Kirk remembered discovering the Guardian. From the moment that the mysterious entity had confirmed its nature as a gateway through time and space, Kirk’s imagination had been sparked. He’d found the idea of stepping into the past and losing himself in another world tantalizing and compelling.
And then he had done just that, chasing McCoy into Earth’s twentieth century. Kirk and Spock had restored the timeline that Bones had accidentally altered. After they had reset events to avoid a Nazi victory in World War II, the Guardian had returned the three of them to their own time. It will be as though none of you had gone, the Guardian had said of a successful attempt to repair the damage done to history, but that hadn’t been the case. Time had indeed resumed its shape, but the experience had changed the rest of Kirk’s life.
He hated this place. Coming here had led him to his one chance for true happiness, but then that chance had been stolen back from him in the cruelest way. Even when he’d next visited this nearly empty world, the wonder and potential of the Guardian had been eclipsed by the effortlessness with which its use could bring about unexpected and lethal changes to the universe. On the third and final occasion when Kirk had approached this planet, he hadn’t made it to the surface, but had led the Enterprise crew into a deadly battle with the Klingons that had caused hundreds of deaths and very nearly his own.
Despite all of that, though, he had come here now seeking the Guardian’s aid. Kirk wanted to use the time vortex for a positive, useful end while avoiding any repercussions, any modifications to the timeline. The best chance he had of accomplishing all of that would depend not only on his own abilities and actions, but on the will of the Guardian itself. The situation put Kirk in mind of tales belonging to the literary subgenre of protagonists attempting to forge a deal with the devil.
“Guardian,” he said, pacing forward to stand directly in front of it. “Do you remember me?”
It offered no response. Kirk recalled that, during his preparations for his second visit to this place, he had read through the documentation of the researchers who’d worked here. The reports had stated that the Guardian did not reply to every question asked of it, and also that it sometimes spoke without being addressed in any way. More than that, the researchers had noted, just as Spock had, that much of what it said came “couched in riddles.”
“Guardian,” Kirk said again. “Are you machine or being?” This had been one of the first questions he’d asked when he and the Enterprise landing party had initially encountered the Guardian. It had responded by claiming to be both machine and being, and neither machine nor being.
Now, though, it remained silent. Kirk decided to attempt to engage it by way of a different tack, at the same time addressing an important issue. “Guardian, do you know when your existence will end?”
“I am my own beginning, my own ending,” it said, its deep voice booming and full even in the open space. Synchronized with its words, different portions of the ring glowed from within.
“No, you are not,” Kirk asserted, though he made an effort to keep any hint of defiance or hostility from his tone. “You are not your own ending. I know this because, in the future, I witnessed your destruction.” He waited for a reply. When none came, he opted to continue. “I saw a starship plunge from space and through the atmosphere of this- “
“I am the Guardian of Forever,” the vortex proclaimed. “I am the union and the intersection of all moments and all places. I am what was and what will be. Through me is eternity kept.”
“How can you possess eternity when you are not yourself eternal?” Kirk asked. “Five billion years from now, a starship commander will intentionally crash his vessel on this world, on this very spot. A powerful detonation will result, creating a massive crater and vaporizing both the ship and you.”
Again, Kirk waited. He heard the howl of the wind, though about him, the air remained still. Through the center of the Guardian, in the distance, he saw dirt kicking up and blowing across the land. Finally, he went on. “I tell you this for your own sake,” he said. “I tell you this so that you will be able to avoid the end that I have seen. If you do not listen to me, if you do nothing, you will cease to exist.”
“Time bends,” the Guardian said cryptically. “The end is but the beginning.”
“What does that mean?” Kirk asked, but he knew better than to expect a straightforward answer-or any answer at all. When indeed the Guardian said nothing, Kirk turned and paced away from it. His boots scraped noisily along the hard terrain, and now he felt the chill movement of the air. It struck him that he had no protective garments, no clothing whatsoever beyond that which he wore right now. He had no shelter in this desolate place, no food, no water. In order to achieve his goals, he would therefore have only so much time-But of course he had access to time. He glanced back over his shoulder at the Guardian. If Kirk needed anything at all, it waited for him just on the other side of the vortex. He had only to call up a time and place, and then leap to it.
Virtually any time and place, Kirk thought. The researchers had found few limitations on what they could observe of the past beyond the time surrounding the actual origin of the Guardian. That means that it must be possible to access the moments when the Gr’oth had plummeted to the surface of this world. Persuading the Guardian of the reality of that event might or might not be critical in securing its compliance, but back in the nexus, the other Kirk had believed attempting to do so to be the right choice. Kirk himself had agreed. And maybe the Guardian can convince itself of its own demise, he thought.
Kirk turned and headed back to the Guardian. When he reached it, he said, “I wish to see tomorrow.” He knew that in the accounts that he had read of the research done at the Guardian, no mention had ever been made of the vortex displaying future events or allowing anybody to travel forward through time. He and the other Kirk had been aware that it might not be possible to find a direct route through the Guardian to 2293 or 2371-or in this case, to 2270, the year when the Gr’oth had slammed into the planet. He chose to see if being more specific in his request would make a difference.
“Guardian,” he said, “I wish to see the thirteenth day of June in the Earth year twenty-two seventy.” Once again, Kirk received no response, and so he decided to try an indirect path to the event. “I wish to see yesterday.”
Still nothing.
For an instant, panic gripped Kirk. He had expected that the Guardian might be either unwilling or unable to present the future to him, but he had no reason to think that it would not replay the past. It had done so before. In his previous trips here, it had shown him the history of humanity on Earth, the dawn of Orion civilization, and a recent day on the planet Vulcan.
Now, though, the vortex stood empty.
“‘Since before your sun burned hot in space,’” Kirk said to himself, quoting the Guardian. “‘Since before your race was born.’” When Kirk had exited the nexus, he had come five billion years into the past-or at least he had wanted to do so. He assumed for the moment that he had, despite having no real means of confirming that fact. But if he had arrived here that long ago, then Earth’s sun had yet to form in the cold reaches of space, and the evolution of humanity lay even further ahead in the future than that. Kirk had asked to see yesterday, but for human beings, right now, at this moment, today did not exist. With no today, how can there be a yesterday? Kirk thought. Have I come too far into the past to make use of the Guardian? He wondered too if he had inadvertently condemned himself to living his final days on this barren world, while at the same time being unable to do anything to prevent the destruction caused by the converging temporal loop.