Star Trek: TNG Indstinguishable From Magic (24 page)

“I think Rasmussen can dream of quite a lot,” said La Forge.

Bok laughed. “I’m sure he does. But he doesn’t think of what you would call the big picture.”

“You mean your plan’s a little different than his.” La Forge had expected as much. It was Bok’s way.

Bok scowled, glancing back at the entranced Rasmussen. “That is not what I said.”

“Does he know that you’re thinking of a bigger picture?”

“He knows what he needs to know.”

“I guess that’s a ‘no’ then.”

“What we are doing originated with him. This began with his plan.”

“But it ends with your plan, right?”

Bok grabbed Geordi by the collar and shoved him against the wall. Barclay moved forward as if to intervene, but the Breen guard stuck the barrel of his rifle into Reg’s gut, none too gently. “Don’t think for one second that you understand me, hew-mon!”

“Maybe you can explain,” La Forge gasped.

Bok’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, you’re trying to rile me? Make me let something slip? This isn’t a game of
tongo,
La Forge.”

“Whoever you’re waiting for here—”

“Waiting for? You’re in for a great surprise.” He shoved La Forge aside, and turned away. Bok paused to speak to Rasmussen for a moment before leaving the bridge. La Forge considered whether this was a suitable moment to try to take some action to remedy the situation they were in, but the guards were taking even more
interest in them now. He decided to wait. This ancient bridge was dark enough to make misinterpretations of movements all too easy, and he didn’t want to get shot for scratching an itch. Fighting smarter, rather than harder, was always for the best. He couldn’t sabotage Bok’s scheme before knowing what that scheme was, or how it was supposed to work.

“Commander,” Reg said cautiously, “I’ve been thinking about string. I mean,
the
string. It’s spinning, right, and also a cosmic string is the only thing we know of that can be infinitely long. Or at least, can stretch across the length of the universe’s timeline . . .

Ice seemed to be crystallizing around La Forge’s back, and he felt goose bumps rise on his skin. “That gives me a really nasty idea, and I hope it’s not the idea that Bok and Rasmussen have had.”

“The string is spinning, and if it’s long enough . . .”

“It could act as a Tipler cylinder.”

“A doorway into the past.”

“Yeah . . . That would fit with Rasmussen’s being here. He might see it as a way home. But Bok . . . ?”

“I dread to think what Bok might do in the past.” La Forge stepped away from the table, and stepped up to address Rasmussen, who slouched in the center seat. “That’s it, isn’t it? You want to take
Intrepid
through time. Enter through the wormhole, and fly a spiral course back along the string, at warp.”

Rasmussen applauded. “I knew you’d figure it out! Now, be honest, Geordi, it gives you a buzz to have worked out the right answer yourself, even if it’s an answer you’d rather not have?”

La Forge didn’t want to make himself a liar, so, dodging the question, he said,
“Intrepid
wasn’t built to be a time
machine. She’s not designed for expeditions to grab future technology or to take it to the past.”

Rasmussen shrugged. “All I intend to do is take
Intrepid
home.”

“That’s where she would be going anyway. We’ll fly her back to Earth—”

“No, Geordi, you don’t get it. I intend to take her properly
home.”
La Forge felt the blood drain from his face, and a pit open in his stomach. “Next stop, 2162.”

“So, all this is just another scam to take back future technology into the past so that you can ‘invent’ it and get rich?”

“The
Intrepid
isn’t future technology,” Rasmussen protested. “It’s a ship from
my
time that wasn’t destroyed as the authorities thought it was.”

“It’s also got a twenty-fourth-century Klingon cloak aboard, not to mention all the upgrades and tools we brought over from
Challenger.”

“Ah, there are a few knickknacks, I admit. Poor Mister Nog, going to all that trouble to scan me every time I stepped out of a runabout, and never looking at the stash of souvenirs I had left
in
the runabout. They’re just a bonus, really, though. Not the objective of the exercise.”

“A pretty big bonus.”

“And, to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t care if none of them were on board. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to look that gift horse in his mouth, but . . .” His voice saddened a little, La Forge thought. It was a good act, but he wasn’t going to be fooled by it.

“Okay, it’s a bonus. So, for a bonus you’ll be ‘inventing’ our gear, and trying to force us to help you?”

