Transposition
Prologue
The Guardian sat silently, patiently, biding its time, in the city on the edge of forever. Waiting for a Question...
"You know ve are going to be in trouble vhen the Keptin finds out vhat ve've done?"
The helmsman grinned at the navigator.
"But he's never going to find out, is he, Pavel?"
"Vhy do I let you talk me into these tings?"
"I don't know. The excitement, maybe? The adventure?"
"I can get enough adwenture vithout following you!"
"Sure. But it wouldn't be as much fun!"
They'd found themselves on a routine patrol in the area when Sulu, who'd been arguing with his usual enthusiasm about the exploits of the great Khan with the Enterprise's latest historian (Doctor Myfanwy Jones, a very pretty young woman with an astonishingly brilliant academic career already behind her), and had decided the only way to prove he was right was to beam down to the Guardian and ask it a Question. He'd be able to record the great Khan's entire life in a matter of minutes on his tricorder, and bring back the details to resolve the argument once and for all.
And he'd talked Chekov into going with him.
The Russian couldn't for the life of him think why he'd agreed to accompany his friend on such a hair-brained exploit. The Guardian was itself guarded these days: it was far too potent a possible weapon to simply be left unattended for just anyone to visit. What if the Klingons discovered its potential, altered their own history and then tried to change Earth's, amend it so that Star Fleet had never existed? And then simply walked in and annexed Earth as part of their Empire? It didn't bear thinking about! So a 'research team' - a research team with astonishingly powerful weapons - and their 'base' - a fully armed starship - were stationed there at all times.
Which of course made the attempt to contact the Guardian all the more difficult. Not that Sulu had ever let anything like that stop him! Chekov could swear the helmsman was positively gleeful at the prospect. Not that he'd ever let the Russian see it of course: Chekov was altogether too staid and conventional to be swayed by the mention of 'adventure' and 'enterprise'...
It had been hair-raising. They'd had to hide themselves amongst the large pile of supplies due to be beamed down to the research team: luckily for the pair of them Mr Scott was on duty in the engine room, dealing with a minor but tricky problem with the dilithium crystals, and his replacement at the cargo transporter station controls hadn't thought to question why the mass due to be transported exceeded the cargo manifest. And then, of course, they'd had to dodge the - admittedly sloppy - guards at the beamdown point. Not too much of a problem, thought Sulu as they pulled their jacket hoods over their heads and headed out into the cold dead air.
But stumbling across the bleak, barren plain, dodging into the wind-fissured ruins that were all that was left of the once-mighty civilisation that had created the Guardian, even Sulu began to wonder if he'd done the right thing. An almost crushing sense of antiquity filled and overfilled the area around the sombre artefact - such a plain, uninteresting object for something that had the power to change the universe! He started at Chekov's resigned voice.
"Vell, ve're here. Ask your qvestion. Then ve can go home." His face brightened. "I have some wodka on ice vaiting!"
Sulu flashed him a quick, appreciative grin, then swallowed, pulled himself upright and faced the suddenly-shimmering portal, tricorder at the ready and set to record.
"Guardian, I have a question."
For a moment there was a pause, heavy and filled with meaning, then -
"Ask your Question..."
Neither Star Fleet officer was aware of the vast lenticular starship vectoring through the star-system, its presence shielded from the Enterprise, from the team on the ground, from anyone without the very specialised instrumentation required to spot its movements against the stars. There were those who said, later, that it did not truly belong in this continuum, that it phased between dimensions in a way that sent logic and common sense screaming for their strait-jackets and padded cells - to use a twentieth century metaphor.
On the ground, Chekov and Sulu were entirely innocent of what was about to happen. And as the edge of ship's vast energy shield brushed against the edge of the Guardian's time displacement field, time and space - shifted...
© 2001 (September) Joules Taylor
