Chapter Text
Past Tense Chapter 01
By Dr T
Paramount and others hold the rights; I’m just playing in their interstellar playground.
T’Lyn discovers that a run-in with Q could lead to ‘unsatisfactory situations’ – like the one she was currently trapped in.
Please note that I am not interested in art works, illustrations, collaborations, etc. and will ignore any such messages.
pt
T’Lyn knelt in a very typical Vulcan meditation pose, but she was not at ease. That was in part because she was in a stressful, even unique, situation, but even more because she was not currently in a Vulcan’s body, long-trained to assume this kneeling position.
On the whole, T’Lyn knew that this was not due to any real fault on her part. The fault belonged to the mischievous being known as Q. He (or was the being more of an it? T’Lyn was uncertain, other than the fact that the being usually presented as male) had appeared on the bridge of the Cerritos, apparently wanting to harass/evaluate the new bridge crew. T’Lyn had observed the being bantering and baiting members of the bridge crew, especially with Captain Ransom and Mariner (and Q‘s being abused in turn by Mariner – apparently she and Q had had a number of run-ins since she had been an adolescent on the Enterprise-D and later stationed on DS9 immediately before and during the Dominion War, as well aboard the Cerritos).
T'Lyn had observed all this, and had maintained her stoicism as best she could, clinically evaluating the scene and her colleagues’ reactions. This had apparently brought her into the mischievous sights of Q, who apparently had an opinion of Vulcans nearly as low as Vulcans had for beings such as Q. She had readily agreed with Q’s assessment that she would be inefficient trying to live as a human (although Q had been rather cruder about it, including putting forth the – to T’Lyn – illogical proposition that as inferior as humans were as beings, Vulcans were even more so).
Q then claimed that she had inspired him to change the tests he had planned for the Cerritos bridge crew as a whole, and concentrate on her. And so she found herself in her current predicament. She would, according to Q at least, be spending a subjective year as a human.
Perhaps fortunately, it would be a subjective experience – at the end of that time, he claimed she would return to her then-current self, only with the memories of the experiences of that year. He claimed he would even make it somewhat easy for her to survive (as he doubted she otherwise could), and he had placed her in the situation with a companion – Bradward Boimler.
This was because she had not just been given human form. Apparently living as a human aboard the Cerritos was not enough of a test for the quixotic Q. She, and her acquittance, had been sent deep into Earth’s past. ‘Where’ they had apparently been sent was indeed Earth, in a new housing development outside of New York City which was just being built. ‘When’ was the summer of 1949. Their new home was furnished with most of the basics, and because it was one of the first houses on the estate, a new development next to a small town on a commuter rail line running into New York City itself, they could even walk to the town center, although there was an automobile (which fortunately had the new automatic transmission – T’Lyn had never driven such a vehicle, and Boimler wasn’t sure if he could drive a car with a traditional manual transmission).
T’Lyn had spent nearly twelve minutes in nearly-visible shock, starting when they had been told what was going to happen and mostly when they had appeared in the small living room, dressed in apparently appropriate garb for the era. Then, to T’Lyn’s greater shock and Boimler’s surprise, they realized that not only did T’Lyn look human, but she was also in a human body.
Boimler had also changed a bit – his hair was shorter and brown, and he was without his beard, although he still had a mustache. He had recovered quickly, assessed T’Lyn as having to accustom herself to her current body and the situation, and left her alone to do so while he explored the house.
When T’Lyn had come to accept the illogic of the situation as being at least the temporary reality she would need to deal with, Boimler had approached her and given her somewhat reassuring details of their mutual situation – some of it information implanted by Q, supplemented by his observations. They would apparently have to at least try and fit into this primitive era, but they would not have to interact with the society as a whole all that much. They were apparently provided with enough money to live in an appropriate lifestyle, including owning the house and car outright. They had the needed basic household furniture, appliances, clothes, and other furnishings even though T’Lyn had no idea how the primitive equipment worked – she anticipated that at this point in history most devices would be relatively self-explanatory.
