2292
“Are you aliens?”
Melinda’s voice was hoarse from disuse. The last thing she remembered, aside from vague, unsettling dreams of a building collapsing on her, was Orlando Wilder sealing her up inside an experimental cryogenics tube in his private lab at Hiberna House. It felt as though she’d been sleeping only for a short time, so where had these pointy-eared strangers come from? Sitting up, her head spinning, she didn’t recognize her surroundings at all. Chilled air made her shiver.
“Where the freak am I?” A shocking possibility hit her. “Are we aboard a UFO?”
“UFO?” The male alien scowled. “What is a UFO?”
“An archaic human term for an alleged extraterrestrial vessel.” The alien woman regarded Melinda with curiosity as she helped her out of the tube. She removed a maroon jacket and placed it over Melinda’s trembling shoulders, on top of an unfamiliar white bodysuit incorporating an intricate lattice of wires and tubing. “You are from Earth, I gather?”
“From Earth?” That phrasing did not escape Melinda. “Does that mean I’m… not in San Francisco anymore?”
“Far from it,” the woman said gently. Melinda got a more considerate vibe from her than from the male. “I am called Saavik, and my companion is Taleb. You are…?”
“Melinda. Melinda Silver.”
She struggled to process what was happening. Aliens from another world? Had Dennis been right all along?
Dennis…
Dennis was dead. That awful reality came back to her suddenly, wrenching an agonized moan from deep inside her. Tears flooded her eyes as she remembered how he’d accidentally been killed when she’d tackled him to save Wilder, right before that ruthless son of a bitch drugged her and put her into the tube for… how long?
“How long has it been?” Worst-case scenarios flashed through her brain. Had she been on ice for months? Years? “When are we? What’s the date?”
“By your reckoning, it is the year 2292.”
Melinda’s jaw dropped. She wasn’t sure what answer she’d been bracing herself for, but… 2292? She had been frozen alive for nearly three hundred years? Dennis had been dead for close to three centuries?
“No, no, this can’t be real. It was 2024 just a few hours ago. For me, I mean. It can’t be 2292 for Pete’s sake. That’s impossible.”
“I understand this must be disturbing to you,” Saavik said. “It may comfort you to know that San Francisco still exists, albeit many light-years from our present location. I attended the Academy there, in fact.”
“Really?” As always, shock and grief were not enough to entirely curb Melinda’s boundless curiosity and journalistic instincts. “Space aliens go to school in California these days? So we didn’t blow ourselves to atoms eventually?”
“Negative. Earth abides. Humanity thrives, and not only on the planet of your birth.”
“Yes, yes, this is all very moving,” Taleb huffed, his arms across his chest. “But with all due respect to this poor, befuddled human’s plight, need I remind you that we are still being menaced by a homicidal madman?”
Melinda was jolted by his words. “Wilder? He’s still around too?”
“Who is this Wilder you speak of?” Saavik asked.
“Orlando Wilder? The tech millionaire? The nutcase who stuck me in a tube, way back in the day?” The two aliens gave her puzzled looks. “Hang on, if Wilder’s name means nothing to you, just who are you worried about?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Taleb objected. “Cyloo is waiting for us. Bring this stray along if you must, but we need to concentrate on liberating ourselves.”
“Liberate?” Panic edged Melinda’s voice. “Liberate from where? Who? What the freak is going on?”
“There are many questions and little time.” Saavik looked at Melinda thoughtfully. She nodded to herself, as though reaching a decision. “Leave us, Taleb. We will rejoin you once I have dispelled Melinda’s confusion… and my own.”
“But—” he started to protest.
“It may be that her memories hold secrets we would do well to uncover.”
“If you insist.” He threw up his hands in frustration. “But be quick about it. We can be sure Kesh is not sitting on his hands waiting for us to surrender. Even now he is certainly plotting to recapture us… and I, for one, have no intention of going back into a tube!”
He stormed out of the vault, leaving them alone.
“Friend of yours?” Melinda asked.
“Not precisely.” Saavik guided her out of the vault into a sterile, futuristic corridor, which was notably warmer than the sci-fi icebox Melinda had wakened to. The female alien’s voice and expression grew more serious. “I must ask much of you, Melinda. As you have surely deduced, our situation is precarious and your presence here a mystery.”
“Tell me about it. I have so many questions.”
“As do I,” Saavik said. “It is within my abilities, however, to temporarily join our minds so that we can share our memories in a matter of moments. This requires considerable trust on your part, and I do not ask it lightly, but it may serve to unravel the mysteries confounding us.”
