On the right side of the computer display, the Klingon vessel Gr’oth hung frozen within the planet’s atmosphere, the forward edges of its hull blazing red from the friction with the air. While Spock and Scotty and the rest of the crew had fought to fend off Klingon boarders in main engineering, and then had worked to repair the Enterprise, Korax had done this. Kirk raised his hand and touched a blinking green button on the computer panel. The recording began to play on the monitor.
Kirk watched as the Klingon battle cruiser dived toward the surface-toward the Guardian. Seconds passed, and the glowing sections of the Gr’oth’s hull grew hotter still, shifting from red to white. Finally, the D7 warship appeared on the left side of the monitor, its body obstructing the view of the Guardian as the ship raced toward the alien object.
The Gr’oth crashed directly into the Guardian of Forever. The split-screen ended, replaced by a single view. The display dimmed as a brilliant fireball burst from the point of impact. A huge mushroom-shaped cloud rose at great speed, reaching high into the sky.
Kirk touched another control, and the recording skipped ahead to its end. He halted the image there and beheld an enormous crater carved out of the ground where once the Guardian of Forever had stood. Kirk saw no signs of either the Gr’oth or the Guardian, but clearly both had been vaporized by the great heat of the blast. Nothing could have survived the explosion.
For a long time, Kirk sat and stared at the devastation. When he and his crew had discovered the Guardian, he had been awed by its power and abilities and enraptured by the amazing possibilities it offered. But after chasing McCoy through it and back into time, the vortex had become a symbol of profound pain for him, a reminder that the best part of his life had come and gone and would never return.
Now, as he gazed at the image of the ruined landscape, at the place from which the Guardian of Forever had delivered to him the love of his life and then stripped her away from him, he felt terrible anguish. Somehow, it was as though he had lost Edith all over again.
EIGHT
1930
In the encompassing darkness carried in with the deep of night, Kirk could have lain awake and fixated on the burden of his responsibilities, could have intentionally eluded sleep in order to lament the unthinkable possibility that Spock had delivered to him four days ago. He could have done those things, just as he had in nights past, but he didn’t. Instead, he found the will to drift above his fatigue and his concerns, concentrating now on the warmth of Edith’s bare form lying against his own, on the relaxed cadence of her breathing, on the now-musky scent of her flesh. In these perfect moments, he shut out the rest of the universe.
Just a few minutes ago, Edith had reached away from him to switch off the lamp on the nightstand. Then she’d rolled back over to him, and he’d enfolded her in his embrace. He held her now, his arms encircling her as though they’d been designed specifically for that purpose.
In the twenty-five days since he and Spock had arrived in Earth’s past, Kirk had attempted to resist the feelings that had begun to develop within him from the first instant that Edith Keeler had walked into his life. It made no sense for him to fall in love with a woman with whom he could have no possible future. Whether or not her death would be required in order to preserve the timeline, as Spock had suggested might be the case, Kirk intended to right the flow of history, after which he and his first officer would return to their own time in the twenty-third century. At that point, Edith would necessarily be gone from his life forever.
But even though he had tried to keep a rein on his emotions, he’d failed completely. With a rapidity he almost couldn’t believe, he had fallen for Edith, and day by day, even hour by hour, his love for her had grown deeper and deeper. He found her beauty, both within and without, singular. From virtually the moment he’d first seen Edith, descending the wooden stairs into the basement of the 21st Street Mission, he had been taken with her-with her dark hair and eyes, her delicate features and pearlescent skin, her quiet confidence and certain, almost regal bearing.
When the two of them had met, Kirk could not possibly have known how similarly they viewed life. But in a world beset by wars, by disease, by poverty and starvation, Edith somehow possessed the soul to gaze up at the stars and see the same things that Kirk did: a better tomorrow, an advanced humanity, hope, wonder. Edith perceived a positive future she did not simply long for, but one she worked to bring about as best she could. Where Kirk traveled the galaxy seeking out new knowledge, encountering new species, mediating disputes, keeping the peace, Edith fed the poor, with food for their bodies and a great vision for their minds.
You see the same things that I do, Edith had said earlier, and he did. He always had, from far back in his life. When he’d been a boy, his family had sometimes taken walks at night out on the farm in Iowa. Sometimes his mother had gone, sometimes his brother, but most often it had been just Kirk and his father. They’d gazed together at the stars and seen the future-Jim’s future, mankind’s, the universe’s.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Edith said, her words quiet and soft in the darkness.
“I was just thinking about my father,” he said, the ease with which he spoke surprising him. While his parents had greatly influenced his life, always fostering and supporting his dreams of space exploration, he almost never spoke of them to anybody. His mother’s death from disease when Kirk had been just nine years old had left him heartbroken and traumatized, and the day just two years later, when he’d found his father’s lifeless body out in the fields one summer afternoon, had hardened him. Afterward, he had more or less sealed off that part of his life, not only not speaking of his parents after that, but pushing away any recollections of them.
“What about your father?” Edith asked. Kirk could hear in her voice a thirst for information about himself, just as he too yearned to learn more about her. He also discovered that, with Edith by his side, he did not feel the need to turn away from his childhood memories, nor to avoid talking about his parents.
“I was thinking about the nights when I was a boy that I used to walk with my father out into fields and look up at the stars,” he said.
“Were you raised on a farm?” Edith asked. He could feel her adjust the position of her head on his shoulder as she raised her face toward his in the darkened room.
“I was,” Kirk said. “In Iowa.” He knew that he shouldn’t reveal too much about himself, but he could not see how Edith knowing the place of his birth would cause any disruption.
“In England, I grew up on a farm too,” Edith said, her tone conveying her pleasure at this additional point of commonality between them. “After my mother died,” she went on, quieter, “my father just couldn’t maintain the land anymore, and we lost it.” A few nights ago, Edith had spoken of the close relationship she’d had with her father, particularly after her mother had passed away. After years of living a difficult life, her father had at last chosen to make a new start for himself and for his daughter, and he’d believed that relocating to America would allow them the best chance to do that. That had been eight years ago, and he’d died only days after he and Edith had arrived in their new country.
“My father died when I was eleven,” Kirk said. “I found him out in our north field, working the corn. It was a strong sun that day, and it turned out that he had a weak heart…” He thought to say more, but he’d never before said aloud the words he just had, and whatever would have come next caught in his throat. Tears welled in his eyes, and for just a second, he felt grateful that the lightless room concealed his weakness.