The closest T’Lyn had ever had to ‘rough it’ in a non-technological setting (other than her childhood rite of passage, the Kahs-wan) had been the subjective year she had spent stuck on the pre-industrial planet Dilmer III with Mariner and Tendi and those two (especially Mariner in the early weeks, when she had not yet been in jail) had done most of the work to help them adjust to the needed lifestyle, which T’Lyn had basically copied. T’Lyn had provided the agricultural basis of their survival and some of the mechanical repair skills; the other two, however, had pointed out those needed adjustments.
The pair had also been given an appropriate backstory for a couple of their apparent age. After confirming they had been given the same basic backstory and that their stories matched, Boimler had then left her in the ‘living room’ and gone to town for supplies. As T’Lyn knelt in a position that should have felt normal, trying to achieve her usual focus of mind, she felt her knees and thighs burn and her mind barely able to achieve any of the customary focus.
While her now-human external body looked very similar to her normal Vulcan one, it was obviously different in many ways internally. Now that she was trying to focus, even her heartbeat was different – a different rhythm and different location, in general and at some of the pulse points.
T’Lyn – apparently her name would be ‘Linda’ for the next year, shortened to ‘Lynn’ – awkwardly got to her feet and flexed to restore her legs to more efficient effectiveness, and realized she had a very unVulcan expression of displeasure on her face. She tried to restore its usual look, but realized that it could no longer be her ‘usual’ look even if she could assume something approaching the usual Vulcan mask.
She was startled when she heard a loud noise at the front door. It turned out to be Boimler, who had kicked the door to get her attention, as he had two large brown paper bags in his hands. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry,” he said as he passed her. It was then that T’Lyn realized two things: one, her usual precise sense of time was totally missing, and two, it was just a few minutes before 1:00 pm according to an electric clock which was visible. “I looked over the main street of the town and picked some things up.” He frowned. “While I’m sure you’ll want to stay vegetarian, I don’t know if you’re lactose intolerant.”
“I can, or could, ingest cheese and most dairy products without difficulty, but not milk itself,” T’Lyn answered, following him into the kitchen.
After Boimler set the bags on the kitchen table, he filled a kettle that was on the stove and explained to T’Lyn how to light and work the gas stove.
“How are you familiar with this equipment?” she inquired.
“I have an uncle who liked to rough it,” Boimler replied. “I learned a lot about some of this sort of tech by staying with him part of the summers growing up, and became interested in this time period.” He started to unload groceries, including tea for T’Lyn. As T’Lyn waited for the water to boil and then the tea to steep, Boimler sliced part of the loaf of bread and some cheese for the two of them and opened a jar of mustard. He made a quick salad, mostly for T’Lyn, from lettuce, carrots, radishes, and tomatoes, and finally opened a tin of corned beef to slice some for his sandwich. He also pointed out a bag of mixed roasted and salted nuts he had purchased for her, in ensure she had some proteins.
When Boimler produced a bottle opener and popped the cap off of a bottle, T’Lyn inquired, “What is that?”
“It’s a popular caffeinated carbonated drink, called Coca-Cola, and no, it hasn’t had coca in it for a long time.”
He offered the bottle to T’Lyn, who sniffed it and wrinkled her nose. “My sense of smell seems to have changed somewhat and my hearing is lessened, but I do not think I will try that any time soon.” As she gingerly removed the tea bag from her cup, since she was also more sensitive to heat, she asked, “How much difficulty are we in?”
“I don’t know,” Brad responded. “On the one hand, we should no problem surviving. You look fully human….”
“I am fully human,” T’Lyn complained, reminding him. “It is most disconcerting.”
“I can only imagine.”
T’Lyn gave him a rather expressive (for her at least) sour look.
