New contact, Captain!" Spock suddenly

announced over the noise. "Arching out of the sun."

    "Stand by, Sulu." Kirk cranked around and

pulled himself to the ship's rail. "Spock?"

    "Unknown construction. I don't recognize the

signature. Definitely not another Imperial

Guard vessel... Much smaller, highly

power-packed--fifteen thousand metric tons, all

armor and shields... Configuration is haphazard,

generally cylindrical with a heavily armored nose

section .. probably a one-man ship." He

straightened and looked at the forward screen. "Coming in

at uncontrolled warp." "*Weapons

sequences?" Kirk pulled himself to the

front of the helm. "No reading of that," Spock

said. "Sir, the Romulan ships are backing

away!" Chekov called. "They're veering off at

high warp!"

    "Why would they do that?" Kirk leered at the forward

screen on which the four Romulan ships were suddenly

gathering into a clutch, wheeling about, and beating for

distance. "Captain, new contact is veering in,"

Chekov said. "Should I fire?" They held their

breaths and waited for the captain to use the fabulous

power of sun and fire under them to slice their way

to victory by cutting up everything in sight. "Hold

your fire!" Kirk ordered on an impulse.

"Helm, ten degrees port. Move us out of his

way." The ship hummed with effort but arched to port and

slightly upward, clearing a path for the unidentified

incoming. Abruptly a small flash of light

streaked out from the bottom of the forward screen in hot

pursuit of the Romulan ships, obviously able

to overtake them, without giving the Enterprise a

pause. But it was like an acorn overtaking a

rockslide. What effect could it have on those

gargantuans? "They're firing on it, Captain,"

Spock went on, squinting again into his sensor

hood. "Leaking some atmosphere now...

Its engines are showing signs of overheating." The

heavy vessels fired wildly, trying to hit the

tiny ship racing toward them. Its speed and size

made it impossible to hit with aimed shots. Two

of the Romulan vessels attempted wide dispersal

shots but too late. Without timidity the little ship

rocketed toward its targets and at the last second

selected one of the ships to hit. It angled in,

plunging headlong at the big ship, and plowed

straight up its aft thruster intake chute. The

screen blew white. Volleys of electrical

flashes backwashed over the Enterprise, blinding the

shocked bridge crew and forcing them to shield their

eyes. "One Romulan ship destroyed," Spock

said matter-of-factly. Then he hooked his hand over

the neck of his sensor hood and squinted. "The others

are continuing away at high warp. Reading scattered

debris--a life pod, Captain? His voice

betrayed his shock that anything could have come out of that

explosion in less than twenty pieces. "You're

kidding," Kirk muttered, sweating. "Likely it

jettisoned just before impact."

    "Prepare for rescue then. Beam any

survivors aboard. Send a Security unit to the

transporter room. Mr. Sulu,

locations of those other three enemy vessels?"

    "Out of range, sir. Not even on our

monitors anymore."

    "One little ship, and they ran like rabbits," Kirk

murmured. "I wonder who it is we've got

here." He realized his hands were shaking as he grabbed

for the comm unit on his chair. "Kirk to transporter

room. What's the condition of that beam-in?"

    "Transporter Room, Security here. He's

coming in now, sir."

    "All stop."

    "All ir"

    stop, s , Sulu sighed. "Damage control,

all decks. Let's do it while we've got the

time." Uhura nodded, then announced that. Her

voice throbbing through the ship was a solvent for their

tensions. "Mr. Spock, communicate our

circumstances to all de- partmerit heads and watch

leaders."

    "Yes, sir."

    "Transporter room here, sir. We've got

two unconscious rescues, one is pretty

bad. Both have superficial burns, some damage

to the arms and--"

    "Have them taken to sickbay."

    "Begging pardon, sir, but I'd like to have them

treated in the brig. They"...ence Klingon."

    "Repeat that."

    "The survivors are both Klingon, sir." He

glanced at Spock. "Acknowledged. Have the

prisoners taken to the brig under heavy confinement.

Kirk out. Dr. McCoy, get down there."

McCoy looked shaken up but glad to have something to do.

"Right away, Captain."

    "Secure from battle stations. Go to yellow

alert. Let's get out of the vicinity, gentlemen.

If they come back, I don't Want to be here."

Spock pushed off the console and came down to the command

arena, folded his arms, and leaned toward him. "Where will

we go, sir?" As Kirk looked at him, he saw

in Spock's inanimate fatures a thousand

expressions, all small. A clutch of antiment

got him by the heart. "First order of business," he

murmured to his first officer, ,ae to ourselves. We

can't put things right until we have a. " conccIllear

barometer of what's wrong..w, here's the most

logical to :! lalace to start? The Federation

doesnt exist... Who can we trust?" Spock

gazed at him with true sympathy, then said, "We

Klingons and the Romulans still exist."

    "Yes, they do," Kirk responded. "And if

they're still around, then the Vulcans must be." He

looked at Spock. "Will they listen to you?" Hovering

in place, Spock didn't say anything, as though

waiting for the captain to answer his own question. The

Vulcans had for decades been the staunchest

defenders of Earth and her bombastic people. An

unlikely pairing, the same as the bond between the two

of them. Nothing anyone expected or would've bet

on. The most obvious relationship between the two

races would more likely have been constant disapproval,

but that wasn't how it had worked out. Humanity had

gone flocking into the galaxy, enticing the many

inconstant civilizations out there to get together and form a

network of commerce and defense, and it had worked. A

common theme of decency had risen above the petty

differences between people, and those who couldn't get along were

beaten back. And there was Spock, the first Vulcan

in Starfleet, standing beside him on their bridge,

evidence of it all. The Vulcans had offered a

constancy of devotion that was envied and emulated by other

alien races, and of everyone in the history of

Starfleet, James Kirk had enjoyed that devotion

the longest. Spock. The best of both worlds. The

captain gazed at his long-time votary and

couldn't help indulge in a tiny grin. The great

lie--that Vuleans were without emotion. Like hell they

were. "We know humanity isn't in the picture,"

Kirk pushed. "We also know the Romulans and

Klingons are here and hostile toward each other. And the

chance is good that Vulcan is still here and probably still

under the practices of Surak. If so, the

Vulcans shouMore be willing to accept the evidence of

their eyes--a Vulcansthuman hybrid." He

paused, eyed Spock, and asked, "How did I

do?" Spock offered a composed bauble of those straight

black eyebrows. "A reasonably stated argument.

Perhaps I should go to sickbay and assist the medical

staff." For anyone else, this was like shouting,

"Brilliant!"

    "Thank you," Kirk said.

    "You're welcome. Development of the Vulcan

culture should be relatively unaffected, with the

exception of having no Federation to join. The odds of

both Earth and Vulcan's being drasticallyre"

    "Not the odds, please."

    "However," Spock added with a pause that seemed

somehow dangerous, "if the change is limited

to Earth and the Vulcans are still following the teachings of

Surak, it is unlikely they would

cooperate with the Klingons or Romulans. They

may have been subjugated... or destroyed, sir."

Hope was suddenly creased with rude realism. It was

hard to imagine the sober, thoughtful Vulcans

successfully beating off the Romulans or the

Klingons or both all by themselves. And apparently they

were every bit as alone in the galaxy as the crew of the

Enterprise. "Very well," Kirk sighed.

"We'll deal with what we find. Like trying

to tiptoe in snowboots, but we'll manage. All

hands--" "Captain," Spock said, quieter, "I

am obliged to point out whether it is ethical to inform

any planet of an alternative existence. The

Prime Directive may be in order here."

    "The Prime Directive applies

to primitive races. This isn't the time to pay

homage to a universe that didn't evolve."

    "Regulations may require that of us."

    "The Prime Directive was never meant to be that

specific," the captain said. "We can't call upon

any outside morality. As for the Vulcans,

they'll just have to buck up and handle it. All hands,

secure the ship for silent running. No sense

letting ourselves be tracked." Uhura glanced at

him, then tuned herself into the ship's comm

system. "This is the bridge. All hands, rig for

silent running."

    "Shields on standby. Shut down all

nonemergency emissions. Long-range sensors

only. What would the course be from where we are,

Spock?"

    "Checking. Four-nine-eight, mark two, sir."

    "Mr. Chekov, that's your heading. Mr. Sulu,

warp factor six. Let's go to Vulcan." He

gazed at the forward screen, gathered his puckering

innards for what was to come, and forced himself not to cry over

the biggest puddle of spilled milk in all

eternity.

Chapter 10

    No CANDLES glowing through the dimness. No

chanting. But there were lights. And there was pain, sounding

in great horns through his head and parts of his body.

Perhaps this was a death dream. Those last few seconds

after detonation. The lights were blurred, east in

blues. He parted his lips, found them cracked,

sticky. A tiny bubble of moisture formed between the

side of his tongue and his upper teeth. With his tongue

he toyed with the bubble, and when it popped, he suddenly

realized he was not dreaming. He tried to open his

eyes. They fought him. They burned.

Acid from the explosion? Had his Spear detonated?

Had he destroyed his target? Where was Zalt?

Dead? Probably. The long tunnel of the enemy

thruster shaft flashed in his mind and a sense of

victory followed him into it. His back was the only

part of his body that felt complete. His spine and

pelvis rested on a cushion, and beneath his head was a

small pillow. Who possessed such things? He

concentrated on one hand, then brought the hand upward

slowly along his pelvis, his stomach, his ribs.

Some of his armor was missing, including the eject

harness that should've been across his chest. Bandages in its

place... His wounds treated... His arms and legs

without bindings... He was being nursed. Elation poured

into his chest. He had been picked up by a home

ship! One chance in a thousand, and this had happened

to him. His tiny buoy signal had found resonance

on a friendly console, and they had come to find him. When

he was well, he would tell about his success in

destroying an entire enemy ship. He had shaken the

enemy all the way to their home planet! And to have

survived... to have survived! Through his aching eyes it

suddenly came to him that the color of the walls was

wrong. They were pale. No ship of his own people was like

this. Nothing around him was Klingon. His joy

sizzled away. Cloying suspicion clunked

into place. The enemy had him! He heard a hum of

energy. A barrier field. When he turned his

head, he could make out the impeller bands through the

haze of his injured vision. Beyond the field, to one

side, were the shoulder and elbow of a guard. Only one

guard? Could the enemies be short of forces

    Fear and desperation balled in his stomach suddenly.

Why would they bind his wounds and nurse him? Why

hadn't his harness detonator been activated by the

enemy ship's transporters? He cursed the

mechanism for failing. . Klingon scientists had

struggled for a decade to isolate that pattern,

to allow one particle of matter to be triggered by the

'enemy transporter, and only that. He might have

taken down two ships instead of only one. Any

surviving Spear ii hoped to do that rather than float in

space and probably die

    He moved one leg, then the other. The left was

well The right was sore at the knee, but it

functioned. were a source of pain as he moved his

legs, forcing choke back a gasp. His head

hammered as he turned it again.

    What was this room? Not any prison cell he

had ever encountered. A medical facility?

Why would they treat his wounds?

    Was he being brought back to health for interrogation?

There was nothing he could tell them. He had never been

significant, noteworthy in anyway--this one

act was his only major contribution, and it was over.

They could only be treating his wounds and making him

live so they could torture him for information he

didn't have.

    He was ready to die but not to be tortured. He

understood what would happen to him. His people and his enemies

were twdgsides of the same blade. Blood chilled

at the unspeakable methods his own kind used.

    Had they done this to his eyes to keep him from

escaping? He had heard nothing of such practices

before. The enemies knew all there was to know about the

Klingnn warrior habits and all about the machinery and

ships, so there was nothing to gain from keeping prisoners.

There were no more tactics left to be discovered.

    Except for the Spears. They would torture him

to find out where the Spears were coming from.

    And so they would torture him until he died, because

he did not know where the Spears were coming from, and he was a

ghastly liar.

    He jerked his head up from the bed and refused to let

it fall back, no matter the pain in his

neck and shoulders. His teeth ground fiercely. He

almost slapped himself but knew that would attract the

guard. Instead he raised his fists in a gesture of

despair and batted the empty air. Think.

    He was ready to die, and they had robbed him of this

tiny thing

    Zalt was dead already. The chances of two Spears

surviving impalement were microscopic. He forced

himself to turn onto his side, then lay sucking air

from the effort.

    No. They would not rob him of this. He would keep

the last promise to himself for a violent peace. The first

concern would be to break throh that barrier and past that

guard.

    He drew several deep breaths, then parted his

lips, and let out a moan that would bend bones.

    "Sickbay. McCoy here."

    "Doctor, this is Yeoman Chapman,

Security. Your patient's making some godawful

painful noises in there. He's coming out of it, but he

don't sound too good.

    McCoy glanced around sickbay at the patients

he already had--one case of appendicitis and one

savagely broken wrist from a bad fall off one

of the engineering walkways--and wondered if

he should take up carpentry. He had to get out of this

business.

    "Probably those eye injuries," he said.

"I'll come down with a treatment as soon as I

arrange to have a fracture set. Give me

fifteen minutes."

    "Aye, sir. I'll make sure he's ready

for you."

    "All right, but take it easy with those manacles,

Chapman. No point injuring him any further."

    "Oh, aye, sir. Security out."

    A way to kill himself quickly. That was a good goal.

Desperation impelled him through bright corridors with

lots of room from side to side. Soft places

to sit and lay a head down. What kind of place was

this?

    They had been near no planet, so this must be a

ship. That ship he passed by on his way to death. So

much open space inside, so much excess of

material... lightweight supports, open

corridors, no guards, no blaster ports, no

internal survival pods, good lighting, fresh

air, warmth...

    He had picked up fragmented reports of a ship

moving out of enemy space at warp eight

point riverawas he aboard that ship? Had the enemy

built a ship that could outrun even the Spears?

    If so, the tide of war would turn away from his people

as it had so recently turned toward them. Could they

lose the sliver of an edge they had just gained?

    His questions pounded him as he hobbled down the

corridor, shielding his eyes with one arm and clamping

his

    injured ribs with the other. The fresh air made his

head swim. He had a weapon, taken from the guard

whose throat he had squeezed until the man

collapsed in his arms, but he wasn't sure how

to use it. He had barely been able to see, but a

body is a body and he knew where the throat was.

The weapon was strange, too. But it fit his hand, and

that was all it had to do. He could turn it on himself if

he could read which of these settin would kill, rather than

leave him unconscious to be recaptured. No--

he would have to damage this ship first. No matter the

slight odds, he had a chance to strike another blow.

Someone was coming. There were many footsteps on this

vessel, and he was quickly learning how to tell where they

were and when to hide. He listened carefully, measuring

the shufite of footfall. He strained his eyes now

and hoped the shadow he had ducked into was

dark enough. He braced a foot alainst the wall

behind him and stopped breathing. Visible movement--the

footsteps rounded the corner and materialized into a

blurred figure moving casually across his shadow.

With a grunt of effort, he launched himself off the

wall and attacked.

    The starship sailed hot and close-hauled across the

black sea with a white wash of a comet's tail as her

spinnaker. As he sat in the command chair behind the

helm, James Kirk resented the beauty of

space at this aberrant moment. People had compared him

to a charioteer with great reins in his hands, and sometimes

he felt that way. But there was a definite mudlark

humility in captaincy. He hadn't built this

ship or even worked on her. She belonged to those who

decades ago had envisioned her. No matter how

arrogant he tried to act for the benefit of his crew,

or himself, or even sometimes to save their lives, there

was always a top to his knight attitude, a point

at which he became more cow-puncher than chevalier.

    He glanced at Spock for security. It

helped a little. Speck had already been here when

Kirk came on duty, though "off duty" under these

conditions had very little meaning. Kirk almost never stayed

in his quarters anyway. Slept there,

yes, but stay for nothing. No. He and Spock had

developed a watch schedule unlike any other in

Starfleet. Or anywhere else, probably. The

Vulcan rested very little, and his private hours were

short. He took his double duty as first ofistcer and

science officer seriously, doing the work of two men

almost every day. Certainly he was doing that today. Kirk

knew what Spock was up to. Analyzing that

cosmic string business that had thrown them here. Trying

to figure out a way for them to throw themselves back. He

wanted to go over there and stand with Spock and talk

to him, but that was too human a need and the disturbance

wouldn't do Spock any good. "Captain!" Uhura

belted abruptly. "Security reports the

prisoner has broken out of the brig?" Kirk spun

out of his chair and almost made the mistake of putting

his weight on his bad le "Details," he

snapped. Security Yeoman Chapman was

attacked when he went inside the cell to check on

the prisoner's condition. Dr. McCoy was on his

way down there to treat the Klingon." Spock

turned. "I shall attempt a physiological

track, sir." Without responding to him, Kirk

looked at Uhura again. "Go to shipwide intruder

alert. Is Chapman alive? "Yes,

sir. He's being treated for a crushed esophagus.

Attention, Security, all decks... Intruder

alert... Repeat, intruder alert." With a hard

grip on the bridge rail, Kirk narrowed his

eyes in empathy. "What about McCoy?"

    . ...... With hs arm tight around his enemy's

throat, the Kingon drajged his captive inWill the

shadows. The captive choked and grabbed at the arm

around his neck but didn't struggle very much. A rap

on the side of the head sent the captive to the floor,

    and a point of his own people's weapon apparently made

good sense to him. He stayed on the floor. He

spoke, but the words were nothing. Nothing--in a

language completely unknown. A new

language! The Klingon stared down. What

language could there be that he had never heard before, not

even a breath, not a word? There weren't that many

languages in the space-faring spectrum. He

reached down for the eaptive's collar, squinted his

damaged eyes to get a good look at what he had.

Pale cheeks, a wide face, eyes the color of

water and blinking with alarm, expressively set under

a casual cap of brown hair. Suddenly the

Klingon drew away. His captive dropped against

the wall, choking, and stared at him. This was

no being he recognized. This... was not his enemy.

He stumbled back, blinking his eyes convulsively,

demanding that they operate. Leonard McCoy glared

at the Klingon who had jumped him and knew he was a

hostage, but couldn't read that sudden expression on the

Klingon's face. His neck pounded from being twisted

half off, and his shoulders hurt from being thrown against the

wall. The Klingon had been about to slaughter him,

or at least knock him out for easy handling, but had

suddenly backed off. Why? He struggled to one

knee, an arm pressed against the bulkhead for

support. "Do you speak English?" he asked. The

Klingon glowered at him in utter perplexity.

"Didn't think you would," McCoy gasped. "Your

eyes are hurting, aren't they?" He pointed to his

own eyes, then exaggerated a gesture toward the

Klingon's. "Eyes," he repeated. "Hurt?"

He formed one hand into a claw and made a scratching

motion at his own eyes. His medikit was over there on

the floor. He pointed to it. The Klingon looked in

that direction, but his burned eyes couldn't see that

far.

    "Let me help you," McCoy said. He

placed his hand gently over his eyes in a comforting

manner. "Help you, understand? Help?"

He put both hands downward in a nonthreatening

manner, then put one hand out toward the medikit.

"They'll zero in on us, you know," he said just to make

himself feel better. "Klingon metabolism--"

    "Klingon!" the prisoner gulped suddenly.

McCoy stopped in place. One word in common.

He poked his own chest with a finger. "McCoy," he

said broadly. "Mick... Coy." The Klingon

shifted his feet--obviously in some pain--and took

another gasping, shallow breath. Then he thumped his

own chest. "Roth!" McCoy straightened up a

little. "You're Roth? Well, that's progress."

He pointed at the Klingon, then at his own'eyes,

then at the medikit. "Roth's eyes... help?"

With both hands he patted the skin under his own eyes.

"Yes." The Klingon sniffed, wiped his nose with the

back of his hand, then moved to one side, away from the

medikit. Something in his glazed eyes said the right thing.

"You'll get better," McCoy said, hoping his

tone of encouragement would carry. Decades as a

physician had given him that tone. He moved

toward the medikit and picked it up, not taking an

eye off Roth. "You're in pretty good hands, as

hands go..." The Klingon seemed ready to shoot,

ready to trust, alternating by the second.

McCoy forced himself to keep in mind that this Klingon

couldn't possibly know English, had never heard it,

and wouldn't trust the sound of it. If he could get to the

wall comm, he could notify the bridge of their

position on deck nine, three corridors port

from the brig. But Roth was hurt and confused,

unlikely to allow him to get his hands on a comm

unit, so he dispatched that plan and resolved to let

the bridge find them with the bioscanners and hoped he

wonld live that long,. "Mevl HighoSo!"

Roth bellowed just as McCoy's hand ,aught at the

medikit. His sore eyes were watering and he was wincing

every few seconds now. He pushed the phaser out to the

end of his reach. Knowing the phaser could go off at a

touch, never mind a good stiff shudder, McCoy

knelt to the floor, still gesturing compliance, and pulled

the medikit to him. He held up one hand and with the other

urged a treatment bottle out of the kit and held it

up to show that there was no weapon in there. Once again he

motioned to Roth's eyes and made a motion with the

treatment bottle. He closed the steps between them

gingerly but now heard the sounds of a half-dozen

footsteps pounding down the corridor. "Oh, fine

timing," he moaned. He held a hand out to Roth and

said, "Fido, stay." But the Klingon

heard the Security detail running toward them.

He caught McCoy by the upper arm and dragged him

against his own chest, then put the phaser to his

captive's cheekbone and waited for the footsteps

to round the corner.

    Blistering rage and fear.for McCoy sent a

claw of self-reproach deep into the captain's

chest as he and four guards hammered through the

corridors of deck nine. He had failed to make

his ship safe. Nowhere the crew could go with their

unthinkable power and speed was entirely safe, and all

around them, outside the protective walls, lurked

the inhospitality of cold space. Of all

places, the ship was supposed to be safe, the

corridors unbreached. He had failed to keep it

that way. And McCoy in the hands of a foe whose

motivations they couldn't measuremKirk hated that.

If he knew something about the Klingons here, he could

make a plan in his mind, pick out a half-dozen

actions and be ready. But this was impossible to guess

ahead no matter how he demanded clairvoyance of

himself. Two of the Security guards skidded around the

corner in front of him, but as he caught a

glimpse of McCoy held with his shoulderblades

rolling against the chest of the Klingon, with a

phaser to his cheek, Kirk shouted, "Hold

position! Hold your fire!" Luckily, the men

had the sense to realize he was talking to them and not the

Klingon. They braced their les, aimed their

phasers at arms' length, and stayed back. "No,

Jim!" McCoy shouted, half choked. "He had

a chance to kill me, but he didn't!" Kirk held

his own phaser down and shifted from run to stalk. His

face throbbed with the fever of rushing, of tension, of his

fears and furies. "His name is--" The Klingon's

arm tightened. After a breath McCoy coughed out,

"RbledRoth."

    "Roth...". Kirk lowered his chin and raised a

brow. "Give me my doctor back." The

Klingon spat something back in his own language and

shook McCoy in bald threat. "Security,"

Kirk said, "one of you contact the bridge. Have

Lieutenant Uhura come down here and hang a

personal universal translator on him. We

can't get anywhere if we can't talk."

    "Aye aye, sir!" one of the guards said and

ducked back into the main corridor. "The rest of

you," Kirk told them evenly, "back off." The

guards didn't like that order. He felt it in their

hesitation but refused to repeat himself. They

had their orders. He had the Klingon's attention.

He pushed everything he had ever thought about Klingons,

their tactics, their desires, their patterns of

loyalty, out through his glare to its target. He needed

no eommonality of words for what he thought of

Klingons. It boiled to the top. Roth--Kirk

knew the Klingon could see the scalding hostility and

feared disx. He was damned right to fear it. At the

moment Kirk could reach out with just his attitude and

commit a hanging. The Klingon blinked at him, and his

expression crossed several lines, never quite fixing

on one message. Beneath the outer actions was a clear

layer of abstract befuddlement. He didn't

recognize anything he saw. A Klingon who

didn't know whether or not to hate Terrans. Kirk

tried to do as he had told his Security men,

to back off in his mind and hopefully in his

expression, to pocket the feelings brought up by a

lifetime of dealing with entirely other Klingons.

Shifting the phaser to his left hand, he kept it

down at an angle, ready but down. With his right hand,

he reached out and made a beckoning gesture. Give

me my doctor back. Roth's watering eyes,

skin burned pink all around, blinked as if trying

to make sense of what he could see. His arm

weakened around McCoy's neck. Kirk motioned to the

Security men. "Phasers down." "Captain,"

one of them protested. "Right now." Slowly he put

his own phaser on the deck. With a sudden shout Roth

pushed McCoy forward violently and charged.

Chapter 11

    McCoy SLAMMED INTO KIRK'S shoulder and

spun into the starboard bulkhead, landing a ringing blow

to the doctor's collarbone and the side of his head. The

captain writhed to one side, grasped the Klingon's

phaser arm by the wrist, and nailed him with a hard right

to the ribs. The injured Klingon gagged and went down,

still clinging to the phaser he had hesitated to use.

"Security," Kirk ordered. "Take him

to sickbay under triple guard. Have Lieutenant

Uhura meet you there with the translator."

    "Aye aye, sir," the senior of them said.

"Get him up."

    As the men crowded in and took charge of the

collapsed prisoner and his phaser, Kirk hurried

across the corridor to McCoy and pulled the doctor

to his feet. "Bones, did he hurt you?"

McCoy hung a hand on that bruised collarbone.

"I don't think so, Jim. He seemed more scared

than anything else. You and that rabbit punch

--he's got fractured ribs, you know." With a

glance to the guards as they hauled the moaning prisoner

away, Kirk droned, "Pardon if I knocked

him silly. Come over here." He took McCoy

by an arm and led him a few steps in the other

direction. Desperate prisoners had been known

to kick their way clear of guards. "Report.

What's your judgment of his condition?"

    "His eyes are improving slowly," McCoy

said, "but they need treatment. He doesn't speak

English, but he does pay close attention

to attitude and intent. He's observant,

scrupulous, and willing to take each situation moment

to moment."

    "That's pretty good judging for a hostage." The

doctor rubbed his shoulder and winced. "My job,

Captain' "Anything else?"

    "Only that his name or maybe his rank is

"Roth.""

    "Roth... Did you notice his clothing? The

body-armor design, pads, coils--almost

exactly as we know them."

    "Not the colors," McCoy commented. "No, but

everything else. The Klingon culture must have been

unaffected until the past hundred

years." "When Earth people would have made contact with

them."

    "Yes." He picked up the medikit, held it

briefly, and handed it to the doctor. "That means

evidence is congealing that suggests the original change

only affected the evolution of humanity." Kirk

sighed heavily, "And the absence of humanity affected

everything else." McCoy fumbled thoughtfully with the

medikit in his hands. "So much for wondering if we'd

be missed."

    "Or if we've done the right thing by moving out

into space," the captain said.

    The doctor looked up. "I don't think this is

the time for valentines, Jim."

    "And I'm not giving one. There are clear rights and

wrongs in the universe. With the rights absent, the

wrongs flourish. And they're shredding the whole

fabric of civilization. If the policemen are

gone, the criminals take over."

    "How do you know they're not the policemen here?"

McCoy flared.

    "Because it hasn't been long enough for Klingons to be

that different. They're still Klingons and we're still the

United Federation of Planets. I'm proud of

what the Federation has done, or I wouldn't

be out here doing it."

    McCoy's expression softened. He nodded.

"Sorry, Captain. I understand how you feel."

    Irritably Kirk clipped, "Good for you."

    He spun around and went back to scoop up his

discarded phaser. As he straightened up, Spock was

there to meet him.

    "Security Ensign Beremuk informed me of your

location, Captain," the Vulcan said. "I have a

report on the fragments of the Klingon vessel...

Doctor, are you all right?"

    "I'm very well, Mr. Spock," McCoy said

as he joined them, "give or take the odd contusion.

Thank you for asking."

    Kirk glowered as if he preferred them to be

sniping at each other. "Let's have that report,

Spock."

    "Yes, sir. The remnants of the small ship

are made of a super energy-resistance material,

something the Klingon

    science must have concentrated upon heavily."

    "Defense. It's a clue to their priorities."

    "Yes. The material is unstable, however. It

is breaking down even now and will crumble within days. I

would surmise these vessels are built

only hours before their actual use and made to be

used only once."

    "Evidently."

    "To sacrifice manpower and resources for the

demolition of one enemy post or vessel... That's a

tactic of desperation. A war between the Klingons and

Romulans, relatively

    equal in technology, going at each other's

throats without any interference or referee, no other

parties in the settled galaxy able to stand them off...

both cultures ruled by nothing but shallow parochial

honor, but no principles about individual

rights... How long could it go on before it came down

to resources and personnel and one side started

whipping the tar out of the other?"

    "Do you think that's what's happening, Jim?"

McCoy asked. "The Klingons are losing?"

    Kirk almost dropped a yes on the floor and

kicked it over there, but something made him hesitate.

Conclusions too early, believing in what he thought

too soon--maybe even wishful thinking--these things

could stunt his efficiency.

    "We've got to get answers out of that Klingon,"

he declared.

    "Captain," Spock began, "are you

intending to explain the situation as we know it to our

prisoner? That course may be unwise."

    "It's all the wisdom I've got at the

moment."

    The doctor cocked his head. "Have Spock go up

there and explain to him how we were slam-dunked by a

ball of thread."

    "String, actually," Spock said flatly.

    "No need to be so specific, Mr. Spock,"

McCoy tossed back. "There's nobody around

to check up on you. The relentlessly logical

culture you're devoted to might not even exist in this

time line."

    With his hands clasped behind him, Spock pivoted with

casual purpose. "We cannot be sure of that,

Doctor. And I am not 'devoted" to the Vulcan

culture," he added, "or I Would be on

Vulcan."

    McCoy looked as if he'd been corked.

    Jim Kirk put a hand out between them. With this

hoUr's tumbledown reality chewing at his heels,

he felt like a man trying to make a rope of sand.

    "All right, as you were," he said. "Let's go

talk to him."

    "I've got it keyed to translate from

Klingon to English on

    outgoing speakers and English to Klingon in the ear

piece. But he won't let me put it on him,

sir. He's afraid of it."

    Uhura stood just outside the triage room at

sickbay, her even features crimped by frustration.

    Kirk frowned and peeked into the treatment area, where

the Klingon was sitting in a chair, wrists bound

together, flanked by two guards and vultured from behind

by one more. All three had phasers drawn, and the

clarity of their message shone in the prisoner's

bearing as he sat with his arms tight over his ribs.

    "Safe distance, all of you." Kirk led the way

inside.

    The Klingon had heard them, for he was fixed

wide-eyed on the entryway as the four came in.

    Suddenly his entire body went hard and his reddened

eyes stretched wide. He bolted to his feet and

charged.

    "romuluSngan!" The word was hardly more than a

spit. Seeming to realize that, Roth gritted his

teeth and hissed again, was romuluSngan!"

    Reflexively McCoy stumbled back

into Uhura, Spock moved to protect them, and

Kirk stepped forward to take the brunt of the

attack. The two flanking guards hooked Roth

by both arms and hauled him back roughly. The third

    guard flashed around front and took aim with his

phaser. "No, don't stun him!" the captain said.

    Roth was pushing at the guard's grips and glaring

needles only at Spock.

    Reacting to the raw, bald despise in the

Klingon's face, Kirk got between him and Spock

quickly. "What's romuluSngan?"

    Spockept his voice in careful check. "I would

surmise that's his word for Romulans."

    Hearing that tone, Roth's expression changed.

He peered at Spock, took measure of his

demeanor, and saw something

    else. With notable astonishment, he gasped,

"Vulcan?" Spock offered him one confirming nod.

    The Klingon stopped pushing at the guards, put his

teeth together. "Vulcan!"

    But this time, he spat the word.

    "Lieutenant Uhura," Kirk summoned,

frustrated.

    Uhura approached, but Roth jerked back and

almost pulled the two guards off their feet.

    "Give me the translator," Kirk said, fed

up. He attached it to his own collar and

indicated to Roth that there was nothing poisonous about it,

that it was harmless, then barked at the guards, "Hold

him."

    The guards put their weight on the Klingon.

Kirk stepped in and clipped the translator to the

Klingon's shirt collar, glad the heavy harnesses

and chest armor had been taken off. Then he put the

corresponding ear plug into Roth's right

    ear.

    "How do I engage it?" he asked.

    "Tap the earpiece, sir," Uhura said.

    The Klingon twisted his face out of the way but

didn't fight.

    "Jim, wait." McCoy pulled out the little

bottle he had tried to use in the corridor.

"Hold him down."

    All three guards leaned on Roth again, and the

doctor stepped in, forced his eyelids up, and put

droplets of the treatment into the injured eyes.

    "There." McCoy backed off. "If that's not a

peace offering, i don't know what is."

    Roth blinked, sore eyes set now in a

different kind of surprise. His new expression

came not from what his eyes were feeling, but from what he

had heard.

    Kirk watched him. "Do you understand me?"

    He waited to see if there was a reaction. He

made a gesture that backed the guards off and stepped

closer. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you? You

might as well answer."

    The Klingon blinked his eyes mechanically, but he

seemed to see them more clearly--and the shock of whatever

had come over that earpiece was working on him.

    "What are you?" The facsimile of his voice was

so close as to be startling. He flinched at the sound

of "himself" speaking Klingon and getting a strong

blunt echo in a strange language.

    Kirk felt a surge of hope. This was the first

communication they'd had with this universe that wasn't a

yellow poppy or an unknown beast. This was a moment

when a

    wrong turn on his part would mean future or

fracture for all involved.

    "We are humans," he said deliberately.

"I am Captain Kirk. This ship is the

Enterprise, United Federation of Planets."

    "Kirrk?" Roth tipped his head. "It is a

Klingon name?"

    "No. It's a human name. We're from the

planet Earth."

    "There is no Earth," Roth said, testing the

translator and not entirely trusting it. "Where is

Zalt? My commander?"

    "Don't tell him," Kirk snapped. He

straightened, and

    they squared off. "Why did you attack my

medical officer?"

    "I thought I was captive on a

rornuluSngan ship."

    "Then why didn't you kill him?"

    Roth paused, looked at McCoy. "He is

not my enemy."

    "Are any of us your enemy?" Kirk gestured at

Uhura, the guards. Then he moved to Spock.

"Is this your enemy?"

    Roth kept tight control over his motions, quite

clear on what phasers were meant for, and he stopped

short when Kirk put a firm hand on the

Klingon's chest and let it be known he'd better

state his intentions.

    So Roth fixed his sore eyes on Spock and

lowered his voice. Even his inflections were brought across

effectively by the translator. "Vulcan, why

are you here, coward? Animal? Liar. Did you

escape?"

    Spock hesitated, but when the captain urged him

on with a look, he said, "My name is Commander

Spock. I am the ship's first officer."

    "Impossible! How did you escape?" Roth

persisted. The

    Klingon echo buzzed behind the English words.

"Explain what he escaped from," Kirk urged.

"From the boundary channels!"

    At that tone, one of the guards slipped forward a

step but

    didn't encroach on the captain's progress.

    "Explain why we aren't your enemy."

    "Because I do not know you! And the romuluSpu' were

firing on you."

    "The enemy of your enemy... is your friend? Is that

your belief?."

    Reticent to commit himself, the Klingon backed

away a pace.

    "If we explain our situation to you," Kirk

pushed, "will you tell us the nature of yourself and your

enemies?"

    Roth stared at him, measuring what he saw in

Kirk's eyes and the set of his brow, waiting for a

flinch or a blink that would give away deception.

Kirk had been looked at like that before and

refused to do either. He stood his mental ground as much

as he stood defense between Roth and Spoc, letting

the Klingon know he also was not entirely trusted.

    Ultimately, the Klingon nodded, once, very

bluntly. "All right," Kirk said, "the rest of

you, get out."

    "Captain..." Spock moved to him, turned a

cold shoulder to Roth, and spoke very low.

"Respectfully resist your

    being left alone with him. He is, after all, a

Klingon." Kirk almost smiled. "Prejudice,

Spock?

    Without offering even a glance at the prisoner,

Spock raised a brow. "If necessary, sir."

    The captain nodded, warmed that Spock would admit

that on his behalf. "Noted. Leave one of the guards

here."

    The others did as he bade, but McCoy stepped

quickly to

    the captain. "What are you going to do, Jim?"

Kirk felt his eyes tighten at the corners.

"I'm gonna explain it to him."

    Roy's. Once proud, then shamed, now

suspicious.

    These were the cleverest lies he had ever

heard. Such detail. Even on the screen,

generated graphics of something the captain called a

squeezing disk. Violence and transmutation danced

before him on the visual monitor. This, they said, had

happened to them. But it was the pictures... the

recordings... of a civilization unimaginable that

shook him. Yes, wars, but the wars were aberrations in

a way of life, not themselves a way of life. What

kind of minds did these people possess that they could think

of life this way? Pictures of Klingons dealing with

these aliens no one had ever seen, of romuluSngan

and Vulcan interacting on the large scale with these

people. The captain had explained what they thought had

happened to them, then turned on the computer,

"spaeefarer to spacerarer," he said and let the machine

take over. Why would they waste their complex

fabrication on a prisoner? Wouldn't they try

to find a high council to show it to? No matter how

he wanted to believe, there was that Vulcan who said

he was part of the ship's crew. A Vulcan! Who

could believe any story now? were there Vulcans where

these people said they came from? were they liars and cowards

there, too? His thousand questions twisted with the throbbing of his

head. Pictures could be faked. The captain was

watching him. Jamestee Kirk. A

golden man. Golden hair, golden shirt,

gold-and-black shield on his breast. Golden

eyes. Hard eyes, this one. Hatred in those eyes.

Spacefarer to spacerarer, yes. But this one didn't

like Klingons. Roth didn't mind being hated. In

fact, it was a clue of sorts, coming from this man who

said he and his people did not come from this universe at all

and sought only mutuality. "You," he began, "are

lost?" The captain watched him. "Yes. We're

lost."

    "I don't believe you."

    "I know you don't. But I want you to think about

all this Somehow I intend to convince you over the next

few hours."

    "You will fail."

    "We'll see about that. Until then, you don't have

to say anything. I'll talk. You tell me when

I'm wrong. You're the pilot of some kind of

suicide vessel. You, and presumably others like

you, veer in at high speed and plunge up the thruster

ports of those Romwthose romuluSngan bulk

cruisers. Those are resouree-intensive ships.

They take time to build and large crews to maintain.

To eradicate one is considered a great victory.

On the other hand, it only takes a few

weeks to put together one of your small attack

ships, which are all engine and never meant to come

home." Blinking, Roth felt his jaw grow tighter

with every phrase. He set his mouth hard against blurting

an accusation of subterfuge against so total a

stranger. But how could this man know these things? "Most

pilots of such craft," the captain went on,

"expect to die in the explosion, but you didn't. For

some reason your people install a life pod in your

suicide ships. Why would you do that?" The captain

glared at him so directly that Roth couldn't help

but see the petulance. "The Empire is short of

men, isn't it? You'll take manpower from anywhere you

can get it. You're losing the war, aren't you?" Roth

was forced to break his stoicity with a cough. The captain

prowled him. "Your two empires are nothing but

malevolence met with malevolence," the gold man

went on. "You've made an evil-fashioned

galaxy here, with the two of you pounding each other so

relentlessly that you haven't been able to get past the

battle to enjoy what you win. Your culture tries

to ripen, only to spoil on the ground because you have no

time to gather it. All you have to show for years of struggle

is the open wound that could're been the Klingon

civilization. Now, you tell me I'm

wrong." Silence clamped down sharply. The faint

twirps of equipment from the lab next door came

through. Roth could only offer a corrosive glare through

his watering eyes. The captain stopped pacing and

faced him down. "When did this war begin?" Roth

released his lip and licked it. "Always."

    "Always," Krok said as if the word had a bad

taste. "Do you want the war to end?" In the

captain's eyes Roth saw a determination, even a

familiarity with war, but there was something about the way he

said "end," as if he had seen or made wars end

before and calculations were ratcheting up in his mind about

how to do it again. End? "War does not end," Roth

finally pronounced. "Fight enemies, win, then

fight friends. Or lose."

    "Do you think that's right?"

    "Right? What is "right"? It is what's

done." Kirk seemed to think there was something odd about

that perception. "This is a starship of the United

Federation of Planets," the man said, his amber

eyes angry. "We know what that stands for. War

happens for specific reasons. We have no stock

in whatever goes on between you and your enemies. I've

got a ship and crew to worry about. My first concern

is to find a way back. I want you

to help me." Roth pushed his hands to the bench and rose

on his hips. "There is no going back for yo If

your story is true, you have to live here now." The

words reached out from the mouth of a prisoner and struck his

keeper like a slap. Roth felt it ricochet off the

walls, swirl around the young guard standing beside the

doorway. The captain's own personal dynamism

had kept him from believing what he had just been told

and for the first time Roth found himself believing a shred of

what he had been told. More proof than any reams

of computer storage, more than any scientific

programs, more than seeing it for himself, he saw now

in the captain's face. This was a man who had never

imagined living out his life in any other than his own

universe, where matters were known to him and where he had

anchors.

    Until now, Jamestee Kirk had never thought of

not getting back. "If you will not be my enemy,"

Roth began, "whose will you be?" Kirk stiffened.

"We will be neutral for now."

    "There is no neutral."

    "There is for us." "Not here, Captain," Roth

said. "For your own lives' sakes, you must join us."

The ship was here, there was no denying that, and it was

sophisticated and certainly couldn't have been

constructed in any Klingon or romuluSngan

sphere of patrol without being discovered by one side or

other. No one anywhere could build just one of such a

ship, not without having built many others before it. They

must have come from very far away. Yet they came alone.

Why? Had their people been destroyed? They must be the

last to come here like this in the middle of the forever war. And

there was that Vulcan. That Vulcan. Doubts

crawled in Roth's mind. "You must become part of

our fleet," he said bluntly. "We will not join

you. We won't have our ship used for someone else's

conquest."

    "You will have no choice. The Klingons will be the

winners."

    This young stick of fire swung around from where he had

paced. "Winners who use desperation tactics?"

    "The Spears have turned the tide. We were losing,

but now the romuluSo nganpu' run from us. You saw

it!"

    "Yes, I saw it. And we won't participate

in your pattern of conquest , not you or the

RomuMromuluSnganpu'."

    "You have not had hard lives," Roth pushed in, the

faint Imzz of the translator echoing every syllable.

"Your clothing is new. You have resources

to devote to that! There's fresh disir and laughter on

your ship -- laughter! But this will all end for you unless

you face the truth. How long can you survive disin

deep space all alone? You must live here now and

join one side or the other. I want you for mine."

    Boiling, the captain glared at him, shoulders

rocked back. "Not a chance."

    "And also no chance of creating this interdimensional

distortion more than once. You will never go back. This

is your life now."

    "We aren't that certain of our theory. There are

missing elements. And we're not participating in your

war. We are absolutely neutral."

    Roth widened his eyes. Mick-Coy had given

him back his eyes, but they were irritated and tired.

    "I do not understand you. There is no neutral.

None is allowed here. Neutral is... water.

Nothing else. I don't understand your thinking."

    "We are not getting involved in your war of

conquest. We will defend ourselves, but that is

absolutely... all."

    "You will have no choice, Captain. Word is

spreading about you now. You're being pursued without

doubt. You must not be captured by the romulungan.

If you have them in your culture, then you know

why. If you join my people, you will be brought into our

culture and you can gain trust. Your ship will be

integrated into our fleet and you may be allowed

to continue serving on it. If the romuluSngan

catch you, your crew will be torched alive until

none are left. And you will be last... and they will have your

ship anyway."

    He was making a gamble. He saw in the

captain's eyes that the captain knew he wasn't

being lied to again.

    "In nature," Roth said, "there are two kinds

of life. There are the kind who fight and the kind who

are food. You are fOO-DO! He lashed out,

furious at the idea of keeping this ship out of a

conflict whose tide it could turn. "Everyone goes

to war with everyone eventually, Captain. No one can

resist trying to take what the other has. Sometimes it

is done without weapons through the sheer power of

authority, but it always happens. You can't stand up

to both of us. Eventually we or they will take you, either

in battle or when your supplies run low. Join

with us while you're strong and can bargain, or fight

both my people and the pestilential rornuluSngan and

die. And leave your ship for us."

    The captain looked as though his muscles

had cured to stone. He looked past Roth to the

Security guard, and there was liability for the future

burning in his face. The guard was standing too

straight, struggling for palace-guard

immutability, his eyes turned upward, his face

pinched and pale from what he was hearing.

    "We're not joining you," the captain said again.

    "You will have to!" Roth pushed off his bench and almost

fell. He was surprised when the captain reached out

and helped him stay on his feet.

    : The Security guard plunged forward to get between

his commander and the Klingon, but the captain pushed him

back. "As you were, Ensign."

    Putting space between himself and them, Roth forced himself

to keep talking. "The rornuluSngan are toxic

people," he gasped. "They will turn your crew

into another conquered mass." Roth placed a

scratched hand on his chest. "We wouldn't do that. We

know the makers of such a ship are worth keeping

alive! You are not our enemy yet!"

    "I don't intend to be your enemy unless you force

me to," the captain said. "Or the romulungan

either."

    "Your ship bristles with weapons. Where is the

peace in your culture?"

    "We keep peace by holding back the violence.

We keep it with morality, individualism, and

law. Thousands of planets live in prosperity and

protection. Even the Klingons are beginning

to prosper in spite of their isolationism. You saw

    "I saw. If it were real, this would be paradise.

No one of us has ever--" He clamped his mouth

shut. He was talking too much. It was easy to make

that mistake with this man and those drilling eyes. This was

the kind of man who was hard to lie to.

    But he was soft, golden, gentle. The ship was

run with too little discipline. It was humiliating to be

captive of these ols. They and their fabulous

vessel wouldn't survive long if eaught between the

two sides of the blade.

    "There are things you aren't telling me," Roth said.

