Embedded Files
“Captain’s log, Stardate 53948.54. T’ Psycho has returned to Earth for a secret mission briefing. It’s so secret, in fact, that we’ve been sat up here for three days while t’ brasshats down at Starfleet Command decide if we’re allowed to be told what we’re goin’ to be doin’. T’ Counsellor and I are beamin’ down shortly for our briefin’.”
Captain Olding and Counsellor Hill arrived in Starfleet Command to be met by Admiral Shiner. Olding acknowledged the Admiral’s presence with a curt nod. Shiner was the man who’d ordered Olding and the Psycho crew to stay away from the Borg on their most recent visit, and, after surviving the battle, had organised the disinformation campaign that told the galaxy that it had been the crew of the Enterprise who had defeated the Borg, not Olding and his crew. For those trifling reasons, Shiner was not Olding’s favourite admiral.
Shiner showed them into a briefing room and locked the door behind them. The only other person in the room was an elderly man who sat at the far end of the table, surrounded by a pile of padds and hardcopy printouts.
“Take a seat Captain, Counsellor,” Shiner said, motioning to a couple of seats.
Olding and Hill sat, and waited expectantly.
The old man said, “Well, Captain Olding, it’s an honour to meet you. To finally come face-to-face with a man of your experience is quite… You haven’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No.” Olding’s response was flat and to the point.
Shiner quickly said, “Doctor Tyler, we haven’t been authorised to tell them what was going on until now.”
“I see. Well, my name is Doctor Alfred Tyler. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
Olding’s curt “No,” was only just drowned out by the Counsellor’s more diplomatic, “I’m afraid I’m not acquainted with your work.”
“Oh well. I am an expert in the field of genetic mutations. My current area of study is repeating genetic patterns over time. Put simply, I am interested in the theory that suggests a genetic phenomenon that, in effect, repeats people over and over again throughout the ages.”
“What does this have to wi’ t’ Psycho?”
Shiner took over at this point. “Normally, nothing, but when Doctor Tyler was researching one cluster of repeated genetic patterns, he found this.” Shiner pushed a padd across the table. “Do you recognise the person in that picture?”
“Of course I do. It’s Captain Kirk.” Olding gave the picture a cursory glance. “That was taken during his first five-year mission aboard the Enterprise.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Captain. It’s not James Kirk, but rather a man called William Shatner. Extensive study of what remains of twentieth-century records indicate that he was an actor who worked in the second half of the century.”
“So what is he doing in a Starfleet uniform?” Hill asked.
“That’s what we want you to find out. We’ve brought you here because of your extensive experience with time travel of one sort or another. Because it’s not just one man.”
Shiner pushed several hardcopy printouts across. Olding and Hill saw pictures of all the Enterprise crew, as well as some of more recent Starfleet officers. There was a picture of Jean-Luc Picard in there as well.
“I take it none of these people are who we think they are?” Hill asked.
“That’s right. We haven’t got names for all of them, but we believe them all to be actors who worked with Shatner. What we want you to do is to go back to Earth in the 1960s, with Doctor Tyler, and see if you can establish quite how this has occurred.”
“I don’t understand,” Olding said, “What does this have to do with Doctor Tyler’s theory?”
“We don’t know. We’re hoping that you’ll be able to find that out for us. You leave in twelve hours, Captain, as soon as the computations for time-travel are ready. You’ll make your way back using the temporal vortex that the Borg employed, away from prying eyes in the Wolf 359 system, then go carefully into our solar system. As with all time-travel endeavours, Captain, I must ask you to be very careful. Temporal Investigations get very upset if Starfleet officers make a mess of the timeline.”
“I see,” Olding said quietly, studying the pictures in front of him.
“Good.” Shiner handed him a data chip. “These contain more detailed orders for you. Please return to your ship.”
Out in the corridor, Hill let out a long slow whistle, and Olding unclenched his fists.
“Oh boy,” Hill commented, “We’ve certainly drawn the short straw this time.”
