1930
Kirk walked beside Edith Keeler as she led him and Spock through the urban canyons of New York. Night, moonless and deep, had descended on the city. In many places, though, small attempts to combat the darkness prevailed: the illumination emanating from windows in the buildings they passed, the lights mounted on the ground vehicles that drove by, the cones of yellow light falling from the street lamps that lined the sidewalks.
Where it had not been cold this morning—despite Kirk’s claims to the contrary when he and Spock had been discovered by Miss Keeler—the temperature had dropped considerably after sunset. Kirk kept his coat buttoned up to his neck and his hands buried in his pockets. Whenever he glanced over to their escort, he saw her breath puffing out before her in ephemeral clouds of white.
Keeler had a way about her, Kirk thought. Even simply walking through the wintry night, she projected a positive and vibrant air. This seemed true in spite of both the work she did—running a soup kitchen for the indigent—and the period in which she lived.
During the course of cleaning the basement today, Kirk and Spock had taken midday and evening meals upstairs, in the main room of the mission. There, they had seen a calendar hanging on a wall, displaying the days of June 1922, but then they’d consulted several different newspapers, all of which had identified the current month as January 1930. That placed them in an era of economic upheaval known as the Great Depression. And yet as they’d eaten their soup and bread this evening, Keeler had taken a few moments to address the penniless, hungry men who had come to her establishment in search of food and charity. She’d told them, essentially, that there would be better days ahead, not just for them, but for everybody. Incredibly, she’d spoken of the possibilities of atomic power and space travel, of eliminating hunger and disease worldwide, all accomplishments well in the future. To Kirk, her views made her seem as much out of place in 1930 as he and Spock were.
“Down this way,” Keeler said, pointing left as they reached an intersection.
As they turned the corner, Kirk said, “I have to ask you, Miss Keeler, how can you be so sure that the days ahead are worth living for, when things appear so bleak right now?”
“Bleak?” she said, her delicate features visible at the moment in the reflected glow of a street lamp. “You mean because of the bank failures and the stock market panic?”
“Yes,” Kirk said, sure that she must be referring to the events of the day.
“Oh, I don’t know how bleak things are,” Keeler said. “I suppose every day is bleak for somebody, no matter how good or how bad things are for the rest of the world. Poverty was widespread before the panic, it’s just getting worse now. But at least we’re not at war.”
“But you sounded very optimistic about humanity’s future,” Kirk prompted her.
“Well, yes, I am,” she said. “It seems to me that if mankind can produce Michelangelo’s David and the plays of William Shakespeare, if it can give us the telescope and the microscope, sailing ships and aeroplanes…it seems to me that a society of such capabilities must surely be able to lift itself and its citizens out of poverty and starvation and disease.”
“That is a noble view,” Kirk said.
“We can be a noble people,” Keeler replied.
“The history of mankind is also filled with tyranny,” Spock said from behind them.
“Spock—” Kirk began to protest, but Keeler stopped him.
“No, you’re right, Mister Spock,” she said. “And it isn’t just history. Mister Gandhi and the people of India are struggling right now to throw off the shackles of British imperialism.”
“And you believe they’ll be successful,” Kirk said.
“Of course they will be,” Keeler said. “It may take years or even generations, but they will succeed because our drive to be free is greater than our drive to conquer. Every day, every month, every year that passes will strengthen the resolve of the Indian people and weaken the will of the British politicians. Eventually, even the British people will favor the independence of India.”
“An interesting analysis,” Spock said.
“When you look at history,” Keeler continued, “you do see tyranny. But you also see people climbing mountains, crossing continents and oceans, and flying across the sky.” She paused for a moment, but Kirk chose not to fill the silence, instead waiting—anxious—for what she would say next. “Materialism is not a natural state for people, I don’t think,” she went on, “or at least it needn’t be a normal state. People are better as explorers than as collectors, better as creatures of imagination than as creatures of possession.”
“So you believe that the good in humanity will overcome the bad,” Kirk said.
“Yes, I very much do,” Keeler said, and she stopped walking. For a second, Kirk thought that he might have insulted her in some way, but then she pointed toward the building there. “This is where I live,” she said.
Kirk peered up at the four-story structure, which even at night appeared to be in poor repair. Light streamed from several windows, though most appeared dark. Keeler started up a wide set of concrete steps at the front of the building, and Kirk and Spock followed. At the top of the stairs, she pointed to a dark archway above the front door. “I keep telling Mister Dubinski that he needs to replace that lightbulb,” she said.
Keeler pushed through the door into a tiny vestibule, where a bare bulb hung down from the ceiling and shined on a row of metal boxes. Paint on the wall above and below peeled so badly that Kirk thought the bare spots outnumbered the beige chips that remained. Keeler flipped up the lid of the box marked 33, then closed it. “No mail,” she said. “Thankfully.”
