Three - Michael Jan Friedman [23]
Picard nodded. “I am glad you see it that way.”
Joseph, who was standing just outside the barrier, was the obvious choice for the woman’s escort. After all, he was the highest-ranking security officer on the ship.
He had become a little too personally involved with the last visitor he was asked to guard—Serenity Santana of the mysterious Magnia colony. But with that experience under his belt, Picard was certain the security officer wouldn’t allow himself to be fooled again.
“Just one other thing,” the woman said. “You mentioned that there are a couple of Asmunds on your ship. Bridge officers, I believe.”
“That is correct.”
[64] I’d like to meet them,” the newcomer told him, “if that’s all right with you.”
The captain didn’t see any reason to forbid it. And he knew that Gerda and Idun would want to meet their counterpart.
“I think that can be arranged,” he said, “once we get you out of the brig and into some proper quarters.”
Chapter Five
BY THE TIME Picard returned to the bridge, Second Officer Wu had arrived as well. The way she looked at the captain told him she had already heard about their unexpected guest, and was as eager as anyone to learn more about her.
Picard smiled to himself. When Wu first came on board the Stargazer, her drive and intensity had led to some misunderstandings between her and the rest of the crew. Fortunately, that had changed, and she was now settling in nicely.
“Commander Ben Zoma, Commander Wu, join me in my ready room,” the captain said.
Then he entered the room himself, deposited himself in the plastiform chair behind his desk, and called up the file he required. Almost instantly, he found himself looking at a historic set of logs.
[66] “Please,” he said without looking up, “have a seat. I will be with you in a moment.”
Picard took a moment to read the logs presented to him, refreshing his memory of the events contained in them. As he might have predicted, he had recalled some of the details and forgotten others—including one very important one. Finally, he looked up at his officers.
“Our guest,” he said, “claims not to know how she got here. The last thing she remembers is being transported off a ship called Stargazer.”
“Really,” said Wu.
“And the next thing she knew,” Ben Zoma asked, “she was standing there in front of Refsland?”
The captain nodded. “Something like that. It sounds far-fetched, I know. But as she and I we were talking, I recalled something I had learned about at the Academy—an incident in which another apparently simple transport resulted in a bizarre, cross-dimensional transit.”
Wu’s eyes lit up. “Captain Kirk.”
Ben Zoma pointed at Picard. “That’s right. The Halkan system, wasn’t it?”
The captain nodded. “Sixty-six years ago, Captain James Kirk and his vessel, the Enterprise, were engaged in a diplomatic mission to the Halkan system when an ion storm moved into the area. A rather severe ion storm.
“Kirk, his chief medical officer, his chief engineer, and his communications officer were to transport down to the Halkans’ planet to conduct negotiations for dilithium mining rights. However, the storm interfered with transporter operation and landed the four of them [67] in another universe, while their counterparts from that universe wound up spitting curses from the brig on Kirk’s Enterprise.”
Ben Zoma stroked his chin. “So in that case, there was actually a trade-off—Kirk’s people for their counterparts—as if there were some kind of law of conservation of transported matter at work.”
“Interesting,” said Wu.
“At any rate,” Picard continued, “Kirk and his people found themselves in a frame of reference where the Federation was a repressive empire rather than a league of worlds brought together by mutual consent. Impersonating their counterparts, they managed to return to their proper universe, at which time their counterparts were returned as well.
“But before he departed the other universe, Kirk advised the counterpart of Spock, this Enterprise’s first officer, that the regime in