“Aye. Bluidy time-travel. I hate time travel.” Olding tapped his comm-badge, and said, “Olding to Psycho. Two to beam up.”
Back on the ship, Olding retreated into his ready room to study his orders, while Hill took the bridge. The rest of the crew looked at her expectantly.
“I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. The Captain’ll brief us when he’s ready.”
Just then, they heard a loud scream emanating from the ready room. The Counsellor ran over to the ready room doors, and called out, “Captain? Are you okay?”
“Aye, Counsellor. You’d better get in here.” After she had gone inside, Olding said through gritted teeth, “We’re getting yet more company for this trip. Two agents from Temporal Investigations.”
“I see Admiral Shiner didn’t bother letting us know about that,” Hill commented.
“No,” Olding said. “Apparently, they’re due on board any minute.”
Just then, the comm signal on Olding’s desk sounded.
“Captain, this is Transporter Room 3. We’ve just beamed aboard two T.I. agents, sir. They said they were expected.”
“Talk about timing,” the Counsellor joked.
Olding glared at her.
“Sorry.”
He handed her the padd, and while she quickly read through the rest of their orders, Olding paced up and down on the carpet. Then, his door chime sounded. “Come,” Olding called, resuming his seat behind his desk.
Two men entered the room, both dressed in black pinstripe. To Olding’s eyes, they looked almost interchangeable.
“Good morning, Captain,” the one on the left said. “My name is Dulmer, and this is my partner, Lucsly.”
“I’m Captain Christopher Olding, officer commanding USS Psycho.”
The Counsellor shot Olding a glance. Usually he hated reciting his title.
“Captain, we’re here to ensure that your crew don’t cause any alterations to the time-line.”
“I thought you didn’t get involved in these things until after time-travel had occurred,” the Counsellor said.
“Normally, yes. However, in this case, when the act of time-travel is pre-meditated, we like to get in on the ground floor. When are you planning to get underway?”
“Oh, plenty of time yet. We’re not scheduled to depart until…”
“Was that a time joke?” Lucsly asked suspiciously.
“A what?” The Counsellor replied, confused.
“A joke about time,” Lucsly said.
“We hate those,” Dulmer added.
“No, it wasn’t,” the Counsellor said. “We’re not scheduled to depart until this evening.”
“Very well. Captain, could we talk to you alone?”
“I’m sure that my first officer can listen to what you have to say.”
“I’m afraid not, Captain. Your first officer, as well as the rest of the crew, are going to have to stay out of the loop on this one for most of the mission. We want the bare minimum of people involved. Any away teams sent to the surface will consist of yourself, Doctor Tyler, and us.”
“Absolutely not!” Olding said. “I want at least one more Starfleet officer on the team. Have you ever time-travelled before?”
“We’re not at liberty to discuss that, Captain.”
“I have, and so have all my senior staff. And I’ll want at least one of them with me if we have to beam down.”
“Captain, we’re not used to negotiating these things…”
“Then you’d better get used to it, because if not, this mission will achieve nothing! It’s bluidy hard to study a planet when you’re cooped up on a starship! And that’s where we’ll stay if you don’t listen to me!”
“Very well, Captain. You can have one more officer.”
“Right. Counsellor, I’m sorry, but…”
“That’s alright, Captain.” Hill smiled sweetly, but looked daggers at the back of Dulmer and Lucsly’s heads.
“Could you just make sure this gets done? Thank you.” Olding handed her a padd he’d just scribbled something on. Hill looked at it. It read ‘Make sure the crew know as many jokes about time as possible.’
“Aye, sir. I’ll get on it right away.”
“Dismissed.”
The Counsellor exited the ready room, and Olding returned his attention to his two unwanted guests. “Now, gentlemen, what exactly are we looking for?”
“Captain, our mission is simple. We are attempting to discover what a twentieth century actor is doing in a Starfleet uniform. We want to discover exactly how the time-line has been polluted, and by whom.”
“I see. Do we know exactly when these pictures originate?”
“We believe the mid-1960s.”
“I see.”
Dulmer glanced at Lucsly. “Captain, are you taking this seriously?”
