Star Trek: The Rings of Time (14 page)

Fontana. O’Herlihy.

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

Edith . . .

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

“Shaun! Thank God!”

The woman, who had to be astronaut Alice
Fontana, launched herself into the airlock. She hugged him tightly as they collided in midair, her momentum carrying them backward to the rear of the airlock. He could feel her enthusiastic embrace even through his spacesuit. Her own figure was clothed in a much more flattering blue jumpsuit.

“Er, I think there might be a misunderstanding here,” Kirk said, gently extricating himself from her arms. She had evidently mistaken him for Colonel Shaun Christopher, the leader of the expedition. He had no idea what had become of Christopher, but he suspected that the other two astronauts were in for a surprise. Unscrewing his helmet, he braced himself for their startled reactions. “I know this must be a shock, but—”

To his surprise, they didn’t look startled at all. The other man—Marcus O’Herlihy—approached him. “The only error, Shaun, was letting you get up close and personal with that probe in the first place. We should have taken more precautions.”

Kirk was confused. Why were they still addressing him as Shaun?

An alarming possibility occurred to him. He peeked at his helmet’s reflective visor.

The face of a stranger stared back at him.

The face of Shaun Geoffrey Christopher?

The astounding truth hit him with the force of a photon torpedo. Never mind his own time or ship. He wasn’t even in his own body anymore!

This is Janice Lester all over again,
he thought, remembering the last time he’d found his mind inhabiting a body other than his own. He froze in shock. The helmet slipped from his numb fingers. It drifted away.

Fontana noted his stunned reaction. She gently took hold of his arm. “Shaun? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Think fast,
Kirk thought.
I can’t let them know who I really am.

History held no record of Colonel Shaun Christopher being possessed by the displaced consciousness of a starship captain from the twenty-third century. Kirk was pretty sure he would have remembered that part.

“It’s nothing,” he murmured. “I’m just a little shook up, I guess.”

“Small wonder,” O’Herlihy said. “After what you’ve been through. I think our first order of business is a thorough physical exam, once we get you out of that suit.” He held up his hand to forestall any protests. “No arguments, Shaun. You just got zapped by a presumably extraterrestrial probe. A physical is the very least that’s called for. Be thankful I don’t want to dissect you.”

“All right, Doctor,” Kirk said. “Just give me a moment to catch my breath.”

How long was he going to have to impersonate Shaun, he wondered, and how exactly did he expect to pull that off? Was there any way to get back to his own time and body?

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Fontana asked. “You seem . . . different.”

“Only a little fuzzy-headed, like I said.” Kirk tried to figure out what the real Shaun Christopher would say next.
Probably the same thing I would.

“What about the probe? Do we still have it on sensors?”

“Sensors?” O’Herlihy sounded puzzled by the term. “You mean LIDAR? We lost track of the probe right after you got zapped. We should try locating it again, after we get you checked out, but the way it was moving, I suspect it’s long gone, possibly back to wherever it came from.”

“Good riddance,” Fontana said forcefully. She began to help Kirk out of his spacesuit. “I know, I know. That’s not a very scientific attitude, but I don’t like surprises, especially when they almost get one of us killed.”

“You’ve got a point there.” A new voice intruded on the discussion. “Who knew I was going to be the
second
-biggest wrinkle in your mission plans?”

The unexpected voice caught Kirk by surprise.

Who?

A petite, dark-haired woman stuck her head into the airlock. She was oriented at a one-hundred-eighty-degree angle to Kirk, so that she appeared to be hanging upside-down in the doorway. Unlike the other two astronauts, she was dressed like a civilian, wearing simply a T-shirt and shorts. A folded blue jumpsuit rested in her grip. She grinned at Kirk.

“Glad to have you back, Skipper. For a few moments
there, I was afraid I was going to have to fill in for you on the rest of this cruise.”

Fontana frowned. “Don’t even joke about that.”