"When I find them out, then I will decide what

to believe about your stories. Either you go back where you

came from--and you cannot ally with my people against the menace

we fight." Korik fixed his eyes on him, moved

back, then moved sideways and back, hackles

up and prowling. "We aren't going to war with anyone."

Roth didn't even blink this time. "Yes," he

said, "you are." The captain glowered and flexed his

hands petulantly. "I liked you better

when you wouldn't talk."

    "To stand against conquest does not work here," Roth

said. "This is where you live from this day on, with me and

my people and my enemies. Now... will you let me lead

you to my fleet's headquarters, Captain Kork?"

There was a bitter cold light in the strangeifs

eyes. A subdued grin touched his lips, also

cold. "It's Kirk," he said, "and no." They

stared at each other. Even when the force barrier at the

entrance was dropped by the guard as another officer

approached from outside, Roth was careful not to look

away from the captain. This man would notice any

backing down, any at all. "May I disturb you,

Captain?" a baritone voice interrupted.

Kirrk ticked off another two seconds of

glare, then broke away. "I'm already disturbed,

Mr. Spock. What do you want?" Through a watery

sheen Roth saw the form beside the gold blur of the

captain, panels of blue and black. He pushed

to his feet, thrust out one arm before him, the other behind

for balance, and plunged forward. "Coward Vulcan?"

Chapter 12

    THE SECU-MTV Ounm greater-than slammed

into him, shoulder first, and managed to keep inches between

Roth and the Vulcan he was trying

to attack. The captain shoved his officer back and

came between them. "Vulcan!" Roth blasted between

grinding teeth. "Tell me the truth! I have always

dealt fairly with you!"

    "Back!" the guard shouted in his ear. "Last

chancel" Beside his face, Roth saw the guard's

weapon teeter for aim. For a moment he didn't

care, but then he did. He could do nothing

unconscious on the deck or dead. He changed his

demeanor, forced himself to gain balance against the guard's

grip. The captain and his officer set each other on

their feet and Kirk came toward him. "We've

told you the truth."

    "There is no truth where a Vulcan walks! This

talk of . neutrality--it comes from them." Roth

looked at the Vulcan and said, "You have broken the

treaty. Do you intend to

    VS-EVERY this ship to go to war with Klingon?" Slowly

the Vulcan shook his head. "I am not at war with

Klingon. Nor have I any such plans." g h

considered sitting on the deck. The guard's arm

Rot " P .

    , pressing against his throat wasn't easing up.

The weapon s point still picked at his ear. The

captain came closer. "You expect him

to recognize you. Why? Will other Vulcans

recognize you, too? Can you address them on our

behalf It's your life as much as ours."

    "Our lives are over if we go to Vulcan,"

Rote scorned. "You have nothing in common with them. You

are one of us. There is Klingon in you, Captain...

Kirk." Two futures bawled for attention. Beyond

what the captain clearly heard as an ingrained

insult blared the hunting horns of a possibility that

would not be ignored. Kirk stared and stared, but the

horns wouldn't fade and Rote refused to back

down. "Captain," the Vulcan encouraged, "if you

will." He balanced a nod toward the corridor.

"You have no right to comment, coward!" Rote inflamed.

"Kirk, the Vulcans will tell you that you can stay

neutral--you can't. They say there are always

alternatives. There aren't. They tell you the mind

can rule the universe... It cannot. They say we can

all look beyond our differences." He pushed against the

guard one final time. "It is a dream." The

captain moved back to the Vulcan's side,

summoning a deeper root of the submerged candor. The

two were almost opposites in all visible ways,

yet there was something solid about their standing together that way.

"Mr. Spock and I look beyond our

differences every day," Kirk said. "We're

shipmates. And we're friends. And you're wrong."

James Kirk turned away from the Klingon, skin

crawling with expectation of a rebuff. He didn't

think he'd get the last word. At least his name was

finally right. He stopped in the middle of the

corridor, swung around to Spock, and barked,

"All right, what've you got?" Spock's voice

was a salve. "Mr. Scott reports the Klingon

life pod is made of conventional materials.

However, it is a concoction of spare parts of varying

ages and stress levels. There's evidence of

prior use, some simple age, some violent,

including exposure to hard radiation and heavy weapon

fire."

    "Then I was right. And now that I have him, what do

I do with him? Keep him?" Trying to be tactful,

Spoc said, "We have no reason to hold him under

any articles of war."

    "What about other cultures? Governments who were

Federation allies in our... time." "Like the

Vulcans, we can assume their history did not

deviate until recently. They simply have had

no Federation to join. Since no one encouraged them

to band together, they've been alone against the two

most aggressive forces in the settled galaxy. As

such, it's likely they've had to subject themselves

to harsh compromise."

    "Compromise usually means one side giving up

a lot," Kirk distilled unhappily. Spock

offered a mild nod. "A war of this magnitude will

have taken thousands of planets with it during the fifty

to one hundred years during which the Federation would have

held the hostile powers apart."

    "Then I have to assume the peaceful races have been

subjugated?"

    "Yes," Spock said. The simplicity of it was

damning. He didn't quote odds or frame his

answer in theoreticads. Just yes. "We know the

Vulcans exist," Kirk said when the silence

became overbearing. "He's familiar with them, even

if he doesn't like them. Can we turn him over

to them?"

    "A viable solution, unless we consider his knowledge of

our ship and situation a risk." The comm system on

the wall clicked on the tail of Spock's words.

"Bridge to Captain Kirk"

    "That damage has been done," Kirk said.

"We can't fix it. And I don't want to keep

him. We'll turn him over to the

Vulcans." He stepped to the wall. "Kirk

here."

    "Mr. Scott would like to speak to you, sir."

    "Put him through."

    "He says this might be classified, sir."

    "Nothing's classified anymore,

Lieutenant." A pause, then, "Scott here,

sir. We have a new contact. Unfamiliar

design, one hundred fifty thousand gross tons,

no recognizable signatures. They identify

themselves as a Vulcan merchant transport, cargo

pharmaceuticals. They'd like to come into beaming range

and have a word with you."

    "Understood. All stop. Tell them to stand by."

    "aye aye, sir."

    "Spock, take the con. Explain our problem

to the Vulcans if you think they should know."

    "Yes, sir... Captain, where will you be?"

    "I'm going to arrange a prisoner transfer,"

Kirk said. "I'm going to put Roth in the same

cell as the other Klingon... and let'm work on each

other. I might have to live in their universe, but they

have to live in mine, too." Ten minutes later,

James Kirk spun out of the turbolift and tilted

down the steps toward the lower deck. To his

astonishment, a dozen crudely dressed strangers

held his bridge crew at pistol point. All

men, the strangers were shaggy haired, robust, rugged,

their faces built on angularities that were

familiar, and their demonic pointed ears gave them

away. Vulcans, allies otherwise, but not

necessarily here. Every one of these Vulcans held

at least one bridge crewman at the point of a

weapon. And on the starboard bridge, a

shaggy-haired Vulcan in a bulky jacket of

olive green, black trousers, and pirate

boots, with a gray cowl around his neck, was squared

off with Spock, one hand held out at his side, the

other hand spread across the side of Spock's face.

Kirk understood that Vulcan telepathic talents

could be turned punitive. Mind meld-- The heat

dropped out of his body as he absorbed the sight of

armed and aggressive Vulcans and what was happening

in the only sacred place left to him in the

galaxy. His first officer was under assault. His

bridge had been taken.

Chapter 13

    BETWEEN THE STARSHIP'S CAPTAIN and his first

officer, an unfamiliar Vulcan held a weapon

on Lieutenant Uhura at the

communications station. Only three feet away, this

individual made a fair first target. Blessed with the

compact frame of a wrestler and a few bundles of

muscle he was proud of, Jim Kirk moved

to take his ship back. He faked a step to port,

then dodged to starboard with the point of his elbow plowing his

course. As he drove the nearest Vulcan down,

Uhura ducked under his arm and out of his way to give

him room. Momentum drove the Vulcan aside.

Kirk forced himself up with a left hook, and the

Vulcan hit the deck. But these were Vulcans, and

he had just played his only surprise card. There was

noise behind him; he hoped it was somebody else in his

crew taking advantage of his fake and dodge. The

sound of raw resistance pumped him with energy. He

launched upward at the other Vulcan with a backhand

blow whose impact pried the stranger away from

Spock, then punctuated his attack by bringing his right

fist around to the stranger's jaw, like a mallet

driving a wooden stake into the heart of a demon.

Dazed from the broken telepathic attachment, the

stranger staggered back and bumped the bridge rail.

Spock fell backward, too, arching over his

sensor hood, arms flagging like a rag doll's.

Then his ribs tightened, and he found

purchase on the science panel and fought for balance.

Kirk grabbed the rail and scanned the deck to size

up the situation. Behind him, two engineers had

sprung to life. Scott wasn't here--probably

headed for the engine room as soon as Spock took the

bridge--but Nourredine and an assistant were. The

assistant was a big kid who downed the surprised

Vulcan who'd been hovering over them, and

Nourredine and Chekov were grappling with another one

on the lower deck. Three Vulcans down. How many

were there? He fixed on another and braced to get there.

"Captain!" Spock rasped. "Don't."

    Kirk almost broke his back grating to a dead

halt. Spock would never stop him without a good

reason. Better be a hell of one.

    The stranger in the olive jacket, now with a

swelling lip, snapped something in Vulcan to his

own men.

    In spite of the fact that they outnumbered the

bridge crew, all the Vulcans now lowered their

weapons.

    Glowering under his brow like a bear just out of a trap,

Kirk shoved himself up, pressing the bridge rail

so heavily on his right arm that he thought his

wrist would snap. He stood straight to deal with the

Vulcans. The bridge was his again.

    Angling at Uhura, he cracked,

"Security."

    She touched her board. "Security detail to the

bridgem

    On the wide main screen was a thoroughly

unfamiliar ship, dull and utilitarian. Kirk

skimmed the bulky cargo holds and heavy

industrial engines in a mental demand that the ship

prove she was what she said she was.

    He glanced around. The Vulcans were all

crudely and heavily dressed, well fed, and

strong, wearing cowls or scarves and heavy boots.

Cold over there, apparently.

    Fighting a lingering daze, Spock gathered himself.

"Captain Kirk... may I present Captain

Sova, Cargo Vessel T'Lom, of the Vulcan

Merchant Consortium."

    "I don't care who he is. Nobody takes

my bridge." Kirk tilted his head toward

Uhura without taking his eyes off the

    "Call McCoy to the bridge. Then give me

a

    bridgewide."

    "Aye, sir... tied in."

    Locked onto Sova's mud-brown eyes,

Kirk saw a stability in his expression. If

they'd had the room, they would've circled each other.

    Before either could speak, the turbolift hissed open

and six heavily armed Security guards plunged out

and spread across the bridge, scooping up Vulcans

as they went.

    The lieutenant of the guard glanced around to make

sure all was secure, then nodded at Kirk.

    Satisfied, Kirk nodded back. Now he could

get mad if he wanted to.

    He faced Sova again. "You boarded my ship

without an invitation. Can you explain that?"

    The newcomer offered a blunt, uneasy bow. His

voice was gravelly through the translator. "We

live on the defensive. We seek the swiftest

solutions. This was my way. We have developed a

method of matter transport through shields at

close range. It costs great power, but I have

saved my cargo from pirates many times this way."

    "And this looked like a pirate ship to you?"

    The Vulcan might have been embarrassed--or was

he amused?

    "No," he admitted, "it does not.

Now I understand and offer greetings, Captain... from

my universe to yours."

    "I don't think much of your manner of greeting,"

Kirk said roughly. He pivoted to Spock. "You

all right?"

    "Yes," Spock drawled as he levered

to Kirk's side. The glaze of telepathic

encroachment was clearing from his eyes,

    though he still looked as though he'd taken a gut

punch. "Were you under attack?"

    Spock eyed the Vulcan commander.

"'Interrogation" may be more accurate.

Impolite, but efficient."

    At first Kirk thought Spock was getting a slap

in with that remark, but then he realized that in two words

his first officer was giving him critical information--that

these Vulvans were different. In their own universe,

Vulcans considered such deeply personal intrusion

demeaning. Spock was telling him that these people had been

through something that changed their attitude about mental manners.

Suddenly Jim Kirk was face-to-face

with a total stranger who knew a hell of a lot about

him and his crew. The turbolift opened again, and

McCoy came out but stopped and gawked at the

scene. "What's going on?" he asked.

"You'll know when we do," Kirk told him.

"Captain Sova, do you understand what's happened

to us?" Sova moved toward them. "Mr. Spock

himself is testimony to your predicament, sir. No

native Vulcan--"

    "Then you've got the information you need?" Kirk

charged. "You know what happened to us?"

    "I know what you believe happened, and this ship of

yours is evidence that you have not given yourself to fantasy.

And it is unlikely that you do." "CaptainMore"

Chekov cranked around and spoke sharply enough to give

away that he'd been waiting for a chance to interrupt.

"Long-range sensors tracking two large

cruisers, possible three, bearing one-four-nine,

extreme distance." Kirk turned. "Closing?"

    "No, sir, traveling laterally across our stern."

    "We have screened you," Sova said, "but we can

keep doing it only a short time. Keep all your

shields up."

    "Helm, full shields up." Kirk swung

back to Sova. "Can you help us?" The Vulcan

captain shook his head. "I have no authority. But

I will let you speak to someone who does."

    "Zalt! Alive!"

    "Yes, I am alive. I see you are

also. It's too bad for you."

    "I--made no special attempts to live.

You know they found me in the same life pod as you!"

    "Still... too bad. I offer you my pity."

Zalt was limited to one arm, the other caught up in

a traction sling of some kind, and one eye now bore

a gory scar, but his face still held that familiar

contempt. None of that had gone away after Spear

duty, after taking out an entire Ri'ann warship

by themselves. And they had both survived! No medicine

Klingon or romuluSngan could bring back two

Spears from a detonation!

    The commander was wearing his own leggings and a simple

blue shirt from the sickbay. McCoy, then, had

been here, too. And so had the captain, for Zalt was

wearing one of those translators. The two of them

waited in smoldering silence while the guard outside

reestablished the barrier field that would keep them

both in here, and its hum covered their voices, at

least a little. "You have been here all the time? In their

brig?" Roth asked. "Yes." Zalt glanced at

the two cushioned beds and blankets. "Soft."

    "They are soft," Roth agreed. "They asked me

questions but without torture. Never even talked about it."

    "And what did you tell them without

torture?"

    "Nothing, I swear."

    "What is their heading?"

    "I think they go to Vulcan."

    "Then you did talk to them!" Zalt erupted.

"No!" Roth gasped. "I told them nothing about

me!"

    "And when the Vulcans see you, what will they tell

these strangers! Fool!"

    "I can't stop that..." Roth waved despairing

hands. Zalt swung back. "Are they with us or

against us?"

    "The... Vulcan?"

    "No! These humans!" "They say neither."

    "That is not an option."

    "I told him that."

    "I know, Roth, you talk too much. You have always

talked and talked. You talked millions of

Klingons to their deaths." Zalt stalked the room but

lowered his voice further and eyed the guard outside the

cell. "We must disable this ship while it is still in our

space," he said, "or destroy it." Roth looked

up. "Commander, we have no way to confirm their story.

We shouldn't destroy them before we know the truth."

    "You talk too much." Zalt cut him

off with a growl. "You show weakness and tiredness to the

enemy. I had to tolerate

    you as my copilot, but the glory is over. You will

not question me now. The voice of a humiliated Klingon

is not a voice."

    Desperation creased Roth's brow. "But I've

been a Spear! I've been walking dead! I

didn't tell anyone! I've saved my honor"

    "You've saved your family's honor. Now they

can go on without speaking your name. You will never have any

honor. Some things cannot be fixed. It's my order that

we disregard these people's wild stories and act

to cripple this ship. If they are not with us, they are

against us."

    Roth shuffled backward into the shadow of the two

bunks of the wall, put his arms to his sides.

"Yes, Command Silence fell, and Roth swore it

made a whack on the deck. His hands went numb,

mind blazing and hopes dashed. He felt filthy.

    Zalt wasn't looking at him. It was a shame

to look at him. When the barrier field snapped

away, he barely noticed. Only when the guard

came in with four other guards did he look up.

    "All right, you two," the guard said, "no

tricks or we'll shoot you down.

Don't make any mistakes about that. Move."

    Zalt hesitated two seconds while the

translator caught up with the human's fast manner

of speech. "Where are you taking us? Are you going

to torture us?"

    "Yeah, we're going to torture you. How do you

feel about eating each other's fingers? Let's go."

    Two of the other guards smiled. The first guard

waved his weapon and gestured to the open corridor and the

red gauntlet of the guards.

    Zalt went first and paused as his hands were

manacled. "Have we arrived at Vulcan?" he

asked while they snapped the cuffs.

    "Don't know," the guard said and distributed a

square push to the middle of Roth's back. "I said

move. Captain wants to see you."

    While the transporter hummed between the two

ships, Kirk waved Spock down from the starboard

deck. "Come down with me."

    Together they dropped to the command deck, the center of the

bridge. Kirk had a particular impression he

wanted to make.

    On the viewscreen was a picture of the Vulcan

ship, rough and old, patched together. There was no

prosperity, no something-for-something's sake,

be it design, art, science, exploration. The

boarding party's clothing was basic, with familiar

Vulcan stitching, but any jewels, stones, or

brooches were conspicuously missing.

    Spock landed at his side almost exactly as

another Vulcan materialized on the upper

bridge, port side. The new Vulcan

visitor raised an eyebrow and stepped back when

Uhura met him up there and offered him a personal

translator.

    Uhura arranged the translator on the breast

of the Vulcan's bronze tunic--almost the same

color as his hair--keyed it to his

encephalography, then casually returned to her

post.

    Crossing the lower deck, Jim Kirk worked

to hide his limp. "Welcome to the Enterprise.

I'm Captain James T. Kirk."

    Sova spoke up from the starboard side.

"Captain, may I present Secretary

Temron of the Vulcan High Council."

    The new one looked young for such a heavy title.

In fact, they all looked young. Where were all the

old Vulcans? Tired? Crippled? Dead from

years of fighting? Didn't Vulcans get the chance

to grow old in this universe? Didn't anybody?

    Temron looked around, wide-eyed. "Your ship

is... large. When we heard of an unknown

vessel that could outrun the Klingons and Ri'ann,

we envisioned a small vessel, powerpacked--but to have

such speed in such bulk. You mystify us, Captain

T'Kirk."

    If he was enthused, it was embalmed in concern and his

fascination was muffled. He broke away from scanning

the bridge and was now staring at Spoc.

    Kirk moved back to the command deck's center to stand

a little in front of Spock and a little beside him. "This

is Mr. Spock, my first officer." Now

Temron openly stared. He murmured,

"Impossible..." Spock mounted the stairs and

paused before him on the upper bridge. There was something

imposing about the two of them standing there, statuesque and

becalmed. Spock raised his right hand and offered the

Vulcan greeting. "Live long and prosper,

Temron." The visitor gazed at him, again

mystified and not bothering to hide it. The words meant more

than a rote greeting. Slowly, he raised his own

hand. "I wish you peace... Spoc." With deepening

lament he offered the best his own culture

had to give, and the poignant disparity between the two

greetings seemed to wrack Temron like a blow. His

expression did not change, but his despair rang

around the bridge. Temron glanced around, noted that

he was slipping, and struggled for irapassivity. He

did look young. But who could really tell with a

Vulcan? Looking at Spock again, Temron

lowered his voice. "How can you be here? were you lost in

your youth? Refugeed or castaway? were your parents

killed?"

    "My parents are alive," Spoc said

fluidly. "My father is Vulcan's ambassador

to the United Federation of Planets. I believe

he is currently on a mission to the planet of

Tellar."

    "Tellar... I know this planet. The

civilization there was obliterated by the Klingons when

I was a child." McCoy came forward on the upper

aft deck. "What's that supposed to mean? You mean

they were killed on purpose?"

    "They refused to cooperate," Temron said.

"Klingons use it as an example of

nonsubmittance." He paused, looked at

Kirk, looked at Sova, then back at Spoc.

"There are none left."

    "The population of Tellar," Spock offered

solidly, "is six billion as of the last local

census." Ternton shook his head. "No."

McCoy came around the rail toward him. "What

about the Orions?" Ternton looked at Sova,

then at McCoy. "No..."

    "The Alpha Centauris?"

    "I do not know what those are." Spoc supplied,

"Their indigenous name is Saroming." Again Temron

shook his head. "There are none of that name surviving

here."

    "The Tholians?" McCoy pressured. "They

were exterminated long ago."

    "The Andorians?"

    "Enslaved."

    "Melkots?"

    "Are being forced to mass-starve." McCoy's

squarish face went chalky. He backed off, as

if Temron himself had done the starving and the

exterminating. Spock faced Kirk and lowered his

voice. "Captain, if I may suggest--" The

turbolift interrupted him, and there was a commotion on

the aft bridge. Then, Temron spoke suddenly.

"Roth! But you are walking dead!"

Chapter 14

    AT THE BACK of the bridge, flanked by two

guards each, Roth and that other Klingon stood staring

at the Vulcan secretary and at Sova. Kirk

narrowed his eyes. "You know each other?"." But it was

the other Klingon who spoke up as he put a

space between himself and Roth. "We all know him,"

Zalt said with cold despise. "He was contaminated

by them. "He wagged his head at Ternton. Kirk

puffed up with a warrior's kind of hope. He'd

wanted answers and thought there might be clues in

throwing these parties up against each other but hardly

expected this. Roth clenched his hands and stepped toward

them until one of the guards fish-hooked him.

"Vulcans! I knew it! Wish me peace,

Temron, so I can wish you death? Kirk pulled

himself to the upper bridge. "Explain that." He

turned to Temron. "What's "walking dead"?"

    "He volunteered for Spear duty," the

secretary said. "Sacrificed himself for the destruction

of an enemy ship. No one comes back from that."

    "He did. We rescued him. Now explain how

you know him y Ternton suddenly retrieved his

Vulcan composure, as though searching for the right words

to keep himself dispassionate on a subject that could

only be passion. Below them, Spock

connected glances briefly with Sova, then came

forward a couple of steps and said, "Roth came

to Vulcan as a regional surrogate. It was said

that he began to study the teachings of Surak, discover

that tolerance could be a tool against contention. He told

us... told the Vuleans that he believed our way was

a better one and that there could be an agreement. He

put together a delegation of Klingons and Vulcans

on an unauthorized peace mission to the

Romulans." Spock paused, looked at

Sova, and the Vulcan captain gestured that he

continue to spill the beans of their meld. "The

Romulans pretended sincere interest, but one of the

Vulcans was in fact a Romulan spy. They

sent a diplomatic squadron that turned out to be

three heavily armed ships and cooperated enough to get

inside Klingon space. They obliterated several

colonies and almost destroyed a whole continent on the

Klingon homeworld. Billions were slaughtered."

Kirk swung around to Roth. "Are you saying that the

reason the Klingons are losing... is him?" Shame

rocketed across Roth's face. Well, there was the

answer to that question. Spock averted his eyes from Roth.

"The Klingons turned on the Vulcans in angry

retribution but the Vulcans defended

themselves without timidityw"

    "Timidity?" Roth gulped. "You came on the

attack! There was nothing defensive about it! You cut

our fleet down and obliterated the helpless stranded

aboard those ships!" Kirk leveled a finger at

him. "Shut up."

    Below, Spock sighed. "He is reviled on

Klingon as a capitulator who caused the enemy

to prevail."

    "Because he fell for the Vulcan's methods and

tried to make peace?" Temron drew his hands

close to his body. "Roth's efforts were sincere."

"Don't defend me, coward!" Roth shouted. "I

volunteered to be a Spear so my reputation would be

cleansed!"

    "You will never be cleansed," Zalt rumbled from behind.

"I was ashamed to have you in my craft. I

volunteered for all the right reasonsinto harm the

enemy."

    "And save your culture, isn't that right?"

Kirk rounded on him. ""You're losing. That's why

you've been using this Spear tactic and sacrificing

perfectly healthy trained pilots."

    Zalt cranked forward against the guard's grip.

"But we are winning now! Except for him."

With a sharp-edged boot he lashed out at Roth.

    "Get those two off the bridge," Kirk

ordered.

    "They're lying to you!" Roth shrieked.

"Temron! Tell them the truth! Tell them there

is no future for them on Vulcan?

    Kirk snapped his fingers at the Scurity team.

"Off? As the struggling prisoners receded into the

lift and the doors wheezed shut, he turned to the

Vulcans. "Is the other Klingon right? Are they

winning?"

    "It is debatable," Sova said. "They are

slowly turning the tide, but they are weak and may not

recover. As for Vulcan..." he added

solemnly, then didn't finish his sentence. Beside

Kirk, Temron took on the responsibility that

Sova found so uneasy. "We cannot live under the

Romulans. They would treat us with murdering

revenge. They despise Vulcans."

    "I understand," Spock offered, reaching a comforting hand

across dimensions. Temron seemed gratified. "I

still do not know how you are here," he said. "Or who you

are, or why you know so little of the populated galaxy.

Are you from such a distance? Are you a generational ship?"

    "Secretary," Sova interrupted,

"The details are... overwhelming, and time is

short. I suggest a meld. I will return to the

ship and tend the veil." Sova looked at

Temron, Temron looked at Spock, Spock

looked at Kirk. The look on McCoy's

face wasn't helping much either. Feeling he could

use a breather, Kirk motioned towaerd the

turbolift. He thought about suggesting Spock's

quarters, but given the decor--musical instruments

and sculptures from a whole other Vulcan--might

be one too many looking glasses to step Temron

through all at once. Maybe later. He said, "The

briefing room. We'll give you ten minutes."

Spock wordlessly gestured Ternton to the

turbolift, and they disappeared on their voyage to the

lower decks. Feeling numb from the hips down,

Kirk forced himself around. "Captain Sova, get

your boarding part off my ship." It took effort

to avoid saying, "the hell off my ship." Sova

motioned his men into a group and touched a mechanism on

his belt, and without even contacting their ship, the entire

group fizzled into energy and dissolved. "Security

detail dismissed," Kirk said. The guards

flooded into the turbolift--a forest of broad

shoulders and biceps that barely fit in there

all at once. McCoy stepped down toward the

captain's chair just as and slid onto the black

leather. His back

    ached, and his injured foot was on fire again. The

leather was cool. "This is our chance to get someone around

here to completely believe us," Kirk said

quietly. "I don't think Sova buys the whole

story."

    "But it was his idea that Ternton and Spock do their

little brain thing, Jim," the doctor said. "Sova's

a ship's captain in the middle of a war, and it's his

business to be suspicious. He wants Temron

to shoulder the responsibility." McCoy sighed.

"I don't blame them for being suspicious. Not

even the Klingons could swallow that we were slammed through

a dimensional crack by one of the rarest phenomena in

science." "I don't know how rare it is. I

feel nauseated. Can you do anything about that?"

    "I'll try. It's almost time for another

treatment."

    "Make it now and make it fast. I gave

Spock ten minutes. You've got eight."

McCoy looked up at Uhura. "Lieutenant,

have one of my interns come up here and bring the

captain's prescription, full

treatment."

    "When's this thing going to get better?" Kirk

grilled, shifting his leg to another position.

"It'll get worse before it gets better."

    "Worse than this?" "The toxins have to run their

course. It's like a virus. I can't cure it.

All I can do is mask the symptoms enough that the

symptoms don't kill you." Rubbing his thigh with the

heel of a hand, Kirk slanted his eyes at him.

"What a merry profession you have." He gazed

pensively now at the ship off: their port bow that was

working to keep them screened from the Klingon search

pattern. Eventually those screens would break down and

they'd have to run again or fight. Or both. "There are

missing pieces to this puzzle, and I'm bound to find

all I can before I give up. You've got six

minutes left."

    who wanted nothing more in life than to tackle

one-dimensional tasks. As such, he found

magnificent satisfaction every ten minutes or so and

was one of the happiest crewmen Kirk had ever known.

    "Captain, sir, sir! I found something," the

big kid panted. "Out there, 'bout half a mile!

You gntta see it!"

Chapter 15

    "STATUS?" Kirk dropped into his chair and

sat ramrod straight. They were after his ship. It

all came down to that. "Full emergency alert,

sir. Two ships, six hundred ninety-two

thousand kilometers, warp five and closing."

Engineer Scott moved out of the way and eagerly

took his station on the port side, talking as he

went. "triple-shielded and powering up their firing

sequences, if that alien hardware reads right.

They'll have us in weapons" range in roughly

ninety seconds."

    "Sensors on full capacity."

    "Aye, sir." On the upper bridge, Spoc

stood with Temron. They all watched the

viewscreen. The unfamiliar Klingon ships bore

down upon them like running dogs, never really looking as

though they were moving, yet plowing down on them frame

by frame. Nary a swerve, nary a hesitation. There

was no canny dance of antagonism or attempt

at clever dodging. Just a down and dirty full-out

run. They'd found the rabbit and they knew the rabbit

was fast, so they were going to run it into the ground.

"We'll beam you back, Mr. Temron," Kirk

said, keeping one eye on the screen.

"Unfortunately, there's no time for long

good-byes. Mr. Sulu, target those vessels'

critical points." "Targeting."

    "Scotty, rig a failsafe one-button

detonation for the warp core in case we're boarded.

We won't have time for codes and countercodes."

Above, Spock moved to the rail. "Captain--"

    "We'll take our chances," Kirk said with

anticipation, "but I'm not having the Vulcans

lose their eighteen percent chance of turning this

cesspool around. Rig it, Scott." Scott

glanced at Spock, then headed for the turbolift.

"I'll do it myself, sir."

    "Kirk to transporter room." "Transporter

room, Simmons."

    "Simmons, pinpoint the upper bridge, port

side forward. We're going to beam ship-to-ship.

Correlate with the Vulcans' bridge."

    "Wouldn't you rather do it J"...f the pad down here,

sir? It's safer and it doesn't strain the instru--

was

    "Don't instruct me, Ensign. Set your

coordinates."

    "Aye, sir. One minute."

    "Make it less. Mr. Temron,.. a short

acquaintance, but one we'll all remember

for the rest of our lives."

    The idea of leaving--forever--this font of the possible

struck Temrom hard, and it showed in his eyes. He

had just been shown the design for paradise, and now they

were locking him behind a glass wall. As long as he

lived, he would be able to look but never touch.

    "Enemy ships in range, sir," Chekov said.

    Spock took Temron's elbow and ushered him

to the correct position to be picked up by the

transporter sensors when the order was given.

Temron allowed himself to be put

    place, then turned abruptly and looked at

Spock.

    in"...I will teach my people," he pledged, "to live

long... and prosper."

    Even beneath the shield of control, Spock appeared

complimented, gratified. "You will shear the chains of this

circumstance," he sanctioned. "I believe in you."

    Heart-stricken and not ashamed to show it, Temron

    accepted those words with a nod.

    Spock stepped back and away.

    Ticking off the seconds, Kirk was moved by the

intensity of this one moment in all of endless time. What

goes on when a person enters another person's

mind? When all the memories of

childhood and youth, education, and experience are

flooded together like two rivers joining?

    He didn't envy either of them. Each had

sacrificed privacy, one for his ship, the other for his

civilization.

    Temron took another step backward, a

finality of sorts, and looked down. "Thank you,

Jim."

    "Best luck," Kirk offered. Then suddenly he

wished he had come up with more to say. "Kirk

to Simmons--energize. Mr. Sulu, prepare

to open fire on the Vulcan ship, phasers

one-quarter."

    "Ready, sir. One-quarter phasers, locked

on."

    The pillar of lights consumed Temron, and his

body was slowly dissembled at the molecular level

and sent back to his vessel. The whole process

would take eight seconds.

    After four, Kirk ordered, "Full about.

Fire."

    Smoldering with wounds that would later save its

life, the Vulcan ship veered off in one

direction, and the Enterprise in another, with the starship

firing as she ran, chasing the echo of her

captain's voice.

    "Mr. Sulu, warp factor six. Let's

outrun them here and

    now."

    "Warp six, aye, sir .... warp two...

three.. 2'

    The crew held on like bats to a ceiling as the

ship hulled over, took a grip on raw space,

and sprinted. Enemy fire sliced across her underside

and crackled along her shields. Regurgitated

energy changed to blinding light and flashed so brightly that

they shaded their eyes.

    "Sir, they're hailing us," Uhura reported.

"They demand we stand down."

    "No response," he said, eying the screen.

    "Warp four, sir .... warp three seven five

--sorry, sir--" Sulu was working harder now.

He'd had to slow down to angle away from the changing

Klingon formation.

    The enemy ships weren't giving them time to make

high warp without changing course. They weren't like the

Klingons Kirk knew. Those wandered around the

settled galaxy with a chip on their shoulders, boxed

in by stronger powers, and knew very well that they'd

better behave. They postured, growled, and

threw things, but rarely had they been tested on any

scale of battle.

    But these Klingons were accustomed to lighting--real

fighting. They knew how to do it. Their whole science

was devoted to it, everything they could invent, buy, or

steal. Working their way in front of a starship, two

ships twisted for position while two others circled

her abeam, not throttling back because they knew the new

ship could outrun them and that they had to change

tactics.

    It was smart. A sign of experience on the

battlefield. They'd learned.

    The starship charged through space, but she might as

well have been on a leash, stuck at warp four or

lower. Vexation poured through Kirk at the prospect

of a peaceful galaxy whose chances had been swatted

down by these petty contests.

    "Never underestimate your enemy," he grumbled.

"If we "Sir--sir, we're got two

Klingons--sit on "era if you have can get clear,

we can outrun them. Maybe we can put some to,

damn it! Henry, aren't you armed?" strain on them

while we do it. Force them to follow us till fi

Kirk hunched over the comm unit, as if getting

closer hurts." would do any more good than

shaking it. "Anderson, give

    With his face cast in blue from the sensor hood,

Spocl me a report!"

    nodded once. "We may gain way if we force

them to come "We've got intruders, sir; two

Klingons are down here. We

    through heavy fire."

    i found 'era in the forward weapons access

jacket. I have to

    "Noted," Kirk said. "Mr. Chekov, ready

full phasers. assume sabotage."

    Photon torpedoes on standby."

    "You'd better assume it, Lieutenant,"

Kirk fumed. "Get

    "Phasers ready... Photons on still--sir!"

The navigatorhl those two back to the brig and have

Security check on the youthful face crumpled.

"Firing mechanisms are fused!" four guards who

were supposed to be taking them there."

    Speck dodged to his side. "Confirmed.

Sixty percen "Yes, sir."

    shutdown, Captain."

    "All right... Mr. Chekov, stand by on that

weapons

    Kirk pounded a comm unit. "Engineering!

What's hal greater-than order. We'll have

to outmaneuver them. Mr. Sulu, continue pened to the

weapons integrity?" evasive."

    The line was open, but no one spoke to him. The

sounds "Aye, sir."

    of shouting and scuffling babbled through as if the engineera

"Mr. Speck, do you have any way to know what

happened

    had dropped something and were all fighting over it.

    r to Temron's ship?"

    Thenm "I noted them engaging warp speed and

angling away as

    "Intruder alert! Security to main engineering!

Intruder the Klingon vessels came upon us,"

Speck said. "None of

    alert?

    the Klingons abandoned pursuit of us to go after them,

so I

    i suppose their escape. By the time the Klingons

confront

    to them, Temron and his captain will probably have

concocted

    a plausible story for their nearness to us and why we

fired on

    them. I hope their damage will provide

a fair substantiation."

    "I hope so, too." Kirk suddenly realized

he was breathing

Chapter 16

    like a race horse. "When it comes down to it,

everybody has

    to die for himself."

    Troubled by that and other things, Speck managed a

small

    nod.

    "Let's get out of here," Kirk offered him.

    Another small nod, but the eyes changed.

"Agreed."

    "ENGINEIRING! Give me a report!"

    "Mr. Sulu, position of the enemy ships now?":

    Jim Kirk grabbed the arm of his command chair an

"Two dead astern, sir, five hundred thousand

kilometers shook it, as if that would help. From the

comm unit on the one z-minus twenty thousand

kilometers... One off @chair's arm, a

frantic voice squawked up at him through al the

starboard beam, thirty-two thousand kilometers.

All haze of static. attempting to close."

    172 173.

    "All stop." The bridge crew stared

at him suddenly. Sulu cranked around. "All

stop, sir?"

    "Affarmative. All stop--right now." Parting his

lips to argue, Sulu thought better of that and turned

to his helm. "Aye, sir. All stop." He

tapped his controls. With a ghastly squeal the ship

folded in on herself and drew up hard, pitching them

all forward, even if they were hanging on. The force was

enough to pull their skin off. Kirk managed to stay in his

chair and keep his eyes on the screen as his ship and

crew buckled around him, hoping that what had worked with the

Romulans would work with the Klingons. Over the whine,

Chekov croaked, "Two enemy ships crossing in

front of us, sir--overshooting us!"

    "Aft ship overtaking us," Spock reported,

"coming into collision range with the vessel abeam of us."

On the forward screen, three of the enemy ships plowed

past them in different directions at blinding speed,

rushing so far into the distance that they were suddenly invisible.

"Full about, Sulu," Kirk barked. "Now's our

chance. Warp factor six." The helmsman

didn't respond, but his elbows bent as he tried

to work the controls that were buried under his chest. The

ship's squeal fell off, and the engines began to pump

again. Warp two... three... four...

"Warp factor five, sir," Sulu heaved.

"Warp six, sir."

    "Enemy ships coming about, sir," Spock read off

his long-range sensors. "Falling far behind." He

straightened and turned, offering Kirk the

congratulations of his tone. "They were completely

surprised." Kirk nodded but said nothing to him.

"Mr. Chekov, maintain surveillance behind us."

    "Yes, sir!" The young man stared at the main

screen, sweating, but also grinning. Sulu leered at

Chekov--a smile there, too. And Nourredine up

at engineering was still hanging on to his chair but

grinning. 1 "7A

    "Security to bridge, Ensign Meerwald."

    "Kirk here. What've you got?" "Captain,

we found the four guards. They were stuffed into an

envirosuit locker."

    "What's their condition?"

    "I'm sorry, sir, but... they're all four

dead, sir. The bastards killed "ern." Nausea

rushed through Kirk's body disand rage through his mind.

Losing men made him insane, even though it was part and

parcel of the service. Those men hadn't signed up

to die at the hands of prisoners who were already arrested

and manacled. He didn't know what

happened down there, half a dozen decks below, on

the way to the brig. Perhaps those men hadn't been used

to this kind of Klingon, the kind who had done more than

crow about war, but who instead had waged it all their

lives. Now he would have to write to their families.

If... "Acknowledged. Kirk out," he slurred.

For a moment he stared at the carpet. It turned

to fuzz before his eyes. A thump on the deck made

him look up. Spock was there, now folding his arms,

and regarding his boots briefly before looking up.

"Now that we have a clearer picture of the state of

affairs... where will we go?" The question was heavy with

Spock's perception that Kirk had been thinking about

this all along and must, by now, have racked up a

possibility or two. Even for Kirk, this sudden

solitary power was a revelation. He'd been

independent, yes, almost sovereign, as all

captains are once they left the dock, but

Starfleet had always been there before. Weeks away,

yes. But there. Now he found himself the true head of

all that was left of Starfleet. All that existed of the

human race was on this ship, and he was in charge of

them. He sighed and paused to think. "If we

manage to correct whatever happened to create this

new time line, we won't be destroying

any of these species? Am I right?" Spock

offered a not very convincing bob of his brows. "I dare not

say." they were telling the truth. Do we dare tamper

with time? We could be ruining our own eternity!"

    "Or saving it!" Zalt's voice was bitter and

vicious, loaded with dare. "Close your teeth and

listen. These are your orders. You're going to make

friends with these people. Swear on your honor that you will not

interfere with what they are doing. Then interfere

greatly."

    "On my honor? I cannot!"

    "You will. You have no honor left upon which to swear,

so you can swear all you like. Do it." Roth sank

back against the moist rock, as Zalt shook the

tethers from his wrists and threw the useless stake to the

ground. "Follow me," Zalt said.

    Shuddering like a wounded dog, Jim Kirk followed

his excited young Security man through the rain's

consistent assault. By the time they reached a bluff in

the middle of the low-slung mountain, all were whipped and

panting. Reenie and the other Security man,

Vernon, went ahead and took readings and made

sure the environment was relatively secure. They

were all soaked, but now the rain was stopping, or they were

climbing out of it. The veiled sun had

westered and slid behind the mountain, and the sky was getting

dark. Kirk looked down into the valley from which they

had just come. A cottony fog rested in the valley

like soup in a bowl. Here it was nearly dry, moistened

only by the heat and thready fog from that cloud down there.

Above them, the star-shingled night was black and

beckoning. He squinted down at his boots in the

fading light and at the ground beneath them. Dry. His

sopping uniform shirt clung to his chest, arms, and

back. They were on an incline, a natural

pathway that spiraled up this mountain. The pathway

beneath his feet was hard rock coated with a layer of

gritty soil and a tenacious moss, leaving this

convenient indentation in the mountainside. Still an

uphill climb but walkable. "Here, Captain,"

McCoy said and handed him a stick he'd ripped out

of a fallen tree. It was four feet long and almost

two inches thick, not quite straight, but straight enough.

"In England they call it 'fellwalking." Now you

can tell people you've done it. Just say it was in

Georgia." Kirk glared at him but took the

stick. Something to lean on. Vernon's tall,

shoulderwide form appeared at the erest, where this incline

curved along the body of the mountain. "Right up here,

sir! You're not gonna believe it!"

    "Bet I wwill," Kirk grumbled. The

doctor stayed a pace or two behind him, which

irritated him because Kirk knew McCoy was

anticipating having to catch him if he fell. He

didn't want to be caught or picked up or even

empathized with. He staggered as his stick slipped on

a mossy place but beat off McCoy's attempt

to help him with only a well-aimed glare. Before

them, Spock turned in concern but had the sense

to wait until they caught up rather than coming back

to help. He knows me too blasted well, Kirk

thought as he glared forward at the Vulcan. Spock

stood against the incongruous junglescape, a blue

and black pillar of high civilization, and waited as

his captain approached.."...One hundred yards,

sir. Emmendorf and Reenie are setting up

lighting implements." "Good. I'm getting a

feeling we shouldn't have come here until morning,

We'll get what we can, then go back to the cave."

    "Agreed," Spock said. "Iungle settings

are generally more dangerous during the night hours."

Kirk nodded automatically. "Let's go." One

hundred yards farther along, and twenty feet below

them on a lush plateau, lay one of the strangest

sights Kirk had ever encountered. Ten or

so large-bodied animals lay slaughtered,

peppered with the bodies of smaller animals. The

ferns and groundcover all around were blood-spackled

in the portable daylight the junior officers had set

up.

PART THREE

    DEEP TIME

    "Millions and millions of lives hanging on

what this vessel does next." "Or what this

vessel fails to do, Doctor."

    --McCoy and Spock, Balance of Terror

Chapter 17

    "THE OVERVIEWS OF HISTORY recorded

on our previous mission here are stored in the

library computer, sir. I'm having them loaded

into this tricorder."

    "Fine." The bridge was hot again. "When you're

finished, :..: assemble another landing party.

Include the two Klingons." The shadows on the

bridge were harsher than yesterday, chiseled out of the

colors and shapes of the chairs and consoles. Their

edges were cracks on the bridgescape. "I beg

your pardon, sir?" " Jim Kirk blinked

once, then screwed his eyes shut again, harder this

time. "It may help us if they see

whatever happens from now on. When we find out what

happened, I . .. want to see the truth in their

faces. And bring that kid from before. The

anthropologist. i: "Lieutenant Bannon,

sir." -. "Fine. Bring him along." spine

suddenly compressed. He fell sideways as his

leg folded under him. His elbow rammed into the

Spock, and he felt the pointed of his hip jar against

the housing. His body jackknifed. Spock caught

him by the arm and levered him back onto

    his sea legs, but the angular face was turned not

to the captain but to the instruments, now whining and beeping for

attention. "Enemy fire?" Kirk gasped,

despite the fact that the ship hadn't gone

to automatic red alert, despite again the fact that

all sensors were on standby. "No, sir," the

Vulcan said, peering into his sensor hood. He

studied his sensors' readouts, then turned. His

face was animate with victory. "That was a first

wave of time displacement, sir. We're in the right

place." Kirk leaned on the science panel and

tried to catch his breath. One bump, and he was

gasping. The pain in his temples announced itself every

few seconds with nerve twinges just under the skin of his

forehead. Time displacement... surging

outward in the form of mw energy. For the first time in days

he felt as if he'd done something right. "Jim?"

On the center deck below them, McCoy came toward

the bright red rail. "See you a minute?" Kirk

didn't step down but came to the rail and pressed his

hip against it, just in case there was another one of those

waves--and there would be. "What is it?"

McCoy's squarish face was blanched. "How are

you feeling?"

    "Hot, sore, nauseated, foggy-brained, and

dizzy. Anything else?"

    "You left out irritable." "Not on purpose.

What are you gonna do about it?"

    "Well, I can give you another treatment right about

now, but you're going to have to understand that part of convalescence

is rest. You're not getting any." "There's nothing

I can do about that." Kirk cupped his hand around the

back of his neck and let his head hang as the

muscles stretched. When he raised his head, his

spine cracked like marbles dropping. "Let's get

going. Mr. Sulu, hold course into those energy

waves. Go to yellow alert. Mr. Spock, you have

the con." McCoy met him on the upper deck and

stood between him and the turbolift. "Jim, there's just

one more thing. Bannon doesn't want

assignment." Another energy wave hit, but this time

Kirk was ready. It was McCoy who stumbled, then

whirled and fought the impact. The ship capered a few

yards, bucked, and dropped back into place.

McCoy pulled himself to the rail, knuckled white.

