It felt good just to say their names. It seemed to give them a reality even before the holodeck worked its magic.

"Lieutenant Sulu at the helm, Ensign Chekov at navigation. And at communications, the loveliest la.s.s who ever wore a uniform-Lieutenant Uhura."

"Mission-tape information on all these individuals is on file. Please select a time frame."

Ah, of course. A time frame. People weren't like the bridge of a starship. They changed slightly from year to year, from month to month, even from day to day. He thought for a moment.

It had to be at least a third of the way into the original five-year mission-or Chekov wouldn't have been there yet. And he wanted Chekov there. Of all those who'd sat at the navigation station-DeSalle, Bailey, Stiles and on and on-Chekov was the one with whom Scott had been the closest.

"Let's see," he said, scratching his jaw.

How about just after that tribbles business? He smiled despite himself, recalling those furry little creatures and all the trouble they'd caused. Not that he'd minded the trouble all that much. It had given him a chance to mix it up with the Klingons, to let off a little steam ...

Those were the days, all right. Those were the b.l.o.o.d.y days.

Too bad that sort of thing couldn't happen anymore. Now that the Klingons and the Federation were allies, there would be no more brawling between them. No more knockdown-dragouts with the h.o.r.n.y-headed barbarians, no more defending the honor of the Enterprise and the fleet.

Too bad, Scott mused. Another valuable cultural phenomenon lost to the ravages of time.

He felt the tug of the silence around him. It seemed to cry out for relief. For voices.

"I know, I know," he said. "Ye're waiting."

The computer had no reply, but its impatience was almost palpable. All right then. A time frame. Hmmm...

Then it hit him. Of course. Why hadn't he thought of it before?

"Stardate 4534.7," he told the computer. "And as far as my friends are concerned, I'm to look now as I did then. Understood?"

"Processing," the machine replied.

A second later, Scott had company. It hadn't exactly appeared-at least, not in the way he'd expected. It was just there, as if it had been sitting or standing on the bridge all along.

He muttered an oath. They were there. They were really there. All his friends, in the places where he'd always thought of them. All except Dr. McCoy, and he'd no doubt be along presently.

"How much longer, Mr. Sulu?" asked the figure in the center seat.

"We're right on time, Captain," replied the helmsman. "We'll be in docking range of Starbase Nine in two hours, twenty-five minutes and thirty seconds."

"Excellent, Lieutenant. We can all use the rest, after that business back on Triskelion. And n.o.body makes steak au poivre like Commander Tattinger."

The navigator turned to peer back at the captain. "Steak au poivre is actually a Russian dish, sair. My mother made it for us vhen ve vere growing up. Vith just a pinch of paprika."

The figure in the center seat cleared his throat. "I see, Mr. Chekov. I'll have to remember to share that with the commander."

Training his gaze on the command chair, Scott leaned forward. "Captain Kirk?" he ventured.

The captain turned and rose to face his chief engineer. He looked young, vital. Brash, in a way that Scott had all but forgotten. It seemed the holodeck had remembered Kirk better than his old colleague had.

There was something wrong with that, wasn't there? With a machine remembering a man better than that man's friend?

"Yes, Scotty," said Kirk. "Is something ... ?"

Suddenly, he stopped in mid-question, his gaze going to the bottle in Scott's hand. He looked up until their eyes met. "Mr. Scott," he said firmly but calmly, "what in the name of sanity are you doing here with that bottle?"

What indeed! "Stop program," Scott commanded.

The program froze, but Kirk's eyes still reproached him. Scott put the bottle and the gla.s.s down on the deck beside him.

"Computer," he said, "can ye hide these for me?" He pointed to the items in question.

Abruptly, they were gone. Vanished into thin air.

"Good. Now resume the program."

As life came back to Kirk, he blinked. "That's strange," he said.

"What is, sir?" asked Scott.

The captain shook his head. "For a second there, I thought I saw ..."

"A bottle," Scott reminded him. "Ye said something about a bottle, sir."

Kirk's eyes narrowed. "I could have sworn ..."

"Aye, sir?"

