Free Worlds in Collision by Judith Reeves-Stevens

full set of aligned dilithium crystals as well as an operating accelerator field.” The professor was acting as if he had just been awarded ten Nobel and Z. Magnees Prizes. Kirk guessed he didn’t have much time for parties at the university.
    But McCoy looked worried. “Two fast-time systems. On board, now?” Even someone as unschooled in warp technology as the doctor knew the danger of that situation.
    â€œAye, Doctor. Don’t ask me how it works, exactly, but Zoareem has created a force shield that extends forward in time to contain the temporal distortion of his accelerator field and keep it from trying to occupy the same future space as the fourth-dimensional arms of the ship’s dilithium crystals.”
    Two technicians in engineering red had leaned in closely at the mention of two fast-time systems.
    â€œWouldn’t an accelerator field that could be used around aligned dilithium make it possible to control a temporal reaction with enough energy to synthesize tri lithium?” one of them asked, winking at her companion.
    â€œWell, if the feedback could be expanded to cause both matter and energy to be sucked backward in time,” La’kara began, absently flicking the flamboyant white scarf he wore.
    â€œTrilithium?” Scott interrupted with disgust, falling for the bait every time. Mr. Scott’s reactions to certain forward-looking technological concepts were well known to the engineering staff, and the two technicians leaned back with amused smiles as they shook hands behind the chief engineer’s back. “As if two periodic tables weren’t enough,” Scott added in derision.
    La’kara held up a cautionary finger. “Trilithium, when it is discovered or synthesized, will be the breakthrough we need to apply transwarp theory, Montgomery. And having the ability to speed up time in a localized space could be the key to that breakthrough. Remember how slow-time systems like stasis fields revolutionized controlled fusion reactions and—”
    â€œTalk to me about it when they get as far as synthesizing disodium, and then we’ll see about heading up to tri hydrogen, let alone trilithium. Pah.”
    â€œMontgomery!” La’kara thundered as best he could for his age. “How can you be so blind to the straightforward precepts of an eleven-dimensional universe?” Kirk saw McCoy’s eyes were starting to glaze over.
    Scott drew a deep breath and launched into a long tirade on why transwarp theory was the biggest load of space dust to come down the beam since Einstein’s light barrier. La’kara was literally hopping up and down in impatience, waiting for the Scotsman to pause for breath and give him another turn.
    â€œMontgomery!” La’kara finally was able to break in. “We had warp drive before we had dilithium and we’ll have trans warp drive after we have tri lithium!”
    â€œAye, but we only had warp up to factor four-point-eight without the crystals and we’ll only be able to have transwarp when somebody figures out how we can stop an infinite reaction!”
    â€œInfinite?” La’kara sputtered, flipping his scarf at Scott. “Infinite? I’ll tell you what’s infinite, you—”
    â€œWe’ll let you get back to your discussion,” Kirk suggested politely as he backed away, taking McCoy with him. “The last group of nominees will be beaming aboard as soon as we make Starbase Four. Any minute now.”
    McCoy looked on in wonderment as La’kara and Scott began reciting equations to each other. “They don’t even know we’re gone,” he whispered to Kirk.
    â€œGood,” Kirk said, “but let’s not take any chances.” He started for the airlock, checking the time readout on the situation board by the overhead operations booth. They should be in orbit around the starbase by now, he thought, and the nominees have had more than