rarities in the universe. We are each one of a
kind." He shifted his gaze to the Guardian.
"For a brief time I had a brother ... but he's
gone now, although part of him"--he tapped his forehead
for a moment--?remains with me. For an even
briefer time--forty-two years ago, to be exact
--I had a daughter ... but she was barely here
long enough to establish her presence. I sense in the
Guardian a kindred spirit." He looked back
at Mary Mac. "Would you consider that funny,
Doctor? The notion that something inhuman would try
to lay claim to something as human as a spirit?"
"No," she said quietly. "No, I wouldn't
think that's funny at all. But ... look.
Getting within range of the Guardian ... it's not
exactly regulations. In fact, it's against
regulations."
"I am very aware of all Starfleet
regulations, Dr. Mac. My programming
makes me incapable of violating them. What is
prohibited is unauthorized use of the
Guardian, especially for the intention of altering or
changing time lines. I don't wish to use it. I
simply want to ..."
He paused, andfor someone as clearly
articulate as Data, it seemed very odd for him
to be pausing, trying to find the right ^ws.
"To connect with it," he said finally.
She studied him for a moment, then showed her white
teeth. "All right, Commodore. Although
frankly, I'm taking a big chance here of
getting my ass handed to me."
Data frowned and looked at her buttocks,
but she quickly made a dismissive wave. "Not
literally."
She stretched out an arm and placed her
palm flat against the control padd that stood
outside the Guardian. As she did so, Data
looked with curiosity at her upper arm. "How
did you acquire that bruise, Doctor? It's
very peculiar."
She glanced at where he was looking. Sure
enough, there was a small abrasion on her upper right
arm, perfectly round and about as large as if one
made a circle from the thumb and forefinger. "I
don't know," she said in mild surprise. "Must
have banged it against something."
She dismissed it mentally and looked back at the
control platform. A thin beam of red light shot
out from it and scanned her right eye, feeding the
retinal pattern into the compound's central data
banks. It came back with a Priority Alpha
clearance. A moment later the force field faded,
the steady hum of the generators disappearing. Now there
was nothing but the crying of the wind.
Commodore Data slowly walked forward,
approaching the Guardian with as close
to trepidation as he could possibly come. He
stopped several feet away. "Who are you?" he
asked.
The vast, round portal flickered as a voice
spoke with a booming, all-encompassing vastness that
seemed to come from everywhere at once. "I am the
Guardian of Forever."
"Are you a Guardian in the sense of a
preserver? Or a Guardian in the sense of a
protector?"
"Both ... and neither."
Data cocked his head slightly. Mary
Mac, for her part, had quietly activated her
wrist recorder. Any direct communication with the
Guardian could result in some unexpected new
insight. She had conversed with the vast portal on a
number of different occasions, and every time there was some
new nuance to its replies.
"How is such a self-contradictory
assessment possible?" Data asked.
"Since I am possible ... then all is
possible."
Data considered this a moment. "Are you saying that
you are the keeper of time and protect it from
trespass ... but since every man's fate is in
his own hands, you really cannot protect it from those who
wish to affect it."
"All living beings affect the flow of what
is. I am but one portal through time. There
is an infinity of others."
This response brought a startled glance from Mary
Mac. Data didn't turn his attention from the
Guardian.
"Are you saying there are others like yourself?"
"Of course. In every moment of time that there is
... then I am there. As you exist within all the
moments of your lifetime. But you exist in the
individual moments. I exist in all."
"Holy Kolker," whispered Mary Mac.
"You transcend all boundaries of time and
space?" asked Data.
"ationo. I do not transcend them."
"What, then?"
"I define them."
Data looked back at Mary Mac. It was
a curiously human move. It was almost as if
Data wanted to reassure himself that she was still there.
Then he looked again at the Guardian.
"May I touch you?" asked Data.
"ally have free will. Do as you wish."
Data paused, then walked up to the rocklike
surface of the Guardian. Without hesitation, he
placed his gold palm against it.
The lights throbbed beneath his hand. From the chill that
cut through the air, he had expected that the
Guardian would feel cool, even cold. Instead
it pulsed with an odd sort of warmth. Data
lifted his hand for a moment and could feel no heat being
radiated from the Guardian's surface. But when
he placed his hand against it again, there it was,
entirely self-contained.
"Very curious," he said.
He stayed that way for a long moment, then stepped
back. "I would like to talk again at some other
point."