After Keeler opened the inner door, they all moved forward into a narrow hallway. Here, the walls had been better maintained, with only a few places that showed chipped paint. Red carpeting covered the floors. A stairway on the left side of the hall led up to the second floor, while several doors lined the other side. Keeler walked to the first one and knocked.
“Are you sure it’s not too late?” Kirk asked.
“I called Mister Dubinski earlier and told him we’d be coming,” Keeler said.
Before long, Kirk heard movement within the apartment, and a moment later, the door opened. A heavyset man stood inside, a tattered red robe wrapped about him. It didn’t appear as though he’d shaved in several days, and the stub of an unlighted cigar peeked out from the corner of his mouth. “Miss Keeler,” he said, his accent swallowing the r: Keeluh. He gave Kirk and Spock a long look, then asked, “These the guys?”
“Yes,” she said. “This is Mister Kirk and Mister Spock.”
“They all right?” Dubinski asked.
“If they weren’t,” Keeler said, “would I bring them to the building I live in?”
“No, I guess not,” Dubinski allowed. Looking back at Kirk, he said, “That’s two dollars a week, in advance.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Kirk said, recalling the cash that Keeler had earlier given to him and Spock. He reached into the pocket of his denim pants, pulled out two bills, and offered them to Dubinski. The landlord snatched them like a mouse stealing a piece of cheese.
“It’s number twenty-one,” he said, extracting a key from the pocket of his robe. “You need me to take ’em up, or do you wanna show ’em?” he asked Keeler.
“That’s all right,” Keeler said, taking the key. “We’ve disturbed you enough tonight. Thank you.”
Dubinski grunted an acknowledgment, then closed his door.
“Charming fellow,” Kirk remarked.
“Oh, he’s all right,” Keeler said as she walked back down the hall to the stairs. “A lot of places around here are charging two and a half and three dollars a week for a room.” At the top of the steps, she went to the first door, onto which the number 21 had been affixed. She used the key to unlock it, then opened the door and reached inside to turn on a light. Then she stepped aside, obviously to allow Kirk and Spock to enter.
Inside, Kirk found himself in a single small room. The blue, patterned wallpaper looked old, but peeled in only a few places. He saw two narrow beds with their head-boards against the far wall, separated by a low dresser. A second, taller dresser stood to the right of the door, and a closet had been built into the corner to the left. A table sat against the left-hand wall, below windows covered by sheer brown curtains.
“The loo is down at the end of the hall,” Keeler said, still standing outside the apartment.
“The what?” Kirk asked.
Keeler chuckled. “Sorry, that’s just my English showing,” she said. “I meant the bathroom.”
“All right,” Kirk said.
“Here,” she said, holding up the key that Dubinski had given her. “You’ll need this.”
Kirk walked over to the door and peered down at Keeler. As he’d told Spock during the talk she’d given at their evening meal, he thought her uncommon. Now, he gazed into her hazel eyes and found himself almost transfixed by her beauty—a beauty clearly not limited to the physical. He reached up and took the key from her, feeling a jolt as his hand briefly touched hers. “Thank you, Miss Keeler,” he said.
She smiled. “You are very welcome, Mister Kirk,” she said. “Good night.” She turned and headed down the hall, toward the staircase leading up to the next floor. Kirk watched her for a moment, then withdrew into the room and closed the door.
“An interesting woman,” he told Spock.
“Indeed,” Spock said. He unbuttoned his coat, then removed it to reveal the tricorder hanging by its strap from his shoulder. He took it off and set it down on the table.
“We shouldn’t leave that here when we go out,” Kirk said. When they’d begun working at the mission that morning, they’d discussed searching the city tonight for shops that sold tools and equipment that Spock might be able to use to build a mnemonic memory circuit.
“Captain, may I suggest that I venture out alone tonight,” Spock said. “You have been awake now for some time.”
Spock needn’t have told him that. They’d both logged half a shift on the bridge before McCoy’s accident, and then had spent time down on the planet before leaping through the Guardian. They’d now been in the past for fourteen hours or so, which meant that they’d probably been awake for close to an entire day. But while Vulcans could do without sleep for protracted periods, human performance suffered without regular slumber. Still, the importance of their mission here provided him all the energy he needed right now.
“It’s all right,” Kirk said. “I’ve got a few hours left in me.”
“Very well,” Spock said. He picked up the tricorder from the table, hung it over his shoulder, and pulled his coat on again.
Together, they went back out into the night.
Spock sat at the table in the apartment, the late afternoon sun providing ample illumination for his work. Spread out in front of him, two dozen sheets of paper covered the tabletop, and another dozen lay atop the near bed. On each, he’d written a portion of the schematic he’d been designing in his head since their arrival in the past, four days ago. After the captain had acquired a sheaf of paper and two pencils from Edith Keeler yesterday, Spock had spent the night and all of today setting his plans down in writing.
Now, he wrote down the final markings on the final sheet, then stood up to survey his work. He stepped over to the bed and found the graphic representation of the mnemonic memory circuit’s connections to the tricorder. From there, he traced his way through the entire diagram, verifying power requirements, confirming the logic flow of the data that would pass through it, and checking the overall integrity of the layout.
