Crucible: Kirk (15 page)

“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 and 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.

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.

How appropriate,
Kirk thought, struck by the lonely path his life had taken.
Why did I leave the nexus? I could've fixed this. I could've fixed all of it.

But of course, he couldn't have, not really. The nexus had been filled with joys, but imagined joys. What he had to do now, he had to do in the real universe.

Kirk closed the door behind him, then pulled the strap of the carryall from his shoulder and dropped the bag onto the floor. It landed with a soft thump, and he thought that he might just want to follow it down. Fatigue had washed over him, and he realized that he had no idea when last he'd slept.

Kirk decided to walk through the rest of the house. He ducked his head into the office he'd once set up off the living room, and which Antonia had then made her own once she'd moved in. Everything with which she had filled the room had gone now, leaving most of the space empty. Only the com/comm unit he'd had installed there now remained, draped like the rest of the furniture with a white sheet. Kirk padded over to it and gingerly gathered the covering from atop it, not wanting to stir up all the dust that had accumulated during the past months. After setting the balled sheet down on the floor, he tapped at the console's controls. It blinked to life with a chirp, confirming that he would be able to use it to record the message he needed for next week, for the
Enterprise
-B launch. He deactivated it, then continued on through the rest of the house.

Moving through the kitchen, down the short hall, past the refresher, and into the bedroom, Kirk saw only more signs of disuse. At one time he had loved this place back when he'd spent a couple of summers here as a boy. It had been here that his uncle had taught him how to ride horses, and just being away from home had made those trips seem like adventures. In the years since the property had passed to him, though, he had neglected it. His long duty aboard the
Enterprise
had certainly prevented him from visiting more than occasionally, but even when he'd been stationed on Earth as chief of Starfleet Operations, he hadn't come here much. Even during that first time he'd stepped away from the space service, when he'd actually come here to live, he hadn't really taken care of the place until he'd met Antonia.

And now look at it,
he thought as he gazed at the unused furniture hidden beneath yet more sheets. As tired as he felt, he couldn't bring himself to lie down on the bed. He imagined it would seem like a betrayal of sorts to treat this place like home.

Too many regrets,
he told himself. As little as he'd used this place over the years, he'd still been unable to divest himself of it. Kirk had rarely seen his nephews, owing both to his time on the
Enterprise
and their being scattered throughout the quadrant, so he supposed that holding on to his uncle's old house had provided a familial touchstone for him, however infrequently he'd visited it. Just knowing it was there, waiting for him, had probably helped him in ways of which he hadn't even been aware.

Kirk paced back through the house to the living room. He thought about checking outside for some wood, but then thought better of it, deciding that he didn't have the energy to build a fire. Instead, he carefully pulled the sheet from the sofa and sat down.

As he did, his hand struck something. Kirk looked down and saw a hardcover book on the cushion beside him. He picked it up, the scent of its age reaching him, a smell he recalled from childhood; his mother had so loved books. Kirk examined the small, thin volume, bound in gilded leather. Its cover contained an ornate design, but no title. He turned it so that he could see its spine, and when he saw the words there, he read them aloud:
“The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.”
His voice echoed slightly in the room, evoking the peculiar impression that no words had ever been spoken here before.

But of course many had.

Too many,
Kirk thought.

He shook his head. He didn't remember leaving the book here, though clearly he must have on his last trip out to the house, before the nexus, before the
Enterprise
-B, before everything. It had been a gift from Antonia, on the second anniversary of their first date, just half a year or so before she would last speak to him.
She must've suspected when she'd given this to me,
Kirk thought.
A tragedy in the offing.

He opened the cover of the book. On the front endpaper, he saw words flowing across the page in Antonia's delicate hand.
Dear Jim,
she had written,
Even though I don't care much for the story, I know how much you love old books. This is just to show how much I love old Jim Kirk. Always, Antonia.

“‘Always,'” Kirk said. She'd been wrong about that, and wrong about the tragedy too. Kirk had been the forlorn Romeo, but Antonia had not been his Juliet.

And I knew that,
Kirk rebuked himself.
I knew it all along.
He had done so much good in his life, but he would never forgive himself for what he had done to Antonia.

For a fleeting moment, Kirk considered contacting her now, telling her how sorry he felt for how badly he'd hurt her. He knew that he couldn't do that for fear of changing the timeline, for fear of disrupting his plans to prevent the temporal loop, but even if he could speak with her, he understood that it would do no good. Kirk craved absolution, but he also knew that he did not deserve it.

Kirk leafed through the book until he reached the first page of the play. He began to read, but before long, his eyelids fluttered closed. His head lolled back on the sofa and he drifted to sleep.

Unfortunately for him, his slumber did not lack for dreams.

As Jim Kirk slid the pan of Ktarian eggs onto the low heat of the cooking surface, he felt the chill of the morning air. Thinking that he should start a fire, he dashed around the island and out of the kitchen. In the living room, he peered down beside the hearth at the log basket there, which sat empty. He then went over to the front door, opened it, and looked out at several stacks of wood, some of it cut, some not.