Who the devil?
Kirk tried not to stare at the newcomer. He had read up on this groundbreaking mission before, most recently after a certain time-warped encounter with a Captain John Christopher a few years back, and he was certain that there had not been a second woman aboard the
Lewis & Clark.
History recorded that the first Earth–Saturn mission had been conducted by a crew of three: O’Herlihy, Fontana, and Christopher.

So, who was this, and what was she doing there?

“I always joke,” she replied, “especially after I’m nearly scared to death. You should know that by now.” She turned herself right-side up and floated past Fontana to give Kirk a friendly hug. “No more of that, okay? I don’t need a scoop that bad.”

“All right,” he said carefully. He didn’t even know this woman’s name, let alone what her relationship with Shaun was like. “Trust me, I wasn’t planning on any of this, either.”

At least he didn’t have to feign confusion or fatigue. In the last forty-five minutes or so, he had been jolted by an alien probe, nearly lost in space, and found himself stuck in another man’s body more than two centuries in the past. He had felt better.

With the others’ help, he began to change out of the
heavy spacesuit into a fresh blue jumpsuit. Dressing in zero g was more challenging than he remembered, and he did so clumsily. Loose sleeves and pant legs floated about like underwater fronds. He thrust his leg into the jumpsuit too hard and accidentally launched his head into the ceiling. His scalp smacked against a bulkhead.

“Ow!”

Fontana shook her head. “Boy, you really are out of it, aren’t you?” She grabbed his ankle and pulled him back down to the center of the airlock. “No uncontrolled takeoffs, remember?” She held him steady while he worked his arms into the sleeves. The texture was different from that of his Starfleet uniform, rougher and more loose-fitting, but he supposed it would have to do. She zipped him into the suit. “Okay, that’s more like it.”

“Thanks.”

While it was mildly embarrassing to need help dressing himself, he appreciated her assistance and her obvious concern for his well-being. He couldn’t help noticing that both she and the mystery woman were quite attractive, something Shaun’s body noticed as well. He thought back again to that time he had switched bodies with Janice Lester.

At least I’m the right gender this time.

“Let’s get you to the infirmary,” O’Herlihy said. “Where I can conduct a proper exam.”

Kirk had no idea where that was, so he let the others guide him out of the airlock into the habitat module
beyond the cargo bay. Weightless, he didn’t need to be supported, but both women took him by the arm regardless. Fontana watched him as if she half expected him to pass out at any minute. The other woman kept up a stream of friendly chatter. Kirk waited in vain for someone to address her by name.

“Oh, here’s your lucky charm back.” Fontana removed a pair of antique dog tags from her neck and placed them around Kirk’s. “I kept them safe for you, as promised.”

He didn’t peek at the name on the tags. That might have been suspicious.

“Thanks.”

With space at a premium, the infirmary seemed to serve as gym, mess, and rec area as well. Kirk looked about for a bed or examination table, then realized that there was no need for such furnishings in zero g. A padded mattress, with Velcro straps, was mounted on one wall, at a right angle to a nearby treadmill. There was no sign of a fully equipped biobed.

Not exactly sickbay,
he thought.

“Over here, please,” O’Herlihy said. “Make yourself comfortable, Shaun.”

Kirk sat down on the pad, at a ninety-degree angle to the floor, and strapped a belt across his lap to stay in place, while the doctor retrieved what looked like a primitive medkit from a steel cabinet. The instruments inside the case were also strapped down to keep them from drifting away. Kirk winced at the sight of antique
syringes, thermometers, and surgical supplies. He could just imagine what McCoy would have to say about such barbaric medical apparatus. There didn’t even seem to be a standard medical scanner or hypospray.

“All right,” O’Herlihy said. “If you ladies will leave me alone with my patient.”

“Roger that,” Fontana said. She took the other woman by the arm and guided her out of the infirmary. Kirk got the distinct impression that there was no love lost between them. “I’ll be in the cockpit. Page me if you need me.”