“I am. I’m just wonderin’ if you’re goin’ to be any more precise than the mid-1960s. Ten years is a long time.”
“For security reasons, Captain, we’d rather not specify at this time. As we are speaking, the time-warp calculations are being performed in the strictest secrecy. If you discover when we are when we get there, then we must ask you to keep your knowledge secret. The same goes for the rest of your crew.”
“Are you goin’ to tell me anythin’ useful at all?!!” Olding was starting to fume.
“Captain, we have given you all the information we can for the moment. Any other facts will be given to you as and when it becomes necessary.”
Olding’s ready room door slid open, and Doctor Tyler entered the room. “Ah, Captain, I see you’ve already met our companions from T.I. Splendid. Are we ready to depart?”
“We’ll be leaving once we get our departure clearance, Doctor. All in good time.”
Both Dulmer and Lucsly bristled at that, but said nothing.
That evening, the senior staff of the Psycho assembled on the bridge to watch the ship getting underway.
Olding, although irritated by the fact that officers who could and should be elsewhere were instead rubbernecking, was more conscious of the two extra seats on the bridge behind his chair, where Dulmer and Lucsly had positioned themselves. They had originally tried to take the two seats either side of him, but Olding had snarled at them until they retreated and fetched some extra seats from ship’s storage. The other seats, were filled, as usual, by Hill and Jackson, who was here ‘Just in case there’s an accident during departure or time-warp’.
Olding examined the back of Damerell and Ingram’s heads, noted that Damerell hadn’t cleaned behind his ears in some considerable time, and took his seat.
“Departure stations,” he ordered. “Contact t’ control tower.”
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Hailing frequencies open, Captain.”
“Control, this is t’ Psycho, requestin’ permission to depart.”
“Psycho, permission granted. Good luck.”
“Thank you, control.” Olding paused for a moment, then said, “Aft thrusters. Take us out, Ensign.”
Tyler, who chose that moment to appear on the bridge, started to say something, then stopped as he watched Spacedock recede on the viewscreen.
Once they were through the doors, Ingram reported, “We are free and clear to navigate.”
“Ensign, set a course for Wolf 359, and engage warp as soon as we are cleared to do so by Lunar comcon. Counsellor, you have the bridge. Call me when we get to Wolf 359.”
Olding left the bridge, pushing straight past Tyler and ignoring Dulmer and Lucsly. Hill stood, and moved over a seat.
She made herself comfortable, and then said “Time to arrival at Wolf 359?”
“Approximately four hours, sir,” Ingram reported.
“Oh, loads of time then,” she said vindictively. Dulmer growled, and she flashed him a dazzling smile. “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen. There’s nothing to do for the moment.”
The Psycho dropped out of warp in the Wolf 359 system. The Counsellor ordered the ship brought to a halt, before calling Olding to the bridge. A few minutes later, he stepped out of the turbolift, and said, “Report.”
“We’re at a halt, sir. Systems are ready to create the vortex. All departments report ready for time-travel.”
“Thank you.” Olding took the conn, and glanced across at Dulmer and Lucsly. “Anythin’ else you’d like to say before we get underway?”
“Not at the moment, Captain.”
“Fair enough. Time enough for that later.” Olding leaned over and prodded Jackson, who had fallen asleep in the chair next to him, and, as the Doctor yawned and stretched, said, “Create t’ vortex, Mr Bleep.”
Ahead of them, a section of space appeared to boil and distort, as the temporal vortex was created by carefully modulated beams of energy from the Psycho‘s phaser rings.
“Take us in, Ensign.”
The Psycho slid forwards into the vortex. Inside, there were a few seconds of buffeting, then they re-emerged into normal space again. Olding glanced round the bridge to make sure there was no obvious damage, then said, “Report.”
“All decks reporting in, Captain,” Hill said. “Only a few minor injuries, and Sickbay says they’re dealing with those. We’ve lost shields and long range sensors, just like last time.”
“Ensign Ingram, set a course for Earth. Warp two.”
“Course plotted and laid in, sir.”
