Chapter 9

Yesterday Is Tomorrow

The unhappy face of the bartender peered out from a pile of tribbles on the counter. They were everywhere in the bar. On the tables, the shelves, behind the bar. The door swished open, and Cyrano Jones walked in, escorted by Kirk, Spock, the Doctor and Rose. Jones saw the number of tribbles and tried to leave.

'Well, Captain, I suppose I'm free to go now,' Jones said hopefully.

'No, you're not,' Kirk corrected as he and Spock grabbed his arms and steered him back into the bar. 'There's something I want to show you. You know what the penalty is for transporting an animal proven harmful to human life?'

'Captain, one little tribble isn't harmful. Captain, you wouldn't do a thing like that to me, now would you? Would you?'

'The penalty is twenty years in a rehabilitation colony,' Spock informed him.

'Captain Kirk. Friend . . . Friend Kirk,' Jones said jovially. 'Surely we can come to some sort of mutual understanding. After all, my tribbles did put you wise to the poisoned grain, and they did help you to find the Klingon agent. You saved a lot of lives that way.' He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

'Actually, he's got a point,' Rose said, playing devil's advocate.

Kirk looked at her with raised eyebrows, and then looked at the faces of the Doctor and Spock. They were all in agreement with Rose. 'There is one thing you can do,' Kirk said.

'Yes?'

Pick up every tribble on the space station. If you do that, I'll speak to Mister Lurry about returning your spaceship.'

Jones's face fell. 'It would take years,' he protested.

'Seventeen point nine, to be exact,' Spock told him.

'Seventeen point nine years?' Jones queried.

'Seventeen years, ten months and twenty four days,' the Doctor said. 'That's presuming you pick up two hundred and seventy one tribbles each day.'

'That doesn't sound a lot,' Rose said.

'Ah, no. But every twelve hours, each lot of two hundred and seventy one you haven't picked up will have produced another two thousand seven hundred and eleven,' the Doctor said with a grin.

'Oh. So it's like one step forward and two steps back,' Rose reasoned. The Doctor nodded and Jones face blanched.

'Consider it Job security' Kirk said with a smirk.

'Captain, you're a hard man,' Jones said and went to leave. Both Kirk and Spock held his elbows. 'All right! All right!'

'You'll do it?' Kirk asked.

'I'll do it' Jones whimpered. He started stuffing tribbles into his many pockets, as Kirk, Spock, Rose and the Doctor left the bar.

'Yer not really gonna make 'im pick up all of those tribbles on his own are ya?' Rose asked.

Kirk gave her a cheeky smile. 'We'll make him think so. I think a few weeks should be long enough for him to learn his lesson and then we'll send in a team of xeno-zoologists to help him.'

'Oh that is devious,' Rose said with a grin.

The turbolift doors swished open, and Captain Kirk stepped onto the bridge, accompanied by the Doctor, Rose, and Lieutenant Roddenberry. The Doctor was back in his brown, pinstriped suit, Rose was in her plum T-shirt and dungaree mini, and Gene was in his air force flight suit, carrying his helmet.

'Captain, Starfleet was able to divert that freighter,' Spock informed him.

'Good. That means Sherman's Planet will get its quadrotriticale only a few weeks late,' Kirk said with satisfaction. He went to sit in his chair and hesitated. He looked at the seat. 'I don't see any tribbles around here.'

Rose and the Doctor looked around the bridge. 'Oh yeah. They've all gone,' Rose realised.

'And you won't find a tribble on this entire ship,' McCoy said.

'Bones, how did you do it?' Kirk asked in awe.

'I cannot take credit for another man's work,' McCoy said as he looked at the chief engineer. 'Scotty did it.'

Kirk gave him a pleased smile, but the engineer's face fell. 'Scotty! Where are the tribbles?'

'Oh, er, Captain, it was really Mister Spock's recommendation,' Scotty told him, passing the buck.

'Of course,' Kirk said, knowing his science officer would have found a solution. 'Spock?'

Spock started his explanation. 'Based on computer analysis, of course, taking into account the possibilities of . . .'

