Crucible: Kirk Page 13

  The turbolift arrived at the tenth floor, and Kirk stepped out into a reception area. Another young officer immediately greeted him. “Captain Kirk,” she said, “I’m Ensign Teagarden, Admiral Sinclair-Alexander’s assistant. Let me take you back there.” She gestured vaguely off to her right.

  “Thank you,” Kirk said, and he followed Teagarden through several corridors, past his own former office. Finally, she led him through an anteroom—no doubt the ensign’s own workspace—and into a large, comfortably appointed room. A sofa stood against the wall to the left, and a small conference table to the right. Artwork—mostly wooden carvings and masks, but also two paintings—hung on the walls and reflected the influences of Sinclair-Alexander’s Jamaican birthplace. Across the room, before a row of tall windows, the admiral sat at a desk of blond wood.

  “Jim,” she said as she looked up from a data slate. She rose and came out from behind her desk to greet him, both hands extended. As the ensign left, Kirk moved to the center of the office, where he took Sinclair-Alexander’s hands in his own, offering a warm squeeze.

  “Madge,” he said. “You’re looking well.” Tall and dignified, Sinclair-Alexander had beautiful coffee-colored skin, high cheekbones, dark eyes, and black shoulder-length hair. Though just a few years younger than Kirk, she had something of a timeless appearance that made it difficult to estimate her age simply by looking at her.

  “Thank you so much for coming in,” she said. Her voice carried the hint of a Caribbean accent. “Can I get you anything? A little Saurian brandy perhaps?”

  “Is your plan to ply me with liquor before you tell me why you’ve called me here?” Kirk said with a smile.

  “Ah, you’re on to me,” she said. “Here, let’s sit.” She let go of his hands and motioned toward the sofa. They sat down, and she asked again if he wanted anything to drink. When he declined, she said, “So how is life outside of Starfleet? Something I need to try for myself?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Kirk said. “You seem to be doing pretty well right where you are. In fact, I understand that congratulations are in order, Admiral Sinclair-Alexander.”

  She smiled widely, exuding a radiance that bespoke her happiness. “We got married last year,” she said. “You’ll have to come over for dinner one night. Cynthia’s a wonderful cook.”

  “So you’re spoiled then?” Kirk joked.

  “Completely,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “No more food synthesizers for this old girl.”

  “That’s reason enough to give up a starship command,” Kirk said with a chuckle.

  “If I’d have still been on the Saratoga when Cynthia and I met,” Sinclair-Alexander said, “you can bet I would’ve jumped ship.”

  The notion of abandoning a captaincy for the right person dredged up an all-too-familiar sadness within Kirk. If only I’d been able to, he thought, but he worked to keep the smile on his face. “Congratulations,” he told Sinclair-Alexander. “I’m happy for you, Madge.”

  “Thank you, Jim,” she said. “So how are you enjoying your retirement? No regrets?”

  “Oh, plenty of regrets,” Kirk said with a laugh. “Just none of them I can do anything about now.” When Sinclair-Alexander peered at him just a bit askance, as though she had detected a seriousness in his jest, he quickly continued. “Actually, I’m enjoying retirement. I’ve been able to do a lot of things I never had time for.”

  “Like what?” Sinclair-Alexander asked.

  Kirk shrugged. “I’ve caught up on my reading…. Done some horseback riding…. I dove the Alandros Caves…. I climbed—”

  “The Alandros Caves?” Sinclair-Alexander asked, her eyes widening. “That’s a little more demanding than riding horses or reading.”

  “And something Starfleet Command typically frowns on its captains doing on shore leave,” he said. “Which is why I’m finally getting to do it now.”

  Sinclair-Alexander shook her head, on her face an expression that seemed to mix disbelief with appreciation. “Well, you’ll have to tell me about that and all your other adventures when you come to dinner,” she said. “Unfortunately, I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes, so I need to talk to you about the reason I asked you here.”