“Sorry,” he told her. “I apparently mostly work from home, but I’ll still need to appear to go to into the city to at least pretend to work once in a while – I suppose I’ll take the train into New York at least once week or so. Still, we should have enough money to live on. We will have to decide how much to interact with the neighbors – if we try to totally ignore them, it may just make them more curious. After all, the Second World War has just ended but the competition with the Communist block is creating a lot of suspicion – we don’t want people to take too much notice of us.”
T’Lyn could only agree – too open and friendly, and they would make errors; too closed off and the neighbors might react with hostile curiosity.
He sighed. “It looks like Q’s remembered everything I can think of we need, other than a few basic supplies, like food. After lunch, I’ll need to go get things like laundry and dish soap.” He flushed, and asked, “Will you be needing human…feminine products?”
That made T’Lyn think in puzzlement for a moment, and then nod. “I likely will.”
Boimler could only sigh and then bite into his sandwich.
After lunch, T’Lyn decided she should make her own initial appearance in the area and so accompanied him. She did not believe her human menstrual cycle should need tending to immediately, and so they skipped that item as they bought soaps and similar items, as well as more food items. The refrigeration unit they had been supplied with was rather small as well as being rather inefficient – apparently ‘frost free’ models were not yet available.
By the time they arrived home, both were rather sweaty – again T’Lyn mentally complained, as the air temperature was actually a bit cooler than what she kept her quarters on the Cerritos. Fortunately, Q had supplied four fans, two for the windows and two tabletop models. They installed the window fans and each wanted a shower. However, the one bathroom only had a tub available. T’Lyn had Boimler bathe first, while she explored the attached garage – the house did not have a basement, and even she knew they would have to be careful if they were still in this time during the winter to ensure the water pipes did not freeze.
As Boimler had told her, the back part of the garage was walled off and even insulated, and had the clothes washing machine and hot water heater. T’Lyn also noted, with mixed reactions, that there was a snow shovel hanging on one wall. Coming back into the small house (two bedrooms, living room, kitchen with an extended dining area, bath), she noted the second bedroom only had a desk and chair, mostly empty book shelves (only a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and an encyclopedia set), and a padded chair. The main bedroom only had two dressers and the double bed with a night stand on either side, but at least both dressers and the closet had adequate clothing, at least for the summer and some of the cooler weather.
T'Lyn took her turn in the bathtub – in general, Vulcans considered bathing, as opposed to showers or sonic showers, somewhat unhygienic. Still, that is what was available. She exited, dressed in a ‘house dress’ and slippers, to find her companion cooking dinner. “Could you make the salad?” Boimler asked.
T’Lyn acknowledged the request, and observed that he was frying potatoes, onions, and a can of mushrooms. Vulcans, in general, did not care for the smell of frying food, but T’Lyn acknowledged that to her human senses, it smelled delicious. She was glad that Boimler fried some more of the corned beef in the same pan after he had removed her portion. She might end up having to eat meat, but planned on waiting on that as long as possible.
It was only shortly after 7:15 when they had finished cleaning up the kitchen, washing the dishes, and so on. They took another hour to fully assess their supplied clothing and speculate on their needs, and discuss their budget – neither was skilled in money matters, after all. Even though it was still well before sunset, the pair was by now somewhat exhausted – the confrontation with Q had happened towards the end of Alpha shift, and while the rest of their day had not been overly-tiring physically, it certainly had been stressful, especially for T’Lyn. After a short and unsatisfactory glance at the entertainment on offer on the small television, they decided to go to sleep shortly after the sun started to set. T’Lyn went into the bathroom to change into the provided nightwear.
She came out and entered the bedroom to find that Boimler had dressed the bed.
“T’Lyn….” He started.
“Just Lynn, or Linda,” she reminded him. “And you are ‘Bradley’ in this context, correct?”
Boimler nodded.
With a slight frown, she asked, “If anyone asks, what ethnicity are we?” If she was able to remember correctly in this new setting, identification of ethnicity and religion were important in this era.
“Well, ‘Boimler’ is sort of an Anglicization of the German name ‘Baumler’ – an ancestor had the name misspelled when he came to America in the 1880s,” he explained. “Did Q give you a maiden name?”
