Time keeps flowing like a river... till it's gone?

[Sovak 0]

It was only logical that his priorities had changed. Sovak continued to work half-heartedly at the time calculations on his PADD, but he found that the job, something which would have come so easily to him three or four years ago, just did not hold his interest any more. At least not as interesting as the bubbly, blonde haired, incredibly curious, and thoroughly delightful distraction that pulled at his pant leg, as he sat at the dining room table.

 

“Daddy! Boat! Daddy! Boat!”

 

Sovak looked out the front window of their house to see who might be passing by in their vessel, but saw only empty ocean. He raised an eyebrow and looked down at his young daughter to see what had caught the attention of her inquisitive young mind. She was fascinated by the various boats that the crew had made for their transportation, and usually never failed to spot them out their large front window. Such occasions were generally momentous enough in her two year old mind, that they warranted interruption of any and all events that happened to be transpiring at the time, including his study.

 

Amanda looked up at him with her deep green eyes, while she attempted to thrust her own toddler version of PADD into his lap, insisting that he look at it. He had created the device a few months earlier, when it became clear that she was fascinated by the work he did on his own PADD, and insisted that she “help”, which usually meant she pressed membranes at random, so she could hear the beeps. While this delighted her to no end, it did node bode well for the intricate equations he was trying to input there. But now, whenever he began work on his own PADD, she would dutifully get hers from the bottom shelf and “help” him by running the simple program he had made for the device that would begin to teach her basic shapes and recognition skills. For a two year old, she was exceptionally bright, and soon mastered the basics, calling up shapes and colors with delightful glee. Today she had pulled up a trapezoid and a triangle, and positioned them on the PADD, thus:

|\

|..\

|....\

|......\

|____\

_______

\______/

 

“Yes, Amanda. It does resemble a sailboat. Very good.” He gave her one of the small half smiles he reserved for her alone (and then, only when no one else was around). “Would you like to go sailing?”

 

“Boat ride?” Her face broke into a grin. She always loved sailing, and had since she was old enough to sit up on her own.

 

“Yes, we can go for a boat ride, if you want.” He turned off his PADD and put it on the shelf, and she copiously copied his actions, placing hers back on the bottom shelf, and then ran to the door. Sovak only momentarily thought about the work he needed to do on the time calculations. He did have plenty of time to finish them, and his daughter’s smile once again preempted his plans and moved to the top of his priority list.

 

He knew that the work was important. Even Claire, were she still alive, would frown at him. Had she lived even one more day, she would have learned what they all knew, now, that the Manticore, herself, had caused the destruction of all mankind. The byproduct of engaging their dual warp drives within the event horizon had unleashed the incredible energy of that black hole into the sector, eradicating all life. They must find a way to return and stop that event from happening. Theoretically, it was possible. There was evidence that the USS Enterprise had changed history on at least two occasions, by creating a time warp whilst slingshotting around the Sun. The calculations were intricate, however, and braking trajectories had to be precise. Since they would, in effect, have only one chance, as the procedure usually wreaked havoc with the engines, there would be no room for error. Logically, the calculations were his number one priority.

 

His logic failed him sometimes, however, where his daughter was concerned. She waited for him at the edge of the porch, knowing she was not allowed beyond that boundary alone. She reached her hand up to take his, as he neared, and eagerly turned down the path to the peer. Her excitement soon, as always, overreached her small legs, however, and she had to turn and hold her hands up to him when they reached the steeper parts of the path. Sovak dutifully picked her up and continued the journey to the peer. He thought, once again, as he always did when the two of them made this sojourn, that Claire would have enjoyed sailing with them. The thought often assailed him whenever the two of them were together, bubbling from that carefully controlled part of his psyche, intruding on his otherwise logical realization of the fact that she was gone, that she would have been a good mother to Amanda. Though it had been two years since she died, he still missed her terribly.

 

As Amanda scrambled aboard the small sailboat, eager to be off, and Sovak began rigging the sails, he once again was forced to consider his dilemma. If his, or any of the other crew’s theories on returning to their own time actually worked, and they were successful in either preventing the earlier Manticore from entering the event horizon of the black hole, or of rescuing her, what would happen to them? Would none of this have happened? Would Claire suddenly be back with him? Would Amanda suddenly be gone? The paradoxes were disturbing, but he did know one thing. The fate of humankind rested on their success. That is why they were taking so much time to be sure everything was planned and executed exactly right. The very existence of all the races of the galaxy depended on their success.

 

“After all,” he thought, as he watched Amanda happily reaching over the gunwale and splashing the water, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one. Don’t they? ... Don’t they?”