STAR TREK - TOS (44 page)

’Tis not too late,he mused, recalling the immortal words of Tennyson’s Ulysses,
to seek a newer world

...

To strive, to seek, to find...

And not to yield.

NEVADA

UNITED STATES

JANUARY 20, 1996

“YOU CAN COME IN NOW, SHANNON.”

A somber Jeffrey Carlson let her into his office, then closed the door behind her. Moving slowly even for a man his age, as if he weren’t at all looking forward to this meeting, he sat down behind his cluttered mahogany desk, opposite Shannon. A scale model of the DY-100, the only version of the ship still remaining at the base, sat atop the desk, reminding them both of exactly why they were here. Removing his bifocals, he rubbed his aged eyes wearily before addressing Shannon again. “Thank you for dropping by,” he said softly, sounding uncertain how to begin.

It wasn’t like she had a whole lot of choice. For the past two weeks, ever since the spectacular departure[401]of the prototype, Shannon had been under house arrest, confined to her own quarters at Area 51 while an intensive investigation had been conducted into the startling and mysterious events of January 5. She had endured numerous debriefings, trying to cooperate as much as possible while clinging to the cover story she and Roberta had concocted, all the while wondering what sort of consequences she was ultimately going to face.
Guess I’m about to find out,
she speculated.

“No problem,” she said meekly. Most of all, she regretted all the grief and upset she had caused Doc Carlson and the rest of the DY-100 development team. Kept in isolation, she hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Shaun and the others about what had happened, not that she could really tell them all that much.

It’s been two weeks,
she reflected,
and the world hasn’t come to an end. Does that mean that it was
all worthwhile?

“I don’t need to tell you what the last couple of weeks have been like,” Carlson continued, smiling wanly. “You have no idea how tempted I’ve been to start smoking again.” He spoke gently, making an obvious effort to put her at ease. “Thank you for your patience while everything was being sorted out.

I’m sure you’ve been concerned about what all this means to your future.”

If I even still have one,Shannon thought bleakly. She half-expected to spend the rest of her life in solitary confinement somewhere. Antarctica maybe, or the moon.

Carlson’s wrinkled face took on a more serious expression. “Before I inform you of the final decision resulting from our investigation, I feel obliged to ask[402]you one last time: Are you still standing by your original story, that you were the victim of insidious Ferengi mind-control?”

Shannon nodded, feeling bad about lying to Doc Carlson, of all people. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense,” she dissembled once more, for the umpteenth time; at this point she practically believed the fabrication herself. “The last thing I remember is being in the conference room with the rest of you, then suddenly feeling an irresistible psychic compulsion to go to the launch bay. After that everything is a blank; the next I knew, I was waking up in the infirmary, with about a half-dozen armed MPs watching over me.”

That much was true. True to Roberta’s word, she had recovered from the stun-blast with no ill effects, except, perhaps, to her reputation and career.

“I see,” Carlson said thoughtfully. Shannon couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. “Fortunately for you, there is no hard evidence to contradict that interpretation of events. All videotapes and audio recordings from that evening were apparently erased by the same electromagnetic pulse that rendered you unconscious.”

Thank you, little green pyramid,Shannon thought gratefully. As far as she knew, no trace of the crystalline gadget had survived its self-destruction.

“Nevertheless, a multi-billion dollar, top-secret spacecraft has gone missing, and I’m afraid that someone has to take the fall.” Carlson offered her a sympathetic look that belied the severity of his words. “If it’s any consolation, General Wright and most of the Air Force brass wanted to lock you up[403]and throw away the key, regardless of the lack of evidence, but, not without some effort, I managed to talk them into a slightly less drastic decision.”

Taking a deep breath, he launched reluctantly into the disciplinary phase of the meeting. “As of this moment, all of your security clearances are officially revoked. Youare no longer employed at this base, and your career at NASA is over as well.” He slid a clipboard, bearing a densely typed piece of paper, across the desktop. “By signing this document, you agree never to discuss any of your work at Area 51, on pain of criminal prosecution.”

