“I also know that you think the Guardian was destroyed by the Klingons. I’ll explain that. But first, know that I lived through the events that you just experienced: the christening and launch of the new Enterprise, the unexpected distress call from the two transports, beaming aboard forty-seven of the Lakul’s passengers, the destruction of the two ships within the energy ribbon, and then the Enterprise becoming trapped herself.” Kirk noted the accurate rundown of the day’s occurrences, sure that it too had been intended to convince him of the claims being made. “Based on a theory advanced by Scotty,” said his alleged future self, “you went to the deflector control room and overrode the safeties to permit a resonance burst to be generated from the main deflector. That broke the hold of the ribbon’s gravimetric field on the ship, but then a surge of energy ripped through the hull of the Enterprise, including punching a hole in the outer bulkhead of the deflector control room.”
“And that,” proclaimed this other Kirk, “was where the paths of our lives diverged. Unlike you, I was not transported to safety, but pulled into the energy ribbon, which it turns out is a gateway to a place called the nexus. I can best describe this place as a timeless dimension of the mind, though it must also have a physical component to it, since my body survived within it.” The other Kirk then described his experiences within the nexus, ending when he’d met another captain of another Enterprise from the year 2371. “Picard reminded me how much I wanted to make a difference,” he said. He told of how he had then left the nexus and come back to this universe in order to help that captain, Picard, prevent a madman named Soran from destroying the star Veridian and incinerating two hundred thirty million people. They had succeeded, stopping Soran on Veridian Three, but in returning to normal space, Kirk’s presence had, by virtue of the significant buildup of chronometric particles in his body, triggered something he called a converging temporal loop, which he then explained. He had been swept back into the nexus, but in this universe, vast tracts of time and space had been destroyed.
“And so I left the nexus again,” the other Kirk said, “this time to the Guardian of Forever, five billion years in the past-before our sun burned hot in space.” Kirk recognized the quote. “I came through the Guardian to this time by traveling backward through my own life. My intention was to find a way to prevent the converging loop without imperiling either the crew of the Enterprise-B or the population of Veridian Four, and without altering the timeline.” Kirk understood well the necessity of avoiding changes to history.
“Now, if you’re hearing this message, it means that I am no longer aboard the shuttle, but more important, it means that I have succeeded in preventing the destructive temporal loop. Because you did not enter the nexus, you did not leave it, and so you and your set of chronometric particles did not exist at two distinct points in time and space that were connected by the conduit of the nexus. Because I transported you to safety after you saved the Enterprise and her crew, that is no longer an issue either.
“But after the ship’s encounter with the energy ribbon, you were presumed dead,” the recording went on. “To avoid altering history, that must continue to be true. Using specific deflector frequencies, I hid your transport out of the deflector control room. I also simulated an explosion on the hangar deck as though it had been caused by the energy ribbon. The shuttle is now tumbling through space. Because of the deflector frequency, the Enterprise crew will be unable to scan it for life signs, although they would not expect there to be any, since it appears to them as though the hangar deck had been breached and a shuttle blown out into space. As you know, the ship has no tractor beam to haul the shuttle back aboard. Should the crew attempt to beam it aboard, they’ll find it impossible to fix a transporter lock on it because of the deflectors, though they will most likely attribute it to interference from the energy ribbon. They might intend to come back for the shuttle later, but for now they will leave it and head back to Earth so that the survivors of the Lakul can receive medical treatment.”
Well planned, Kirk thought.
“But there is still action to be taken,” the message continued. “Because you never entered the nexus, you will never meet Picard and never leave with him to stop the destruction of the Veridian star in the year twenty-three seventy-one. You must employ another means to do this, while at the same time averting any alteration to the timeline between now and then.” The other Kirk paused, then said, “This is why I traveled to the Guardian. I know how you can do this.”
Kirk listened as his counterpart explained his plan. After that, the future Kirk listed a number of details about his life-about their life-in an attempt to further prove his identity. He talked about the first time he had ever traveled by transporter, on the occasion of his grandfather’s funeral, and how it had seemed to him that the universe had dissolved around him, moved, and then re-formed. He mentioned what he had done in those solitary moments after learning of his father’s death. He detailed how, in ancient caverns on the planet Vulcan, he had mourned his son David. And perhaps most convincing of all, he had spoken with difficulty about the private moments he had shared with Edith, moments that he had held close throughout the years.
After the recording had concluded, the forward console came to life. Kirk tapped at the gravity regulator and immediately felt a reduction in his apparent weight, confirming that the controls had, as promised, been unlocked. Before he did anything more, though, he sat quietly, attempting to process all that he had been told. Among other things, he wondered what had happened to his future self. According to the message, he had been aboard this shuttle when he’d transported Kirk out of the deflector control room, but he was not here now. Kirk imagined the sequence of events and their consequences. Because he had not been pulled from the Enterprise and into the nexus, he had also never exited the nexus, either to help Picard or to arrive on the world of the Guardian. He therefore had never leaped through the temporal vortex to the present, and so his future self no longer existed in this time period.
But then why didn’t the recording cease to exist now too? Kirk asked himself, but he then gave the matter little thought. He knew well that the apparent paradoxes of time travel and the mysterious functioning of the Guardian of Forever often defied explanation. Instead, he really needed to concentrate on what he would do next. That, of course, depended on whether or not he believed the content of the message.
He decided that he did.
He looked down at the console and reached forward to work the passive sensors. He saw that the energy ribbon had now moved away from his location, and that the Enterprise had now departed the scene, no doubt heading back to Earth, just as the recording had suggested would happen.
Cautiously at first, Kirk operated the helm, steadying the shuttle and engaging its impulse drive. Once he had moved away from the site where the Enterprise had encountered the energy ribbon, he plotted a course and took the shuttle to warp. Behind him, he realized, lay a life of joy and pain, of success and failure, a life that Scotty and Chekov and the crew of the new Enterprise-B now believed had been lost.
Ahead of him lay the Guardian of Forever.
SEVENTEEN
2293
Kirk worked the helm controls of the shuttlecraft-the Archimedes, he had learned during his voyage-and brought it down through the cloud cover. Below extended the dull plain of this ancient, barren world. Fissures and rock formations appeared here and there, breaking up the otherwise-featureless surface.