Greg Cox: Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Time

“Nope. I’m not what you call a Preserver. I’m something else altogether.” She split down the middle, looking like Zoe on the left and Qat Zaldana on the right. “That whole business with the probe and the planets was simply an intriguing situation playing out in your cute little reality, one that I couldn’t resist sitting in on. I just nudged things along a bit, made sure you both ran into the probe at the right times and places, transcendentally speaking. And you know what? It paid off. You got the clues you needed to figure everything out. Bravo!”

“What about the body swapping?” Kirk asked. “The mind transfer over time and space?”

“Okay,” she confessed, “I may have had a little to do with that. Or a lot.”

She knew who I was the whole time, he realized. Even in the brig.

He didn’t know what to think about that.

“You said we came through with flying colors. What does that mean?”

“It means you’re quite the interesting physical species. Just wait until I tell the others about you. You definitely warrant further study.”

“In the future,” Spock asked, “or in the past?”

Zoe/Qat shrugged. “Is there a difference?”

She blew Kirk a kiss, then vanished in a flash of blinding white light.

“Well, I’ll be.” McCoy rubbed his eyes. “I’m not sure I’m ever going to get used to that sort of thing. You think we’ll run into her or her people again?”

“Who knows, Bones? It’s a big universe out there, full of unexpected wonders and paradoxes.” Kirk chuckled wryly. “You know, I was starting to forget that, but not anymore.”

Spock arched an eyebrow. “Would you care to elaborate, Captain?”

“It’s funny,” Kirk said. He gazed at the empty space that their enigmatic visitor had exited only moments before. “Not too long ago, just before we shipped out for Skagway, I was afraid that I was starting to take what we do for granted, that after nearly five years on this mission, exploring the galaxy was becoming routine.”

“But now?” McCoy asked.

“Now I’ve had a chance to remember just how exciting, and perilous, space travel can be.” Kirk thought back to his days aboard the Lewis & Clark. “Maybe I needed to go back two centuries, experience primitive space travel in all its danger and novelty, to remind myself just what an astounding adventure we’re on out here. And I can’t wait to get back to our own time, where there are still strange new worlds and civilizations waiting to be discovered.”

He strode out of the sickbay into the corridor outside. The never-ending bustle of life on a starship set his heart pounding. He marched briskly toward the turbolift. His bridge was waiting for him, and his future. Spock and McCoy hurried after him.

“Step lively, gentlemen,” he called out. “Time’s a-wasting.”

“Why?” McCoy asked. “Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Besides the usual Star Trek reference sources, I relied heavily on several books to help me capture the feel of a “realistic” twenty-first-century space mission to Saturn. Needless to say, any liberties I took were entirely my own idea and should not be blamed on the fine authors of the books below.

Asimov, Isaac. Saturn: The Ringed Beauty . Milwaukee, Wisc.: Gareth Stevens, 1989.

Becklake, Susan. Space: Stars, Planets, and Spacecraft. New York: DK, 1988, 1998.

Birch, Robin. Saturn. Broomall, Pa.: Chelsea House, 2004.

Graham, Ian. E.guides: Space Travel. New York: DK, 2004.

Linenger, Jerry M. Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Miller, Ron. Worlds Beyond: Saturn . Brookfield, Conn.: Twenty-First Century Books, 2003.

Murray, Peter. Saturn. Chicago: Child’s World, 1994.

Ride, Sally, with Susan Okie. To Space & Back. New York: Beech Tree, 1986.

Colonel Shaun Geoffrey Christopher appeared briefly in my Eugenics Wars novels a decade ago. I always meant to tell the rest of his story someday, but I never realized that it would take me ten years to get around to it!

That this book has finally blasted off into print is thanks to the invaluable folks at Mission Control, including my editors, Margaret Clark and Ed Schlesinger, and my agent, Russ Galen. I also want to thank my fellow Trek experts, such as Christopher Bennett, David George, Dave Mack, John Ordover, Marco Palmieri, Paul Simpson, and the gang at trekbbs.com, for letting me pick their brains and bounce ideas off them, even if some of those ideas took some wild ricochets. And I thank Paul Abell, a genuine rocket scientist, for generously offering to answer any questions I had about real-life space exploration. I probably should have taken more advantage of him! Thanks also to the Oxford Public Library, for letting me raid its shelves for books on Saturn and space travel and for letting me (and my dog) take advantage of their air-conditioning during a truly ferocious heat wave.

Finally, and as always, I could not have completed this mission without my invaluable copilot, Karen Palinko, and our four furry stowaways, Churchill, Henry, Sophie, and Lyla.