“Spoken like somebody who’s dealt with chief engineers for most of her career,” Kirk noted.

“The ceremony and the launch are next Thursday,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “We would activate you and Mister Scott for the day, transport you from here up to dry dock, and then somebody would hand you a bottle of Dom Perignon.”

Kirk looked at her, searching for a graceful way to turn down the admiral. He couldn’t find one. “Just a quick trip around the system?” he said.

“And perhaps a tour of the ship,” she said.

To his dismay, Kirk actually thought that he would enjoy that. “All right,” he said.

“Thank you, Jim,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I appreciate it and so does all of Starfleet Command.”

Kirk stood up, and the admiral then did so as well. “Make sure they all know that this is a singular occasion,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is become the public face of Starfleet.”

“One time,” Sinclair-Alexander confirmed. “I completely understand. I’ll have my assistant send an itinerary early next week.”

“All right,” Kirk said. “I’m only doing this because I want that dinner.”

“And you’ll get it,” Sinclair-Alexander said with a smile. “I’ll contact you after the launch and we’ll set something up.”

“Absolutely,” Kirk said, but then he realized something. “You’re not going to be at the ceremony?” he asked.

“Me?” Sinclair-Alexander said with a smile. “No, I’ve got more important things to do.”

“That’s why they made you an admiral,” Kirk said with a laugh.

“I guess so,” Sinclair-Alexander said. “I’ll have people there to guide you through the ceremony, but you, Captain Scott, and Commander Chekov will be the stars of the show.”

Kirk raised his hands, and the admiral took them. “That dinner had better be good,” he said. He gave her hands a squeeze again, then headed for the door. On his way back down to the atrium, he remembered that he had scheduled an appointment for next Wednesday to go orbital skydiving. He would be propelled from a platform in orbit somewhere over the Arabian Peninsula and alight in the middle of North America.

With any luck at all, Kirk thought wryly, I won’t survive ‘til Thursday.

Kirk’s left foot landed softly on the pavement, as though he’d just effortlessly jumped a stream out on his property in Idaho rather than leaping across hundreds of trillions of kilometers and five billion years of history. Despite having previously experienced the superficially simple transition, he still marveled at a journey that seemed as though it should’ve been impossible. As on the other occasions he had traveled through the Guardian of Forever, he felt no disorientation from the actual passage through space and time, though it did seem strange to bound from the barren surface of the Guardian’s world to the modern civilization on Earth.

Finding himself in daylight, Kirk quickly looked about, surveying his surroundings. He stood on a wide pedestrian walkway, along which he saw several individuals in Starfleet uniforms, though none of them appeared to have taken any notice of his unusual arrival. Although he still wore his own uniform, sans jacket, he thought that he should probably-Kirk saw himself. Clad in brown slacks and a jade-colored shirt, the Jim Kirk from this time period strolled away from him along the gray paving stones. Beyond him, in the distance, stood the main administration building on the San Francisco campus of Starfleet Headquarters.

At once, Kirk knew that he needed to avoid being seen by the other, earlier version of himself, that to do otherwise would be to risk altering the timeline. He turned quickly away from his counterpart and nearly tripped over a low bench sitting against the wall of a building. He scuffled for a second, but then righted himself and fled around the corner.

Kirk ran for only a few paces, then slowed to a walk, wanting to avoid drawing any attention to himself. He didn’t need somebody happening to notice two Jim Kirks on the grounds of Starfleet Headquarters. Keeping his head down, he made his way from the campus and onto the streets of San Francisco proper.

As he strode along, Kirk determined the day on which he had arrived. Although he had by one measure spent seventy-eight years within the nexus, no time had seemed to pass for him during that period, at least subjectively. Consequently, he remembered well the last week prior to his being lost aboard the Enterprise-B. During those days, he had returned to Starfleet’s Presidio campus twice: on the day he’d met with Admiral Margaret Sinclair-Alexander, when she’d recruited him for the Enterprise-B launch ceremony, and then on the day of the actual launch. If today is when the Enterprise encounters the energy ribbon, he thought, then I’m too late. But then he realized that his alter ego had been wearing civilian clothes and not a uniform, indicating that he’d been on his way merely to meet with the admiral.

Friday, Kirk thought. He’d gone to see Madge on a Friday, and the launch of the Enterprise-B had taken place the following Thursday. There would be five full days before then. Enough time to figure out the precise logistics of what I need to do and how to do it.

Walking along Lombard Street, Kirk felt conspicuous in his uniform. With Starfleet headquartered here in San Francisco, the sight of an officer dressed in official attire could hardly be considered out of the ordinary, but he still wished to invite as little scrutiny as possible. To that end, he casually unbuttoned his vest and removed it, leaving him in his black pants and long-sleeved white pullover.

Knowing that it would be a few minutes before his counterpart reached the tenth floor of the administration building and met with Admiral Sinclair-Alexander, Kirk headed for his apartment on Russian Hill. He would not stay long, just enough time to retrieve a couple of things he would be able to use over the next few days. When one of the historic cable cars wheeled past him in the street, he climbed aboard, hastening his journey.

Back at his apartment, Kirk’s hand and retina prints allowed him access. He entered and quickly moved through the small foyer and the living room, then into the den. He spared only a moment’s glance through the floor-to-ceiling windows that peered out on San Francisco Bay. Off to the left, toward the west, Kirk saw the great stanchions of the Golden Gate Bridge, their late-afternoon shadows falling onto the water.

Along the inner wall, Kirk activated the computer terminal. Calling up the personal calendar of his double, he confirmed today’s date, then verified the details of next week’s daytrip, all just as he remembered it. On Wednesday, the day before the Enterprise-B launch-which had yet to be listed in the schedule-the Kirk of this time planned to leave early for Wichita, Kansas, where he would perform a survey of his landing zone. He would then travel from there to Tunis, Tunisia, where he would commence preparations for his orbital skydive. When ready, he would transport up to a platform in orbit, which would at the proper time be over the Arabian Peninsula, and from which he would be sent hurtling down through the atmosphere.

Kirk recalled the experience, which had been exhilarating and more than a little daunting. The only detail that would change between now and then, he knew, would be that his counterpart would invite Scotty and Chekov to meet him at the landing zone, which they would scout together the morning of the jump. Later that evening, after he’d landed, the three old friends would have dinner in nearby Wichita. That’ll be the time to act, he told himself. With the Kirk of this time away for most of the day, Kirk himself could essentially assume his identity in order to accomplish what he needed to prior to the Enterprise-B launch and its deadly encounter with the energy ribbon.

After shutting down the terminal, he went into the bedroom and pulled out two changes of clothing, selecting articles at the bottom of the dresser drawers and hanging at the far side of the closet in the hopes that they would not be missed. He quickly changed into a pair of blue jeans and a light gray shirt. From the back of the closet, he picked out a small carryall that he knew the other version of himself would not be using that week, and he loaded his jacketless uniform and the other changes of clothes into it. He knew that he would need a complete Starfleet uniform on Wednesday, but rather than taking one of the three jackets from the closet right now, he decided to return here next week to get it.