The captain frowned. "Never mind, Scotty." His demeanor changed, becoming more businesslike. "Have you run those diagnostics on the warp engines?"

"I have indeed, sir," said Scott. And he had, too-about a hundred years ago. "They're runnin' as smooth as Saurian brandy."

Kirk tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing. Probably thinking again about the bottle. "An interesting a.n.a.logy," he noted.

Scott nodded. "Thank ye, sir."

Pulling down on the front of his tunic, the captain surveyed his bridge. Funny, thought Scott. Their uniforms looked a little skimpy to his eye. Had the computer erred, or had they always looked that way?

Spock, who had been hovering over his science monitor, chose that moment to straighten and turn to the captain. "Sir?"

"Yes, Mr. Spock?"

The Vulcan's features were even more severe than in Scott's memories, his demeanor more cold and aloof-more alien. "Sensors indicate a rather unusual phenomenon off the starboard bow. According to my files, we have encountered such a phenomenon before, but never one of such magnitude."

Kirk grunted. "Does this phenomenon have a name, Spock?"

"It does," said the first officer. "However, I believe you will recognize it without any help from me."

With that, Spock turned to his control board and made the requisite adjustments to project his finding onto the main viewer. All eyes turned to the large screen, awaiting their first inkling of what Spock was talking about.

Scott knew what it would be, naturally. For him, this was deja vu. But he didn't let on that he knew-it would have spoiled the surprise.

Even before the new image came up on the viewscreen, Chekov was chuckling into his fist, unable to quite contain himself. Finally, they all got to see the phenomenon.

It was a snakelike ma.s.s of iridescent energies, writhing in and out of every color imaginable. And it spelled out a single message "Happy Anniversary, Scotty!"

His anniversary with Starfleet, that is. A recognition of a romance that had begun the first time he set foot in Chris Pike's engineering room.

Right on cue, the turbolift doors opened wide, allowing McCoy to come in carrying a big, white cake with a bonnie tartan design on top of it. "I hope you all like it," he said. "After all, I'm a doctor, not a baker."

Scott allowed his jaw to drop. "Of all the ... !"

He looked around, at Kirk and Spock and then at all the others, accusing them with mock intensity. They were grinning like people who'd kept a secret about as long as they possibly could.

All except for Spock, of course. But then, he was smiling too. He was just doing it on the inside.

"What a pack of b.l.o.o.d.y actors!" he exclaimed, and their smiles widened even more. "An' how long have ye been planning this?"

Kirk shrugged, stealing a conspiratory glance at McCoy. "Not very long," he said. "Only since about your last anniversary."

Scott looked at the first officer. "An' how did they corral ye into this, Mr. Spock? I thought Vulcans didnae know how to deceive."

Spock c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "We know how," he explained simply. "We simply choose not to-unless there is no other option." He cast a withering glance about the bridge. "And believe me," he told Scott, completely deadpan, "on this occasion, there was no other option left open to me."

That brought peals of laughter from all a.s.sembled. And before they died down, Uhura had come over from her communications station.

She put an arm around Scott and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Many happy returns Scotty," she told him, her breath as sweet as toffee.

Scott could feel his face burning with embarra.s.sment, just as it had burned the first time she'd graced him with that celebratory kiss. Fondly, he recalled another time Uhura had wanted to kiss him-and in an entirely different way.

"Thank ye, la.s.s," he told her. "That was the best gift of all."

"Thanks a lot," said Sulu. "And what are we? Dim sum?"

"That's right," Chekov chimed in. "You think it vas easy to program the viewscreen to do that? Especially vithout tipping you off?"

Scott conceded their points. "I thank ye all," he said. "For this." He indicated the splendidly wrought message on the viewer. "And for being the best friends a man could wish for."

Kirk nodded approvingly. "Well said, Mr. Scott."

"Indeed," said McCoy. "And now, before this gets any more maudlin than it has already, I think it's high time we had some cake."

In the course of the high time that followed, little of that cake was consumed-much to the chief medical officer's chagrin. As it turned out, McCoy was right. He was a doctor and not a baker.

