Scene 18

            A trapdoor opened with a very smooth sound, giving access to a lowly-lit, cramped tunnel, thankfully horizontal this time. Broots collapsed on the floor, Sydney leaned against a wall, breathing hard, and Miss Parker tried to look as though she climbed miles of ladders in high heels and tight skirts all the time.

            “Boy, this place looks familiar,” Broots wheezed.

            “Here’s a sign,” Miss Parker said. “GNDN. What does that mean?”

            Broots’ brow wrinkled. “Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing?” he murmured.

            “Oh, funny.” She pulled open the panel the tiny notice was on. “What in the—Broots! Hey, Broots! Get your carcass over here. What is this?”

            Broots crawled over (there was no standing in the tunnel). When he saw the complicated maze of tubing behind the panel, he gasped and recoiled. With trembling hands, he shoved the panel back into place.

            “Broots, what is wrong with you?”

            “Nothing—nothing—nothing. I’m fine. It’s just something…very advanced, or something.” No, I’m not having a nervous breakdown. I’m not having a nervous breakdown. He didn’t notice that he was murmuring it under his breath.

            “Broots,” Sydney said, “try to calm yourself. We’re in some kind of strange situation, and anyone would be scared. But you’ll be fine.”

            Miss Parker gave him The Look. “Oh, please. Can you save the therapy session for later? There’s a door here. Broots, open it.”

            “Open the door, Broots,” he muttered. “Break into Mr. Raines’ office, Broots. Hack into classified files, Broots.”

            “What are you muttering about?”

            “Nothing.” He poked randomly at the flat-panel keypad by the door. To his immense surprise, it unlocked. Shoving him aside, Miss Parker pushed it open. He got a glimpse of the huge room beyond as she got one long leg out, and with a strength he didn’t know he had, he grabbed her, hauled her back in, and slid the door closed.

            Sydney gave him a raised eyebrow of surprise. Miss Parker gave him a lot more than that.

            “What do you think you’re doing?” she ground out into his face, thumping him up against the wall with each enunciation.

            But his brain was already exploding anyway, and even when Sydney hauled Miss Parker away from him, he could hardly talk. “Uh—uh—there’s—there’s something horribly wrong,” he managed, hid voice a squeak.

            “What?”

            “Um—Sydney—you’ve got to help me here, because I think I’ve gone insane.”

            “Take a few deep breaths, Broots. Long and slow.”

            “When you’re quite done with your Lamaze class, maybe you’ll tell me what is going on?” Miss Parker shouted. “Why do I have to be stuck in this place with you and no cigarettes? They would be better company!”

            “OK,” Broots said. “Fine. Uh—we’re on the Enterprise, OK?”

            They both looked at him, and he knew he was right. He really had gone insane. Even Sydney thought so.

            “The shuttle?” the psychiatrist said slowly.

            “No! The starship! Uh—I’m not sure which one. D, E—”

            Miss Parker let out a breath. “Broots…”

            “This is a Jeffries tube, Miss Parker! And that out there is Engineering! It’s got a big, fat, blue warp core in the middle of it! And this is a Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing sign!”

            After a long silence, Miss Parker said, “Certifiable.” She turned back toward the door. Broots grabbed her shoulder.

            “Listen to me! I saw it! You saw it too! The room. The big blue thing. And don’t tell me we’ve somehow wandered from Delaware to the TV studio in Los Angeles. On the set of a TV show, things look fake, OK? Things don’t really beep and pulse and glow! People in Starfleet uniforms don’t wander around without a cameraman in their face! Things like this don’t work!” He pulled the GNDN panel off again. “This thing, whatever it is, is working, whatever it does. I know a piece of viable technology when I see it.”

            Miss Parker stared at the panel in Broots’ shaking hand. “Did you just use the word ‘viable’ in a sentence, techno-boy?”

            He stared at her, for once not flinching, part of him marveling at her ability to disbelieve anything she didn’t want to accept.

            “Miss Parker,” Sydney said quietly, “I really don’t know what to think. I didn’t see out there. You did. But for once maybe we ought to listen to Broots.”

            “Listen to him? He’s gone stark, raving mad!”

            “I’m trying to keep an open mind, Miss Parker. Maybe you should, too.”