T’Lyn thought about it. “No, so I think I should just use ‘Smith’.”
Boimler nodded. “I was supposedly stationed on a destroyer in the Pacific called the Cerritos, so I guess we met in California – probably San Diego.”
T’Lyn nodded. “The implanted memories do claim I was a meteorologist with the Navy, in a group called the WAVES, and that I was from San Diego.”
“And I can use my family’s raisin farm for my background – they already owned some of the land in this period.”
Boimler started to leave, and T’Lyn asked, “Where are you going?”
“To sleep on the sofa,” he replied, referring to the one in the living room.
“Negative,” she responded. After a moment’s hesitation, T’Lyn continued. “While we will not be having relations, it might be best to otherwise conform to contemporary practice.” A slight frown crossed her face. “That sofa does not look comfortable, and unless you would prefer the alternative of attempting to rest on it, I believe we can both rest here.”
The pair shyly got into the bed, but were tired enough to fall asleep moderately quickly.
pt
T’Lyn awoke the next morning, confused for several minutes. Then, it all came back to her. Being exiled to Star Fleet had, on the whole, been a positive experience. She was not anticipating this exile to be nearly such a positive experience.
She had slept well – in fact, she had to admit that she had slept better than usual, and certainly far longer. As she became aware of a biological imperative and hurried into the bathroom, she noted on the little windup alarm clock that it was 6:35 and that Brad was already awake.
Coming out of the bathroom, she donned a light robe and slippers and made her way into the kitchen. “Good morning, Lynn,” Boimler greeted. She observed he had made coffee and that a cup and tea bag were set out for her. He stood. “I finished off the potatoes from last night with an egg. Would you like oatmeal, cream of wheat, just toast or something else?”
“Either cereal would be satis…fine,” she said, correcting herself to a more informal style of speaking. “Do you intend to do all the meal preparation?”
“At least until you’re comfortable sharing it.” He stood and started the tea kettle.
“I will need to find projects to keep occupied,” T’Lyn noted. “I do not believe I would be comfortable just doing housework.”
“I have some ideas about that. Would you mind looking over the printed material we picked up yesterday while I take a quick trip into the city?” They had purchased a number of periodicals along with the other items the day before.
“That would be…fine.”
pt
Boimler left the house to catch one of the commuter trains, leaving T’Lyn with the choices of morning television, such as it was at the time, or reading. She found ‘Scientific American’ and ‘Sky & Telescope’ interesting, if quaint. ‘Popular Science’ and ‘Popular Mechanics’ were a bit more useful. She also found that while her mind and memories seemed to be working at approximately their usual efficiency, her reading speed was much reduced. The copy of ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ was interesting from a sociological aspect, no doubt, but not so much to T’Lyn. The ‘Reader’s Digest’ at least held a wide variety of content.
While reading, T’Lyn simply made herself another cheese sandwich and ate some more of the nuts. She considered what she would need to consume, and wondered again if the low variety of local produce seen in the stores the day before would force her to consume meat.
She also wondered when Boimler would return.
T’Lyn was about to again attempt to discover if there was anything worth watching on television when Boimler appeared at little after 2:30. He had left that morning dressed in a suit and carrying an empty briefcase. It was apparent from the way he was carrying it that it was no longer so empty.
The pair sat on the sofa and Boimler prepared to show off his ideas and acquisitions. “Do you still know Vulcan?” he asked.
After receiving a nod, he handed her a blank journal. “I know you really have an eidetic memory, but that might not be true of your experiences here. I thought you might like to record your reactions, and who knows, maybe Q will allow us to take journals back.”
T’Lyn noticed that there was a second journal for Boimler to use.
Next, he pulled out several small sets of wires and hardware. “These are some old crystal radios. I was wondering if you could adapt them to receive sub-space communications.”