"All will occur," replied the Guardian.
Data turned and walked back to Mary Mac.
She watched him with curiosity. Anyone ...
"normal," for want of a better ^w ... would have
walked away while glancing repeatedly over his
shoulder at the Guardian. But Commodore
Data, having decided to take his leave, was now
completely focused on the next order of
business.
"Thank you for the opportunity," said Data.
Mary Mac inclined her chin slightly toward the
Guardian. "Did you understand any of that?"
"I have an interpretation that I believe to be
fairly accurate. I'd be most
interested in comparing my conjectures with those of the other
members of your research team."
"Hey, that's what you're here for. To check up
on us and keep Starfleet apprised of our
progress. The invitation to dinner is still open."
"Thank you. I'll just check with my ship first.
... Commodore Data to Enterprise."
Mary Mac stood and watched him as he held
a conversation with thin air.
"Good. I will be remaining on the planet
surface several more hours. Be sure to keep the
ship sufficiently outside the range of the
temporal distortions, since we're uncertain
of the effect long-term exposure could have. ...<
br />
I'll want Science Officer Blair joining
me. ... Very well, then, as soon as he's
completed them. ... Thank you, Lieutenant
Commander. Commodore out."
He turned and looked back at Mary Mac,
who shook her head. "I can't get over that," she
said. "That comm-chip implant so that you can hear each
other inside your heads."
"A two-second procedure to install.
Inserted with a hypo spray. Impossible to lose,
so we can remain in touch with each other at all
times. Plus increased privacy for communications.
Had I wished to, Doctor, I could simply
have whispered my replies and you would not have been able
to hear any of it. However, there was nothing
particularly confidential about this communiqu@e."
"What's it like?" Mary Mac looked skyward
as if she could detect it with the unaided eye. "The
Enterprise, I mean."
"The Enterprise?" Data paused. "In
many ways, the Enterprise 1701-F is
similar to the 1701-D upon which I first served.
It is larger, more powerful, more maneuverable.
Crew complement of two thousand twenty-three people."
"And you're in command."
He nodded slightly. "There is that, of
course. And yet, in some ways ... I find
myself thinking of the past, more and more often. I
suppose, as one acquires more memories, that
is natural."
"Yes. It is. Certainly--j like yourself--not
without precedent."
CHAPTER 2
There was nothing desirable about Starbase 86.
It was far removed from the more frequently
traveled space lanes. Visitors were rare,
commerce even rarer. The facilities were not
exactly top of the line.
Starbases served a variety of functions:
ship repair, stopping point, rest and relaxation,
observation of the territory around them. At its most
basic, a starbase was a signpost of the United
Federation of Planets that said, "We are here.
We are thinking about you and are here to help you."
Starbase 86 filled all of those
requirements ... adequately. Nothing more than
that, and nothing less. It was simply good enough.
Once upon a time, the commanding officer of
Starbase 86--and since the term 86 meant
something had been killed, the starbase had been
nicknamed "Starbase Dead End"--wd never have
settled for good enough. In fact, he had lived his
life by the axiom "Good enough never is."
But that viewpoint had been held a long, long
time ago, by a man who was somewhat different from
86's current CO. A lifetime ago, in
fact. Someone else's lifetime.
He stared out the viewport of his office,
watching the lights of stars that, because of the time
required for light to travel, might have been
extinguished years ago. How odd, he mused,
to be looking at something that was no longer there. And
yet it had reality. Every sense that was available
to him told him that the stars were still there. But that
didn't mean anything.
"Sometimes," he said to no one in particular,
"seeing isn't believing."
There was a chime at the door. He made no
move to answer it at first. What was the point?
What was the rush? If he didn't respond
now, sooner or later the buzz would just sound again.
And again. Things happened whether he wanted them
to or not. That was a hard lesson that he had also
learned.
Sure enough, the chime repeated. This time it was
accompanied by a worried "Admiral?
Admiral Riker? Are you okay?"
Riker permitted a small smile to tug at
the edges of his bearded mouth. The voice was
unmistakably that of his
second-in-command, Lieutenant Dexter.
Dexter always sounded a bit apprehensive, and
Riker knew precisely why. Dexter was something
of a hypochondriac--not to the point where it interfered
with his ability to function, certainly, but he was
preoccupied with medical well-bbing. Not just his own,
either, but that of everyone around him.