Shannon felt numb all over. Even though she knew this outcome was the best she could hope for—probably better, in fact—it still came as a blow. Yearsof hard work and personal progress, along with all her childhood dreams of going into space, evaporated forever. With a lump in her throat the size of a Viking space probe, she signed the confidentiality form without even reading the fine print. Ironically, she used the same shiny silver fountain pen that had gotten her into all this trouble; despite the recent investigation, nobody had ever guessed that it was more than just a fancy writing implement.

“Thank you, Dr. Carlson,” she said, sliding the signed form back to him. Her voice, which was notably husky at the best of times, was rendered even hoarser by the powerful emotions surging through her. “I want you to know that I appreciate everything you’ve done on my behalf, both before and after the Incident. It’s been a privilege to work with you.”

Unsure whether her rubbery limbs would support her, Shannon stood up and headed toward the door.

[404]“Please give my regards to Shaun and the others. Tell them I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did.”

“Shannon, wait.” Carlson rose and gestured toward the chair she had just exited. “There’s something else I want to say, off the record.” He waited for her to sit down again, then took a deep breath before speaking. “I’m not sure I’ll ever really know why you did what you did, but I may understand a bit more than you might imagine. Yousee, I know that sometimes simple humanity, and our own private consciences, have to take precedence over the demands of science and so-called national security.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “How do you think Quark and the other Roswell aliens escaped in the first place?”

Shannon’s eyes widened. “You?”

“Don’t give me that old ‘Ferengi mind-control’ alibi,” he told her with a knowing grin. “I invented the Ferengi mind-control alibi.

“Or, to be more exact, my wife did.”

A black stealth helicopter was waiting to take her away from Area 51. Still reeling from Doc Carlson’s unexpected confession, she trudged across the tarmac, bearing a small cardboard box full of personal possessions. It was a chilly winter morning, the desert air cold and crisp.

To her surprise, she found Shaun Christopher waiting for her by the helipad. “Hey there, stranger!” he said with forced levity. “You didn’t think I’d let you leave without saying good-bye?”

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure you were still speaking to me,” she confessed. The helicopter pilot, wearing a[405]khaki uniform conspicuously devoid of any identifying insignia, took her box from her to load onto the ’copter. “Apparently, I lost a spaceship or something.”

Shaun gave her a gleaming smile, doing his best to defuse the awkwardness of the moment. “Hey, it’s not your fault. We should have known those sneaky Ferengi would pull something like this. Guess they don’t want any competition from us uppity Homo sapiens.” His clean-cut, all-American face took on a determined cast. “But I’ll tell you one thing: this isn’t the end, not by a long shot. We’re not going to let those rat-faced E.T.’s yank the rug out from beneath us. We’re going to rebuild.” Stubborn brown eyes looked past Shannon into the future. “One way or another, I’m making it to Saturn.”

Shannon never doubted it for a minute. “I know you will,” she told him.

“Excuse me, miss,” the ’copter pilot interrupted. His breath frosted in the air between them. “Time to go.”

A clumsy, heartfelt hug later, Shannon waved goodbye to Shaun, and Area 51, from the passenger seat of the sleek black helicopter. As she adjusted her seat belt, something in her pants pocket jabbed her uncomfortably. Investigating, she pulled out the silver pen Roberta Lincoln had bestowed upon her.
You
again?
she thought wryly.

Its propeller blades spinning almost silently, the ’copter lifted off the tarmac. Shannon took one last look at Area 51, her home away from home for over a decade, then contemplated the silver pen—and the job offer Roberta (a.k.a. “Helen Swanson”) had made to her the night of the blast-off.

[406]Did she really want to join Roberta’s mysterious organization? Now that she had said good-bye to NASA for good, she had literally no idea what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Maybe she ought to take the older woman up on her offer? As long as she had the pen, she knew, she could always contact Roberta.

No, she realized, coming to a decision all at once, with surprising certainty.
That’s not going to happen.

She glanced back ruefully, unable to even see the top-secret desert base anymore. Being a double agent had cost her far too much already.

Feeling completely confident about the choice she had just made, if about nothing else, she tossed the silver pen out the window of the helicopter. “Excuse me, miss,” the pilot asked her, looking more perplexed than upset. “What was that?”