'Gentlemen, I don't want to interrupt this mutual admiration society, but I'd like to know where the tribbles are.' Kirk told them.

'Tell him, Spock,' McCoy said.

The Doctor leaned in close to Rose and spoke quietly. 'Do you get the impression that they've done something that isn't in the regulations handbook?'

'Yeah,' she replied worriedly.

'Well, it was Mister Scott who performed the actual engineering,' Spock explained.

Kirk was losing patients. 'Mister Scott. Where are the tribbles?'

'I used the transporter, Captain,' Scotty said, hoping that was all the information the captain would need to satisfy his curiosity.

It wasn't.

'You used the transporter?' Kirk pressed.

'Aye.' He'd transported them off the Enterprise. Surely that was okay.

'Where did you transport them?' Kirk asked, and he saw him cast a furtive glance at McCoy. McCoy looked at the domed ceiling of the bridge to avoid looking at the captain. When Kirk looked to Spock for an answer, he got that inscrutable look back.

Kirk had a bad feeling about this. 'Scott, you didn't transport them into space, did you?'

Scott was horrified. 'Captain Kirk, that'd be inhuman.'

Kirk was at the end of his tether. 'Where are they?'

'I gave them a good home, sir,' Scotty told him, trying to justify what he had done.

'WHERE?!' Kirk shouted, finally losing his temper.

'I gave them to the Klingons, sir.'

'You gave them to the Klingons?' Kirk whispered in disbelief. What was his chief engineer thinking?

'Aye, sir. Before they went into warp, I transported the whole kit and caboodle into their engine room, where they'll be no tribble at all.'

The bridge crew laughed, including Kirk. The Doctor grinned, and Rose groaned. 'I can't believe he just said that,' she said, and then thought about what he had just said. 'But what will the Klingons do with them? I mean, they were willing to poison a million of them, let alone the colonists.'

'Their logical course of action would be to close the bulkhead doors to the engineering section and open the external hatches, exposing the engine room to the vacuum of space,' Spock told her.

'No!' Rose and Uhura cried out together. 'They'll suffocate,' Rose said.

'Hardly,' McCoy said. 'Exposed to a vacuum, an organism becomes hypoxic in seconds. They just go to sleep and never wake up. Their brains were rudimentary, and from all the tests I conducted, I could find no evidence that they were self aware or conscious.'

'It still seems cruel,' Rose said, and Uhura agreed.

The Doctor put a comforting arm around her shoulders. 'It was kinder than being eaten alive,' he told her. 'Don't forget, in their natural environment they would have been at the bottom of the food chain, hence the rapid reproduction.'

'Oh yeah,' Rose agreed. 'I suppose goin' to sleep IS better than bein' swallowed alive.'

Kirk rose from his command chair and went to speak to Roddenberry. 'Lieutenant. Are you ready?'

'Yes Sir. I've said my goodbyes to my friends and colleagues. There's just the people on the bridge left.'

'Of course,' Kirk said and stepped aside.

Lieutenant Uhura was the nearest, and she gave him a hug. He kissed her cheek and released her from the embrace.

'I'm going to miss you and all those tales you used to tell us,' she said with a sad smile, but then brightened. 'But I am happy for you that you get to go home to your family.'

'Thanks Uhura. And I'm going to miss that singing voice of yours.'

Chekov had left the helm and shook his hand. 'Lieutenant. It has been a privilege to work alongside such a professional officer.'

'The privilege has been all mine. Where I come from, Russians are seen as the enemy. You've opened my eyes to other possibilities.'

Scotty shook his hand next. 'It's been nice working with you laddie.'

'Mister Scott the miracle worker,' Gene joked. 'I'm not sure how you do what you do in Engineering, but I'm sure as hell glad that you do it.' He went over to Doctor McCoy. 'Doctor. I'm going to miss that acerbic wit when I'm having my medicals.'

'Bedside manner was never my strong point,' McCoy said with a lopsided smile as he shook his hand. 'Take care of yourself.'

'Well, that's it then,' the Doctor said, who wasn't big on goodbyes. 'The Captain and Mister Spock are coming down to the shuttlecraft hangar to see you off.'