"The anthropologist, Jim. He doesn't want

an assignment."

    "Why not? Was he injured?"

    "No, no, that's not it... He says he's

resigning from Starfleet." The doctor cupped one

hand with the other and twisted until the muscles in his

bare forearms flexed. His medical smock shimmered

in the bridge lights. "I think we might've

scared the daylights out of him." Kirk stepped past

him. "I'll take care of it. Give me the

treatment right now, then collect whatever you need for this

leg and meet us in the transporter room in

twenty-five minutes."

    "I want you to get off your feet for at least

four hours."

    "Fine. You can carry me." "Am I going to have

to give you a medical order?"

    "If you want to see it stuffed and mounted."

    "Now, Jim, you listen to me..."

    "Bannon?"

    "Captain!" A lieutenant j.g."...ness

quarters. Nostalgia times ten. Single bunk,

dim lighting, plain walls. Head and shower adjoining

with the quarters next door. One bed shared on

alternative Off-watch periods by two crewmen.

"We've almost reached our destination," Kirk said.

"Mr. .

    Sp oock is stuffing a pair of tricorders with

historical database and with class-M

paleontological and geological databases.

I'm putting together a landing party. I'd like you to be

on it." red-haired Bannon stared at him without the

idea of what to say. The fact that the captain was there

in person proved that Kirk had already heard of

Bannon's plans to abandon his duty, to slide

into some nice

    quiet lab and live out his life not affecting very

much at all.

    After all, anthropologists were pretty much

cleanup crew for

    past and current cultures. It'd been a hell

of a long time

    since a critical bit of research had come off

the desk of one of

    those.

    Feeling the pressure of his own

responsibility, Kirk

    paused and raised a brow at him. "Well?"

    The boy backed up until his calves butted

against the

    bunk. He Couldn't sit down in the captain's

presence. -- Kirk's other brow went up. "You,

you, you?" Bannon rubbed his hands against his thighs.

"I don't want to go, sir. I'm thinking of..."

A bizarre, heavy silence folded around the little

quarters. For James Kirk, the words leaving and

Starfleet didn't go together. As often as he had

questioned himself, even wished for respite, the concept of

putting his braid on somebody's desk and dropping

a "Thanks, bye," beside it was beyond reach. Nervous,

Bnon shifted and twitched. It was one thing to tell a

bunkmate that he wanted to quit the Fleet or

report it to the watch commander, who then took it to the

department head, who reported it to the first officer, who

maybe, if the situation ruerired attention, took it

to the captain. Maybe. The last person he

expected or wanted to spill his guts all over was

his commanding officer. Lowering himself to the desk chair

to get weight off his throbbing leg, Kirk asked,

"Is this about Lieutenant LaCerra?"

Bannon blinked as if shocked that somebody as up

there as the captain had the foggiest intuition about

personal things. "Yes, sir," he finally purged.

"Guess it is." He stared at the earpet. "When

those animals started to drive her into the high grass,

I was taking readings on the biotricorder. I

threw it down and grabbed for my phaser." His voice

broke as he added, "I got my communicator

by mistake." Out in the corridor, somebody ran

by. Then somebody else. Maybe a couple of

engineers. Their footsteps made a were hurried

thrum on the deck under Kirk's feet. It

isn'tyour fault, Jim. I'm in command, Bones.

It makes it my fault. Kirk pushed himself to his

feet. "I see." Then he half turned.

"You're welcome to resign your commission once our

problem is resolved, Lieutenant. Until then,

we've all got to give a hundred percent.

Outfit yourself for a field reconnaissance and be in the

transporter room in ten minutes."

    Ruins extending to the horizon. An ancient

planet, age still in question, despite years of study.

Had it been years already? Before them at a notable

distance, hovering in place as if painted on the sky,

tall as two men and wide as four, a

circular rock formation stood like a polished slice

of a geode on somebody's desk. It seemed inert,

but they knew it wasn't. Muttering like a

midshipman, Jim Kirk led the way. He knew

the way. He clung to the anchor of his own voice,

so he didn't have to listen to the echoes in his head,

drumming memories of another voyage to this place,

ringing in his head and driving him to distraction. Hiking

over the rocks beside him, Spock had nothing to say .

That didn't mean much. Spock, whose compassion had

confound an unashamed place right behind those black

eyes that satanic mask--amazing just how much could show

through that shell. Maybe he just didn't try so hard

to hide it anymore. They'd been here before, done it

together, the two of Stepped through that glittering donut,

arrived in the had the future at their fingertips.

Fixing the mistake had meant letting an

exceptional woman die under the bumper of a truck,

preventing her from actualizing a future that would have

changed history for the much worse. Not everything was

meant to be. the history of the galaxy rode on

Jim Kirk's shoulders.

    Did you do something wrong? Whatever it is, let

me help. He stopped between two crops of broken

ruin and let his aching arms go limp just for a

moment. He'd actually heard her voice. Spock

stood there, chin down, brows up, empathizing for all

he was worth. "Captain?" Kirk looked at him,

going over in his mind what they'd been through the last

time. Another glitch in history that had to be put

right. Here was Spock, wondering where they would find the

personal fortitude to go through it again. And there was

McCoy, adding up the billions of innocent

lives who never got a chance to live, pained for them

every bit as much as if they had died one by one on his

surgical table. "I've felt this way before,"

Kirk said, "this being alone."

    "Intuition, Captain?" "Not good enough for you?" They

stood together with that thing on their immediate horizon, trying

to drum up a little shoulder-to-shoulder knightly spirit

to sustain them, then deal with the light-headed thrill of

fear, and hope their decisions were crisp. Kirk

knew he was treading thorns, doing double duty as

captain and invalid, sweating down the poison in his

body and the unholy torment in his soul. He wanted

his crew to see him taking it like a man, but his shrinking

stomach provided a grisly reminder that his lifted

finger could condemn a thousand worlds. That was what it meant

to be out front. This was what it meant to command

starships, for himself and his fellow captains,

going out there first and bearing the deepest scars--those of

their own decisions. After all the braids and

decorations, accolades and cocktail parties,

only the captains remembered the missions that went

wrong. Those memories made all the pats on the

back just a little sore, leaving the inner man

curdle-blooded and crouching scared. "Out here in our

court dress," he grumbled, "with no castle to come

home to." Spock broke from his scan of the ruins.

"Sir?"."

    "I don't like these things. Of all the good that's come

from

    exploration since human beings crossed the first land

bridges onto new continents, there's been no chance

to go backward and start over. Usually that's a good

thing. As much as we may wish to go back, we're

better off slogging forward. It's only recently

we've found ways to wedge ourselves into the past, where we

don't belong. It's not fair to those who never get a

chance to tell us to butt out. I can push forward, take

chances, make bets... but look backward, and

I'm not so sure anymore." His words dropped upon

the rocks, muffled cries for help for which there was no

answer. "Come on, Spock," he resigned.

"Let's get this over with:" The ground was

littered with crumbled rocks in this area. Huffting with

effort of his own, McCoy made a point of getting

to Kirk's side. "Captain?"

    "Something?"

    "Before we get into whatever we're about to get into,

I want to suggest sending Bannon back to the ship.

My evaluation of his mental state--"

    "I've taken care of it." McCoy glowered.

"Did you have a talk with him?"

    "I listened."

    "You didn't say anything?"

    "I told him to report for duty."

    "Jim, that boy's in shock. Can't you see it in

his face?"

    "It takes a good man," Kirk rebuffed,

"to think he's wicked because of a fumble. Nothing I've

got to say will fix him. That pain of having altered

another life... There's no bandage for it. It's a

power everyone craves but damned few appreciate

for the danger it is. He's got to learn some time if

lie wants to be in Starfleet."

    "He says he doesn't."

    ""He's lying."

    "Jim--" :: "That's enough. We're almost there."

At the center of the time displaceement, the

site was .

    mpletely undisturbed, peaceful as a church.

They may as well have been here yesterday, as

familiar as it seemed. The sky was gunmetal

gray and flat as concrete. This system's sun

didn't really want to have much to do with this place.

Spock and a Security guard took Kirk by the

arms and hoisted him down from the rocks onto a slab

of ground. He came down hard on the heel of his

bad leg, pain jarring into his hip. Before he could

breathe again he was ready to swear he'd landed on his

ear. McCoy started past him toward the slice of

rock sitting up on its edge, with the horizon of this

planet showing passively through the middle.

"Bonesu" Abruptly Kirk reached out, caught the

doctor by his upper arm, and yanked him back.

"Don't get too close."

    "Place gives me the shivers," McCoy

admitted. "I don't blame you." Pushing

McCoy behind him, he threw a collective glance

to the rest of the team. "Sensors." Around him, the landing

party brought up'the tricorders or phasers

respectively and scanned the area. There were seven

of them: Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Bannon,

two Security guards, and a

twenty-three-year-old Tibetan girl who'd

begged for a chance as science assistant. Spock,

Bannon, and the girl scanned the area

electronically while the guards did a cursory

walk around. "No life forms," Spock said, "no

energy output other than the main structure... No

signs of disturbance."

    "Acknowledged," Kirk allowed. "Carry on."

He stared up at the huge donut of rock. It

wasn't glowing or showing any sign of the energy he

knew was there. Yet it raised the hairs on the

back of his neck. A few feet away, a

communicator chirped. "Spock to Enterprise. The

site is secure. Beam down the second landing

party now." Into Kirk's resting mind came the buzz

of scrambled energy, the whistle of mechanical effort

as a billion molecules were forced through space and

reassembled over a matter of seconds. Before him

on the chalk-dry ground stood two more Security

guards and the two Klingon prisoners, each

manacled at the wrists, both wearing sickbay

shirts and their own trousers. Faces rough as

watchdogs', Roth and Zalt glanced around at the

forbidding landscape, both probably suspicious that

the plan was to abandon them here. Not a bad

idea. "All right," Kirk segued, limping toward

the big geode. He started toward it. "Let's

see what we've got going for us." Before him, the

two-foot-thick cimular frame of what appeared

to be solid stone stood in elegant and utterly

silent repose. "Guardian," he began. "Do you

hear me?" The rim of rock accommodated him

by lighting up internally, coming alive in response as

if excited to have somebody to talk to. A slow,

booming voice thrummed across the open landscape.

"I AM THE GUARDIAN OF FOREVER...

LET ME BE YOUR GATEWAY." The voice

was grand, yet somehow emotional, like a priest coming out

of sequester, trying to maintain a lordly distance while

desperately wanting to dance at a wedding. Kirk

managed to stifle a pointless nod. "Do you

remember us?" SPO-CK leaned toward him and

murmured. "Captain?"

    "Maybe it's got memory banks or something."

The lights were already on again. "I AM MACHINE

AND BEING... BOTH AND NEITHER..."

    "There, Spock! That's what we asked it when we

were here bfore. It does have memory banks. It

remembers us."

    "Or it may simply have telepathic

traits, sir." A few steps back, without moving

his lips, McCoy grumbled, "I'm bet'n on

machine myself." i Kirk didn't react. He'd

hooked a tish and wanted to reel. "Guardian,"

he began, "do you know us?" ,: "YOU ARE FROM

BEFORE THE CHANGE," the big

    voice boomed. Spock glanced at him again.

Wha change," Kirk prodded, "are you referring

to?"

    his

    "THE CHANGE OF TIME." swarmed in the

unnatural lights, eerily silent, feasting on the

corpses. A sight of prehistoric slaughter?

So what? Spock and McCoy plunged past him,

and Kirk found himself inadequate in the light of their

professional curiosity. He wanted to throw up but

not with his junior officers watching. Or senior

officers either, for that matter. A captain's

dilemma: couldn't throw up in front of anybody.

Withered intestines hung like holiday decorations all

over the green growth and ferns, some still linked to the open

guts of the animals from which they came. The larger

animals were a good ten feet from head to tail and on

those thick hind legs could rear back almost as tall

as he was. Their gaping mouths were snaggled

with bloody teeth. Their eyes stared, even more terrible

because these were large brown eyes, like the eyes of an

owl, not like a crocodile. He couldn't feel for a

crocodile, but this... "All right, Mr.

Vernon," he started bluntly, "what's the

attraction? We've got a bunch of dead

animals. What did you want us to see that couldn't

wait?" The tall Security man pointed. "The

faces of the big ones, sirmlook at their faces?

Kirk moved forward glaring through a band of artificial

light. "Is that paint?" Spock drew his fingers

along the yellow and purple designs on the

animal's long skull. "Paint, Captain...

acrylic pigment. Synthetic, not natural." His

voice dropped away and he murmured, "Amazing!

Meant for visibility ... or possibly to frighten

an enemy."

    "Somebody else must have painted these creature's

faces to throw us off."

    "Somebody else?" McCoy looked up.

"What makes you think that, Captain?"

    "If we can travel time, so can someone else."

    "Only the big ones have paint on them," Reenie

said. "Maybe these little ones are the babies of the big

ones," Vernon wondered. "No,"

Reenie said. "The small ones have their claws between the

ribs of the big ones. They were attacking"

    "A coordinated attack, also," Spock

noted, fascination rising again in his voice. "Note

the angles from which the smaller ones approached...

nearly all the same." McCoy got down on

both knees and put his hands into the laid-open

animal. "Warm blood." Kirk leaned hard on

his stick. "How long have these animals been dead?"

    "Minutes. Maybe an hour. But some of the

bodies are still warmer than others. They may have lay

here dying for a while. But not very long Trauma like this

doesn't let an animal hang on for long."

    "We may have frightened off the victors," Spock

said. "Which means whatever did this is probably still

nearby." Kirk motioned to Emmendorf, Vernon,

and Reenie. "Stay on your toes, people."

    "Jim, do you have the time for me to dissect one of

these?" McCoy asked. "We've got sixty

million years. Help yourself. But we'll do it

back at the campsite. Mr. Emmendorf, come

down here and assist Dr. McCoy. Mr.

Spock, secure the area while you have the chance,

please."

    "Yes, sir." Spock stood up, his

gaze lingering on the face of the sad creature lying

at his feet, its painted face calling to his

scientific mind with" contradiction after

contradiction. Kirk empathized with him, but there

wasn't time to indulge. They needed something more

concrete, something the tricorder would recognize and

say, "Got it!" They needed that thing, that one hint

to drive away their doubts. To Jim Kirk, that was

the perfect world--one with no doubts. The hard

decisions weren't really the worst part of command. It was

the doubting he hated. Command... the ship... the

beautiful Enterprise... a ghost of it blew past

him in the dark sky overhead, so real he almost

looked up and waved. They had counted on him. They

hadn't doubted him. I'm sorry, sir... I'm

sorry, sir..."

    "Not your fault, Scotty..." riddled with doubt

at all these unverified and perilous guesses they'd

had to work with. At this moment, the lair opened and

Spock's unconcealed relief rushed out of

sequester into the light for an occult flap across the

open sky. A smile crept over Kirk's

lips. "I wish we'd had more time to talk

to Temron and his colleagues. They were spirited people."

Speck canted his head slightly to one

side and raised that brow that proved he was intrigued.

"What the Vulcans here have learned," he granted

earnestly, "is that the principles of peace operate

only if all sides abide by them. In our time

line, my people had the luxury of never having to learn

that." Mustering a grin, McCoy swaggered in

place. "So that's your excuse?" "Captain,"

Speck pressed, "the change this entity mentioned--that

will be the key." Kirk steadied himself and nodded.

"Guardian," he asked, "can you show us the change?"

The lights pulsed again. "I AM MADE

TO DISPLAY THE PAST IN THIS MANNER."

    "Then Earth's past, Captain," Speck said,

keeping his voice between them. "There has to be some

registration of it. Consider the Guardian to be a

kind of computer. Ask it to call up specific

threads from the tapestry." Kirk nodded again. "Can you

show us," he asked carefully, "the past we have in

common?" A tense moment trundled by, almost as

though the Guardian didn't intend to answer this time.

Then the lights came on again and the heavy bass

voice boomed. "FOR THIS... I MUST GO

FAR BACK." Glancing at McCoy, Kirk

only got a shrug. From his left, Spock's

expression was a shrug too, even though he

didn't move. "How far?" Kirk spoke up.

This time the machine didn't answer. Apparently,

its idea of an answer for that question was to call up its

files and do its job, sifting through the minds--or the

physiology?--of the people standing before it, catching the whiff

of human evolution and the spice of a half-Vulcan

and going deep into its pantry for answers. The

lights on the rim pulsed very dimly, moving almost

constantly, not like they did when the entity was talking, but

more like a series of rolling electrical surges.

For a moment it seemed the Guardian had blown up.

But there was no sound--only a bloom of bright light.

The image zoomed in on a blazing planet being

bombarded by meteors, slamming mindlessly into the big

hot rock. As the meteor bombardment tapered off,

a crust started to form on the planet, rushing along in

quicktime on the Guardian's screen, until nature

threw it a curve ball--a very big curve ball.

A spatial body nearly one-sixth the size of the

planet smashed into it, and a moon was born from the

splash ejecta. The infant Earth recovered before

them. Most of the crust began to cool. Volcanic

centers ran along fractures in its active

surface. Huge sheets of the surface were pushed

under the edges of other sheets, and new crust

was formed. A haze slowly obscured the surface as

an atmosphere rich in water vapor began

to collect. "Science department," Kirk blurted,

"talk us through it." " After nobody else spoke

up, Speck seemed to feel responsible to roll the

first ball. "It appears we are witnessing key

points in the birth and early history of Earth."

    "Where are the continents?" McCoy asked as the

cloud cover cleared and a watery planet showed itself

to them, interspersed with long volcanic island cones.

Speck didn't take his eyes off the alien

screen. "Continents require billions of years

of tectonic movement to distill the lighter minerals

to the surface. The atmosphere we're seeing is

largely CO2 with some nitrogen and water, 'much like

Venus today. Very dense..." EncoUraged

by Spock's beginning to explain, Ensign Reenie

came forward, then held her tricorder out in front

of her. "Life may have appeared, sir, but it's very

simple." His own voice startled him. He glanced

around, self-aware, wondering if anyone else had

heard him. No one was looking. McCoy was

elbow-deep in slaughtered dinosaur, giving orders

to a nauseated Emmendorf, and Spock was up on the

incline, intently scanning, Kirk knew

he was better at the art of roughing it than Spock,

but for how long? His medication had been thinned until

he barely felt it working. The fever was back, his

legs hurt, his thoughts wandered, and he had to pull them

back every few minutes. How long could he hold

on? Would they find him dead in his sleep a few

days from now and be forced to go on without him? He looked

up the incline at Spock. He knew Spock's

sterling loyalty and cautious foresight wouldn't serve

long or well in this place. Eventually one of the young

officers would be killed by this nightmare environment, and

Spock would have to live with that. Spock always

pretended to take those things in his logical stride,

but Kirk knew it was fake. He'd seen the change

in Spock's behavior, watched him grow more mellow

as he paid the toll of being a first officer, of having a

subordinate's life slip through his fingers from time

to time. It soured an officer's iron-willed

confidence. Doubt. It was the demon on a leader's

shoulder. The one Kirk had never gotten used to.

Spock looked up from the tricorder, and for an

instant Kirk was afraid he'd been thinking too

loudly. "Something here, Captain."

    "Coming." Climbing was torture. Kirk dug his

fingers into the stubby overgrowth, took each

step one at a time. He couldn't let them see him

fall. A hand caught him under the upper arm and gave

him support. One more hitch upward, and Spock

had him. Kirk sat on the edge of the stony

embankment. His face was clammy, his breath

rattling in his chest, and he gripped the edge of the

ridge with both hands. Spock knelt to hold the

tricorder in front of him. "Traces of refined

metal." There was victory in the Vulean's

voice.

    Invigorated, Kirk cranked to look

directly at him. "Spock, are you sure?"

    "Very faint traces on the limestone below this

soil." He scooted back a few inches

to gesture up the incline. "Note a pattern

scraped into the soft... something has been dragged

along here, possibly some form of travoy. It

carved grooves into the ground, and where it struck stone

we have these traces. Definitely high-grade

steel composite." It didn't show in his voice, but

it did in his eyes--he was thrilled. Probably

relieved. Steel... "Then therests more going on than

we've seen so far," Kirk said. "Somebody else

has been here and has been tampering with these

animals." Spock lowered his tricorder.

"Yes." They looked at each other. Somewhere an

animal shrieked, its cry carried to them on a gust

of moist wind. Their brief visit to the modern age

was cut off by the sound of primitive hunt.

"Spock, go back over the the readings you took from the

Guardian. See if you can find something there... or

not there. Not just the animals, but something else."

    "I understand," the Vulcan condensed. "And

analyze these metal traces--"

    "Captain!" Ensign Reenie was craning her

neck over a crest of bushes, her slick hair,

somehow blacker than Spock's, waving as she

shifted from toe to toe. "Something's happening down

there."

    "Ensign!" Kirk snapped. Shaking out of

Spock's grasp, he slid down the incline and

shambled through the litter of bodies and entrails

to Reenie's side, where he caught her elbow and

pulled her back, putting himself in her place. He

looked over the bushes but saw only glimpses of

movement on a lower level. There was noise, huging

of effort, grunts and howls, now getting louder.

Something solid arched into the air--a taft. Big.

With a knot on the end. "Let's have a look.

Heads down." He led the way through gaudy

flora and spiked plants twice his height,

cautiously pointing out those large webs phere and

buried it on the seafloor in the form of limestone or

calcium carbonate. The accumulated remains of

billions of shells over hundreds of millions

of years."

    "Eventually they'll be Earth's great oil and gas

reserves," Kirk said appreciatively. He

wanted to just lean back and watch the pretty

pictures. "Heavy plant life has released

massive quantities of oxygen into the

atmosphere," Reenie panted, "countering the high

levels of carbon dioxide. Crawling arthropods

are colonizing the, urn, land masses--" Bannon

interrupted. "They provided a food sottree for

lobe-tinned fish and other creatures, so they can come

out onto the land." A series of uglies crawled

by, antennae twirling and legs spinning. Giant

millipedes were the first big plant eaters. Not quite as

beautiful as a moment ago, life went from hiding in

a shell in the muck to crawling out on land and sucking

at the open air. "Amphibians," McCoy

pointed out, "should be some-where--there they are." Suddenly

there were almost as many frogs and snakes as fish a few

minutes ago. The land was covered with club

mosses, horsetails, and tree ferns. A

giant dragonfly drifted by. Life started

to change very fast as eons were crunched into seconds,

a steaming zoo of creatures, flying reptiles, and

smooth-skinned predators. A small but angry

vultur dissized thing plunged toward them so

realistically that Reenie jumped back and McCoy

went with her. "Advanced archosaur," Bannon

reported, reading off his own tricorder, the one

stuffed with paleontology. "At least, I think it

was. Damn! It went by so fast!"

    "Jurassic era now," Spock took over.

"Humid climate worldwide. Dinosaurs. Large

sauropods... stegosaurs... possibly some

small early mammals..." Fabulous numbers of

giant herding dinosaurs elegantly led their young

across verdant plains, watered themselves in blue green

pools, placidly lived and violently died, to be

consumed by charging meat eaters. It was raw nature in

its chest-thumping glory. "Lord, I'd love to step

through there for just ten minutes,"

    McCoy uttered. "Get my hands on one of

those..."

    "You could," Kirk said.

    The doctor huffed. "No, thanks. I

wouldn't last the ten."

    The dinosaurs went on for a long time. New

giants came

    to replace the old. Whole species died off.

Others rose.

    Spok ticked off the years by tens of millions,

but there

    didn't seem to be any end to it. After a

hundred million,

    ninety, eighty, Kirk found himself humbled to all

but the

    pictures.

    Maybe the Guardian wanted them to feel

insignificant- or perhaps the opposite, to understand

their significance in

    its reason for showing them all this. If only the

damned

    thing would talk in something other than booming

    poetry...

    The Guardian's screen suddenly rippled, went

blurry, and

    winked out. The center of the stone structure was

completely empty again.

    The starship's crew stared at it. Nothing.

    So they stared at the captain.

    "What happened?" Kirk looked at Spock.

"Why'd it

    stop?"

    Maybe the Guardian had quit because it somehow

knew

    he'd stopped listening and was going into overdrive.

    "Nothing we did," Spock offered.

    McCoy muttered, "Maybe it's got a

short."

    Kirk took a step. "Guardian, why did you

stop?"

    The device flickered. For a moment the lights

went out

    and it seemed the thing had gone dark, shut down.

    Then the lights came on again, and the voice

drummed,

    "YOUR COMMON PAST CEASES THERE."

    Kirk pushed down a shiver. "Ceases? You mean

there's no

    more history from our planet?"

    "THERE IS NO MORE HISTORY THAT IS

COMMON

    conBETWEEN Y."

    Feeling as if he'd just been told his parents

never got

    married and his life was all a dream, Kirk

backed off a step

    and kept his voice down. "Spock... give me

a time

    comi: frame."

    that no one wanted to disturb and murmuring every few

steps, "Look out for this... Don't touch that...

Duck under this..." Suddenly before them was the edge of this

stand of bushes. Kirk almost stumbled out into the open before

realizing how close he was to the activity out there.

"Down, everyone," he whispered. "Speck?."

    "Here." Speck shuffled through as Reenie made

way for him. He held his tricorder before him, but the

scene upon which they had stumbled was too astounding for

analysis yet. Before them was the savage waltz of a

hunt. On an open plateau, where lush vegetation

had attracted creatures to come and graze, was a

sight of the most horrible and inspiring kind. For

decades, paintings and animations had been done of

such things, but this was real and they were here to see it.

"Recording," Speck murmured automatically.

Kirk didn't care. He was engrossed in

fantasy. In the plateau's center, nearly two

dozen creatures huddled in a curious circle.

Down on all fours like grizzly bears were

stocky armored animals with noses like camels, the

adults more than twenty feet long. On their

backs, rows of curved plates tapered down to the

long tails, each row of plates knobby all the

way across like a dog's collar, mounted with

protrusionsddon which moss had settled as if on the

shingles of an Irish church roof. Each had a

heavy-looking armored skull, bony eyelids; a

toothless beak, large flat feet with heavy

toenails, and a no-kidding knot of embedded bone

fused into two lobes mounted side to side on the end

of the tail. Mixed in with them were a few bipeds,

brightly colored, with their dome heads rising above the

knobby backs of the armored animals, their small

paws sometimes resting on those knobs. "They've formed

a defensive circle," Kirk uttered

appreciatively. "Look at the outer

perimeter." A pack of more than fifty much

smaller creatures were moving in, walking on two

legs, using a border collie method of

corralling the armored animals and the dome-heads

hiding among them. "The four-legged animals may be

Ankylosaurus," Speck responded, squinting

into the tricorder screen. "Order Ornithichia...

heavily armored, roughly seven meters in

length, possessing a bony club on the tail. I

may be incorrect about the species. This readout

has ankylosaurs as upland dinosaurs, characteristic

of drier environments." "Then what are they doing

here?" Kirk asked. "Unknown. With the draining of the

seaways, they may be expanding to new habitats. The

bipeds among them are ... I believe,

pachycephalosaurs. Interesting, Captain, how the

prey are banding together. It's extraordinary

be-hayloft "Sir, if I had those things stalking

me," Reenie said, "I'd make a deal with the

devil."

    "What are those?" Kirk pointed at the dozens of

prowling creatures on two legs. Speck lowered

meaningfully. "Raptors, sir. Generally accepted

as the most viciously efficient of prehistoric

hunters on land. I'm reading over a hundred of

them."

    "I only see fifty... sixty..."

    "Others are waiting in the brush." Spock

raised his tricorder slightly. "According to this, the

varieties known range from the twenty-foot

Utahraptor to the ten-foot deinonychus to the

six-foot light-weight velociraptors.

Strangely, the larger ones occur earlier

than the smaller ones. It's possible they were

responsible for the extinction of sauropods in North

America--the large long-necked dinosaur/which would

have caused the raptors to become smaller and hunt

smaller prey in larger numbers." Kirk peered

through thick elephant-ear leaves. "Those are, I'd

say, four feet." Speck looked up.

"Captain... I believe these are

troodontids."

    "You meanre"

    "Yes, exactly. Very successful predaters.

Bladed teeth... expanded braincase, dexterous

hands... sizable thumb claw, blunt snout,

forward-directed eyes--comodd, the tricorder is

reading out these creatures with longer snouts than what

we are observing--" Kirk glanced at him. "You

don't have time, Mr. Spock."

    "I beg your pardon?" He looked up. "You

don't have time to get a degree in paleobiology.

Don't fret over it." Spock's brow crinkled.

I"! had not noted fretting, sir,... simply an

attempt to narrow the facts--" "And be accurate,

of course. Well, there are times when accuracy

isn't everything. Just make sure we understand what we

need to understand." After a valiant effort

to pretend insult, Spock gave up and said,

"Always, sir." The dozens of troodonts had their

hands full--claws full. If surprise had

been part of their strategy, they'd failed. Or if

they had meant to get at the young, they'd also failed.

The adult ankylosaurs presented their knobby

armored backs and wielded the bony clubs at the

ends of their tails in purposeful warning"

sweeps. Not even a tyrannosaurus would bother

trying to bite through that armor. No chance for

surprise, no cornering a loner... Some days,

nothing goes right. Kirk found himself empathizing with the

troodonts. After all, everybody has to eat. A

gurgling whistle broke his thoughts. To the left of where

he peered through the leaves, one medium-sized

troodont stood a few feet back from the ones who

were closing in. This one extended its snout and made

a low-pitched cooing sound. Neither impressive in

size nor color, this troodont had signs of

wear and tear--seam on its elongated face, scars

on its tail, and a healed break that left its right arm

bent noticeably outward. In responses eerily

matched, haft of the approaching troodonts closed

in, crowing and snapping at each other, while the other

half lingered back. And Spock said there were

plenty more in the bushes. At first the stalkers moved

slowly, unruffled by the honks of the dome-headed

pachys. Kirk found himself watching that leader as its

growls and whines made the others move in certain

ways, rank by rank. Finally the troodont with the

crooked arm made one long-winded sound, like metal

    scraping against metal. Dozens of troodonts

made a barn yard scream and plunged in.

    Almost too fast to watch, the first rank flew to their

prey

    on long, muscular les, tails whipping and

foreclaws 8rasping the knobby backs of the

ankylosaurs.

    They didn't even bother attacking the adult

ankylosaurs.

    They leaped over and attached themselves to the bare

    throats and shoulders of the pachys and went to work with

    those sickle claws. Fans of blood blew

into the breeze as if to

    proclaim that the dome-beads didn't stand a

chance. Kirk

    felt his skin shrink with empathy and a certain

unexpected

    guilt as he realized that he might have to do the

same thin

    possibly to the same creatures, if his landin

party wore to survive.

    , The ankylosanrs raised their tails, lowered

their heads, and swung inward at the troodonts who

had broken their circle. Clubbed tails cracked

hideously against the spines of several troodonts,

folding the attackers backward in agony, to be

dragged through the stomeping feet of the encircled

victims. But it wasn't enough. The broken-armed

troodont barked again. Now the ,mur m me

anlcyosaurs, but the anlcylosaurs' nak young

hiding among their legs. The leader made his grating

scream again, louder now. Suddeuly the bushes

rattled, Another fifty or more troodonts flew

out of the fronds and rushed the scene. "Spock, are you

seeing this?" Kirk was barely able to keep to a

whisper. "That's a coordinated attack. There's a

command structure! That one over there--it's giving

ordersI"

    "Even more, Captain," Spock appraised.

"There's rudst- mentary language at work."

    "Are you serious?"

    "I've distingnstshed roughly ten sounds that elicstt

spedtic actions, all being delivered to one attacking

rank at a tstme. Until you pointed it

out, I had not noted all were conting from a specific

individual."

    The planet moved at his side, the rocks

swarmed like water, and somebody took his ann.

"Jim?" He forced his back straight. "I'm all

right." But with that physician's glower, McCoy

frowned at him. "I wish I was half as good a

liar as you are. Let me at least have the ship beam

down something for you to lean on."

    "A cane?"

    "Of course, a cane. It'll give you character.

After that I'll prescribe five o'clock shadow and a

fedora." Kirk put his hand on McCoy's

communicator before the doctor got the grid open.

"No. They've got their hands full up there.

There'll be time for me later." In his periphery, a

reflection from the screen flashed on his own shoulder,

creating a bulb of mustard gold. His uniform...

The gravity of his choices weighed him down. He

couldn't get away from it anymore than a cat could

walk away from its tail. "Jim." McCoy

shook him out of his molasses-covered thoughts.

"You're not thinking of going through that thing..." Squeezing

his fists, Kirk shuddered out a breath and gazed at the

ovoid rock formation. "We might have to,"

he said. Even without looking he saw the doctor's

face flush white. Not pale, not

duskymabsolutely stone white. Kirk looked

at him and suddenly saw only McCoy. Not

until now had he realized the villification of the

Guardian of Forever in Leonard Ming in front of

them had worked a bitter trick on them a long time

ago, especially on McCoy. Under the influence

of a dangerous drug he had stepped through there and

changed history with a sweep of his innocent hand.

Mending the slip had nearly torn the innards out of

them all and made them sensitive to the tender strands of

time. They'd barely gotten over those terrible hours,

and to this day they were still soulsick. Millions will die

who did not die before... "Now wait a minute,"

McCoy burst in. "Time travel is one thing when

it involves a few hundred years. What will the

effects be when the expanse is tens of millions

of years? How do you know that thing can find us and pull us

back Over that much time?" His words frightened them all.

Kirk knew he couldn't bat the fear down or

kill the rational question with a snap. He turned to his

other side. "Spock? Legitimate concern?"

    Glancing at McCoy as though he didn't

want to hand over

    any unconsidered compliments, Spock said, "Of

course."

    "Can you narrow that risk?"

    i "The temporal disturbances sent out by this

device are

    strong and radiate outward at unpredictable

intervals. I can

    neither explain nor define their power."

    A nonanswer. Kirk hated those. He turned

to the source.

    "Guardian," he began. "If we go through to a

distant past, millions of years can you return

us?"

    "TIME IS FLUID. DISTANT HISTORY

IS AN OCEAN.

    NOTHING IS SURE IN AN OCEAN OF

TIME."

    The sonorous voice shook the rocks around them and

made the ground beneath their feet take a shudder. This

monster was pretty damned quick to give them a big

nothing to work with.

    - McCoy swung around like an attorney in

court. "We could be lost in time!"

    "Photon guidance on automatic, Mr.

Sulu, long range."

    "Ready, sir."

    :. "Leave orbit. Come to course

two-four-nine, then hold position. Keep the

planet on our stern. That'll offer some

protection."

    "Course two-four-nine, sir. Helm's

answering."

    Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott stalked the

command chair. He was itching. He could pilot the ship

out of the solar system, engage the enemy out there, but before

he knew how

    many ships he would have to face, he was the wiser

to huddle here, under the protection of three tightly

orbiting planets, whose gravity and proximity would

tangle up those husky ships. "All weapons

systems on standby," he said. "Arm every bank.

Emergency procedures shiwide. All

noncombat posts should be secured and those crewmen

leave the outer areas." He was talking to hear himself

talk. What was taking those bastards so long to get

here? If he stayed here, would he be drawing attention

to the planet? Did the Romulans or the Klingons

here have pinpoint sensors? Would they be able to pick up

the heat of living bodies down there? Or maybe they

would think the starship was hunkering down, almost

out of fuel, chosing to turn and fight. Let 'em

waste time guessing. The idea of leaving the planet

gave him the shakes. If they got too far off and

were damaged, could they get back before the landing party

died of thirst and starvation down there, unprovisioned?

Or would he and the starship have to hang out there, broken,

unable to limp into transporter range, while the

enemy beamed down and slaughtered the captain and the

others? Options swam before him as he stared at that

gem-studded screen like a badger in his hole. In the

tumult of these seconds, the awful waiting before a

fight, he cursed James Kirk for deciding

to stay down there. But if the galaxy were to be set

right, they had to have Kirk and Spock. There wasn't

in all the rest of Starfleet a combination like those two.

"Another bolt coming in, sir," Chekov reported

from the navigation console. The boy's hands were chalk

white. They had tracked six long-range bolts

so far, managed to dodge all but one. That luck

wouldn't hold. "Warp power to the shields, Mr.

Chekov," Scott growled. "Aye, sir...

adjusting." The flush of emergency was infectious.

Crewmen pounded through the corridors, automatic

systems popping

    on like a cat's claws coming out and back

hairs bristling. Red

    lights flashed, though the alert klaxons had gone

silent after

    five minutes in order to let them do their work and

fight

    their fight without the giant horn in their ears. After

five

    minutes of that honking, anybody who wasn't

awake and on

    station was already dead.

    His face felt as red as his shirt. Below decks,

below decks,

    below decks... engine room, engine room...

    "Enemy coming into long-range sensor sphere,

Mr. Scott." Chekov's voice hiked up a

notch.

    Scott stepped forward of the command chair. "How

    many?"

    "Two confirmed... possibly three, sir."

    "Let'm come on up. We'll engage them right

here. Inside

    the solar system they'll have to drop to impulse

speed.

    Those big ships are built for warp speed

battle. We'll have a

    wee advantage. Prepare for tight

maneuvers, gentlemen."

    "Aye, sir," Sulu said, shoulders hunched.

    "Aye, sir," Chekov echoed and keyed his

phaser and

    photon banks for close range. "Sir!

Another ship!"

    "When"'11 it get here?"

    "Two minutes, sir."

    Without turning, Scott said, "Lieutenant

Uhura--"

    "Sir?"

    "Jam all communication frequencies. We've

got nobody

    to talk to and I won't want those buggers talking

to each

    Other."

    "Here they come, sir?" Chekov's eyes flipped

from the

    semen to his console. "They're dropping

to impulse power

    .. entering the solar system... There they are!"

    Two pinpricks flew toward them and swelled

into the recognizable Romulan design of this time

line--big, thick, tough, angry. The

offensive ship swung in at them and

    beccWithout the slightest ceremony opened fire.

Impact after

    .: imPact thrummed against the starship's

shields, but she stood her ground. The Romulan

ship pounded away at them with some kind of modified

laser--might have been phased

    "to it Weapons, no time to analyze--overshooting

the ship his

    by at least thirty percent. Typical

Romulans, more concerned about hitting hard than

hitting effectively. "Use your thrusters to dodge

those bolts if you can," Scott said. "Make'm

slide down our deflector grid. Waste theft

shots for'm."

    "Third ship is now coming into the solar system,

Mr. Scott," Chekov reported. "Let it

come. Uhura, keep jamming those signals.

Don't let'm coordinate their attack

pattern." "Aye aye, sir. I'm overloading the

whole sector." Suddenly the nearest ship veered

into close range, reared up like a snake, and let

loose on them. "Photon torpedo incoming!"

Chekov sputtered. Quickly Scott ordered,

"Turn into it, Sulu!" Sulu leaned

into the helm and the great ship took a strong diving

turn to starboard just as the enemy salvo met her

deflectors and scattered along the rim of her

primary hull. At the angle it hit, the photon

grazed the ship's edge, then flickered off

into space, scorching their deflectors as it ran.

Beside them, the Romulan vessel teetered suddenly,

its tail section dropped, and it went up on its

backside as if kicked under the chin before the people inside

got control again. Scott glared at the screen.

"Nourredine! What did that to

    On the upper deck the young engineer was beginning

to grow gray hairs. "I think they were rattled by the

backwash from that photon when it came off our

shields and detonated. We're only a hundred

forty thousand kilometers apart." Scott squinted

fiercely at the ship on the screen. "No

proximity safeties. Those salvos must be fully

prearmed! Chekov, target their photon tubes and

fire just as the torpedo comes out of the tube!"

Chekov's brow crumpled. "Before it leaves their

shield sphere?" "That's right, lad. Do it, do it."

    "But, sir, our phasers can't get through their

shields--"

    "if I figure right, you won't have to.

There's one warming

    up! Take aim! Fire on it!"

    Chekov aimed at the oval red glow inside the

enemy

    ship's photon tube. It turned white as the

photon was

    propelled out. He hit his controls. A phaser

launched from

    the Enterprise and struck the enemy's shields

almost at the

    point at which the photon was coming through the shields.

    The phaser fire crackled in a dozen

directions along the

    energy wall surrounding that ship, dissipating without

rupturing the shields. The photon bolt hit the

disruption and

    exploded into a white blast.

    "Brace yourselves!" Sulu shouted. "Shock

waves!"

    The proximity detonation grabbed the Romulan

ship's

    left fill and tore it dean off, and the ship's own

propulsion

    took over from there. Moving just enough to kill itself, the

    ship folded almost in half, hulls

crumpling as artificial

    gravity went wild. Finally the warp core

ruptured, and the

    ship blew into a huge ball of sparks and blinding

light.

    The Enterprise bucked and shuddered under wave after

    wave of convulsive energy being released over there.

Sulu's

    shoulders worked as he fought to keep the ship nose

forward

    into the waves, or she'd be sent spinning and

crammed into

    that planet.

    "Mr. Scott, I don't understand!" Chekov

squawked,

    throat dry.

    "We detonated their photon inside their shield

sphere,"

    ott said. "They've got no safeties that

prevent those things

    from going off too close to their own ships. Where're

the

    other two?"

    "Maneuvering to come about, sir," Sulu

reported. "One

    above us, four hundred sixty thousand

kilometers... The

    oher on our port flank, five hundred thousand

kilometers."

    , Ready phasers," Scott ordered. "Target

their main struc 'llral braces and their engine

room."

    " i"..."...Phasers on target, sir."

    i:;ffffi-"Attack maneuvers, Mr.

Sulu. Prepare to veer away from the to to ..

planet. Let's see if they can run an

obstacle course. Mr. Chekov, open fire."

    who wanted nothing more in life than to tackle

one-dimensional tasks. As such, he found

magnificent satisfaction every ten minutes or so and

was one of the happiest crewmen Kirk had ever known.

    "Captain, sir, sir! I found something," the

big kid panted. "Out there, "bout half a

mile! You gntta see it!"

Chapter 18

    As Chief Engineer Scott's voice rumbled

through empty space from the ship to the landing party, Jim

Kirk parted his lips to speak but never got the chance.

What could he say? He was here, not on the bridge,

and didn't know the details, didn't know

what the ship faced up there.

    "Couldn't stop what was about to happen any more than

he could stop his own heartbeat.

    Something in Scott's voice turned him to ice.

He looked

    conAcross the periwinkle sky, a bright amber streak

creased atmosphere, arching from the dim upper

regions of thin ilpace to the heavy horizon,

spitting fire all the way. There was no mistaking

the pumping white light streaking rlllO the

atmosphere. They'd seen it a hundred times in "

memos, and their own minds. It was release of matter

and antimatter coming in mutual annihilation, so bright

they could see it ten thousand miles away like the birth

of a new star.

    in its way. A beautiful horror. Destruction

of of their lives. The death of a ship of the line.

whispered, "Oh, Jim..."

    Desire embedded itself to catch this moment, freeze

it, abey it until they could fix what went wrong,

but before anyone could move so much as a linger or an

eye, the broad amber brushstroke blew into bright

yellow, then white--and finally fell dark. Never

even made it to the horizon. Off to the back

someplace, Lieutenant Bannon

whispered, "Sir... was that..." Disaster. Disaster.

James Kirk stared and stared into the empty sky.

Why hadn't he been up there? Captain must go down

with his ship... Reality lanced his mind and he came

awake, as if his body were suddenly shot with the sheer

power of his starship. It wasn't gone, it was in here,

in his chest, his legs, his heart, and it screamed for

implementation. "Phasers out? he ordered. "Take

cover? The guards pulled their weapons, then yanked

their prisoners down beside a rock, not sure what

to aim at. Kirk seized his own phaser with one hand

and McCoy's arm with the other and whirled toward a

nearby set of fallen pillars. "Cover?"

McCoy reacted. "Cover from what?"

    "No questions," Kirk preempted and shoved the

doctor down. He almost stumbled himself but caught his

elbow on a rockma damned sharp rock--and forced

hmffaround. "Spock! Get those people down!" Spock

reached for Reenie and Bannon and funneled them through

confusion toward another clutch of ancient pillars.

They made it only halfway there. Between them and the

rocks they were heading for, six streaks of

transporter beams shimmered out of empty air and

grew thicker and thicker. Spock shoved Bannon

to one side and Reenie to the other and stood his

ground with his phaser drawn, his narrow lips

bracketed by two stern creases, chin down and eyes

harsh. Kirk shouted, "Spock, get down!"

Dodging a dozen columns of crackling energy,

Spock tried to step to the side as the transporter

beams drew tight and formed into recognizable

figures wearing unfamiliar costumes. They might

have been Vulcans, though more severe, more threatening

These seemed to have worked on that image. The

Romulans came out of the matter streams already firing

their disruptors, skimming an area that they couldn't

possibly see yet. Their weapons might have been

preprogrammed. Whatever they had, it worked. Energy

beams sliced along the ground and etched their initials

into nearby rock and ruins that had probably lay

undisturbed for ten thousand years. Spock plunged

for the sandy ground. Disruptor beams kimmed over him,

raising the black hair on the back of his head and

causing his blue uniform tunic to smoke. In the

seconds between the first volley and the Romulans'

Bathering of their senses, he rolled over, fired,

reduced one of the enemy to a puff, and crawled behind a

square tone. One of the Security boys popped up

from behind the fallen pillars, lay his arms across the

rock with his phaser in both hands, and opened

fire with continuous volley, narrow beam. Kirk

squinted in that direction. were the prisoners going

to. cause trouble? But Roth and the other one were

huddled Ihind a square thing that might have once been

an altar. dis.apparently they had no desire

to turn themselves over to the Romulans.

con"dis.bbDispersing in prearranged patterns, the

Romulans bloomed outward, spreading across the area

and taking :, cover. Spock took one down, the

second Security guard anothr, before the enemy

soldiers found cover. Would there be more? How many could

they hold off before their phasers were drained? with the ship,

down with the ship, sunk without a

    Kirk squirmed around to the upended ring "Show us

our common history again! Begin with approximately

--Spocld"

    "One hundred million years ago!" Spock

shouted over the whine of phaser fire. Without bothering

to use its "voice," the Guardian of Forever conjured

up pictures they'd seen only a few minutes

ago. Again the spocy images of prehistoric

Earth rumbled by like a grade school simulation.

