The Escape (5 page)

"Transport booths," Kim said, his voice hushed slightly in awe. He was looking in the same direction as Torres was.

She nodded. The transporters were encased by clear walls, and serviced only one person at a time.

But it was clear they operated on the same principle as the' unit in Voyager. All the booths were painted in bright colors and had signs over them. One person entered on one side, while another would leave from a different side. They would hesitate only as they entered, pausing to punch in a quick code on a panel on the outside, before stepping inside and vanishing. Torres was very impressed, especially considering how many thousands and thousands of these building remains Voyager had seen during their scans from space.

Some of the booths had short lines waiting to get in. Others were empty. Torres guessed that each booth went to transporter booths in a certain area of the planet.

The people who used the booths had purposeful but blank expressions on their faces. Torres recognized the look. She had used it herself when taking the same route day after day. Almost everyone using the booths carried a small case. Some people were with families. Others alone. Torres had seen this exact scene hundreds of times throughout the Federation.

This was a 46 transportation facility. Some of the people were going to or from work, others were traveling on vacation or business. Only outside the doors of this terminal weren't shuttles to take the travelers into orbit or to another part of the planet. Outside these doors was a huge field of ships that seemed to travel in time. That meant all these people were commuting through time in some fashion or another. She had no idea how the society worked, how it dealt with all the time paradoxes, or even why it would risk such difficulties. She wanted to find out.

Neelix had apparently seen enough. He bounced on his feet, catching the attention of the man in orange. "Are you taking us home?" The man looked at Neelix as if he were a small bug.

"I'm taking you to the Mean Time Control for this Period." "Period?" Torres asked.

"Mean?" Neelix said. He turned to Kim.

"I don't like the sound of this." The man made a small harrumphing sound, turned, and started to walk through the throng. He seemed to pay no attention to anyone else in the room, and none of the other travelers noticed him-or the away team-either.

Torres and Kim had to hurry to keep up with Neelix and the man. Neelix was tugging on the man's sleeve. "I sincerely think you should let us go on our way. Lieutenant Torres is well known for her right hook and-was "Neelix!" Tbrres said.

"I'm simply letting him know that we can be mean as well. We don't control time, but we control other important things. We can be quite formidable." Neelix still clung to the man's sleeve. The man was staring down at him as if Neelix were little more than a child.

"I don't think he means angry-mean," Kim said in a loud whisper. "I think he means mean-mean." "That's what I mean," Neelix said. "We can be mean-mean. We have B'Elanna here." "He means-I mean-he-arg!" Torres interrupted herself. "Mean Time Control probably refers to the mathematical concept of average." "Average?" Neelix said. "How can a Time Control be average?" The man stopped and shook Neelix's hand off his sleeve. "The Mean Time Control handles problems outside of Real Time." "Oh," Neelix said. "Well, that clarifies matters." He shook his head. But Torres was beginning to get a little clearer picture of what the man was talking about.

"You have clearly defined time periods, then?" she asked. "That's what you were referring to earlier when you mentioned the Time Control for this Period." The man nodded. He weaved between members of a family. Torres hurried to catch up. Kim was right behind her. Neelix stared after the children, who were taller than he was, noted that the others were gone, and ran to rejoin the group.

"So how long is a period?" Torres asked.

"Five hundred thousand years," the man said, in tone that told her the passing children would have known this.

Torres wanted to stop walking. She felt as if she had almost grasped the concept the man was talking about. If they operated within periods, separated time into Real Time and Mean Time, then- "Real Time runs forward for you, just like it does for us, then." "Time always runs forward, ma'am. Sometimes we just travel backward." She hated that tone. One of her professors at the academy used that tone with her.

It made her feel... well, mean.

She glanced at Neelix. She would not prove him right within one hour of landing in this strange place.

"I still don't understand why you need to bring us to the Time Control." "Probably because we're strangers," Kim said. He shot her a glance that let her know how uncomfortable he felt. She appreciated his feelings. She was uncomfortable too. But her way was to confront. His was to go along. Her way was the only one that would get them answers. "The Mean Time Control regulates travel," the man said, as if that were answer enough.