  He still fully expected the admiral to suggest that he return to Starfleet. “I’ve been afraid to ask,” Kirk said.

  “Which is why you twice turned down Captain Strnod’s invitation to meet,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I appreciate that you agreed to come when it was me who asked.”

  “How could I refuse?” Kirk said with a lightness he did not entirely feel. “So what is it?”

  “Jim, we’re launching a new Excelsior-class vessel next week, with a new captain and a young crew,” she said. “We’ll be sending it out on a mission of deep space exploration, and we’re calling it the Enterprise.”

  Kirk felt a moment’s indignation at the prospect before a sense of pride rose within him. “I’m glad that the name’s being perpetuated.”

  “I thought you might be,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “Because of the name, it’s been suggested that perhaps you would be willing to don your uniform one last time and be a guest of honor at the launch. You could christen the ship, perhaps even board it for a quick jaunt around the solar system.”

  “Madge,” Kirk said. Though she hadn’t entreated him to return to the space service, he still felt uncomfortable with the idea of becoming involved again even on the level she had suggested.

  “I know, I know,” Sinclair-Alexander said, holding her hands up in front of her as though surrendering to his reluctance. “If it were up to me, Jim, I wouldn’t even be asking. But you know as well as I do that Starfleet’s image suffered a great deal when some of our own conspired to kill Chancellor Gorkon and President Ra-ghoratreii, to incite hostilities between us and the Klingons.” She shook her head as though in disbelief. Kirk understood. Much as he’d fostered an irrational hatred of the Klingons after the death of his son, even he hadn’t acted to foment war with the Empire. “It’s believed that Starfleet could really use the positive publicity it would bring to have you attend the launch of this new Enterprise. With your record, you’re well known not only here on Earth, but throughout the Federation.”

  “That’s another reason I left Starfleet,” Kirk said. “Peace and quiet and anonymity.”

  “I know this is an imposition,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “But I’m getting a lot of pressure to get you to sign on for this.” Kirk wondered who could possibly be applying that pressure. It didn’t sound like something Commander in Chief Smillie would do, and few other admirals would have the power to bully Sinclair-Alexander. “Frankly, I could handle the pressure,” she went on, “but for one thing: I think they’re right. I think this really would help the public’s view of Starfleet right now.”

  “I don’t know,” Kirk said. He felt a natural inclination to acquiesce for Sinclair-Alexander, but he really didn’t want to do what she’d asked of him.

  “If it helps,” she said, “I’ve already recruited two of your old crewmates to come along: Captain Scott and Commander Chekov.”

  “You got Scotty to agree to attend?” Kirk said, surprised. “I thought he’d headed for the Norpin Colony. Is he coming all the way back to Earth?”

  “No. He’s booked passage to Norpin, but he hasn’t departed yet,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “He’s consented to doing this first.”

  Now Kirk shook his head. “I can’t believe neither one of them told me about this.” He hadn’t seen Scotty or Chekov in months, but they still could’ve contacted him to let him know.

  “Don’t blame them for that,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I swore them both to secrecy. Actually, in Commander Chekov’s case, since he’s still in Starfleet, I simply ordered him not to say anything. As for Mister Scott, I suggested that if he mentioned anything to you, then I might have to point the right authorities in the direction of his new boat, just to make sure that nobody had effected any illegal modifications to the engine.”

/>   “Spoken like somebody who’s dealt with chief engineers for most of her career,” Kirk noted.

  “The ceremony and the launch are next Thursday,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “We would activate you and Mister Scott for the day, transport you from here up to dry dock, and then somebody would hand you a bottle of Dom Pérignon.”

  Kirk looked at her, searching for a graceful way to turn down the admiral. He couldn’t find one. “Just a quick trip around the system?” he said.

  “And perhaps a tour of the ship,” she said.

  To his dismay, Kirk actually thought that he would enjoy that. “All right,” he said.

  “Thank you, Jim,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I appreciate it and so does all of Starfleet Command.”