“Yes and no, respectively.” Rasmussen spread his hands magnanimously. “If you want to disappear off to some remote
Alaskan isle and never be noticed by history, I won’t stop you.” Geordi didn’t believe a word of it.

“Commander La Forge . . . I just want to go home. I want to go and eat at the Hidden Panda’s buffet, and drink bourbon served by Jo—Well, you don’t know her anyway.” He turned away with a shake of the head and a wave of the hand. “I want to smell and taste the air I grew up with. Walk down the streets and the riverside that always used to inspire me. Don’t you understand?”

“I think I do, but . . . Sometimes you just have to accept that your past is . . .
past.
Once you’ve left your home, it can never really be home again.”

“I didn’t really leave New Jersey by choice.”

“Stealing a time ship sounds like a choice to me.”

“I only ever intended to briefly visit a few places, and return home. I no more intended to leave Earth than I intend to leave home forever when I go grocery shopping. But the time pod had its own ideas . . .” His habitual and annoying supercilious smile had gone, and La Forge thought
this
time that Rasmussen was telling the truth.

“Commander . . . I know you think I’m just a thief and a conman, and you’re not totally wrong, but . . . I’ve been living out of my own time for over a decade, and it’s time to go home.”

“Is there anything about the way we live our lives now that you don’t like?”

“Not really, no. Replicators, holodecks, all those things are fabulous, and I’ll probably miss them.”

“Then why, if it’s not for the chance to try to get rich or powerful or famous, do you want to go back and live without those advances?”

Rasmussen turned away for a moment. “Everyone I know is dead, Geordi.” He sighed deeply. “It’s not just that they’re
dead because they lived two hundred years ago. I didn’t . . . I don’t even know how to phrase what I’m trying to tell you . . .”

La Forge understood. “We all have people we didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to, Rasmussen.”

“Not all of them are people we can get back.”

Guinan stepped cautiously onto the
Challenger
’s bridge, receiving some surprised looks in the process. Scotty rose immediately, all Celtic charm as he offered her his seat. “It’s all right, Scotty,” she said, “I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Go right ahead.”

“In private.” Scotty wondered what she meant by that, but didn’t mind.

“Let’s go into the ready room.” They stepped through, and Guinan paused to admire the ornaments on the walls.
“Raktajino,
double cream, twice,” Scotty said to the replicator. “What’s so important that it brings ye to the bridge?”

“I’ve been thinking about Rasmussen, and the Split Infinite.”

Scotty knew nobody had formally informed her of what was happening, but wasn’t surprised that she knew. Typical ship’s scuttlebutt and a member of a species nicknamed Listeners made for an inevitable conclusion. “Ye remember Rasmussen from your days on the
Enterprise
?”

“I do.”

“But have ye ever heard of the Split Infinite before now?”

“It’s quite famous where I come from. You know what I’d like to know?”

“Ye strike me as the kind o’ lady who doesn’t need to ask many questions in order to know what needs to be known. But, well, what did ye have in mind?”

Guinan half-closed her eyes, the smile of a pleased cat. “If Rasmussen is just trying to go back in time, why come all the way out to the Split Infinite to do it?”

“Those old warp five engines on
Intrepid
canna take the strain of a slingshot round a star—”

She shook her head sharply, the cat-gaze now more focused. “You know what I’m asking. Why doesn’t he use that big old talking donut? You know the one I mean.”

“I’m sure I don’t, lass.” He hoped he sounded affronted enough.

“You’re a miracle worker, Scotty, but you’re a rotten liar. All right, let me try three little words for you: Guardian. Of. Forever.”

Scotty dropped the pretense of ignorance. “Those are highly classified words, Guinan. How would you happen to have heard of them?”

Guinan gave him a coquettish look. “I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve listened to a lot of people. The question still stands: Why doesn’t Rasmussen try to use it?”

Scotty nodded gently. “Aye . . . As I said, those are highly classified words. It’s not very likely that he would have had access to the kind of information that mentions the Guardian. And even if he did, the location is even more secret.”

“Ferengi have a way of buying secrets, and I remember Bok from my days on the
Enterprise
as well. I’d be surprised if he hasn’t at least heard of it.”

“The Guardian is also well guarded. Not least by itself. It’s like that.”