Oblivious to the phaser fire grazing its rim and

sparking off its pedestal, the Guardian ealrnly

did its job. "Spock, tell me when!"

Phaser fire ceased from Spock's corner, and

Kirk knew his science officer was nose down to the

tricorder, ticking off centuries in gulps.

"Thirty seconds, Captain!"

    "All hands!" Kirk shouted, "Follow me!"

The wide phaser beam blanketed the area with

crackling energy and forced the Romulans to cease

fire and huddle. Follow meretwo words that made

history. Once upon a time these had been two

grunts, two waves of the paw, the claw, the hand,

the club, the spear, two flashes of the eye.

Follow me. The quintessence of leadership, boxed

up and shipped. Starfleet personnel vaulted out

of the ruins and ran toward him. Kirk led them to the

enormous slice of rock that had a voice and

gestured them all between it and him, then turned and fired

the wide beam again. Romulans ducked out of sight

and their disruptors stayed quiet for a delicious

second more. The Starfleet crew came tight

to Kirk's side. Spock gathered the group

snugly together on the narrow pedestal. They huddled like

fools on a ledge, between death and suicide. "Nine

seconds, Captain," Spock said. "Seven...

six... five... four..."

    "All at once!" Kirk ordered.

McCoy shied from the smoking chasm of the Guardian's

portal. "Jim, you've got to be kidding!" Kirk

blistered the area with another blanket shot, then

grabbed McCoy on one side, Bannon and

Reenie on the

    other, glanced at Spock, who had corralled the

two guards and the two Klingons. "Two... one...

now, Captain!"

    "Go!" Kirk shouted. "Go! Go!"

Chapter 19

    DOWN into the storm they went, pressing barehanded

to their chests an unshielded sense of peril. Hardly

more than a blink, a taste of vapor, and they were here.

As if stepping through a door they came into another

room, and the door disappeared behind them. Captain of

nothing, representative of no one. But still leader of

this wayward group. He had said follow, and they had.

Now they were in wonderland. i The first and most

abruptly obvious difference was the

    smell of the place. Rotten eggs. Swamp

gas. And a touch of salt ... saline seas. But how

near? Hothouse conditionns raised the scent of a

constant stir-fry, suddenly moist on cheeks,

uncomfortable inside their collars and sleeves.

tunics were made of special fibers

meant to shed hot elimates and insulate in cold,

and maybe it was but in his poisoned condition, Kirk

couldn't tell He glanced around. Except for

Spock, who wouldn't sweat on the Amazon,

everyone's face was glazed with perspiration.

    Bedewed ferns beckoned lazily above a carpet

of pulpy Heavy undergrowth. mist veiled the sun,

diffusing its light branches of trees whose wide

trunks wore shamrock green from sky to roots with

velvet moss and lichen. Palmettos, prickly

growth, palms. Stumpy cylindrical trees were

armored with overlapping scales the size of a man's

hand, and from the tops sprouted fans of lacy fronds

that seemed too small for the trunks. Some plants

had stout trunks shaped like globes, and others like

cones. Trumpet-shaped florets hung from stalks

and trees. Ficus, magnolia, catkins.

"Looks like Florida," somebody said. It was

Security Ensign Emmendorf. Through the tips of the

conifers shone the purple summits of mountains

laced in mist. Paradise, but deceptive. Kirk

didn't feel at all as if he belonged here. But

it was Earth... He pivoted around for a quick head

count. All here. Even the Klingons, one of whom

appeared shocked and amazed, the other shocked

and suspicious. The two Security guards held

their prisoners as if the Klingons had done this

somehow. Good boys. Thick as a grown man's

thigh, a snake moved in a gnarled tree. Looked

like a boa. Its peacock-marked back glinted in the

diffused sunlight as it paused and turned its

perfume-bottle head to them, then lost interest and

went slowly on its way. Something shrieked across the

sky, but they never saw it. It was over them and gone in

seconds. One of the Security men drew a

phaser, but there was nothing to shoot at. McCoy was the

first to speak, his human voice out of place here.

"What if they follow us through?" The crickets"

rattle dropped off by half. A creature in a

tree plunged away through the jungle's encroaching

growth. Spock turned but not fast enough to see what it

was. "They'll have to figure out the Guardian,"

Kirk said. "Anyway, it'll probably take

them ten or twenty million years. Mr.

Spock, I'd ask where we are, but I think I'd

better ask when are we? Did you understand what I was

yelling for back there?" "The moment of the change in

history," Spock said, brushing a gauzy web from

his arm. He looked up. "I assumecCan"

    Kirk nodded. There were advantages

to working so closely together for so long. "I hope this

is right. Otherwise, it's going to be a hell of a

long camping trip. Do you have a rough estimate of the

date?" Spock adjusted his trioorder and peered

into the tiny screen. "Sixty-four million twenty

thousand four hundred ten years." Kirk blinked at

him. "That's... pretty good for rough.-I want you

to designate duties. Set one of the Security

guards to inventing and making weapons out of indigenous

materials. We have no way of knowing how many months

or years we'll be stuck here. I want the

phasers conserved at all cost. See if you can

locate fresh water. And put McCoy and

EnSigu Reenie on deciding what we can eat and

what we can't. I don't want anyone swallowing

any toxic berries. Have Bannon see what he

can do about shelter. It won't ow here, but I'll bet

it rains like wildcats." Very well, sir."

Spock moved off a few paces to talk to

conBannon, and McCoy moved into his place beside

Kirk, obviously uneasy. i"...We've been on

some alien worlds," he said, "some exotic, some

horrifying, but I don't think any are so alien as

our own world this far in the past. And what good does it

do? We might be ten years off. Come

to think of it, how do know we're not ten years too

late?" Spok, Turning to them, overhearing as was his

sacred duty, said, "The captain and I formed a

theory about the Guardian, that time travel flows like a

river, with currents that carry us along certain

patterns and spirals toward critical points.

I hope that's what has happened here."

"'There's also the possibility that the Guardian

is more an elevator up and down through time," Kirk

carried on. "I'm betting it knows what happened and

it's the right time and place." a whopping hope,"

McCoy agreed gutturally. place? Where are

we? Looks like Hawaii or the Congo."

    "Sixty-four million years?" Bannon

tossed in from across their clearing. "Could be downtown

Chicago for all we know."

    "See if you can figure it out. This is one of those

situations where you find you don't have any control, and

all you can do is the best you can. SpockI'd like as

full a report on our surroundings as possible in

thirty minutes." As his crew wandered away, taking

their first cautious steps through bug-heavy leaves that

rattled in their ears with the taller of crickets,

Kirk limped to the Security guards, who parted for

him and let him through to Roth and Zalt.

"Let's understand each other," he said. "I hate you

and you hate me. We don't have to be soul mates.

All I want is a devil's bargain. We'll

keep you alive. You cooperate." Zalt's eyes

squeezed down to slits and the translator buzzed.

"I do not cooperate with you." "Fine," Kirk said.

"When we run out of food, we'll know where to turn.

You're just another animal to us." He swung around,

a little too fast, but managed to keep his balance.

He didn't care how the Klingons reacted. How

much of his humanity showed in his face? And what was his

mission? Stop whatever had happened to make this

change. It had something to do with San Francisco,

didn't it? San Francisco... I am pleased

and proud to confer upon you, James T. Kirk, the

rank of starship captain, Starfleet, United

Federation of Planets, with all the rights,

privileges and responsibilities appertaining

thereto. Congratulations, Captain Kirk...

stlren't you taking leave in Iowa this year for

Christmas, Jim? Captain April's going to be

there, visiting your parents. I think you'd better

take it as a direct order to attend... Jimmy,

when is it going to dawn on you that rules exist for a

reason?... "Captain, sit down for a

minute. Jim. Jim, right here." For long, dragged

seconds he could see only leaves and brown mush.

Then his eyes focused on his boots. What was he

sitting on? Whatever it was, it was soggy. Ahiss

at his shoulder made him flinch and inhale sharply.

This wa great, just great. Deliver a threat, then fog

out while the enemy's watching. His head started to clear

some. McCoy had put him down oa a

moss-draped tree trunk. "Jim, listen to me.

Listen to me. Look at me."

    "I'm looking. Keep your voice down." He

blinked hard, irritated at having to be told what

to do. His joints, inflamed with infection, speared him

with sharp pain as he arranged his legs. Around him, the

jungle whistled and reeked. "Just disd your medicine.

The rest is my business."

    "That's the problem," McCoy said. "You have

to understand. I only have enough medicine for a few days. This

toxin that's got you, it's like diabetes once was.

Perfectly manageable with medication and finally curable

through treatment. It's no problem in our time, but back

here... I can relieve the symptoms to some

degree, but the cure is back on the

Enterprise." Under the gassy pall of thinly

overcast skies, crickets taRled with

unremittance and purpose, and creatures

unclescribed bellowed in the distance. Jim Kirk

stared into his friend's eyes and found so little hope there that

the noise ofinsects began to close in. Here he

was, socked in beside an ironbound coast to which he had

relentlessly steered. "Some of us might survive,

Jim," McCoy finished, "but you certainly

won't."

Chapter 20

    moirr, SP-OCX, let's have it." drew up a

patch of ground beside where Kirk was with his back against a

rock and his bad leg raised on 'mound.

    "Massive life forms, Captain," he said

simply. "Astonishing numbers. Vast herds of

creatures, five to seven tons each."

    "How close?"

    "Within five miles. We've compiled a

cursory analysis of our immediate surroundings and

overlaid it against information in the tricorders about this

time period," the Vulcan said, his cheeks flushed

copper with intensity. "According to growth lines in fossil

corals and highly refined atomic and crystal

clocks, we know that the ocean tides are slowing the

Earth's rotation by friction of the ocean against the sea

floor and continents. The Cretaceous day

is twenty-one minutes, twenty seconds shorter

than our day, the moon is eighteen hundred miles

closer. The month is seven hours, ten minutes,

forty seconds shorter, and there are approximately

three hundred seventy days in the Cretaceous

year." "Spock..."

    "Because of continental drift, the poles of rotation

are different, the North Pole being

approximately halfway between the Bering Strait and

where "I don't want to know this." Spock dropped

his shoulders. "I beg your pardon?"

    "Tell me something I can use." Dashed,

Spock glowered thoughtfully. "We have used this

information, sir." "How?"

    "We've used it to ascertain our specific

location. "Then tell me where we are."

    "We're are on the eastern North American

continent. Though this appears to be Florida or the

Caribbean, we are actually in a location that will be

southern Georgia, a few degrees north of the

Florida line. I believe we're on a large

thumb of land, a peninsula raised by the rugged southern

spine of the Appalachians--those mountains. To the far

north, a sea extends from Hudson Bay across the

high plains of Canada, to cover North

Dakota. To the south the Mississippi embayment

extends inland to western Tennesee.

    "That's a lot of water."

    "Yes, it is. By the way, there are no ice

caps yet on either pole." Spock spoke quickly

again, as if wanting to stick that detail in before he was

told not to. "Eastern and western North America

are two separate continents right now?"

    "they are are acting as two separate continents.

However, they're part of the same tectonic plate and

will not separate. Sea levels seem to be on the

rise again, which contradicts what we thought about the

Upper Cretaceous period. Most studies

concluded that the sea level was at its lowest point,

but that is evidently wrong."

    "I'll bet a lot is going to contradict what

we thought about this place."

    "Mmm," Spock murmured, not exactly an

agreement. "Eventually the inland sea will separate

and the transcontinental arch will be revealed and become

the Great Plains. It may have already happened, but 1

cannot tell without a satellite connection." 'Kirk

had heard the last few sentences, but the words drummed

with meaningless order for him. Iowa... maybe under

water, drowned, struggling to form itself into the

p" where someday he and his brother would be born. The

glaciers weren't even here yet, the ones that would

carve out the Great Lakes and the Saginaw Valley,

cutting out the fingers and thumb of Michigan and leaving

the state half plae-studded dunes and half sandy

basin. '8o many centuries, cons, and the little

decades of their began to dribble and shrink.

Florida's still under water," he managed, trying

to disitmw a map in his mind. :;! Sensing

Kirk's conflict, Spock raised his inflections

to a scholarly tenor. "And much of eastern Mexico.

West the Central Rockies are probably

rising. When dealing on a scale of millions of

years, there is enough time to raise a range over a

mile above sea level, then wear it down to sea

level again. Everything here is a theoretical

conclusion, Sir, based on knowledge that is rebelliously

sweeping." That was his way of apologizing for not being more

sure.

    Kirk felt his lips curl up at one corner

in a pathetic grin. "Deep time," he murmured.

Spock paused and questioned with his eyes. Kirk

plucked at a fern just within reach. "As with deep

space, Mr. Spock, there seems to be deep

time." Caught by the concept, Spock gazed

at him. Nothing else. "Spock" Kirk began

again quietly, "back on the ship, just after this

happened, I wasn't in a fever-induced fog when

I heard you say we hadn't made any jumps in

time, correct?"

    "Correct. According to the locations of stars, we were

steady to the month, and the planets of the Izell system

gave us accuracy down to the minute. We had not

shifted at all in time."

    "Of course," Kirk pressed, "I could still be in

the midst of being crushed to death by that cosmic string and

ripped apart by time distortions. This could be the last

imaginings of a dying mind. What do you say to that?"

    "Captain... I... see no evidence for that

line of thinkingat all..."

    "Well, you wouldn't, since I'm inventing you."

Spock opened his mouth again, but nothing came out. He

was probably plotting to have McCoy check the

captain's medication and find it was being mixed too

rich. Kirk's naughty-boy grin gave him away

as he left Spock on the hook, but he didn't

care. "It's a damned shame. To rise

to intelligence, then completely disappear, and for that

to happen time after time, failure after failure."

    "Extinction is part of the normal scheme

of nature, Captain. Even mass extinction..."

    "Not for intelligent creatures who can design

their own future. Who were they, Spoc? And what were

they doing here? They're not from here, so who are they?"

Discontent limned Spock's sharp features.

Trouble stressed his posture, and sympathy, his

eyes. "Perhaps," he attempted, "I could find you

a drink of fresh water, sir."

    "I'm sorry," Kirk said. "I'm fine. Go

on with your geography."

    "Palcogeography, sir," Spock

corrected. "According to our recorded data, India

is an island now, much like

    Auatralia in our time. Australia is still

linked to the Antarctic and South America.

Transylvania, Italy, andRomania ar slowly

colliding with Europe. The hot climate is due

to inlased CO2 levels. We're reading a great

amount of vulcanism and mountain building. Much of the

equator is nveloped in a supertropic. At this

latitude, we're in a full-blown tropical

climate. The water we're reading in the "

diatance to the east and south is hypersaline and warm,

rulting in a sluggish ocean, which cartes much less

oxygen. There is no cold, dense,

oxygen-rich water sinking and propelling circulation.

Less nutrients come back to the surface..."

    "Spock, not so much monumental analysis,

please. I don't want to build any mountains.

Give me some functional details."

    "very well. The most profound difference in flora

from our own time would be the complete absence of

grasses. Other than the herds of large-bodied

animals we're picking niPP-ON our

tricorders, we're also reading millions of

small--bodied animals, primarily small

mammals, lizards, salamanders and frogs." even

if I'm not in Florida, I'm still in

Florida." i*',sentially so. Although perhaps a

bit more like the

    ,..,.: disha these large animals. . they're

dinosaurs?" disand:. though Ensign Emmendorf

captured a mouse-sized which is vaguely

squirrellike, which Mr. Bannon says is the

earliest known primate. A stunning find,

ternIs." Did he kill it?"

    "Accidentally."

    "too bad. It was probably my

great-great-great-grandad " don't exist

anymore. Go on." to accept that as

perfectly plausible logic, Spock not yet

ascertained which animals and plants therefore we must

assume they all are. As for swarmed in the

unnatural lights, eerily silent, feasting on the

corpses. A sight of prehistoric slaughter?

So what? Spock and McCoy plunged past him,

and Kirk found himself inadequate in the light of their

professional curiosity. He wanted to throw up but

not with his junior officers watching. Or senior

officers either, for that matter. A captain's

dilemma: couldn't throw up in front of anybody.

Withered intestines hung like holiday decorations all

over the green growth and ferns, some still linked to the open

guts of the animals from which they came. The larger

animals were a good ten feet from head to tail and on

those thick hind legs could rear back almost as tall

as he was. Their gaping mouths were snaggled with

bloody teeth. Their eyes stared, even more terrible

because these were large brown eyes, like the eyes of an

owl, not like a crocodile. He couldn't feel for a

crocodile, but this... "All right, Mr.

Vernon," he started bluntly, "what's the

attraction? We've got a bunch of dead

animals. What did you want us to see that couldn't

wait?" The tall Security man

pointed. "The faces of the big ones, sirmlook at

their faces? Kirk moved forward glaring through a band of

artificial light. "Is that paint?" Spock

drew his fingers along the yellow and purple

designs on the animal's long skull. "Paint,

Captain... acrylic pigment. Synthetic, not

natural." His voice dropped away and he

murmured, "Amazing! Meant for visibility ...

or possibly to frighten an enemy."

    "Somebody else must have painted these creature's

faces to throw us off."

    "Somebody else?" McCoy looked up.

"What makes you think that, Captain?"

    "If we can travel time, so can someone else."

    "Only the big ones have paint on them," Reenie

said. "Maybe these little ones are the babies of the big

ones," Vernon wondered. "No," Reenie said.

"The small ones have their claws between the ribs of the

big ones. They were attacking"

    "A coordinated attack, also," Spock

noted, fascination rising again in his voice. "Note

the angles from which the smaller ones approached...

nearly all the same." McCoy got down on

both knees and put his hands into the laid-open

animal. "Warm blood." Kirk leaned

hard on his stick. "How long have these animals been

dead?"

    "Minutes. Maybe an hour. But some of the

bodies are still warmer than others. They may have lay

here dying for a while. But not very long Trauma like this

doesn't let an animal hang on for long."

    "We may have frightened off the victors," Spock

said. "Which means whatever did this is probably still

nearby." Kirk motioned to Emmendorf, Vernon,

and Reenie. "Stay on your toes, people."

    "Jim, do you have the time for me to dissect one of

these?" McCoy asked. "We've got sixty

million years. Help yourself. But we'll do it

back at the campsite. Mr. Emmendorf, come

down here and assist Dr. McCoy. Mr.

Spock, secure the area while you have the chance,

please."

    "Yes, sir." Spock stood up, his gaze

lingering on the face of the sad creature lying at his

feet, its painted face calling to his scientific

mind with' contradiction after contradiction. Kirk

empathized with him, but there wasn't time to indulge.

They needed something more concrete, something the tricorder

would recognize and say, "Got it!" They needed that

thing, that one hint to drive away their

doubts. To Jim Kirk, that was the perfect world--one

with no doubts. The hard decisions weren't really the

worst part of command. It was the doubting he hated.

Command... the ship... the beautiful Enterprise...

a ghost of it blew past him in the dark sky

overhead, so real he almost looked up and waved.

They had counted on him. They hadn't doubted him.

I'm sorry, sir... I'm sorry, sir..."

    "Not your fault, Scotty..." His own voice

startled him. He glanced around, self-aware,

wondering if anyone else had heard him. No one

was looking. McCoy was elbow-deep in slaughtered

dinosaur, giving orders to a nauseated

Emmendorf, and Spock was up on the incline,

intently scanning, Kirk knew he was better at

the art of roughing it than Spock, but for how long? His

medication had been thinned until he barely felt it

working. The fever was back, his legs hurt, his thoughts

wandered, and he had to pull them back every few

minutes. How long could he hold on? Would they

find him dead in his sleep a few days from now and be

forced to go on without him? He looked up the incline

at Spock. He knew Spock's sterling

loyalty and cautious foresight wouldn't serve long

or well in this place. Eventually one of the

young officers would be killed by this nightmare

environment, and Spock would have to live with that.

Spock always pretended to take those things in his

logical stride, but Kirk knew it was fake.

He'd seen the change in Spock's behavior,

watched him grow more mellow as he paid the toll of being

a first officer, of having a subordinate's life

slip through his fingers from time to time. It soured an

officer's iron-willed confidence. Doubt. It was the

demon on a leader's shoulder. The one Kirk had

never gotten used to. Spock looked up from the

tricorder, and for an instant Kirk was afraid

he'd been thinking too loudly. "Something here,

Captain."

    "Coming." Climbing was torture. Kirk dug his

fingers into the stubby overgrowth, took each step one

at a time. He couldn't let them see him fall.

A hand caught him under the upper arm and gave him

support. One more hitch upward, and Spock had

him. Kirk sat on the edge of the stony embankment.

His face was clammy, his breath rattling in his chest,

and he gripped the edge of the ridge with both hands.

Spock knelt to hold the tricorder in front of

him. "Traces of refined metal." There was

victory in the Vulean's voice.

    Invigorated, Kirk cranked to look

directly at him. "Spock, are you sure?"

    "Very faint traces on the limestone below this

soil." He scooted back a few inches

to gesture up the incline. "Note a pattern

scraped into the soft... something has been dragged

along here, possibly some form of travoy. It

carved grooves into the ground, and where it struck stone

we have these traces. Definitely high-grade

steel composite." It didn't show in his voice, but

it did in his eyes--he was thrilled. Probably

relieved. Steel... "Then therests more going on than

we've seen so far," Kirk said. "Somebody else

has been here and has been tampering with these

animals." Spock lowered his tricorder.

"Yes." They looked at each other. Somewhere an

animal shrieked, its cry carried to them on a gust

of moist wind. Their brief visit to the modern age

was cut off by the sound of primitive hunt.

"Spock, go back over the the readings you took from the

Guardian. See if you can find something there... or

not there. Not just the animals, but something else."

    "I understand," the Vulcan condensed. "And

analyze these metal traces--"

    "Captain!" Ensign Reenie was

craning her neck over a crest of bushes, her

slick hair, somehow blacker than Spock's,

waving as she shifted from toe to toe. "Something's

happening down there."

    "Ensign!" Kirk snapped. Shaking out of

Spock's grasp, he slid down the incline and

shambled through the litter of bodies and entrails

to Reenie's side, where he caught her elbow and

pulled her back, putting himself in her place. He

looked over the bushes but saw only glimpses of

movement on a lower level. There was noise, huging

of effort, grunts and howls, now getting louder.

Something solid arched into the air--a taft. Big.

With a knot on the end. "Let's have a look.

Heads down." He led the way through gaudy flora

and spiked plants twice his height, cautiously

pointing out those large webs that no one wanted

to disturb and murmuring every few steps, "Look out for

this... Don't touch that... Duck under this..."

Suddenly before them was the edge of this stand of bushes.

Kirk almost stumbled out into the open before realizing how

close he was to the activity out there. "Down,

everyone," he whispered. "Speck?."

    "Here." Speck shuffled through as Reenie made

way for him. He held his tricorder before

him, but the scene upon which they had stumbled was too

astounding for analysis yet. Before them was the savage

waltz of a hunt. On an open plateau, where lush

vegetation had attracted creatures to come and

graze, was a sight of the most horrible and inspiring

kind. For decades, paintings and animations had been

done of such things, but this was real and they were here to see

it. "Recording," Speck murmured

automatically. Kirk didn't care. He was

engrossed in fantasy. In the plateau's center,

nearly two dozen creatures huddled in a curious

circle. Down on all fours like grizzly bears

were stocky armored animals with noses like camels,

the adults more than twenty feet long. On their

backs, rows of curved plates tapered down to the

long tails, each row of plates knobby all the

way across like a dog's collar, mounted with

protrusionsddon which moss had settled as if on the

shingles of an Irish church roof. Each had a

heavy-looking armored skull, bony eyelids; a

toothless beak, large flat feet with heavy

toenails, and a no-kidding knot of embedded bone

fused into two lobes mounted side to side on the end

of the tail. Mixed in with them were a few bipeds,

brightly colored, with their dome heads rising

above the knobby backs of the armored animals, their

small paws sometimes resting on those knobs.

"They've formed a defensive circle," Kirk

uttered appreciatively. "Look at the outer

perimeter." A pack of more than fifty much

smaller creatures were moving in, walking on two

legs, using a border collie method of

corralling the armored animals and the dome-heads

hiding among them. "The four-legged animals may be

Ankylosaurus," Speck responded, squinting

into the tricorder screen. "Order Ornithichia...

heavily armored, roughly seven meters in length,

possessing a bony club on the tail. I may be

incorrect about the species. This readout has

ankylosaurs as upland dinosaurs, characteristic of

drier environments." "Then what are they doing here?"

Kirk asked. "Unknown. With the draining of the

seaways, they may be expanding to new habitats. The

bipeds among them are ... I believe,

pachycephalosaurs. Interesting, Captain, how the

prey are banding together. It's extraordinary

be-hayloft "Sir, if I had those things stalking

me," Reenie said, "I'd make a deal with the

devil."

    "What are those?" Kirk pointed at the

dozens of prowling creatures on two legs.

Speck lowered meaningfully. "Raptors, sir.

Generally accepted as the most viciously efficient of

prehistoric hunters on land. I'm reading over a

hundred of them."

    "I only see fifty... sixty..."

    "Others are waiting in the brush." Spock

raised his tricorder slightly. "According to this, the

varieties known range from the twenty-foot

Utahraptor to the ten-foot deinonychus to the

six-foot light-weight velociraptors.

Strangely, the larger ones occur earlier than the

smaller ones. It's possible they were responsible

for the extinction of sauropods in North America--

the large long-necked dinosaur/which would have caused

the raptors to become smaller and hunt smaller

prey in larger numbers." Kirk peered through thick

elephant-ear leaves. "Those are, I'd say,

four feet." Speck looked up. "Captain...

I believe these are troodontids."

    "You meanre"

    "Yes, exactly. Very successful predaters.

Bladed teeth... expanded braincase, dexterous

hands... sizable thumb claw, blunt snout,

forward-directed eyes--comodd, the

tricorder is reading out these creatures with longer

snouts than what we are observing--" Kirk

glanced at him. "You don't have time, Mr.

Spock."

    "I beg your pardon?" He looked up. "You

don't have time to get a degree in paleobiology.

Don't fret over it." Spock's brow crinkled.

I"! had not noted fretting, sir,... simply an

attempt to narrow the facts--" "And be accurate,

of course. Well, there are times when accuracy

isn't everything. Just make sure we understand what we

need to understand." After a valiant effort to pretend

insult, Spock gave up and said, "Always, sir."

The dozens of troodonts had their hands full--

claws full. If surprise had been part of their

strategy, they'd failed. Or if they had meant

to get at the young, they'd also failed. The adult

ankylosaurs presented their knobby armored backs

and wielded the bony clubs at the ends of their

tails in purposeful warning' sweeps. Not even a

tyrannosaurus would bother trying to bite through that

armor. No chance for surprise, no cornering a

loner... Some days, nothing goes right. Kirk found

himself empathizing with the troodonts. After all,

everybody has to eat. A gurgling whistle

broke his thoughts. To the left of where he peered through the

leaves, one medium-sized troodont stood a few

feet back from the ones who were closing in. This one

extended its snout and made a low-pitched cooing

sound. Neither impressive in size nor color, this

troodont had signs of wear and tear--seam on its

elongated face, scars on its tail, and a healed

break that left its right arm bent noticeably

outward. In responses eerily matched, haft of the

approaching troodonts closed in, crowing and

snapping at each other, while the other half lingered

back. And Spock said there were plenty more in the

bushes. At first the stalkers moved slowly,

unruffled by the honks of the dome-headed pachys.

Kirk found himself watching that leader as its growls and

whines made the others move in certain ways, rank

by rank. Finally the troodont with the crooked arm

made one long-winded sound, like metal

    scraping against metal. Dozens of troodonts

made a barn yard scream and plunged in.

    Almost too fast to watch, the first rank flew to their

prey

    on long, muscular les, tails whipping and

foreclaws 8rasping the knobby backs of the

ankylosaurs.

    They didn't even bother attacking the adult

ankylosaurs.

    They leaped over and attached themselves to the bare

    throats and shoulders of the pachys and went to work with

    those sickle claws. Fans of blood blew

into the breeze as if to

    proclaim that the dome-beads didn't stand a

chance. Kirk

    felt his skin shrink with empathy and a certain

unexpected

    guilt as he realized that he might have to do the

same thin

    possibly to the same creatures, if his landin

party wore to survive.

    , The ankylosanrs raised their tails, lowered

their heads, and swung inward at the troodonts who

had broken their circle. Clubbed tails cracked

hideously against the spines of several troodonts,

folding the attackers backward in agony, to be

dragged through the stomeping feet of the encircled

victims. But it wasn't enough. The broken-armed

troodont barked again. Now the ,mur m me

anlcyosaurs, but the anlcylosaurs' nak young

hiding among their legs. The leader made his grating

scream again, louder now. Suddeuly the

bushes rattled, Another fifty or more

troodonts flew out of the fronds and rushed the

scene. "Spock, are you seeing this?" Kirk was

barely able to keep to a whisper. "That's a

coordinated attack. There's a command structure!

That one over there--it's giving ordersI"

    "Even more, Captain," Spock appraised.

"There's rudst- mentary language at work."

    "Are you serious?"

    "I've distingnstshed roughly ten sounds that elicstt

spedtic actions, all being delivered to one attacking

rank at a tstme. Until you pointed it out, I

had not noted all were conting from a specific

individual."

    They grew calm in the pressing heat and were drawn

by the scene that a fluke of high science had

privileged them to witness. The vast-bodied

titanosaurs were eminently at home here, huge

heads waving into the sky-high mist. Their hides were

subtly variegated, an illusion of stripes that

served to let their bulks be disguised in the trees.

White and gray birds of different sizes

fluttered from titanosaur to titanosaur, lighting

on the broad backs, clinging to the long necks,

dodging between the thick legs, and picking in the

ground stirred up by the sauropods' shipping-crate

feet. "Hey, look!" Bannon went up on his

toes and pointed. "Look over there. Look at

that!"

    "Triceratops! Wow!" Reenie bubbled,

jumping up. "Two of them!" Bannon exuded. A

pair of tank-sized beasts wandered toward them along

the creek, ignoring the titanosaurs who returned

the ignore. Each had a horn over each eye and

one on the nose and a flaring scalloped neck

frill. Grazing in a manner hauntingly cowlike,

they rooted at the edges of the stream, pushing their sharp

beaks into the mud and pulling up hidden roots. As

they grazed, two convex oval-shaped areas of the wide

frills expanded and contracted. Jaw muscles--

all the way up into those neck frills.

"Triceratops!" Reenie twittered, her voice

high. "I always wanted one for a pet!"

    "Who didn't?" Bannon grumbled from beside her.

Kirk motioned to Spock. "Well?" Unhappy

again as he tried to focus his tricorder on the two

new animals, Spock said, "Not Triceratops,

but the same family. Either Torosaurus... or

Pentaceratops. Probably the former.

Torosaurns was large as Triceratops,

but much more rare, possibly traveled alone rather than

in large herds as Triceratops probably did.

Small extended beak... nasal and brow

horns... twenty-one to twenty-five feet

long... generally believed to have populated Wyoming,

South Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan--"

    "I thought we were in southern Georgia,"

Bannon inter-rnpted, skewering Spock with an

improper look. The Vulcan met the look with one

of his own, masterfully cold. "The fact that we

haven't found them here, Lieutenant, does not

preclude the possibility of their having been here.

In fact, there is virtually no terrestrial

fossil record in Georgia at all. It was

all eroded into the sea."

    "Good Lord," McCoy exclaimed as the pair of

animals drew nearer, "just the skulls must be ten

feet long!"

    "Average of eight point five feet, with the

crest accounting for half the skull area." The

doctor twisted a lip. "That's it, ruin it for

me." Spock gave him almost as much attention as the

titano-sams were giving the approaching torosaurs.

"This animal's skull was the largest of any land

animal ever known." He turned to Kirk.

"If these are torosaurs, Captain, this is a

remarkable cataloging opportunity. I would like

to attempt to get closer." Torn between scrambling

for safety and allowing his crew to do their jobs,

Kirk looked at the unshrouded curiosity in his first

officer's face. "Spock, I don't know..."

Spock stepped closer. "Captain, if I could

get--" . A bellowing roar cut him off, at first

sounding like another tuba howl, but' This had a

guttural severity that failed to eo. Kirk

pressed Spock aside in time to see a massive

mgled disform charge out of the trees on giant turkey

legs ten f long each. With brutal singularity of

purpose, five tons of.force propelled a huge

mouth gaping with pointed teeth the length of bananas,

plowing full bore into the side of one . of the

sauropods. i'Aw!" Emmendorf bellowed in

empathy. tion about what they were watching, no need .

to consult a tricorder. Every schoolchild

recognized North American Tyrannosaurus

rex, everybody's bad guy, the one animal of

Earth history that wanted to watch in action but

nobody wanted to

    there it was, pounding its torpedo of a face into the

titanosaur and knocking both of them

to Propelled by the force of the charge, the two

dinosaurs skidded together into the creek and out of that

trickle of water somehow made an enormous

splash.

    In a cloud of maddened birds, the other

sauropods swung full about and stampeded

stiff-legged down the creek and out of sight in

astonishing speed, leaving their wounded family member

and the tyrannosaur to deal with each other. As they

stampeded through the maddened birds, they stumbled into the

pair of torosaurs, who were turned and driven before

them in a panic.

    The titanosaur was the first to get to its feet. It

swung around on its hind legs to face the

tyrannosaur and reared upward. As blood poured

down its hindquarters from the wounds on its hip, the

animal swiveled and began dropping its full

weight toward the tyrannosaur, which was struggling

to get both massive legs out of the water and back

underneath. Squirming as the titanosaur came down,

the big T bellowed an enduring sound like metal

scraping against metal. The titanosaur's foot

came down on its attacker's tail, and there was

another ghastly bellow, this time more of pain than

rage.

    The thunder lizard twisted its thick, strong neck

and bit into the titanosaur's shoulder, shoving its

toothy face through hide, muscle, and bone in one

snap with sheer force. Shaking its head, it ripped out

a mouthful and bolted it down like a crocodile

bolts down a calf.

    "What are the chances he'll come over here?"

Kirk asked, cautious of his volume.

    "He probably won't notice us," McCoy

said. "Everybody get down anyway. Stay near the

ground."

    While they all huddled near the ground or hid

behind broken tree branches, Bannon murmured,

"What a sight!"

    Before them on the creek bed, the titanosaur

slid down onto one knee but was able to wheel around

again on those tree-thick hind legs. Coming down with a

bass drum boom, it slammed that immense tail

into the tyrannosaur's side, knocking the predator

over.

    The movements were shocking and fast, much more supple

than Kirk ever would have imagined creatures of

    such bulk could move. At a circus he'd seen

a female African elephant driven into a

rage. Before its trainers or anyone

    his could react, it attacked and killed two

workers, then thundered into the bleachers and drove its wide

head through a be wall. But that was on Rccgel

Four...

    His(disi With another metal-scraping scream, the

tyrannosaur rolled over onto its pointy spine

and came crashing down on its other side, legs

thrashing and small arms pushing at the ground.

    While it thrashed, the titanosaur turned and

charged across the creek toward Kirk and the others.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

    He heard McCoy. "Uh-ohu"

    Spewing blood, the titanosaur pounded past them

and smashed straight through the trees, not bothering to look

for a better way out. With a ghastly crackle the dense

trees were driven down, making a path wide enough

to fly a shuttlecraft through.

    All at once, the titanosaur was gone.

    Boom, boom, boom... the sound faded away.

    "Down! Now!" Kirk gasped, pushing McCoy

and Emmendorf down, hoping the others would have the chance

to drop, too.

    The tyrannosaur scratched to its feet,

extended its neck, and roared in frustration.

Snapping its maw twice--crack,

crack--it sniffed at the air. Could it smell them?

were

    foreign scents clinging to them that would bring that beast

here?

    Limping, the tyrannosaur sniffed again--the air,

the lffl'ound, the trail of blood--and pounded

deliberately to them, each step a drum beat.

    :."...ationobody... move," Kirk murmured,

barely audible.

    would be a prefect time for the Klingons to attempt

an

    like needlepoints within skeletal sockets, the

lowered its head, stretched out its neck, and

    and hard. Then it put its snout to the and

deliberately tracked the smashed trail left by the

    titanosaur, hammering its fifty-foot body

and tail past Kirk and his party without a glance.

Apparently it knew what it could have with a little

perseverance. They watched, hearts pounding, as the most

renowned killer of all time drummed into the dense

woods. At the edge of the woods, it paused,

turned toward them again, lowered" its giant skull

and screamed one more time, waited until the echo

fell, then also disappeared into the wilds. "Wow..."

Reenie breathed. "He's a walking nose

with teeth," McCoy said softly. "Did you

notice that he didn't fight except when he was

pinned down? He smashed open that animal's rib

cage, then pulled back to let nature take its

course. I bet he'll track the titanosaur for

miles if he has to. Even a minor bite will

kill it before long. Those animals' mouths must be

havens for bacteria."

    "I can't believe we saw that!" Bannon pushed

to his feet. "On the contrary," Spock said, "with the

sheer numbers of those varieties of creatures on this

continent at this time, it would be surprising if we did

not encounter them." Kirk put an elbow out and let

Emmendorf hoist him up. "Let's move on.

I don't want to be here if---"

    "Jim!" McCoy's arm shot out in a point.

"Look!" Scanning the landscape, Kirk drew a

breath and snapped, "Down!" On the creek bed,

sniffing at the ground, were two more tyrannosanrs.

One was two-thirds the size of the first they'd seen,

thirty feet or so, and the other was only about fifteen

feet long. "It's a baby!" Ensign Reenie

panted. "A baby that could eat a Clydesdale,"

McCoy drawled, appreciating the young T's

ottoman-sized head. "The scale is

incredible? Baby or not, there wasn't much cute about

this thing. In every way a duplicate of its elders, the

little T stuffed its horny snout into the mud,

scooped up a bloody chunk of muscle torn from

the sauropod, and greedily coughed it down, mud and

all.

    "Is the other one its mother?" Emmendorf asked.

"No way to tell," McCoy said, squinting. Now

the larger of the two caught the scent of the trail and

roared. Tails whipping, they trundled past the

Starfleet crew toward the path of crushed trees,

sniffing at the bloody disbble as they stomped through.

Shaken and stunned, Kirk and his party cautiously

got to their feet. Face-to-face with the big ones,

that was what Starfleet had promised--a life of

adventure and exploration. Well, they'd just come

face-to-face with the biggest big ones of all. Now

they had to learn how to hide from them.

    "Jim, we found some food. Or at least, we

think it's food." As McCoy picked his way

across the clearing, and with every one of his steps, Kirk

realized with one more pang how hungry he had

become. His body was fighting off the toxins, dealing

with the medication, struggling for clarity of mind, and all this

took a vat of energy. "Y'know,"

McCoy rambled, "it's a jungle out there. I've

never seen so many funny-looking animals. You can't

take ten Steps out there, but some nest of big

lizards jumps up and scatters. It's bad for the

heart." With his body rewarding him for his diligence with

i well-timed twinges, Kirk bent over

McCoy's bundle of Iffafamiliar fruits.

A few were round, fuzzy, and brown, some to to aaty and

yellow green and scored with cut marks, some ants still

in the shells. He pushed at the soft brown round :.

"Oes with his finger. are those?" kind of fig,"

McCoy said. "And these are palm Over here might

be a version of raspberry. Now, me to that--" you

tasted it yet?" busy stanching the wounds on the

backs of It had three-inch thorns." set me up

for that question, didn't you? who wanted nothing more in life

than to tackle one-dimensional tasks. As such, he

found magnificent satisfaction every ten minutes or

so and was one of the happiest crewmen Kirk had ever

known.

    "Captain, sir, sir! I found something," the

big kid panted. "Out there, 'bout half a mile!

You gntta see it!"

Chapter 21

    "No PhaSERS! No phasers!

Get him out? Jim Kirk skidded down the last

quarter of the ridge, shouting as he hit the bottom.

He wrenched his hips around in the lucky direction and

managed to land on his good leg. "Pull him out of

there?" He plunged past Reenie and Emmendorf,

crashed into the water, and sent green spray fanning in

every direction. He grabbed for Bannon, who was

batting frantically at the water with his bare hands as

if to take karate chops at the frothy surface.

The water was too warm, unnatural and invisible on

the body. Kirk had braced himself for a chill, but it

never came and for an instant he thought he was losing the

feeling in his legs. He got his hands around

Bannon's arm, pulled hard, and kicked

viciously at the gaudy spear that had its teeth

sunk into his crewman. McCoy came crashing

into the water past the two stunned crewmen and somehow this

shook the two out of their terrorized stupor and they

followed him in. Of course, nobody was more

terrorized than the bunch of four-foot

crocodiles on the opposite bank, who jolted

and suddenly scattered.

    The creature in the water, shark or not, had no

spine for combat. It was a scavenger, and easier

food would present itself in due time. It

disengaged from Bannon's calf, and like a wizard into a

puff of smoke made two swipes of its tail and

disappeared, to forget in moments where it had just been.

Kirk stuffed Bannon into Emmendorf's thick

short arms and snapped an order to get ashore before

those crocodiles wised up. He struggled to get out

of the sucking grit that held his boots underwater. There

was a lot of heart thump in the vulgar fear of being

eaten. Bannon was chalk white as they dropped him

on the shore, and McCoy fell to his side, a

hand already clamped to the artery in the young man's calf.

"Did anybody see what it was?" the doctor

asked. "I did," Reenie said. "It was sort of a

shark, but the slash in his leg came from its dorsal

fill. It was kind of... @.rrated. Then it turned

around and bit him."

    "There's a bite here. Not bad. The fill did

a lot more

    .bannon swore and gasped but didn't make

much sense. Reenie held his head and stuffed back

tears, but lffmmendorf's wide young face was

drenched with tear tracks cutting through the slime that had

splashed on his aeek and he evidently didn't

care who saw him cry. Kirk felt his heart

quit drumming and start cracking at the

sight of them crumpled there on the shore at his

feet. He'd failed to protect them. His hands were

both clenched in their raw-nerve imaginations twisting the

spine out of 'Umt fish. "Bones?"

    "Checking." The doctor didn't look up. "

"Bannon choked and tried to sit up. "I'm

gonna lose my

    ,'ationo, you're not," Kirk stated blunfiy with

deliberate

    conyes snapped up to him. He glared at the

    posture and his own glaring eyes, Kirk commu-a

silent order. Anything you have to do. looked down again.

"No," he said. "You're not swarmed in the

unnatural lights, eerily silent, feasting on the

corpses. A sight of prehistoric slaughter?

So what? Spock and McCoy plunged past him,

and Kirk found himself inadequate in the light of their

professional curiosity. He wanted to throw up but

not with his junior officers watching. Or senior

officers either, for that matter. A captain's

dilemma: couldn't throw up in front of anybody.

Withered intestines hung like holiday decorations all

over the green growth and ferns, some still linked to the open

guts of the animals from which they came. The larger

animals were a good ten feet from head

to tail and on those thick hind legs could rear back

almost as tall as he was. Their gaping mouths were

snaggled with bloody teeth. Their eyes stared, even

more terrible because these were large brown eyes, like the eyes

of an owl, not like a crocodile. He couldn't feel

for a crocodile, but this... "All right, Mr.

Vernon," he started bluntly, "what's the

attraction? We've got a bunch of dead

animals. What did you want us to see that couldn't

wait?" The tall Security man pointed. "The

faces of the big ones, sirmlook at their faces?

Kirk moved forward glaring through a band of artificial

light. "Is that paint?" Spock drew his fingers

along the yellow and purple designs on the

animal's long skull. "Paint, Captain...

acrylic pigment. Synthetic, not natural." His

voice dropped away and he murmured, "Amazing!

Meant for visibility ... or possibly to frighten

an enemy."

    "Somebody else must have painted these creature's

faces to throw us off."

    "Somebody else?" McCoy looked up.

"What makes you think that, Captain?"

    "If we can travel time, so can someone else."

    "Only the big ones have paint on them,"

Reenie said. "Maybe these little ones are the babies

of the big ones," Vernon wondered. "No,"

Reenie said. "The small ones have their claws between the

ribs of the big ones. They were attacking"

    "A coordinated attack, also," Spock

noted, fascination rising again in his voice. "Note

the angles from which the smaller ones approached...

nearly all the same." McCoy got down on

both knees and put his hands into the laid-open

animal. "Warm blood." Kirk leaned hard on

his stick. "How long have these animals been dead?"

    "Minutes. Maybe an hour. But some of the

bodies are still warmer than others. They may have lay

here dying for a while. But not very long Trauma like this

doesn't let an animal hang on for long."

    "We may have frightened off the victors," Spock

said. "Which means whatever did this is probably still

nearby." Kirk motioned to Emmendorf, Vernon,

and Reenie. "Stay on your toes, people."

    "Jim, do you have the time for me to dissect one of

these?" McCoy asked. "We've got sixty

million years. Help yourself. But we'll do it

back at the campsite. Mr. Emmendorf, come

down here and assist Dr. McCoy. Mr.

Spock, secure the area while you have the

chance, please."

    "Yes, sir." Spock stood up, his gaze

lingering on the face of the sad creature lying at his

feet, its painted face calling to his scientific

mind with" contradiction after contradiction. Kirk

empathized with him, but there wasn't time to indulge.

They needed something more concrete, something the tricorder

would recognize and say, "Got it!" They needed that

thing, that one hint to drive away their doubts.

