UNDER THE SCOPE |
BY JOHN DOUCET
THE LOST EPISODE PART 2
The Best Choice
IN SHORT TERM
[Earth, downtown New Orleans, near the Superdome]
REHAB
Kirk (recording): Captain’s Log, Stardate 3194.01. We remain on Earth, about one millennium in the past, investigating an unusual space-time distortion discovered by First Officer Spock. It is now seven Earth days since losing contact with the Enterprise… [The Enterprise Bridge, festively decorated, as is the crew] Scotty (singing, conducting others with a glass in hand): …Should auld ac-quaint-tance—Come on, people! It’s Scottish! Put yer heart into it!—(slurring) We twa hae run about the braes, and pu’d the gowans fine… [Earth] Kirk (recording): I have dispatched the landing party across the near vicinity in search of the distortion’s source.
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AMENITIES INCLUDE:
[Bourbon Street, French Quarter] Uhura (recording): Surrounded by crowds of anthropoids—multicolored, bejeweled, dancing. Neither Klingon nor Romulan. A diversity of species and unusual behaviors not in our records. [Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World warehouse] Spock (staring at a float’s large figurehead of himself): Fascinating. [University Hospital, security holding area] Bones (handcuffed wrists atop a table): How many times do I have I say it? It’s not a gun—it’s a phaser! And I’m a doctor! [Emeril’s Restaurant, sometime later, sitting at an outdoor dining table] Spock: Captain, it appears that the space-time distortion is all around us—and across this planet. Major human activities that consume time have been largely suspended by the viral pandemic. Kirk: Understood, Mr. Spock. That’s why we’re sitting outside. I had asked for the Chef’s room.
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Uhura: A lost episode in Earth history. Captain, what can we do to help?
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[From inside the bar, Bones raises his glass.]
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Spock: We cannot help, lieutenant. We cannot alter Earth history. “Helping” would change the shape of space-time and thus the course of all future. Altering history will create a new future that may not include us or the Enterprise. We cannot contribute to this past civilization—not one new word, not one new sound. [A waiter appears, offering a tray of three cocktail drinks] Waiter: Excuse me, sirs, ma’am. Compliments of that that socially-distanced gentleman sitting inside at the bar wearing the form-fitting blue top with black slacks and shiny black boots.
Kirk: Bones! How’d you escape? Bones: Well, just a little bartering, that’s all. (showing his Tricorder) I searched Earth history and found instructions for a vaccine against this age’s virus. “A formula for my freedom,”
January 2021 38 povhouma.com