  Kirk stood up, and the admiral then did so as well. “Make sure they all know that this is a singular occasion,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is become the public face of Starfleet.”

  “One time,” Sinclair-Alexander confirmed. “I completely understand. I’ll have my assistant send an itinerary early next week.”

  “All right,” Kirk said. “I’m only doing this because I want that dinner.”

  “And you’ll get it,” Sinclair-Alexander said with a smile. “I’ll contact you after the launch and we’ll set something up.”

  “Absolutely,” Kirk said, but then he realized something. “You’re not going to be at the ceremony?” he asked.

  “Me?” Sinclair-Alexander said with a smile. “No, I’ve got more important things to do.”

  “That’s why they made you an admiral,” Kirk said with a laugh.

  “I guess so,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I’ll have people there to guide you through the ceremony, but you, Captain Scott, and Commander Chekov will be the stars of the show.”

  Kirk raised his hands, and the admiral took them. “That dinner had better be good,” he said. He gave her hands a squeeze again, then headed for the door. On his way back down to the atrium, he remembered that he had scheduled an appointment for next Wednesday to go orbital skydiving. He would be propelled from a platform in orbit somewhere over the Arabian Peninsula and alight in the middle of North America.

  With any luck at all, Kirk thought wryly, I won’t survive ’til Thursday.

  Kirk’s left foot landed softly on the pavement, as though he’d just effortlessly jumped a stream out on his property in Idaho rather than leaping across hundreds of trillions of kilometers and five billion years of history. Despite having previously experienced the superficially simple transition, he still marveled at a journey that seemed as though it should’ve been impossible. As on the other occasions he had traveled through the Guardian of Forever, he felt no disorientation from the actual passage through space and time, though it did seem strange to bound from the barren surface of the Guardian’s world to the modern civilization on Earth.

  Finding himself in daylight, Kirk quickly looked about, surveying his surroundings. He stood on a wide pedestrian walkway, along which he saw several individuals in Starfleet uniforms, though none of them appeared to have taken any notice of his unusual arrival. Although he still wore his own uniform, sans jacket, he thought that he should probably—

  Kirk saw himself. Clad in brown slacks and a jade-colored shirt, the Jim Kirk from this time period strolled away from him along the gray paving stones. Beyond him, in the distance, stood the main administration building on the San Francisco campus of Starfleet Headquarters.

  At once, Kirk knew that he needed to avoid being seen by the other, earlier version of himself, that to do otherwise would be to risk altering the timeline. He turned quickly away from his counterpart and nearly tripped over a low bench sitting against the wall of a building. He scuffled for a second, but then righted himself and fled around the corner.

  Kirk ran for only a few paces, then slowed to a walk, wanting to avoid drawing any attention to himself. He didn’t need somebody happening to notice two Jim Kirks on the grounds of Starfleet Headquarters. Keeping his head down, he made his way from the campus and onto the streets of San Francisco proper.

  As he strode along, Kirk determined the day on which he had arrived. Although he had by one measure spent seventy-eight years within the nexus, no time had seemed to pass for him during that period, at least subjectively. Consequently, he remembered well the last week prior to his being lost aboard the Enterprise-B. During those days, he had returned to Starfleet’s Presidio campus twice: on the day he’d met with Admiral Margaret Sinclair-Alexander, when she’d recruited him for the Enterprise-B launch ceremony, and then on the day of the actual launch. If today is when the Enterprise encounters the energy ribbon, he thought, then I’m too late. But then he realized that his alter ego had been wearing civilian clothes and not a uniform, indicating that he’d been on his way merely to meet with the admiral.

  Friday, Kirk thought. He’d gone to see Madge on a Friday, and the launch of the Enterprise-B had taken place the following Thursday. There would be five full days before then. Enough time to figure out the precise logistics of what I need to do and how to do it.