To Jim Kirk, that was the perfect world--one with no

doubts. The hard decisions weren't really the worst

part of command. It was the doubting he hated. Command...

the ship... the beautiful Enterprise... a ghost of

it blew past him in the dark sky overhead, so real

he almost looked up and waved. They had counted on

him. They hadn't doubted him. I'm sorry,

sir... I'm sorry, sir..."

    "Not your fault, Scotty..." bend what he was

looking at. This multitude of hidden, dull

grazers were the deer of this age. Quiet, shy, and not

very bright, these were the prey of the Cretaceous. Somehow

he couldn't imagine mounting one of those heads over a

mantle. Reenie panted and let go of his thick

arm. "I think I... I think... I think I...

stepped on it..."

    "It's all right. They're not going to hurt us,"

he murmured. "Let's go." They broke out of the

bushes and onto a flatlands that appeared to once have

been a riverbed. Stretched around the base of the

mountain in both directions, it had been trampled

time and again. There wasn't so much as a sapling growing

across the two-hundred-foot expanse, but there were

hundreds of footprints the size of

basketballs. "Natural migration trail."

Spock blinked in the hazy sunlight. "Captain,

I feel some vibrations also." "Let's hurry up

then." Kirk stood twenty feet out from the tree

line and turned to Vernon and Emmendorf as they

pulled Bannon toward the flats, with McCoy and

Reenie herding the Klingons after them. "Gentlemen,

hurry along."

    "Coming, sir!" Vernon called, hoisting

Bannon over a clutch of ferns. "Don't

worry, sir!" Kirk glanced at McCoy.

"Well, if I can't have answers, at least I've

got enthusiasm." McCoy couldn't muster a grin.

"Jim, I'm telling you, the ground is rumbling

Is it rumbling where you are?"

    "I'm only twenty feet from you."

    "Well, is it?" "Spock scan this

area. What do you pick up?" Pausing thirty

feet out, Spock adjusted his already overloaded

tricorder. He turned in place, then paused.

"Captain... I suggest we retreat." He

slung the tricorder strap over his shoulder,

hurried back to Kirk, and took his arm.

"Quickly." Kirk took the cue for what it was.

"Fall back!" The ground was rumbling. And that

honking was closer, a lot closer. His chest throbbed

as he hurried back toward the brush line,

relieved to see that his crew made it, but he couldn't

make himself go all the way into the bushes without seeing

what they were running from. Foolish--what if it

wanted to eat them? "Captain, this way,"

Spockencouraged. "Just a minute. I want to see

them." Crouching at the edge of the thick growth, Kirk

was gratified when Spock came to wait with him

instead of trying to convince him to back away. The

honking was very close now, echoing on the mountain in

front of them. "There they are!" Emmendorf shouted,

standing on a stump and pointing wildly north.

Spock hot to a standing position and actually forgot

to raise his tricorder. "Spock!" Kirk

snapped. "Record!" The Vulcan blinked, then

fumbled for his tricorder. "Yearn"

    "Back up, everybody back up. Back up!"

The rumbling of the ground became a solid drumbeat,

a wall of animals that looked like plucked

ostriches eae hammering through the open flatlands. Within

secOnds, dozens swarmed into hundreds.

be"EV-ERYBODY stay back," Kirk mumbled as

much to him'slf as his crew. The urge to step out and

stare was Overwhelming. He'd never seen so many

animals in one 'lfliffence before, not on any

planet. "Hadrosaurs, Captain," Spock

said. "Anatotitan, specifi- Thirty feet

long on average... herbivores. Apparent-

percent of dinosaur species were plant eaters."

glad. Unless, of course, they step on you."

Kirk back at his people, nervous and custodial.

pressed his hands on a stump and pushed up for a

view. The adult hadrosaurs were massive

animals, duck-billed faces, probably for

foraging in except that the average of these beasts was

seven tons each and Kirk wasn't about to call them

As the hadrosaurs thudded by on their thick hind

    His own voice startled him. He glanced around,

self-aware, wondering if anyone else had heard

him. No one was looking. McCoy was elbow-deep

in slaughtered dinosaur, giving orders to a

nauseated Emmendorf, and Spock was up on the

incline, intently scanning, Kirk knew he was

better at the art of roughing it than Spock, but for

how long? His medication had been thinned until he

barely felt it working. The fever was back, his legs

hurt, his thoughts wandered, and he had to pull them back

every few minutes. How long could he hold on? Would

they find him dead in his sleep a few days from now and

be forced to go on without him? He looked up the incline

at Spock. He knew Spock's sterling

loyalty and cautious foresight wouldn't serve long

or well in this place. Eventually one of the young

officers would be killed by this nightmare environment, and

Spock would have to live with that. Spock always

pretended to take those things in his logical stride,

but Kirk knew it was fake. He'd seen the change

in Spock's behavior, watched him grow more mellow

as he paid the toll of being a first officer, of having a

subordinate's life slip through his fingers from time

to time. It soured an officer's iron-willed

confidence. Doubt. It was the demon on a leader's

shoulder. The one Kirk had never gotten used to.

Spock looked up from the tricorder, and for an

instant Kirk was afraid he'd been thinking too

loudly. "Something here, Captain."

    "Coming." Climbing was torture. Kirk dug his

fingers into the stubby overgrowth, took each step one

at a time. He couldn't let them see him fall.

A hand caught him under the upper arm and gave him

support. One more hitch upward, and Spock had

him. Kirk sat on the edge of the stony embankment.

His face was clammy, his breath rattling in his chest,

and he gripped the edge of the ridge with both hands.

Spock knelt to hold the tricorder in front of

him. "Traces of refined metal." There was

victory in the Vulean's voice.

    Invigorated, Kirk cranked to look

directly at him. "Spock, are you sure?"

    "Very faint traces on the limestone below this

soil." He scooted back a few inches

to gesture up the incline. "Note a pattern

scraped into the soft... something has been dragged

along here, possibly some form of travoy. It

carved grooves into the ground, and where it struck stone

we have these traces. Definitely high-grade

steel composite." It didn't show in his voice, but

it did in his eyes--he was thrilled. Probably

relieved. Steel... "Then therests more going on than

we've seen so far," Kirk said. "Somebody else

has been here and has been tampering with these

animals." Spock lowered his tricorder.

"Yes." They looked at each other. Somewhere an

animal shrieked, its cry carried to them on a gust

of moist wind. Their brief visit to the modern age

was cut off by the sound of primitive hunt.

"Spock, go back over the the readings you took from the

Guardian. See if you can find something there... or

not there. Not just the animals, but something else."

    "I understand," the Vulcan condensed. "And

analyze these metal traces--"

    "Captain!" Ensign Reenie was craning her

neck over a crest of bushes, her slick hair,

somehow blacker than Spock's, waving as she

shifted from toe to toe. "Something's happening down

there."

    "Ensign!" Kirk snapped. Shaking out of

Spock's grasp, he slid down the incline and

shambled through the litter of bodies and entrails

to Reenie's side, where he caught her elbow and

pulled her back, putting himself in her place. He

looked over the bushes but saw only glimpses of

movement on a lower level. There was noise, huging

of effort, grunts and howls, now getting louder.

Something solid arched into the air--a taft. Big.

With a knot on the end. "Let's have a

look. Heads down." He led the way through gaudy

flora and spiked plants twice his height,

cautiously pointing out those large webs that no one

wanted to disturb and murmuring every few steps,

"Look out for this... Don't touch that... Duck under

this..." Suddenly before them was the edge of this stand of

bushes. Kirk almost stumbled out into the open before

realizing how close he was to the activity out there.

"Down, everyone," he whispered. "Speck?."

    "Here." Speck shuffled through as Reenie made

way for him. He held his tricorder before him, but the

scene upon which they had stumbled was too astounding for

analysis yet. Before them was the savage waltz of a

hunt. On an open plateau, where lush vegetation

had attracted creatures to come and graze, was a

sight of the most horrible and inspiring kind. For

decades, paintings and animations had been done of

such things, but this was real and they were here to see it.

"Recording," Speck murmured automatically.

Kirk didn't care. He was engrossed in

fantasy. In the plateau's center, nearly two

dozen creatures huddled in a curious circle.

Down on all fours like grizzly bears were stocky

armored animals with noses like camels, the adults

more than twenty feet long. On their

backs, rows of curved plates tapered down to the

long tails, each row of plates knobby all the

way across like a dog's collar, mounted with

protrusionsddon which moss had settled as if on the

shingles of an Irish church roof. Each had a

heavy-looking armored skull, bony eyelids; a

toothless beak, large flat feet with heavy

toenails, and a no-kidding knot of embedded bone

fused into two lobes mounted side to side on the end

of the tail. Mixed in with them were a few bipeds,

brightly colored, with their dome heads rising above the

knobby backs of the armored animals, their small

paws sometimes resting on those knobs. "They've formed

a defensive circle," Kirk uttered

appreciatively. "Look at the outer

perimeter." A pack of more than fifty much

smaller creatures were moving in, walking on two

legs, using a border collie method of

corralling the armored animals and the dome-heads

hiding among them. "The four-legged animals may be

Ankylosaurus," Speck responded, squinting

into the tricorder screen. "Order Ornithichia...

heavily armored, roughly seven meters in length,

possessing a bony club on the tail. I may be

incorrect about the species. This readout

has ankylosaurs as upland dinosaurs, characteristic

of drier environments." "Then what are they doing

here?" Kirk asked. "Unknown. With the draining of the

seaways, they may be expanding to new habitats. The

bipeds among them are ... I believe,

pachycephalosaurs. Interesting, Captain, how the

prey are banding together. It's extraordinary

be-hayloft "Sir, if I had those things stalking

me," Reenie said, "I'd make a deal with the

devil."

    "What are those?" Kirk pointed at the dozens of

prowling creatures on two legs. Speck lowered

meaningfully. "Raptors, sir. Generally accepted

as the most viciously efficient of prehistoric

hunters on land. I'm reading over a hundred of

them."

    "I only see fifty... sixty..."

    "Others are waiting in the brush." Spock

raised his tricorder slightly. "According to this, the

varieties known range from the twenty-foot

Utahraptor to the ten-foot deinonychus to the

six-foot light-weight velociraptors.

Strangely, the larger ones occur earlier than the

smaller ones. It's possible they were responsible

for the extinction of sauropods in North

America--the large long-necked dinosaur/which would

have caused the raptors to become smaller and hunt

smaller prey in larger numbers." Kirk peered

through thick elephant-ear leaves. "Those are, I'd

say, four feet." Speck looked up.

"Captain... I believe these are

troodontids."

    "You meanre"

    "Yes, exactly. Very successful predaters.

Bladed teeth... expanded braincase, dexterous

hands... sizable thumb claw, blunt snout,

forward-directed eyes--comodd, the who wanted nothing

more in life than to tackle one-dimensional tasks.

As such, he found magnificent satisfaction every ten

minutes or so and was one of the happiest crewmen

Kirk had ever known.

    "Captain, sir, sir! I found something," the

big kid panted. "Out there, 'bout half a mile!

You gntta see it!"

Chapter 22

    "WE HAVE TRAVELED TIME!"

    Reflecting the impossible, Zalt's cheeks were

russet with the fury of science, of magic, of the

astounded, the angry who had been left out of a

secret. How many of their own scientists

knew about this machine and had not told?

    Roth felt the same betrayal. Had Klingon

preoccupation with killing the romuluSnganpu" and

taking their possessions left his people dry of discovery?

Had his civilization forgotten how to explore?

While he and his fellow soldiers were fighting, was

nothing else being pursued?

    Yes, nothing. Scientific advancement had

grated to a stop in all but space vehicle

design and propulsion and weaponry. Even that had

been relatively static for years.

    "Time!" Zalt hissed again, staring at the empty

place where the starship captain and his officer had sat

moments ago, then suddenly twisted around to look at

the sleeping man at the far back of their shallow

cave. "Unconscious," he rumbled. "Good."

    "Why have they left us unguarded?" Roth tugged

at the shackles that pinned him to the ground. "Are they

so sure of this?"

    Zalt craned his neck toward the jungle.

"Listen to me. We are back in time. They have brought

us here for a reason. They are trying to change what must

happen."

    "How can they?" Roth dared to sound sarcastic.

"Time is time. Their story is insane."

    "You're not a thinker. You can't see in your mind

what could come to pass. They could end everything we know.

Cause us not to exist anymore! And the Vulcans

are mixed up in this somehow..."

    "Then you believe what they told us on their

ship?" Roth stared into the little fire the Starfleet men

had made for him and Zalt. A fire for the enemies

to warm themselves by. Comfort of the enemy... it would never have

occurred to him. What kind of men were these?

    Zalt suddenly lurched to his feet, braced

hard against the ground, and began pulling with set-jawed

effort at the stake that held them to the ground. "Help

me!" he growled through his teeth.

    Surprised, Roth bolted up, raised his hands

until the tether stopped them, and also began to pull.

    The stake was made of hard wood, cut out of a

tree by their captors, a long spear driven

deeply into the stony ground.

    Zalt's face turned purple as he strained.

Roth tried to match the effort, but his own personal

drive to break free couldn't match Zalt's.

    The long stake came up a hand's width, filling

Zalt with a rage of determination. He roared and

slammed Roth aside so hard that Roth fell to the

ground on his side, then rearranged his stance

directly over the stake, coiled his shackled arms

against his chest, and put all his physical power into a

great upward thrust.

    The spear of wood began to cry out, scratching

against the stone-fiddled earth into which it had been driven.

Finally the earth itself parted and released the shaft of

wood. Zalt staggered back, lungs heaving.

    "Free!" he gasped. "Now, now we can fight

them!" Roth scratched to his feet. "Fight how?

We don't know if

    they were telling the truth. Do we dare tamper with

time? We could be ruining our own eternity!"

    "Or saving it!" Zalt's voice was bitter and

vicious, loaded with dare. "Close your teeth and

listen. These are your orders. You're going to make

friends with these people. Swear on your honor that you will not

interfere with what they are doing. Then interfere

greatly."

    "On my honor? I cannot!"

    "You will. You have no honor left upon which to swear,

so you can swear all you like. Do it." Roth sank

back against the moist rock, as Zalt shook the

tethers from his wrists and threw the useless stake to the

ground. "Follow me," Zalt said.

    Shuddering like a wounded dog, Jim Kirk

followed his excited young Security man through the

rain's consistent assault. By the time they reached a

bluff in the middle of the low-slung mountain, all were

whipped and panting. Reenie and the other Security

man, Vernon, went ahead and took readings and

made sure the environment was relatively

secure. They were all soaked, but now the rain was

stopping, or they were climbing out of it. The veiled

sun had westered and slid behind the mountain, and the sky was

getting dark. Kirk looked down into the valley from

which they had just come. A cottony fog rested in the

valley like soup in a bowl. Here it was nearly dry,

moistened only by the heat and thready fog from that cloud

down there. Above them, the star-shingled night was black

and beckoning. He squinted down at his boots in the

fading light and at the ground beneath them. Dry. His

sopping uniform shirt clung to his chest, arms, and

back. They were on an incline, a natural

pathway that spiraled up this mountain. The pathway

beneath his feet was hard rock coated with a layer of

gritty soil and a tenacious moss, leaving this

convenient indentation in the mountainside. Still an

uphill climb but walkable. "Here, Captain,"

McCoy said and handed him a stick he'd ripped out

of a fallen tree. It was four feet long

and almost two inches thick, not quite straight, but

straight enough. "In England they call it

"fellwalking." Now you can tell people you've done it.

Just say it was in Georgia." Kirk glared at him

but took the stick. Something to lean on. Vernon's

tall, shoulderwide form appeared at the erest, where this

incline curved along the body of the mountain. "Right

up here, sir! You're not gonna believe it!"

    "Bet I wwill," Kirk grumbled. The

doctor stayed a pace or two behind him, which

irritated him because Kirk knew McCoy was

anticipating having to catch him if he fell. He

didn't want to be caught or picked up or even

empathized with. He staggered as his stick slipped on

a mossy place but beat off McCoy's attempt

to help him with only a well-aimed glare. Before

them, Spock turned in concern but had the sense

to wait until they caught up rather than coming back

to help. He knows me too blasted well, Kirk

thought as he glared forward at the Vulcan. Spock

stood against the incongruous junglescape, a blue

and black pillar of high civilization, and waited as

his captain approached.."...One hundred yards,

sir. Emmendorf and Reenie are setting up

lighting implements." "Good. I'm getting

a feeling we shouldn't have come here until morning,

We'll get what we can, then go back to the cave."

    "Agreed," Spock said. "Iungle settings

are generally more dangerous during the night hours."

Kirk nodded automatically. "Let's go." One

hundred yards farther along, and twenty feet below

them on a lush plateau, lay one of the strangest

sights Kirk had ever encountered. Ten or so

large-bodied animals lay slaughtered, peppered

with the bodies of smaller animals. The ferns and

groundcover all around were blood-spackled in the

portable daylight the junior officers had set up.

Insects swarmed in the unnatural lights, eerily

silent, feasting on the corpses. A sight of

prehistoric slaughter? So what? Spock and

McCoy plunged past him, and Kirk found himself

inadequate in the light of their professional

curiosity. He wanted to throw up but not with his

junior officers watching. Or senior officers

either, for that matter. A captain's dilemma:

couldn't throw up in front of anybody. Withered

intestines hung like holiday decorations all over the

green growth and ferns, some still linked to the open guts

of the animals from which they came. The larger animals

were a good ten feet from head to tail and on

those thick hind legs could rear back almost as tall

as he was. Their gaping mouths were snaggled with

bloody teeth. Their eyes stared, even more terrible

because these were large brown eyes, like the eyes of an

owl, not like a crocodile. He couldn't feel for a

crocodile, but this... "All right, Mr.

Vernon," he started bluntly, "what's the

attraction? We've got a bunch of dead

animals. What did you want us to see that couldn't

wait?" The tall Security man pointed. "The

faces of the big ones, sirmlook at their faces?

Kirk moved forward glaring through a band of artificial

light. "Is that paint?" Spock drew his fingers

along the yellow and purple designs on the

animal's long skull. "Paint, Captain...

acrylic pigment. Synthetic, not natural." His

voice dropped away and he murmured, "Amazing!

Meant for visibility ... or possibly to frighten

an enemy."

    "Somebody else must have painted these creature's

faces to throw us off."

    "Somebody else?" McCoy looked up.

"What makes you think that, Captain?"

    "If we can travel time, so can someone else."

    "Only the big ones have paint on them,"

Reenie said. "Maybe these little ones are the babies

of the big ones," Vernon wondered. "No,"

Reenie said. "The small ones have their claws between the

ribs of the big ones. They were attacking"

    "A coordinated attack, also," Spock

noted, fascination rising again in his voice. "Note

the angles from which the smaller ones approached...

nearly all the same." McCoy got down on

both knees and put his hands into the laid-open

animal. "Warm blood." Kirk leaned hard on

his stick. "How long have these animals been dead?"

    "Minutes. Maybe an hour. But some of the

bodies are still warmer than others. They may have lay

here dying for a while. But not very long Trauma like this

doesn't let an animal hang on for long."

    "We may have frightened off the victors," Spock

said. "Which means whatever did this is probably still

nearby." Kirk motioned to Emmendorf, Vernon,

and Reenie. "Stay on your toes, people."

    "Jim, do you have the time for me to dissect one of

these?" McCoy asked. "We've got sixty

million years. Help yourself. But we'll do it

back at the campsite. Mr. Emmendorf, come

down here and assist Dr. McCoy. Mr.

Spock, secure the area while you have the

chance, please."

    "Yes, sir." Spock stood up, his gaze

lingering on the face of the sad creature lying at his

feet, its painted face calling to his scientific

mind with" contradiction after contradiction. Kirk

empathized with him, but there wasn't time to indulge.

They needed something more concrete, something the tricorder

would recognize and say, "Got it!" They needed that

thing, that one hint to drive away their doubts.

To Jim Kirk, that was the perfect world--one with no

doubts. The hard decisions weren't really the worst

part of command. It was the doubting he hated. Command...

the ship... the beautiful Enterprise... a ghost of

it blew past him in the dark sky overhead, so real

he almost looked up and waved. They had counted on

him. They hadn't doubted him. I'm sorry,

sir... I'm sorry, sir..."

    "Not your fault, Scotty..." His own voice

startled him. He glanced around, self-aware,

wondering if anyone else had heard him. No one

was looking. McCoy was elbow-deep in slaughtered

dinosaur, giving orders to a nauseated

Emmendorf, and Spock was up on the incline,

intently scanning, Kirk knew he was better at

the art of roughing it than Spock, but for how

long? His medication had been thinned until he

barely felt it working. The fever was back, his legs

hurt, his thoughts wandered, and he had to pull them back

every few minutes. How long could he hold on? Would

they find him dead in his sleep a few days from now and

be forced to go on without him? He looked up the incline

at Spock. He knew Spock's sterling

loyalty and cautious foresight wouldn't serve long

or well in this place. Eventually one of the young

officers would be killed by this nightmare environment, and

Spock would have to live with that. Spock always

pretended to take those things in his logical stride,

but Kirk knew it was fake. He'd seen the change

in Spock's behavior, watched him grow more mellow

as he paid the toll of being a first officer, of having a

subordinate's life slip through his fingers from time

to time. It soured an officer's iron-willed

confidence. Doubt. It was the demon on a leader's

shoulder. The one Kirk had never gotten used to.

Spock looked up from the tricorder, and for an

instant Kirk was afraid he'd been thinking too

loudly. "Something here, Captain."

    "Coming." Climbing was torture. Kirk dug his

fingers into the stubby overgrowth, took each step one

at a time. He couldn't let them see him

fall. A hand caught him under the upper arm and gave

him support. One more hitch upward, and Spock

had him. Kirk sat on the edge of the stony

embankment. His face was clammy, his breath

rattling in his chest, and he gripped the edge of the

ridge with both hands. Spock knelt to hold the

tricorder in front of him. "Traces of refined

metal." There was victory in the Vulean's

voice.

    Invigorated, Kirk cranked to look

directly at him. "Spock, are you sure?"

    "Very faint traces on the limestone below this

soil." He scooted back a few inches

to gesture up the incline. "Note a pattern

scraped into the soft... something has been dragged

along here, possibly some form of travoy. It

carved grooves into the ground, and where it struck stone

we have these traces. Definitely high-grade

steel composite." It didn't show in his voice, but

it did in his eyes--he was thrilled. Probably

relieved. Steel... "Then therests more going on than

we've seen so far," Kirk said. "Somebody else

has been here and has been tampering with these

animals." Spock lowered his tricorder.

"Yes." They looked at each other.

Somewhere an animal shrieked, its cry carried to them

on a gust of moist wind. Their brief visit to the

modern age was cut off by the sound of primitive

hunt. "Spock, go back over the the readings you

took from the Guardian. See if you can find something

there... or not there. Not just the animals, but something

else."

    "I understand," the Vulcan condensed. "And

analyze these metal traces--"

    "Captain!" Ensign Reenie was craning her

neck over a crest of bushes, her slick hair,

somehow blacker than Spock's, waving as she

shifted from toe to toe. "Something's happening down

there."

    "Ensign!" Kirk snapped. Shaking out of

Spock's grasp, he slid down the incline and

shambled through the litter of bodies and entrails

to Reenie's side, where he caught her elbow and

pulled her back, putting himself in her place. He

looked over the bushes but saw only glimpses of

movement on a lower level. There was noise, huging

of effort, grunts and howls, now getting louder.

Something solid arched into the air--a taft. Big.

With a knot on the end. "Let's have a look.

Heads down." He led the way through gaudy

flora and spiked plants twice his height,

cautiously pointing out those large webs that no one

wanted to disturb and murmuring every few steps,

"Look out for this... Don't touch that... Duck under

this..." Suddenly before them was the edge of this stand of

bushes. Kirk almost stumbled out into the open before

realizing how close he was to the activity out there.

"Down, everyone," he whispered. "Speck?."

    "Here." Speck shuffled through as Reenie made

way for him. He held his tricorder before him, but the

scene upon which they had stumbled was too astounding for

analysis yet. Before them was the savage waltz of a

hunt. On an open plateau, where lush vegetation

had attracted creatures to come and graze, was a

sight of the most horrible and inspiring kind. For

decades, paintings and animations had been done of

such things, but this was real and they were here to see it.

"Recording," Speck murmured automatically.

Kirk didn't care. He was engrossed in

fantasy. In the plateau's center, nearly two

dozen creatures huddled in a curious circle.

Down on all fours like grizzly bears were stocky

armored animals with noses like camels, the adults

more than twenty feet long. On their backs, rows

of curved plates tapered down to the long

tails, each row of plates knobby all the way

across like a dog's collar, mounted with protrusionsddon

which moss had settled as if on the shingles of an

Irish church roof. Each had a heavy-looking

armored skull, bony eyelids; a toothless beak,

large flat feet with heavy toenails, and a

no-kidding knot of embedded bone fused into two

lobes mounted side to side on the end of the tail.

Mixed in with them were a few bipeds, brightly

colored, with their dome heads rising above the knobby

backs of the armored animals, their small paws

sometimes resting on those knobs. "They've formed a

defensive circle," Kirk uttered

appreciatively. "Look at the outer

perimeter." A pack of more than fifty much

smaller creatures were moving in, walking on two

legs, using a border collie method of

corralling the armored animals and the dome-heads

hiding among them. "The four-legged animals may be

Ankylosaurus," Speck responded, squinting

into the tricorder screen. "Order Ornithichia...

heavily armored, roughly seven meters in length,

possessing a bony club on the tail. I may be

incorrect about the species. This readout has

ankylosaurs as upland dinosaurs,

characteristic of drier environments." "Then what are they

doing here?" Kirk asked. "Unknown. With the draining

of the seaways, they may be expanding to new habitats.

The bipeds among them are ... I believe,

pachycephalosaurs. Interesting, Captain, how the

prey are banding together. It's extraordinary

be-hayloft "Sir, if I had those things stalking

me," Reenie said, "I'd make a deal with the

devil."

    "What are those?" Kirk pointed at the dozens of

prowling creatures on two legs. Speck lowered

meaningfully. "Raptors, sir. Generally accepted

as the most viciously efficient of prehistoric

hunters on land. I'm reading over a hundred of

them."

    "I only see fifty... sixty..."

    "Others are waiting in the brush." Spock

raised his tricorder slightly. "According to this, the

varieties known range from the twenty-foot

Utahraptor to the ten-foot deinonychus to the

six-foot light-weight velociraptors.

Strangely, the larger ones occur earlier than the

smaller ones. It's possible they were responsible

for the extinction of sauropods in North America--

the large long-necked dinosaur/which would have

caused the raptors to become smaller and hunt

smaller prey in larger numbers." Kirk peered

through thick elephant-ear leaves. "Those are, I'd

say, four feet." Speck looked up.

"Captain... I believe these are

troodontids."

    "You meanre"

    "Yes, exactly. Very successful predaters.

Bladed teeth... expanded braincase, dexterous

hands... sizable thumb claw, blunt snout,

forward-directed eyes--comodd, the tricorder is

reading out these creatures with longer snouts than what

we are observing--" Kirk glanced at him. "You

don't have time, Mr. Spock."

    "I beg your pardon?" He looked up. "You

don't have time to get a degree in paleobiology.

Don't fret over it." Spock's brow crinkled.

I"! had not noted fretting, sir,... simply an

attempt to narrow the facts--" "And be accurate,

of course. Well, there are times when accuracy

isn't everything. Just make sure we understand what we

need to understand." After a valiant effort to pretend

insult, Spock gave up and said, "Always, sir."

The dozens of troodonts had their hands full--

claws full. If surprise had been

part of their strategy, they'd failed. Or if they

had meant to get at the young, they'd also failed. The

adult ankylosaurs presented their knobby armored

backs and wielded the bony clubs at the ends of

their tails in purposeful warning' sweeps. Not

even a tyrannosaurus would bother trying to bite

through that armor. No chance for surprise, no cornering

a loner... Some days, nothing goes right. Kirk

found himself empathizing with the troodonts. After all,

everybody has to eat. A gurgling whistle broke

his thoughts. To the left of where he peered through the

leaves, one medium-sized troodont stood a few

feet back from the ones who were closing in. This one

extended its snout and made a low-pitched cooing

sound. Neither impressive in size nor color, this

troodont had signs of wear and tear--seam on its

elongated face, scars on its tail, and a healed

break that left its right arm bent noticeably

outward. In responses eerily matched, haft of the

approaching troodonts closed in, crowing and

snapping at each other, while the other half lingered

back. And Spock said there were plenty more in the

bushes. At first the stalkers moved slowly,

unruffled by the honks of the dome-headed pachys.

Kirk found himself watching that leader as its

growls and whines made the others move in certain

ways, rank by rank. Finally the troodont with the

crooked arm made one long-winded sound, like metal

    scraping against metal. Dozens of troodonts

made a barn yard scream and plunged in.

    Almost too fast to watch, the first rank flew to their

prey

    on long, muscular les, tails whipping and

foreclaws 8rasping the knobby backs of the

ankylosaurs.

    They didn't even bother attacking the adult

ankylosaurs.

    They leaped over and attached themselves to the bare

    throats and shoulders of the pachys and went to work with

    those sickle claws. Fans of blood blew

into the breeze as if to

    proclaim that the dome-beads didn't stand a

chance. Kirk

    felt his skin shrink with empathy and a certain

unexpected

    guilt as he realized that he might have to do the

same thin

    possibly to the same creatures, if his landin

party wore to survive.

    , The ankylosanrs raised their

tails, lowered their heads, and swung inward at the

troodonts who had broken their circle. Clubbed

tails cracked hideously against the spines of

several troodonts, folding the attackers

backward in agony, to be dragged through the stomeping

feet of the encircled victims. But it wasn't

enough. The broken-armed troodont barked again. Now

the ,mur m me anlcyosaurs, but the

anlcylosaurs' nak young hiding among their legs.

The leader made his grating scream again, louder now.

Suddeuly the bushes rattled, Another fifty or

more troodonts flew out of the fronds and rushed the

scene. "Spock, are you seeing this?" Kirk was

barely able to keep to a whisper. "That's a

coordinated attack. There's a command structure!

That one over there--it's giving ordersI"

    "Even more, Captain," Spock appraised.

"There's rudst- mentary language at work."

    "Are you serious?"

    "I've distingnstshed roughly ten sounds that elicstt

spedtic actions, all being delivered to one attacking

rank at a tstme. Until you pointed it out, I

had not noted all were conting from a specific

individual."

    "l guess it takes a captain to know

one." Instincts whistled at him, warnings as clear as

the ship's red alert klaxon. Before them, the ground

grew saturated with blood churned to soup by stemping

feet and the slash and thump of those clubbed tails. The

defensive circle cracked. The ankylosaurs

broke and ran for the horizon, followed by their young and the

panicked pachycephalosaurs. They stumbled over

each other and the coughing bodies of their dying fellows and

made a run for it. Only a few of the treedents

had been killed. Only three or four out of a

hundred. Most of the prey who escaped made it to the

open plateau, though some were wounded and would fall

eventually, if only to die elsewhere and float down

some waterway and clog up a stream and become feast

or fossil later on. It was hard to think of that;

to imagine millions of years in any direction was

daunting. Kirk knew this was why he wasn't a

historian. He was too much a man of the moment.

He felt too much for those animals out there,

understood too much being pmdator and prey.

"Captain..." Reenie pointed through the leaves.

There was his friend, the barking, yipping leader of the

troodont vanguard, the scruffy face and crooked

right paw now held absolutely still. Even the tail

was poised, countering the raised head, and did

not move. It was looking right at them. "Nobody

move," Kirk whispered. The other troodonts

plunged into a meal, ripping into the bodies of

animals both dead and dying. Except for this one.

And now it was peering right into Kirk's eyes.

Chapter 23

    The captain drew his weapon, keeping the muzzle

up. They had to conserve phaser power, but heRather, in the

ferns and cycads, they could be ambushed. "Ensign

Reenie... warn and assist Dr. McCoy.

Clear the

    Orders bolted from Kirk's throat like photon

firing, so blunt that his guts hurt and his throat

scratched. The girl bent low and disappeared,

faintly rustling the bushes. Kirk saw Speck

narrow his eyes in a kind of winc, and that made him

look out at the treedont. Enlighteningly catlike,

the animal lowered its head without ever taking its eyes

from them. Kirk's nerves shriveled as the treedent

opened its snaggled mouth, drew its lipa back from

those mythological teeth, and made a noise that

somehow sounded familiar, purposeful. The other

troodonts suddenly raised their heads in a thing so

near unison as to be beautiful Not one of them

failed to look up at the call of its

leader. They began a deliberate chirping, several

of the sounds recognizably the same. Speck was right

--rudimentary language. "Higher intelligence,"

the captain whispered. "It's outlandish. So far above

what we've always concluded about this era..."

    "Them have been theories," Speck said, "but not so

early." Kirk drew his head down another inch. The

desire to run

    crashed through him, but he had to stay here, keep those

creatures staring, long enough for M-Coy and the others

to clear out of the other killing ground.

    In the distance the large dinosaurs pounded off into the

trees, a sorry few collapsing before reaching

safety, drained of blood by their gory wounds. Before

they even had a chance to be prey, they would be eardon.

    A whistling shriek in the sky overhead made

Kirk look up--a mistake--to creatures

circling in the sky that were certainly not birds.

Recognizable from his earliest childhood, from kids'

stories and animations, animals soared overhead who

were not birds, occasionally taking a pelicanlike

single flap of their twenty-five-foot spans of

skin stretched over bone, with skeletal arms and

fingers visible through wing membranes, gracefully

flexing with the thermals overhead.

    Spock scanned the sky "Pterosaurs..."

    The flying creatures cruised in and out of the

artificial light, their heads shaped like a pair of

Scotty's isomagnctic pliers. Their elongated

pelicanlike beaks were toothless and looked heavy,

off balance with their scrawny extended necks, but their

flight was fluid and easy. Among them were smaller

birds. Probably waiting for the pickin's.

    "I thought they were extinct by now," Spock

rasped. Kirk glanced up. "Do they lay eggs?"

    "I believe so... Why?."

    "I'm hungry."

    Two of the pterdgsaurs swooped low to have a

look at the carnage, spiraling out of the sky so

suddenly that Kirk broke his concentration and ducked.

Perspective failed him, they were almost to the ground

before he realized it. They were huge! One was ten

feet in wingspan, the other over thirty feet. As

their long beaks scooped at the ferns, the

artificial lights startled them and they panicked.

They made three or four great flaps, found a

thermal, and rose again into the darkened sky.

    Spock slowly brought his tricorder up.

"Stunning, Cap-rain, if we could capture one--

    "We'd eat it. Let's get out of here."

    Usually Spock went about business with simple

circumspection, but today his smoothness was marred

by pauses and glances of concern--the worst kind.

Concern about Kirk, about whether the captain would be able

to go on commanding, about the pain he was forced to endure, and

even about whether he would live. In spite of his own

blurred senses, Kirk saw those glances and felt

that concern and knew there was nothing either of them could do but

slog, hack, carve their way through the unforesecable and

try to bend the situation to their needs.

    He wanted to tell Spock there was no cause for

worry. He couldn't.

    He offered a reassuring pat on the arm and a not so

polite push. "Go on, go."

    Bringing up the rear made him feel better, even

though he had to lean on a stick. He didn't dare

try to predict what curious creatures would do and

didn't want to be here when they did it.

    "Rusa... Rusa! l.xok!"

    "Look at what? Weeds and blood. Keep

moving."

    "Below us... someone else is here!"

    "You're in the way, technicist. Let the

spikers pass." Tons of equipment had

been a constant burden, much more taxing now that their

number was halved. In order to make room for all

the hardware, they had been forced to leave several of the

antigrays behind in the future and use the spikers

to haul harnessed rigs, but now there were fewer spikers

and not enough antigrays to make up for them, and they

grumbled by the minute for those forsaken antigrays.

    So much for the joy of the innocent hunt. Healthy

spikers slaughtered. Like simple animals.

    "Rusa, that light is mechanical. Look

down. See what I

    Rusa was still angry about losing the other spikers,

and if Oya wasn't cautious, she would be the

target of that anger.

    She said nothing but pointed in the correct

direction and handed the magnifier to Rusa, who

placed the magnifier over her eyes and waited for the

automatic focus.

    Holding her breath, Oya imagined what her

leader was seeing Artificial lighting implements

casting a blue silver glow on the night-shaded

plateau far below them, where not long ago they had

paused for entertainment and ended up expending their

weapons and sacrificing so many of their team.

    "Terrans. Starfleet!" Rusa

swung to Oya. "Did you give away our

plans?"

    Blinking, Oya looked up squarely. "Of

course not." Deprived of an argument, Rusa

moved her head from side to side, searching out a

better view. "The same animals that attacked

our spikers are stalking them. They'll be killed,

too."

    "No, it won't be enough," Oya insisted.

"Terrans have phasers. These have Starfleet issue.

No animals can stand against that. They must be here

to follow us--stop us... but how can they have followed?

And to be here so fast, they must have come back in time before

we did! But how could they know to follow?"

    Her thoughts grew frantic as one piled upon the

next, each with a new question attached.

    "When did they come through?" She let the others

shuffle past her and gazed down the slope. "The

moment we went through the time device, we either succeed

or fail. If we are successful, there would be no

humans to follow us through. So how are the humans

here? Do we fail? If we fail, no one would

bother to follow us! Why are they here? How are they?"

    "You think too much," Rusa grieved, glowering

down the hillside at the dome of cold

blue white light. "We have to send a team to kill

them. Don't interrupt me again."

    She swung around, away from Oya, and the colors

on her painted face winked in the starlight in three

panels.

    Oya's questions were like flies buzzing. She was just

annoying them with her struggle to understand the paradox.

    The Clan had developed thought as a necessary evil,

like passing waste. It had to be done, but it wasn't

very satisfying. Full belly, empty mind, and not

much drive beyond that.

    But for the few thinkers among her people, even their

simple space travel would never have been

acquired, and what they had of that they had borrowed from

other races. Instinct versus intelligence.

    One of the other females had joined Rusa at the

edge of the incline. "If they have phasers, they can

destroy our machine. We have to kill them first. Send

a team."

    "I will," Rusa said. "Two spikers... and

Oya goes."

    Oya shoved up on her heavy hind legs. "I

have to assemble the launcher!"

    "These spikers can assemble it."

    "Not well!"

    "As long as it works. Aur and I and the other

females are needed here to control the spikers.

You're lame and no good to lead or carry. You'll be

the leader of the attack on the Terrans."

    "I'm a technicist!"

    "You're a thinker. So think."

    Rusa spat the word with contempt. Thinker. To sit

and think. And Oya had committed the ultimate

shame: she had enjoyed it. The process of thinkin

element to element, evidence to conclusion,

to extrapolation. And she had been good at it. His

    Rusa, Aur, and the other females didn't

wait for her to choose her team. They took the

packs from two spikers, argued briefly among

themselves, and snapped their teeth at the spikers to make

them obey this bizarre twist of plans. Now it would

be only herself and two young spikers in an environment

that was perfect for them.

    Her desires tore in half--she watched as the

females trundled off with the other spikers and their

crates of precious technology. She wanted to go

with them and build her machine and watch as she commited

one single act that would give her civilization

prominence.

    Far down the hill slopes, the

artificial lights were winking out. The Starfleet

team was moving again.

    Excitement surged through her. She was going to have the

chance to hunt the most dangerous animals in the

galaxy.

    "This isn't a tropical holiday. We're in

enemy territory. We have to act like it." It was

well after midnight as Kirk and Spock saw the

soft yellow glow of the fires inside their camp.

Those gentle lights looked as inviting, as

civilized as the gentle lights and shadows of the

Enterprise's bridge. Smoke skeined along the

ceiling of their shelter, blunting against the awning of

fronds they had built. McCoy, Vernon,

Emmendorf, and Reenie had gone before them to the cave

and had been here doing their work while Kirk and

Spock gathered up their lighting implements and did

a lame man's version of hurrying after. "Captain!

Here, sir!" They angled toward Vernon's

voice. Why wasn't he in the cave? Vernon

stumbled out of the tangled overgrowth. "What's the

noise for?." Kirk asked. "Give me a

report."

    "Aye, sir--I've been searching about fifteen

minutes. No sign of 'era."

    "Of who?"

    "The two Klingons, sir. They pulled themselves

loose and they're gone. I'm sorry, sir. I

couldn't track them in this stuff." Furious, he

kicked at the heavy greenery. "Gone," Kirk

impugned and glanced at Spock. "Fine

Starfleet contingent. Can't even hold on to two

Klingons. All right, terminate the search. Continue

to fabricate weapons."

    "Aye, sir! Sbrry again, sir!"

    "I don't want to hear it."

    "Yes, sir!"

    "Captain--" Spock pulled up close.

"Lieutenant Bannon was in the cave with the

Klingons."

    "Let's go." Kirk plunged past him. As he

led Spock inside the wide opening, he was struck

with a gout of scents, some from the fire over to their

left, where Vernon and Reenie were cooking fish.

To his right, McCoy was already elbow deep in

autopsy on the slaughtered animal he'd taken a

fancy to. The spilled intestines, spools of

scalpeled muscle and visible white bone glistening

in the firelight made the food roasting at the other

fire about as appetizing as ear wax. And

at the far back of the cave, Lieutenant Baunon

lay on his back, apparently conscious. McCoy

looked up from the corpse. "Jimffeaye were getting

worried about you two. You both all right? Without

answering, Kirk stepped to where Bannon lay.

"Lieutenant?" He thought about kneeling, but he

probably wouldn't be able to get up again. "Did the

Klingons hurt you?"

    "I'm here, aren't I?" ""How did they get

away?"

    "Don't know. I was unconscious. Pulled out

the stake, I guess. Lucky they didn't brain

me with it." The young man's face was pallid, his

tone sandy, he wouldn't meet Kirk's eyes, and

he hadn't said sir once. Kirk straightened. Not

exactly teatime. He motioned to Spock to come with

him. They crossed to McCoy. "Report on

Bannon." McCoy glanced up. "It was a clean

wound. I cauterized it. He'll be walking by tomorrow

noon."

    "Doesn't sound that way."

    "Well, I didn't say he was happy about

it."

    "What're you doing?"

    "Postmortem. I'm finding some

surprises, too." The doctor motioned to his

medical tricotaler, which was lying propped against the

cave wall, clicking placidly. "I did

DNA testing, but it fouled up somehow. I got

ridiculous results."

    "Run it again."

    "Already doing that, Captain. Are you ready for the

shock of your life?"

    "Too late." Kirk took Spock's arm and

levered himself to the ground, then motioned for Spock to sit

beside him. "All right, Doctor. Make me

understand." McCoy moved his hands over the laid-open

corpse of the dinosaur as a pianist caresses the

white keys. "Does this animal remind you of

anything, Jim?"

    "Reminds me remind me of a lizard. So

what?"

    "It's not a lizard. Look. These are abutting

scales, not overlapping ones. It's primitive

skin. Primitive to us, I mean. We're not

looking at a crocodile here. And it's not a

dinosaur either."

    "Then what is it?"

    "It's a dinosaurold. That's not saying it's a

dinosaur. It does have a tail, but it's

still bipedal." The doctor pointed at a bundle of

muscles at the place where the ereature's tail was

attached to its spinal column. "When mammals

evolved, the caudofemoralis muscles--here, the

ones anchoring the tail--were replaced as the

pelvis rotated. But in this animal the

caudofemoralis muscle group is anchored by the

tail and is used to pull the leg back in the power

stroke of the running stride. What we end up with is

a very powerful stride. Something similar happens in

birds as a weight-saving measure. The most

similar stride to us would be that of an ostrich. And

look here--a four-chambered heart."

    "Like a bird's," Speck put in, not hiding his

infatuation. "A bird," McCoy confirmed,

engulfed in the ballad of anatomy. "And it has

an air sack system on the vertebral column.

This is why it doesn't sweat. This system is

involved with the braincase and the vertebrae, and it's

hooked into the lungs. This happens in birds, too.

The arm folds like an accordion. Upper arm

back, forearm forward, hand back. The legs do the

same. And this large bone here, forward pointing, shaped

like a pendulum... that's the pubis bone. But it's not

set back toward the tail ke a crawling

animal's. It's set forward. I'd say this

creature settles at rest the way a bird

does."

    "Doctor," Kirk bristled, "are you telling

me I'm looking at a twelve-foot-long

bird?"

    "I'm telling you you're looking at something

disturbingly similar to a cross between yourself and a bird.

But my friend here has a tail. That means, even though

it's a two-legged animal, it never had a

knuckle-walking ancestor. They're not fully

upright, because their 'hands" were already free to begin with.

They never went through that series of evolutionary

steps." He sounded delighted in a schoolroom

way,

    at all these things he could share with a captive

audience. Kirk peered at him. "Just how do you know

all this?"

    McCoy spread his bloody hands. "I'm a

doctor! Do you think I sent in'for a mail-order

certificate?"

    "Sorry."

    Dismissing him with a blink, McCoy swung around

on his knees to lift the heavy tail. "The tail

isn't just a balancing device. The whole

center of gravity is right here, over the hind legs.

That's for power at a full run. They're faster

than

    we are. After all, you have to be faster than your

food."

    "Or have a phaser."

    "Bear with me, Jim, I'm getting to something This

creature has a bulky body, which developed

to support a heavy head, which supports a large

brain. The neck is S shaped and maneuverable but

has to be thick enough to support that head with its large

brain--"

    Wait a minute, Kirk interrupted. "What's

a large head got to do with a large brain? A horse

has a large head, but the brain is only the size

of a lemon. How do you know this

    thing has a big brain?"

    "I looked."

    "Oh."

    "Look at the fingers."

    "Three."