But that didn't stop any of them from having a good time. So good a time, in fact, that Montgomery Scott would remember it fondly for the rest of his life. And then, just as the party wound down so they could devote their attention to docking at Starbase Nine, Jim Kirk escorted him back to his bridge station.

"Scotty ..." the captain began.

"Aye, sir?" Scott responded, taking his seat. He couldn't remember exactly what Kirk had said to him at this point, but he looked forward to hearing it again. After all, the captain was one of the brightest men Scott had ever had the honor to know.

"Scotty," Kirk began again. "About that bottle..."

Before the captain could finish his thought, he suddenly froze in place-as the holodeck doors opened and admitted another starship captain. A captain of the Enterprise, in fact. However, this one was in command of the Enterprise, known by the suffix D.

As the doors swooshed closed behind him, Picard looked around at the bridge and its occupants. Then he turned to Scott and smiled apologetically.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," said the captain. "I was just coming off-duty and I wanted to see how you were doing."

"No problem at all," said Scott. He indicated his former comrades with a sweep of his arm. "These are the men and women I used to serve with."

Picard nodded. "Yes. I surmised as much." His gaze seemed to fix on Jim Kirk. "And that was your captain, I take it?"

The older man nodded. "He was indeed. James T. Kirk. I hope ye've heard of him-'cos if nae, there's something very wrong with yer history tapes."

Picard smiled. "I have heard of James Kirk ... even before I took charge of the Enterprise." Steely-eyed, he appraised the captain-even as Kirk seemed to return the scrutiny. "Though somehow," Picard continued, "I always pictured him as being somewhat taller."

Scott grunted, instinctively leaping to his friend's defense. "He was big enough to blaze a trail from Earth to the limits of the galaxy, I can tell ye that."

Again, Picard smiled. Not Kirk's boyish smile, but one that disarmed its subject just as effectively.

"I'm certain he was, Captain Scott. It was not my intention to imply otherwise." For a moment longer, Picard sized up his predecessor of a century earlier, perhaps remembering tales told of the legendary Kirk in his Academy cla.s.ses or in some officers' lounge.

These two captains were different men, Scott noted. Even frozen in this casual moment, Kirk was somehow more dynamic, more reckless, more willing to take chances-charged with the kind of energy that was needed to tame a wild frontier. And Picard? Picard was calculation and control, a man who seemed more at ease with the great responsibility of commanding a starship. A man with the skill to guide his vessel through the most bizarre of alien dangers.

They were different men, all right. But then, they were the products of different times. In Kirk's era, the galaxy was wide open, rife with danger and filled with those who would enslave or exploit lesser beings. In Picard's era-now Scott's as well, whether he liked it or not-things seemed to be more complicated. From what he could tell, the dangers were fewer, but the need for a strong hand on the tiller was no less.

Turning to Scott, Picard tilted his head toward Jim Kirk and asked "May I?"

It took the older man a second or two to understand the request. But once he did, he had no objections. "Go right ahead," he said.

Picard looked up. "Computer ... I will a.s.sume the role of a visiting captain-here to survey the bridge at Captain Kirk's invitation. None of the personalities in this program are to see my presence here or my garb as anything unusual."

"Program altered accordingly," came the response.

"Excellent," said Picard. He turned to Kirk again. "Resume program."

A heartbeat later, the bridge came alive again. Jim Kirk's eyes narrowed slightly as he took in the sight of Picard-this time, for real. Or at least, as real as it got in this dream-box of a holodeck.

"Captain," said Kirk. He grinned. "I'm glad you could make the celebration after all."

Picard smiled back. "I would not have missed it for the world." He looked around. "Though I must admit, I find it a trifle unsettling to partic.i.p.ate in a party on the bridge of a starship."

"Well," said Kirk, "sometimes you've got to break the rules. After all," he went on, "these people have worked long and hard on this voyage. They've risked their lives for me." He glanced at Scott, "This man probably more often than any other. A celebration like this is the least I could do for him."

Scott smiled. "Thank ye, sir. Ye're too kind."

"Captain?" called Spock from his science station.

Two heads-Kirk's and Picard's-turned simultaneously. "Yes, Spock?" replied the captain who was in charge here.