clearyourmind

Everything suddenly shifted, and he thought for a moment that he’d fallen through the floor, and then it was over. Phlox blinked. Falling through the floor, he could conceive of that, because Captain Archer had taken some kind of device from Daniels that allowed him to move through bulkheads, but—

He was at the door. It took him a moment to realize it, but in an instant he’d moved from the far wall to the door. His arms were no longer outstretched. They were at his sides, and instead of the invisible device in his hands, he was holding his tools again. His fingers tingled. Something was still on them.

God knows what else is in there.

He looked to the bed. No tools. And the light on the desk was off. He knew immediately he’d traveled through time. That wasn’t so far-fetched, was it? Three months ago it had been, but the circumstances which brought a simple doctor from treating a head-cold to performing temporal decontamination had made time travel a reality.

Still, it scared him silly.

From the looks of things he’d gone back instead of forward. And only five minutes or so. But why? And how was he going to get back?

He started toward the space between the desk and the bed, fingers tingling like mad, and suddenly things shifted again, and he was there. He blinked. The invisible object was in his outstretched arms again (he could feel it). The lamp was on, and his tools were on the bed.

He’d traveled back. Just like that.

He dropped the object on the bed, and the mattress bowed from the pressure of the unseen. His knees buckled, and he caught himself on the corner of the desk, adding his own set of fingerprints. The logistics of the last two minutes (if it could actually be thought of in those terms) were staggering. Believing it and experiencing it were two entirely different things. A thousand paradoxes burned in his mind, and he struggled to put them out, but it was impossible.

He stared at the awkwardly shaped indentation where the sheets seemed to waver through the invisible object.

This is a dangerous place. And it is only the beginning. God knows what else is in here, indeed.

Phlox turned off the lamp, gathered his tools and promptly left Cabin E-14. “Seal it,” he instructed security. “And allow no one inside until…” He stopped, hesitated. “Until I instruct,” he finished hesitantly, and disappeared down the corridor.

Phlox spent an hour in sickbay trying to rewire his mind. He was going to tell Captain Archer immediately.

Immediately.

Right.

Sixty minutes passed while he stared absently at his caged lightning-snake, but it only seemed like a moment—time travel of a different sort, he thought.

Then he retreated to his quarters.

Clear your mind—it had been a whisper, a shadow of thought before he’d moved into the past. Was it a warning, an instruction, what?

He hadn’t run into himself. He thought that was odd. All the time-travel stories he’d heard and read had someone running into themselves in the past and contaminating the timeline. But it didn’t work that way, did it? No, he had become his past self. Time branched into an infinite number of directions, and he had merely revisited one of those alternate branches—an alternate universe. Time had moved, not him.

Then why didn’t he remember it? Now there’s a good puzzle, ye old bald cheater. Yes, he had walked into Cabin E-14 approximately two hours ago, but he didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary—to him it had been the present, and nothing more. And five minutes later he had only visited the past and not engaged it.

After he went back, what if he’d waited five minutes? Would he have been in the present again? Or ten minutes—would he have been in the future?

“Archer to Phlox.”

Phlox rose and went to the wall panel. “Go ahead, sir.”

“Security tells me you’ve finished decontamination.”

Decontamination. Ha ha. That really was funny now that he thought about it.

“Doctor?”

“…Oh…sorry. No, sir. I’m merely…analyzing some findings.”

“Anything I should know about?”

Phlox didn’t say anything until he felt that Archer was about to question him again. Then, softly: “No, nothing at all.”

The doors to Cabin E-14 loomed above him like the gates to some unseen kingdom, wavering in and out in crimson tides as though through a pool of blood.

Phlox backpedaled. His feet were bare, and the tips of his fingers tingled with the madness of hungry sparks. He knew where he wanted to go, but he’d never make it past the doors. They would surely swallow him whole.

As if to endorse the thought, they suddenly warped both right and left, and the bulkhead bulged like a pregnant monster. They turned upward into a smile and parted, sprouting lips of steel and broken sheets of teeth, and then turned upon him, furious, fully yawning an ugly mouth, and surged forward, roaring and snarling.

CLEAR YOUR MIND, GOOD DOCTOR, CLEAR YOUR MIND AND BRING HER BACK FROM THE GRAVE BECAUSE TIME DOES NOT BIND ME!!

The doors fell over him, clamped his midsection, and began to drag him into the waiting darkness, and his fingers were aflame—

Phlox opened his eyes. He couldn’t breath, and it took him several moments to realize it was because he was holding his breath. He let it out slowly, staring into the dark of the ceiling from the hot, moist sheets of his bunk. He hadn’t dreamed for years, and he hadn’t slept this deeply since hibernation.

Xesophia.

Her body would be rotted to a husk by now. How many years had it been? He had never missed her so furiously, and there was no wondering why. The night only made it worse. He closed his eyes and tried to put it out of mind.

It didn’t work.

Xesophia.

No! Phlox threw the sheets from his body and sat up in his bunk. He slid his slippers over his bare feet. He would stretch his legs, that was all. He would steer clear of Cabin E-14, that much was certain.

With his heart in a fist, he left his quarters.

Yes, just stretch his legs.

Phlox touched the doors. They were freezing. He wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but…well, here he was. Cabin E-14.

Security was gone, of course, because…well, there was nothing to secure at this hour of the night. No one was around.

He could see the glow of the magnetic seal in the shadows. He knew the combination, and what a curse that was. Also, he was fairly sure how this strange device worked—he’d had seven hours and a hideous nightmare to come to a conclusion, and there was really only one to be reached.

His sane mind watched from the stands—booing and hissing—as he pressed in the code and the doors slid open. Nothing had changed. As expected. Only mystery lurked within.

Xesophia, here I come…

No! Stop!

But it was too late.

He was inside.

It was where he’d left it, on the bed. For a moment, he thought that perhaps he had dreamed everything, because he couldn’t see it. But then his hands slipped around and into it, hot and unsteady. A thick liquid seemed to pulse between his fingers, and he knew that was how he had made it back—the substance remained there, burning like a quiet fire, and it was enough to return him to the present.

This is how Daniels did it, he thought. How he slid so easily through time. It was a kind of telekinetic time-travel. Technology of the mind. Merely think where you want to go—and voila!—there you were. That’s why he’d traveled only five minutes, because that’s where his mind had been. And when he wanted to get back…well, it was as simple as that.

Everything rational and ethical and professional told him to stop and leave. Right now. He should drop everything and report to Captain Archer in his nightclothes, tell him everything. But it was not so easy. Never had he imagined there could exist a power so raw and unbound—it was a seductress, whispering all his weaknesses in the dark.

Xesophia…

He would go back for her. If it wasn’t for him, she’d still be here. One of his wives, probably, and certainly the one he’d loved the most. He’d heard that drowning was a peaceful way to go, but he didn’t believe it. Death could hold no peace for one so beautiful.

He held the ball before him and focused. Closed his eyes. He thought of