    "Two," McCoy corrected, "with an

opposable thumb. That thumb is it." He

maneuvered the precious digits like

    a puppeteer making a marionette's

joints. "23 " His

    tts s what lets

    us develop tools, Jim. This is what built

every useful

    commodity in history, culturally and technically,

since the first deliberately lit campfire. Without

this, we could have a brain the size of a basketball and

not be able to make use of, it."

    Kirk forced himself not to press for a point. He

knew one was coming. Ordinarily all this would've held

his attention, but here in a sweltering cave, sick and

overburdened, he found concentrating an effort. Beside

him, Speck was utterly rapt by what McCoy was

saying, and that was a clue to shut up and pay attention.

    McCoy inched forward on his mud-caked knees

to turn the animal's face toward Kirk and

Speck. "The brow ridge is more typical of

primitive evolution. Most intelligent races

eventually lose the bone crest over the eyes because we

don't need protection from our friend's tails while

we go after prey."

    Kirk pointed at the animal's aft end. "But

this still has a tail."

    "Exactly."

    "Most upright hominids bear the lingering

traits of devolved mils, specifically a tail

bone," Spock assisted. "Humans, Klingons,

Rigelians--"

    "And Vuleaus," McCoy added joyously. The

doctor lifted the animal's beautiful but

mutilated head, its broken skull and

snaggle-toothed mouth resting pliantly in his hands.

"The muzzle is pushed downward slightly," he

said as he ran a finger down his own nose. "Like

ours. That indicates priority to the vision. And the

brain sits back, also like ours, to allow for better

positioning of the eyes. Jim, this is binocular

vision. This is a highly evolved element! It

suggests that vision is more important to them than

olfactory ability. And the bright skin colors

back that up. It

    suggests they're visually oriented, like birds and

primates."

    "Then we can sneak up on them," Kirk

concluded.

    McCoy wagged his free hand in frustration.

"That's not

    my point, Captain!"

    "Then what is!"

    "All right, all right..." Hesitation

clouded McCoy's response. His eyes grew

troubled, his mouth pressed and drawn, but finally he

folded his arms, ignoring the messy stuff on his

hands while professionally managing to keep most of it

off his shirt. "Jim, all this adds up to something that

doesn't make sense. They're so much like us... the

right eyes, the right thumb, the right evolutionary

priorities."

    Kirk gazed at one of the few people in the galaxy

he trusted as much as he trusted himself, and his brow

furrowed. "Go ahead, Bones. Say what you

think."

    Struggle showed in McCoy's eyes. "If I

wasn't in this place," he said slowly, "in this

time, I'd have to conclude that I'm looking at an

advanced being, with culture, with communication, and with

science. Nobody painted this animal's face. It

painted itself."

Chapter 24

    "AJ YOU xvmo to tell me," Kirk incited,

"that on a planet stuffed to the gun'Is with

dinosaurs, you've found an advanced being?"

    "Well, we're here, aren't we?" McCoy

twisted the statement with irony.

    "We don't look like the other

dinosaurs, Doctor. This thing does. Are you

trying to kill me just so I can turn over in my

grave?"

    McCoy shook his head at the argumentative

truth but refused to apologize. "Jim, it's about

the size we are, five to seven feet tall, a

hundred eighty pounds or so. I'd say that's the

physiological average. Think about it,

gentlemen... the right size for space travel.

Large enough to mine and manipulate ore, yet small

enough to fit in a spacecraft that can break out of

gravitational pull."

    Kirk felt the tight rack of his brow. He

turned to Spock. "So why didn't you think of this?"

The Vulcan actually broke into an expression of

surprise.

    didn't

    "Why

    "Follow that line of logic and see what you get.

What about the trace of refined metal you found? And the

acrylic pigment on their faces? Are these better

clues than we think?"

    "If we follow this line of logic," Spock

picked up, "hinoc-alar vision would provide them with

greater depth perception. Therefore they can be more

proficient in tool use. It

    also suggests that technology is more critical

to their civilization now than hunting, despite their

savage appearance. "Right," McCoy said.

    Kirk leaned forward. "You think this animal could

actually come from somewhere else? Another planet?"

    Here, McCoy stopped having the answers. His

brow furrowed, his folded his arms again and sat back

on his knees, gazing down at the sliced-up

creature that was

    starting to smell up their cave. "I don't think

so...

    "Why not?"

    "Because of the DNA of this thing."

    "You're running the analysis agmyou said it

fouled up."

    "Yes... and I'll give you my report as

soon as I can."

    "Make it sooner than that."

    Noticing Spock and McCoy glancing at each

other with those looks of concern that he appreciated but

really didn't like, Kirk rolled onto one knee,

put his hand out for them to help him to his feet, and when

he was up withdrew his hand as if to claim independence.

    "Get back to work. Food, weapons,

and answers. That's what we need, gentlemen. And

at this point, I'd be hard

    pressed to tell you which we need most."

    Spock nodded. "Yes, sir."

    "I'm getting some fresh air." Kirk stepped

past them without giving anyone a chance to ask if he

should be going outside alone.

    The night was tar black. Usually, he enjoyed the

black sky, the stars. Some had accused him of going

to space so he could see the stars all the time.

Well, there were stars. Lots of them.

    The sky. The empty sky. Before him, the jungle

was midnight green, sizzling with insects.

    And there was something moving out there. "Spock..."

    Holding himself stock still, leaning on his stick,

Kirk waited until he felt a living warmth

brush against his arm, then raised that arm sharply to stop

Spock and hold him against the false protection of the

rock wall.

    Knotted, Kirk nodded significantly out

into the jungle foliage to their middle left. Staying

still, Spock didn't need to look very long.

    "Followed us," Kirk very quietly observed.

    "Tenacity," Spock commented. "Could be a sign

of intelligence. Most predators are

frugal. They give up and pursue easier prey

before their energies are exhausted."

    Kirk shook his head. "There's more. They made a

significant kill today. Enough to feed ten times their

number for days. So why are they stalking us?"

    "I don't know... prudence, possibly?"

    "Instinct isn't prudent, Mr. Spock, it

acts on the moment.

    There's more going on here than survival."

    "What do you think it is, Captain?"

    "I think... curiosity." He buried a

shiver.

    Spock took his arm, firmly drawing him

inside toward the fire. "Would be well to avoid them

in any case, Captain. If you will please sit

down..."

    "Have Vernon stand guard at the entrance."

    "Mr. Vernon," Spock summoned.

    "Sir!" The tall kid unfolded himself from his

sitting position and bolted to attention. "Yes,

sir!"

    "As you were. Stand guard outside the entrance.

Notify us if you see anything moving in the

foliage--anything at all Take nothing for

granted. Do not fire your phaser unless

    your life is threatened. Is that clear?"

    "Aye aye, sift."

    "Dismissed."

    Vernon dashed outside, so fast he probably

scared off the things they'd sent him out there to guard

against.

    Inside, the cave had become a department store.

In one section, Bannon was recuperating, sitting

up now, staring at the jungle. In another, Reenie

was trying to rig a crude slingshot. On the

mezzanine, Emmendorf was scaling a big

sturgeon. On the fire near him, some kind of

acorns or nuts were merrily roasting on a flat

rock in the middle of the flames, and a sizable chunk

of animal meat--Kirk had no idea what kind--

was cooking on a spit rigged between two y-shaped

sticks in the ground. Well, they wouldn't starve.

    He made his way to the girl, reached down, and

scooped up one of the slingshots. Ignoring the grating

of his joints, he

    swung the sling in his hand, testing the weight.

    "Balance is off," he said.

    Reenie looked up as if she'd just been told

her newborn infant was ugly. "Oh, I'm

sorry, sir."

    "I didn't say it wouldn't work. But this piece

of wood is too short. Whoever fires this will have

to know how to compensate."

    "I'll start over, sir."

    "Good. What else have we got?"

    "Oh--um... we got some primitive

high-glucose grain and we're mashing it... Over

here is a yeasty organism, and Dr. McCoy had

an accelerant we can use to distill it. We're

boiling out the alcohol. With some hollowed-out pieces

of wood, we can make little Molotov cocktails.

Mr. Spock got an idea to dissolve some silver

in nittic acid--"

    "Precipitate it as silver chloride,"

Kirk said. "Any source of salt will work. But

it'll have to be done in the dark or it'll reduce

back to silver. Then you add ammonia--"

    "Dr. McCoy had some of that, too. We can

make silver amiochloride and dry it."

    "Yes, it dries to silver azide. Remember

it's a contact explosive. Scratch it, and it

blows. Don't let anyone touch it

    without being very careful. Where'd you get the silver?"

She wagged her bare fingers. "My wedding ting,

sir." Sadly, Kirk grinned at her.

"That's valiant, Ensign."

    "Captain?" It was McCoy, holding his

medical trioorder in both hands. "If you have a

moment, I've got the con-filmed DNA

results."

    Kirk looked down at Reenie. "Continue what

you're doing, Ensign."

    He hated being responsible for a woman in this

uncivilized place, especially one so young, who

should have a future. He shouldn't have brought her. He

hated to see women die.

    He shuffled to McCoy. "Go ahead, Bones.

Spock, over here."

    "Don't you want to sit down?" McCoy

asked, stalling. "No. Go ahead."

    "Well... I don't know how explain this. This

flies in the

    face of everything I said before. I don't know what

to do."

    "Tell me. I'll do something about it."

    "Jim... the..." He pointed to the dead

dinosauroid on their camp floor. "The DNA of

this animal points conclusively to Earth roots.

Despite all the anatomical evidence I gave

you before, this creature's ancestry is from this

planet."

    "How do you know?"

    "There are certain key indicators," McCoy

said, sparing the jargon. "I can take your DNA and the

DNA of a porcupine and find out that neither of you is a

Klingon. If I have the planet's

microbiology, I can tell you which planet

    you're from. Just don't give me Spock's--"

    "Are you that sure?"

    "I'd like to say Fm not sure, but I'm standing in

the middle of about eighty billion gross tons of

DNA that exactly matches this animal's." He

gestured to the great outdoors, then back at the

corpse on their floor. "This thing is from Earth."

    The cave was heavy with smoke from the cooking fires

and thick with the stench of the dead dinosauroid sprawled

across a quarter of the floor space. The revelation

they'd just had did nothing to perfume the bizarre.

    Spock's face was troubled. "I must disagree,

Doctor. I accept your autopsy results.

There can't possibly be so large a gap in the

fossil record as to allow for this creature's

existence here and now. This animal cannot possibly be

from Earth sixty million years ago. It has

highly advanced traits that simply cannot have

developed here yet."

    McCoy angled at him. "And the moon has a

man's face, Spock. Given millions of

monkeys, nature will eventually invent a

typewriter."

    "Captain," Spock persisted, "there is a

third possibility, which I find galling."

    Defiantly the doctor stepped closer. "Which

is?"

    "That we're a million years too late, that's

what," Kirk interrupted. "We just watched thousands

of animals like these go by on the Guardian's screen

after the change. If we're late, we're sunk."

Petulance came off in his tone, but he didn't

try to stop it. If he was staring at an ugly

truth, then the others would have to look at it, too.

He limped across the cave, casting a grudgeful

glance from wall to wall. "Jim." Spock followed

him and came around in front of him, not grim, but

earnest. "You're right, of course. However, we have

dealt with the Guardian before. It tends to send

travelers on the same currents and eddies.

Chances are fair that we've been deposited in the

correct area as the situation demands." Kirk

looked at him and snapped, "A guess,

Mr. Spock." He heard the harshness in his words.

"But I'll take your "fair chance" over

anybody else's sure thing," he added. "Could that

be it, Spock? Could we be too late?" Deep

trouble grooved Spock's face. "If I could

set up two correspondant tricorders to--"

    "Captain! Sir!" Vernon surged back

inside with his phaser drawn. "Something's coming through the

trees, straight toward us!" Without giving him

acknowledgment, Kirk swung around. "Ensign

Reenie, let's have those weapons. Quickly, quickly.

Attention, everyone. All hands... battle

stations!"

Chapter 25

    MOVE-tt in the junble gallery; thunder in the

wings. Every tiny sound, insect, footfall, was

deafening, enormous. Crunching through a carpet of

deadwood, eycads pricking their thighs, they went

into the deep gray shadows with shoulders hunched and

phaser hands leading. Flanked by Spock and

Vernon, Kirk struggled to stay a step or two

ahead of them. Reenie was right behind them. He thrust his

phaser outward. "Hold it!" Behind, his crew

stopped and held position. Laughing too hard

to move probably. He'd just told a

dinosaur to hold it. His reputation was saved when a

rough voice came out of the midnight jungle. "I

have no weapon." Well, at least the dinosaur was

cooperating. In English? Vernon plunged forward

two steps, straddled a fern with both legs flexed,

thrust his own phaser out with both fists and shouted,

"Starfleet Security! Get your hands up!"

    "My hands are up."

    "Come forward! No tricks!"

    "I possess no tricks..." Not English.

A translator's echow -- Klingon with an

English echo. Kirk moved to his right, toward

Spock, and let the Security man do what he

did best. Vernon ticked off a few seconds,

then plunged into the ferns and came out with a rumpled but

recognizable character. "Roth," Kirk prompted.

"Welcome back. Ensign Reenie, take charge

of the prisoner. Mr. Spock, Mr. Vernon,

secure the area for the other Klingon. Be careful and

stay together."

    "Very well, sir," Spock said, and both were

suddenly gone. Even in the dimness Roth's face was

scored with scratches from plants and thorns. His chin

was lowered, but he gazed up at Kirk with a roguish

languor. The captain peered back. "So

you missed us. Where's your friend?"

    "He was never my friend. He was my commander. I was

compelled to serve with him."

    "Where is he now?"

    "Killed by an animal. Out there."

    "What kind of animal?"

    "A terrible one." Suddenly Roth stopped

walking and turned sharply to him. "Kirk--"

    "Move along!" The girl held her phaser to the

Klingon's cheek, but he ignored her. "At

ease, Ensign," Kirk allowed. Roth pushed

toward him a step. "Kirk, you understand me. We have

spoken honestly to each other. I have realized I

can't survive in this world. I do not know how you brought

me here or why, but I do not wish to spend my life

out there alone. If I swear not to act against you,...

will you promise not to stake me down again?" Beneath the

sense of bluff and tactical suspicions charged

between them was an undeniable quiver of truth. Kirk

caught it, just a glimpse, like a tiny red lizard

ducking under a leaf. But there had been a falter in

Roth's voice, a hesitation that may have been

deceit. Kirk tapped his instincts, experience, his

own talent as a rascal wire-puller to interpret

what he was seeing and hearing. If there was a

scheme here, it was deep laid and subtle. He

couldn't read Roth like other Klingous he'd known. This

wasn't the kind of Klingon he was used to, but a

whole new batch. A Klingon who differentiated

between enemies, allies, and nonenemies. You are not

my enemy. "I won't stake you down," Kirk

said. "But I want your promise as a soldier.

You and I both know how important that is to men like

us."

    "One more thing..."

    "Yes?" Letting his head sag, Roth sighed,

"Have you got any food? I have found nothing I dare

eat. Nothing but animals that spit and trees with

needles growing from them and plants that swallow whole

insects! What kind of planet is this? I know how

to survive in open space, but not on...

parasitica! shrubbery!"

    "Yes, we have food," Kirk said. "In

fact, you may find you've never eaten better in your

life." Spock and Vernon appeared as Kirk

drew his prisoner out from the fronds. "Area's

seems securee, sir," Vernon reported.

"No sign of the other one."

    "Very good. Carry on."

    "Captain," Spock began, staying far

enough from the Klingon, "my science tricorder holds a

base encyclopedia of information on general Earth

prehistory and history from the Office of the Federation

Direction of Archives... physics, biology,

paleogeology, as you requested. With your permission

I'll attempt to merge information in this unit with that

history that we recorded passing on the screen of the

Guardian."

    "Yes, Spock. More than anything we have to find

out who changed history, and how they did it."

Spock lowered the tricorder and fell into a more

relaxed pose. "Perhaps this would be an opportune

time for you to rest. Perhaps eat."

    "I will. Don't worry. Go on." But Spock

was worried. It showed on his face without rein. As

Reenie and Vernon ushered the prisoner to one side

of the shelter, drawing him along despite his horror

at the shriven corpse on the floor, Spock

ushered Kirk inside so McCoy could take over.

The one subject upon which Spock and McCoy

trusted each other was Jim Kirk, and he knew that.

Spock couldn't give him orders but knew

McCoy could. It made Kirk angry at his

condition, belligerent

    against treatment, as if that would help. The

weakness was harder this afternoon to will against than it had been this

morning He was in almost constant discomfort now that

MCC-OY couldn't afford to be free with the

painkillers. Inside, the aromas were thick, the

fires still crackling, and that corpse beginning to fester.

He thought about telling MCC-OY to get rid of it but

knew the doctor would've done that already if he were

finished with the thing, Apparently McCoy still wasn't

happy with that DNA conclusion. The doctor showed up

immediately to take Kirk from Spock, and the two of them

looked at each other with that plying worry that made

him feel too far out of the picture. "All right,

gentlemen, as you were," he rumbled, pushing them both

back a step, and they broke if up. As Spock

turned away, McCoy handed Kirk a ground-out

rock with a heavy glazed liquid in the middle.

"Boiled-down tree sap," the doctor said.

"Sugar content. Eat it." Kirk took the rock

and sniffed at the concoction. "What do I do? Pour

it on the roasted acorns?"

    "If you want to define those as acorns, be my

guest. It's not bad on the pond-lily roots

either."

    "All right, I'll go over here." The Klingon was

picking at a fish tail. Out of the whole

sturgeon, he wanted the tail? He looked up as

Kirk sat down. "So," Roth said. "Do you dine

with enemies?"

    "What we are to each other," Kirk told him,

"time will tell. But we're not enemies. You said it

yourself."

    "Then why do you run with a Vulcan?" Kirk

remained passive. "He's my friend." Roth

paused. the Vulcan way is childish. They fought

the Empire and won but retreated instead of pursuing.

Retreated! They didn't win. They only made

sure we didn't win! Is that any way to fight a

war? I do not respect them." "You did once. Enough

to try to get the Klingons and the Romulans talking.

Maybe it failed, but your idea was on the right

track. The Vulcans are united, adaptable, and

in spite of their claims of total peace, they're

good fighters. They stood up for themselves, and your

empire couldn't fight a two-front war."

    "Their only wrong tactic was failure to press

advantage," Roth said. "After each attack,

instead of striking the weak spot, they simply sat

back and waited for the next attack." Putting his

"plate" down on his swollen knee, Kirk leaned

forward. "It was a

RomulanwromuluSnganspy who betrayed you, not

the Vulcans." Roth stopped eating also and shook his

head. "I don't like you, Captain. I don't like

you at all."

    "Then tell me, how does a pilot become a

Spear?." The Klingon paused again but seemed

relieved that the subject of the personal had been

forgiven for a moment. "There are no ceremonies, no

rituals, no good-bye... The greatest honor is

to tell no one. The honor is depleted by letting

anyone know you are walking dead."

    "Why wouldn't you want your family's

support?"

    "It is a shame to tell. We can't give it

sways"

    "Because morale is crucial to your people. Isn't that

right?" Roth peered at him, then shrugged. "I really

don't like you." Kirk deliberately didn't say

anything, letting the silence pressure the Klingon.

"We are a society that survives," Roth said.

"That is all we do. It is how we raise our

children, how we use our resources, everything There is

nothing left except the necessities of

survival." He looked out at the sky,

remembering. "The dying was not so hard, but

to remain silent was harder than I expected. To know

I was seeing each of my family for the last time... but

I couldn't give it away, or my family would

remember me that way and my act would be a selfish

one."

    "But why did you volunteer?" Kirk pressed.

"You're healthy, strong young enough. Why sacrifice

yourself?." For a moment Kirk thought the Klingon was

choking on his roots and fishtails, but that wasn't

it. Roth had stopped dead in his confessions and couldn't

seem to go on.

    Kirk simply gazed at him as if they'd known

each other twenty years. He could get Spock

to open up this way, too, if his timing were right. Just that

stare. Nose down a little, lips pursed, brows

up, eyes just tight. Roth sighed. The anger

flushed from his face. "War is the only way.

Fight enemies, then fight friends. Someone will always

want what another has. The teachings of Surak

only function if all agree. The only place

where all agree," he said, "is on Vulcan."

His mouth turned hard. He stared at the ground between his

feet, raised the fish tail to his teeth and tipped

it in half. "Excuse me, Captain." McCoy

stepped in. "Eat this, please." He

handed Kirk a weed. Kirk looked at it without

taking it. "What's that?"

    "Few million years from noTOMORROW, I think

it'll be a foxglove."

    "Why am I eating it?"

    "My medical tricorder indicates this contains

digitalis and I want you to have a dose. It'll

serve as a facsimile for some more refined medication.

Now, be careful and only eat what I give you.

Too much of it would be poisonous, and you're

poisoned enough."

    "We couldn't skip this step?"

    "No." Without waiting to be dismissed, McCoy

dismissed himself. Roth watched him go. "Being wounded,"

he said, "is inconvenient." Biting off a leaf,

Kirk chewed it like tobacco. "Don't change the

subject."

    "We are enemies in your time," Roth said

abruptly. "I have seen it in your eyes from the start.

You are like us, yet you hate us. What are my people

to you, Captain?" "In our "time," your people and mine

have struck an agreement. Because of that, the Klingons have

prospered despite being hemmed in."

    "You hemmed them in?"

    "Yes, we did. They're combative and

imperialistic. The cooperative nations of the

Federation had to establish a neutral zone as a

buffer and allow the Klingons to prosper as long as they

don't encroach upon the rights of anybody else.

There's even an element of commerce. I showed you the

pictures." Roth buffed at him. "Healthy

Klingous, many children, clothing like yours... big ships with

light in the corridors --it is a fantasy."

    "It's no fantasy. It's my reality. My

Klingons have a martial culture, but there's peace

for everyone through our strength. Gradually they're doing

business outside their culture, and it works for

everybody. You see life as punishment--that's what

constant war has done to your civilization. There's

been nothing to hold back your butchery of each other.

I'd become a Spear, too, if that was all 1

had to live for." He shoved the rock off his knee.

Melted tree sap oozed into the sand. "If you

don't believe me," he insisted, "tell me why

I would bother to fake all this instead of just killing

you?" They stared at each other. Slowly the

animosity flowed out of Roth's eyes. His shoulders

settled. Leaning over, he scooped up the rock with

Kirk's tree sap trickling out and ran a finger

along the edge to stop the spilling, then handed

the questionable delicacy hack to him. "It is a good

question," he said. Kirk took the rock. "Is the

answer any good?" Roth picked at his fish, took

a bite, chewed, spat out about half of it. "On

Vulcan I was a treaty monitor. I came

to respect them before I discovered the truth. Before they

lied to me. Their talk of peace showed itself in

battle. They cut our fleet down without second

thought." Pushing, Kirk undetgirded, "But..."

Roth twitched. "But they... Vulcans have

families. They don't die young, they have other

interests... They live for more than just survival.

They talked to me about diversity and peace. I

believed them. I tried to change the Klingon pattm

It brought me to disaster when my truce was betrayed.

My laad said contamination was too strong in me. They

took me away from Vulcan, lowered my position.

They turned on the Vulcans, and the Vulcans

hammered them back."

    "You were drummed out?"

    "What?"

    "Stripped of rank, kicked out."

    "A trained pilot? Never. I could disembowel the

emperor and I would still fly. I was... disgraced.

My family was in shame. No one would

speak to them."

    "Why should you pay so much for a good effort?" Kirk

said with a shrug. "Intermediaries have been trying and

failing throughout history." Suddenly Roth's eyes

flared and he looked up. "Your history, not mine!

The Vulcans are liars! They kept me from the most

important factor--that their ways are planetbound

and cannot survive in diversityi Pacifism works

only if all are the same?" He cranked around and

fiercely glared across the cave at Spock, who was

working with the two tricorders. Spock stopped in

place, poised in case the Klingon turned that

expression into an attack. There was caution but not

revelation in Spock's face. Kirk knew these

things weren't a surprise to his first officer. The

preachings of the long-dead pacifist philosopher

Surak hadn't pulled Spock away from Kirk's

side nor from Christopher Pike's before him.

Kirk seized Roth's meaty upper arm and dug his

fingers in. "Leave him alone," he ordered. With the

grip he forced the Klingon to break off his sizzling

accusations across the cave. Roth hunched his shoulders

and he turned his back on S pock. Keenly,

Spock met Kirk's eyes with bottled thanks,

then made a point of attending to his

tricorters. "My people did not stop fighting among

themselves until we found someone else to fight," Roth

said, caustic now. "If the Spear tactic works and

we defeat the rornuhSngan, we will turn on the

Vulcans. When they are gone, we will turn on

each other. If the romustuSnga defeat us, then

they will be the ones who doom the Vulcans. What

difference does it make? Already romustaSngan

ships are on others of their own kind, scrabbling like

animals over scraps. And when the scraps begin

to disappear, each will fight harder to be the one who

brings in the last scrap. Like us, Captain, the war

is all that holds them together. When it goes, they will

murder each other out of habit. And in their death

throes they will slaughter all who are ensisved

until not a living thing breathes. I became a

Spear to reclaim what shred of dignity was left

to me. I wanted to find a way to kill royserf

by hurting my enemy, to die with respect. But I

did not die. When I tried to escape, I was going

to find a way to kill myself, because I wanted to die."

Looking up at Kirk now, Roth no longer

hesitated to meet the captain's trenchant eyes.

He bent forward until his elbows rested upon his

knees, and he clasped his hand "I would

slit a thousand throats," he said, "for one day of

peace."

    "All hands, front and center." The crew was

nervous beneath their fatigue. Sweltering heat sapped

their energy, yet they were jumpy. They'd done a

befflywhop into the past and now all their muscles

hurt and their minds were workillg like sailors on the

zero-four-hundred bow watch--nothing to stare at but

eternity stretched out before them and no way to rest.

Blanketed by the rising stench of the wood fires and the

dead dinosauroid, they gathered around the log where their

captain was sitting "Mr. SpocLike So ahead."

Spock stood beside him. His voice filled the

cave. "We have a working, incomplete theory

regarding our situation: we are on Earth, sixty

to seventy million years before our own time. Fauna

is consistent with the summer months of the Cretaceous

era, southeastern North America, in the vicinity of

southern C, Georgia along the spine of what will

eventually become the Appalachian Mountain chain.

All is as it should be," he said and paced to the

corpse on the floor, "except for this animal.

Despite appearances, this animal is not consistent

with biped development in this era, but is several

million years beyond that. The pigment on the

creature's face is acrylic paint, certainly

not available in the late Cretaceous. These

inconsistencies give us reason to suspect

contamination by other advanced beings than ourselves.

Confirmation of that is our new objective."

    "Thank you," Kirk said. "Strange as it may

seem, this is good news. We've been looking for a

focal point in time and we guessed it was the

asteroid, but we weren't sure. Now we've found

advanced beings who don't belong here any more than we

do. That means they're here for a specific purpose.

It also means we still have a chance to stop them. But keep

in mind, if there are other advanced beings out there, then

we're a target. Any questions?" He hoped there would

be a few. For some reason the silence was nettlesome.

"When dawn comes, we'll fan out. Work in pairs.

Mr. Emmendorf, take the first guard watch

outside. Don't stray far."

    "Aye aye, sir." Pushing to his feet and

leaning on his stick, Kirk hobbled around the dead

animal, glancing at McCoy and implying with his

eyes that it was really time to get rid of this thing. He

made his way to where Bannon sat huddled at a

fire. "Mr. Bannon, do you consider yourself fit for

duty'?" Kirk handed a communicator

down to him. But the lieutenant didn't take the

communicator. Didn't even look at it. "Who

cares?" Bannon's hair was matted with sweat,

soggy red spikes dawing at his eyes. Firelight

glinted off the white of his cheeks. His shoulders were

hunched forward. "Lieutenant," Kirk said, "you will

address me as "sir."" Bannon's sweat-stung

eyes flipped up. "Go to hell." The air in the

cave electrified. Kirk felt the prickle of the

crew's eyes. And the Kilnport was watching, too.

Insubordination was a nasty thing. It made him itch.

He stepped back a pace. "Get on your feet,

Lieutenant." The focus of all the others was on

him. He didn't care. His attention was on the

discipline drying to dust before

    . "dis: Favoring his injured thigh with considered

drama, the unshaven lieutenant slowly got up.

Every movement rotting with melancholia, Bannon

wagged his arms at his sides in one bitter,

languorous shrug. "So I'm on my feet.

What do you want?" FO-RATHER the first time Kirk

noticed that Bannon was a good ten " inches taller

than he was. But he wasn't ten inches madder.

bey the Star ffleet Code of Conduct as applying

to officers," Kirk said. "Who cares?"

Bannon said. "We're going to die in this moldy

sewer. You can't get us back and Starfleet's not

coming to rescue us." Jim Kirk met his young

officer's melted mood fiber by tiber with his own

doggedheSS. He had no old-world recourse of

lashings or keelhauling. Usually there was no trouble

keeping the devotion of a starship crew, who considered

service as much privilege as duty. If

insubordination appeared, it was on a much lower level

than the starship's bridge, shown to officers of the

deck, bosuns, watch leaders, or even

bunkmates. The crew themselves kept each other in

line before irritation could siphon all the way to the

bridge. "Lieutenant," he said, "we are

Starfleet." . Bannon's right eye flinched, and

he blinked. His hands tlexed, but there was no other

movement. -" Kirk squared off and braced both

legs. His cane pirouetted and hit the dirt.

"All right," he said. "I'm lame, I'm

feverish, weak, drugged, and overworked. If you think

you can take me, mister... there's no better time."

Jim Kirk said his piece and stood waiting,

muscular arms slightly flexed, chin up a little,

ready to take the punch he'd dared be thrown.

Bannon swallowed hard, then again and again,

until he seemed to be sucking on rocks.

Everything was finished for him. He had achieved a

scientist's paradise and hated it. The massiveness

of the past was overwhelming him. And now he had insulted

and threatened a senior officer. It didn't get

any worse than that.

    So he dumped his commission on the cave floor and

pitched a roundhouse right at his captain.

    He'd as well have launched a paper plane. The

punch he threw was predictable, sketched on page

one of every boxing manual in the UFP, and the easiest

to dodge.

    The boy's height betrayed him. Kirk's

compact stature along with his brawlet's

scrapbook of lower-deck vendettas let him

recoil just right. He slid under Bannon's

twenty-foot arm, rabbit-punched him in the ribs,

concentrating the power of his whole weight into the

five-inch square of his fist. Then he pulled back

to see the effect.

    Bannon's eyeballs were halfway across the

cave, his face purple as a grape. He staggered

back two steps, one elbow drawn inward to his

ribs, hands knotted. There would be no

    second swing. Bannon was done with

defiance. "Captain, we're being attacked!"

Ah, beautiful distraction.

    Emmendorf stumbled toward them, one finger wagging

at the midnight jungle. "Sir--sir! Like Mr.

Spock said!"

    The stocky Security man swallowed and pointed,

but that was all he could get out that made any sense.

    Outside there were sounds of phaser fire.

"Acknowledged. Go on," he said to Emmendorf. As

the Security man charged back outside, Kirk

turned back to Bannon. "I'll give you two

seconds to decide whether you want to be in my

crew anymore. Either take another swing at me

or get out there and do your job."

    Ignoring the humming crackle of shots in the

jungle, Kirk refused to dismiss one emergency for

another.

    Bannon shivered, his tongue pressed up against his

teeth, both elbows tight to his hammered body

now.

    Scooping up an armload of their contrived

weapons, Kirk shoved them into Bannon's arms.

"You're on report. Get moving. Roth, stay

here. McCoy, make sure he does."

    As Kirk veered away, Spock shoved

the cane into his hand, and they both plunged for the cave

mouth, toward phaser shots whistling through the

magnolias.

    In the rush of battle Kirk forgot his enfeeblement

and drove himself into fighting posture, head low, eyes

searching for his crew as they defended themselves with their

phasers.

    Green lances spewed through the foliage, casting a

green flickering light on wide dark leaves, set

fire to the fronds, and turned ferns into smoking

flakes.

    Something was wrong about this. The neon green streaks

fell quiet, then started up again. A lot of

energy... Whoever was shooting didn't care about using

up their weapons.

    "Spock!"

    "Yes, Captain, I see."

    "Answers our question, doesn't it?"

    "Yes, it does."

    They crouched together briefly. Starfleet issue

weapons emitted a red-orange lance of phased

light, different from any others, from Klingon,

Romulan, or any other known destructive

handheld energy emitters. But these streaks were neon

green, right off a peacock's tail.

    He leaned toward Spock. "Numbers?"

    "Shots are coming from two distinct directions,

sir. Possibly three. Firing seems

arbitrary... possibly an attempt to frighten

ns."

    "Let them think it's working. Take the left

flank."

    They melted away from each other into the sealy

bushes.

    "Vernon!" Kirk called. "Have you got the

alcohol grenades?"

    "Got'm, sift'

    "No better time than now. Let's introduce

ballistic chemistry to the Cretaceous era. Commence

firing, Mr. Vernon."

    Vernon bent down. Before him lay a wooden

catapult about the size of a man's folded leg, and

beside it eight plant stalks sliced into cylinders and

standing like a little brown infantry. Each wore a

tufted hat of dried moss. Not very big, but they

didn't have to be.

    Setting the miniature catapult, Vernon

fitted one of the plant stalks into the launcher, then

clumsily tried to ignite the dried moss with the tip

of his hand phaser's boost injector. The

phaser clicked but didn't spark the moss.

Self-conscious, Vernon hunched his shoulders and

kept trying.

    "What setting have you got it on?" Kirk asked,

empathizing with the nervous young man.

    "Stun select, sir," Vernon squawked.

    "Go to disrupt select. Keep your face

away."

    "Oh--yes, sir."

    He flinched when the phaser sparked. The moss

caught

    fire and burned enthusiastically.

    "Get rid of it," Kirk urged.

    For a horrible second Vernon fumbled with the

catapult, then found the catch and tripped it. The

rubber thong holding the flexed branch that would do the

shooting, in real life a tourniquet from

McCoy's all-knowing medikit, did its job as

if preordained. The catapult jumped, the thong

flipped, and the flaming stalk soared through the foliage

to unfortunately smash into one of the twenty-foot

palmetto trunks. The stalk busted into shards, the

hastily distilled alcohol inside ignited, and the

tree was set on fire.

    The flash illuminated a dinosanroid

face. Yellow and red paint flickered and the shapes

of the elongated face and bladelike teeth

glittered.

    "Adjust your aim," Kirk snapped. "Two

degrees higher." The second volley flew through

the leaves in a bright arch through the darkness, seemed for

an instant to disappear, then flashed near the ground.

Their reward was an agonized howl.

    "Got'm? Vernon chirped. "Keep firing.

Drive them back."

    "Aye, sir."

    Together they tracked sounds, motion, and those green

lancets.

    When they were down to two cocktails, Kirk

motioned Vernon to cease fire. "Good shots.

Move in."

    Vernon grabbed a four-foot javelin and

scratched into a run, parting a stand of shrubby

preoaks with the bulbs of his shoulders. Like an

offensive lineman the Security man dodged

stumpy ten-foot plant trunks that would've

cheerfully taken his skin off and charged one of the big

attackers with a fervor that made his captain proud.

    Kirk shuddered at the sight. Vernon was

unprotected from the whipping tail and

erescent-shaped hacking claws, going after that huge

animal with nothing but a four-foot javelin.

    Vernon swung at the beast's head, made

contact, and put a five-inch furrow in the

animal's neck with the javelin blade. Blood

sheeted down the animal's long neck to its shoulder.

    Starfleet's Security team was the best trained

in the settled galaxy, capable of wrestling down

any other humanoid. But they weren't

bullfighters. They weren't trained for this. Vernon

went after the animal's eyes and was knocked back

by a whip-crack of the thick tail. He staggered up

and braced the javelin above his head in both hands.

He charged, made a jump, and forced the javelin

sideways into the dinosauroid's mouth. Digging his

toes into the dusty slab, Vernon crammed forward,

a hand on either side of the ereature's enormous

snaggled mouth, pushing angrily on the two ends of the

javelin.

    The dinosauroid gargled and twisted against the

pressure Vernon put on its mouth. Bringing its

long hands forward, it gripped Vernon around the body

as if dancing. If it dug those claws in or

punctured his lungs with those Opposable thumbs-

"Vernon, use your phaser!" Kirk

shouted.

    Vernon grimaced in the middle of the hand-to-hand

fighting. "Don't worry, sir, I won't use

it!"

    Kirk took a breath to shout again, but there was no

chance. The dinosauroid cranked its neck hard

to one side, tipping Vernon almost completely over

on his head. The javelin fell from its mouth, and

Vernon hit the ground and rolled, still clinging to the

wooden shaft.

    Kirk whipped his own phaser up, but there was too

much movement for a narrow phaser beam. If he

switched to wider beam, he'd take out his own man.

The Security guard was already back on his feet,

viciously slashing his short spear, whipping it in

both hands like a club, not knowing how to make the sharpened

point work in his favor against an animal whose head and

teeth reached out farther than its hands. The

dinosaurcid moved in on him, caught the javelin

in its teeth, and snapped the wood to splinters.

"Vernon!" Kirk called again. "Use your

phaser!"

    "Yes, sir!" the man called, but he kept

slashing with the frayed end of the stick. "Get out of the

way!" Kirk attempted, trying again

to get a clear shot, but Vernon parried and jumped

between him and the dinosaurcid. "Vernon! Down!

Down!" Where was Spock? Any tree trunk

could've been a crouching man or another of those

animals waiting to attack. He moved his bad

leg under him but didn't dare stand up. He couldn't

move fast enough in this condition to duck a shot or

defend his crewmen. Vernon was down, a lifeless

rag on the slab, with the dinosauroid's wide foot

pressing him to the hard ground. As the animal aimed

its toothy snout and began a move that would've

ripped Vernon's head off, three arrows thunked

into its thick neck just below its jaw. It roared and

shook its head, raising both arms to pull at the

thick stalks embedded in its neck. Kirk craned

to see where the arrows had come from--that's where Spock would

be, with Emmendorf and Reenie. Where Bannon

was, he had no idea, and the thought flickered that the

humiliated lieutenant might have run away.

Bringing up his phaser again, Kirk took aim through the

trees at the dinosaurcid. The head was coming up and

down, in and out of the shadow as the creature dug at the

short arrows in its throat and screamed in frustration.

He held his fire. "Move, move," he

muttered, holding the phaser in both hands,

waiting for a clear shot. If the animal were in

physical contact with Vernon, a phaser hit could

suck the downed man away, too. He couldn't

risk that. "Left flank!" he shouted. "Charge!"

As he came into the open, flanked by two

fern-topped trunks as thick around as he was, a

bright grin flash blinded him. Everything around him

exploded. His body was throttled by flying tree

scales that tore at his arms and face. The trees

turned drunkenly, trees danced, and the ground rose

up to meet him.

Chapter 26

    "DON'T move! Don't fire! Hold your

fire! Idiots!" Oya shrieked at the spikers,

but they weren't listening. The two males had come

barreling out of the bushes toward the enemy outpost,

drawn by the scent of smoke, cooking fish, and dead

flesh. If they weren't held back, the smell of

blood would drive them wild and she would have no hope

at all of controlling them. The spikers were lathered,

moving on the imperative with princelike

unresttaint, jumping beautifully, ducking, charging,

making perft targets. Children! Males! They had

never fought against Starfleet before. They would give

away in seconds that there were only the three

of them. Their attack would dissolve a-Sust

opponents of this aliber. The air detonated a

few strides from her, a barbaric flash that frightened

her into falling back. A few Paces away, one

of the spikers fell back, too, blinking and

desperately scraping hot sparks from his fa.

Cautiously lifting her head, Oya sniffed at the

air. Alcohol. Where in this jungle had the

Starfleet people found alcohol? While Rusa and those

other fools had been playing games with loal

animals and being slaughtered for it, the Starfleeters

had scraped an explosive out of the past! Clang

--a stone-bladed weapon fell against Pae barrel

of an energy pistol, and Oya turned in time to see

one of the humans charge a spiker with some sort of

spear. The spiker's energy pistol flew out of his

grip and skidded into the moss. The other humans were

shouting, driving the spiker back. He had allowed

himself to be pressed up against the opening of the humans'

camp, and now he was paying for it in having no room

to maneuver. Leveling her own weapon, Oya

selected a target: the Vulcan among them. He

was an oilocr, a commander, and his loss would

debilitate them. All at once, across the breadth

of the cavern mouth, she saw a glint of

amber gold illuminated by the flash of another

alcohol bomb. Oya scoured her memory for

Starfleet color codes. Amber-- Their

captain! If she could cut his legs off, slice

him in half, the enemy team would be crushed.

Humans were nothing without their leaders, without

ancestors and histories on which to stack their

confidence. She pivoted to change her aim. She

shook her head. How often her culture talked about

killing, crowed about strength, about massacres, about

conquest--but it was all talk, all howling in the

night! The Clan would have to possess more than talk

if the future were to be taken. Bracing her good leg

on a mass of roots, she narrowed one eye for

focus and settled lightly on her resting bone.

She tilted her bulky hindquarters toward the

braced leg, angled her shoulders, lay her head

back on her curved neck, held her breath, and

fired. Chemical green energy broke from the

muzzle of her pistol and split the hanging moss

bundles directly in front of her, not random and

slanted like the spikers' careless shots, but level

with the ground. Moss and snaggled fronds burst

into flame. She was blinded by the brightness of her own

weapon. Instantly there was a bitter

crack somewhere in the bushes. Had she killed the

leader? Was he cut in half by the cauterizing beam?

As she forced her eyes open, she imagined the

tattered Starfleet team, stunned and frazzled

by what she had done, decapitated, confused, too

frightened to carry on. And in their frazzle they could be

easily cut down. Now the spikers would pay

attention to her. Rusa would pay attention. Aur and the

other females would listen. She couldn't see their

captain anymore. Where he had stood there was now a

shattered and burning stump. Suddenly she wished she

had talked With him before she had slashed him down.

Why hadhe come here? How had he known to come? In a

flurry of movement to her right, the trapped spiker

now had shafts of wood stuck in his neck. He

pounded the ground to threaten two more Starfleet men who

had cornered him and plunged into the foliage to get

room to maneuver. The bushes rustled, and he

plunged back toward the Starfleet team, but they

didn't disperse. They stood their ground and hammered

the spiker with well-planned shots of weapons they

had built from these rocks and sticks, and two more of

them now were draggingthe collapsed teammate off the

slab of rock while the others held the furious

spiker back. A shriek at her side

rattled her mind and made her stumble. A force

struck her in the neck, snapping her head back and

knocking her onto her resting bone. Pain shot across

her shoulder. Blood squirted at the side of her

face. She knew her shoulder had been laid open

in a violent slash. Tucking her tail, she

swung around with her claws flashing out at the height

of a Terran. The scent of blood, even her own,

made her suddenly wild. But it wasn't a Tenan

who had attacked her. There was something on her back

now, but she spun so fast that she threw the weight

off. A long gray form tumbled into the leaves, raking

down shreds of hanging moss. Horror swelled as

Oya saw what had attacked her. Not Starfleet

--she wished it had been. Her torn body bled

freely as she raised her weapon again and tried

to aim. Out of the doze came a terrible mutation of her

own face, mouth parted in a shriek, tongue twisting,

lips peeled back, eyes yellow and dilated for

night attack, plunging toward her. She counted off

terrible seconds until the animal was nearly on

her again, then opened fire. Green light broke

into the leaves and burned the open mouth of the animal

charging her. It choked as though trying to swallow the

concentrated energy, its eyes flaring, then the

ghastly stink of burning flesh rose in a puff, and the

animal broke into pieces, and each piece

sizzled away like ashes cooling,. There were more coming--

she could smell them! She had to protect herself, find

out if the other spikers were still alive, order them

to fall back, and let the ancient predators kill

the humans. She lowered her head and tail and began

to back away when a voice behind her made her spin

around, crushin8 the leaves as she turnedt A

Starfleet phaser hovered between her eyes, just out of

arm's sweep. Oya closed her eyes and prepared

to burn.

    Out of a green shabby nowhere Spock appeared and

put his shoulder to the shattered stump beside Kirk,

ducking from the hot shards. His voice was a baritone

shock of reassurance in the panic erupting around

them. "Jim, are you all right?"

    "What's left of me is," Kirk coughed from under

a palmetto. His face was spackled with bits of the

blown-up tree trumk, his uniform shirt pocked with

ash, and he came out on his hands and knees, but he was

still alive. "How many of those things are there?" Spock

pulled him to a better position. "At least ten.

These are tile troodonts you noted were stalking us."

    "Vernon was following my order to hold

back use of the phasers." Kirk's words were

bitter, his eyes narrow and sary. "I didn't

intend that he should sacrifice himself

    "Spocld" An unkind elbow in the chest crushed

him aside as Kirk fired past him into a lizardish

face that charged them

    out of the fanning leaves. In an instant the face,

its glare recoiled in shock, blew into hot

colors, and were erased by the bright civility of a

phaser strike. And what a stink it left behind.

"Thank you," Spock rasped as he levered himself

up. The side of his face was bleeding now, laid

open by the hand- sized overlapping scales on the

remains of the trunk. "Did you get Vernon out of

there?" Kirk asked. "Yes, sir. Roth is

defending the cave mouth."

    "Willingly?"

    "Quite willingly. He has no more desire to face

these individuals than we do."

    "You gave him a phaser?" Spock looked

insulted. "He's using a spear and a knife."

"Where are the other two dinosauroids?"

    "Unknown. When we killed the one that attacked

Vernon, the others ceased fire. They may have

fallen back, but it's more likely they're

also under attack by the troodonts. Thererand there."

