Summary
Ducking into a basement, Spock has a disturbingly emotional reaction at the savage past of humanity only for Kirk to quickly silence him and begin looking for contemporary clothing. Once the two are disguised, the landlord discovers them and sympathetically offers them lodgings if they are willing to provide cleaning services. Smirking, Kirk asks Spock if humans are indeed "worse than any barbarians".
As they sweep the floors, the two men ponder that if Beckwith will be drawn to the "focal point" in time, so will they. Grabbing the tricorder Kirk orders the machine to, despite the very real risk of power overloads and internal circuit burnout, use the data gathered from the Guardians to compute all possible points of temporal divergence. As it goes to work, Spock points out the good news that the tricoder is not dependent of the USS Enterprise for power. The bad news is that without the Enterprise, they are dependent on one tricorder which they stretching far beyond its design limitations. And in this primitive time, its value to them is inestimable. The device then beeps but all it can do is remind them of the Guardians' cryptic warnings. It did warn them of possible circuit burn out.
Delegating Spock to repair it, Kirk decides to find a job but overrules Spock doing the same. Overhearing, the landlord waves off such concerns and says he can find Spock a job just down the road. A week later, Spock walks home from work and overhears the sermon of Edith Keeler. Who preaches truth as clear as the sky, wears a brooch of a burning sun and a cloak as blue as the sky of old Earth and the key is in the name.
Observing the woman from afar, Spock reports to Kirk his theory of believing she is the focal point they have been searching for. But despite Beckwith's absence, they have no way of knowing if he hasn't already arrived. Continuing to observe Keeler, Spock worries his captain is developing feelings for the woman.
Later, Spock stoically observes Kirk and Keeler walking out together.
References
Characters
Races and cultures
States and organizations
Appendices
Background information
- In this continuity, it is established Vulcans made it into space 200 years after humans- contrary to other sources.
Connections
| published order | ||
|---|---|---|
| Previous comic: Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever, Issue 2 |
TOS comics IDW Publishing |
Next comic: Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever, Issue 4 |
| chronological order | ||
External link
- Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever, Issue 3 article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.