Part 22 (1/2)

His heart pounding, Picard tapped his combadge. ”Dr. Crusher, transport Guinan directly to sickbay. Whatever's happening- ”

He broke off and hastily stood up as her body was enveloped in the glimmer of a transporter field.

”You have the bridge, Number One,” he said as he emerged onto the bridge and headed directly for the turbolift with Kirk close behind.

By the time they arrived in sickbay, Guinan was stretched out on a biobed, Beverly Crusher standing over her with a medical scanner.

”What is it?” Picard asked without preamble as he hurried to stand on the opposite side of the biobed while Kirk remained near the door. ”What's wrong with her?”

Dr. Crusher shook her head with an impatient ”don't-rush-me” look as she continued to move the scanner over Guinan's head and torso.

After what seemed like hours to Picard, Crusher looked up. ”Well?” he prompted when she didn't immediately speak.

”All readings for which I have El-Aurian referents are normal, but- ”

”Like the dead Narisian,” Picard snapped. ”That's not what I want to hear.”

”It isn't what you're hearing, Captain. Or at least it's not what I'm saying. The Narisian's organs were all completely functional but they weren't functioning, like an engine that had been turned off. And she was dead. Guinan's organs all appear to be not only functional but functioning perfectly. And she is entirely alive.”

”But unconscious. Why- ”

Crusher cut him off with a shake of her head. ”Not unconscious, Captain, at least not according to a neural scan. All indications are that she is fully conscious. If anything, her level of neural activity indicates she's considerably more conscious than normal, even for an El-Aurian. Although that could just be her normal level of activity. I've never run a neural scan on her before.”

”So what do we do? Can you wake her up?”

She sighed impatiently. ”I told you, Captain, she is awake. She just isn't here.”

Picard was silent a moment as he looked down at the face of his friend. ”If you could get comparison readings,” he said, ”from her alter ego in this universe-would that help?”

”I honestly don't know, but it couldn't hurt. And talking to that other Guinan might be a good idea, anyway. a.s.suming the same thing hasn't happened to her.”

”I'll see what I can do.” Tapping his combadge, he turned to the nearest turbolift. ”Number One, I'm on my way to the bridge. Try again to contact the D'Zidran-if it still exists.”

”The D'Zidran is on screen, Captain,” Riker half shouted as Kirk and Picard erupted from the turbolift onto the bridge.

A chill gripped Kirk's spine like an icy hand, overwhelming all his other conflicting emotions, as he looked at the viewscreen and realized what he was seeing there: the D'Zidran was close to, perhaps even in orbit around the Guardian's world.

He had no idea how or why it had gotten there, but there was no question in his mind but that it was there. Nothing else could account for the way the image of the D'Zidran's bridge undulated in and out of focus as if seen through the rippling surface of a windblown sea.

Which, in a sense, it was: a sea not of matter but of time, its very fabric warped and re-warped by the unfathomable power of the object on the surface of the planet; the Guardian of Forever.

Kirk had seen those undulations, had felt them as the old Enterprise-his Enterprise-sped through them. There could be nothing else in the universe-in any universe-quite like them.

The fact that the face of the D'Zidran's commander was one that he recognized, not fondly, from his own past barely registered as Picard, a couple paces ahead of him, said: ”Commander Tal, let me speak with Guinan.”

Tal's undulating image stared out of the screen silently, expressionlessly, while Picard's words ricocheted through the subs.p.a.ce network to the distant s.h.i.+p. Finally, abruptly, Tal shook his head. ”She is not here. She has transported down to the surface of a planet she called the 'Guardian's world'.”

Kirk's stomach lurched at the words as he remembered what Scotty had said about this odd and ageless woman, about how she had been present at-had been instrumental in-each and every key incident that had led inexorably to the present situation.

And now she was on the Guardian's world, where all time was, if the Guardian felt cooperative, instantly accessible.

What, he wondered with a new chill, was she up to now?

The view from s.p.a.ce of the Guardian's world had not prepared Guinan for the somber reality that enveloped her when the s.h.i.+mmer of the transporter energy faded. From the relative safety of high orbit, she had looked down on the sensor-produced images of the endless ruins, observing them objectively, noting with interest the countless different styles of buildings, the lack of any city-like pattern to their distribution. Even the so-called time ripples of which she had been warned had seemed less a danger than a distraction as they swept across the face of the planet, warping her vision as they now and then reached out and sent waves of distortion through the orbiting D'Zidran.

But here on the surface, low-hanging slabs of rainless, lightning-streaked clouds, threatening a storm that never came, seemed to isolate her not only from the D'Zidran but from the stars themselves. She was not just surrounded by the planet-spanning ruins but felt in danger of becoming a prisoner of this strange world, of being somehow absorbed by it.

And yet, despite the fear, despite the utterly alien surroundings, despite the bleak wail of an unseen, unfelt wind-a wind that blew through time itself?- she felt as if she was somehow familiar with this world, as if she was already connected to it in some way that was as inexplicable as the feelings that had brought her here.

At the same time, again without knowing how or why, she realized that more of her ”ghost memories” had emerged from whatever shadowy corners of her mind they had been lurking in.

Particularly real and vivid were those a.s.sociated with the one called Picard and with his world. It was as if she had lived two lives simultaneously, both leading inevitably to this time and place. She was barely able to tell where one life began and the other ended, which was real and which was imagined.

And there was more, she knew, far more than the memories of those two lives. She could sense the existence of other memories, other lives in other times, but they were still beyond her reach, like shadowy creatures that moved, not quite silently, through a dense fog that swirled all around her.

You are not a stranger to this place, a voice said in her mind, and she looked around, startled.

And saw the Portal.

There was nothing else the misshapen torus could be.

In the midst of a chaos of ruins from a thousand different eras, a thousand different civilizations, it alone was... functional?

Alive?

It pulsed with energy, seen and unseen.

”How is it that you know me?” she asked, clothing the thought in words only out of recent habit. ”I have never visited your world before.”

Not in your current form, perhaps, but the sh.e.l.l you wear is irrelevant. It is you I recognize.

”Are you the source of the...'guidance' I occasionally find myself subjected to?”

You receive guidance from no one but yourself.

”A future self?” she asked.

For you, as for me, there is no future and no past. There is only the eternal now.

She grimaced. This so-called Guardian of Forever was even less helpful than her feelings, what ever their source. The feelings at least told her what to do, even if they didn't tell her why.

”Can you help us to restore this universe to what it was before the stranger from the future interfered?” she asked.

The play of energy around the irregular torus that was the Portal intensified, as did the lightning displays in the rainless clouds, now roiling and darkening even more, as if the coming storm could no longer be held at bay. Even the keening of the unfelt wind grew louder.

Finally, the voice returned to her mind. Through me it is possible to make all as it was. It is not possible to make all as it must be.