“Engage.” As the Psycho went to warp, Olding said, “Well, gentlemen, now what?”
Dulmer stood and approached Olding. He hoped that by looming over Olding he could intimidate this troublesome Captain. Somehow, though, it didn’t seem to work. “Captain, you will prepare an away team consisting of yourself, one other officer as you specified, myself and my colleague, and Doctor Tyler. Once we arrive in Earth orbit, we will beam down and begin our investigation.”
“Thank you for your suggestion. Counsellor, you will have t’ bridge. Mr Damerell, you’ll be comin’ wi’ me. Let’s go and get ourselves dressed appropriately.”
The away team assembled in the transporter room, dressed in the appropriate clothing for the time they were going to set down in. At least, that’s what the computer had assured them. Olding was privately wondering if the black pinstripe suits Dulmer and Lucsly were wearing were any different from the outfits they normally wore, and as for Damerell’s outfit, it seemed to have more in common with a clown’s outfit than clothing as Olding knew it. Damerell was wearing an overlarge shirt with brightly coloured flowers printed across it, trousers that flared out massively at the bottom, and sandals. He was also, for no discernible reason, wearing a red bandanna.
Olding had opted for a more neutral selection of lightly coloured trousers and a beige shirt. Doctor Tyler was dressed in a tweed jacket and sensible trousers. Damerell was holding a case that held a tricorder, and all of them had some form of lapel badge or decoration that concealed a communicator.
“Right, then. Let’s get on wi’ it.”
They beamed down into an unoccupied public lavatory. Unfortunately, due to a minor positioning fault by the transporter operator, the away team ended up crammed into one cubicle. Olding, who had been standing at the front of the group on the pads, found himself pressed up against the door. Dulmer began to complain when he discovered that he had materialised with one foot in the toilet bowl, while Damerell, Lucsly and Tyler occupied the rest of the somewhat limited floorspace. Olding managed to get his hand up to the door, intending to open it, when he realised the problem.
The door swung inwards. In their current condition, they couldn’t hope to get the door open.
Olding glanced up, and realised that the partition walls did not connect to the ceiling. Seeing his chance, he grunted, “Mr Damerell, you’ll have to climb out over t’ top and give t’ rest of us some breathing space.”
“Erm, aye sir,” Damerell said hesitantly. He clambered up onto Lucsly’s shoulder, then grabbed hold of the edge of the partition and heaved himself up.
Olding watched as Damerell’s torso disappeared, mentally laying a bet with himself that he knew what was going to happen next. Abruptly, Damerell’s legs disappeared and the away team heard a curse followed by a muffled thump. Olding congratulated himself on winning his bet and said, “Everyone push back.”
As the others pushed back into the space vacated by Damerell, Olding pulled back on the door. It opened slightly, and Lucsly, who was closest to the gap, managed to squeeze himself through it. After that, it became easier, and one by one, the away team left the toilet cubicle. Olding was the last one out, and turned away from the toilet door to find himself face to face with a very disturbed-looking human. The rest of the away team was collected in a group, looking embarrassed. Olding stared at the man, hoping to brazen this one out. The man eventually gave up and left the toilet hurriedly.
“Right,” Olding said, “Let’s go.”
They emerged into bright sunlight, and looked around them at their new surroundings. Doctor Tyler gazed around raptly, Damerell’s jaw left a dent in the ground as he stared at all the curious ground vehicles, at last beginning to understand something of Wall’s fascination with anything that moved faster than walking pace. Dulmer and Lucsly kept their expression impassive, and Olding frowned.
“Right, Mr Damerell,” he said, “Begin scannin’. Where are we?”
“We are, um, ah…”
“What’s t’ matter, Mr Damerell?” Olding asked impatiently.
“Sorry sir, but I’ve left that data cartridge of Kirk and Picard’s mission logs you wanted me to study in the tricorder. Won’t be a moment.”
Damerell removed the offending cartridge, put it in the storage pouch under the tricorder and began scanning.
“I think we’re in our target area and time, Captain. We appear to have arrived in Los Angeles, in the early 1960s.”