            “Open minds are what got us into all this in the first place. Specifically Jarod’s open little mind.” She sat back on her heels. “Fine. What now, Captain Kirk?”

            Broots gave a faint grin. “This is definitely the wrong ship for that. Miss Parker, I don’t know what’s going on. If this is something Jarod did, it’s way beyond even his usual. But—but—hey! All the clues he left us. The convention. The uniform. The videotapes.”

            “His work in astrophysics,” Sydney said slowly. “The telescope pointed at the stars. 40 Eridani A. Do you know anything about that, Broots?”

            Broots racked his brain. “40 Eridani A. is that—wait. Oh, my stars. I think—I think that’s the star Vulcan is supposed to orbit.”

            “Vulcan?”

            “You know, Spock’s planet.”

            “Spock. Oh, my stars,” Miss Parker mocked him viciously. “Don’t tell me you believe this, Sydney.”

            “There is more in heaven and on earth, Miss Parker, than is dreamt of in your philosophy.”

            “Don’t quote Hamlet at me, Syd, unless you want to be playing his father’s ghost in your next life.”

            “Why don’t you just take another look out that door?” Broots suggested. “Uh—don’t let anyone see you, but get a good look and tell me if you still think we’re back at the Centre—or on Earth at all. Sydney, you too.”

            Sydney, amused that Broots was taking the lead, crawled over beside Miss Parker and peered out of the door as she slid it open a crack. Broots edged in over their shoulders.

            And there it was, the long room, beige in color, with consoles down the center and back-lighted panels along the walls, and at the end the darker section with the tall, glowing, pulsing blue warp core. Broots’ heart beat hard at it. It beat harder when he saw a very familiar dark face, eyes obscured by the silver VISOR, and harder yet when a tall figure in black and yellow with a metal baldric from shoulder to hip strode in.

            “Commander LaForge,” boomed a very deep voice, “Commander Westmore has asked me to go over the final preparations with you.”

            Broots saw Miss Parker’s hand go automatically to the gun in the back waistband of her skirt. With a gasp he pulled her and Sydney both back and slammed the door closed.

            “What are you doing, you little—”

            “Miss Parker, you can’t go out there waving a gun! That—that was Worf! Even you wouldn’t stand a chance against a Klingon! It would be like being run over by a truck! A semi-truck! Anyway, certainly not with something so primitive as a projectile weapon—”

            “Primitive? Broots, if you touch me one more time, you’re the one who will be run over by a semi. What is going on?”

            “Let’s get out of here first. Up, away from Engineering and all their devices.”

            Without waiting for a response, he started up the next ladder. Sydney chuckled as he and Miss Parker followed.

            “What, Syd?”

            “Broots is certainly acclimating well to this strange twist of events.”

            “Better than me. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on, and I don’t like depending on Geek-Boy for all the answers.”

            “You should have paid more attention at the science fiction convention.”

            “Yeah, right. What about you, Syd? You seem to be taking this in stride.”

            “Well, I am convinced that I am back at home sound asleep, my dreams influenced by Jarod’s clues and too much time and energy spent chasing him.”

            “That’s a better explanation that that a spaceship from a TV show came down and abducted us. I never did get into the whole X-Files craze.”

            “Wrong TV show,” he grunted as they came to the top of the ladder. Miss Parker and Broots both extended hands and helped him through the trap door. He collapsed on the floor, gasping for air.

            “Syd?”

            “I’m—alright—Miss Parker. I’m just not used to this. I’m a psychiatrist, not a mountain climber.”

            They were in a small room that seemed to be a meeting place for several of the access ways. Sydney finally pulled himself up and leaned against the wall, while Broots looked around worriedly and Miss Parker checked the clip in her gun.

            “Alright, Broots. Spill.”

            “Well—I don’t know what’s going on, Miss Parker. I can tell you anything you want about this ship and her crew, but how we got here? Huh-uh. Of course, if this were science fiction, it would be easy. Alternate universe.”

            “Alternate universe?”

            “You know, the place where historical events took a different turn than intended and split off a new reality, operating concurrently—What?”

            Miss Parker didn’t even bother to answer him.

