The Escape (20 page)

He spent too much Real Time on this case. He got a slap from Control. Overriders Regulations SSeries, Numbers 2A through 37But, Personal Involvement Sections I and 2, you know." "I know," Drickel said. "I've been slapped with that before." Janeway had lost the thread of the numbers long ago. All she knew was that Drickel sounded a bit disappointed.

"You should've been here, though, Drickel. I can understand why he lost track of the regulations, you know.

Those PlanetHoppers caused more Time Alarms than any prisoners previously." "Did they cause one when I went through Eighteighty-nine?" "Yes, and three more after that." Drickel turned his head a little and grinned at Janeway. "With that much activity, then, they're still alive, right?" Silence greeted him. Janeway held her breath.

"Sorry, Drickel. You missed the execution by three Real Time hours. Red tells me they're still not back to work out there in the main room." Janeway felt as if someone had punched her solidly in the stomach. Beside her Paris sucked in a sharp breath.

Torres. Kim. Neelix. She couldn't believe they were dead. She just couldn't.

Paris groaned behind her, and his light wavered. lUvok remained steady. Drickel held up one finger as if indicating that they should all wait. "Are you certain, Noughi? Sometimes the orders get made, but the executions take a few Real Time days. 99 "Days?" She said. "Try weeks. It took a dozen different tries and an entire committee to outwit those people. Finally Rawlik had to back-time to poison them." "Oh, man," Drickel said. "And they're still thinking of slapping him with a Personal Involvement?" "I'm afraid so," the woman said. "Look, if we stay on this any longer we will have thirty more forms to complete." "All right," Drickel said. "Keep those forms ready. I might have to get back to you." "Wonderful," the woman said. With a flick of a light, her voice disappeared from the chamber.

Drickel braced one hand against the device and rested his forehead against his arm. Then he stood.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I really am." Janeway let out the breath she had been holding.

She was hoping he would have more for her than that. She turned away from him and walked slowly over near the door. The light from the lanterns cast shadows down the dust-filled hallway. Three sets of footprints led off into the dark. She thought that somehow fitting for the moment.

She just couldn't accept that her crew members were dead. Not this way. Not now. This was all so stupid.

If she had pulled them off the shuttle sooner or sent a team into the past sooner, they might still be here. There were so many ifs she wanted to go back and change. So many things she wanted to do differently, if she only had the chance.

Time Alarm. Backtiming, as Kjanders called it. She was standing three hundred thousand years after her crew was killed. What difference was a short three hours?

She whirled so quickly the dust stormed and swirled up around her. She brushed it away from her face and moved into the open. "Explain to me what she meant by Time Alarm." Drickel's expression became guarded for a moment. "Ah, hell," Paris said. "We just lost three of our best people. You can answer the woman's questions." Drickel shrugged. "A Time Alarm," he said, "is 219 H

when Control mus, t send a force or a person back a very short distance in time to stop something from happening. It is rarely done, and causing a Time Alarm is a death-penalty offense. Your comcrew caused four of them besides the original eighthundred violation. That's something amazing. You have very talented people working with you, Captain." "Had," Paris said. His light was quivering.

"Tom," Janeway said softly. She made sure there was an element of command in that tone as well as compassion. "Mr. Drickel, tell me why Time Alarms are so rare." "Beside the obvious dangers of creating a time paradox," Drickel said, glancing at Tuvok, "each backtiming causes another dimension to branch off from the point of changed action. Ideally the other dimension is so minutely different from the first that it makes no diffirence to society." "And if it does make a difference?" "Then another time stream is created," Drickel said, "along with more people who might ultimately spread out through the dimensions in the future." Janeway nodded. The idea she had was getting more and more concrete. "But nothing worse than that will happen?" Drickel looked puzzled. "Not unless a time paradox is set up. Or in worse cases, a permanent time loop where the people involved are doomed to repeat the event over and over. But backtiming is usually done over such short time frames that that rarely happens." "All right," Janeway said. She moved slowly back across the dusty room. She was coated in the gray 220 stuff. It felt sticky and uncomfortable. She stopped next to Drickel, put her hands on her hips, and looked up at him. "You said you wanted to help. Here's your chance." She pointed to his time shuttle. "Can you make that shift back exactly enough hours so that I can warn my crew not to enter that shuttle?" Drickel went so pale as to earn his ghostly appellation. His features in the lantern light and floating dust almost appeared haunted. "That would create two universes. One where your crew died and you moved on, and one where they lived." "Simply by asking that question, Captain, you have created other universes," Tuvok said. "In one universe Drickel will say no and one he will say yes." Janeway nodded. Tuvok was right, of course.