As a result, Dexter was always clucking after
Riker, inquiring after Riker's health, and generally
making a polite but determined nuisance of himself.
In a way, Riker supposed that it was something of a
blessing. Certainly Riker himself didn't care
all that much about his well-bbing. He was
seventy-three years old, and although he wouldn't
refuse the idea of seventy-four and onward beyond
that, neither did he particularly welcome it. It
would simply happen or it wouldn't. The rest was of
little consequence.
The longer Riker didn't respond, the more
apprehensive Dexter would get. Probably the
lieutenant was already conjuring up images of an
unconscious or even worse, a dead Riker,
sprawled out on his desk or under it. He even
knew precisely what Dexter would do upon finding
a deceased commanding officer. Dexter would
undoubtedly drop to his knees and proceed
to lecture the corpse.
"I told you you weren't taking good enough care of
yourself," he'd say, shaking his thin blond head.
"I told you that you should take more of an interest in
yourself and the running of the starbase. But would you listen
to me? No. You wouldn't. And now look at you,
with the average life span being 114 years, and here
you are, barely half that, dead as a burned-out
star."
"Come in, Lieutenant," said Riker.
Dexter entered before Riker finished the last
syllable in lieutenant. He coughed nervously.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?"
Riker spread his wrinkled hands broadly.
"I have nothing but time." Then he pointed off to the
side. "See there? Loads of time."
What he was pointing at was virtually the only
thing he took any pride in at all: a large,
ornate grandfather clock, Swiss construction,
made in the early twentieth century. It had
been fully restored and was in perfect working
order. It stood in one of the corners of Riker's
fairly austere office, and its pendulum swung
slowly, back and forth, back and forth.
Each swing was accompanied by a resonant
ticktock.
The sound affected different people in different
ways. Riker found the noise calming, even
reassuring. Dexter--Riker could tell--thought it
was damned distracting. The lieutenant would cast
repeated, annoyed glances at the clockpiece
whenever he was in Riker's office.
"Yes, sir. Loads of time. As you say,
sir." Dexter fingered his thinning hair nervously.
"There's some, um, matters to bring to your
attention."
Riker sat down behind his desk and
half-swiveled the chair so he could stare out at the
stars. Rarely did he look at Dexter
anymore. He had in the begin
ning, back when
he'd taken on the command of the starbase three years
ago. Dexter had been one of the few humans he
ever spoke with. He'd considered that a blessing. Now
he was bored.
Riker's head settled into his hands. His
beard, mostly gray but with a few strands of brown
still peppering it, felt brittle against his palms.
He raised one hand and ran it experimentally through his
gray hair. Strands came out between his fingers, more
strands every day, it seemed. He could have treatment
done to prevent it, of course. But what was the
point? Whom was he trying to impress? Dexter?
Surely not. Hmf? Hardly.
"The surveying ship Chance will be coming in next
week," Dexter said, consulting a small computer
padd in the palm of his hand. Mostly it was there for
security; Dexter's remarkable memory enabled
him to recall all information almost instantaneously.
But he was anal retentive enough to want to have the
printed confirmation in front of him, just in case.
"They had a synthesizer malfunction and will be
putting in for new supplies and synthesizer
repair."
Riker nodded. "Make sure our food
stores are adequately stocked to resupply."
It was purely a cosmetic order. He
knew damned well that Dexter would already have
attended to that. But it was something to do other than just
sit and nod his head as if it were going to fall off.
"Yes, sir," said Dexter neutrally, as if
Riker's order were a novel idea. "Also, a
communiqu@e from Starfleet. They complained that we
were not processing our forms 1021-JKQ
rapidly enough."
Riker raised an eyebrow in mild
amusement. Amazing how much gravity Dexter could
attach to something that Riker considered so utterly
trivial. "Not fast enough?"
"No, sir."
"How much faster do they want it?"
Dexter blinked owlishly. "They are supposed
to be filed within forty-eight hours of departure of
any ship that's Constellation class or larger."
"And we've been taking ...?"
Nervously clearing his throat, Dexter tapped
his computer padd and said, "We've been averaging
three weeks."
Riker stared at Dexter gravely. "My
God. This could spell the end of the Federation as we
know it. And I'll have to live with that knowledge for the rest of
my life."
Dexter blew air impatiently out between his
colorless lips. "It's not a laughing matter,
Admiral."
"I don't recall hearing laughter,