Kirk tried his restraints. There was no give in them. Fontana had known what she was doing.
“I know you think you’re doing the right thing,” he said. “I respect that.”
“Screw your respect!” She yanked John Christopher’s dog tags from his neck, snapping the chain. “You don’t deserve to wear these!” She clenched her fist around the tags. “God, when I think that I almost…” She couldn’t bring herself to complete the sentence.
“I told you it was complicated,” he said.
O’Herlihy cleared his throat. “What now?” he asked, sounding defeated. “What are we to do with him?”
“Throw him in the airlock with the other trespasser, what else?” She chuckled bitterly. “You’ll like that, won’t you? I’ve seen the way you look at her, ever since the probe. That was another giveaway, incidentally. Shaun wasn’t interested in her that way, but you were. I could tell. And then, of course, things were different between us.”
Hell hath no fury like an astronaut scorned, Kirk thought wryly. He should have known the messy love triangle would blow his cover. No doubt Spock would have something pithy to say about the folly of human emotions.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well, it’s too damn late for that, isn’t it?”
She unhooked him from the ladder and shoved him toward the hatch. “Come on, Marcus. Help me get him to the brig. I want this bastard out of my sight!”
Kirk couldn’t blame her one bit. The whole situation was spiraling out of control, not unlike Saturn’s rings had been. Now he was looking at three months of captivity while he tried to figure out what to do next and worried about his real ship, somewhere far in the future.
If I never get stuck in the past again, it will be too soon!
Nineteen
2270
“I want to say you look like your father,” McCoy commented, “but I guess that’s not really the case.”
“Tell me about it,” Shaun said. His fingers explored the unfamiliar contours of Captain Kirk’s face. It was like a sore he couldn’t stop picking at. He supposed he ought to be thrilled to have a newer, younger body, but he didn’t feel that way. He wanted his old body back, and he wanted out of this so-called sickbay. He paced back and forth across the futuristic hospital room. It felt strange not to be floating. “I still can’t believe you actually met my dad.”
“Time travel.” The doctor snorted. “Don’t get me started.”
Shaun wasn’t sure how McCoy could be so blasé about it. Personally, he was still trying to get used to the idea that he was really hundreds of years in the future and in another man’s body, no less. Not that his hosts had actually let him see much of that future. He had been confined to quarantine for what felt like days.
“How are you holding up?” the doctor asked. He seemed a decent sort, with a distinct hint of Georgia in his Southern drawl. Shaun found him easier to deal with than that alien iceman, Spock. If nothing else, McCoy had a much better bedside manner.
“Besides going stir-crazy?” Shaun gazed at the sliding door cutting him off from the rest of the ship. He had tried to open it, but apparently, it had been programmed not to release him. Ditto for the guards posted outside. “C’mon, Doc. You can’t keep me cooped up here forever.”
“I know,” McCoy said. “But bear with us. Like I explained before, we need to limit your exposure to our time if we ever want to return you to your own place in history. We learned that lesson with your father.”
“How’s that going, anyway? Am I going home any-time soon?”
The doctor’s pained expression warned Shaun not to expect good news. “To be honest, that’s sort of on the back burner at the moment. I’m afraid we’re in the middle of an urgent mission right now, and that’s caused an unavoidable delay in dealing with your situation.”
“What sort of mission?”
“You know I can’t tell you that, for your own good, as well as history’s.”
“But it’s serious, right? An emergency?”
He had not missed the yellow alert lights flashing inside sickbay or the obvious tension in McCoy and Nurse Chapel. Even Spock seemed slightly on edge in his own spooky Vulcan way. Shaun could tell something was up. The Enterprise felt like Area 51 right after the DY-100 was hijacked.
“Yes,” McCoy admitted. “But as soon as this matter is settled, one way or another, you’ll be our top priority.” He tapped Shaun’s chest. “Trust me, we want to get our captain back where he belongs.”
Shaun believed him. “And you really think he’s back in my time, in my body?”
“That’s the theory, believe it or not. And if Spock thinks there’s something to it, then I wouldn’t want to bet against him.” McCoy heaved a sigh. “He’s annoying that way.”
Not for the first time, Shaun tried to imagine this James T. Kirk character back aboard the Lewis & Clark with Fontana, O’Herlihy, and Zoe. Everybody seemed to think Kirk was a stand-up guy and a first-rate captain, but Shaun still didn’t like the idea of somebody else taking over his mission and his body. Nobody would tell him what history recorded about the Saturn mission. Shaun hoped that wasn’t a bad sign.
Take care of my ship, Kirk. Whoever you are.
He plopped down into a seat by his bed. He was still getting used to gravity again, but at least Kirk’s body had not been debilitated by months of weightlessness. The Enterprise’s “artificial gravity” had just caught him by surprise before.
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime, Doc?”
He had always been an active guy. Just sitting around doing nothing was driving him nuts. His fingers drummed impatiently on the arm of the chair. His feet tapped against the floor.
“I’ll see what I can do about the library viewer,” McCoy said, calling his attention to a portable TV screen by the bed. The monitor was attached to a movable arm. “We can’t give you full access to the ship’s library, for obvious reasons, but we should be able to set up a filter program that will allow you to call up a wide variety of recreational reading and programs.”
Shaun got the idea. “But nothing after 2020, right?”
“That’s the idea,” McCoy confirmed. “Of course, somebody else is going to have to program the filter. I’m just a simple country doctor, not a computer whiz.”
Shaun wasn’t sure he bought that. He guessed that everybody in this era knew more about computers than Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Sumi Lee put together.
“So, I’m stuck watching reruns for the duration?” Suspended animation on a sleeper ship sounded better. He shook his head. “Can’t you even tell me if Buck Bokai beat DiMaggio’s record?”
“‘Fraid not,” McCoy said. “I don’t even know what that means.” He shrugged. “Look at this as a chance to catch up with your reading.”
“Now you sound like my ex-wife,” Shaun said. Debbie had always urged him to read more. “You married, Doc?”
“Not anymore,” McCoy said dourly.
Shaun recognized the tone. “Guess some things never change, no matter what century it is. Sounds like we have that much in common.”
His fingers beat out an impatient rhythm.
“You keep doing that,” McCoy noted with a touch of professional interest. “A nervous tic?”
Shaun glanced down at his hand. He stopped tapping his fingers.
“Not that I’m aware of.” He had barely noticed he was doing it. “And I’m pretty sure the space shrinks back at NASA would have called me on it before.”
You didn’t get placed in command of a seven-month mission to the other end of the solar system without a thorough psychiatric evaluation — or ten. Frankly, he didn’t need to talk about his feelings and childhood issues ever again.