“Will do,” the doctor said.

To Kirk’s relief, the exam was both basic and relatively painless. He was a bit taken aback when O’Herlihy jabbed a needle in his arm to take a blood sample, but he acted as though such bloodletting was routine. Certainly, it stung less than a Klingon agonizer. He wasn’t too worried that the doctor would figure out what had really happened. Mind transference was practically unheard of even in his own time. He couldn’t imagine that twenty-first-century medicine was equipped to detect it.
Even McCoy had been unable to prove that Janice had taken over my body.

“Well, you seem more or less undamaged,” O’Herlihy pronounced at last. “I’m still recommending a couple of days’ rest before you resume your full duties, but mostly just as a precaution. You had a fairly serious shock.”

You have no idea,
Kirk thought. Still, he was glad to hear that Shaun Christopher’s body was apparently in working order. He flexed his arm experimentally. At least his new body seemed to be fit enough, although a bit stiffer and more wrinkled than he would have preferred.

How old was Shaun again?

He wondered what had become of Shaun’s own consciousness.
If we’ve truly switched bodies, does that mean that Shaun is in my body and my time?

He wished he knew what was happening—or, to be more precise,
would
happen—aboard the
Enterprise
more than two hundred years from now.

What will become of my ship?

2270

Captain’s log. Stardate 7104.2. First Officer Spock reporting.

I have assumed temporary command of the Enterprise following Captain Kirk’s traumatic encounter with the alien probe. Although our mission to render assistance to the endangered Skagway colony, and perhaps find a way to avert the disaster, remains paramount, I cannot help wondering what effect the probe has had on the captain’s mental state.

Spock entered sickbay, where he found McCoy waiting for him just inside the doorway. The doctor’s office preceded the examination rooms and recovery wards beyond. Spock didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “You asked for me, Doctor?”

“That’s right,” McCoy grumbled. “About time you got here.”

Spock felt a touch of impatience himself. He had been called away from other pressing duties, most notably the challenging task of saving the Skagway colony from total destruction. “If this is urgent, it might
have been more efficient simply to transmit your report to the bridge.”

McCoy snorted. “I think you need to see this for yourself.”

That remains to be determined,
Spock thought. He was uncertain why humans placed so much value on direct visual observations when eyewitness accounts were often notoriously inaccurate. Still, his curiosity had been piqued, and he remained concerned about Kirk’s condition. More than one hour and sixteen minutes had passed since he had placed the captain in McCoy’s care. By now, Kirk should have recovered from the nerve pinch. Spock could only wonder if he had recovered from his contact with the probe as well.

“How is your patient, Doctor?”

McCoy remained stubbornly uninformative. “Let me show you.”

The doctor led Spock to a private examination room adjacent to the primary ward. The chamber was sometimes used to quarantine patients who needed to be kept isolated from the rest of sickbay. Spock found Kirk strapped to a bed, under restraint. A diagnostic screen above the bed monitored his vital signs, which appeared to be normal for an adult human male of Kirk’s age and conditioning. Nurse Christine Chapel watched over the patient. A highly emotional woman, even by human standards, she could not conceal her anxiety, although Spock had no reason to expect this to affect her performance. She was the ship’s senior nurse, after
all, and had served aboard the
Enterprise
since the onset of its current voyages. Kirk lay silently on the bed, his eyes closed. His fingers drummed irritably against the sheets. Spock could not immediately determine if he was conscious or not.

“How is he, Nurse?” McCoy asked.

“A bit calmer,” she reported, “but . . . the same.”

An unnecessarily cryptic diagnosis,
Spock mused. He trusted that more concrete data would be forthcoming soon.
Minus any more attempts at drama.

Their voices roused Kirk, who opened his eyes and lifted his head from the pillow. His gaze zeroed in on Spock. His fists clenched at his sides. Only the restraints holding him down kept him from jumping off the bed and perhaps engaging Spock in a physical confrontation.