Melinda swallowed hard. “Are you talking about… telepathy?”
“Exactly. My people call it a mind-meld, and we have practiced it for centuries. It is a deeply personal experience, though, so I must have your consent before we proceed. Are you willing to share your memories with me?”
“I’m not sure. This is a lot to take in all at once. I’m in outer space somewhere, I’m far in the future, and now an alien, no offense, wants to probe my mind? I kinda need a moment here.”
“Acknowledged, but Taleb was not wrong that time is scarce.”
Melinda knew what Dennis would advise. He’d run screaming into the night before he’d let some unearthly being slide their telepathic tendrils into his brain. For all Melinda knew, she’d be setting herself up for some sort of insidious alien mind control. And yet she got a good vibe from Saavik, and since when did she ever let fear get in the way of solving a mystery?
“And I’d be able to read your mind as well?”
“That is correct.”
“All right then. I need answers, more than ever, so let’s do this.”
“Thank you, Melinda. I will not abuse your trust.” Saavik took a deep breath, as though centering herself for what lay ahead, and softly placed warm fingertips against Melinda’s newly defrosted temples. “My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts…”
Melinda stiffened, girding herself for… what? She was about to ask what exactly to expect when, all at once, she found out in the most profound way possible. Understanding flowed into her as she gazed into Saavik’s bottomless brown eyes and saw herself gazing back at her.
She was Melinda. She was Saavik. She was human. She was Vulcan and Romulan. She had searched for Gillian. She’d sought Spock. She grieved for Dennis. She mourned David. Wilder had double-crossed her. Kesh was not who or what he seemed. I am her. She is me. We are one. We are ourselves…
And then it was over.
A peculiar sense of loss afflicted Melinda as she found herself back in her own head again, all by herself, but that lonely pang was almost immediately swept away by the treasure trove of new information and concepts downloaded into her brain. It was overwhelming and awesome at the same time.
“Whoa! Talk about a rush!”
“Affirmative.” Saavik withdrew her hands. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away. “I grieve for your loss.”
Dennis, Melinda realized. “Are you okay?”
“I require a moment to compose myself. His loss is very fresh, subjectively.”
No kidding, Melinda thought, although melding with Saavik seemed to have granted her some degree of distance from that trauma, which was centuries in the past from the Vulcan’s perspective. Meanwhile, any doubts or fears Melinda might have had regarding Saavik and her intentions were also history now. I’d trust her with my life.
And might just have to.
“That was… illuminating,” Saavik said, her eyes dry once more. “Much that was obscure has become clear. Doctor Kesh is indeed none other than—”
“—Orlando Wilder.” Melinda finished Saavik’s sentence. “Who is a Klingon now? And whoa, I know what a Klingon is. But yeah, that’s positively him. I’d recognize that face anywhere, even with some weird new ridges on his skull. He’s aged some since I last saw him, two hundred and sixty–plus years ago, but he hasn’t changed that much: the pet rat, the cryotubes, the same crazy obsession with immortality. And he’s carted me around with him, across time and space, as… what? A trophy? A souvenir? A good-luck charm?”
“You did save his life long ago,” Saavik said, now privy to her memories. “It would appear he takes that debt seriously, even after all this time.”
Wilder’s cavernous voice echoed in Melinda’s memory: “Your life is safe in my hands. Indeed, you’re going to live longer than you ever dreamed of.”
“Lucky me.”
Melinda sorted through Saavik’s recent memories, resisting the temptation to dive down nearly three centuries’ worth of rabbit holes concerning this strange new future she found herself in. She could all too easily lose herself for hours, days, weeks, getting a crash course on the ins and outs of the twenty-third century. (Transporters? Warp drives? A United Federation of Planets?) But Taleb, that Romulan jerk, was right. Now that she and Saavik had compared notes telepathically, they had to focus on getting away from Wilder, aka Doctor Kesh, aka…
“Siroth? Wilder was also a bogus wizard on a planet called… Atraz… decades ago? Who was foiled by your captain—” Kirk’s face surfaced from the memories Saavik had imparted to Melinda, bringing a shock of recognition. “Kirk! Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise was Gillian’s pizza date? How is that even—?”
Rapid footsteps on a spiral stairwell heralded Taleb’s return.
“If you two are quite finished getting to know each other, we could use your attendance in the control room. Cyloo is attempting to contact the Enterprise!”