    "Communicate to all hands to use phasers until

we drive the little ones back," Kirk said. "I

don't want to lose anybody else."

    "Very well." Spock scanned the shuddering,

noisy jungle, then turned and spoke as if they were

back on the ship's bridge, safe. "Are you

sure you're all right?" Kirk frowned but realized

he must really look a wreck for Spock to ask

twice. Probably had plant sap in his hair and

wood flakes all over his face. He turned the

frown into a shrug that gave the Vulcan his answer,

along with a companionable shove. "So I'll

impress the girls with my bruises. Go on."

Spock hesitated but ultimately knew he would

have to leave his debilitated captain whether he liked

it or not. Kirk silently appreciated the concern

but didn't like it. He was glad when Spock

filtered away into the bushes. "Be careful," he

called quietly after him. The situation scalded

him. The native assailants were a hell of a lot

more dangerous than intelligent aliens with modern

weapons that were at least a known quantity and something the

Starfleeters were accustomed to. These smart

primitives, though... they knew the

savage arts. Shrieks in the foliage shook him

out of his huddle. He recognized that noise--a

whine with a whip at the end. Yes, he'd heard that

before, while he and Spock were watching the troodonts

attacking the other dinosaur. An order. As the

foliage broke with activity and six or eight

troodonts surged out onto the slab, screaming at

the cave mouth, he realized he was right. That was the first

rank, ordered to attack by his smart little friend out

there. Roth plunged out of the cave mouth, fanning a

torch in one hand and a spear in the other, whipping the

torch in great half circles that drove the

troodonts leaping backward. It wouldn't work for

long. They weren't running away. Any second,

Roth would swing one way and the troodonts on the other

side would plunge in. They were working together--it was

obvious. Kirk fired his phaser and took out one

of the raptors closest to him, then swung around

to face the dark open jungle. There would be a

second flank, and he didn't want to have his back

to it. He fell back against the sheer rock and opened

fire with a wide burst. Four troodonts were

burned out of existence in front of him. The others

at the cave mouth whirled in shock, then two of them

charged him. He dodged, and their own body

weight carried them past him. They snapped at him

as he squirmed between them but couldn't get him.

Spinning around on his good leg, he was now in the

middle of the rockslab, right in the line of fire. So

he dropped flat and shouted, "Spock! Wheel

right! Fire!" At his order, Spock,

Emmendorf, and Reenie came out of the jungle,

firing in bursts all at once. Over the space

between them Kirk could see Spock's lips moving in

the order to fire, cannily using as little phaser power

as possible but staggering the shocked attackers with every

burst. Several of the animals were handily killed, the

rest terrified into falling back. At the cave

mouth, Roth had fallen back, out of the way. One

troodont squirmed on the rock slab, a spear

crammed up its throat and out the back of its head.

As he lay on the slab, Kirk forced up the

details McCoy had talked about when he examined

the dinosauroid corpse, and he tried to apply them

to the dying troodont ten feet from him. No

opposable thumb... The four-foot animal had

three long fingers, almost the same length. Binocular

vision... This animal's nose was not as down-turned

as the dinosauroid, but the beginnings of the change were

there. It still had pronounced eye-protection

plates to protect it from its friends' tails during

feeding frenzies. The dinosauroid's brow plates

were smaller, smoother. Devolving. Not needed in a

civilized society-- A thud on the ground beside

him shook him hard. He rolled over, phaser up,

and held his breath for one heartbeat to make sure he

wasn't about to fire into the face of one of his own people.

Bad breath hit him in the face, pushed by a

blustering scream, and he was looking down a nasty red

throat rimmed with two-inch-long disteeth, so close

he could see the serrations. He brought his knees up

and let out a blunt kick. His foot bolted into the

troodont's underside and knocked it'back a

step. That was all Kirk needed. He clutched his

phaser in both hands and fired. In a puff, the

troodont separated into a dozen burning blobs and

melted away, right in the middle of a good long

scream. The foliage was rustling wildly, like

maracas rattling in his ears. Gasping, Kirk

pushed himself up on his elbows, rolled over, and

struggled to his knees. Around him, the rock slab

was bloody but clear. The troodonts had retreated

into the jungle, their number cut in half. The dead

dinosauroid and the dead troodont lay inches from

each other, gaudy wounds oozing the same

red'blood. They looked like each other, but he knew

they weren't alike. It would be as if a human saw

a chimpanzee and thought it was the same because it had two

eyes, two legs, two arms, and a mouth. These

animals were millions of years apart. Now they were

here, dying together. He made it to one knee, then

stopped and gasped for air. His throat was dry,

caked with dust. Someone grasped his arm and hoisted him

to his feet. "Captain?" Spock held him up

with both hands. That meant he'd bolstered his phaser.

That meant he thought he didn't need it anymore.

Good. They had control of the moment. Kirk nodded at

his logic. "I'm fine," he choked. All he

wanted was a drink of water. "Situation?"

    "The troodonts have retreated. There is no

sign of the dinosauroids. Evidently there were only

three of them." Kirk nodded again. "Not a bad

day's work... Doesn't give us any answers

though..."

    "Captain!" Dale Bannon stood at the edge

of the stone slab, holding his phaser at arm's length.

In front of him he ushered one of the oddest

creatures Kirk had ever seen. With its arms

folded back at rest against a decorated leather

harness, the dinosauroid gazed at him--not

at anyone else, but at Kirk specifically. It

knew he was the captain. That meant it was familiar

with Starfleet color coding,. Its face was

painted, but with more colors than the other ones. Red,

yellow, bronze, in a zigzag design across the

elegant, primitive face. Its brown eyes were

particularly intelligent, even over the decidedly

hideous rows of snaggled teeth. "Prisoner,

sir," Bannon said.

    Inside the cave, James Kirk limped to the

back, where his ship's surgeon was trying to hold the

tenuous threads of life still pulsing in Ensign

Vernon. Condemning himself for his prudence in saving

phaser energy, he boiled at the sight of his downed

Security man. "How bad?" he asked. "I

don't know yet, Captain," McCoy said. To their

right, on the other side of the cave, the prisoner

narrowed its eyes at Emmendoff and Bannon,

flexed its long-boned hands with their notable claws,

but clearly had no desire to take on the humans

as long as they held trinse phasers. Every time it

flexed a claw at him, Emmendorf teased with his

weapon and the animal backed off. "Well," Kirk

muttered, "it knows what a phaser is. And it's just

like that one. The same face painting same

size, same features, energy weapons... You were

right, Bones. It's an advanced being."

    "She's a she." McCoy said casually,

glancing up from his bloody patient to the new

prisoner. "Female." Kirk shifted only his

eyes. "How do you know?" The doctor looked up

with a devilish flicker in his eye. "Trust me. And

as long as we're on the subjt, she was in charge.

The other ones were acting on her gestures."

    "How do you know that?"

    "Just happened to notice. While I was trying

to keep my throat from getting slashed, that is. And

notice, Captain, she's slightly larger than the

males. That might be normal in her culture.

It's very common in the wild, anywhere you look." A

female. A great thick-legged, smooth-sealed,

snaggle-toothed, yellow-eyed gift with a beautiful

tail sweeping the air placidly behind her, watching

him with an expression decidedly intelligent.

Waiting for him to take the next step. Not an it,

nor even a he, but a she. McCoy suddenly

stood up, wiping his hands. "I've done all I can

for him, Captain," he said, looking down at

Vernon. "His ribcage is partially crushed, and

I've set and bound it. He doesn't have

many open wounds. We all have our own personal

rate of recuperation. We just have to wait." He

sighed and turned to the dinosauroid prisoner, and his

blue eyes flared with interest. "Now... I'm going

to treat her." He stooped, picked up his medical

implements, and straightened again. In those seconds,

something ehangeck As he stepped past Kirk, the

captain snatched him by the arm and held him back.

"No. Don't treat her." McCoy stared at

him. "She's got slashes from her spine to her

underside! Her shoulder's laid open! I've got

a duty to that?

    "My duty comes first," Kirk said. "I have

to find answers. Her discomfort might encourage her

to talk."

    "Jim, that's barbaric!"

    "That's right."

    "Jim, she doesn't belong here! She's an

advanced being She's just like that animal over there!" The

doctor swung an arm and pointed at the creature

he had autopsied. "Neither one of these are from

sixty-five million years ago on Earth.

Spock's right--there can't be that big a gap in the

fossil record!"

    "What about the DNA results? You said

the dead one is absolutely from Earth. Didn't you

say that?" As if he'd forgotten, McCoy withdrew

his accusing finger. "I don't know... I don't

understand that part."

    "Then get your equipment out and take a DNA

sample from he I'm going to get to the bottom of this

if I have to have my own leg cut off and dissected!"

Overwhelmed, McCoy mumbled, "We'll

probably find out you're a dinosaur, too." He

sighed and moved toward the fourteen-foot-long

dinosauroid who sat in sexlate, civilized

repose, watching them. She drew back her head from

the doctor as he approached, but when Emmendorf

put his phaser into her prehistoric face, she

knew exactly what that meant. McCoy glanced

at Kirk, then drew a sample of her blood for

his test and withdrew as quickly as he could. Kirk paced

toward the prisoner. She never took her eyes off

him. She didn't belong here any more than the

Enterprise crew did. He tried to think like a

paleontologist: to ignore the obvious and look for

subtle differences. At first glance, she was just a

large version of those troodonts who had attacked

them, but that's not what she was. He noticed that she

held her body, her posture, more upright

than the troodonts. Her jaws were smaller in

relation to her size than theirs. She held her head

higher. Her hands were more free to maneuver, her arms

longer, her thumb more opposable. No, she didn't

belong here. So why was she here? Ready to prosecute

somebody for stealing his planet out from under his aching

feet, Kirk snapped his fingers into the hot air

over one of the fires. "Where's that translator we

had on the other Klingon? Did he take it?"

    "Right here, sir."

    "Hand it over, gn." He snatched it from

Reenie, fumbled briefly with it, then at

Emmendorf's phaser point slipped it over the

large, elegant head of the prisoner. Then he

stepped back. "Do you understand what I'm saying

to you?" The dinosauroid didn't respond. But her

expression, the creases of her shimmering boalike

skin, and the way she drew her nose downward gave

her away. He squared his shoulders, his instincts on

to something. "I'm Captain James T. Kirk of the

U.s.s. Enterprise and you know damned well

what I'm doing here, don't you?" Again she said

nothing, but her head shrank back on that long curved

neck and her face turned a little to the side as if

she had been slapped. Her dark eyes

widened, then abruptly narrowed. Yes, she knew.

He bent forward, crushing down the instinctive

revulsion of staring into a long, slim gray face of

scales, leering eyes, and two-inch-long serrated

teeth. "That equipment your people are hauling," he

drummed, and he was unremitting. "It's an

asteroid deflector, isn't it?" The

dinosauroid's eyes widened. She drew her head

farther back in subtle response. Kirk leaned

forward to match her backing away, and he gave her his

catlike glare. "Who are you?" he demanded. "And

what are you doing in my past?"

Chapter 27

    THE PRISONER blinked at him, enthralling and

savage in her saurian way. Her tail moved

slowly one way, then the other, clawed fingers hanging

down. "Oya." The translator seemed to have an

easier time with her vocal inflections than it had with the

Klingons', which, given the shape of her mouth,

didn't make any sense at all. "I am a

scientist. No soldier." Kirk almost jumped

into her lap, so relieved was he to hear a real

language. Not just paint on a face or a harness

or energy weapons, but the most critical trait

of the civilized: communication. "Oya..."

He glanced at McCoy. "Is that a greeting?"

Before the doctor had a chance to postulate, the

dinosauroid rippled, "It is my name." Kirk

licked his lips. "What are you doing here?"

    "Research."

    "Why did you choose this planet?"

    "A good jungle." Straightening, Kirk backed

off a step as he felt his legs going numb. He

didn't want to fall on a prisoner. Wouldn't

look right. "Captain, talk to you a minute?"

McCoy came out of Kirk's periphery, clearly

troubled, holding his medical tricorder with both

hands. "I have a partial result here... enough to risk

a conclusion."

    "Over here. Spock, you too." Dragging a

menacing pall like a security blanket, Kirk led

the way aside. "G." McCoy didn't like what

he had to say. "Well, the medical tricorder

hasn't got the capacity of the ship's computer, that's

why running these sequences are taking SO long, but the

DNA sample from the... from her... It's just like the

other one." Kirk popped an eyebrow at him.

"From Earth$9" Like a guilty man, McCoy

nodded. "Unless I've made a grievous error."

    "Have you?"

    "No, I haven't." Beside him, Spock was a

pillar of sobriety, and that was damned annoying right

now. "Captain, this is a disturbing incongruity."

    "Thank you, I thought of that. What are we going

to do about it?"

    "Further tests*."

    "We don't have time for that. We either have a

million years or ten minutes, and we don't know

which. There she sits, an advanced being with weapons like

ours and a language and the whole bucket of brass,

as out of place as we are. She's our answer,

gentlemen. We just don't have the right questions yet."

    "Perhaps we do, sir." Spock folded his arms and

lowered his voice, his tone grimly hopeful. "We

have encountered races in parts of the galaxy where

logically they earmot have evolved, on planets where

they live out of context with the indigenous life. I

submit that Oya may not be quite the incongruity we

believe she is." He looked at Kirk with that

brow up and those eyes sparkling, and though he said

nothing more, he was still talking. Kirk kept looking

at him, just to make sure they were thinking the same thing

He swung around. Well, he clunked around.

"Analysis, Bones. Do you have a record of this

species anywhere in our known galaxy?"

Feeling left out, the doctor raised despairing

hands. "I'm telling you, Jim, like it or not, she's

from Earth!"

    "I don't accept that. Give me a new

analysis or I'll order you to grow a mustache so

I can pull it out."

    "Well, there's a command you don't hear every day.

I'll do my best, Captain."

    Kirk circled the dinosauroid prisoner,

scanning her harness and her reposing form, avoiding her

resting tail. She followed him with her eyes, her

large head turning almost completely around on that long

neck to look straight behind her. As he continued

pacing, she whipped the head back around to catch him

on the other side.

    He had a specific question to ask, but it would get

him either the truth or a lie, and he wouldn't be able

to tell the difference. He had to be smarter than that.

    "Starfleet has been watching you," he handily

lied. "We followed you through the Guardian of

Forever."

    Except for a flicker of recognition, the lady

didn't react. She wasn't curious or

surprised, and Kirk grabbed that as a clue. She

knew what the Guardian was and what it

did. Somehow, she and her team had found it. Maybe

through spies, maybe by following a trail of

folklore.

    Damned few knew about that place, classified

since Kirk and his crew had discovered it.

Starfleet maintained an outpost there, but the

machine's existence was kept secret as a

potentially dangerous mechanism.

    Now he understood even more than he had the time before,

when tampering with history had almost destroyed everything

they knew.

    That time, it had been an accident. It had seemed

complicated then, but suddenly he realized how much

harder the fix would be now, to alter not an accident, but

a deliberate sabotage of time.

    He hated this. He hated playing with time.

    "Who are you that you want to inflict so much damage

on everything you've ever known?"

    She didn't respond. Those big brown eyes

blinked at him, incongruous with her bony face and

yet somehow beautiful there, like a set of onyx stones

set in snakeskin.

    "I know who it is."

    They turned.

    Bannon stood at the back of the cave,

his face pasty,

    revealing an unmistakable flicker of giving a

damn.

    Kirk took a pace toward him. "Well?"

    "I think I know... I did a paper...

junior year..."

    "Snap out of it, Lieutenant. What's the

bottom line?"

    Bannon's chin tucked and his eyes were still heavy with

turmoil. "I think she's one of the Clan Ru."

    "Clan Ru," Speck repeated as he turned

and looked at Oya. "Yes... possibly..."

    "Clan who?" McCoy asked.

    "I've never heard of them," Kirk said, insisting

with his tone that he shouldn't have to ask. He looked at

Oya and got at least a partial answer when she

glared at Bannon with those wide yellow eyes as

if he'd opened her safe. "Speck?" he urged.

    Gazing at Oya, Speck came toward them.

"Translated originally, Ru simply means

"all." The Clan of All. Their culture is

like Orion sects and some original American

Indian tribes who consider their Own tribe to be

the only life with a soul."

    "In other words, if you're not the chosen

'oids," then you don't exist morally. Laws and

rights and any supernatural

    consideration don't extend beyond their own species?"

    "Correct."

    "So they wouldn't lose any sleep over

eradicating the rest of US."

    Bannon took a few steps forward. "They never

wanted to participate in the Federation, even though

they're well inside our space. They've gotten

most of the benefits of membership anyway.

Protection, emergency supplies,

technology..."

    "The Federation had to make an unfortunate

choice," Spock said. "The Ru planet was so

deeply embedded inside UFP space that we had

to surround them. They were offered membership and could have

claimed it at any time. Still they refused

to participate. They have been left alone but have never

mixed with us."

    In a sideward gaze riddled with anger, Kirk

watched Oya's face. "Well?" he prodded. The

female turned her ovoid head slightly to one

side, and suddenly it was as if the two of them had

known each other for years. Millions of years.

After all, they had been playing a bizarre

game of tag for many dangerous hours now, and each

knew only haft of the rules. He paced in

front of her, then stopped. "Are you going to talk

to me?" "Our place in the galaxy is

providential," Oya said, her long lips moving

against the grain of the sounds that came out of the

translator, and there was a coo and hiss behind the

words. "We were thriving before humanoids came.

Nature wanted us. Predators are critical

to natural health. You have seen on your own planet

what happens when only the prey flourishes.

You... held us down."

    "You're talking about primitive existence,"

Kirk punctuated. "We've not only beaten down

the blatant predator, but the shivering of the prey. This

way, intelligence flourishes in both. That's what

you're. trying to destroy, don't you understand?"

Provoked, he pressed closer, his eyes intense.

"We didn't hold you down in order to hold you

back. The Clan was welcome to flourish with the

Federation. Exclusion has been your own choice.

Only the lazy blame someone else for their

inferiority."

    "Lazy!," the Ru scientist tlared, tail and

all, and the stripe of color down her back

surged reddish brown. "Is that what you think of us?"

    "Maybe." Kirk refused to flinch. "And what

do you think of us?" She looked at him, then scanned

Spock, McCoy, the Klingon. Finally she

looked back at Kirk. "You are meat," she said

    He had his answers. He even had some of the questions.

An asteroid deflector dragged into the deep past

to murder the greatest murderer of all time, the mindless

rock that had changed the history of the galaxy. The

realization was 11ing that someone with a plot and

purpose had changed the past deliberately. Most

planets had their upheavals and cataclysms, but

seldom was there one remarkable event to which the

development of a whole new set of species could

cling. The dinosaurs rumbled over Earth for

hundreds of millions of years to be snuffed in a

relatively short passage by the smothering dust of a

once-in-a-billion-years event: the impact of

an asteroid that swung too close and was sucked in

by the planet's own gravity. Space was big, too

big for things like that to happen very often. Entire

galaxies had been cataloged passing through each

other, virtually without impact. Yet there had been

impact here, right here. And now there was tampering, A

race that wanted to change everything, botch

up the future so they could take charge of it.

Bloodcurdled and feeling discarded, Sames Kirk

leaned on his cane and absorbed the incomprehensible.

"They want a future without humanity," he said,

"because humanity started the Federation." Spock nodded.

"Her attitude explains why the Clan has

resisted contact."

    "Yes, it does," McCoy agreed. "Would you

want to have W make small talk with your lunch?

Jim, what if we try negotiating with her landing

party? Maybe they want to live through this as much as we

do." Kirk scowled at Oy "They want

possession of something that isn't theirs. They want

supremacy that they don't deserve. I won't

negotiate on those terms."

    "Then tell me this" the doctor challenged. "If

the Guardian shows the native past of whoever is

l1looking at it... I mean, if the Klingons

would see the past of their planet, and the Argelians

would see the past of theirs, then how did the Clan

Ru landing party jump through into Earth's past instead of

their own planet's?"

    "Good question." His mouth screwing up with frustration,

.kirk glowered at him. "I hate good questions.

All hands, prepare to break camp."

    "Where are we going?" The captain gzed north

into the gauze of dawn. "Up the mountain. We're

going to knock out that launcher before it knocks out

humanity."

Chapter 28

    "Tracking the microscopic residue of complex

metals, Captain. This is the correct path."

The killing ground lay beneath them on the plateau,

nearly saturated into the landscape now. Large

pterosaurs and small ones, as well as scavengers

of other types, and even a few of the troodonts who

had done the killing were clustered around the

much-decimated corpses of the animals now known as

Oya's Clan Ru conspirators in the sabotage

of time. Behind him, Emmendorf and Roth brought the

unconscious Vernon along on a makeshift

stretcher, while Bannon held a phaser on

Roth, just in case. Oya slogged up the path under

Reenie's phaser but did not look down to the

plateau. Another clue. Or at least a kind of

confirmation. Treading the soft ground of a haywire

universe, Kirk was thinking about ways to get information

out of Oya when he went down on one knee for the

fifth time in twenty minutes. Emmendorf plunged

in to catch him. "I'll help you, sir!"

    "Ensign," Spock said smoothly and managed

to tactfuller take over. "Scan the peak of this

incline for metallic residue."

    "Oh," Emmendorf said, backing off and taking

Spock's tricorder. "Aye, sir." Kirk

leaned into Spock's support and levered himself to his

feet, but he could barely fall his lungs. Maybe

it was the altitude. Before he could take a step, his

insides convulsed. He locked his knees, but the

pain crushed his eyes closed and he wouldn't get far

that way. "Take it easy, Jim. Let us sit you

down." That was McCoy on the other side from

Spock. Kirk didn't want to sit down, not in

front of two potential enemies. That could work to the

wrong advantage, and right now he needed all the

advantages to himself. He forced his eyes open a

fraction, saw brown dirt, and spore-matted

stones below. were his legs moving at least? He

didn't want to be carried. The movement stopped.

The angle of his spine changed, the balance of his

heavy head also. Two Spocks, two McCoys.

Double vision? Great. Two wrecked universes.

He leaned back a little and found support. They'd

put him down on a rock or something and he leaned

back against the mountain. Good thing it was there,

sea levels rising and all. McCoy, you've got

to do something about this. A hypo hissed in the hollow of

his shoulder, andwitha jolt his head began to clear. He

dared open his eyes. One Spock, standing beside him,

holding him up... one McCoy in front of him,

holding a hypo and waiting. One haywire

universe. Fine. He could handle one. He

pressed a hot hand to his forehead, then pressed his

hair out of his eyes. "Better," he said. "Take

over the scan, Spock. I'll be all right."

Spock looked at McCoy, who nodded and waved

him away. Vernon's stretcher was on the ground.

Reenie and Bannon held Roth and Oya under

guard a few yards away. Emmendorf was looking

over the incline, fascinated with the scene of day-old

mutilation down there. On the upper end of the incline,

Spock fanned his tricorder across the ground. "We

should be able to track them, assuming they do not raise this

equipment off the round or veer into the deep

jungle."

    "I will not help you," Oya said when Kirk

looked at her. "I don't need your help," he

said. It was all he could do to push out the statement without

giving away that he was on the edge of collapse.

He had been slogging along in the middle of

his team, careful to keep away from the prisoners, because

an injured captain could very easily become a

helpless hostage and his crewmen didn't need any

more problems than they already had.

    "Jim." McCoy crouched beside him with that

gohdarnit concern on his face that he reserved for

moments when he had some data but didn't believe

it.

    Softened somewhat by the humanizing sight of a bit of

moss clinng to McCoy's dusty brown hair,

Kirk asked, "Something?"

    Disarmed, McCoy's animated features

accepted the damnable. He patted the medical

tricorder. "It's confirmed. I've been through the

DNA sequences three times, I've run the

palcoanatomical data up against the information I have

about the Ru from our own time. It doesn't make any

sense, but the apparently alien species calling

themselves Clan Ru are almost assuredly an

Earthborn race. I don't know how they got to where

they ended up, Captain... but they started right here."

The doctor pointed at the ground beneath them like a farmer

poking a cow to get into the barn.

    "If this is true," Kirk said, "then what we

were looking at down the mountain... Those were

intelligent, advanced, scientific individuals

being slaughtered by--"

    "By their own prehistoric ancestors," McCoy

confirmed. "Direct evolutionary line. I'll

bet I could trace it as completely as we've

traced the evolution of the modern horse."

    Under the flurry of new thoughts, Kirk mumbled,

"I like horses..." Hearing hirnff, he gripped

his cane with both hands and pushed to his feet.

    With McCoy's steadying hand on his elbow, he

limped between Reenie and Bannon to where the prisoners

were being held.

    He forced himself to stand there, immutable, as Spock

came down the incline to his side. Little glances were

worth a good strong yell anytime.

    With his two most trusted companions at his

sides, he squarely faced the Ru scientist and

steeled himself to do the best he could at the strangest

story ever told.

    "Oya," he began, "listen to me. I don't

know how, I don't know when, but some time in the past

many millions of years, there was a... crossover

between your past and mine. You are Clan Ru, I know,

with your own past. But in the deep beginning, Clan

Ru was spawned not on your own planet...

but on Earth."

    The female dinosauroid blinked at him again in

that way she had. Her head moved backward on that

long neck.

    Kirk drew a breath to keep going and held out

an imploring hand.

    "After the time changes you made," he continued, "the

Clan began on Earth and this time continued on Earth.

The transplantation that we believe happened, this time

never occurred. The Clan evolved here and went on

here, cycle after cycle. But there was never unity.

Your people fought among yourselves eon after eon... to utter

obliteration. By changing evolution," he said, "you

made yourselves extinct millions of years before any

of us would have been born."

    With a flash of panic in her eyes and attitude,

the Ru scientist looked from Kirk to Spock and

back. In the silence the jungle began to sizzle with

insect noises in the extended silence.

    Oya was thinking about what had just been said, combing the

conclusions, the basic premises, walking backward

step by step through the logic, weighing the elements that

took blind trust and could never be proven. They could

tell she did not want to believe what she had been

heard, but this was a creature who had stepped

through the Guardian of Forever to do something that was also beyond

credibility.

    She knew the impossible did exist. She was here

to do it.

    "If I am of Earth," she reckoned slowly,

"how can I have my own planet? My own history?

If I am dead forty million years before you, then

how am I alive?" Kirk stepped back and waved

at the empty space between them. "Mr. Spock...

one scientist to another, would you address the lady,

please?" Spock stepped forward, gazing at the

round, steadied himself and his theories with a pause of

effort, then looked up. He spoke slowly.

"Federation scientists have logged evidence of the seeding of

some species from one plan, et to another by beings in

our distant past. Some have taken to referring to the

source of this seeding as done by an intelhgent

interference by "the Preservers." I find the

phrase somewhat poetic. Federation research has

suggested that there has been conscious intent to rescue

certain cultural and genetic pools and

transplant them to planets where they had a chance

to survive. This theory fits the case of the Clan

Ru. Can you tell me whether there is any genetic

link between your species and the planet on which

you live?" "There is none," Oya said blunfiy,

"because we were placed there by choice of providence. We

were meant to survive and control those around us."

    "Mmm," Spock noted grimly. "As a

scientist, you know that such an explanation is

mythological and incomplete. What we do know for

certain is that your DNA sequences are undeniably

tied to Earth's biosystem. Yet in the normal

scheme of evolution you did not evolve here beyond the

strike of the asteroid. Though we cannot conclude the

method, we know your ancestral line was somehow tagged

as ultimately intelligent, then rescued and

transplanted from this planet to your planet. According

to the accepted scientific evidence, the conclusion

is... quite credible." There was something about Spock, his

simple poise and understated delivery. His hair was

still in place despite what they'd been through, his

tidy blue uniform only had one stain on it, and

he still had good posture. He could be reciting

flapdoodle and it would sound completely plausible.

Oya was staring at him, running over it and over it.

Reeled with respect for her that she didn't flare out

with disbelief at them, Kirk was suddenly flushed with

how silly all that really did sound. Leap after

leap, based on things they'd seen or that had

been recorded by people they trusted, but that she hadn't and

didn't. But she wasn't dismissing what they had

said. She was considering it. Truly advanced... He

had to choke up something, and it had to be fast.

"Doctor," Kirk said, "give her the medical

tricorder. She's a scientist--let her see the

DNA results. Let her look at the

comparisons we've made between her and the animals here.

Let her see for herself... just who she is. And give

her Spock's tricorder as well Show her what

kind of Earth her actions will create." McCoy

handed Oya the tricorder. As she held it in her

graceful prehistoric fingers, he tapped the

display, then stood back to let the magic box work.

History spun by on the tiny screen. No one could

see it but the prisoner and, a few feet behind her,

Roth. Kirk held still and waWhed them, gripping his

cane with both hands until his knuckles went

numb. How many times in his career had he ajoled,

coaxed, begged, taunted someone to cross over to his

way of thinlting for the sake of whatever was on the line

at the time? And when in his career had so much been on the

line? Words weren't enough anymore. He'd used all

he had. Now there would be only the raw candor of

faith in himself and in unimpeachable science, in

Spock, McCoy, and in all the probity they could

t agros8 with the moral strength of their actions.

He hoped the integrity of everything he stood for showed

in his face. Sometimes it just came down to that. Some

latent magnetism fxed him not to Oya as the tiny

lights plastered across the pain on her face, but

to Roth as he watched from behind. A Klingon.

Hostile, angry, suspicious. Did he

believe? No way to know. A guess could be fatal

in a very large sense. But all Jim Kirk felt

he had right now was a sack of guesses and a couple

of seeds of hope. Suddenly, before anyone

expected, Oya looked up from the tricorder. She

looked at Spo then at McCoy, and

lyWill-'lans! her lips to speak, the interpret;

aai thetranslator was hauntingly different disany

sound she had made before.

    She-blinked her eyes. "We have destroyed

ourselves."

PART FOUR

    FORK IN THE FUTURE

    "Out here we're the only policemen around. And a

crime has been committed. Do I make myself

clear"

    --James Kirk, Arena

Chapter 29

    THERE iThat WENT. What could stop it now?

Nothing. No phaser could reach out there, no will, no

determination, no command. It was off and flying on the

way to its appointment with the dot in the sky.

    From behind, Oya came to stand on the other side of

Spock, gazing with surprising expression into the

sky. Her arms hung limp. Her tail was down.

    The smoke of blastoff stung Kirk's eyes and

scorched his lungs. Helplessness washed through him.

    On the other side of the platform, Zalt pulled

himself to his feet. His face was seared, his skull

ridge bleeding, his hair wild, but he had

succeeded.

    With a glance at Kirk and Spock and one final,

"Hah!" of victory, he angled into the jungle and

disappeared at a dead run.

    Spock tensed to give chase, but Kirk grasped

his first officer's wrist. "Don't bother," he said.

    The platform was bare now, scorched and littered with

support struts broken during the launch, now lying

blackened and smoldering. From somewhere in the smoke,

Roth came staggering toward them, his face a mask of

bitter anger.

    "Give me a weapon," he demanded.

    Kirk managed to straighten a little but didn't

say anything.

    Roth glared at him and Spock, then shouted,

"Give me a weapon!"

    When none of them moved, and Spock certainly

wasn't going to hand over his phaser, Roth dodged

toward them and yanked a serrated knife from Oya's

harness.

    Kirk had returned Oya's weapon when he

released her. Now, that seemed to have been a

mistake.

    Now Roth had the knife. He waved it before them

and blasted, "I will make one more emotional act!"

    He turned, picked his way past the launcher through

the smoke, then jumped down a slope and charged into the

jungle in the direction Zalt had taken.

    "I'm sorry, Captain," Spock rasped, his

words laden with emotion he would otherwise have denied.

He was watching

    the sky again. He didn't care about the Klingons.

    Kirk didn't either. Failure, failure.

    The biggest failure of all time. Suddenly all

the successes of his career were canceled out. Nothing

mattered.

    Bitterly, he moved away from

Spock, away from Oya. He kept his back to the

lower area where his crewmen were holding the spikers.

He didn't want to look at McCoy. But he

had to turn when a flurry erupted down there. He

looked without really turning all the way around.

    The spikers were breaking up, rushing past Bannon

and the others, who weren't sure whether or not to shoot

them now. Bannon fired and stunned one spiker, but

the others disappeared into the jungle.

    Why not? Their mission was completed. All they had

to do was melt into this environment and survive as long as

they could in a place that was ideal for them.

    Gritting his teeth to keep from bellowing, he stared

into the sky at the fizzling spot that was the deflector

rocket, now very small, off to orbit the Earth and

wait until the asteroid attracted it. They'd

probably see the impact from here.

    "Damn," he murmured. "Oh, damn."

    Nearby, Oya also stared. There didn't seem

to be much else to do now.

    "Captain," she buzzed, "I have never been so

ashamed."

    His jaw working to hold in the rage, Kirk stared

another two seconds, then stepped away. "You should

be."

    It was a simple device according to Oya. It would

orbit the Earth placidly until the asteroid

came close, then the tiny matterstantimatter

container inside the warhead would split the asteroid

into millions of harmless chunks. They would be witness

to one of the prettiest meteor showers of all time, but

that would be all.

    She explained how she had asked the "Forever

Machine" to show her and her team pictures of

Earth's history, and of course it had given them those

pictures, because in the distant past they were from Earth.

They had used their version of tricorders to slow the

pictures, then jumped through at the right moment. Now

the asteroid was less than two days away.

    The Clan team had cut it close to make sure

nothing could go wrong,

    Kirk brooded like a charcoal fire. No

matter how he combed the problem, there was nothing he could

do. They had hand phasers and a few Ru energy

weapons, but there wasn't enough power there to hit the

asteroid from the surface or even hit the

deflector in geosynchronous orbit,

twenty-three thousand miles up. They were sunk without

a trace. Spock appeared and sat beside him on the

bump of snarled roots he was using as a

command chair. "Oya says the orbiter has no

receivers of any kind, no internal command devices

other than its basic control computer, which cannot receive

an incoming signal of any sort. There's no way

to tamper with it or alter its instructions from here."

    "Not even something as simple as changing its

orbit?" Kirk asked. "Maybe we can make it

go to the other side of the planet when the asteroid

comes."

    "Even from the other side of the planet, it has

sufficient time to find the asteroid, sir." Kirk

picked up a stick and cracked it in half, then in

fourths. "There's got to be something we can do,

Spock... something we're not thinking of. If only

my head would clear up--"

    "My head is clear," Spock said quickly,

resisting the twang of guilt in Kirk's voice.

"And I can think of nothing that will reach twenty-three

thousand miles from here." The sticks cracked in

Kirk's hands. His knuckles were swollen. His own

breath roared in his ears. Twenty-three thousand

miles. Twenty-three thousand... "Wait a

minute--" He raised his head suddenly. "Did you

ask her whether or not that thing's in gcosynchronous

orbit?" Spock blinked. "Oyai

Oya, come here!" Kirk hobbled toward the sad

dinosauroid who had been crouching near the useless

platform since the thing blasted off. "How far above us

is your detonator in orbit? Is it in

synchronous orbit around the equator?

Twenty-three thousand miles up?" Oya glanced

at Spock, then back, and waited for the

translator to come through with those numbers in her own

language. "No... it has a small thruster

system. We did not want to take the chance of wide

orbit. It orbits only two hundred miles

above us."

    "Hell!" Kirk swung toward Spock. "We

can practically touch it from here!" He rounded on

Oya again. "Did you bring any spare launching

equipment? Backups? You must have assumed something

could go wrong!"

    "Yes, we have a etude backup launch

system, but it is meant to be used with the detonm"

"Spock! Gather up every scrap of extra

equipment they have, everything we have, and calculate

all the energy left in our phasers and the Ru

weapons combined. Organize all hands and have them

pick up the scattered pieces of the platform and those

antigravs over there and the tools down the

slope. We're gonna shoot that popgun down!"

Chapter 30

    "AM-THAT How long will you run? Come and face

me, you low thing! I can go forever! Do you know how long

forever will be today? Step out of the weeds! I will find a

way back, do you hear me? Somehow I'll go back

and tell everyone what you are! If I have to come back

as the spirit of their own disappointment, I'll do it!

I'll tell them all about you, ,oward!" He had

been running, pushing, rattling, through the prehistoric

understory of plants and weeds for a long time. He had

no idea how long. His throat was raw, that was how

long. Shouting insults was a lot of work. Above him

towered silent conifers, standing as they had for

decades, and now as they would for decades more. No,

Kirk would find some way. He was that kind of man.

Somehow there was an answer, another chance, an

alternative, and that man would find it. He wouldn't

give up. And so Roth refused to give up, pushing

unremittantly through the bushes, wild eyed, shouting

anything he could think that might tease Zalt from

hiding. Just when he thought he could conjure up no

worse words than he already had, he would cough up

something else." There was a lot to say about Zalt.

So far he had cursed Zalt, Klingons,

the Klingon home planets, their moons, several

ships and their crews, Zalt again, and when he fell

and bruised his skull, he cursed the rock that had

tripped him. As he scrambled to his feet again,

caked with spores and wet soil and the defecation of some

animal--large--be stumbled out onto an angled

flat slab of ground where the surface had been

worn away and only stone was left. There was much of

that in these mountains, strata heaved up at vaulting

angles as the mountains were pushed up from underneath.

Something about a midocean fault and planetary

surface plates crumpling this part of the continent.

He had heard Kirk and the Vulcan talking about it.

Until now, he hadn't eared. "You smell like a

barn." Roth spun around. Zalt stood a few

paces away, face flushed purple with anger.

Roth stalked toward his commander, his leader, his better,

his tormenter. "I am ashamed to be Kiingon, and before

I die I'm going to do one decent thing. I'm going

to kill you." Zalt smiled. "You're going to kill

me with that little blade?"

    "You are the attitude that has wrecked us,"

Roth said. "Refusal to question what you see,

refusal to question what you want. If you want

to kill, then kill. If you want something

someone else has, then get it. If someone is in

your way, enslave them or kill them. That's all

we are! It's not the Vulcans who embarrass me!

It's youJust" He flung the knife over the

embankment stretching out to one side of them and listened

to it clatter. Without glancing as the knife went

clicking down the embankment, Zalt let his grin

fall away. "These humans... they are more our

enemy than the romuluSngan ever were. All these

turtledoves who say they will not fight, yet in their

'universe" they have imprisoned the Klingous in their

own space."

    "Where they come from, everyone lives better because men

like him insist that everyone behave." what he says?

I'm not surprised, Roth. You're just angry because

you're going to die a bad Klingon." Roth didn't

plunge, didn't run or jump forward, but walked

to Zalt and took him by the collar in a manner so

mellow that Zalt didn't resist or grasp at

Roth's hands. "We are all bad Klingons,"

Roth said. "Kill, eat, and be eaten. So go. Be

with your own kind." With a sudden surge of power,

unexpected and unbalanced, he pushed Zalt

sideways onto one foot and continued pushing. When

Zalt realized this was all the fight would

be, it was too late. Roth cupped the side of

Zalt's head and pushed hard. Zalt spun off the

side of the embankment and rolled roughly down,

tumbling with his legs bent and his arms flung out. At

the bottom of the embankment, caught softly by a

bundle of ragged pollen-bearing catkins, Zalt

bumped to a stop. Dirty and bruised, he fumbled

to his feet and glowered up at Roth, who was watching

without expression. Zalt raised his fists

to emphasize his anger, but movement at his sides

distracted him. He looked.

    Open mouths rowed with serrated teeth snapped at

the air nearby. Five... seven... ten...

yellow eyes narrowed. Long-tailed bodies drew

downward in attack stance. Crescent claws

clicked on the rocks.

    From above, just as the slashing began, he heard one

last insult from Roth as a scream bolted from his own

throat.

    "Cry, victim."

    The launcher was crude. No, it was worse.

    Hardly more than a black tin box six meters

square, a metal hut cannibalized from one of the

spikers' cargo carriers, with eight antigravs

strapped, glued, or fused to it. Four

Starfleet tricorders inside to read four Clan

trioorders mounted outside. There were even two long

skinny "windows" made out of sheets of transparent

ilex-aluminum that Oya's team had brought with them in

rolls.

    The weapons had provided fuel for the launch,

antigrays would keep them two hundred miles

up, and the thrusters would hold them in place while

waiting for the detonator to swing around the Earth. Then,

one phaser would be enough.

    And all the while they were cannibalizing the old

launcher and fitting in standby equipment to do things beyond

intent, the glow in the sky got bigger and brighter.

Overnight, it had set like the sun as the Earth

turned, and this morning it had risen, closer now.

    Twenty-nine hours later, the thing in the sky was

bigger than the moon, glowing and oblong. As if

packed with purpose instead of iron, it was racing

toward the Earth at fifty thousand miles per hour.

When it hit--if it didwit would bore sixty

miles into the planeifs mantle.

    Strange... to be sitting here, wishing with all his

heart for that to happen.

    As Spock circled the strange contraption they'd

built, Kirk watched him and measured off

their chances of success by the look in the Vulcan's

face.

    Well, maybe that wasn't the best idea.

    They hadn't let him do much work, and he was in bad

enough shape not to argue. They worked fast, but that didn't

    ease his frustrations. He was their captain and he

should be working at their sides.

    Oya interrupted his plagued thoughts when she came

to settle beside him like a big chicken on a nest.

    "We are nearly finished," she said. "We have

fueled the launcher with several phasers and all of the

spikers' pistols. After the launcher gives

initial thrust, the antigrays will take the box

up. Then the combined thrusters and antigravs will steer.

At first we thought it would fail, but Mr. Spock

devised a method of combining them. The tricorders

on the outside will serve as sensors and aiming

devices to be read off by someone inside. There is

no navigation equipment, but there are the eight

antigrays and seven of you. Mr. Spock will work

two of them, but it will take all of you to keep the

platform from spinning out of control. I am sorry there

is no way for your crew to be safe. Even if you

manage to shoot the deflector down, there will be no

way to come back or land lightly if you do

come down by mistake somehow."

    "On the surface or in orbit," Kirk said,

"I don't think it much matters. I could let your

machine crack up the asteroid and we'd all have a

savage life of raw survival here, or we can go

up there and probably die, but I'm not giving up this

chance for our handful of lives. That's not why any of us

joined Starfleet."

    "You are a brave man."

    "I'm a desperate man. They're often the

same. After all, you were willing to give up your

life when you thought it would bring your people something better.

You just turned out to be wrong."

    "Most wrong." She lowered her monstrous head,

her eyes surprisingly human.

    "How much air will there be left in that thing?"

    "Perhaps two hours, three--"

    "Did you say seven of us? You're not going with

us?"

    She turned her large toothy head and seemed very

civilized. "I cannot go. There is no room for

me."

    "We'll make room."

    "No, Captain. It is an old story with my

people. We have

    the wrong body for space. Small ships,

corridors, companionways--these are hard for us.

Those of us who have taken to space for a profession, many

have their tails amputated to make them more like

humanoids. Besides, as you say, on the surface

or not, it doesn't matter after tomorrow."

Sympathizing, Kirk fell silent. There were

reasons for some races' success in space. He

couldn't deny it. "If you come back with us," he said,

"assuming we make it back, you could talk to your people.

Explain all this. Show them what we've recorded

on the tricorders..." "I am a scientist," she

told him. "I am the lowest caste. They would not

believe me." Fighting tunnel vision, Kirk

fanned his hot face with a leaf. "Why did you

become a scientist then?"

    "I was injured while in spiker leader training.

While resting, I discovered that I enjoyed reading and

studying. Eventually there was nothing else for me to do

but-follow my true interest. It was the only way

I could be worth anything. You see... I have a

crippled leg." She moved, raised her body enough

to show him her bent limb. "So do I," Kirk said.

The two of them weren't worth much at this point.

Spock knew more about propulsion than

Oya did, so once the launcher was explained to him,

even she wasn't much good over there. Just hoisting and

bolting, phaser fusing and air tightening. Oya's

muzzle bumped up against his arm, and he flinched.

"Sorry," he said. "Did I hit you?"

    "No," she answered. "I was... smelling

you."

    "Smelling me? What for?"

    "You smell good to u" Was she smiling? Her

eyes certainly were. A shiver ran through him. He

got her meaning. Not "good" as in nice, pleasant.

But good as in tast. Suddenly he could empathize with

her people. Mammals probably smelled like a hot

dinner to the Ru. He tried to imagine humans

negotiating with or even taking seriously people who

smelled like warm baking bread. How crushing would it be

to be constantly saddled by instinct? Some things nature

just insists we do. Nature had taken leisurely

millions of years to establish some things, to make

men attracted to women, women in love with their

babies, and make some animals constantly hungry

for others. He inched a little to his left and really

wanted to take a shower and smell like soap. In the

sky, the glowing oblong shape seemed larger than it

had been an hour ago. "Come on,

Spock," he muttered. "How much longer can this

take?" He looked up at the oblong shape in the

sky. "I've only got fifty-three million

aircraft carriers to go..."

Chapter 31

    "HE'S DEAD."

    "Are you sure this time?"

    "I have no proof but the satisfaction in my eye,

Captain Kirk. I give you that. I watched him

die. They ripped him and ate him, and it is no

less that the Klingon deserves." Blunt silence

fell between them. Roth looked satisfied and somehow

humble. Kirk studied him, looking for those hints of

vulnerability that he looked for in enemies and

sometimes in friends, but he couldn't read Roth's face.

Roth had described Zalt as "the Klingon." So

something had changed. "We're ready to lift off,"

he said simply. "We're going to put ourselves between the

asteroid and the warhead and blow the warhead."

    "Risky," Roth said. "I like it." He looked

at the tin box, about the size of a spare parts shed.

"All of us in there?"

    "All but Oya. "She's staying behind."

    "Staying behind... And what happens to this wild land

when the asteroid comes?" Kirk glanced across

the plateau to where Oya was working with Spock and the

others. "Nothing very nice," he admitted. "So you

and your Vulcan have talked about it. And he has

told you what such a rock does."

