Gomez had Laura Poynter, the new transporter chief, beam them to a small chamber some ten meters away from where the life-form was located. There remained just enough radiation in the area to making identifying the race impossible. To be careful, Corsi opted to bring a phaser rifle rather than a pistol. Gomez had her tool case and a phaser tucked in a pocket.
The air was chilled, the security chief noticed. There were also two different mechanical hums working in harmony, both in the distance, heard beneath the floor plating. Gomez already had her tricorder out and began studying the composition. She shook her head at the readings, took more samples near the door, and then studied the results.
“This is at least five centuries old,” she said.
“And still working,” Corsi added.
Gomez nodded. “It’s a metallic composite I can’t pinpoint, but everything is uniformly manufactured. There’s a lot of power running beneath us, a constant flow. It’s not chroniton-based, but it probably powers the machine that creates the waves.”
“What do I need to know?” Corsi asked, approaching the door, tightly gripping the rifle.
“None of this matches what we have on record for the Guardian,” Gomez said, more to herself than her partner. “That means this is something very different—and a lot more recent. Everything seems to be designed to provide power to one main machine in the other room. I’m scanning a tremendous reservoir of pooled energy to prevent power interruptions.”
“What about the person in the other room?” Her time on the da Vinci had taught Corsi to be patient and ask the right questions if she was ever to get anything resembling a useful bit of intel out of an engineer.
Gomez checked her tricorder again. “It’s a Ferengi.”
“Oh goody,” Corsi muttered. Shouldering the rifle so it rested against her back, Corsi went to the door, examining it for latches or controls. Running an index finger around the frame, she found a depression on the left side and pressed.
Soundlessly, the door opened and the humming sounds grew in intensity and the air was even more chilled. For a moment, Corsi wondered how the Ferengi, with his sensitive ears, could handle such a high decibel rate. Perhaps he was using ear canal inhibitors, which would make it easy for her to approach safely.
They emerged into the larger, louder, cooler, and brighter room. Corsi, knowing her companion, paused to let the engineer take it all in. There were holographic projections with all manner of data scrolling past at three-meter intervals along two walls. The machine was directly before them. It was irregularly configured, with lots of jagged protrusions and no seating. You had to stand to control it all, and it seemed designed for a being larger than a humanoid. The Ferengi seemed to have built a platform to reach all the controls, which had pieces of tape, with the diagonal and oddly attractive Ferengi script stuck to almost every knob, lever, screen, and button.
Before the Ferengi, who was wearing the usual garish, closely tailored suits they favored, was a stack of latinum slips. He seemed to be counting and entering the information into a device. Numbers on a holographic projection before him kept rising, and he was laughing.
Corsi tapped him on the right shoulder with the phaser’s tip and the Ferengi whirled about, a look of utter terror on his face. Spluttering, he said, “What are you doing here? It’s mine; I found it by the rights of salvage.”
“Well, we’ll just have to talk about it aboard the da Vinci,” Corsi said amiably.
“And leave all this?” he asked, gesturing broadly, trying to encompass every bit of machinery in sight. He really did think it all belonged to him.
“I’ll give you a receipt,” she said, her tone growing sharper.
The Ferengi hopped down from the platform and shrugged his shoulders in one of the recognized forms of groveling the race had mastered over the centuries. Corsi stood behind him while Gomez studied the readouts being projected in the air directly over their heads.
They had gone no more than three feet when the Ferengi ducked and bolted to his right, moving quite quickly. He reached the far end of the room and stood on tiptoe to grab at a spheroid object, hovering above a column, bathed in an orange light. Once it was in his hands, he stabbed at some hidden control and planted his feet firmly on the floor. By this point, Corsi was only a few meters from him, figuring there was nowhere for him to go and she didn’t want to fire the phaser if she could avoid it, for fear of damaging the unknown equipment. If she did that, she knew Gomez would have cardiac failure. Engineers hated it when you broke things.
Red, pink, and orange sparks filled the area around the Ferengi, each glowing brighter by the second, and the air seemed to hiss. The sparks blended as they swirled around and around, gaining speed, until he was no more than a silhouette bathed in the light.