. "I got that," Torres said. "We didn't intend to take the ship. We'll return it. It's a simple case of letting us 90 back." "You cannot go back." "Actually," Neelix said, "we could. We could get on the ship, I could sit down for a nap like I did before, the lights would go on, and-was "No," the man said. "It's against the law." "What?" Torres said. "What law?" "I told you," the man said. "Control Ordinance 852.6l." "Which regulates what?" Torres asked.

"Intraperiod travel." "If you don't travel between Periods, then how do you time travel?" Kim asked.

"Intraperiod," Torres said. "You can't travel within a single Period, can you?" That question was pointed at the guard. "Because if you do, you'll screw up Real Time. That's why you people let time run forward. You live out your lives within a Period, then-was "No, ma'am. We may visit any Period we want, any Black Period that is. Red Periods are, of course, forbidden." "Of course," Neelix said, sotto voce.

"Neelix!" Torres said, then she turned to the guard. "But you can't travel within the same Period.

That's how you avoid paradox. This is fascinating." "I wish I could study it in my room. In my bathtub," Neelix. said. "Under sudsy hot water. Steaming, sudsy hot water-was Kim jabbed Neelix and Neelix stopped talking.

Torres took the man's arm. His orange suit felt crinkly, like fresh paper. "Listen, we didn't purposefully break your laws. Your ship brought us here. We're willing to go back. In fact, we want to go back. The more you drag us around this Period, the more we could affect something." "That may very well be," the man said. "Control will sort it out." He stopped in front of a booth and punched in a code. Then he swept a hand forward, indicating that Torres should step through. She shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "I think we'd better remain with the ship we arrived in. We have to get back into the future and-was "Not without permission," the man in orange said, almost a touch of panic in his voice. "You have already time-jumped inside a Period without permission and that is a very serious offense." Torres glanced around at the small, curious crowd that was now starting to form. And the comman's accusations about time-jumping without permission sent an uneasy stir through the crowd.

"That was an accident," Torres said. "Your shuttle kidnapped us, not the other way around." "That will be for Mean Time Control to figure out.

Now, please." Again, he moved his hand in that curious, courtly gesture, as if he were trying to sweep Torres onto a dance floor.

She glanced at Kim and then at Neelix.

What was she supposed to do? Leave the place and the ship that brought them from the future and put her hands in some unknown "Control"? A Mean Control? As Neelix said, it didn't sound promising.

She nodded to Kim and then turned to the man in orange. "I think we'll just go back to the shuttle that we came in. If you want to talk to us, we will be there. We have a spaceship in orbit around this planet three hundred thousand years in the future and our only goal is to return to it. We have no desire to cause problems. Understood?" The man in orange just stood there staring at them with a panicked look.

"Let's go," Torres said. With more confidence than she felt, she started back across the huge room, Kim on her left and Neelix on her right, his short legs pumping hard to keep up with her stride.

"Halt now before I have to send a Time Breach alarm," the man in orange said forcefully. His words sent out a gasp through the large crowd that had now formed to watch the show.

66 Phasers on stun," Torres said softly to Kim while not slowing down. "Make it back to that ship and hold it secure. Understood?" "Understood," he said.

"Now!" Torres said and broke into a run for the door, her phaser in her hand. People scattered out of their way as a soft chiming echoed through the huge room.

She burst through the door and was immediately surrounded by a hundred orange-suited people, who were apparently expecting them. They held long-barreled weapons with the ends trained on her. Kim was surrounded by another large group, and so was Neelix.

"I thought you said intraperiod travel is forbidden," she said. "You committed a Time Breach," the initial guard responded from behind her. Torres stopped and slowly raised her hands, letting 52 her phaser drop to the ground. Kim did the same beside her. "That was fast," Neelix said.