Shannon shrugged, brushing back a strand of her auburn hair. “Nothing I’m going to need anymore.”

A new millennium, it occurred to her, was only four or five years away, depending on how picky you were about the math.
Maybe by then,
she thought hopefully,
I’ll have found a new life for myself.

And a new dream to pursue.

FEBRUARY 2, 1996

“YOU REALIZE, OF COURSE,” Roberta said, “that we’ve unleashed Khan on the rest of the universe?”

“The universe has survived worse than Khan,” Gary Seven observed. “Earth might not have been so lucky.”

True enough,she conceded. In her heart, she knew that they had handled the Khan crisis the best way they could, except for what had happened to Isis, that is. At times, though, she couldn’t help wondering what Khan would be up to once he finally woke up, a hundred-plus years from now. If nothing else, it gave her something to think about besides what was just about to take place.

Gary Seven stood in front of the open transporter vault, his bags packed. Sunlight peeked through a window in the farmhouse’s venerable stone walls, offering her a glimpse of violet hills and clear blue skies beyond.

“So you’re really going?” Roberta felt herself[408]getting misty-eyed already, and she reached for a box of Kleenex atop Seven’s—scratch that,
her
—oak desk.

Seven nodded. “It’s time,” he told her gently. He wore a simple black bodysuit that Roberta assumed was in fashion back on a certain cloaked planet light-years away. “My aging musculature would prefer a lower-gravity environment, and, to be honest, a change will help me get over the pain of Isis’s death.” A bittersweet tone crept into his voice as he mentioned his once-constant companion. “Besides, I know Earth’s future will be in good hands, Supervisor 368.”

Roberta would have blushed if she hadn’t been too busy being weepy. “Thanks,” she replied, still mildly flabbergasted by the promotion. She wiped her eyes, hoping to avoid crying over her favorite downy blue pullover. “But how am I supposed to police this entire planet by myself?”

A cryptic smile appeared on Seven’s crinkly face. “Arrangements have been made,” he assured her. “In fact, I believe that’s being taken care of right now.”

As if on cue, the transporter controls on the inside of the heavy vault door started flashing and beeping.

A cloud of glowing blue plasma materialized within the vault, rapidly filling the entire cavity.

What the heck?Roberta wondered, her gaping eyes struggling to penetrate the swirling azure fog.
Seven
didn’t tell me we were expecting company.

At first, she couldn’t spy anyone in the mist, then she realized that she was looking too high up, as their unexpected visitor came padding out of the vault on all fours. A fluffy orange Persian cat, with yellow eyes and an adorable pushed-in face, stepped onto the carpet and meowed hello.

[409]“Roberta Lincoln, meet Ramses,” Seven said by way of introduction. “He’s your new partner.”

“He?” She gave the long-haired feline a careful once-over.

“Yes,” Seven answered dryly. “As a matter of fact, Ramses is a tomcat.”

Roberta arched her eyebrow.
This could be interesting,
she thought.

First, however, there were some difficult good-byes to get through. Roberta got up from behind the desk and, being careful not to trod upon Ramses, gave Seven a heartfelt hug. “Don’t be a stranger,” she urged him. “Remember, I’m always a subspace call away.”

“Good to know,” he answered warmly, putting down his luggage long enough to hug her back. “And who knows? I may find reason to brave Earth’s gravity again, whether there’s a brewing interstellar emergency or not.” Letting go of her at last, he stepped back so he could look her squarely in the eyes.

“In any event, I want you to know just how proud I am of everything we’ve accomplished together over the years. You’reliving proof that the human race is worth preserving—and that you don’t need genetic engineering or selective breeding to produce a superior human being.”

On that note, he picked up his bags and, smiling back at her over his shoulder, stepped into the same roiling blue plasma that had disgorged Ramses, which suggested, if you thought about it, that he might be going exactly where the apricot-colored Persian had just come from.

Or not.

Roberta watched his familiar figure disappear into[410]the mist, then kept on watching until the fog itself had entirely evanesced, leaving her alone in the antique stone farmhouse with her brand-new feline companion. “I don’t know about you, buster,” she said, dabbing at the corner of her eye with a tissue,