'This is your time machine?' Kirk asked as they entered the hangar.

The Doctor gave him an enthusiastic smile. 'Yep. Best ship in the universe.'

Kirk gave a concerned look to Spock and then back the Doctor. 'But it appears to be made of wood.'

He was beginning to suspect that the Doctor and Rose may not have been what they claimed to be, but rather two delusional colonist who had concocted an elaborate plot to leave Sherman's Planet.

'Remarkable,' Spock said with a raised eyebrow.

Rose stroked the blue wood to the side of the door. 'Hello old girl,' she said fondly.

'But appearances can be deceptive as they say,' the Doctor said with a smile, and then frowned. 'Never found out who THEY were though. We'll have to see if we can find those "theys" one day. Eh Rose?'

'Yeah. Good luck with that,' she said with a grin. Her phone started to ring, and she took it out of her pocket. She looked at the display, and it said "Mickey".

'Mickey?' she said into the phone.

['Rose? Rose, listen. There's this school . . . Strange lights in the sky over it. Anyway, there's some weird things goin' on, and you and the Doctor . . . Well, I need you . . .There's something out there,'] Mickey said urgently.

'Okay Mickey. Calm down. We'll be there soon. We've just got a bit of business to wrap up.'

['Where are ya?']

'You are not gonna believe where I am at the moment, or who I'm with.'

['Eh?']

'I'll tell ya when I see ya.'

['Okay Babe. See ya soon, yeah?']

'See you soon. Bye.' She ended the call, and saw that everyone was looking at her. 'Sorry.'

'What did the Mickey-myster want?'

'There's a school with flyin' saucers over it or somethin'. He wants us to help him check it out.'

The Doctor laughed. 'Mickey Smith, defender of the Earth. Nice one.'

Rose reached the key on the chain from inside her plum T-shirt and unlocked the door. This was her favourite bit, and it never got old.

Kirk, Spock, and Roddenberry all looked puzzled, when her voice seemed to echo as though she were inside a cathedral rather than a wooden box. 'Well, are ya gonna stand out there all day, or are ya comin' in?' she asked, a little impatiently.

The Doctor grinned and held his arm out in invitation. Kirk raised his eyebrows questioningly and stepped inside. His mouth fell open as he looked at the domed, Gothic interior. He realised it wasn't the Doctor or Rose who weren't what they seemed, it was their ship.

'What in the name of . . ?' he uttered. Rose was beaming a smile.

'Fascinating,' Spock said with a deadpan expression as he entered behind Kirk. Rose felt a bit cheated by his lack of reaction.

'Holy crap!' Roddenberry said as he stepped through the door. He stepped back outside and walked around the police call box before going back inside. 'But that's impossible. It's bigger inside.'

Bingo! That's what she'd been waiting for.

'Gentlemen, welcome aboard the TARDIS,' the Doctor said, holding out his arms and turning in a circle. 'Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.'

Spock thought about the name, and realised what it meant. 'Transdimentional engineering. Fascinating. Captain, this vessel is holding the interior dimensions in a fixed, disproportional Euclidian space, relative to the external shell.'

Kirk just gave him a blank look. 'Euclidean space is an abstraction detached from actual physical locations, specific reference frames, measurement instruments, and so on. A purely mathematical definition of Euclidean space also ignores questions of units of length and other physical dimensions,' Spock explained.

'That has got to be the longest "it's bigger on the inside" I've ever heard,' the Doctor said. Rose snorted a laugh. She was loving it.

The Doctor ran up the ramp to the console and switched on the monitor. 'Right Gene. Your plane will be hitting dirt in southern Nebraska at around five thirty seven, on fifteenth of July, nineteen fifty six.' He started setting the coordinates. 'We're going to drop you . . . not literally, next to that plane.'

He continued to orbit the console. 'Offutt Air Force Base at Omaha will be scrambling a search and rescue helicopter, which will give us roughly fifteen minutes to prepare the site so that it looks like you ejected safely from your stricken plane.'

'You can do all that?' Gene asked him.

The Doctor looked up from the console. 'Yes I can . . . So, time to say your goodbyes.'