“Do I shoot?” Corsi screamed.
“No!”
Corsi expected the response and watched, just barely hearing the tricorder’s distinctive tone. Gomez was capturing the readings, which should prove helpful, in some way. Corsi herself was breathing hard, annoyed at letting the Ferengi get past her.
And then he winked out of sight. The sparks flared once more and then they too vanished.
“What happened?” she snapped.
“Time travel,” Gomez said, snapping the tricorder closed.
“Damn. I had a feeling you were going to say that.”
The two walked over to the column above which the orb had floated. They heard the sound of machinery moving and within seconds, a new orb appeared from the column’s top. Slowly it rose until it lifted off the column and floated, a perfect replacement for the one the Ferengi used.
Gomez studied it for a few moments and then walked back to the main console. Stepping atop the platform, she gazed at the readouts, occasionally comparing them with the ones recorded on her tricorder.
Finally, tired of the silence and the waiting, Corsi testily asked, “Well?”
“From what I can tell, that is a portable unit for going back into the past.”
“This asteroid’s past? Makes no sense.”
Gomez fiddled with her equipment, tentatively reached out to touch some controls and then checked her readings. “This isn’t just a time machine—it’s a long-range transporter, too. Based on what the universal translator’s telling me, it looks like the Ferengi has mastered how to send himself back a decade and to Ferenginar. Maybe that’s why the chroniton particles appear richer, and denser, than the ones in the databanks. Which means—”
“Oh no,” Corsi said.
“We might be able to saturate ourselves in the radiation, and also travel back to the same coordinates and find him.”
“And we want to do that why?”
“Given that these coordinates are locked in somehow, he’s clearly been going back to Ferenginar and doing something. By using the equipment, and I would guess he’s only been doing it for the two weeks the navigational troubles have been noted, he’s been manipulating something…for his own profit.” She picked up a few slips of latinum and hefted the device he had been using.
“Of course he has,” Corsi said. “And we have to stop him instead of Temporal Investigations because…?”
“That’s what we do,” Gomez said matter-of-factly. “Should he lose that node, and someone back then finds it, things could just spiral out of control. Wow, he’s accumulated quite a bit of wealth in just a few weeks, if I read this right.”
“Who built this and why?”
“I wish I knew, Domenica. Right now, though, we need to tell the captain.” Quickly, the two women contacted the da Vinci and briefed Gold on the latest developments. While Corsi enjoyed action, she didn’t like question marks. This equipment was one, and the Ferengi’s motives an even bigger one. She was somewhat annoyed that Gomez seemed more worried about the lost technology, but then again, that’s what she was trained to worry about.
“Before anyone goes anywhere, we need to find out what has changed. Let me send Abramowitz over to help you. Expect her shortly. Gold out.”
In minutes, Carol Abramowitz, the ship’s cultural specialist and closest expert on the Ferengi, arrived in the central chamber. By then, Corsi was studying the node that floated placidly above the column. Two other columns were inactive besides that one, and she had already figured out how to turn them on but left them deactivated.
Abramowitz, shorter than the others, with dark hair framing her face, nodded to her colleagues and began looking at the coordinates Gomez had translated and consulted one of several padds she carried with her. They worked fairly silently for several minutes, with Gomez occasionally explaining something about the technology. Corsi began to pace the chamber, at first looking for anything that resembled a defense system or hand weapon and then pacing because she had to do something.
“I think I have something,” Abramowitz said softly. “He’s been going back to the capital city repeatedly. No doubt he’s been using his current knowledge to enhance his fortune on the Ferengi exchanges.”
When she explained this to Gold, the next voice she heard was not his, but Songmin Wong’s. The conn officer excitedly called out, “He must be Lant!”
“Who’s Lant?” Gold asked.
“The darling of Ferengi commerce right now,” Wong said.
“How the hell do you know that?” Corsi demanded.
“I inherited a few bars of latinum last year,” he began. “So I’ve been dabbling in the markets. The financial net is filled with stories about this Lant guy’s amazing rise in prosperity. He hasn’t made an investment mistake in the last six months.”