T’Lyn was about to object and point out the difficulties, when Boimler pulled out several pink quartz crystals (meaning they contained lithium, needed for sub-space reception) and a small gold chain to add to the old crystal sets. “It would be exceedingly difficult with the equipment and tools of this era, but it would make an interesting project,” T’Lyn agreed. She actually smiled slightly as Boimler pulled out two sets of old worn tools – useful for jewelers and watch repair, delicate enough to help her with the project.
“You were quite active in the city,” T’Lyn observed.
“There’re more than a few junk shops,” Boimler answered with a shrug. He glanced at his watch. “If you didn’t have a chance to go shopping, what say we go get library cards and then do some more grocery shopping?”
“That is an excellent set of ideas,” T’Lyn agreed.
pt
T’Lyn knew that even under the current circumstances, she could likely read up to two average books a day with ease. However, it was apparent that the local library limit was checking out three books at a time, for a week. She estimated that she should be able to go through six books a week on her library card without causing comment, especially if she also read the three Boimler checked out.
T’Lyn chose one book on radio sets, mostly to understand the primitive equipment and tools which she had to work with. She had Boimler chose the other two, as well as his own of course. She was not really surprised that one was the complete work of Shakespeare. T’Lyn was familiar enough with Terran culture that she knew the name, but did not know his plays, let alone his poetry. It was also thick enough to keep even her occupied for some time.
The other work he chose for her puzzled her until they got back to the house – a thin novel entitled ‘Murder on the Orient Express.’ “I think that will give you some insights, good and bad, into human mores in this period,” Boimler told her.
She was willing to accept his advice. However, she was more interested in one of Boimler’s choices – the complete works of Plato. Again, she was familiar with the name and his place in the history of human thought, but did not know the specifics. Also, it was thick enough to keep her occupied. She was also unsurprised to learn he had chosen it for her benefit. Like the novel Boimler had chosen for her, his other two choices were mysteries.
That evening, while part of her mind tried to sort out exactly how to approach creating a sub-space communications receiver – T’Lyn was well-aware that there was a fair amount of such communications from Vulcans and others in this era in this area of the galaxy – she read through ‘Murder on the Orient Express.’
As they prepared to sleep, T’Lyn asked, “For what purpose did you select the novel?”
“Well, several. First, did you determine who committed the murder?”
“No,” T’Lyn admitted, “while clear in retrospect, the author successfully hid the solution.” After a pause, she added, “Actually, I believe I understand why you had me read the novel. It was not to see the conclusion of the case even with the detective, if not before hand. It was to see the ethical considerations.”
“Exactly,” Boimler agreed. “We like to think we are less likely to have someone get away with Rachett’s crimes, but while he wouldn’t because of political connections or bribery, it still might happen. Is private vengeance ever allowable, or does it count as a crime? What would you decide to do in Poirot’s position?”
“In our own time, I would certainly still turn all of them over to the authorities,” T’Lyn stated firmly. “In these times, or under the circumstances outlined in the novel…I am not certain?” She looked at Boimler. “What are your opinions?”
The pair enjoyed their discussion.
pt
It was still warm during most of the night, although Brad had turned the fan off during the night. T’Lyn woke up just before the alarm went off, and felt Brad getting up as she awoke. They had purchased whole grain bread from the town’s bakery – apparently few locals ate it, but a few of the older residents preferred it. Brad had an egg and coffee while T’Lyn had tea, but otherwise they had toast, butter, and jam.
Brad was staying around home, so the pair walked to the downtown after they had cleaned up after breakfast. While she would have preferred to investigate the one second-hand shop in town, she knew she would be expected to do more of the grocery shopping. She therefore entered the bakery, greengrocers, and grocery store while Brad searched for a used radio or two with the maximum number of vacuum tubes and primitive circuit boards and chassis.
The pair walked home and then Boimler drove them back to another second-hand store, where they bought two of the older radios. They also purchased a soldering iron and some fine wiring from a hardware store. Assuming she could make the receiver work at all, it would certainly take several weeks at a minimum. So, between her reading and work on the receiver, T’Lyn’s time would be fairly well committed.