Gene turned to Kirk, stood to attention and saluted, before shaking his hand. 'Captain. It has been a privilege to serve under you. Thank you.'

Kirk smiled and nodded. 'Have a good life Lieutenant. Live it to the full.'

'Oh he does,' the Doctor said with a smile.

Spock held up his hand in the Vulcan salute. 'Live long and prosper,' he said before shaking Gene's hand.

'He does that too, on both counts,' the Doctor said with a cheeky grin. Rose and Kirk laughed, whilst Spock just stood there, stony faced.

Rose led Kirk and Spock down the ramp to the doors, when Kirk turned to look back. 'I'll open the hangar doors so you can leave.'

'No need Captain. I think you're going to like this next bit,' the Doctor told him.

Rose closed the doors when they had left, and the Doctor started the Time Rotor. The domed room was filled with an amazing grinding, wheezing noise as the TARDIS twisted the three dimensions into four. Roddenberry watched the ethereal blue/green light of the Time Rotor pump up and down with an enormous smile on his face. There was something about that noise which evoked feelings of happiness, as though he was a child again on Christmas morning, with presents under the tree waiting to be opened, and snow falling outside.

The TARDIS swayed gently as it travelled down the time tracks of the vortex. The Doctor twiddled and fiddled with the controls until the TARDIS landed with a clump, and the Time Rotor ground to a halt.

'Are we there?' Gene asked. 'Am I home?'

'Go and have a look,' the Doctor told him, and they walked down the ramp to the doors. They stepped out onto a farmer's field, and fifty yards away was the crumpled wreckage of an air force jet fighter.

'Oh yeah,' Rose said in surprise. 'We made it.' The Doctor gave her a withering look.

They walked over to the wreckage, and the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

'Whatcha doin',' Rose asked as he adjusted the setting.

'I'm going to activate the rockets on the ejector seat,' he told her and pointed the sonic at the cockpit.

There was a bang and a whoosh as the pilot seat shot into the air and the chute deployed. The chair was too low for the chute to be fully effective, and it came back to earth with a bang.

The Doctor winced. 'Ooh. I bet you're glad you weren't in that when it landed. Come on, let's get over there.'

They hurried over to the seat and pulled it into the upright position. The harness was still fastened where Gene had been teleported out of it only minutes before, or a year before, depending on your frame of reference. It was one of those timey-wimey things.

'So remember. The plane suffered a catastrophic failure of the airframe when it was pulling maximum Gee's. Probably due to metal fatigue,' the Doctor told him.

'Yeah, got it,' he replied. He looked at the Doctor and Rose. 'I'm not going to be able to tell anyone about the last twelve months, am I? No one will believe it.'

'Oh I don't know,' the Doctor said. 'You could tell your story as a story. People will enjoy watching it, and you will have the satisfaction of knowing it was real.'

'Watching it?' Gene queried.

'Did I say watching. I meant reading. People will enjoy reading it. Forget I said watching it. Who'd want to watch that on the telly?' he said with a wink at Rose.

Rose pulled Gene into a hug and kissed his cheek. 'Bye Gene. Whatever you decide to do, stick at it, yeah?'

Gene frowned at the advice and gave her a lopsided smile. That was pretty good advice. 'Yeah, I will. Thanks Rose.'

The Doctor pulled him into a hug as well. 'Take care Gene. Oh, and when you do tell your story, we'd appreciate it if you left us out of it. We don't really do fame and publicity. And when it comes to the ears, stand your ground,' he said cryptically.

Gene just laughed at that. He hadn't got a clue what that meant. 'Okay. No mention of you, and insist on the ears. Got it. Bye Doctor, and thanks for everything.' He unfastened the harness and sat in the seat, strapping himself back in.

The Doctor and Rose turned and started to walk back to the TARDIS as they heard the "thwop-thwop" of the Chinook helicopter in the distance.

'Hey, you two. You never said. Who are you?' Gene called to them.

They turned around, looked at each other, and then looked at Gene. 'Just friends, passing through.' They gave him a wave and stepped into the TARDIS. A few seconds later, the farmer's field was filled with the sound of wheezing and grinding as the TARDIS disappeared.

The End