“And now we know why,” Gold chimed in, sounding grim. “Whatever he’s been doing for six months worked, but for the last two weeks something’s been wrong. This is bad and needs to be fixed. Gomez, can you program one of those nodes?”
Gomez was already studying the tricorder translation of Lant’s postings. As she did so, Tev spoke up:
“Captain, does this become a Prime Directive issue?”
Corsi’s teeth started to grind. The only thing she hated more than engineering doubletalk was philosophical and ethical debates—especially from Tev, who, Corsi was learning, was more pedantic than the entire rest of the S.C.E. crew combined.
To the security chief’s relief, the captain said, “If they’re going back only a short time, and after contact with the Federation has been established, then our away team will have some flexibility. But the Ferenginar of the recent past was even more male-dominated than it is now. You’ll have to beam over and join the team. Assemble your equipment and head over there.”
Corsi had to admit to herself that adding Tev to the team made sense. Ferenginar had only recently begun enacting social reforms to undo countless generations of female subjugation. As she recalled, women couldn’t hold much in the way of jobs and were usually kept out of sight except to family.
Abramowitz completed her look at the equipment and had called up data on that era of Ferengi society, even as the stout Tellarite beamed down. He held a satchel that seemed to be filled with equipment. His black eyes looked around the chamber, taking in the equipment, and he nodded to himself.
“Aren’t you a bit out of uniform, Mr. Tev?” Gomez asked. Tev was standing with a bright orange shirt, open at the neck to show tufts of fur, with chocolate brown pants that tucked themselves into nearly knee-high boots. Slung over one shoulder was an all-purpose carryall, devoid of Starfleet markings.
“To blend in on Ferenginar, I can’t be in uniform. But I am prepared.” He opened up the collar of his shirt, and on the reverse side was his Starfleet combadge.
“What about the rest of us?” Gomez asked, but he ignored the question and proceeded with instructions.
“The captain wants us to go after Lant, find out where he caused the change in the timeline and undo it. We might have to ruin him financially in the process,” he said. “But that’s an acceptable loss.”
“To you, maybe,” Abramowitz said. “To Lant, that’s possibly worse than death. They live and die by the deal and the size of their holdings. It was a heady time for these people. Formal contact had been made with the Federation not long before, and this was seen as the opening of a huge new market. The piracy of a century previous was curtailed, and people sought business ventures, partnerships, brokering, and whatever else could be used to earn a slip of latinum.”
“What I don’t understand,” Gomez said as she programmed the node, “is how the Federation economy grew flexible enough to accommodate the Ferengi mercantile system.”
“Ever take an economics course at the Academy?” Tev asked.
“No.”
“Well, that explains that,” he replied and turned his attention to a display on his right.
Gomez instructed Corsi to grab the first of the nodes, letting another rise for programming. The first officer repeated the procedure until all four possessed nodes, which were small enough to fit into Tev’s bag.
“Gomez to Gold.”
“Gold here.”
“We’re ready to head back after Lant. I can’t tell you how long this will take.”
“Let’s be careful with time. Take twelve hours and check back in. Do your best and good luck. I’m sending Blue and Soloman over to continue studying the tech.”
“Good idea,” Gomez said. Corsi thought she caught a wistful tone in her voice. Corsi suspected that the first officer wanted to be the one studying the tech. However, Corsi preferred to have Gomez along on their time-travel trip—the alternative was to have Tev in charge, and Corsi wasn’t entirely comfortable with him yet.
“Tell them I’ve picked up a few anomalous power fluctuations,” Gomez added. “They might be the cause of the disruptions. I haven’t isolated the cause as yet.”
“Thanks, Gomez. They’ll figure it out. Good luck.”
“Tev, Sonya,” Abramowitz said, calling attention to her studies. “Few Ferengi had seen humans by that point, making us a cultural curiosity. Tellarites were a little more common on the planet itself. We need to be prepared to be stared at, and doing anything unobtrusive will be almost impossible.”