Her question had created the alternate universe. She had to try a slightly different tack.

"Will the execution of my crew members make any long-term difference to your society?" Drickel thought for a moment and then nodded. "The other universe will still exist and move forward without your crew members." Janeway caught how he phrased that statement and glanced at Tuvok, who also had caught it.

Drickel had said "the other universe," which meant he would help make it right in this one.

"So you'll help us?" Janeway asked.

Drickel smiled. "I'll try. But I'm not sure we will succeed." "And thus," Tuvok said, "even more alternate dimensions are created." "This is giving me a headache," Paris, said. "Let's just go get Kim and the others and go on with our lives-. and not worry about our other lives which we, apparently, are not living?" Janeway laughed and turned to Drickel. "Yes, let's." "Captain," Tuvok said. "It will not work." She turned to face her security officer. "Why not?" she demanded. She could tell that she had asked far too loudly, as her voice echoed in the long-dead room.

"It would set up a paradox," Tuvok said. "And possibly a time loop in which we would be stuck forever." "Explain." She didn't want to hear the answer. She only wanted to hear what would save her away team, bring them back from the dead. "For example," Tuvok said, his voice calm as always.

"You and Mr. Drickel return to the point just before the away team boarded the shuttle. You stop them.

At that point in time two of the both of you exist in that universe. You, Captain, in the ship and on the shuttle, and you, Mr. Drickel, at a time right before you were sent here as well. as on that shuttle." tilde Drickel sighed. "Tuvok, you continue to astonish me. It took me eight months of time school before I managed that concept, and apparently I still forget about it." - He coughed and brushed dust off his face. "This, of course, creates an additional problem. After we warn your crew members, this universe does not exist. Where would we return to? If we warn them, then we never met, therefore we couldn't have warned them. I was taught that basic "killing your grandfathee principle in field training. A time paradox is formed when 922 the two time streams, or dimensions, flow apart and a person is trapped in the wrong one." Tuvok nodded. "That is the logic of it, I am afraid." Anger rose in Janeway's stomach and lodged in her throat. She longed for Torres.

B'Elanna often expressed the anger they all felt. "So," Janeway said as calmly as she could, "if that isn't possible, how do we save the away team?" I "I am afraid," Tuvok said, "that if the action to save them has not already happened in this time line, it will never happen." Drickel nodded.

"I refuse to accept that," Janeway said.

"We have all of time at our disposal." "But, Captain," Tuvok said. "We also have a society to think of." She knew that. She knew that with the same bonedeep certainty she had had when she had stared in the face of the Prime Directive and decided to strand her people in the Delta Quadrant rather than take the easy route home. She would not, could not, hurt Alcawell, but she had to find a solution.

Had to.

"When we're looking at millions of years," Paris said, "we're only talking about messing with a fraction of a fraction of time.

Surely-was "Such a simple suggestion," Drickel said, not letting him finish, "is a felony in my culture." "Logical," Tuvok said.

Janeway walked back to the door leading down the long dark hallway. She didn't care how much dust she kicked up. Her future would always have that dark 223 hallway ahead of it. She had lost other crew members in the past and she would lose more in the future. It was the curse of command. And each loss would have a long dark hallway leading from it into her nightmares. Dust floated peacefully in the air around her. She leaned her head against the cold stone of the wall and just tried to breathe. There had to be a way.

There had to be.

The silence stretched to a minute before finally Drickel broke it. "Captain," he said, his voice echoing in the small chamber. She turned around to see Drickel leaning against his machine and both Tuvok and Paris standing holding lanterns. The dust in the air gave the small room almost a surreal feeling.

"There might be a way without creating a paradox." "How?" she demanded, moving back closer to him and sending more waves of dust into the air as she did.