“We’ll have to find some sort of news media in order to confirm our exact time,” Dulmer said.
Olding bit back a sarcastic reply and contented himself with thumping the button that served as a communicator and muttering, “Olding to Psycho.”
“Hill here,” the Counsellor’s voice replied.
“Counsellor, we have arrived safely. Take t’ Psycho round t’ back o’ t’ moon and hold position there. Come back in twelve hours for our next check-in.”
“Aye, Captain. Psycho out.”
As the channel closed, Olding said to Tyler, “Well, Professor, you’re t’ historical genius. Where to now?”
“I suggest we proceed to the area of Los Angeles that is home to the film studios of the time. If I may, Mr Damerell…”
Tyler took the tricorder off Damerell, neglecting to detach the strap first. As he turned through a full circle, conducting a discreet survey, Damerell was pulled round after him, gagging slightly as the strap wrapped itself around his neck.
“Ah, this way.” Tyler moved off, and Damerell fell over, yanking the tricorder out of Tyler’s hands. Dulmer and Lucsly watched in annoyance as Damerell picked himself up again and the team moved off.
After a lengthy walk, they reached what Doctor Tyler proudly proclaimed to be a film studio. Damerell looked at the sign over the gate and said, “Paramount Pictures? Never heard of them.”
Tyler looked round and said, “You probably wouldn’t have done. There was a great backlash against forms of entertainment such as films and television on Earth after the Third World War. Most of the evidence to suggest their existence was wiped out at that time.”
“Oh.”
“So now what?” Olding said impatiently.
Tyler looked lost for a moment, then said, “I must purchase a newspaper. Stay here.”
Tyler and Dulmer set off in search of a newspaper, while the rest of the away team clustered together in a protective huddle. After a while, Tyler came back, looking crestfallen.
“We appear to be too early. This is 1963. I was hoping for at least 1965.”
“Great. I suppose you’re going to want to go forwards in time,” Olding remarked.
“Out of the question, Captain,” Dulmer said. “We cannot risk any more pollution of the time-stream. We will return to the 24th century and Starfleet will decide what to do next.”
“We still have ten hours to fill.”
“I am aware of that, Captain. We will just have to find somewhere to stay out of the way until the Psycho arrives and we can be beamed up.”
“Captain?” This time it was Damerell.
“Yes, Mr Damerell?”
“I’m hungry.”
Dulmer and Lucsly stared incredulously at Damerell, whose stomach obligingly supplied loud rumbling noises. He blushed.
Before Damerell could do anything else to humiliate Olding, Tyler gave him a much-needed distraction by saying in a very poor stage-whisper, “It’s him!”
Everyone spun round to follow Tyler’s pointing finger, seconds before Dulmer slapped it down. Olding was the first to see who it was Tyler was staring at. A young James Kirk appeared to be crossing the road. The away team watched him as he walked towards them. Tyler snapped his fingers for Damerell to hand him the tricorder, and waited expectantly.
Damerell eventually said, “Yes?”
“The tricorder, quickly! I’ve got to scan him! I need to know if he belongs in this time!”
“Oh right.”
There was a long pause.
“Well?” Tyler sounded agitated.
“Erm, I seem to have lost it,” Damerell confessed unhappily.
Dulmer and Lucsly both swung on him, while Tyler looked devastated. Olding, seeing the storm-clouds brewing and trying desperately to recover the situation, stepped out in front of the man that resembled James Kirk, and said,
“Excuse me, but do you have the time?”
“Yes, it’s twenty past two,” the man said.
He was about to walk on by when Olding tried his gamble. “I was only asking because the moon is in it’s third quarter right now.”
The phrase he had just uttered was an old Starfleet security code, that had been in use for about five years before James Kirk had assumed command of the Enterprise. It wasn’t a high-level code, but Olding felt that if this man was anyone but William Shatner, twentieth-century actor, it would produce some kind of response.
Shatner stared at him for a second, then said, “Oh, really? How nice,” before moving on as fast as possible.