Kirk paced outside to his right and up the curved stone stairs to the front clearing. There, he reached down for a few pieces of firewood, but as he did so, his gaze came to rest on the axe that he'd left sticking in the stump. Suddenly feeling the need for some physical activity, he went over to the pile of unhewn tree segments, grabbed one, and set it down beside the axe. He pulled the tool free, then swung it up and around, bringing the blade down squarely into the short length of tree trunk, which divided neatly in two, each piece falling to the ground. He bent, picked up one of the pieces, and placed it back in position to be split.

Before he brought the axe down again, Kirk breathed in deeply. Where before he'd found the air cool, he now appreciated its crispness. He gazed around at the evergreen trees holding court about the house, and past them, at the stately Canadian Rockies, clad in the white folds of autumn snow.
Beautiful day,
he thought, and he knew that his sentiment wouldn't last.

“You're stalling,” he told himself. He peered over at the house, at the second-story window on the left, beyond which he knew Antonia still lay in bed. How could a man who'd once battled a Gorn in hand-to-hand combat, who'd by himself piloted a starship into the maw of a machine that devoured entire planets, who'd floated alone in a completely empty universe—how could he be scared to talk with the woman who loved him?

Because it's not fear stopping me,
Kirk knew.
It's guilt.

Kirk brought the blade of the axe down into the stump, then headed back into the house. In the kitchen, left over the low heat, the Ktarian eggs had almost finished cooking. From the far counter, Kirk retrieved the tray he'd already set for Antonia's breakfast. In addition to a plate, flatware, and napkin, he'd also placed on it a glass of grape juice, a glass of water, and a small vase of larkspur. He set it down beside the heating surface, dished the eggs from the pan onto the plate, then added three slices of toast when they'd done browning.

Before he went upstairs, he walked back out into the living room, where he opened an antique wooden box ornamented with metal fleurs-de-lis. From it, he removed a small, black velvet pouch that contained a gift he'd acquired for Antonia: a golden horseshoe, on the arch of which had been affixed a miniature red rose.
To soften the blow,
he thought as he returned to the kitchen and set the pouch down beside the breakfast he'd made.

Taking a deep breath, Kirk picked up the tray and carried it back through the living room and then up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he balanced the tray against the jamb, took hold of the knob, and threw open the bedroom door. Across the room, Antonia looked up at him from where she still lay in the antique four-poster bed Kirk had obtained for the house. Her long dark hair spread on the pillow behind her head like a crown.

“At last,” she said with a wide smile. She fluffed up the pillows behind her and sat up against them. Kirk caught a fleeting glimpse of her bare body before she pulled the sheet up across her chest. “I was wondering how long you were going to be rattling around in that kitchen,” she said. “I'm starving.”

“I'm not surprised,” Kirk commented as he made his way across the room. They had gone to bed before midnight last night, but had stayed up long past, exploring each other's bodies. “I wanted to get all of this just right,” he said, settling the tray across her lap.

“Ktarian eggs,” Antonia said excitedly, almost singing the words. She peered up at Kirk with an expression of surprise and delight. “When did you…?”

“I brought them with me from Idaho,” Kirk said. They'd come up here to Canada five days ago, wanting to spend some time in the Rockies before the big snows of the winter began.

Antonia picked up a fork and took a bite of the eggs, after which she hummed in appreciation. “Delicious,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Kirk said. He tried to smile, but felt only one side of his mouth rising. He dreaded what lay ahead.

After Antonia enjoyed another mouthful of the eggs, she looked back up at where he stood, one hand raised to the post at the foot of the bed. “Aren't you eating?” she asked.

“I'm—no,” Kirk managed to say. “My stomach's a bit upset.” As soon as he'd decided this morning to speak with Antonia about what had happened, his anxiety had physically unsettled him.

“I'm sorry,” Antonia said. “Do you think you're getting sick? Can I make you some tea?” She reached as though to take the tray from her lap so that she could get out of bed, but Kirk stopped her.

“No, no, I'll be fine,” he said. “Have your breakfast.”

Antonia smiled at him, then looked back down at the tray. “What's this?” she asked, holding up the velvet pouch.

“How did that get there?” Kirk teased, trying to stay positive.

Antonia reached into the pouch and pulled out the horseshoe. “Jim, this is lovely,” she said. She held it out before her, the ends up. “For good luck.”

Again Kirk tried to smile, and again failed to do so convincingly.

“What's the matter?” Antonia asked. “Does your stomach feel that bad?”

“It's nothing,” Kirk said.

“Jim, I've lived with you for two years now,” she said. “I can tell when something's bothering you.” She seemed to make an assessment while she looked at him. “It's not your stomach, though, is it?”

“It's not just that, no,” Kirk said.

“What is it?” Antonia asked, clearly concerned now.

Kirk pushed off the bedpost and walked across the room to the far corner. When he turned back to face her, he knew that the time had come to tell her. “Antonia,” he said, “Harry Morrow contacted me.”

“Harry Morrow?” she asked, her brow creasing.

“An old friend,” Kirk said. “He's also the commander in chief of Starfleet.”