  Walking along Lombard Street, Kirk felt conspicuous in his uniform. With Starfleet headquartered here in San Francisco, the sight of an officer dressed in official attire could hardly be considered out of the ordinary, but he still wished to invite as little scrutiny as possible. To that end, he casually unbuttoned his vest and removed it, leaving him in his black pants and long-sleeved white pullover.

  Knowing that it would be a few minutes before his counterpart reached the tenth floor of the administration building and met with Admiral Sinclair-Alexander, Kirk headed for his apartment on Russian Hill. He would not stay long, just enough time to retrieve a couple of things he would be able to use over the next few days. When one of the historic cable cars wheeled past him in the street, he climbed aboard, hastening his journey.

  Back at his apartment, Kirk’s hand and retina prints allowed him access. He entered and quickly moved through the small foyer and the living room, then into the den. He spared only a moment’s glance through the floor-to-ceiling windows that peered out on San Francisco Bay. Off to the left, toward the west, Kirk saw the great stanchions of the Golden Gate Bridge, their late-afternoon shadows falling onto the water.

  Along the inner wall, Kirk activated the computer terminal. Calling up the personal calendar of his double, he confirmed today’s date, then verified the details of next week’s daytrip, all just as he remembered it. On Wednesday, the day before the Enterprise-B launch—which had yet to be listed in the schedule—the Kirk of this time planned to leave early for Wichita, Kansas, where he would perform a survey of his landing zone. He would then travel from there to Tunis, Tunisia, where he would commence preparations for his orbital skydive. When ready, he would transport up to a platform in orbit, which would at the proper time be over the Arabian Peninsula, and from which he would be sent hurtling down through the atmosphere.

  Kirk recalled the experience, which had been exhilarating and more than a little daunting. The only detail that would change between now and then, he knew, would be that his counterpart would invite Scotty and Chekov to meet him at the landing zone, which they would scout together the morning of the jump. Later that evening, after he’d landed, the three old friends would have dinner in nearby Wichita. That’ll be the time to act, he told himself. With the Kirk of this time away for most of the day, Kirk himself could essentially assume his identity in order to accomplish what he needed to prior to the Enterprise-B launch and its deadly encounter with the energy ribbon.

  After shutting down the terminal, he went into the bedroom and pulled out two changes of clothing, selecting articles at the bottom of the dresser drawers and hanging at the far side of the closet in the hopes that they would not be missed. He quickly changed into a pair of blue jeans and a light gray shirt. From the back of the closet, he picked out a small carryall that he knew the other version of himself would not be using that week, and he loaded his jacketless uniform a
nd the other changes of clothes into it. He knew that he would need a complete Starfleet uniform on Wednesday, but rather than taking one of the three jackets from the closet right now, he decided to return here next week to get it.

  Standing in the bedroom doorway, Kirk gazed around, wanting to ensure that he’d left everything the way he’d found it, save for the few items he would take with him. He then returned to the den to confirm that he’d deactivated the computer terminal. Finally, he left the apartment and rode a turbolift back down to the lobby.

  Out on the street, he headed for the nearest public transporter. Until next Wednesday, he would need to hide himself away. Fortunately, he knew just the place to do that.

  TWELVE

  2293/2284

  The old place didn’t have a retina scanner, but Kirk’s handprint opened the front door. He stepped into the living room, the air within stale and close. He had a caretaker, Joe Semple, who came out from Lost River a couple of times a year to open up the house and check for any problems that the weather or simple age might have caused, but Joe probably hadn’t been out here since the spring.

  By the time Kirk had arrived here, dusk had fallen on the Idaho hills. In the fading light of the day, he reached to the wall inside the door and tapped the control pad there. The overhead panels came on, revealing a roomful of Halloween ghosts: the sofa, the easy chairs, the end tables, all mere shapes beneath the white sheets that covered them. The mantel above the fireplace sat bare, as did the shelves he’d built on either side of it, as did the walls themselves. Where once the sentimental trinkets of his life—and later, of Antonia’s—had enlivened this place, now only emptiness remained.