Kirk had seen the southern continent open twenty-four hours before it happened, in the way a captain sees a thing he has already decided to watch.
He had not known then what was in it.
He knew now. He stood beside the command chair while the fracture came across the face of the world for the second time in his life, and this time he could have named what was going into it.
Alta named it for him, quietly, at the rail.
"My house was there."
Nobody answered her.
"The garden was on the western side."
Kirk looked at her, and did not look away.
"And the lake."
That one nearly stopped her, and she got through it.
"And my mother."
The light reached the bridge. Scott had stayed below and had said nothing about why, and Kirk had not asked him. Spock stood at his station, on duty against medical advice and therefore, as McCoy had informed the bridge that morning, in full possession of his Vulcan heritage.
They held position until there was nothing left out there to hold it for.