“Let’s get started,” Corsi insisted.
Abramowitz looked ready to say more, but seemed hesitant, which was not her nature, Corsi realized.
“What is it, Carol?” Gomez prompted.
“We’ll be women. On Ferenginar.”
Corsi and Gomez looked at her blankly.
“A decade ago.”
“So?” Corsi asked, confused.
“You’re dressed,” Tev finally interjected. He waited patiently, letting the words sink in. Corsi’s eyes narrowed with realization. Gomez caught the look, swung her head toward Abramowitz, who nodded in confirmation.
“We’ll accomplish less than nothing while we’re dressed,” she said softly. “In fact, we’ll be breaking social taboos and calling more attention to ourselves. We’ll never get close to Lant this way.”
“That’s why the captain sent me over—to take point,” Tev said. “I can be a…businessman, looking for some sort of deal with Lant.”
“That makes sense. And three escorts will show you as prosperous,” Abramowitz added.
Corsi shook her head. They were wasting time. She peeled off her duty jacket. Tev wisely said nothing, but simply opened his satchel.
“We have to?” Gomez asked.
“Sonya, let’s just get this over with and grab Lant,” Corsi said as she stepped out of her pants, folding them neatly and handing them to Tev. He silently placed them atop a dark console. He then withdrew a hand phaser and a strap. The security chief accepted it and considered for a moment before strapping it high on her right thigh. She hoped it looked decorative enough.
“When in Rome,” Abramowitz muttered, pulling her shirt over her head. She too handed each article of clothing over to Tev.
“And what sort of businessman should I be?”
Abramowitz struggled with a boot as she replied, “Given our advanced technology, you might make favorable inroads by peddling new gear. But you can’t really sell any of it or let them look too closely.”
“Of course not,” Tev said. “Still, I’ll need money to get started, and it’s not like we have any latinum in ship’s stores.”
“That’s easy,” Corsi said, strolling over to the main console and helping herself to the stack of latinum slips. “It’s hopefully enough to get you in the door.”
Tev placed the three pairs of boots below the console and then continued rummaging about, looking for the tools Gomez would need to handle the node and to impress potential customers.
Abramowitz continued, “We’ll be your escorts, staying close. You have to make sure the Ferengi don’t touch the merchandise….”
“Or us,” Gomez added. “It’s going to be hard to use the tricorder if I’m just window dressing.”
“We’ll make do,” Corsi said, her tone flat. “Tev, hand me the spanner.”
He handed the device over with a questioning glance. Corsi merely undid her tight bun of blond hair and quickly wrapped her hair around the device, making it look like an accoutrement. He nodded in approval.
Gomez nodded and hit a control on the console that was marked in the Ferengi language. All four orbs hummed immediately. Within seconds, though, they began to glow the same way Lant’s node worked, which made Corsi feel both relieved and more apprehensive.
* * *
On the da Vinci bridge, Gold had completed making an entry in his log and sat back. All the wheels were in motion: his people going back in time and more of the crew going to explore the device that made that absurd statement a reality. Time travel had always concerned him given the paradoxes posed by each such use. Still, with people popping back and forth in time going back to the days of the Temporal Cold War, it was no longer a fantastic notion. He still disliked the idea that a single accident could wipe out everything he knew and cherished. Sure, there were great tragedies he’d personally like to see undone, starting with losing half his crew, but he recognized that things happened for a reason. There had to be a reason, be it cosmic plan or divine intervention.
He looked at the banal image of the asteroid directly before the starship. Nothing about it looked artificial, but he knew better. And now he had four of his team risking their lives and the timeline to correct base greed. Was it worth it?
Speaking of worth… He looked at his conn officer. “Wong,” he asked, “just how successful have you been with your new hobby?”
The lieutenant hesitated in answering, which just made everyone on the bridge look directly at him. Wong finally swallowed and gave him a sheepish grin. “Well, I now own a pleasure yacht moored in dock around Risa, so you might say I’ve been pretty successful.”
Gold let out a whistle and settled back in his chair. Some hobbies had better rewards than others.