"Tavok is correct. If the action hasn't already been taken in this time line, it won't be. And the only way to discover that is to ask Control to do the backtiming." "Control is the authority who killed my away team. Now you want to ask them?" "Actually," Drickel said, "only one member of Control. Rawlik." She glanced at Tuvok and he shrugged, indicating that he had no idea what Drickel's idea was. So she turned to Drickel and took a deep breath. "Explain." Drickel nodded. "My suggestion is that we trust the 224 system. It seems that notwithstanding our surroundings, the system, and therefore Control, works. And will continue to work for hundreds of thousands of ydars. 19 Tuvok nodded. "Logical." "I'm beginning to hate that phrase," Paris said.

"Rawlik is a friend of mine. He's the one who convinced me to join the Back Room when I got into some trouble early in my life. I know for a fact that this is the first execution be's had to perform and it will be tearing him up inside. In fact, he was already cited for spending too much time on this, trying-to save your crew. He would be grateful for a chance to do just that." "He should have just opened the door, then-," Paris said. "Tom." This time Janeway's voice held a warning. "I'm sorry, Mr. Drickel. We all have close friends on that team. Please continue." "Noughi said they were poisoned. I might be able to convince Rawlik to reduce the amount of poison and-was - "And I claim the bodies," Janeway said, excitement coming back into her soul. "In this way, it would appear to all concerned that the team died, but no one actually would." "And this would not set up a time paradox," Tuvok said. "But convincing Rawlik will be another matter," Drickel said. "I would do it in a heartbeat. At most, he could get another Personal Involvement citation. Most people at his level of command collect a dozen of them before enforcement becomes routine. But I cannot speak for him. And there is another problem." Janeway nodded. "If I go back, I risk my life as well." Her words floated in the room like the dust. She looked at Tuvok. He said nothing, which was as close to actual approval as she would get..

Paris leaned toward her. "I'll go, Captain.

I don't mind the risk." "Neither do 1, Mr.

Paris." She smiled at him. "And I have. had more training in diplomacy than you." She tapped her comm badge. "Commander Chakotay?" "Yes, Captain." His comforting voice filled the room. She hadn't realized until just that moment how comforting his voice was to her and how much she depended on him.

"I will be accompanying Mr. Drickel into the past. Tuvok and Paris will explain." "Are you convinced this is the only way, Captain?

I would be glad to-was "This is the only way, Commander," she said, her voice firm yet gentle.

"Thank you. If I do not return, your orders are to leave orbit and continue for home. You are not to send another rescue team. If this doesn't work, nothing will. Understood?" "How long should we wait, Captain?" She turned to Drickel.

"We'll be back in ten minutes in this time frame if we're coming back," Drickel said.

"We may spend months getting through all the regulations and paperwork, but in this time we will return in ten minutes. That's as close as Noughi would dare time it." "If you do take months, you'll never remember it," Tuvok said. Janeway gave Tuvok a puzzled look. That logic made no sense to her, so she continued. "Chakatay, leave orbit in two hours, taking as many raw materials as you can load on board from the old shuttles." "Understood, Captain." There was a slight pause. "And good luck." "Thanks." She turned to Drickel. "Let's do it." "We'll be waiting right here, Captain," Paris said, "to help when you get back." "Thank you, Mr. Paris." She looked over her shoulder at Tuvok. He nodded, which was all she needed.

Drickel was waiting, hovering above his seat. He indicated a place beside him and she climbed in.

There were no real controls in front of her. Nothing but what looked to be a simple keyboard.

Drickel reached over and punched a button.

"Standard communication, Codes 15 to 36.

Hi, Noughi. Two coming home to you." "Ready and waiting," Noughi said. "Oh, boy.

More paperwork." He sat down.

Janeway braced herself as the lantern-lit du tilde ty room vanished.

JANEWAY BLINKED AS HER EYES ADJUSTED TO THE BRIGHT light. She coughed dust from her lungs, glad she didn't have to work in the darkness of the caverns forever.

The room that the shuttle had brought her and Drickel to seemed smaller than the one Janeway had just left. It had an odd sweet smell. A single desk sat to one side, covered with a drooping fern; A large workstation filled with computers, flashing lights, and a sc rolling list of regulations was the wall to Janeway's right.