    "Yes. The numbers are mindboggling."

    "The strike itself will boggle a few things too, I

think." Roth was in the fulfilled mood of a man

condemned who had first condemned his rival. "How are

you powering this?"

    "We've drained most of the phasers and all of the

Ru weapons for initial liftoff. Then the

antigrays take over. Spock's phaser and

Ensign Emmendorf's are still operational," Kirk

added, "in case you get any ideas."

    "I have no ideas." Roth chuckled. "I

believe what you--Captain!" Kirk tried

to sidestep, but Roth was faster. He slammed

into Kirk and knocked him to the ground. Tumbling

once, then rolling once, Kirk fought to come up on

his elbows, and looked up in time to see Roth take

a hard attack from one of the troodonts. It came

out of nowhere without rufliing a single bush until this

instant, and suddenly there were attacking troodonts

everywhere. He saw Roth roll backward to the

ground, holding off the snapping teeth of one

of these small, smart things and kicking at the hinds

legs to keep those hacking claws from ripping into his

body. "Spock, trouble!" Kirk pushed off the

ground and tackled the troodont. He and the animal

and Roth tumbled like dancers, rolling down a slight

incline to be blessedly stopped by a palmetto.

Tightening his arms around the animal's neck from behind,

Kirk dragged it off Roth, held its spine against

his chest with its tail slashing at his legs, and dared not

let go. He pitched backward, with an armload of

wild kicking dinosaur. Its spine scratched his

face as the troodont threw its head from side

to side, yanking Kirk along the ground on his

back. The tail bruised his legs, and just as he

thought he couldn't hold on anymore, Roth was on

them. The Klingon got his big hands around the

troodont's muzzle, forcing the animal to scream

through its nostrils like a kidnap victim. He

leaned forward so hard that Kirk's shoulder was pinned

against a scaly trunk without chance of squirming

    Roth leaned harder, and--crack, crack, crack

--the troodont's neck vertebrae snapped. The

animal fell limp on top of Kirk. He

kicked it off and rolled over. "Spock! Fire it

up!" There were phaser shots up there. He

struggled back up the incline, with Roth shoving him from

behind. His friend was back. That rugged troodont with the

crooked arm, chirping orders to his pack. First

flank, rushing in. Second rank, waiting in the

wings. Kirk paused to look at the leader. How

long had this tricky animal stalked them? Tenacity

--a sign of intelligence. As Spock's phaser

crackled through the hot air, taking out two of the charging

troodonts, Emmendorftook out another one before

he was charged from behind and knocked to the ground. Before the

troodont standing on him could rake a furrow in his

spine with one of those claws, Bannon tackled the

animal bare-handed, wrestling it to the side. It

took the two of them to pummel the beast

to unconsciousness. Emmendorf came up bloody,

glancing around for another troodont to defend against.

They were everywhere. "Get in the vohidel", Kirk

shouted. "Let's goPeople' "I'll stay here, sir?

Bannon called, scooping up a discarded piece of

metal. "I'll hold them off!" Though his first

reaction was to order everyone inside, Kirk realized

that Bannon was right. The troodonts were closing in,

sacrificing a few first charges in order to weaken

them, so the second and third ranks could overwhelm

them. It would work, too. There were dozens of

yellow-eyed pouncers all around them, smacking their

chops, clicking their sickle-claws, and waiting for the

order to charge. Suddenly Roth shoved Bannon

toward the tin-box vehicle and snatched the shaft of

metal out of the boy's hand. "Go!" he shouted. "I

will stay!" His mouth gaping, Bannon looked at his

empty hand, then at Roth. Roth shoved him

viciously toward the tin box, then swung around to where

Kirk and Spock were standing off a flank of

troodonts while the others hobbled toward the

vehicle. "Give me a phaser! I will hold them

ofially' When he saw their hesitation, he shouted,

"Kirk! I was willing to risk my life for one more

day's existence for my people! I will do it for you! Give

me a phaser! Let me be the ultimate

sacrifive!" He kicked an approaching

troodont square in the nose and waved sharply at

Kirk "I'll stay and save you," he said. "You go

and save us all." Caught by those words, Kirk

fixed a truth-serum glare on him. The decision was

his and he knew it. "Spock," he said, "give him

a phaser. Roth, you know what to do with the antigravs"

    "I will do everything!" From the far side, another

proclamation came. The buzz of Oya's

translator. When Kirk turned, she was

there. "We will do it, Captain," she said. "G. And

save us all." Emmendorf fired again, blowing

away two more troodonts and somehow encouraging the

others to come forward out of the bushes. They understood

sacrifice. Kirk peered at Roth and Oya.

"All hands," he called, "on board!"

    "We have iguition, sir." Kirk clung to the

steadiness of Spock's acknowledgment as the tin box

jolted and began to quiver. Through the eight-inch-wide,

twenty-inch-long "window" in front of him, he saw

Roth swatting and kicking the troodonts two at a

time, while Oya hurried around the vehicle, firing

the antigrays manually. The troodonts seemed

confused, pwbably because they weren't used to jumping

onto a humanoid and didn't know how to do it. Many

of the troodonts he kicked away were heading Wward

Oya--a familiar body shape. "Everyone stay

coordinated," he said, keeping his tone calm.

"Hold balance wl'dle we lift off." The

squarish vehicle shuddered beneath them. Phaser and

pistol power that had been funneled inWill the launch

mechanism fired' and suddenly the platform puffed

upward and became airborne, wobbling as they

struggled for control. The last thing Kirk saw on the

planet's surface was the top of Roth's

head. Then there was jungle, then mount--mn. There was

no gravitational compensation, and as the craft

accelerated, Kirk felt his body suddenly grow

heavy, crushed to the bench seats they'd hastily

built. He heard his crew moan with strain and

wished he could help them. On the right-angled wall

beside comhm, Spock had one inside tricorder mounted

where he could see it and opposite him the medical

tricorder mounted where Bannon and Vernon could see

it. In front of Kirk was a third tricorder, and

on the far side, where Reenie and Emmendorf worked

their antigrays, the fourth tricorder. Each was

tied into one of the four Clan Ru tricorders

scavenged from the leftover deflector camp, mounted

in protective shells on the outside, which would act

as sensors. For a quick build' it wasn't a bad

little craft. Simple, but serviceable. So far, so

good. "Antigravs taking over liftoff," Spock

reported, his tone professional. "One hundred

meters... one hundred fifty .. two hundred..

Exhaust equalizing... Motive power leVels

rough but stabilizing."

    "All hands, concentrate, maintain balance,"

Kirk encouraged. "Mr. Spock and I will steer

with the thrusters."

    "Jim, how are you going to find the warhead?"

McCoy asked. "Oya gave us calculations of

its orbit. We'll have to get between the warhead and the

asteroid as they approach each other." "We'll do

it, sir," Emmendorf piped up. "Yes, sir,"

Reenie echoed. The Earth peeled away beneath them, a

lovely and savage planet, stuffed with life. From

the sky as they gained altitude, Kirk could see

herds of dinosaurs, a dozen shapes, a hundred

colors. Some he recognized--ceratopians,

torosaurs, alamosauruses, simple beasts,

dumb as dirt, following instinct through the eons. The

pressure of his own weight went away as they came

higher and higher, closer to the top levels of the

atmosphere, closer to weightlesshess. They were

strapped in, but not very tightly. They had to hang

on. A cloud cleared away, and there was a bizarre

map below, deep greens threaded with browns and other

greens as they went high into the atmosphere, wobbling

and straining for control. "Cartography on

automatic," he ordered. The planet below looked

foreign--the continents were completely wrong,

unfamiliar land masses overrun with oceans. If

he looked carefully and used his imagination, he could

make out North America, much smaller

than he was used to, with strange shorelines. There

was a lot of water. "Tracking the warhead,

Captain," Spock reported. "Relatively

simple... It is changing course slightly.

Adjusting trajectory to compensate. Velocity

peak stabilizing."

    "Intercept course."

    "Captain..." Reenie began. Aggravated,

Kirk turned. The girl had her cheek pressed

up against the window slit, eyes straining outward

toward space. "I can see it," she said, her

voice catching in her throat. "Oh, my God,

I can see it..."

    She wasn't talking about the warhead. That was coming from

the other direction. "Ensign," Kirk snapped.

"Mind your post. Mr. Spock, bring us around

to firing position. I don't want to be late coming

about." "Aye, sir. Coming about."

    "Heading?"

    "Heading is south by southwest. We took off

slightly earlier than I had calculated. I'm

attempting a geostationary orbit and to hold position

and wait for the warhead to orbit toward us."

    "That won't do any good if it leaves orbit

to intercept the asteroid. Sacrifice

whatever power you need to get between them."

    "Acknowledged. Of course," Spock added

quietly, "that will also sacrifice our ability to land

safely." Kirk glanced at him. "Doesn't

matter, Mr. Spock." Returning the glance,

Spock paused. "Understood, sir."

    "Prepare to fire phasers."

    "Phasers ready." The drone of order and

response was reassuring. The practicality of

military redundance--it had a purpose. It

kept them calm. One step at a time. Each moment

became a progressive victory. Habit set

fear to second place, and protocol took over.

That which had brought men through uncounted battles in the

midst of choking smoke and mind-numbing terror now

would serve to propel them through this last circus hoop.

As they left the lower atmosphere, the warmth of the

supertropics fell away, and Kirk felt his

sweat turn clammy and his body go completely

weightless. It was dizzying. His hands stiflened on the

crude controls. Frost started to form on the insides

of the walls, and their breath began to steam. "Captain,

I've got the deflector warhead on screen."

Reenie put her nose to the tiny screen. "Unless

it's one of those forty-foot pterosaurs--"

    "Negative," Spock said. "Warhead

confirmed. It's leaving orbit, zeroing in on the

asteroid. Coming into phaser range... "I want

point blank range, Spock. We won't get

a second chance. The warhead's moving faster than

we are. If we miss, we'll never catch it."

He kept one hand on his thruster controls and with the other

he tried to focus his tricorder as the screen

rippled. The tie-in to the Ru tricorders

outside was tenuous and incompatible. He wished

he'd put one of their own tricorders on the

exterior. Too late now. "Reading the asteroid

now, Captain." Spock's eyes were fixed on the

tiny tricorder screen. "Slightly larger in

diameter than we had thought... however, less

dense. Possibly due to some ice content.

Current trajectory will take it to the expected

impact point, lower Gulf of Mexico. Speed

is... forty-seven thousand six hundred miles per

hour, increasing steadily as Earth's gravity

affects it."

    "CaptainI" Bannon flinched suddenly at

Kirk's right. "The warhead--I think I'm reading

it! Coming from the west--it's angling out of orbit!"

    "Hold your course, Mr. Bannon,"

Kirk said. "Mr. Spock, can you zero in on that

thing?"

    "Zeroing in," Spock responded. "Targeting

phasers."

    "Hold course, everyone. I'll do the shooting."

He tried to take his own advice and keep his eyes

on the tricorder screen, which struggled to register the

tiny blip that was the angling deflector warhead.

Another dumb bullet. All it had to do was go to the

right place and hit. No sense of consequence.

"Clearer readings on the asteroid now, sir,"

Reenie reported, her tiny voice like a shiver.

"Confirmed," Spock said. "Asteroid is a

typical bolide ... irregular spheroid with

several broken edges... Content, primarily

iron, nickel, iridium... carbon... ice

... various common ores. Density, roughly

twenty-six thousand kilograms per cubic meter."

Typical. Common. The words pounded in Kirk's

head. In the twists of nature's wind tunnel,

an average space rock with no chance for success

had become evolution's hatchet man.

"Detonator at one hundred kilometers and

closing," Spock readoff."...ationinety...

eighty... seventy... sixty... fifty

--"

    "Firing phasers." Eyes tight and legs

tense, Kirk thumbed the firing mechanism that was

tied into the hand phasers mounted on the vehicle's

exterior. A hand phaser was a mighty child, a

power-packed minireactor that could tear down half a

city. Training for hand phaser handling alone was nearly

a full year's course at Starfleet Training

Grounds, required for everyone who wore the uniform.

He looked up from the tricorder and out the skinny

window and pressed the fLettering mechanism. A thin

thread of phaser fire spewed from the vehicle's

cold hull beneath him and spindled across the outer rim

of the Earth's hazy atmosphere, a red line

dividing the white atmosphere from the darkness of

space. "Slight thermal drift," Spock said

quickly. "Compensate. Maintaining fire."

    "Compensating." Kirk held his thumb on the

firing tie-in, his mind already tangled with

alternatives to try if he was making a clean

miss. There had to be something he could-- "There it

goes!" Bannon had apparently looked up. The

line between Earth and space suddenly blew wide with

yellow light and a plume of silver smoke. Kirk

recognized the chemical reaction and

suddenly felt tied to his own time. His mind went

numb, filled with a crackling noise. The crew was

cheering behind him. That was the crackle. He pressed

forward on the slanted wall, fighting to stay upright,

staring out at the gas jet cashiering across the rim of the

atmosphere and its long blue tail. Strange how

small the detonation seemed against the canvas of

Earth's curvature and the depths of space beyond. A

few moments later, that strike would have split the

asteroid, blown it into splinters, causing the debris

to spiral away from Earth, and the the future would be

consumed. "Warhead is destroyed, Captain,"

Spock quietly reported. They shared one of those

almost-smiles reserved for

    moments when the relief was almost too much to bear.

Kirk's hands were shaking, and the quiver of his muscles

ran all the way from his wrists up his arms and through his

shoulders. His midsection cramped and his legs

throbbed. "@ddim--Jimi" Hiked around on his bench,

McCoy was staring at him. "What?"

    "That was it, wasn't it? That was the thing that changed

history?"

    "Yes, of course." Cheeks pale and eyes

strained, McCoy turned more toward him and held out

an imploring hand. "Then why are we still

here?"

Chapter 32

    The CA-PTAAIN was supposed to have all the

answers. Jim Kirk looked at the doctor with

pain in his silence. Finally, as he always did, he

turned to his left. "Spock?" The Vulcan was

gazing at them both, troubled and overloaded, as if

he had forgotten about that, too. "I don't know,"

he said, mild with thought. "We should be pulled back

through the Guardian's portal upon succegs-fully

correcting the error in the flow of time. The

deflector is destroyed... The asteroid must

strike the Earth now. Logically, time should be

repaired." He stopped. They ticked off another

five seconds. Still here. "Could it be," McCoy

pressed, "we've come back too far?

    Maybe the Guardian can't handle years by-the

tens of millions. Maybe it just can't find us!"

Across the cramped cabin, Vernon whimpered, "Oh,

Jesus..." His face clammy, Kirk drew his

brows tight. "Then we'll have to give it time to find

us."

    "Are you kidding?" McCoy prattled and pointed

out the window. "Have you seen the size of that rock?"

    "That's enough, Doctor." Kirk

gripped his controls and shuddered down the weakness in his

body. He summoned his last reserves. A few

more minutes, that was all he needed. "Spock, where's

the safest place to be when this thing hits?"

    "The safest place to be at the moment of impact

would be at the antipode, on the opposite side

of the planet, at least for several hours, until the

shock waves encircle the planet--"

    "We can't get there in time. Where's the second

safest place?"

    "The second safest place is inside the cone

of ejecta, beside the asteroid as it bits, but not

directly above it."

    "Explain that." Spock swiveled toward him.

"When a marble is dropped into a pool of water, it

creates two immediate reactions. One is a cone of

water that is spewed upward around it in the shape of a

paper cup, and the other is a tower that sprays

directly up the way the marble came. Between those two

reactions, there is an area of relative calm."

    "Like the eye of a hurricane."

    "Exactly."

    "Then that's where we've got to be." Bannon's

eyes were hollow as he gaped at them. "I don't

want to be there." "That's where we're going

to be," Kirk sizzled, and everybody turned back

to their jobs. "Spock, calculate trajectory.

Get me a course. Dr. McCoy, record the

patterns of atmospheric turbulence. Miss

Reenie, focus on the asteroid and impact

shrapnel."

    "Ejecta, sir," Spock said. "You call it

what you want; I'll call it what I want."

    "Yes, sir."

    "Mr. Bannon, you record geophysics

and--"

    "Why?" Shaking like a wet lamb, Bannon was

nearly in tears. "Why bother?"

    "Because we're explorers and scientists. People have

died willingly for much lesser sights than we're

about to witness. We're going to do our jobs until the

last possible second. Is that understood?" Part of

McCoy's mouth twisted up in a sorry grin. The

Security men shared a glance and Emmendorf gave

up a silent thumbs-up. Spock was looking at

him, too. Bannon's narrow face lost its

panicked expression. Somehow the younger man screwed

up his resolve as he gazed at his captain. His

voice cracked. "Aye aye, sir," he said. Like

survivors in a life craft on a

wide empty sea, feet soaked, lips parched,

they steeled themselves to get through the next minute, then the

minute after that. "lira." Spock's face was

occult with shadows. "It's coming." He wasn't

looking at his tricorder anymore. He was looking

out the window of the tilted craft as it struggled to hold

itself in place over the gulf of what someday would be

Mexico. Kirk felt his chest tighten and his feet

get suddenly colder. He had to look, too,

to see eternity's superstar with his own eyes. Back

on the planet's surface, seen through the

atmosphere, the asteroid had been a glowing orb in

the sky. That was what Roth and Oya were seeing now if

they were still alive. From here, above most of the

atmosphere, it was a dull spacial body

glittering on one side from the sun's reflection.

It seemed not to be moving at all. But it was. It

sang through space toward them at forty-thousand-plus

miles per hour, accelerating every second. Femme

fatale Earth had whispered into the night with the perfume

of her gravity and caught the unsuspecting passer-

36O

    by cantering by without a thought. Now this crude peddler,

insignificant dot in the mob of space debris,

would have its chance to swashbuckler. Its

incendiary kiss would pivot history. This was its

day. Kirk squinted out the narrow window. "Spock,

do you know what month this is?"

    "It's early June, sir."

    "What day is it?" Spock looked at him.

"I don't know."

    "All right. You know, I wish that thir could understand

what it's about to do. I resent its ignorance

somehow." "That... makes no sense at all, sir.

The asteroid is nothing more than an amalgam of

silica."

    "I don't care. Everyday I have the power of that

disthin..in my hands and I keep control over it.

What s the aeptla o! me ocean at the point of

impact?"

    "Zero to two hundred feet, sir. On its

current trajectory, it will hit the continental

shelf."

    "Will this thing go through the Earth's mantle?"

    "It's believed to have cracked the mantle to a

depth of roughly fifty miles but did not

penetrate to create a volcanic site." Roaring

in at hypersonic speed, the oblong ball seemed

to be swelling a little each second, as if they were

watching any other space vehicle come

toward them--no sense of the actual speed. It was a

piece of some other cataclysm, a lackluster stone

determined to make something of itself. The big bang had

oome and gone, the crash that had made the moon was

long forgotten, the birth of life a past

accomplishment. Now this chunk of dirt wanted

to dwarf the fame of those and give itself primacy. And the

plan would work The Federation and all its member worlds,

the KlinlOnSo, the Romulans, the Orions, the

Tholians, the Clanthey were all wrapped up in that

rock. was rain--" Reenie gulped "It's--it's--

was

    "Understood, lnsign. Spock, altitude, we

need altitude. "Thrust at maximum,

Captain."

    "We have to be inside that cone. This thing's gonna

rattle

    Bannon pulled out of his straps, jerked away from

his seat, and stumbled to the window on the other side of

Spock. "Here it comes!"

    "Lieutenant, get back in your seat? Kirk

broiled. "All hands, secure for collision!"

Chapter 33

    "Herre it COMES!" In a blur as big as

Manhattan Island, the asteroid shot

past them at 138.8888 miles per second,

slightly over a hundred miles to the west of them,

pulled in by the beckoning Earth. What they saw then

was a forbidden sight wisely done in the shadows of

deep time, so violent that mass spectrometers had

been needed to discover the secret that it had happened

at all. In his fever and the terror he couldn't push

away, James Kirk fought himself through the temptation

to put his thumb to his phaser and keep that

kill-crazy stone from erasing billions of years of

life. Earth had called out for this, as if saying this was

the time to smash the canvas and start again. He had

stewardship over the future. He had prevented

cataclysms--today he needed one. His hand quivered

as he drew it toward his chest and held it against his

ribs. A few more seconds... In extravagance

that only bold, brainless nature could manage, the

asteroid blew past them, causing only a dismoment's

shadow to fall inside the baubling little vehicle.

He pushed up against his restraints, nauseated

by weight-lesshess, put his face to the window, and

looked down at the Earth. He'd seen stars

explode. But those were only stars. Below their little

vehicle, bucking in the swarming upper atmosphere,

the asteroid spun in at hypersonic

speed, too fast for the atmosphere to blow out of the

way. Kirk watched, mind numbed, as the kinetic

explosion opened up beneath them. For an instant there was

a flash of heat energy being released, a wall of

brightness reaching all the way down and all the way up

as high as the atmosphere. A trumpet-bell

plume of white-bright fire vomited back upward

past them and back over their heads, expanding into a

vacuum that couldn't stop it, a violent seismic

upheaval of molten rock, shock-modified

minerals, and fine hot dust. In fifteen years in

space he had voyaged countless light-years through the

galaxy, yet he had to come home to witness the most

spectacular event of his career. As the force equal

to two hundred million hydrogen bombs went off

under them, the vapor cloud impelled upward toward

them like the head of a rising jellyfish. "Shield your

eyes! Cover your eyes!" McCoy's shouts were

drowned by the concussion from all around them. Kirk

managed to bury his face in the crook of his elbow as

the white-hot firebail of vaporized matter shot

back out into space in the biggest mushroom cloud

any tyrant could dream of on any drunken night.

He'd seen death coming before but never with bailistics on

this scale. He held the thruster lever and

hoped the vehicle didn't go into a spin. If

Spock could hold his

    "The asteroid vaporized!" Reenie sobbed.

"It's a fireball!" The curtain of blistering

molten rock and pulverized planet shot back

upward past them, some moving fast enough to reach escape

velocity and rocket out into space, never to return.

"Hold on!" It might have been Bannon.

"Shock waves!" The vehicle spun like

Dorothy's house in the twister. Much of the ejecta

curtain was curling into orbit in what would become the

smothering ashfall of days to come. The sun would be

blocked out. Asteroid winter would chill the planet.

Chunks of molten matter pummeled the vehicle.

Precision was thrown to the wind as the giant blowtorch

shot by on one side and the ghastly wreckage on the

other. Kirk wanted to look at his crew, give

them his last glance of inspiration, smooth out the

malignant eruption with his confidence, see their sober

faces as they gave each other the final gift of

noble silence. But his arms, his neck, his chest, were

frozen still. His eyes fixed on the mushroom tower of

fire retching into space, and his eyes burned. With his

last thought he wondered about the tricky troodont

with the crooked arm. Was it intelligent enough

to be afraid as the sheer mile-high wall of

displaced water and the incandescent curtain of debris

as high as the atmosphere expanded out of the Gulf and

swallowed part of North America? Did it have its

last thought for its young? And Oya... Roth. He'd

left them behind at ground zero. Someday he would find

a Kllngon and tell him who he owed his existence

to. The tin box around them began to crack. Beneath

them, he saw Earth begin all over again.

Chapter 34

    "I'm SORRY, SiRather..." Montgomery

Scott sank into the sounds of the bridge for one last

moment, those peaceful twitters and beeps that in a

second would be ripped out of his head, ,buried in

explosions of machinery and the cracking of the ship's

heavy hull. He'd put his life into this one ship,

out of all the others, and never looked back. His

heartbeat and this ship's were the same. Had been for

years. Some ships could do that to a person. "Sorry,

lass," he murmured. "Mr. Scott, the incoming

has disappeared!" Sulu's voice had a squawk

of disbelief. "Mr, Scott!" Chekov choked at

the navigation station. "No sign of hostile

vessels! They're gone, sir! They disappeared!"

Scott blinked and held his breath. No

hit. No savaging of his lady. The viewscreen was

free of all but stars and Earth's moon as it came

lazily around them. "The captain!" he rasped.

"Have y'got contact with the planet's surface?"

He swung around to Uhura and gripped the red

rail. "Lieutenant?"

    The tin box around them was gone. Had it been

shattered by the plume ofejecta? Was this the split

second between destruction and death? Everybody said that

second was there, but how could anyone really know? Jim

Kirk stared into the white heat of the vampire

fireball. It was as if he had poured pepper

into his eyes and put his hands on a pilot light.

His body was blistered, his mind bedlam. Hard ground

came up under his feet, and he staggered. He wished

he hadn't looked out the little window, but some sights

really were worth dying for. We were there on the day a

cold rock became a star. One tree, one'og, enough

will live now to start over. Incorrigible nature--

"Captain... Captain. We are being signaled.

Your communicator..." That was Spock's voice.

were the two of them in hell together? It figured. In

hell with a communicator? Blinking his eyes as they

watered and stung Kirk shook his head and let out a

small cough. "That was . some ride." "

" He shook off the frigidity of orbit and tried

to set aside the tantalizing blowtorch he'd just

witness. "Sixty-four million years,"

McCoy grumbled beside him. "Jim, the shiprathe

shipst" They were standing on stone, not metal. Kirk

looked down. Rocks. His feet were braced on

pebbles. But not Earth. He blinked up at dusty

ruins and a glum pastel sky, then at the doctor

beside him and realized the buzzing in his head was the

communicator on his belt. He pawed for it,

failing, until McCoy got it and placed it in his

hand. The ship! He raised the communicator.

"Kirk here..."

    "Captain/y did it, sirst"

    "Scotty?"

    "You mu/ye done it, sirst" Well, at least

Scotty had a grasp on what had happened.

Yes, the ship's engineer had been here the last time.

He understood this place, this smart-aleck monument

over Kirk's shoulder. Turning to look at the

Guardian of Forevermhe'd always thought there should be a

really bad poem under that title--he took a

shuddering breath. "It got us back... all the way

from there." Suddenly he turned and started counting

heads. "Did we aget back? Is

everyone here?" "All accounted for, sir." Spock

appeared at his side, his tone much less severe

than the words. He gazed at Kirk with

undisguised sympathy. "The tricorders"

    "All four of ours came through with us." The

Vulcan held one of them up for him to see. Near

him, their rattled crew picked at the other three,

clinging to them as if clinging to the past. Now they had more

than fossils and shocked

    quartz to use as a peek into the past. Now they had

the past recorded. And the Enterprise was up there,

orbiting this forsaken grotto. She was back, she was

back. Kirk sought for his voice again. "Status,

Scotty." "We were under attack by a bundleit

Romulan bastards when all at once they just

vanished/they were about to melt us alive? "I'm

glad this machine has its timing right. We were

pretty melted ourselves. Either a hell of a

coincidence, or this thiffg knows what it's doing.

Secure all decks and stand by, Scotty."

    "Standing by, sir." Hoisting his shuddering body

around, he scanned his landing party. They were shaken,

doubtful of their surroundings, as if coming out of a long

dream. McCoy and Reenie each had a grip on

Vernon, who had an arm wrapped around his

crushed ribs. So it had happened. He sighed.

"Well, I'd say that was a big splash." The

crew rewarded him with a couple of smiles and a few

huffs of relief. That was all he wanted.

"Let's get a grip on ourselves. Mr.

Emmendorf, Mr. Bannon, secure the area.

Be back here in five minutes. Doctor, make

your patient comfortable. We'll beam up as soon as

we're stable."

    "Aye aye, Sir," Emmendorf said.

Bannon said nothing but hurried after the Security

man. Both were pale with shock and seemed relieved

to have something concrete to do. Being sucked back through the

Guardian's portal had left them all in a

protective state of disbelief. Now he would have

to see if they were back in the correct time. No

Romulan ships up there. He clung to that clue.

He cleared his throat and uttered, "Spock..."

Spock came to his side. "How are you?" he

asked. "Rattled. What's your evaluation?"

    "If our experience with the Guardian is

accurate, and our suppositions about Oya's race

correct--that her race actually began on Earth

millions of years before us--then all

    should be in order. We did see the

asteroid hit, after all."

    "We did, but that's a lot of ifs."

    "I would surmise the key to the change was the

impact itself, not simply our destruction of the

warhead. The Guardian had waited until the

asteroid actually struck the Earth. Until then, the

extinction of the dinosaurs was not guaranteed."

    Kirk nodded. "Had me scared for a minute."

    "More than a minute," McCoy grumbled from behind

them.

    Relieved to hear the smart-ass crack, Kirk

nodded at him but turned to Spock again. "What do you

think happened to Oya?"

    "Unknown. Certainly anyone in the lower North

American area would have been killed by tidal waves

crashing across that area. I am sure," Spock added

gently, "they did not suffer long."

    Realizing he was giving too much away--as if he

could hide his crushing sense of injustice from Spock

--Kirk fought for control.

    "The mass extinction by asteroid impact,"

Spock said, "is no longer a conclusion based upon

bits of evidence. We have just proven it. And we have

a recording of the actual impact. So successful

a species as the dinosaurs, a

two-hundred-million-year species...

destroyed in a matter of months."

    Kirk stepped past him. "Species go extinct

all the time, Mr. Spock. Extinction is part of the

game. Just goes to show you how tough life is once

it gets started." He snapped up his

communicator. "Kirk to Bannon, report."

    "Bannon here, sir. You'd better come this way.

We've got something here."

    "All right, stay where you are. We'll

triangnlate on your

    communicator."

    "Yes, sir."

    The kid didn't sound too good. Kirk turned

to McCoy. "The rest of you stay here. Mr.

Spock, with me."

    Not far, the pterosaur His, but every stp was agony

for

    a man who'd left his cane stuck in a

dinosauroid sixty-odd million years back.

By the time they found Emmendorf waving at them to go

toward him, Kirk was sweat-drenched. He followed

Spock over the crunchy ground and around an upright

slab of ruin.

    There, they found the bodies. Starfleet

bodies.

    These people had put up a fight and lost. And for their

loss they were ripped into parts and horridly

mutilated. A Starfleet research team, who never

intended to fight, who wanted only to do quiet work

here, maybe shed some light on these ruins. Only

tacitly were they meant to guard the Guardian.

    "Captain," Spock addressed, not loud, "these

people were killed, then eaten. And there is one of the

spikers' wrist launchers. Several footprims

also."

    Numb beyond shock, Kirk nodded. He thought about

setting his crew to burying the dead here, but his people were

exhausted and, truth be told, there wasn't much

left here to bury. These bodies were rended to bits and

already sinking back into the dust. They were burying themselves.

    "Emmendorf, Bannon," he spoke up, "go

back with the others."

    The two young men glanced at him as though entranced,

then Emmendorf said, "Yes, sir..."

    And they went away. Nothing to be done here.

    "We wanted proof, Mr. Spock," he said

sadly, "proof that

    it all happened. I guess we've got that

now."

    Silent, Spock watched him.

    "Oya believed in this mission," Kirk went on.

"I'd have done the same thing Let's go."

    Spock reached for him to help him over a boulder,

but the

    communicator chirped and stopped them.

    "Kirk here."

    "Scott, sir. We've got three ships

approaching, no identity yet."

    "Red alert. Beam us up immediately, these

coordinates. And pick up the others at our

previous location."

    Spock's expression was heavy with concern as

Kirk

    watched his first officer's face begin to sparkle with the

transporter effect. Then his mind went numb for the

few seconds the transporter needed to draw him

back... back to his ship. And his heart began

to pound.

    "This is the Starship Exeter--Newman here.

Jim, are you and your crew all right? I've never

heard of any force that could throw a ship this fart"

Jim Kirk settled into his command chair, legs

aching and spine screaming for rest. On the forward

screen, Dong Newman's face was

better than a star on a Christmas tree. The

starship inhaled around him, as vibrant a thing as

any, cupped his aching body in this old chair,

gathered her wings and shook the droplets of turmoil

from them once again, just because he asked her to. Together

they had survived. "We didn't exactly get

thrown. How did you find us?"

    "We thought you were crushed by the accretion disk that

appeared in that blue giant. Then these other people showed

up and they said they knew where you were. We took a

chance, and here you are. They want to talk to you." Off

the Enterprise's gleaming white port bow, three

ships hovered, basking in the light of this system's

thrifty sun. The Starship Exeter, the

Farragut, and another ship, a squatty, squarish

vessel only a few decks thick, with warp

nacelles mounts on the sides that looked like old

wares cannibalized from former Starfleet designs.

The forward screen fizzled, then cleared. Kirk

stared into the faces of six dinosauroids. Well,

well. "Clan Rth" he said. "Welcome out of

your cave. I wish I could say I'm surprised,

but I don't think I am." "Captain Kirk,"

the brown one in the middle said. A heavy female with

four colors paimed on her face.

Probably the captain. '7 am Ozur. We come

to tallc She here will talk for us." Ozur

unceremonially moved aside, and the screen filled

again, this time with a stunning grayish face.

    Kirk's snideness dropped away. "Oya! You

made it back!"

    "Several days ago, somehow," she buzzed through the

ship's translator. Her voice was a little

different, coming through Uhura's system instead of the

portable translator. A little higher. "The science

of the Guardian is unclear. Somehow I was

returned to the Guardian planet only seconds

after l first entered."

    "Yes, we know," Kirk said. "And since we

entered several days later than you did, we only just

returned a few minutes ago.", "I have been

back for many days," Oya said, "and I haven't

been idle. Captain Kirk, I went to my

leaders. I told them about your pictures and what

I saw on the young Earth. We have always known we

did not come from our planet. We assumed everything

there was meant to be food for us and that we were the chosen of

providence, held back by the Federation. Now I

believe as you, and I have told my people. Someone had

respect for our species, enough to move us and

save us. We never had respect for others. Now

we do. Earth is a charmed place to give birth

to two intelligent species while so many planets

are barren. We understand now, Captain Kirk; and

we want to join." Swallowing past the lump in his

throat, Kirk managed a smile. He shifted his

hips a couple of times, trying to thinlc He gazed

at his tidbit of profit from this huge stumble. Some

good was going to come of this after all. They hadn't just

managed to put things right but to put things better.

"We welcome you," he said finally, simply.

"If you'll follow us to Starbase 10, we'll

introduce you to our tleet commander and arrange for an

exchange of ambassadors."

    "Our thanks to you We will come happily."

    "I'm looking forward to hearing your account of the

impact from the planet's surface." '7 have it

recorded. It is a revelation for science."

"TII bet it is. Oya..."

    "Yes?" Pressing his hands to the command chair, the

vital core of his universe, past and future,

Jim Kirk leaned forward as if the two of them were

having a private conversation. "I thought you said they

wouldn't believe you."

    Oya moved her lips around those

massive teeth, and her eyes grew narrow and

gleamed.

    "They did."

    PART FIVE

    WELCOME ABOARD

    A pennon whimpersrathe breeze has found

    A headsail jumps through the thinning haze. The

whole hull follows, till--broad around

    The clean-swept ocean says: "Go your ways!"

    gRudyard Kipling

Chapter 35

    A STARSHIP'S auxiliary monitor is a

high-resolution contraption, darned good at doing what

it was designed to do.

    The screen was small, but it communicated the

enormity of the impact with a valiance that made Jim

Kirk proud and humble. He lay in his diagnostic

bed in sickbay, head resting back and medication

pumping through his shell-shocked body. Tricorder

recordings of the impact were traveling the ship's

decks almost as rapidly as the vapor fireball

had

    reached the outer atmosphere all those millions of

years ago. Millions of years?

    But it had been only this morning.

    Stretched out before him, his body was covered with a

thermal blanket, and he could barely feel his

feet. Saw them, but didn't feel them.

    Scratched by ancient thorns and bruised

by ancient blows, his hands rested on his chest.

    Before him, several department heads from the ship's

labs had gathered to hear Mr. Spock's

explanation of what they were seeing on that

half-meter-square screen. A couple of interns,

one other doctor, and two nurses stood at the

perimeter of the briefing. This was only the tip of the

iceberg of research that would come from their voyage.

    "The cataclysm very quickly became worldwide,"

Spock said, watching the sprawling white-orange

event shudder and balk on the screen. "Only hours

for the first shock wave. As we saw, the impact

displaced most of the water in the Gulf of Mexico,

causing tidal waves in all directions. Of

course, there would be a rebound tidal wave as the

water rushed back in. Within one day, no part of

Earth's surface would be unaffected. A layer of

soot found in the K-T layer suggests that molten

ejecta raining upon the planet touched off

firestorms that burned millions of miles of

growth. Excess of carbon-12 in the

biomass indicates that fires consumed as much as a

quarter of Earth's plants. For a decade or more

after, simple lightning would have touched off more fires

until finally all the dead plant life was burned

away."

    "A burning planet," McCoy murmured from

Kirk's right side. "Not a pleasant place

to live."

    Spock nodded. "And a difficult place

to live. Only animals of small adult body

weight survived. Those that could burrow, hybernate,

or otherwise hide and find enough food among the ruined

ecosystem. The sun was blocked out for months by a

global cloud of soot, sulfuric acid, and

debris, possibly thrown outward at the equator

by the Earth's rotation. It is speculated that Earth

may have been a ringed planet for quite a while."

    Through his comfort, Kirk uttered, "Another

Saturn..."

    "Yes. There would have been a total collapse of

terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The

supergreenhouse conditions in the Cretaceous were too

warm for coral reefs, but the loss of sunlight after

this event killed all of the Earth's clam reef

ecosystem. Reefs are extremely

sensitive and delicate and took ten million

years to regenerate."

    "And ten or twelve million years for

mammals to evolve to any appreciable size,"

Chief Barnes assisted. "Recovery wasn't

exactly the next day."

    Spock glanced into the crowd of officers. "The

expanding curtain of ejecta spread four thousand

kilometers, pushing the atmosphere out of the way and

leveling everything in its path."

    "it's possible the vacuum of space may have been

in contact with the molten crater center, Mr.

Spock," one of the newly transferred earth science

technicians burst in. "It's incredible! To blow

the atmosphere awayw"

    "Possibly," Spock allowed. "It produced

the melt-ejecta layer of fused bedrock blasted out

of the site. The melt-ejecta layer was overlain

by worldwide fallout from the fireball, which preserved the

iridium layer. The northern Yucatan at the time

was covered with roughly a thousand feet of limestone,

or Cretaceous reef rock--calcium

carbonates and back-reef evaporites, mainly

calcium sulfate. This evaporized over the

crater, resulting in high acid rain and

enriched CO2 in the atmosphere. A ring of this

debris formed all the way around the planet. Fine

dust caused a nuclear winter phase, which

volcanoes can never produce, because their dust never

leaves the stratosphere. This cloud cut off ninety

percent of the sunlight. Trees soon dropped their

leaves. Phytoplankton died within a few days.

On land, small animals and birds would have found enough

food in the cracks to survive, but only species

that reproduced quickly and abundantly would have

survived. When the cloud cleared, it cleared on a

planet with no more giant animals."

    His deep voice fell away with a professional

finish.

    On the screen, a gauze of gray dust begn

to spread over the planet as the last moments were

recorded by the tricorders, seconds before the

Guardian snatched them out of hews bullet hole.

    It was hard to believe, even now, that they were watching

the real thing and not just a computer-generated animation.

    Several members of the starship's officer corp

glanced at their captain and first officer with

unmitigated awe and

    Waxen and drained, Kirk felt inadequate to that

respect. The mission had been a success

but too close to disaster at every step. He began to comb

every detail, now that his head was clear and his pain

recedin looking for ways he could have done a better

job.

    The officers acceded to McCoy's shooing them out of the

    captain's recovery chamber. They didn't even

excuse themselves to'the commanding officer. Already they were

muttering to each other about research they couldn't wait

to dive into. Physics lab, bio lab, nuclear

science, earth sience --they all wanted their hands on

that tricorder data. It would shoot through the ship, then

through Starfleet, then the whole Federation almost as fast

as the killer dust cloud had enshrouded the

prehistoric Earth. The room gradually emptied,

and there was some comfort for Kirk to see the lights coming on

in his officers" eyes. They had something to work on,

to be proud of. All across the Federation, their work over

the next few months would be famous. Everyone would be

talking about the Enterprise and her scientists and their

fantastic findings. When they were alone, Spock

turned to him, hands clasped easily behind his back as

if none of this had happened, as if declaring that they had

come full circle and everything was all right. Pretty

much. "A lot of information to distill," Kirk said.

"It'll take years to analyze it all.

Makes me glad I'm not a scientist, I

think."

    "I understand," Spock said. "What was your

recommendation to Starfleet regarding the Guardian?"

    "That we keep our mouths shut about it, as usual;

keep its location classified so this kind of thing

doesn't happen again. We have the data--but we

don't have to tell how we got it." "Assuming the

Clan government agrees?" "The Clan government

doesn't know the location. Oya refused to tell

them."

    "Indeed?"

    "She's a smart girl."

    "Apparently." Spock fell silent

briefly, then quietly added, "An interesting

place... the other universe." Kirk managed a

misty grin. "We met some good people in a bad

place, didn't we? Temron... Roth...

especially Roth. I'm sorry he had to die that

way." Spock canted his head and gazed wisely

at him. "He was not sorry, Captain."

Returning the gaze with a touch of gratitude,

Kirk finally nodded. "You did a good job," he

rewarded. "I know that wasn't as easy for you as you

let on." Spock pretended not to understand that

and skillfully ignored it. "The asteroid collision

with Earth is a rare event in the galaxy. Now we

have the opportunity to know what really happened. In

effect, we shall be confirming sixty-four million

years worth of detective work." The Vulcan's

dark eyes gleamed. Under that paragoric mask, he

was content as he sighted down his reclining captain,

whoin he did not have to bury on a world of monsters.

He raised a hand to the diagnostic panel and

turned off most of the lights in the room, like a father

wordlessly instructing a child to get to sleep. "As you

said, Captain," he added, "it is a genuine

wonder that life survived at all on Earth." With

fired eyes Kirk gazed up at the angular

shadows on the face over him. "Life's stubborn

once it gets going, Mr. Spock," he

appraised. "Life hangs on."

Epilogue

    "LIEUTENANT."

    "Captain!"

    "As yOUT were." The quarters were cool.

Appreciation of ship's air-conditioning after a

sweltering hothouse planet. "I said, as you were.

Sit down."

    "Sir..."

    "Just sit down, because I'm going to." Jim

Kirk limped to the bare study desk and pulled out the

chair, proud that he'd come far enough to get all the way

down the corridor and slide into the chair without

wincing. "Not bad," he sighed as he leaned back,

"for a man who's been lame for sixty-four

million years." Pale and bruised, Dale

Bannon looked as if he were ready

to hyperventilate, but he managed to sit down on his

bunk. "Well?" Kirk asked. "Got anything

to say?" Bannon swallowed, blinked at the

floor, shrugged. Then suddenly he looked up, and

his eyes were ringed with emotion. "You got us back,"

he sputtered. "You did everything you said you would do.

Even me... even Vernon, after we got hurt...

You didn't leave any of us behind. Sir, I'll

never doubt you again!" The words bumbled around the room,

failing in their loftiness and certainly falling on

unimpressed ears where the captain was concerned. It was

his job to bring everybody back. There shouldn't be such

astonishment when he managed to do that. Kirk glowered

at the boy until it hit Bannon that he wasn't

going to get anywhere and was trying too hard. The

lieutenant fizzled like a match in a glass of

water. "I'm up for court-martial. I

understand, sir." Kirk shrugged. "Court-martial's

a pretty stiff penance for a bareknuckled swipe,

I've always thought." Bannon's brows shot together.

"I took a swing at you, sir.. At a senior

officer!"

    "I asked for it..besides, that was a long time

ago." The younger man stared at him and shook his head

"Sir... how can you joke about it?"

    "I've always thought that two men, even two

servicemen, ought to be able to punch out their disagreements

now and then."

    "Oh, my God!" Bannon choked. He shot

up. "You can't just let me get away with it!...

Striking a crewmate... That's the lowest act in the

whole... universe!"

    "All right," Kirk allowed. Straightening up,

he made for the door. "Someday, when you're a

captain, you can do what you want. And so can I.

Besides," he said, glancing back as the door panel

skidded open, "a little doubt's a good thing now and

then." At the entrance he put his hand on the edge of the

door to keep it from closing behind him and looked back

at Bannon with the same glint he had given the

dinosaurs a few million years ago. "But not

too much," he said.

    "Good morning, Captain. Welcome back to the

bridge. I am pleased you're well."

    "Thank you, Mr. Spock, I'm pretty

glad myself. Status?" "We're expected at

Starbase 10 in fourteen hours. The Federation will have

emissaries waiting to meet the Clan, and

Starfleet will take jurisdiction of the assassination

of the science team on the Guardian planet."

    "Good. I'm glad we won't have to be the ones

to sort it out. Now, what else is bothering you?"

    "Why would you believe something is bothering me?"

    "Instinct. Like the dinosaurs. Well?"

    "Yes, sir... the paradox of time travel is

troubling me somewhat."

    "Specifically? "The Clan Ru, sir.

Since the Clan exists here and now, and we know they

went back in time to stop the asteroid, then you must have

been in the past also to keep them from stopping it. The

drofiarity of time suggests that time cannot actually be

changed. However, since we have been in the changed

time, and we have experienced this kind of anomaly before,

we know that it can be. Therefore, is the Guardian of

Forever a danger, or is it part of the pattern of time

itself? For instance--"

    "Mr. Spock, hold on. You know,

you're a fine first officer, an exceptional

scientist, and by all definitions a decent man."

    "Why, thank you, Captain."

    "But you're giving me a headache."

    "Sir, I fail to see how the extrapolation of

theoretical premises can inflict physical

pain." "Easily. If you don't drop the

subject, I'm gonna step on your toe. Mr.

Sulu, gO to warp factor five."

    "Warp factor five, aye, sir."

    "Steady as she goes."