Halfway through the process, as the afternoon gave way to the evening, Spock turned on both of the lights in the room, the one on the wall beside the door and the one on the wall opposite. By the time he’d worked his way through the whole schematic, night had fallen. His plan seemed sound, though whether or not it would actually function as he’d formulated it, he could not tell. In the few electrical components he and the captain had already purchased, he’d found some large variances from their stated ratings, making their usage problematic.
Spock collected the pieces of paper, carefully labeling the position of each. He then sat back down at the table and began to page through every sheet, in order to make a list of all that he would need. As he did so, he wondered if the captain had made any progress in his quest today.
Since their arrival in 1930, they had worked three full days at the 21st Street Mission, and a half day yesterday. While the captain had worked there this morning as well, Spock had taken the entire day to complete the design of the memory circuit. In the meantime, Captain Kirk had decided that, after putting in his time at the mission today, he would visit the New York Public Library. There, he would read through the city’s newspapers of the last few days, searching for any indication of Dr. McCoy’s presence in the past. It seemed like an effort unlikely to yield any results, but one worth making.
When Spock finished compiling an inventory of everything that he would need, he considered the issue of how to mount the components to fix them in place. He would need a solid surface, preferably wood so that he could attach them using nails or staples. Looking around the room, he spied the two dressers, and he went to the smaller one. He removed one of the drawers, then began to pry the back from it.
At that moment, somebody knocked on the door. Spock surmised that it must be either Edith Keeler or the landlord, Mr. Dubinski. He returned the drawer to the dresser, then donned his cap before crossing the room and opening the door. As he’d suspected, Keeler stood there.
“Mister Spock,” she said. “If you’re interested, I’ve gotten work for you and Mister Kirk for the next two days. It’ll be ten hours work each day for twenty cents an hour. You’ll be loading and unloading boxes from trucks.”
“The higher rate of pay would be helpful,” Spock said. Though he and the captain had already decided that they would steal the components for the mnemonic memory circuit if they needed to, they both much preferred the idea of simply purchasing them. In addition to the simple immorality of theft, they would risk arrest by committing a crime, as they had already learned from taking the clothes they still wore. Not only could the fact of their being taken into custody conceivably alter the timeline, but if McCoy then arrived in the past, they wouldn’t be able to stop him from changing history if they’d been taken to jail.
“Good,” Keeler said. “Here, I’ve written down directions for you to get there.” She held out a torn piece of paper. Spock took the information and made sure that he could read it. “You need to be there at seven A.M.”
“Thank you,” he said.
Keeler glanced past him into the room, obviously looking for the captain. “Is Mister Kirk here?” she asked. The mutual attraction between Keeler and the captain seemed readily apparent to Spock, although the two had spent little time together.
“He is not,” Spock said.
Keeler smiled and nodded. “All right,” she said. “Well, good night, Mister Spock.”
“Good night, Miss Keeler,” Spock said. As she headed down the hall, he closed the door. He then returned to the dresser, where he started to remove the wooden slats from the backs of the drawers.
Within an hour, the captain returned. He brought a brown paper bag with him, in which he carried food that he had purchased. Until today, they had taken all of their meals at the 21st Street Mission, but they had both agreed that they could do with some more substantial sustenance. As they sat down at the table to eat—various fruits and vegetables for both of them, as well as some sliced meat for the captain—Kirk asked about Spock’s progress with the design for the mnemonic memory circuit.
“I have completed it,” Spock said, “along with a list of all the components I will require.” He picked up the paper and handed it over to the captain.
“There’s a lot here,” Kirk said.
“It is the minimal amount of equipment needed,” Spock said.
“All right,” Kirk said. “At midday tomorrow, we’ll go to one of the radio repair shops we saw the other night.”
Spock informed the captain of the job that Keeler had found for them for the next two days, and Kirk revealed that he’d uncovered no references to McCoy anywhere within any of the newspapers that he’d read. “I had another thought, though,” Kirk said. “When McCoy arrives in the past, or if he’s arrived already, he’s still going to be under the influence of the cordrazine. If he runs through the streets screaming about being hunted by assassins, there’s a chance that he might be hospitalized, or maybe even arrested.”
“That is true,” Spock said.
“While you work on the memory circuit,” Kirk asked, “what do you think of me checking hospitals and police stations in the area?”
Spock considered the idea. “It might be reasonable to check hospitals,” he said. “You could simply ask for Doctor McCoy by name, perhaps claiming to be his brother. I would be reluctant to approach the police, though. I am not sure how they would react to somebody asking about their arrest records or people they have in custody, and since we ourselves possess no identification—”
“Right,” Kirk agreed. “Well, I’ll begin checking hospitals tomorrow.”
The next night, as the captain walked the city in search of a patient named Leonard McCoy, Spock began his attempt at building a mnemonic memory circuit.