"I doubt we ever had a real chance," Torres said. Once these people had known Torres's plan, they had traveled back just far enough in time to prevent her and her team from getting to the shuttle. Behind them their original guard said, "Now would you please come with me? You are in a great deal of trouble." "Obviously," Neelix said.

Slowly Torres lowered her hands and followed the guard back across the room to the transporter booth.

Her chances of seeing Voyager again had just gotten much, much worse.

KjANDER'S LEANED AGAINST THE WALL IN THE TRANSPORT Station. The grease from decades of travel was rub bing off on his bright blue tunic. He didn't care. The thing was a disguise anyway. Better to look lik " e a bureaucrat heading for work in Period 18 than to wear leisure clothes from Period 899. He hated this Period, probably because it was his home Period. It offered no room for growth or change, and he needed both. He needed adventure.

The Seconds-Watchers in Control had no idea what adventure was. To them adventure occurred whenever a shuttle took off. But he had been to a hundred Periods before they took his travel license away and he had used up opportunities in every one of them. What he really wanted to do was see something other than this planet. He had heard of PlanetHoppers before and 54 had thought of them often, especially when he traveled to dark times and stared at the stars above, were all those worlds different from his own? Did they have warm and cool periods, ice ages, and forested ages, creatures that developed through time, and creatures that disappeared as the millennium passed? Or were they just like this place, the same yet different depending on where in the time line a traveler landed?

He would have loved to have asked the.

PlanetHoppers that Control had picked up, but those three odd-looking people were doomed. They had been doomed the moment they tried to make a break for it.

They didn't seem to understand that making a straight run for it was the wrong way to avoid the orange suits. Causing a Time Alarm was a sure way to get executed real quick. He sighed. At least they were having an adventure. He was just observing.

Then he stood up as an idea hit him.

Their bad luck just might have been his good luck.

He'd been planning to take a shuttle, even though his license was gone. He had just needed a destination not guarded by the Watchmen. He had been lurking in this Transport Station for two days, trying to discover a place that he could disappear into, one that no other Time-Jumper had tried before. Then these PlanetHoppers had shown up.

Three hundred thousand years, the pretty woman with the ridged forehead had said. They had a ship, a planet-hopping ship, in orbit. After the room was totally clear of the orange suits, he moved slowly toward the door they had entered. 55 This would be a perfect escape. He had managed to avoid Control so far. All they had managed was to rescind his license. They hadn't found him, just traces of him. His usual contacts could no longer help. He had stolen too much merchandise and brought it to the wrong Period. He was wanted, not just for the thefts, but also for hijacking a control ship and jumping within a Period. That had turned out unpleasant, but at least it had provided him with a quick escape. He had jumped a few years away, and then allowed the Control ship to return. Control had thought he stayed in the past, never thinking he would return to his own Real Time present. It had seemed like a good idea then.

Two Real Time weeks later, the idea seemed a little lamebrained. Without help, he had had nowhere to go.

Until now.

He ambled through the door onto the warm concrete of the field and glanced around. It took him a moment before he spotted the PlanetHoppers" shuttle.

The shuttle seemed much older than the rest. It looked so bad that he was surprised it had been able to make the jump.

The shuttle sat on a pad that belonged to a different shuttle. When that shuttle returned, the automatic homing device of the old ship would take it back to the future, to the time of the PlanetHoppers' Vacuum Ship. And if his plan worked, it would soon be his Vacuuin Ship.

Torres clenched her fists and held them at her side, battle-ready, as she stepped into the transporter. The dislocating change-something she would never completely get used to-occurred in a split second. One moment she was in the big transporter hall, the next she was in a room dug out of solid rock.

Neelix appeared beside her, eyes closed and body tilted backward as if he had been pushed.

Once he materialized, he fell back against the clear walls of the transporter.

Kim appeared a moment after that, his dark eyes wide. He stood in full military posture, looking more like a Starfleet officer than Torres had ever seen him. Then she realized that he had dealt with their imprisonment with the Ocampa the same way; she just hadn't realized that his reserve had military components. Of course, then she had not been thinking, she had been reacting.