“When their time comes, the same, of course,” the proconsul said. He held his goblet up to the other Kirk as though offering him a toast, then drank from it. “Guards!” he called. The two uniformed, helmeted men marched from the door to stand on either side of the other Kirk. They both carried automatic projectile weapons. Claudius Marcus rose from his chair. “Take him to the arena,” he said. “Oh, we’ve preempted fifteen minutes on the early show for you, in full color. We guarantee you a splendid audience.”
“Before I go,” the other Kirk said, “may I have a few moments to myself, to make peace with my god?” Still observing from behind the column, Kirk recognized the ploy, which likely confirmed the nature of what his counterpart had written to Merrick.
“Your god, Kirk?” said the proconsul. “I must confess to surprise. The gods are simply tools we use to manipulate the masses. Haven’t your people advanced beyond the need for religion?”
“So much for respecting me as a man,” the other Kirk said. The words and tone had been perfectly delivered, Kirk thought, to exact the action needed of the proconsul.
“Very well,” Claudius Marcus said. “I grant you your time.” He gestured toward the sleeping alcove, and the other Kirk started toward it. “You have a few moments only,” the proconsul said, “so speak to your god quickly.”
The other Kirk acknowledged Claudius Marcus with a nod before stepping over beside the bed. There, he kneeled down and folded his hands together, bowing his head as though in prayer. The proconsul and his two guards waited, speaking among themselves as seconds passed, then a minute, then two. Kirk thought that perhaps the other Kirk’s plan had failed, but then he heard the telltale whine of the transporter beam. Clearly Merrick had followed the instructions he’d been passed, which doubtless had told him to use the purloined communicator to contact the Enterprise and provide Scotty with the relative locations of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in order to beam them all up to the ship.
Kirk watched as his alter ego’s image sparkled gold with the transporter effect. “Guards!” Claudius Marcus yelled, pointing, but too late. As the armed men moved into position and raised their weapons, the outline of the other Kirk had already begun to fade.
And then with it, so too did the entire scene, a different setting gradually starting to appear in its place. It felt to Kirk as though his surroundings had begun to dissolve about him and then re-form. In an instant, he recalled the first time he had ever beamed anywhere, and how, as a child, he’d actually believed that the transporter had functioned by breaking down the universe, moving it, then reconstituting it about him. With reminiscence came memories of his parents, still a force in his life despite having died so many years ago.
As the next reproduced locale within the nexus solidified into existence, Kirk expected to see the family farm where he’d grown up in Iowa, or maybe the scene of his grandfather’s funeral, the event that had necessitated his first trip by transporter. But Kirk clearly no longer controlled what he experienced within the nexus, if he even ever had. Rather, as he shook his head in an attempt to clear it, he saw lush vegetation forming all around him. Through it, at the edge of a clearing, he saw the other Kirk-still in his crimson uniform, still without his jacket-along with Spock, Pavel Chekov, Yeoman Landon, and security guards Marple and Kaplan. All those members of the landing party wore the uniforms Starfleet had issued them during Kirk’s original command of the Enterprise, Spock in the blue of the sciences division, Chekov in the gold of command, and the others in the red of engineering and services.
In the clearing, the hum of the transporter grew once more, and then McCoy materialized, along with two more security officers, Hendorf and Mallory. As they approached the first group, Kirk looked away. What is this? he thought. More mistakes that I’ve made in my life? He recollected very well this mission to Gamma Trianguli VI, when all four of the security guards had been killed, when Spock had very nearly lost his own life when he’d been struck by a directed bolt of lightning, and when Kirk, in order to save the ship and crew, had been forced to deactivate the machine that had ruled and supported the native population. Before that, planet 892-IV, where although he’d managed to escape with the lives of the members of the landing party, he’d failed to bring Merrick back to the Federation and to justice. And before that, in his previous time in the nexus, the day he’d broken off his relationship with Antonia, and before that-How long has this been going on? he wondered. How long have I been in the nexus trying to “fix” my life?
As he heard the other Kirk talking with the members of his crew, he turned away and walked deeper into the tropical landscape, out of earshot of the landing party. He did not wish to see how this re-created sequence would allow his alternate self to undo the mistakes he’d made in his career, in his life, because it achieved nothing. No matter if Hendorf and Kaplan, Mallory and Marple survived this replayed incident, they had not survived in the real universe. Whatever happened here, Kirk could not obviate his role in their deaths.
And yet, when he had previously been in the nexus, when he had himself experienced these repeated incidents from his life rather than just observing them, he had taken solace, even happiness, in reliving them and being able to alter the outcomes. But even so, he asked himself now, what point had there been to that? Kirk had hardly lived a perfect existence, but in carrying out the many missions he had been assigned, he had always striven to protect the lives of his crew, even though he had not always been successful in doing so. Despite his failures, he knew that he had accomplished a great deal in his years. Beyond the value of the many exploratory, first contact, and diplomatic missions he’d led aboard the Enterprise, Kirk had helped to protect the Federation and to foster peace throughout the quadrant. On quite a few occasions, he had saved lives-sometimes many lives, even whole populations. He had lived an existence that had mattered not only to himself, but to others.
Whole populations, Kirk thought. He recalled the threats to Deneva and Ariannus, and those posed by Lazarus and Gary Seven, Nomad and the doomsday machine, the Guardian of Forever and V’Ger and the probe that had wanted to communicate with humpback whales. Kirk hadn’t acted alone, but he had acted.
He also remembered another population and another world that had been at risk: the more than two hundred million of Veridian IV. Kirk believed that he had left the nexus and worked with Picard to defeat Soran and prevent the annihilation of the Veridian star and its planets. But then the ribbon of energy had reappeared in the sky, bearing with it utter devastation. Had that been confined to the third world in the system, or had it spread farther and imperiled the fourth as well? He assumed that he’d been spared the destruction expanding into space and raining down on the planet because he’d been pulled back into the nexus an instant before it had reached him. Had that destruction ended, or did it continue even now back in the “real” universe?
In the middle of the jungle on this imaginary Gamma Trianguli VI, Kirk questioned whether the term now actually carried any meaning here. He had seen only the past, repeated-and sometimes altered-again and again, but Picard had spoken of being from the future. Once more, Kirk wondered just how long he had been in the nexus.
“You’ve been here a long time,” a voice said behind him.
Kirk spun around, startled, his arm rushing through the fronds of a tall plant as he did so. As he heard an explosion somewhere in the distance, he saw somebody standing before him-somebody not a member of the Enterprise landing party or a native of this world. “Guinan?” he said even before he realized he would speak. He didn’t consciously recognize the woman he addressed, though clearly he must have known her on some level.