Olding watched him go with a sense of relief. Tyler stepped up to him and watched Shatner’s rapidly departing back.
“What did you say to him?”
“Eh? Oh, I just tried an old Starfleet security code on him.”
“And?!”
“Congratulations, Professor. Your theory has been proven. That man is not James Kirk.”
“That’s as may be, Captain, but we still haven’t been to uncover why we have a picture of him in Starfleet uniform.”
Dulmer and Lucsly had joined the conversation, with Damerell trailing on behind. “I have no choice but to declare this mission a failure. The only thing we can do now is to attempt to recover the tricorder Mr Damerell lost.”
They retraced their footsteps, but could find no sign of the missing tricorder. Lucsly and Dulmer were finally persuaded to abandon the search by Olding.
“You realise, Captain, that another black mark will appear in your T.I. file now.”
“Another one?! What was the first?”
Lucsly laughed smugly. “You didn’t think we wouldn’t notice, did you? The Republic of Great Britain ring any bells?”
Olding fumed, but knew he didn’t have a comeback to that one. “Fine. Let’s just get back to t’ Psycho and go home.”
“Captain?”
“Yes, Mr Damerell?”
“I’m still hungry.”
“Be quiet, Mr Damerell.”
Some hours later, the Psycho returned to orbit, and recovered the away team. As the ship made her way out of the solar system, the away team gathered in the briefing room to assess quite how much of a disaster the mission had been. Dulmer and Lucsly were all for clapping Damerell in irons for losing the tricorder, and initially Olding was inclined to agree. The only thing that changed his mind was a sudden thought straying into his mind that promptly refused to leave.
“Mr Damerell, you think you lost t’ tricorder outside t’ toilets we beamed into?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain, we’ve been over this several times already,” Lucsly complained. “You trying to delay the investigation further is not going to go down well when we report to our superiors.”
“Oh, for cryin’ out aloud! I’m thinkin’!! Now shurrup for a minute and let me work this out.” Olding concentrated for a moment. “When I asked you to start scannin’, you had to take that data cartridge out. Now, what was on t’ cartridge?”
“The mission logs of James Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard, a whole load of news reports from DS9 about the Dominion and all that, and that thing about the starship Voyager.”
“I see. I think I can explain those pictures now.”
“How so, Captain?” Tyler leaned forwards in his chair, while Dulmer and Lucsly wore expressions of bored disbelief.
“Well, what if someone found that tricorder, and watched t’ recordings on t’ data cartridge. We know that Shatner was an actor, so isn’t it reasonable to assume that the others in those pictures were actors as well?”
“What is your point, Captain?” Dulmer snapped.
“Well, what if they made a film or summat from t’ information on t’ data cartridge? Wouldn’t that explain t’ pictures of Shatner in Starfleet uniform? They could have copied t’ designs off t’ cartridge!”
Tyler looked astounded, while Dulmer coughed politely and said, “That seems a little far-fetched, Captain. I hardly think it’s possible.”
“Got any better ideas?” Olding snapped back. Lucsly opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again as he realised he didn’t have anything to say.
Tyler filled the void by saying, “Well, gentlemen, it would appear that Captain Olding’s theory is the most workable one we have so far, and, since we can’t go back to prove it conclusively, I’ll have to put it to my colleagues whose research interests are closer to this field. At least my theory has been proven.”
Before anyone could say anything else, Olding stood and said, “Right! Time to go home then, I think.”
He left the briefing room before either Dulmer or Lucsly could say a word.
Back on Earth, Gene Roddenberry looked at the small object he had seen those strange people who had all been in one toilet cubicle drop. It was a fascinating device, something like a miniature television. And in colour! He hadn’t been able to make it work at first, but, after finding a small cylinder that plugged into it, it was showing him some kind of programme. He’d never seen anything like it. And what was more, he was certain no-one else had, either. He could feel ideas buzzing round his head. This had to be better than writing scripts for dodgy Westerns. Pulling out a pen and paper, he began to write…
The End. (Or the Beginning, depending on how you want to look at it.)
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