            He sighed. “Have you ever seen ‘The Wizard of Oz’? Miss Parker, I don’t think we’re in Delaware anymore.” He offered a feeble smile and caught what might have been a faint glimmer of humor in her eyes. “This seems to be the Enterprise. It’s a spaceship with a thousand crewmembers and their families.”

            “Families?” Sydney interrupted. “They bring children along?”

            “Yes, they do. This ship is their home. The captain is Jean-Luc Picard, and he’s not someone even you want to tangle with, Miss Parker.”

            “Why? Is he another one of those rhinoceros-headed monstrosities?”

            “They call them turtle-heads in the makeup department, I think. No, he’s not a Klingon. He’s a French archaeologist.”

            “A French archaeologist?”

            “Miss Parker, he’s taken on Q and won. Q is an omnipotent being.”

            “And he’s here.”

            Broots jumped. “Oh, I hope not.” He glanced around as if expecting to see Q’s face staring out of the bulkhead at him. “This ship travels around the galaxy and discovers new planets. It belongs to Starfleet, which belongs to the United Federation of Planets. Oh, and the year is something like 2367. Late 2360s, at least, judging by the uniforms.”

            “Twenty-three sixties?” Sydney said with a soft laugh. “We’re in the future. I can only imagine what they’ve done in the fields of medicine and psychology.”

            Broots grinned back. “It’s pretty amazing alright. Oh, and Sydney, they have an empath.”

            “An empath? Like Angelo?” Sydney’s eyes grew wide with interest. He looked like everyone’s favorite uncle.

            “Nothing like Angelo. She’s part of a telepathic race, but she’s half Human, and her telepathy isn’t so good. What she does is feel what people around her feel. She can stand right next to you and feel what you’re feeling, just as you feel it.”

            “Oh, I see. That could be very useful in dangerous situations. Miss Parker?”

            Miss Parker had covered her face. “Please tell me I’m dreaming,” she was muttering. “Please tell me I’m dreaming.”

            “I don’t think you are, Miss Parker,” Broots said humbly.

            “But what are we doing on a spaceship named after a poor excuse for a car rental dealership? How did we get here? Why?”

            “Jarod’s machine,” he whispered. “It was a transporter. It transported us here. Takes your molecules part, beams them somewhere, and puts them back together.”

            “I think I’m going to be sick. He sent that machine so you would figure it out so he could trap us all here— It’s worse than being in jail in that one-horse hick town. I need a cigarette.”

            Broots said slowly, “Maybe he didn’t intend for us to come at all.” He bent swiftly and picked up something from the floor. “Look!”

            “Popcorn? You expect me to care about popcorn?”

            “Not popcorn, Miss Parker. Cracker Jack.”

            Miss Parker sat up straight and looked at him. “Angelo. The human amoeba is here.”

            “I see,” Sydney said. “Jarod has brought Angelo here because he thinks they can cure him.”

            Miss Parker scrambled up. “That means Jarod’s here, too.” Her gun was in her hand again.

            Broots got between her and the door, careful not to touch her. “Wait, Miss Parker! This isn’t Earth! The instant you set foot out there, they will be all over you, and we’ll be in the brig! We’re not Starfleet! We don’t belong on this ship, and anyone can see it. You can’t just go waving your gun around at people here! First they’ll lock us up, and then they’ll ask us questions, and then they’ll send us back to Earth to stand trial as terrorists or something! Maquis, maybe.”

            He shuddered as the silver nose of the gun came considerably closer than he was comfortable with. “Well, what do you suggest we do, fanboy?”

            Tentatively he glanced up.

            “You expect me to pull an Angelo all over this ship while Jarod is walking the halls free?”

            He shrugged helplessly.

            With a glare that was practically feral, she holstered the gun and swung up the ladder. “Keep your eyes on the rungs and off my legs, or you’ll get my heel in your hand.”

            Broots believed her well enough that he obeyed, despite the excellence of her legs. Behind him, Sydney panted, “Broots, this empath of yours—how strong is her sensitivity?”

            “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

            “How close does she have to be to someone to feel him?”

            “Oh! Uh—pretty far, actually. She can feel people on other ships.”

            “That’s not good. Then she could probably feel Miss Parker in another solar system.”

            “You mean she could know we’re here? By feeling us?”

            “I don’t know, but from what you’ve said it seems likely.”

            “That’s not good.”