“I hoped it would be.”

“Well, what else do you imagine? It wouldna do for the Borg to have got ahold of it, or for, say, the Romulans to start messing around with it.” He gave her what he hoped was a reliable and reassuring smile. “Time travel might be
more common than we believe, but it’s nowhere near as easy as some people would like to think.”

“Who’d have thought time travel would be so easy?” Rasmussen reflected in his cabin.

Bok grunted, trying to catch the movement of the walls out of the corner of his eye. He was sure this room was even smaller now than when he had first seen it. He nearly shivered, but suppressed the sign of weakness. The profit he was making here was worth a little discomfort. “The riskier the road, the greater the profit.”

“Is that one of those Rules of Acquisition I keep hearing about?”

“Rule sixty-two.” Let the hew-mon think he was referring to time travel, rather than to being in this upright coffin that barely deserved to be called a room. “We should get rid of the Starfleeters now.”

“There’s no need. Besides, I already told you they’re useful for continuing to keep the ship up to standard.”

“They are also useful at interfering. They will not stand by and let us complete our mission. And even if they did, what about when we arrive in 2162?” He knew Rasmussen wasn’t keeping them alive out of a fondness for them. It was obvious to Bok that the man wanted to cut some private deal with them to “invent” things in 2162.

“What about it?”

“The more people taken back, the greater the risk of violating the conservation of reality.”

Rasmussen shook his head, making a soothing gesture. “No, no, no. They won’t.”

“They will, because interfering is what Starfleeters do.”

“They will not, because Starfleet has not just a Prime Directive, but a Temporal Prime Directive, and a Department
of Temporal Investigations. They’re specifically trained and forbidden, if they should somehow happen to end up back in their past, from doing anything that would alter the timeline.”

“So what will they do?”

“Either try to get a ship to jump forward again back to now, or hide themselves away and not make waves. That’s a standing order. Oh, they may or may not be persuaded to help with a little DIY project or two, but once we’ve transited through the Infinite, the worst they’ll do is go away and live out quiet lives.”

“Without making profits on their situation?” As far as Bok was concerned, that was all the more reason to remove them from the universal gene pool.

“I know. Amazing, isn’t it?”

“That’s not the word I would use,” Bok said, and left the cabin at last. He was so glad to be out of there and back in the drab and dim corridor that he almost walked straight into La Forge.

Geordi La Forge thought it was only fair to try reasoning with Bok the same way he had tried reasoning with Rasmussen. He didn’t expect it to work, but a divide and conquer strategy might make things a little easier. He hoped so, anyway.

He had come down on a pretense of checking a power junction, accompanied by a Breen guard, and had contrived to remain within a couple of meters of the door to the captain’s cabin so he could hear Bok and Rasmussen.

When Bok emerged, La Forge let him almost stumble into him, and then fell into step beside him. The Breen guard followed a couple of paces behind.

“I just can’t believe you’re willing to help Rasmussen go back home.”

“No? Not even if there’s some profit in it?”

La Forge barked a short laugh. “You can’t pull that one with me, Bok. You may be a Ferengi, but, last I heard you did time for not putting profit ahead of revenge.”

“Perhaps I’ve found a way to gain both.”

“In the past? You mean by changing history?”

“Ah . . . Now there is a dangerous game.”

“That tends not to stop people who are obsessed.”

“Very true.”

“What are you going to do? Blow up Earth just to get rid of Captain Picard’s ancestors?”

Bok laughed. “It’s revenge—and profit—I want, Commander. Not meaningless carnage. I know you think I’m an obsessive, crazy murderer. I also know that you do
not
know me that well. Not as well as, say, I know Picard.”

“I was there both times when you’ve tried to avenge yourself on him. I think I can say I know you well enough.”

“I have no intention of making huge changes to the past, La Forge, because I’m not stupid. Certainly not stupid enough to risk doing anything that would negate my son’s existence. Likewise I have no intention of violating the law of conservation of reality, and trapping myself in an alternate timeline, leaving my son still dead in this one. I also have a few other matters to attend to in the twenty-second century.” Bok tapped a padd. “I have here a list of investments to make, banks offering high-interest deposits. Two hundred years’ worth of yield should prove most profitable, even by hew-mon standards.”