On the viewscreen, Kirza's expression was unrepentant. "I know exactly what I am doing. We have the Nhandesson weapon, now, and if our alliance is to continue, it will be on much more equal terms."
"You do not know how to operate the weapon." Chrog's tone was almost reasonable. Luga suspected that someone was about to die, very soon. She regretted that the little communications hut offered no space to edge cautiously away from him.
"How true," said Kirza. "Though I fancy we have learned more from you than you suspect - we are not quite so easily distracted with shiny weapons as some would like to believe." Luga hissed through her teeth. "However, given the range and effectiveness of this device, I imagine you would prefer it, too, if we did not operate on the basis of trial and error. The time-space continuum in this star system is battered enough already. So. You are the experts in temporal technology, you will provide us with instruction. I look forward to using this thing. I might start by cancelling out the damned Organians and their peace treaty! - I will give you an hour to compose yourselves and prepare your technicians. Hov'etlh out." The screen went blank.
Chrog took a deep breath, held it for several seconds, then exhaled. "I believe I commented," he said, "on the undesirability of forming partnerships with other species - What are you doing?"
Luga was pawing frantically at her clothing. "A listening device," she hissed through clenched teeth. "The damned Klingon must have planted some sort of bug on me -"
"You are scanned regularly as a security measure!" Chrog snarled.
"For transtator signatures!" Luga screeched back. She held something up to the light; a tiny bulbous thing with a hair-fine dangling antenna - at first glance, it might even be mistaken for a hair. "This, this, it must be -"
Chrog consulted his wrist scanner. "Electronic. A passive receiver, echoing and modulating a background carrier wave in EM frequencies. Ingenious, if primitive. In this time period, of course, the Klingons were very keen on surveillance." He leaned close to the bug and spoke clearly and distinctly. "They must have enjoyed the sight of all those clean, smooth foreheads!"
Luga gave a wordless snarl and threw the bug down to the floor. She drew her chronoplasma pistol, made a swift adjustment, and took aim. "I wish this was your face, Kirza," she said, and fired. The bug flared and vanished, leaving nothing behind but a scorch mark on the floor.
Chrog was continuing to scan. "No sign of any more of those," he said. "Well. Such trustworthy allies the Klingons are...."
"What are we going to do?" Luga asked.
"Stall them. The operation of the anti-time weapon is complex, we can baffle them with science for as long as we like. That does not concern me... unless Kirza grows impatient and starts pressing buttons at random. What bothers me more is the other one."
"Thyvesh?"
"Am I expected to believe it was a coincidence that he chose this moment of distraction to make a break for his temporal portal? We must have that thing properly analyzed. I want to know where he has gone."
"To the Suliban weapons cache, presumably." Luga's face grew thoughtful. "In point of fact... the artifact is under constant observation, though the Klingons' attack may have proven a distraction. But it may be possible for us, now, to extract a temporal signature and - just possibly - to extrapolate Thyvesh's destination coordinates from it."
"You think so?"
"It is possible. And, with that information, we should be able to find our own way to that weapons cache."
Chrog stepped to the door of the hut, opened it a crack, and peered through. "The Federation would seem to be in the way," he said sourly.
"Captain Grau is having a field day, setting up monitoring devices with her science teams," said Luga. She joined Chrog at the door, and they both looked out. The dark Priyanapari night was pierced with the glare of floodlights, as science teams from the Harrier surrounded the artifact with sensor probes and mobile computer workstations. Na'kuhl troops stood around, watching them, their frustration almost palpable.
"Well," said Luga, "they have twenty-third century Starfleet equipment - it will be easy enough to subvert that. Grau may run her sensor analyses, and we will take her results. Since we cannot affect her without risking the wrath of one or both of her invisible companions... she may as well be of some use to us."
"What is the status of those - things?" Chrog asked.
"Unknown. We think the Rift entity is not yet at home in linear time, but we cannot chance being wrong. As for the Organian -" Luga shrugged. "We have no means to track an Organian. Very possibly, as Grau suggested, the creature is everywhere. One might hope, at least, it is spending some time with Captain Kirza. If her threats provoke the Organian into taking direct action... well, it would simplify matters."
"Kirza and the Organian," muttered Chrog. "Neither one worries me as much as Thyvesh."
---
"Thyvesh."
Thyvesh crouched beneath one green-glowing column. His fingers trembled as he took the holo-display unit from its hiding place. There was not much time, now.
"Thyvesh."
The voice - did it sound closer, now? Strange, that it sounded so - different. But, of course, it would sound different, to him. Because normally, he only heard it from inside his own head.
The holo-display unit had a closed compartment in its base. It was a standard commercial model, a thing for storing old messages, old images - souvenirs, mementoes. He opened the compartment.
From a pocket of his ragged clothes, he took a small metal object. A Romulan rank badge, in the form of a raptor... but twisted, deformed by some sort of pressure, and stained with dark-green markings of dried-up Vulcanoid blood.
"I know you are here. And you know that I know - how could you not?"
Thyvesh put the badge into the compartment, closed it, put the holo-display on the floor. He owed it to her, after all, he thought. He had lied to her, about being safe, about his counterpart being unable to get in. A white lie, a necessary lie, but still a lie. He owed her the truth.
Whatever the truth might be.
"I will find you. You cannot hide forever."
Thyvesh reached out, with his hands, with his mind. Alternative timelines, paths through time and space, cascaded through his altered brain. An infinite series of alternatives, he was so tired of them all - He found the line he wanted, focused his mind on it, concentrated. The holo-display shimmered briefly under his hand, and then it was gone.
So. No more reason to delay, then. He heaved a sigh, and stood up.
"Thyvesh - ah. There you are."
He turned around, slowly. His younger self was there, looking - eager, and neat, and efficient, in his military-styled outfit. How had he ever been able to be so neat and efficient? In his hand, the younger Thyvesh held an obvious weapon - a gun, but with a strange parabolic emitter dish instead of a barrel, and a complex control panel behind it that flared out to cover his hand and wrist.
"White-3741," he muttered. "Sairish's neural override weapon."
"You recognize it," the younger Thyvesh said. "That is good. You know what it does. You know what I can do with it. What I will do with it." He raised the weapon and took aim. "You will not die, but you may wish you had - unless you tell me."
He had to go through the motions. "Tell you what?"
"You know what."
"I know. But I remember - I asked me to say it -"
"You asked me." The younger Thyvesh smiled. "I know what you mean. Very well. You are able to use the door - without being in its physical proximity. You can operate freely in time and space. You can go anywhere, anywhen that you wish." For the first time, he looked faintly uncertain. "You seem to have wished to go to some very - grubby - times and places. Never mind. I assume there is a reason, that I will find out in due course. But now, now, you will tell me that secret. You will explain to me how to do it. I can think of - many uses - for the technique." He sighted carefully at Thyvesh, and adjusted the weapon's complex controls.
How was it possible? That he had ever been so - so dynamic, so driven, so certain of himself? It was all a part of his past, now. But the past - the past was never more than an instant away.
"You will tell me," his younger self said, with absolute conviction.
Thyvesh looked him in the eye. "Yes," he said, "I will. I did."
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